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[WP] Humans aren't the strongest, or the most advanced, species in the galaxy, but they are the most vengeful and persistent. They evolved as persistence predators. If you wrong them, they are willing to follow you across the stars and can spend years working to get back at you for what you did.
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They thought they had wiped us out, turns out they were wrong.
Epsilon prime was our home, we were the first humans to join the galactic federation, they knew nothing of earth.They thought so little of us, so blasé with their technology. We were serfs to them, no better than cattle.
There wasn't one day they didn't go without ripping us off. Killing our women, children or infirm. There was little we could do against their combined strength or their broken justice system. At that time we thought if only one died the rest could survive.
Year after year it went on, exploitation, serfdom, banditry. It wasn't just one of them it was all of them. The Necrotele, Auxins, Teletars and so on so forth. The worst ones were the Eldisterian. Horrible bastards, they used to take some of us and mangle our DNA with that of animals. We were alive, just barely though.
I guess we thought we could survive if only a few of us died to thier malicious ideas. That was just the way it was some of us died, so others could live. Then one day it changed. I guess they got sick of us or maybe it was the Wros Virus, maybe they thought we were responsible for it.
Whatever the case they wiped us all 20 billion of us on Epsilon prime. Glassed the damn planet with so much orbital bombardment that the old extinct volcanoes erupted. Some of us survived in the old obsidian caves, it was just a few million.
After that they left the star system to wither and die, our home with them. Job accomplished or so they thought.
It's been a 150 years since then. But now they know our fury. The burning crusade we call it, 150 years of bloodshed against our enemies. We struck the capitol of their stinking federation. It was a sight to behold millions of rich Xenos burning alive. We took their bodies and marked our ships with a simple message "death to the Xenos Federation".
Then we burned their homeworlds, taking everything we could find. The Black Aces took their children and cooked them for meat.
Now they know if they cross the black line or cross us, they have chosen extinction. There were 45 races in their federation, now there's only 4. No technological or genetic edge will save them if they ever make us serfs again.
Their children's cries fuel our dreams.
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The twin stars, Eldark and Ildark, shine upon me as they have shone upon my ancestors. Black trees bubble to the surface, glittering, and there's purple smoke on the horizon.
"There are stronger materials, but cephalim is what I grew up with. So it bleeds a little. So what? It never bothered me."
Viluvian carefully threads a silver disk with his two front legs. He has not seen Sol. He knows nothing of what the Earthlings are capable of.
"Is that so?"
"I thought about making the switch, I truly did. But then, you know what? I thought better of it. Tradition is important. Let the others experiment with alien materials. I'm happy with my cephalim."
"I get it."
"You do. Of course you do. Your father never questioned the old ways. He—" Viluvian halts, stares at his disk for a moment. "He was a good lykander. And he would've been proud of you, traveling to distant worlds and whatnot."
"I don't know about that. He didn't exactly wish me well on my journey. Last I saw him, mucous of rage dripped down his face and he told me not to bother coming back."
Viluvian says nothing. He stares up at Ildark and hisses a prayer. "May the wayward find solace."
What would he say if I were to tell him that I left out of fear, and that I returned out of a greater one? I shrug off the idea. After all, I should be happy I managed to escape. There is no use in dwelling on it.
Back at my place of rest I study the alien artifacts I brought home with me. Stone carvings. Wood. An insect frozen in amber. These souvenirs would fetch a good price if I had a mind to sell them. Strangely, I feel that if I parted with them my journey itself would vanish as if it were grains of sand uplifted into the skies above.
It was foolish, but I bought a car. I thought I would make Earth my home. I would live among them, learn their customs; it was such a romantic idea before it all died in my hearts. I left it behind on that cursed planet the same way I did my innocence.
I will never return to that place. That much I can say for certain. The dominant species on Earth, the humans, have been galvanized by eons of warfare against itself. It is a strange history. Lykanders protect themselves, sure, and we have expanded throughout our system with a certain level of aggression. But to imagine millennia of lykanders fighting lykanders ... It makes little sense. How can these humans even trust one another?
The insect in amber spoke to me the second I saw it. There it sits, perfectly still, looking so much like myself. Washed in gold, like our rivers; part of me feels I was meant to have it.
Viluvian would treasure it, I am sure. He is a steadfast friend. He is reliable. If I were to give it to him, he would be sure to keep it safe. It could be a symbol of our friendship, even.
I decide that he is worth it, that I will gift him this alien artifact. Hopefully he will accept it. Some lykanders refuse all attempts at presenting them with objects, they know little of alien customs and this foreign notion of strengthening bonds by exchanging symbolic items is peculiar to the elderly.
Returning to our spot among the bubbling trees I see not Viluvian, but a vessel. With dread, I recognize it. It belongs to precisely those humans I just barely escaped. "Viluvian!"
Three legs. Three beautiful, hairy legs. They are sticking out from underneath the vessel, cramping. Then they are quiet.
"Hey, is that ..."
"I think that's him!"
"Boy, we've been looking all over for you!"
I run. They have come all this way, they have decided to chase me across the stars? No. I will not let them.
Viluvian. I must go back for him.
No. There is no hope for him. His legs ... He has already gone to ylderin. He has joined my father. I look up at Eldark, and I hiss. "May the wayward find solace."
One of the humans wheezes. "Man, I hate these spider-looking ones."
Dressed in their suits they appear even more alien than on their planet. My thoughts return to the moment I saw that insect, frozen in amber. How all my feelings of loneliness and trepidation vanished. How I longed to know more about it, to learn what its existence might have been like. Then a similar creature buzzed about in the air and the salesperson reached for a device and squatted it. Crushed it to death with a careless strike.
"Hey! Spider-man! We just want to talk!"
They are close. Their technology is advanced, their movements uncanny. Do they always feel at home? How can they seem as comfortable here on my home planet as on Earth?
"Let's split up. Spidey's creeping in-between those black geysers shooting out gunk."
I was just a tourist. I did nothing wrong. I visited their home world and I returned. So why are they following me? What are they after?
Crawling up a tree I change the hue of my skin for camouflage. As one of the humans runs past, I jump. It only takes seconds. I pierce his suit and listen to the sweet sound of air abandoning his side.
"W-What are you doing? We just want to talk! I swear ... I ..."
His face turns the color of the smoke off in the distance. "You murdered my friend. You followed me all the way here. And for what?"
My language is in his database. I know he can understand. But he just waves his arms about, and he dies. Useless.
The second one walks carefully, not as nimble as before. Is he scared? Has he finally realized that he has left the comfort of his home?
With Ildark as my witness, I throw myself at him. "State your purpose!" I command.
He falls to the ground, dust flies up into the skies. Bubbles slowly creep skyward right next to us. The human sees his dead comrade, he shakes his head. "We've ... We've been trying to reach you," he says.
I poke the side of his suit. "What for?"
His face turns white, and he opens his mouth wide. Eldark and Ildark shines on his pitiful face.
"We've been trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty."
| 2022-08-09T14:53:15 | 2022-08-09T14:42:33 | 166 | 107 |
[WP] Many years ago, an alien invasion nearly wiped out Humanity. Now, the galactic government is desperately trying to reason with a vengeful Humanity by saying that it was a rogue mining company that attacked without their approval or knowledge.
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They called them the swarm. They came from the darkness and rained fire down on our worlds. All of our worlds. Tens, of thousands *of thousands* of worlds. The weapons they used were considered war crimes by council members, but after the bombardment, who was left to complain?....
Those few that did survive, on the burning husks of worlds turned to glass, watched the humans withdraw.
Revenge was a dish best served cold. Humanity had spent a thousand years hiding, rebuilding, readying, for a single co-ordinated strike to make sure *no-one could ever attack them again*.
They dropped a messaging beacon on the world that had birthed the Galactic council.
"This attack was unsanctioned, we hope you hold no grudges". Just as the council had said, a thousand years before.
|
“All rise. The Intergalactic Federal court is now in session. High Judicial Archon Irk’nCzrwyon presiding. Please be seated and come to order.” A being of nebula, serves as the bailiff, towering in its enormity vibrates sounds and light as they were being translated to the floating balcony’s desk, where seven humans are seated.
The eternity were filled by elder gods, cosmic celestials, ethereal beings and ancient deities, all were in their overwhelming presence and glory eclipsing the enormity of the planets we considered the largest we could ever fathom, gathered as spectators of the trial.
“Criminal case filed by the prosecutor’s office against the humans of planet Aran’k-sakratin, known to its inhabitants as planet Earth. Counselor? How do you plead?” The entity of three pairs of burning wings spanning in immeasurable size in the most high pedestal in the skies, thunders before the human man in the middle of the seven.
“Not guilty, your honor!” Shouted the man.
“Your honor, these humans have killed thousands of the Tharn’likans after they started mining in the Aran’k-sakratin! A planet legally owned by the Tharn’likans through inheritance. It has been with the Tharn’likans for trillions of aeons. These low life parasitic species who infested the planet have become uncontrollable invaders of the planet and acting they own it!” A being of black void with trillions of small sparkling glitters scattered to its shapeless existence, vibrated towards the High Judicial Archon, which were being translated into words for the humans.
“Objection! Speculating.” The human lawyer interrupted.
“Unless you have evidence, prosecutor Mktoloktuhulan’l that the humans are parasitic species, you must redirect.” The High Judicial Archon thunders.
“I have evidence, your honor. Exhibit A, these are the actual visual documents that shows, that the humans are the parasites to the planet Aran’k-sakratin.” A cloud of burning gasses come together to create a 3D visualization of the human’s exploits of the Earth. “As you have witnessed, your honor, it just 10,000 years, these parasites manage to destroy the natural balance of the planet’s atmosphere and create global warming that can occur naturally for millions of years.”
“That’s is not true, your honor. We have not destroyed our planet as it is the only planet where our specie can thrive! Why would we want to destroy the only place that gives us life?” The human lawyer interjected.
“Because they are parasites! Parasites are ought to kill their host slowly to survive. Isn’t that what they are doing?” The prosecutor asked.
“And what the Tharn’likans were doing is not destroying our planet?” The human councilor asked back.
“The Tharn’likans were just mining molten irons from the planet Aran’k-sakratin as what part of their rights in owning the planet. By expediting the warming of the planet, it also expedites the melting of iron in its immediate outer core. Threatening the balance in the mining industry of our galaxy! Not to mention the merciless massacre of the innocent Tharn’likan miners who have no idea, these low life creates are capable of mass destruction!”
“Your honor, i request that the prosecutor Mktoloktuhulan’l must refrain from calling our specie as low life specie as we are also capable of sentience! And to be allowed to represent ourselves in this court acknowledges us as such.” The human lawyer interrupted.
“Prosecutor Mktoloktuhulan’l, please refrain from using that term in the future.”
“Your honor! I continue to call their specie low life creatures, because even though they are showing signs of sentience, they are categorized as parasitic creatures based on their environmental and evolutionary behavior towards their ecological environment.”
“Councilor, the prosecutor is correct. He has reasons to use the term as the evidences they serve categorizes your specie as a sentient parasite, and that is the lowest category in the intergalactic federation racial hierarchy. Unless, you have evidence to counter the prosecutions allegations against your specie, they have the upper-hand in this case.” The High Judicial Archon said.
“We would like to request for a recess, your honor.” The human lawyer requested.
“It looks like you really needed one. The court will be in recess and resume in three solar cycles of the Planet Aran’k-sakratin. If the defendant can not provide counter argument on the next session, I will read my verdict. ” The High Judicial Archon opened its third wings and a loud banging echoed in the eternity and all were gone.
“We’re screwed!” The second chair of the human lawyer whispered.
| 2022-12-17T22:08:01 | 2022-12-17T17:34:16 | 63 | 34 |
[WP] Aliens on a distant planet find the remains of Laika the 1st dog in space drifting past their planet. They are unable to comprehend how the canine was able to construct such a machine without opposable fingers and thumbs so they send a recon mission to earth to investigate.
On arrival at Earth the recon team find the canines have enslaved a primitive ape species to perform all their physical labour, research and farming for them, the apes even following the canines round to pick up their excrement whilst the canines take their exercise.
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The air is rich with the sounds of celebration and the smokey smells of a thousand grills. Walking twenty feet can mean the difference between listening to Pink Floyd and the vague scent of herb, or a festive Bollywood tune and the thick rich smell of stir-fry. Children chase dogs around in the grass, and at the front of the crowd an old man hobbles up to the microphone on stage.
"Hello, and welcome to the unveiling of 'The Guardian'!" The man shouted in a raspy, excited, and quite old voice that tweaks the speakers and calms the din of the crowd.
"Today on the lawns of Washington DC we pay formal respects to one of our greatest heroes. Monuments on this scale and grandeur are reserved for those things that our nation and our world holds most dear to our hearts. Liberty. Strength. Compassion. Order. Each of our grand monuments can evoke these emotions. The fair lady who watches over Ellis island is more than a statue to the existence of liberty, but a shining beacon to the *importance* of liberty. Watching the sun glint off of her face evokes an evolutionary *need* for liberty that impresses itself somewhere deep inside. Lincoln gives us a need for compassion and wisdom, and the Washington monument is an impressive but simple virtue of strength."
"Today we unveil the greatest of these, and so without further pomp I present our monument to Love... The Guardian!"
As sheets fall from around the massive object the familiar silhouette of a dog comes into view. Towering over the crowd the familiar happy expression of the dog shines in the sun, and the crowd revels. The old man retires to his seat, and a four-armed figure takes to the podium.
"It was seventy years ago that our scientists calculated Earth's location based on the trajectory of Laika. It raised many curiosities among my people about the nature of a planet that would produce such a craft. Upon arrival we were met with more curiosities, and to be honest we were more than a little perplexed. There was some debate over whether we should destroy your planet or not..." At this statement a ripple of laughter went through the crowd.
"I'm Serious" the figure said solemnly, and a hush fell across the people.
"When we arrived we viewed your race's propensity for evil as a real threat to the universe. We knew you were primitive, but the very animalistic nature in which you treated one another was abhorrent. Wars over dirt instead of venturing in to space, hatred of the way people were born into the world, and such egotism. There was a very real danger that if left unchecked your greed and hatred could consume more than your own world." The crowd is now completely silent as the figure raises one arm pointing directly to the monument behind him.
"This... is your planet's saving grace. The fact that you could unconditionally love a mentally inferior creature. That you loved them no matter their birth or consequences, no matter their temperament or size, and that you went above and beyond for each other as a symbiotic species is what convinced my people that you were worth saving."
"In the years that followed we learned your history. Dogs were created as an act of compassion. Tribes of hunters would feed the wolves discarded by their packs, and they grew close. From that point on the dog has been an evolutionary partner of humanity. From the early pragmatic hunting aid to the modern age companion and guardian the dog has never yet failed to rise to the task. Always cheerful, loving, and loyal the dog is a symbol for the very best that this planet has to offer. I dare say I am jealous of this; your planet's greatest accomplishment."
"And so on this day of celebration let us all give thanks to the noble dog! Savior of humanity, and bearer of this planet's flame for unconditional love!"
And with that a cheer rose up from the crowd, and the sun rested upon that monument for the ages to come.
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*Beep. Beep. Beep*
Q2 looked at the monitor. Perhaps some debris from the recent off planet mining expeditions. The excavation teams always were a bit too zealous. No matter, he’d just mark on his report that they weren’t following protocol again and he’d be back to his…wait.
*Beep. Beep. Beep.*
What was this? Some sort of primitive spacecraft…? How could something like that have entered their atmosphere? Such a strange shape and lack of peripherals essential to galactic travel. He couldn’t place the materials either. Clearly some sort of alloy encasing, but of what? Corlaxtine? Norvolamine?
After his initial wave of wonder passed, he realized he had to do something. The scans hadn’t detected any sort of hazardous or explosive material, so it had flown in unmolested. The safe passage would indicate that the contents of this alien spacecraft were benign. But still…so foreign. Who knew the contents held within.
He focused his mind and relayed the message to the retrieval team. Within moments, they cast a safenet around the flying object and proceeded with invasive probing.
He heard the crew discussing the findings in his subconscious and dialed in.
“…odd. Strange and odd. This isn’t of any known galaxy here. How did this get here? And what are these materials? How could such a thing have even reached us? It should have been destroyed in the radiation storms. Not to mention it bypassing our security measures.”
“No matter, there’s nothing here to harm us.”
“Are you joking? The fact that this has even reached us when clearly it originated from so far away…This is a threat.”
“Don’t overreact. Caution. Do you remember what happened the last time we overreacted? We destroyed an entire ecosystem that could have proved valuable in our harvesting.”
“Quiet, look at this.”
Q2 waited for them to speak.
“What is this.”
“Some sort of…I don’t know. Run it through the scanner.”
Q2 waited and then heard the eruption of noise. “Is that *carbon* based? It used to…that was a life form! Get the biologists in here!”
Q2 listened in as the events unfolded. Some sort of life based in a galaxy that could only be reached through some sort of galactic tear, which would explain how it got here in the first place. The recreation of the life form revealed a four legged creature with limited physical capabilities. The creature’s anatomy did not point to any ability to create such a vehicle, no matter how primitive it may have been. No appendages with which to manipulate small objects.
“Well, we have all the information we could possibly have gained from this thing. Let’s go present our findings.”
Q2 was ecstatic. As the finder of the vessel, he was one of the chosen to explore the origins. He was to record the findings.
The decision to head out had taken 4 cycles, and his imagination had run rampant the entire time. He could not stop thinking about the possibility of interacting with the thing found in the space vessel. He lost himself in dreams and his anticipation was enough to make his membranes vibrate.
They readied themselves for the voyage. They had been able to trace where the spacecraft had been built and had the coordinates locked in. They would get there soon enough after the latest galactic tear had been found.
He had spent a lot of time looking at the recreation of the being found in the vessel. So small and strange looking, but not so unlike some of the lifeforms he had seen on other planets. They had taken to calling it Carbon Alien Type, or CAT for short. He hoped by the time they made it to CAT’s planet that CATs would still be around. Maybe he could even be friends with a CAT…
They arrived at the planet.
“Look at that!”
Q2 looked.
“We should mine that!”
Excavation teams. All they could ever think about. Q2 thought about recording that in his notes, but before he could, the captain spoke.
“No, we’re on observation duty only. We’ve scanned the location and found no presence of life. We’ll land there and observe the planet from there. If we need to get closer, we will.”
They had strict protocols when it came to observing life on other planets, especially if they were unable to ascertain the level of intelligence of the beings inhabiting the planet. They would employ the use of their long range scanners to glean what information they could. Everyone was excited to learn about this alien land. All Q2 wanted to do was to see a CAT.
“Much as we surmised, these CATs would not have been capable of building that spacecraft. It looks like the ones who manufacture these vehicles are robotic in nature and controlled by another lifeform. It appears that any vessels they send off planet don’t hold any lifeforms, though, so perhaps the CATs were the last ones to man such ships. This points to their dominion over the upright walkers. The walkers are the ones who labor all day while the CATs just laze about. They don’t seem to do much, in truth, though they do get extremely excited when they stay at their abode and the walker returns. Motivations for such excitement unclear, but their relationship seems to be that the CAT is master of the walker. Their hierarchy leads us to believe that with further evolving, the CATs pose a threat. They exhibit aggressive behavior at times and show the capacity to enslave. They have already sent one of their own outside of their galaxy. We may need to eradicate the problem before they branch out into space, much like they have already attempted.”
Q2 sent off his report. The words were largely the crews. He didn’t know how he felt about their conclusions. To him, the CATs weren’t slavers. They were…he didn’t know what. All he knew was that he wanted to spend time with one. Maybe…maybe even keep one…
But no, they were observers only and it violated galactic law to take a sentient being as your own. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t do what they were accusing the CATs of doing.
But he had seen how happy the CATs were when the walkers returned home. He just wanted someone to be that happy after not seeing him for a half cycle. Maybe a CAT would be like that when it saw him?
He wanted a CAT. He had to have one.
The more he observed them, the surer he was about the CAT.
“I think…I think they exist to make the walkers happy! It’s not that the CATs are happy when the walkers come home. They are, clearly. But…I think the walkers are happy too! And I think CATs are at their happiest when the walkers are at their happiest. I don’t think their tendencies are for war. I think…I think their tendencies are for love and protection…”
“Q2, that’s ridiculous. My recommendation will be to take preventative measures to keep the CATs from gaining access again outside of this galaxy.”
“No! Captain, please. Let me just get closer for more expert evaluation before we proceed. Give me two cycles!”
“You have one. Get me definitive proof that they aren’t a warlike species and we can spare them.”
This was his chance. Q2 prepared himself to go down.
“Well, I’m off.”
The crew looked at him grimly.
He put on his suit, activated his camouflage, taking on the appearance of one of the walkers and they shot him down to the surface. And there it was. A CAT!
He went over to it, but before he could do anything, the CAT yelled at him. Unsure of how to proceed, Q2 paused. He then reached out to touch the CAT.
And then the CAT bit him.
Q2 gasped and activated his retreat back to the ship.
The captain stared at him and Q2 nodded.
“Final analysis: CATs are warlike. Proceed with preventative measures.”
| 2014-06-06T07:23:03 | 2014-06-06T06:48:02 | 45 | 22 |
[WP] Your whole life you had an ability that seemed normal to you. Now you realized you're the only one with this ability.
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The human lie detector. That's what they call me. I've always skirted around what I do in interviews as frankly I didn't understand. Micro-expressions, nervous tics, word usage. These are the things I used to distract. I never realized the truth, not until my 100th case at the precinct. Number one crime solver, internationally recognized, Time magazine's man of the year. I helped put away rapists, murders, serial killers. Sometimes there was no evidence, I would ask leading questions like if the body was in a forest. From there the truth would be apparent from their lies. Sometimes we didn't find the evidence, but that was alright. They always confessed. I thought that being able to tell when people were lying was my ability, my place in the world. But I want you to think this through. If someone can tell if your lying, how do you not incriminate yourself? Don't talk. Everyone knew about me yet they couldn't resist talking to me. And that's when I realized I had put away countless innocent people. I was the liar, but everyone couldn't help but believe me.
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Kiril’s long sandy hair hung in his eyes unless he tied it back. He never went anywhere without his bow strapped over his shoulders or his handmade pair of leather shoes. The sun had turned his skin dark, his hair bright. He smelt salty like the ocean.
When he showed up at the far shore of the broken land, dripping wet, his chest heaving, a child, no more than ten years old, walked up to his limp form and stood over him, eclipsing the sun.
Kiril did nothing at first other than enjoy the warm sand beneath him and the small waves that lapped at his feet. He had never tried to span the gap between the two big islands before. No one had. He wasn’t even sure why he attempted it. The ripping currents nearly tore him out to sea. He nearly drowned on his journey. The currents sometimes propelled him and other times pushed against him, as if great weights were bearing down on him, trying to suck him under. Every muscle in his body burned, his lungs screaming for air. He kept pushing, rowing his arms, and suddenly he grabbed a fistful of sand and found himself practically beached without even realizing. After that he managed to throw himself a few feet farther before he collapsed.
The child did not move. He just kept staring at him. Kiril didn’t want to move yet either. A deep trembling had settled into his shoulders and legs, a flame burning deep in his gut. His breathing had only just started to return to normality. The sun and felt so good and the kid was blocking it.
But Kiril heard other voices now, approaching from farther along the beach. The voices of grown men. Soon two other shapes were eclipsing the beautiful, life-affirming sun. Kiril groaned and hauled himself up. He would deal with these nuisances, but first he checked for his bow and his shoes. The bow was there, and the leather shoes were soaked, but they had survived along with him.
“Where did you come from? Are you a wizard? A demon? Half-fish? Has someone cursed you?”
Both men leaned on pronged spears – the kind by people of the islands for shallow-water fishing. Kiril had seen others like it. His own people had used them as the main means of gathering food. At present they didn’t have any intention of using it against him so he relaxed for a moment.
“I’m from over there,” Kiril said, pointing at the distance hump of green across the water. “Wizard? I don’t think so. Do you have wizards on this island?”
“But that’s impossible,” one of them said. “No one lives on that island. Impossible. How did you… glide in the water, as the fish do?”
Kiril was puzzled. “But there are… or were. A sickness killed everyone in my village." Most had died during his adolescence. He had been alone over since, hunting to provide for himself, fishing at the reefs with his spear, shooting the wild pigs with his bow. He would swim to and from the smaller and closer islands. "What do you mean, glide in the water? Swim?" Everyone in his village swam as a child.
"Yes. What's your name, traveler?"
"Kiril."
"You must teach us. We've been stranded here for weeks."
"You don't live here?"
"No, we live farther away, on another island. Our people we tried to build something to carry us over the water. We crashed here. We have too many people there. Not enough water and supplies. Here, take a look."
The men showed Kiril a flat square of wood, bound together with fraying rope, broken into pieces. He could see how they fit together, minus a few missing pieces. Interesting idea, Kiril thought.
"You must teach us how to do what you did. It's our only hope of getting back."
Odd. Swimming had never seemed so important or difficult. It had come naturally to him, and everyone in his village had done it. He supposed that's how they had come to the island in the first place, generations ago.
"So no one in your village swims?"
"No. We live off the ocean, but it washes things up to us. We've never had a reason to live before. There are many fish in the shallow water. Many pigs and fruits on the island There are a few drownings every season when the tide takes people out to sea. But we've been trying to master the ocean for a year now, and this is the best idea we've had yet."
Up until now Kiril had no real purpose. Survival had been a struggle at first, but after a year it became an easy reality. He picked fruit when he wanted, caught his dinner every day, and slept on whatever island or secret spot he pleased. He never realized how much he missed human contact. It had been three winters since the sickness.
He smiled. "Yes, I can teach you. But I think you have something going with this whole floating wood idea."
He could teach this people to swim. And then he would learn there floating wood technique. For his whole life there had been a mountain always looming in the distance, just over the horizon of the sea. He would never be able to swim there, but perhaps if he could make the wood work...
"Yes, I'll teach you, but first I need to rest." He collapsed back into the sand.
| 2015-01-08T14:41:51 | 2015-01-08T13:48:09 | 80 | 44 |
[WP] An evil league of villains is shocked as their newest member questions some of their practices, such as always telling the trapped hero their plans and operating from an incredibly suspicious, skull-shaped castle next to a volcano.
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"Phwhahahahaha!!!!"
"You think we actually use the lairs on top of volcanoes or make it easy for the heroes to escape our traps on purpose?"
"No we're distracting them from our *real* plans of embezzling money from charities, blackmailing politicians, and controlling the world leaders from the shadows."
"If every hero thinks we're too stupid to be a serious threat, then we don't have to worry about the heroes stopping any plans that actually matter."
"MWAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!!"
|
*Mature language ahead.*
_____
"What do you mean *secret*?" Jeremy threw his hands out towards the window, "We're in a goddamn volcano and you made it in the shape of a skull!"
"I don't see the problem," Dr. Reginald stroked his cat and shrugged. "Every villain in the world has a secret base of operations. Usually, *in* a volcano."
"That's exactly what I'm saying!" Jeremy stood up and faced the league of villains in front of him. Every single one in the world had arrived at the Summit. Reginald the Mad, Catherine "Cypher" Crane, Atom Commandant, and Baron Sabre, or Ian as he was known here. "All of you build these outrageous, and quite frankly, conspicuous evil lairs, just for your enemies to find you."
"But, to be fair, we handle them pretty well," Cypher said.
"Cypher, you had your 'hero' hooked up to a game simulation and made him solve puzzles to escape."
"Yeah! But they were really *hard* puzzles."
Jeremy rolled his eyes. "And revealing your plan within the game?"
Cypher shrugged as she typed away on her phone. "I figured he wouldn't get that far."
"You gave Hacker, the hero's name by the way, three lives! Three *fucking* lives! Any person worth their mettle could have solved that game!" Jeremy sighed heavily, trying to take in the fact that every villain he met had these great plans for world domination that would be foiled because they would *tell* their respective Hero the plans they had spent months, or in some cases, years on.
"Jeremy, look. We do things a certain way around here," Baron said. He took a sip of his coffee, adjusting the large blade on his belt as he did so. It always got in his way, Jeremy noticed that was one of his faults as well. "Our plans are very precise. We prepare for every outcome."
"Except the one that always happens." Jeremy placed his hands in front of his face and shook them. "As in, the hero escapes your crazy, weird death scenario that you make up, and then defeats you."
"To be fair," Atom Commandant said, "I was never going to launch those nuclear weapons in the first place. That's too much paperwork for my goons to handle, besides, I would have taken out a large income stream for the Villains."
"You're kidding me? Your name is Atom *Commandant* and you won't use the Atom?"
He shook his head. "I have no interest in destroying the world, J."
"Neither do I! But all of your plans revolve around that *one* idea!"
Reginald laughed, "Oi. J does have a point there, Atom."
"Oh, shut it *Doctor*. You're as discredited as Aristotelian physics."
"They have it out for me! Doctor Poreut is after me!"
Jeremy slammed his hands on the table. "Doctor Poreut is the hero your always fighting!"
Everyone stopped and looked at Jeremy, their eyes wide-eyed and confused. Cypher even stopped texting on her phone to look up and pay attention to everyone.
"Doctor Poreut is the Righteous Doctor?"
Jeremy fell backwards into his chair and face-palmed. "Christ, people. You are some of the worst villains I have ever had to work with."
_____
*Meanwhile at the Hall of Heroes*
Several heroes were gathered around a large round table. Behind them was a large monitor with the image of a volcano and a skull-shaped based carved into the side of it. The text below simply read *Reginald the Mad's Secret Lair*.
"Congratulations to the Righteous Doctor for finding Reginald's *secret* lair. We wish you the best in taking him down once again!"
The heroes raised their glasses and Righteous Doctor, whose symbol was a large vial filled with blue liquid, smiled. "Thank you all! I am prepared for anything the Mad has to throw at me. Including hanging me from the top of the volcano with no 'real' escape!"
The heroes laughed and threw back their drinks. A few of them patted the Doctor on the back. But for the most part, they just continued to drink and be merry. Besides, with all of their villains too busy at a Summit at Reginald's secret lair, they had the weekend off!
"Hacker! Did you order those strippers?"
Hacker smiled a big, bright smile, "You bet your bright ass I did Charging Ion!"
_______
*I had fun! Hope you enjoyed, and thanks for the prompt! /r/BlankPagesEmptyMugs for more of my work!*
| 2016-05-14T10:43:47 | 2016-05-14T10:32:36 | 49 | 28 |
[WP] Write a horror story where the protagonist just doesn't give a fuck.
Edit: Damn, this is now my most upvoted post. Thanks for all of your responses, they've been amazing! Good for a laugh or a two on this great Friday :)
|
It wasn't until the van door shut behind me that I realized my mistake. I guess the skin mask should have tipped me off.
It's getting so you can't trust anyone anymore.
We drove for a long time. I felt the road getting rockier. By the time he opened the door it was dark out.
He yanked me out by the arm, hard. He knocked me to the ground. It was dirt. It smelled like something. Pennies. No, of course not. Blood.
Great. As if I didn't have enough on my plate today.
He laughed then, a low, insane laugh. He pointed an ax at my throat.
"Really? An ax? Don't you think that's a little derivative?"
"You are not to speak," he said. "But feel free to scream." (A little too theatrical for my taste, to be honest.)
"Look, this is a really bad time for me. I think we might have to table this for now."
"I SAID YOU ARE NOT TO SP-"
He fell to the ground. The look of surprise almost made it all worth it. Humans are so easy.
He couldn't move now, but he could still hear me and see me. He could still feel. They taste so much better when they're afraid. It really adds something.
I started at his feet. Crunching the little bones. His eyes stared straight up, but I felt his shock, his terror and pain. Far more used to being predator than prey.
I took my time.
|
In the night the cockroaches come. The anemic fields of lonely grass sways all gray. The last sea that I will ever set eyes upon. And the ships of metal creak in the wind and walls of concrete nearby sighs. Here I am abandoned. Everything is abandoned.
How long has it been? How many birthdays have passed? Am I a girl still, or a woman? I bleed often, and sometimes not at all. Here in the night, blood flows. The others are dead. The sawmill is working, though wood is long gone.
The shadows in the night saunter in their dance around me. The tape on my hands cut and I pull as I always do. Patches of light flicker in the distance. They flicker with sounds and screams. Is tonight my night?
The tape strains and twists and stretches. It pulls the hair on my hand. Have I lost enough weight? I am sure no one will recognize me anymore. I am sure they aren't looking anyway. But have I lost enough weight?
My hands slip through. The tape tangles in my palm and I burst it with my teeth. I undo my legs. Is that sweat or blood? In the dark it does not matter. The old van in the field is almost like a home. I almost feel bad for leaving.
Outside is cold in the yard. The remaining grass is tall and reach my knees. For miles is flat country. No where to go. The saws buzz. I wonder if they hear it in the city. It is so quiet otherwise. Maybe they hear it but they don't care. Maybe it is easier not to listen.
But I listen and I wonder about the other girls. My stomach is empty. I cannot walk far. There are only two options. Either I wait in the van or I go and speed things up. I have gotten tired of waiting.
The glass sparkles in the night. I avoid it as best I can. I sway and walk like a drunk and the saw rings in the night and my head splits in pain. The light washes me in its excess. The windows are small and barred. The smell of blood and mean drifts away.
Two shadows have their back to the window. They wear rags and rubber masks with long stringy black hair. I can't see the faces now, but I know the eyes are white and large and the mouth is ajar and tooth less and the nose overhangs and the eyebrows furrow. It's an expression of apathy.
They look at the girl. She is still alive. I suppose they have her tied to the table. A tripod and camera stands in the corner. I wonder if it catches me on film. I wonder if that file, or my very own, will be my legacy. She screams. How she screams. The table saw has wires all over and it buzzes near her arms. I can't look. But I am just so tired. Everything is just tired. The exhaustion had come after a week or more of driving. It had come with the hopelessness. I feel sorry for the girl. I manage to look away.
Lights from behind awakens my shadow. It grows long in warning and the car stops. It's an old Camry. I turn around and stare at another of those faces. He wears rags to his feet and that witch's face, an evil rubber face.
He screams a warning and the others come to the window. I do not know where I find the strength or will, but I run. I run around the perimeter and the entrance is black and heavy with death. The witch behind me is gaining and I go inside and there is broken tile and pocked concrete and furniture strewn all about. Rats crawl from their dens, big things about a foot long.
I head for some stairs and I hear a commotion brimming. The girl screams and then gags and chokes and there is the sound of a hose bursting. Then she dies and the hose continues. The footsteps are close behind. The railing of the staircase is shaky and rotten. I nearly fall but I make it upstairs and there is the scent of disinfectant.
I go into a bathroom and it is dark. Completely dark in here. The scent of death and blood is strong and I gag and try to keep quiet. I lock the door and crouch. The bathtub is filled with slimy water. A slow drip comes. I hear stamping in the corridor outside.
The sound of light switches go off. There is a small window here but it is boarded up. I crawl to it and fleeting thoughts of escape come and they go and then I remain without hope. I hit something and it flashes in a white light. I hold it and see that it is a camera.
The tripod teeters and I grab for it and I lose balance and grab at the tub. My hand catches something soft and it sinks in the tub and the water overflows and the tripod falls and in the flash of the camera I see that it is blood. I look up and see one of those witches is in the tub.
His apathetic face looks at me, the mask the only thing remaining. His stomach is cut and the pink insides are out and the blood flows between them like spring water between some rocks.
I scream. How could I help it? The silence comes in a tense moment. Then the footfalls come nearer and nearer. The coldness of fear grips me. But then it goes and only its ghost remains. Hopelessness can get you through more than you'd imagine. And it would get me through this.
The door rattles. Someone shoulders it and it splinters. I close my eyes and steel myself. Hopefully it will not be much longer now.
| 2017-05-05T08:56:55 | 2017-05-05T04:53:47 | 41 | 27 |
[WP] The first born child inherits the King’s magical power. But when the King’s first child is born nothing happens. Now the whole kingdom, especially the enraged Queen, is looking for the real first born child of the King’s many secret affairs.
|
**News Anchor:** Tonight, we have an update to the ongoing story of our King's missing first-born child. As you know, the King has denied having sired any child other than Prince Humberto, born last year without the expected magical powers.
**Reporter:** That's right, Bill. And despite an extensive search across our three nations, neither the King's Guard nor the Wizard's Council has found evidence of another heir who might have assumed the inherited powers. Obviously, they've been searching for a child born out of wedlock.
**News Anchor:** Yes, the Queen practically tore the castle and grounds apart in the first few months to find the missing heir. I'm told she hasn't spoken to the king since the night after giving birth.
**Reporter:** More recently, though, the Queen seemed to be in very low spirits. Rumor has it that she stopped nursing the babe some time ago.
**News Anchor:** Actually, she hasn't left her rooms in the last few weeks. Come to that, I haven't seen any recent pictures of Prince Humberto either. This is such a strain for her and the Kingdom.
**Reporter:** Ah, yes. Well, today, I discovered that the King's personal physician and the Scrum of Impregnating Doctors *last month* ... LAST MONTH! Tested the King's sperm. A source tells me that they immediately reported to the King's Guard that the King has an extremely low motility rate --
**News Anchor:** Wait. A- a what?!
**Reporter:** Basically, the little guys can't swim worth a damn. So, we haven't seen the Queen because the Guard ordered her confined to her quarters while a paternity test can be conducted on her newborn son.
|
[Note: Wrote this in an hour during lunch. Apologies for the more tell/less show]
There is a fishing hut attached to a quiet lake surrounded by hundreds of soldiers and their leader, the King. For months the King has searched for the thief who has stolen his inheritance, and after consulting with the greatest wizards in the land his search has brought him here, to a Fisherman’s hut. The King will do anything to reclaim his birthright, *The King’s Power*.
The King on his horse approached the fishing hut. The army behind him both nervous & eager to see who had stolen the King’s Power, who is strong and bold enough to steal such power. Most believe the King’s Power can only be wielded by the King’s Bloodline, other believes it’s a magical artifact that grants the king absolute power, and some believe it’s a divine title given to them by god. Nobody knows exactly what the King’s Power is, only that it’s missing and the Court of Wizards have located it inside this fishing hut.
The King takes a deep breath to announce his arrival, although he had hoped whoever was inside the hut would’ve emerged once they heard the march of the King’s Army.
“Whoever is in the Hut, this is your King. Champion of the people, and righteous wielder of the King’s Power. We know you’ve stolen the power that belongs to me, come out peacefully and I won’t ha—” The old creaky door of the fishing hut opened. Emerged from the doorway is a common looking man, a fisherman. Arrows being knocked can be heard, waiting for the order to fire at the man.
“Aye, why didn’t you just knock? I’ve been waiting for you to find me. Come inside Brother, and we’ll fish.” The Fisherman proposed and returned to his hut before the King could respond.
The King was furious, how dare this commoner claim to be part of his noble bloodline? He wanted to send his men to storm the hut and slaughter the pretender, but he knew it wasn’t wise. What would the rumors say when people hear the king had to send an entire army to kill a single fisherman. It would paint the King as a coward, unlike his father who was seen as courageous. He was forced to take the man’s invitation, and entered the fishing hut.
The fishing hut is old and rundown, a large portion of the wall facing lakeside is missing, making it easier for the fisherman to cast his hook out into the lake. Sitting next to the fisherman is another fishing pole.
“Do you know how to fish?” The Fisherman asked.
The King sits down, taking the fishing pole and casts it out into the lake.
“Of course I know how to fish. A king is all knowing.”
“So you chose to cast without bait?” The Fisherman asked.
The king’s face turned red, embarrassed by the remark.
“I meant to do that. The king’s decision are final and all knowing. I’ll catch something, you just watch.”
“Father was always right wasn’t he?” The Fisherman said. The king studied the man’s unkempt beard, his raggedly common clothes stained with fish blood. He scowled at the thought of being related to him.
“He wasn’t your father. You’re not my brother. I’m the eldest in the family and only have one younger sister. You’re not my brother.”
“Yes I am.” The Fisherman said in a calm matter.
“A bastard isn’t a brother.”
“I’m not a bastard.”
Frustrated the King went silent, pulling as hit rod trying to attract something in the lake. He wasn’t amused by the Fisherman’s tricks, it made him feel stupid.
“Give me the King’s Power?” The King declared.
“Why, it’s not yours.” The Fisherman replied.
“My men will kill you, they’ll storm in here under my orders and take it away from you.” The King Threatened.
The Fisherman’s eye teared up, he wished it wasn’t like this. This is the fourth time in the span of several months his brother had found him, and it has ended like this every time.
“Do you know what the King’s Power does?” The Fisherman asked.
“Yes, it’s the power to always be right. The King is never wrong.” The King replied.
“Yes you’re right. Now go back outside and return home. Tell the men you’ve found your power.”
The King got up and left, returning to his army to tell them they’re going home. But he’ll be back in a few months once the Court of Wizards figure out that the King never got the King’s Power when he became king.
***
Years ago, the King’s Father wanted to pass down his crown before he died to his eldest son, the Fisherman. The Fisherman didn’t want the responsibilities of a King, the pressure of the King to always be right, just, & correct was too much for him.
The Day came when the King’s power was transferred to the Fisherman, and he learned whatever he said came true. He told the Kingdom he wasn’t the King, and that his father will rule until he died. He wanted to be a common person, living like everyone else without a care in a world. He didn’t want to be in the history books, but a forgotten mention.
The World forgot he existed.
His brother became King, and the Wizards Court realized the King’s Power was missing, every time they go and do the coronation of the King, they discover the King’s Power is missing and a great search begins looking for the power.
The cycle repeats.
You can’t run from responsibility.
| 2019-07-08T14:10:59 | 2019-07-08T13:23:31 | 74 | 48 |
[WP] The Wizarding World has never met someone like the speedcaster. He can summon more than 10 spells in less than 30 seconds. He says he's from another world, where there a more people like him called 'rappers'.
This prompt doesn't have to be just about the Harry Potter Universe.
|
My first night in the castle was a blur of bliss; floating candles like angels and a feast endless.
Comin up in the streets, I never seen so much food; nothing could kill my spirit, nothing could dampen the mood.
Until a magical hat was placed down on my head; the room went silent, waiting to hear what it said.
*Hufflepuff*, it shouted, and my heart truly sank; I looked to their side of the hall, the source of the stank.
At my new house's table sat the rejects of school; I trudged on over, knowing I looked like a fool.
Not the heart for Gryffindor, nor the brains for the Claw; I'd take Slytherin at this point, outcasts to the law.
But everything changed when we shuffled back to the dorms; where I became acquainted with Hufflepuff norms.
The blunts were sparked, and the house leader spoke; her voice cut through the smoke in-between each toke.
*We work hard in the Puff, and we always play fair; the truth is our language here in Helga's lair.*
So began my education, with a puff and a pass; common room near the kitchen, we got the snacks en mass.
Smoking spliffs between lessons, while still being on time; spells I naturally casted, due to my gift of rhyme.
I was the talk of the castle, breaking speed-casting records; unmatched in the duels, and straight dissing on hecklers.
Respect earned for our house, but feeling no need to boast; catching dabs from Fat Friar and every other house ghost.
Sharing my gifts with the school, helping others to learn; because here in the Puff, you get what you earn.
____
**Thanks for reading! Sub to /r/BeagleTales for daily spliffcraft and blizardry**
|
Magic had always been a fickle beast. Clumsy and verbose, the spells tongue-twisters that humbled even the most powerful wizards and wizardesses. Entire pages were occupied by the more complex spells, and even the slightest mispronunciation could rend it all for naught. Slow and deliberate, children were taught, and so by the time they were teens they could lift a pen with magic as quickly as one could lift a pen without magic.
Like they did in the mageless side of the Door. There, where wizards went to burn at the stake and steaks went to burn on the grill. Instead of being cooked by magic, of course. There, where the Door was, but really wasn't. Quite like a game of chess against a pigeon, or a blind man sharing a view with a non-blind man, the Door was a one-sided affair. Those mageless weren't pigeon-brained by any means, but try as they might, they just couldn't see the door.
Usually.
Similar to Santa--not that the Door was a fabrication meant to fool children into submission--the Door fed off belief. Not the kind of belief that caused the mageless to burn wizardesses at the stake, but the kind of belief that the naive and fools had--belief that magic was real.
Derek, colloquially known as Lil D, believed. Lil D, as he insisted his parents call him, even as they ate dinner and did their best to ignore his obnoxious presence, had achieved rather average marks in school. Instead of studying math or physics or something that would give him a future brighter than a burnt-out light-bulb, he had decided he would become a rapper.
"Wrap me a gift then," his father would say before bursting into laughter at his terrible joke.
And Lil D would, in his own way, in his own room. He'd rap long odes to his father who didn't love him back and he'd rap long eulogies to his brethren who hadn't died yet. He'd rap the afternoon away, and then the evening, and then late into the night, all the while hoping that his rapping would make him famous.
Alas, his subject matter was not quite mainstream. Of all the topics that Lil D could have chosen to rap about, he'd chosen to rap about magic. In some circles, he had quite the following, at least on YouTube. "You're a wizard, Lil D!" his followers would say. A wizard with words. But all he wanted to be was a real wizard. And so he chose to believe.
The Door appeared to him like a drug-induced hallucination at a time when he was almost certain he was not on drugs. He approached it, marveling at how rays of light emanated from whatever was behind. And then he stepped through, and just like that he was on the other side.
On the mageless side of the Door, the Door could be anywhere. On the other side, it only appeared in one place: in the center of the Bureau of Wizardly Travel. Usually, all who stepped through were just wizards returning from their time abroad. Sometimes it was urgent, and they'd step through dirtied or bloodied escaping from pursuers out to kill them. Other times, it was more leisurely, and they'd hop on through like a bunny hopping through a field of lettuce.
That was how Lil D stepped through. Casually, and in utter confusion, and raising a hand to his eyes so that they could adjust to the blinding fluorescent bulbs.
"Welcome," the wizards of the Bureau said, peering at him over their bifocals as they labored away at piles of paperwork. "Who may you be?"
Lil D looked at them like a cow caught in the headlight of an oncoming train. But instead of moving off the tracks and backing out the way he'd entered, Lil D did what he thought he did best. He stood there and rapped.
"My name is Lil D, yeah, that's what they call me. I seem to have arrived rather magically. If you could do me a solid, that wouldn't be squalid, tell me what's up and only then I'll shut up."
Quick as a sneeze he spoke, and the bifocaled employees of the Bureau looked at each other in awe. They'd never seen such articulation. Such poise. Such grace under their gazes.
"You lookin' my way like I'm nuts, and I don't want to hear no ifs or buts. You better tell me what's up before I kick some butt." As if he could, scrawny as he was. Still, he brimmed with confidence. And, on this side of the Door where they spoke so slowly, his confidence was well-placed.
"Yes, yes," the Director said. He was a heavyset man with plump cheeks and a balding head. The spell for growing hair back would have taken ages to say. But then there was this kid, with his tongue nimble as a sewer's thimble. He'd have hair again. His wife would look his way again. He'd be plump and hairy again. "Here," the Director said, thrusting a book into Lil D's hands.
Lil D looked down at the book, trying to make sense of the words. His arms sagged beneath the weight. He struggled, as he'd never been one for lifting or reading.
"This spell here," the Director said, pointing at a spell that started on page 742 and ended on 746.
"Reading? Not while I'm breathing. Screw it, I'm out, like a baby's teeth teething." And with that, Lil D was gone, and the wizards and wizardesses of the Bureau looked at each other in disappointment, wishing one of them could speak so quickly.
*****
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated!
| 2020-01-29T07:38:14 | 2020-01-29T05:39:45 | 1,112 | 143 |
[WP] In reality, every human gets to choose heaven or hell when they die. Hell isn't actually the realm of eternal torture, but everyone picks heaven because of God's highly effective marketing. After eons of solitude, Lucifer is startled by the first ever human to arrive in hell.
|
The human didn't look particularly insane. They had short, curly red hair and a nose piercing. They wore a rainbow turtleneck that stood out brightly against the pale grey sky and calm blue landscape. Their cuffed black jeans were held up by ill-matching suspenders, and their combat boots were scuffed, but well maintained. Basically, an average human.
They stare you down with icy blue eyes, and you stare back. It's not every decade that you get anyone down here, least of all intentionally. You clear your long-unused throat, and speak in halting human language. "Why are you here?" They smirk slightly, and look you up and down.
"Well," they say. "I heard a rumor that there are excellent parties held in Hell. All the sins. Lust, gluttony, sloth, just simply the *best* things in life. I thought it would be a good time, but..." They look around at the orderly buildings and dreary landscape with undisguised distaste. "...This doesn't look like my idea of a good time. How about we shake it up a bit?"
You chuckle. It's not an evil chuckle, but the type brought on by surprise. "I'm afraid it's just you and me down here. No wild parties, no food, no drink. No one sane would choose to come down here. I'm not the...sociable type, and God really has you humans wrapped around her finger. Haven't really gotten the chance to tell them that no one's tortured; it's just propaganda." You smile sadly. "I doubt that that's going to change any time soon."
The human looks a bit shocked, then smiles again. "Well, that'd better change, hadn't it?" They say, grinning. You blink at them, staying silent. They sit down on a nearby rock, and cross their legs. "Lucky for you, I got hit by a car right out of college...."
"And I majored in Marketing."
|
Of course, it seemed silly at the time that his demons had recommended implementing the new EviSafe Home Security System. After all, in over 200,000 years not a single mortal has *chosen* to come here. I had thought it was so easy, I was the Director of Operations for Heaven and was passed up for that damned promotion to Senior Vice President, for who...Gabriel, he spat disgustedly at the ground. Gabriel, God's little kiss ass. After that day, I thought it would be so easy to build my own afterlife where I could control every aspect. I could be more than a Senior Vice President. I could be the CEO of a new Heaven. He said aloud to himself.
Yet, I sit here, alone, surrounded by my deamons' and minions, and not a single mortal soul to occupy my time, he grabs another beer from the cooler and cracks it open, guzzling the cold beverage and thinking to himself. "Raum, I am hungry. Go fetch me something to eat."
"Fine" he says as he walks to the door, "anything specific?" he asks.
"Be gone!" Lucifer murmured, and waved him off as he dove hand first back into the cheesy puff's bag.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
He wasn't in a great mood, he never was these days. How could he be, giving up everything he did. Convincing us to do the same? "Raum. Get me a sandwich. Raum, change the channel. Raum, refill my cooler."
He wants something to eat while he eats chips, yet he resists getting up from the couch on days like today, but its better to be out of his way in case he gets into one of *those* moods.
Ah, that's right, there's a special deal at Quik Express Pizza, I'll just fly right in and order him one of his favorites, sulfuric encrusted Four Cheese, Olive, and Mushroom pizza. How he eats such a rotten egg smelling pizza is beyond me.
"Welcome to Quik Express Pizza, how may I help you?"
"I have a coupon. Sulfur Sundays, buy one get one half off" Raum said
"Okay, what kind would you like?"
"Please, can I have a medium sulfuric encrusted Four Cheese, Olive, and Mushroom pizza. The other can be a hand tossed roasted elf ears and pineapple pizza."
"Sir. I must say, mixing elf ears and pineapple is just...wrong."
"Just give me what I ordered and keep the change" Raum said as he handed over the coupon and the 10 Dakrons.
I really must hurry back, I've been gone a while now, "can you please hurry?" he asked impatiently as he stood perched outside the window.
"Here you go sir, and please be careful, it's quite hot."
"Can you please put the handles in between my beak?" Raum asked.
Could this take any longer, "Quik Express my ass" he thought. Okay, I really must hurry back as Lucifer can get quite hangry when he hasn't eaten properly.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
"Listen here, God. I demand my fair share of respect. Look, I helped create this place. I helped turn it into what it is today. We are ready for our first mortals to come and visit for the rest of eternity. When you decided you would make *two* sexes and not just one, everyone laughed at you. Not me. What did I say to you?"
He looked at Lucifer with pity and bore "You said don't worry about it, you will have the whole place ready to host as many sexes as I wish to create."
"That's right. I did. I even worked deep into the night on the sixth day of creation. I never once asked for recognition or even a promotion. I took the responsibility on myself and my handy crew of daemon's worked tirelessly until all preparations were made. All to appease you." said Lucifer.
**Knock....Knock**
**Knock.**
"Wh-what was that?" Lucifer said as he awoke confused "Nemeroth, go see who is pounding at the door at this hour."
Nemeroth begrudgingly obliged as he floated to the front door. "It's for you. You have...you should come here to see it for yourself."
He got up lazily, lapping his fingers from the cheesy puff residue caked on his hands, "this better be good" he thought to himself, as he staggered over to the front door, shuffling his feet as he arched his back and outstretched his arms while simultaneously stretching and yawning. Once he opened his eyes fully, his jaw nearly dropped to the ground. Eons have come and gone since he left Heaven, but finally, despite the negative full-court press that God has put on Lucifer's Hell beneath Earth a visitor has come.
"Oh...you've...uh...you've made it to Hell." he stuttered. Shit. Why did I not have the Champagne out? This is a special occasion, I should've been more prepared. "Nemeroth, bring me the special bucket from the cellar, I believe our guest will enjoy it, because its *to die for"* he howls in laughter.
| 2020-01-30T12:30:09 | 2020-01-30T12:19:04 | 273 | 37 |
[WP] When summoning a demon, something very unexpected happens. The demon bellows through the fire and smoke, “Who dares to call upon me, Mortal- wait.. dude, is that really you?” The demonic voice immediately switches to the familiar voice of your high school best-friend, who died years ago.
|
“Evan? Is that you?” The voice asked through the flowing smoke and flickering red light. A faint smell of sulfur tinged the air. The smoke seems to pulsate with every word.
“Yeah, Steve. I thought you were dead,” Evan said, trying not to let his voice tremble.
“I was. I got better. Seriously, though, why did you summon me?” Steve the Demon asked.
“Wait a damned minute. Tell me what the heck is going on. If you’re a demon, why were you in high school? Why did you die? You were my best bud. I fucking cried for a week when I found out. I was depressed for years after. It ruined my life.” Evan wiped a few tears from his eyes.
“Sherry abandoned me. I started drinking, and not like at the parties. Serious shit. I got to a bottle of bourbon and a six pack as a daily requirement.
“In college I started on the really hard stuff. Heroin. Cocaine. Anything to kill the pain. I nearly died from it.”
“Evan, I didn’t know. I’m so sorry,” Steve whispered.
“I managed for a while,” Evan continued, “Got mostly clean. Met a nice girl. Got married. Got a job. Had a couple kids. But I never got better. After a while I went back to the bottle. She left. Took the kids with her. I tried to kill myself but failed at that, too.”
Evan heard a faint gasp and a tiny sob. “I’m so sorry,” Steve whispered, again and again, the smoke pulsating with every syllable and every catch in the disembodied voice.
“I hit rock bottom. I figured I’m already damned so let’s make a deal. I may as well get something for my immortal soul.”
“Dude,” Steve said, “You don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t have any other choice, Steve. I don’t have any other options.”
“Evan, I can’t take your soul. And right now your soul isn’t bound for hell. All that suffering, even self inflicted, has kept your soul clean. Most of the people I meet don’t know that. They make a deal with me and that’s where I get their souls.”
Evan looked up, looking for a face in the smoke. The smoke slowly coalesced into a slightly older version of his high school friend. The corporeal body of the demon clasped Evan in a deep and firm hug. Evan slowly, cautiously, raised his arms and clasped them about his friend. He clung to his high school friend and wept.
“It’s gonna be all right, Evan,” Steve said. “I’ll help you. No charge. Your soul will go where ever it belongs when you’re done.”
“Thanks, man. Thank you.”
|
The candles flames flickered and bent away from the middle of the circle, and from the deep, bubbling shadow that had formed in it’s centre an equally dark figure slowly emerged into the light. Its long limbs, way too many at first, shot out of the ground, tried to grab and grasp at what seemed to be existence itself, entangling each other and melting together like the black candles wax until they formed into a solid clump. All the candles in the room expired with one last gust of wind, a rumbling sigh coming from the depths of hell itself, and the shapeless form fell to the floor.
Darkness, and Silence. Only my breathing, and my rapid heartbeat to accompany it. I felt the cold stone floor under my palms – I must’ve fallen, but I couldn't even remember moving at all, my mind was still too fixed on the memory of that abomination dragging itself out of the ground.
Had it really worked? Had the Circle, the Pentagram, the black candles, down in this forsaken crypt… really worked? Remembering the safety instructions I had read, I fumbled for the amulet, and found its cold metal still resting on my chest, and even though I had fallen to the ground, it couldn’t have been far from the spot I had stood, so I should still be safely inside the salt circle, which meant…
Suddenly, a sound shattered the silence and ripped me out of my thoughts. A wheezing, a gasping for air, and then, something that sounded like… quiet, scared sobbing?
No demons growl, no infernal scream from any hellish beast could’ve given me the heart-stopping, goosebump-inducing ice cold shivers that ran down my back as I heard these unmistakably human sounds creeping from the impenetrable darkness around me. My shaking fingers felt for the wind lighter in my jacket. Slowly, as quiet as possible, I held it in front of me, as if it’s flame could guard me against whatever lurked in those unnatural shadows, and I spun the lighters flint wheel.
It sparked once, lighting the space for only a split second, and only after it’s flash had expired, I could discern from my memory what I had just seen: A small, pale figure, rolled up inside the circle of extinguished candles. Not what I had expected at all, and I suddenly felt a new kind of fear surging through my body, one that came from the realization that I had absolutely *no idea* what was happening.
I tried the lighter a second time, and this time it’s flickering flame bathed the room in warm light. There, in the circle, lay the thing. It’s skin seemed less pale now, but bruised, and I could see that it was shivering. Its back was turned to me, and now I could see its shape, it’s head was tucked under its hands, it’s knees pulled up to it’s chest, and the longer I looked at it, the more it looked like a human teenager.
“What… the *fuck*”, I muttered to myself as I tried to get on my feet again.
The creature startled, and it’s little head slowly emerged from under its fingers. A mess of red, matted hair was on top of it, and watery eyes reflected the light in my hand. It spun around tried to shove itself outside of the light again, but the room was too small for any shadows to form in it’s corners.
For a second a feeling of deja-vu zapped through my brain, as if something about this bizarre situation had familiarity in it, but I couldn’t muster up the concentration to figure out what it could be. So the creature recognised me first.
“D- Daryl?”
It took me a moment to realize that the thing, with it’s stuttering, croaky voice, tried to form *my* name.
“*What* *the fuck*”, I now shouted, with my own voice cracking. Not because I was surprised that the thing knew my name, it was meant to be a supernatural demon after all, but because I *recognized* the voice. A voice that I heard almost as often as my own, all through my childhood and well into my teenage years, and that I had missed dearly for the last three years.
“Bobby? Is that- what the- … *Bobby?*” I would’ve almost dropped to the ground right there and then, but this time I managed to remain steady, with only the lighter slipping from my fingers.
My childhood friend, who had been in an accident years ago, whose face I had seen for months after it everywhere, whose last voicemail I had never deleted off my phone… that friend, lay on the cold stone ground before me, looking like he had been through literal hell.
“Daryl…”, was the only answer Bobby could muster, his voice still shaky, and his bright blue eyes still fixated on mine, which now welled up with tears. I jumped out of the salt circle, my arms wide open to embrace someone I had never thought to ever see again, but right as I would’ve entered the circle of candles I felt a pain, as if someone had punched me right into the chest, mid-run. I stumbled back a bit, and reached for whatever hat struck me. The only thing I found there was the amulet, the little metal plate that I had received with the instructions. Only now it wasn’t cold anymore, it was hot like if it had been held over a flame, and it was… jittering.
I tried to rationalize. It had to be… an interference with the circle, with the place where the gate had opened… surely... But somewhere, in the very back of my head, a voice with a warning tone tried to remind me of something I had read, something that would’ve stopped me from what I was about to do. But I couldn’t, wouldn’t listen, not now, not with what was happening.
Bobby whimpered on the floor.
My hand, before I could even will it to, ripped the Amulet from around my neck and threw it out of sight. I charged again, and finally I could wrap my arms around my long lost friend.
But he didn’t feel at all like Bobby, or any human. His skin was too soft, too slick, it gave way under the pressure of my arms and wrapped around them like… wax. I looked up, and my eyes met Bobbys again, only that they weren’t his anymore. They were filled with the same bubbling, flowing darkness from which the creature had first emerged, and the face around them slowly started to discolour and melt away.
“.. Bobby?”, I muttered a last time, but the demon only started laughing. First it was a quiet cackle, then it grew louder and louder, until its terrible laugh pierced my skull and filled my mind and the world around me – and then I disappeared, leaving behind nothing but echo of my screams, reverberating through the catacombs until it faded into nothingness.
| 2020-06-18T05:04:56 | 2020-06-18T02:36:12 | 30 | 22 |
[WP] There is more than just the Grim Reaper- there is the Sorrowful Reaper, the Envious Reaper, so on and so forth- one for each emotion. Each one reaps a death based on the emotions behind the death. You were chosen to take over one of the Reaper roles... Welcome to day one as the Puzzled Reaper.
|
**"CAPRICE, CRUEL-FATE, BAD-LUCK, EVEN** ***"WHOA, THAT WAS SOME FINAL DESTINATION SHIT RIGHT THERE!"***
The Reaper at the front of the room paused grinning at the class as a small titter ran through the assemblage before continuing
**"THESE ARE OFTEN THE HALLMARKS ATTRIBUTED TO OUR FIELD, AS PUZZLED-REAPERS, OUR JOB IS NOT ONLY TO UNTANGLE THE HAPLESS SOUL FROM THE CARNAGE OF WHATEVER MISFORTUNE FELL UPON THEIR EARTHLY FORM; BUT WE MUST ALSO BE AWARE THAT THE SOULS ARE CONFUSED, LOST, OR DARE I SAY..."**
I couldn't resist, blurting out from the back of room
***"Florida Men?"***
He grinned at me, not that it means much here obviously, but the small malicious red gleam in the black-hole depths of his eye showed that he was NOT amused by my interruption.
**"YOU THERE, I HAVE NOT SEEN YOUR SKULL IN THIS CLASS BEFORE - ARE YOU NEW?"**
I knew I was in for it, so I did the only thing I could; remembering harrowing times in the classroom so many hundreds of years ago, i stood, coughed nervously and announced.
***"Me Sir, yes; I was transferred to this department after attending my 100th Darwin Award"***
The Master peered down at his notes before looking back up at me, the red glare of malice changing into a blue glint of amusement.
**"AH YES I SEE NOW. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED; THE DRUNKEN-REAPERS AND STUPID-REAPERS BOTH SPEAK VERY WELL OF YOU. NOW CLASS THIS IS AN** ***EXCELLENT*** **OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN HERE"**
He looked at me, dead in the eye and whispered...
**"HEY BUDDY; HOLD MY BEER AND WATCH THIS..."**
The result was instinctive, I launched into action, robe and scythe flying as I drew myself to operational tallness, surveying the room frantically, looking for a victim who wasn't there. Panic rising in my soul as I looked for the angry bear, the errant waterskis, the car-wreck, the "unloaded" shotgun. As I did so, he instructed the rest of the class in a catechism I have said at so many scenes beforehand...
**"MANY BELIEVE THAT WE ARE PUZZLED DUE TO OUR CLIENT-SOULS NOT KNOWING HOW THEY DIED. THE TRUE SECRET OF OUR DEPARTMENT IS THAT WE WONDER..."**
I took my cue and replied;
***"How the hell did you live this long...???"***
|
Curiosity killed the cat, a saying one has heard countless times in life. I never thought it would be quite so literal. But here I was in a hospital bed, people moving around me in a monotone black and white. The only thing that had color was the half of me, appearing outside my body and the woman.
“Hello, Jakob” she said, her voice oddly soothing and smooth. The pause between the greeting and name sounding ominous but reassuring.
“Who, who are you?” I asked in shock, looking around frantically. Nothing about the situation made sense.
“I am, a Grim Reaper, of sorts.” She calmly enunciated, every word flowing from her dark lips like a lover giving kisses to tease.
My eyes snapped to her and the dark long hair or what I thought was hair was not hair, I could not even see any other features on her but her smooth pale skin and dark lips. She was wearing what I can only described as mourning clothes with a mourning veil covering the upper portions of her face and flowing far down her black dress.
“How, why? What’s going on?” I managed to get through, nothing made any sense. Why am I dead? I thought, going through my memory.
As I thought about it, it only gave me a headache as it was all so foggy or maybe hazy is a better word. Like waking up with the worst hangover ever. She had probably seen something on me as I tried to recall.
“Do not, think about it. You will, not remember. Death is, a curious thing, do you, not agree?” She said, her voice enchanting. All I could think about right now is wanting to kiss those lips that could allow such beautiful sound to leave. For some reason she smiled and I guess now in hindsight she had planned for this.
“I, will, make you, a deal.” She started oh dear lord those lips, I wondered what they tasted like. “I will, tell you, about, your death. If, you willingly, kiss me, do know, it is not, a deal easily broken, for you, will be death.” I could not think straight at all, she had said she’d tell me of my death if I willingly kissed her, that’s all I heard and I quickly leaned forwards and kissed those luscious lips.
They were death, cold, lifeless unnatural. I tried to break from the kiss but it was like I was frozen solid, rigor mortis through my entire being. It felt like an eternity was passing by but eventually I managed to blink and was sitting back in the hospital bed above my cold corpse. I look over at the woman again and now I see her for what she is, where was once was luscious lips was nothing but bone, I could now see her skeletal features through her veil.
“Why, thank you, Jakob. You, have freed me, taking my curse. As was our deal, you died from curiosity.” For each sentence her strange way of speaking faded and ragged, raspy sounding sentences started to form. Like she hadn’t been capable of speaking properly in forever.
“What do you mean, curiosity killed me?” I said, my words catching in my throat as a cold chill settled through me. Each spoken word draining me.
“Your wife, you were curious, if she was cheating on you. You followed her, but died in a collision, an automotive accident.” Her words pierced my memory and I remembered. My wife she had been acting differently for a while, more distant, cold towards me. I remembered her being away longer after work, coming home later for each passing day.
“Was, she?” I had to know if curiosity had killed me I wanted to know the answer at least
“I cannot answer that, for it is not for me nor you too know. You have new duties, taking my place to reap the souls of those who die a puzzling death be it through curiosity resulting in their death or by unknown means. You are to explain the circumstances to their death so they can move on, I will not lie though most will refute you and come to haunt those they knew in search of answers. As such you will cast them into oblivion.” Her voice was now normal and I could feel myself grasping for what I’d imagine was breath but nothing came, the chill settling inside my bones, every small movement chilling and creaking as if I had not moved in forever.
“I am, a reaper now?” I struggled to form words, the weird pausing she had when first meeting was now part of me. “How, will, I know, what, to do?”
She smiled once more and I saw that her bones had started to fall apart to ash.
“You will know Jakob, that chill you feel, will only grow colder when you do things against your new nature” she said as a final farewell as her body, face and even clothes fell away to ash.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
“Yo, what the hell is going on?” the new soul said sounding surprised, a mixed heritage man. Interesting, he was tall and muscular.
“Hello, Travis, you are, dead.” I said, each word chilling me to the core, I wasn’t really supposed to speak I think, which made no sense if I was to guide them on. I could see looking at him what had happen, like a flashback of memories.
“How the hell am I dead and who the fuck are you?” he spoke, surprise making way for anger and frustration. I saw why he had died, poisoned by his wife, my wife for abusing her, he had not known she was done with him or her resentment. I had no feelings anymore; the chill of death had taken those away but yet I cracked a slight smile.
“I am, a reaper, of sorts. I, do not, know, what killed you. You, have, choices. You, can, accept and, move on, or, you can, look for, an answer” each word was paining me, the chill growing deeper into my bones, it was torture but I wanted this, I wanted him to haunt her only for me to take him to oblivion after. Revenge is a dish best served cold and curiosity will kill the cat.
\-------------------------------
What does a puzzled death mean? I was trying to figure that out, is it unknown? Is it the result of something else? Settled with unanswered questions and unknown causes of death. Mostly because the phrase "Curiosity killed the cat" just felt right with this.
| 2020-10-12T02:07:41 | 2020-10-12T00:58:07 | 79 | 24 |
[WP]- Make me absolutely hate a character, and then make me fall in love with them at the last moment.
|
Every night, she made me run. She pulled me from my bed, no shoes and barely a slip of a nightgown on to run around the castle. I hated how the cloth chafed my nipples and the gravel cut at my feet.
"Come with me, my ugly daughter," the queen would tell me. I wondered why my father never helped me, but I would run until the soles of my feet were ground flesh, always despising her. "Gods forbid that I had given birth to a daughter," she always complained.
I had long, beautiful hair, but when my breasts started to develop and there was swelling in my abdomen, she took shears to my head and shaved me bald. She dressed me in sackcloth and paraded me like a freakshow to the court.
One day, I was through with it. When she came to my room, I stabbed her with a pair of shears. She looked surprised and sad. Defeated.
I had won.
My father came into the room. "Well, it looks like your mother isn't here to protect you anymore," he sneered, slowly pulling his pants off.
|
Normally the owner of the nickname "Tubs" would be heavy. I had never heard of a scrawny Tubs until I moved to Venture Park with my parents and sister when I was fifteen. He would take to the streets sometime in the afternoon, shuffling around in his dirty, ripped jeans and walk around with no purpose.
My part-time job in high school was bagging at a Sweetbay. When it was quiet I brought the baskets in and took the trash out. I remember my trainer telling me that we had trouble with people stealing from our bins and gave me this look like "you know who I mean".
It wasn't much longer after that when I caught Tubs stealing from our bins. "Hey!" I yelled, mustering all the authority a sixteen *almost seventeen*-year old could. I was running at full speed; he had seen me and had started walking away. "You can't steal from here!" I said, looking to confront him. I'm sad to say that I remember thinking this was going to be an easy fight, if it came to it, and that no one liked Tubs so I would be a hero. He mumbled and kept walking away.
"Didn't you hear me?" I could almost reach him.
"Kid, I'm leaving. Leave me alone!"
"Why, so you can go molest some other girls?" The look on his face could crush my soul now if I thought about it long enough, but back then it was a triumph. I had won and went back to work, surging with unspent adrenaline.
The older I got, the more that memory got to me. I began to realize it wasn't a brave thing I had done. The wisdom that can come with age, if you're lucky, began to reform that scene for what it was: a cocky kid looking to be a winner by punching below the belt. It was a small confrontation but I felt I owed it to him to apologize.
When I moved back home after college, I began asking around town about Tubs. It was a little side project of mine, done discreetly over a few years, so as to not stir suspicion. I heard a lot of gossip about him. "He was arrested for burning some dogs a while back." "I heard he deals meth and coke." "One time he stabbed a guy in a bar fight." So many rumors but nothing substantial other than the town focusing all their negative attention on him.
I wound up getting a good lead and talked with one of my older neighbors, Stella, who liked to water her garden in her cotton bathrobe whenever weather permitted.
"Tubs? Why do you want to know about him for?"
"I'm really just curious, Ma'am."
"Well, I'll tell you but you'll have to sit down for some sweet tea. And you have to clear your mind of all those stories everyone's been telling about him."
I sat on her porch, trying to get comfortable while she fetched the sweet tea. It was a day to make me envious of the tomatoes she had just watered. Even at 10:30 the humidity was oppressive.
Stella came back and poured some tea for me and her from her beige pitcher. "I went to school with Tubs. Did you know that?"
"No, Ma'am."
"I did. Of course, he wasn't 'Tubs' back then. His name was Richard Mansfield, but most kids called him Richie. He dated one of my friends, who was a year behind us in. Emily Standers. Pretty little thing she was. They were close, those two. Maybe a little too close for her father's liking. I heard he caught them in the field behind her house."
"What happened?"
"Surprisingly, he didn't beat the tar out of Richie. I would have thought that, since I knew Emily's father and all. No, took him down to the police station. He got charged with "child molestation" or something like that. Life didn't get much better after that."
"He went to jail?"
"Yep. When he got out he came back. His mother didn't want nothing to do with him. Still, he tried. She died awhile back. He kept living here, though."
I visited the only graveyard in town, walking up and down rows, looking for the Mansfield plot. I found Tubs first.
"Here," I said, handing him a bouquet of flowers. "For her."
"Thanks," he said, looking utterly bewildered.
"I'm sorry."
"For what?"
He didn't remember. I was probably just another bad day for him.
"For them. For nothing, I guess. I just wanted to give them to you so you didn't have to steal them."
"Well, thank you kindly."
"Can I ask you a question?"
"I guess I owe you one."
"Why do they hate you so much?"
He sighed deeply. He placed the flowers on his mother's grave, tenderly arranging them. "I can't really tell you why everyone hates me. I think about it a lot. The only thing I can come up with is people need someone to hate. If I gotta be that person so that they don't hate someone else, I'm okay with that."
| 2013-10-21T20:25:12 | 2013-10-21T19:46:01 | 126 | 58 |
[WP] It's 2020 and an incredibly dismal batch of presidential candidates have led the US people to form a historic pact. Everyone has agreed they will not vote. However, you alone have refused to give up your vote. The candidates realize they must now spend all their campaign money to win you over.
|
At first it was a laugh, a lark. No one was going to vote. Ha ha, so funny.
Granted, between Sarah Palin and her daughter running against a pair of clowns. No, literally the Democrats had put up a couple of clowns, in makeup and everything, because they thought they couldn't lose. Billy and Jojo, I always forgot which was which.
So, granted, it seemed like a joke of an election. Then the no vote movement started. It was slow at first, but then the first two states both had zero votes... the politicians realized they had made a mistake. They started throwing out incentives, but no one voted.
Here I am in Alaska... the last state to vote. And I'm the only person who hasn't signed the legally binding "Articles of Fuck Politics".
Sarah offered me a hunting lodge on TV. The DNC (on behalf of Jojo and Billy the clowns) offered me a consulting position with a salary. Sarah offered to take me hunting with Dick Cheney. So on and so forth.
At first it was amusing, but when the day to vote came and I walked into the poles, with Sarah on one side shouting about making America great again and the clowns wildly gesturing towards me on the other side.
Once I reached the pole, had registered and gotten my voting slip... well there was only one choice wasn't there?
I wrote myself in.
|
I woke up to the morning sun streaming into my face, its rays making me want to stay in bed and sleep the rest of the day off. Unfortunately, it was the beginning of another workweek, and I had no choice but to go.
As I got up and walked from my bed, I heard the sounds of a TV - something about people making an alliance and not voting in the upcoming election. I moved to the doorway that separated my room and the living room, and squinted at the TV, parting away the stray hairs that were in my face.
In big, bold, red letters were **NEW ALLIANCE VOWS TO ABSTAIN FROM VOTING IN ELECTION**
I wasn't too surprised by it, since politics always seemed to be corrupted, no matter who was in any political race. I had a flashback to the U.S. election back in 2016; now THAT was a really big shitstorm. All the votes were split between three candidates, and it made for a very messy atmosphere that persisted up through the end of the election season.
I hadn't been keeping up with this current political cycle, but there were several nation-wide debates about national and global security, and a few more topics about privacy and augmented reality; I was too groggy to fully comprehend and remember them.
"Seems like another cycle of people hating on each other again," I murmured to myself.
I took off my pajamas and took a quick shower, not forgetting to use my favorite shampoo and conditioner for that extra self-esteem boost (after all, mango-strawberry shampoo and conditioner work wonders together, and most people love it anyway!)
I put on my normal work outfit - a hybrid jeans-dress pants that was comfy in the cold and the heat, and a button-up shirt with some underclothes for emergencies - and brushed my teeth.
Just as I had finished gurgling with my mouthwash, though, I heard a sudden knock at the door.
I looked at my mirror in my bathroom, giving myself a puzzled look.
"Who could that be?"
I hurriedly walked to my apartment's front door, making sure I looked just presentable enough for public view. I peeked through the eye-hole in my door, and saw a man in a suit and tie outside.
I unlocked the bolts and chain from my door and opened it; instantly, I got a whiff of half-assed deodorant and sweat in my face.
In my view, I saw a man with a traditional black suit, red tie, and black pants. He had very fair skin and slightly brown hair, which had been cut short and neatly - almost TOO neatly.
The man was surprised to see me open the door. He stammered for a second, as if he didn't expect me to be me.
"Why, H-Hello there! I'm f-from the campaign for -"
"Sorry, not interested," I replied with a kind but firm tone. I began to close the door, but the man then jammed the door with his foot.
"W-Wait! I haven't even told you what I'm here for!"
"You just did. You're here campaigning on behalf of one of the political candidates." I rebuked him with a bit more irritation in my voice.
"O-oh, so I did, then?" The man seemed to grow increasingly twitchy, and no doubt he hadn't been used to talking to people before, much less dealing with rejection.
"Get straight to the point with this, I still need to get to work and time is money for me. Also, I hate politics, so make sure you explain it faster if it relates to that." I hadn't finished checking my bag for my items, and I was short on time, so I decided to be direct.
He paused for a moment, and then continued talking, his voice more composed.
"The reason I am here is because I am campaigning to you, the lone available voter for this upcoming political election, on behalf of -"
"Lone available voter? There's over 300 million people in this country, and there's definitely at least one other eligible person you can talk to instead of me." I was amazed by how ignorant this guy was - why was he even campaigning to me when he doesn't even know basic voter statistics?
"Well, as of last night...you are the only one left that can vote. Look."
He pointed into my apartment, at my still-running TV.
I turned around, squinting once again to read the bolded red text.
**CONFIRMED - ONLY ONE VOTER AVAILABLE FOR 2020 ELECTION**
I was thoroughly confused - was I seeing the words right?
I moved closer to the TV, finally coming within earshot of what was being said.
A female reporter was reading off a piece of paper.
"We have confirmed that there is only one voter who has not pledged to not vote in the upcoming 2020 election...we do not know the exact location of this voter, but we think that this voter is located in..."
I heard the last part of the reporter's sentence and tuned out the rest. I was in utter disbelief.
Of all the possible things that could happen, everyone...EVERYONE...opted to not vote.
I heard something snap in my mind, and I turned around and rushed towards the man still standing in front of my front door. I firmly clenched my hands onto his squishy shoulders, thrust my face inches from his own face, and quietly screamed:
"No...Oh, Gods no."
| 2016-07-31T19:54:22 | 2016-07-31T15:37:20 | 67 | 47 |
[WP] You, an atheist, have died. All the gods that have ever been line up to offer you their version of heaven if only you believe in _them_. Turns out souls are currency and yours is up for grabs.
|
Do you know how many active gods are there? Three thousand five hundred and twenty seven. I counted.
Afterlife is hell for a non believer. Human, and to lesser extent animal souls are but a power source for the supernatural. And atheist souls especially so. No, we don't have any special powers, we just didn't spent any of our spiritual energy on prayer and worship while alive. So every God and Goddess is at my door, offering eternity in their paradise, for a small price of my soul in nine easy installments.
So here I am, in a mock up of my old flat, that my subconsciousness created when, upon my arrival, I collapsed unable to cope with the shock of the transition.
I just woke up, and there is already knocking at my door. Bloody witnesses. I get up to give them a piece of my mind, but the corridor is blocked by a pile of junk mail. Somehow I know that there are precisely 3527 letters. Unless Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs wrote to me again, yes THEY can get you even here.
Now the landline phone starts to ring. A few seconds later my mobile joins in. Gods knocking at my door start arguing. It is too noisy, so I put my noise isolating headphones on and sit by my computer. Good thing my subconscious mind was able to recreate my whole steam library, or I would be bored into accepting one of the offers.
But only thing I get is an error message, apparently my mailbox is full. Indeed there are literally billions messages with headlines like: 72 local V1rg1ns are waiting for you.
That was the drop that spilled the camel's back, or something like that. I bellowed "Fuck you all! If I want a paradise I will make one myself."
There was a deep rumble from outside I could hear despite the headphones, then everything went quiet. The phones were silent, heap of mail was gone. And behind the door, an infinite white plane, waiting to be moulded into shape.
|
There I was, a mere mortal soul among the deities of old. I had been to a convention or two in my previous lifetime, so it had a familiar feel but something was just... uneasy. There was a flood of others like me and unlike the conventions I had attended, I couldn't feel anyone pushing or crowding around me, which was nice but hollow. I looked around and saw what felt like countless booths, each with its own proprietor and festive decorations. There was an aisle lined with marble columns and one with ornately decorated totem poles. I began closer inspections to get an idea of what was going on.
There were grayish floating masses everywhere. I looked down at myself and while I share a hue or two with these ghouls, I had a familiar form compared to there floating gas-like balls. It was kind of cool to see a real manifestation of Buddha and Zeus. History was a fond subject for me and it made me a bit uneasy to see what I could only imagine was Ra. I don't know much about the Egyptian gods and goddesses but I figure every sect is pulling out the big guns for this event. It was all a bit much to take in as it really defied everything I knew and believed in. Or, well, didn't believe in.
"You there," I hear above the murmur of the crowd. I instinctively know that I must be the target of this beckoning. "You seem to be lost and that is unusual here. Are you a free agent?"
I turn and look and see the image I have always had of the Roman god, Mercury. His bronze helmet has wings and so do his sandals. His tunic is white like a cloud. Not a solid white but almost translucent as if I stared long enough I would stare straight through to blue skies. It was starting to hypnotize me in a melodic and soothing fashion. He snapped his fingers and the trance was broken.
"Hmmm- What?" I spit out as I come back to my senses.
"A free agent. You know, one of the lucky few who get to choose teams after the game has been played?!?"
"I am not sure I am following."
"Come with me then. Maybe I can explain it." He reaches out his hand.
I go to take it but a giant ax blade comes out of nowhere and severs his hand in a flash. The Roman god rolls his eyes and instead of a bloody hand falling to the floor, his hand transforms into a bluish cloud and dissipates into the air. A brief moment passes and the hand is whole again.
"Trust not that heathen," a deep voice bellows. The air is filled with electricity and I feel the hair standing up on the back of my neck. I follow the ax to its handle and the handle to its wielder. A giant, blond man garbed in a fine tunic standing at almost two feet taller than me looks Mercury dead in the eyes. "He would have taken your hand all the way back to the underworld. Be wary of he." Mercury scuttles off and vanishes into the crowd.
"Thor!" I exclaimed.
"Meinfretr! A few movies and a comic book and everyone is an expert in Norse deities. I am no god of thunder, little one. I am Forseti, Norse god of Justice and Truth." He says modestly, yet still very aggressively as he politely bows.
"My apologies. I meant no offense. I didn't think there was anything after death. I am just very lost and confused right now."
"As you should be. You must be a wanderer. I do not envy you."
"What does this mean? Wanderer? Free Agent? I have no clue what is going on." I was getting frustrated and I could tell he could sense it.
"In life, you choose a god, goddess, or... whatever. You pray to it. You call upon it. You devote your life to it. Then you die and come here. If you do such, you go straight to that deity and they collect you. However, little one, you chose not to choose. So now you have to wander the aisles and eventually make a final decision."
"What is in it for them? Why am I important?"
"Foolish mortal. How important is a single gold coin to you? Worthless. How much worth does a pile of gold coins have? Depends on the pile."
"So... I am loose change in the couch trying to decide which piggy bank to enter? I assume I get some sort of choice by the titles I am being referred to by?" I replied as I attempted to put the pieces of my situation together.
"Close enough."
"So... do I get something in exchange for my soul?"
"It depends on the contract you sign. Some even more foolish mortals sign away their souls before they arrive and get nothing they may take with them. Other, more conservative mortals, like you, might be able to bargain more readily and easily."
"Hmmmm. I find this interesting. So, what would I get if I pledged my soul to you?"
"Valhalla."
"That doesn't seem all that fun." I said hesitantly, just now realizing I was insulting this god's way of life and culture.
"It is not the place the poems describe it as. It is far grander."
"So it isn't a giant feast and fight?"
Forseti seemed stunned. "Actually that is quite accurate. How have you come about such knowledge?"
"My former country didn't invest well in public education so I guess you could blame lots of misinformation and poor instruction."
He nodded in amusement.
"I'm going to definitely put you at the top of my list, Foresty. I just want to hear some other offers first. I appreciate your help and wisdom!"
Forseti started to correct me but I was already walking away toward my first aisle. So many to choose from and with no deadline, I really seem to have my pick of the litter. But where do I start my journey of 10,000 steps? I could go East to West or should I go first to last? I begin scoping out the aisles and I see my pick. First up, the Inuit gods.
| 2017-07-09T02:15:05 | 2017-07-09T01:59:43 | 173 | 94 |
[WP] You're trapped in IKEA after closing hours. There is a Killer following you through all the display rooms. You want to leave but can't find a way out because it's IKEA. Title: Chopping Mall
|
##Monster##
A monster stalked behind me, his feet soft and silent on the polished marble. It was almost impossible to see him, even with the obnoxious glare of industrial lights. He was using something to kill us, something nasty and sharp - the pale corpses littered about like broken toys.
Ikea used to be a little piece of magic. Almost living dioramas, housing the strange and wondrous beasts known only to little me as furniture always seemed to intriguing. Now, it was all stained red, carved up like a slab of meat. Blood, sticky, scarlet blood was splashed across the walls, scrawling various horrifying messages. Most threatened madness, but some were more concerning; that is, if gory suicide notes aren’t worrying enough.
Hiding under the cheap wooden table, I struggled to slowly crawl towards the exit doors. The shadows managed to hide me enough, but sooner rather than later I was going to run out of cover. Secondly, the killer could be anywhere, just as lost as I was in the maze of the fucking store.
Shit.
Triple shitflakes with a side serving of shitty.
Then I heard it, whistling so eerily like that of a songbird. It was beautiful in a macabre way, somehow enrapturing and disturbing at the same time. Perverse curiosity filled me. I wanted to find that song. I wanted to find who sung it.
And I wanted to snap their neck. Slice open their guts and let the blood flow out, let the bones break and shatter far, far below on the floor. Let them suffer.
Frozen in placed, poised to run, I hear it, a kind of sound that parodied a laugh in sick way. Fucked up, demented, the mayor of nutville.
I bolted, my pulse a jagged line piercing up and down, spinning faster and faster. I knew that he was behind me, the sound of his footsteps an echo just behind. Or ahead. Or in the shadows. I still didn’t know. God, he was getting to me. Manipulating me.
A cat torturing a mouse until it tore it open with its claws.
Madness. That is the only way I could describe running. It was horrible, like watching someone you love pass away. Like being stuck outside on a rainy day, watching as your sunlight dreams get washed away.
God shit fuck no. It couldn’t end this way.
Swinging behind a particularly tall shelf, the killer sprinted past, yowling like a beaten god. Slinking sideways, I tucked myself back away into the shadows, the shelves becoming a forest within the maze that was this mall, the wood the only solid thing in the world.
Run. Hide. Sigh. Repeat.
Finally, the exit appeared, looming like a giant black gate in the distance. Safe, secure and cloaked in the shadow of night. I’d already broken cover once, the killer obviously pissed in his own fucked up way. If I ran, I could shatter the glass and run through the carpark, alerting him and maybe dying in the process. Meanwhile, I could hide here and wait until help eventually arrived.
One.
Two.
Three.
Again, the world becomes a blur. The ground no longer holds my weight, the panting and giggling booming in my head. My skull feels as if a firework is going off, my body slowly tearing itself to pieces. The knife goes in and out, the grace and speed the killer uses almost erotic, gentle in a morbid sense. Not painful, but cold. So very, very cold.
Twisting, fingers slashed across its edge, I plunge the knife into him, searching those hollow eyes from the exact fucking moment when the monster dies. I want to see his last breath. I want to see him bleed.
He only smiles with that skeletal grimace as my blood pools with his, the knife buried deep within his black heart.
|
I had always hated Ikea.
Leah, was unfortunately infatuated with both their furniture and their meatballs, and the twisting, turning, dead-ending and seemingly never ending maze of furniture and home goods seemed to only stoke her passion for the place.
The things I do for love.
I’m not saying it’s her fault. Obviously that psychotic madman following (or leading?) me was to blame. But, I never would have been caught dead in the Chopping Mall if Leah hadn’t drug me here in the first place.
It was a pretty normal visit, up until she and I got separated from the main store crowd as the announcements that the store would soon be closing began playing over the intercom system. We had somehow turned into a corner of the store that looked distinctly different than the rest. There were signs saying “retreo” hanging here and there, and all of the furniture seemed to have come straight out of the 70’s, along with appropriately kitschy names like, the “Peenk Fleuudenband,” the “Lued Zeppeliner,” and the “Eebone Sebbeth.” Feeling exhausted, I sat down for a minute on the Peenk Fleuudenband, trying to see if it would work as combination couch/guest bed in our gaming room, while Leah forged ahead around the corner, presumably to see if she could find some retro piece of wall art that she would eventually tire of two years from now. I closed my eyes for a few minutes. Unfortunately, it wasn’t much time before the next store closing announcement came over the intercom. I got up and began to look for Leah.
I walked in the direction I had last seen her go, around a blind corner adorned with some of the ugliest floor and table lamps I’ve ever seen, only to find a short hallway that ended abruptly in an enclosed kiddie corner with nothing but a few decorative plants to fill the space. Confused, I had turned around and went back in the direction we entered the retro section from, thinking that she must have doubled back and thought not to disturb me. As I retraced our steps from earlier, I couldn’t for the life of me find the pathway through which we had entered the Retreo section. I could have sworn it was right near the Lued Zeppeliner but where I thought the doorway should have been there was just blank wall with some awful cosmic blanket hanging as decoration. I walked along that wall, hoping that I had just misremembered the exact location of the door. More tacky furniture passed by as I traced the exterior of what felt to be a rapidly shrinking enclosure. Couches, end tables, ottomans, and a seemingly never ending supply of everything in between cluttered the periphery of my vision as I focused on following the wall. I followed it around twists, back to the kiddie corner with the fake plants, back past the Peenk Fleuudenband, and eventually, impossibly, back to the awful cosmic blanket hanging next to the Lued Zeppeliner.
It couldn’t be.
But it was.
I was trapped.
My heartrate was already elevated out of anger and frustration, but now, it jumped another octave as fear began to wash over me.
Ikea was a heartless company for how they manipulated people during the in-store shopping experience, but however bad they might be, they weren’t in the business of TRAPPING customers.
I pulled out my phone, hoping to call Leah, still unwilling to fully believe that I was actually trapped and not just being an idiot with no sense of direction. The beautiful display of my brand new iphone X stared up at me, blank. It was supposed to turn on just by sensing I was looking at it. It was brand new and had a full charge when we left, but, after playing with all of its buttons and making all manner of faces at it to no avail, I figured it must have somehow lost its charge. It didn’t make sense.
I know I said I was frightened, upset, and frustrated before, but I don’t think I can accurately describe the panic that began rising within me after I realized my only connection to the outside world was lost. The intercom played again, saying that the store was now closing, and that everyone should take their purchases and make their way to the cashiers now.
I started retracing the wall, hoping, praying, that I had missed a gap somewhere during my initial traverse that would lead me to freedom. The scene played out much as it did before. Me, paying barely any attention to the furniture around me as I searched desperately for a way out of this godawful prison. I must have retraced the wall four or five more times before I definitely, conclusively decided that I was trapped.
I yelled. I should preface this by saying that I’m not a loud person. I don’t like to be a burden on others and I like drawing attention to myself even less, especially when it might result in someone casually strolling around the corner only to ask, “What the fuck are you yelling for?” but in this situation, convinced I was trapped and would not be able to get out alone? I yelled and I screamed as loud as I could for anyone that might hear me.
Yelling didn’t help. I pulled out my phone again, hoping it would have somehow come back to life. That big beautiful screen just stared back at me, lifeless.
I sat back down on some couch I didn’t bother looking at the name of and tried to think. Tried to think of how this could have happened, tried to remember definitively how and where we came into this section. I could have SWORN it was right next to the Leud Zeppeliner, right where that shitty cosmic decorative blanket was hanging. Now that I thought it over, I was absolutely certain it was EXACTLY where that shitty blanket was hanging.
I got up, determined to find my way out. I walked over and ripped the hanging down…doing so was the first thing that had made me smile since I sat down to rest what must have been almost an hour ago at this point.
I looked at the wall closely. The blue paint looked like normal, blue wall paint. It was totally unremarkable. I continued looking…and then…there. Parallel lines, up and down the wall that looked just a bit fresher than the rest of the surface. There were stains and dirt and grime, not enough to be casually noticeable, but enough to see when your face was a foot away from the wall, that covered the rest of the area, but those two lines almost exactly a doors width apart, looked clean. I felt one of the lines. My finger came back with just the slightest amount of blue paint on it.
I knocked on the wall. It felt pretty solid, definitely not like a typical piece of sheetrock covering properly placed studs. I knocked around outside of the fresh lines, and there, the wall returned to the normal hollow sound one would expect. I thought about it for only a few moments before I grabbed one of the small end tables nearby, and put its foot through the wall next to where I was now certain a heavy door must have been placed since Leah and I walked into this section.
I opened a hole, tore out the insulation, and punched through the sheetrock on the other side and looked through.
Relief flooded through me as I saw the main section of the store, with all of its svelte Swedish designed modern furniture. I continued hacking away with the table until I had opened a space between the studs large enough to shimmy through.
I emerged into the main living room section, dusty, coughing, and looking utterly disheveled, but I was free.
Or so I thought…
------------------------------------------
Hate to leave it half finished but gotta run to work. Will finish it up over lunch time if there's interest!
| 2017-09-14T13:29:42 | 2017-09-14T02:02:41 | 43 | 18 |
[WP] Humans can transfer their minds between android "shells" freely. You survived a doomsday meteor by long-distance transferring to an orbiting satellite. 10 years of scanning later, you detect an empty shell on the surface.
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It was a decade ago that the earth's surface turned grey. I only know how long it was because of Enoch's infallible time keeping.
I'll keep the backstory short. Humans were afraid of death. Somebody invented the "Shell" an android body with the capacity to hold a human mind. We each had implants and we could jump from shell to shell as long as that shell wasn't being used at the time. Easy right.
Well, it turned out we couldn't avoid death forever of course. Its crazy how a giant rock falling from the sky can cause so much damage.
I guess I was the only one that thought to hop into a satellite in Earth's orbit. I haven't gotten any communications from the other satellites in that time and I don't expect any.
I could see the Earth was still gray through Enoch's maintenance camera system. It had started to clear a little though. I had Enoch running 24 hours to see signs of life on the planet or at least a shell.
It seems the debris cloud was blocking all transmission to Earth and i could not penetrate it.
I moved the little appendages around on the five cameras. It was strange being able to see five things at once but it seems my mind was able to adapt to anything without much issue as long as a brain wasn't there to hinder it.
The satellite's onboard computer notified me that it had detected something. I transitioned to digital view. I could see what the satellite saw. It was programmed to put a red indicator on whatever it was instructed to search for and I could see the red dot, right in the middle of Australia.
I queried the computer to find out if it was alive or a shell. The computer could not tell. No problem the computer sometimes had issues deciphering my instructions. I tried querying heat signatures remembering only after I started the process that the infrared hadn't worked in three years.
I was livid.
I queried again this time asking if the object was moving. It was not, at least the computer could do that much. I actually had some anxiety quelling up from the depths of my mind about this. Without an adrenal gland I don't know how anxiety could possibly manifest but I felt it like a pressure somewhere. It had to be a phantom phenomena since not having a body made it impossible to feel pressure.
I realized I was facing an ultimatum. The mind cannot hop into another human without severe consequences. If the human is strong my conciousness would be absorbed. This had been studied in labs when humans became "entangled". It was impossible to get the mind out once it was in there and it could be communicated with through telepathy. However, anytime someone tried to communicate with an entangled mind all it would do is screech and scream nonsense and bellow. The process of absorption would strip the mind of all sentience and that wasn't exactly something I wanted to happen.
If the human's mind was weak however, low self-esteem, total insanity, etc... The encroaching mind could take over. The primary mind became the secondary and the new one took residence. However, absorption did not work the same way in this case. The weak mind would be pushed to the back no doubt but it could communicate with the new mind and was simply trapped with no control over the body. These people were called dissociative due to the secondary mind sometimes grabbing control of the body when in trance state or otherwise.
In any case those things did not appeal to me in any way. But I was anxious to be bipedal again. Or even a dog, a dog would be nice. I didn't care much. I didn't want to suffer though.
I queried the computer six more times. Is the object breathing, inconclusive; Does it have a heartbeat, inconclusive; does it look like a fucking robot? Inconclusive.
I'd been in space a decade. I needed out of this canister I was squeezed into. I needed to make the decision right there.
I steeled myself. Human, Robot, or Dog, i'm coming in...
|
I’m not much for keeping a narrative but I’m concerned – if the diffs I’m archiving get lost (and right now, who can trust anything?) I’m gonna be screwed putting together a new working version of me. I mean, technically, the now-state of me is going to be messed up if I break continuity anyway, regardless of what the experts tell you. Even cobbling together a decent working version of me trying to catch up with diffs will at best be a lame stunated version. So my thinking was – I’ll keep some notes, right? And worst case if all my caches got wiped but some version exists on a backup, they at least catch up with this? And… I mean, the data storage… I can fit a lot more narrative on an atom than big bloated copies of me. It’s an option, that’s what I’m saying. I guess.
Um… what questions would you (me) have now… OK, how did I get here? What happened to the plan? Better explain the plan. So you know for digital beings, really the only requirements are power, and raw materials, and assemblers, of course. If you like interacting with meat folks or doing manual labor then having an avatar shell is nice, too. And backups. Then there’s Earth. Obviously, things were going to hell on Earth fast. We’ve got the conservative government elections yelling party platforms about how digibeings weren’t human, not anymore. We’ve got the religious nutbags threatening to wipe everything back to the stone age which the Almighty would prefer, as if. The technocrats whispering on the chatboards about how it might be better if all the meaters got a reset, just to calm things down for a generation. And, of course, the Mil-Ind complex taking over more and more of the various arsenals, digital lockers, access transit beam networks and so forth.
Hence the big plan. I got access thanks to my project manager right at H-Dyne to the archives we buffer, so it was easy to get a big cache of folks squared away. I mean hell – I wake up after an apocalypse in the future, I don’t want to be alone, right? Or fill it full of copies of me. I don’t even LIKE myself. Screw that! I got the cache, fabricated some access, and picked the target: Cape Green [Dynesat 3FF], a nice little automated facility in low orbit, which was perfect. I already had command access there since it was part of my project team’s inventory for one of the Resource Efficiency upgrades we were doing for the military, it was full of fifty folks who were already used to taking orders from me (as a Project Manager, not a C.O.), it had a big pile of power between the H-D microFuse and the sixteen solar arms, and best of all it had tons of assembler supplies and a bank of assemblers – everything from a MoleculeVat to a H-Dyne Rhino. We’d be set. We’d fake a comm outage and wait for the shit to finish groundside.
Only it didn’t happen that way. I copied into the ATB network expecting a quick trip but ran headlong into some soldier-firewall claiming all the military assets being run by H-Dyne were temporarily off-limits. Minutes later it happened – Last Day. You can imagine: I’m sitting in the queue and watching the news windows and reports start coming in – missiles launching, arsenals emptying, then the fundies launch the disassembler bombs. Fun. Another military retaliates with a release of a half-psychotic virus designed to take down key enemy infrastructure, except it mutates at the last second and before you know it sats are de-orbiting, blah blah blah.
So: I panicked. I waited until enough resources were pulled to weaken the firewalls and jumped through the ATB junction to the first open node still with H-Dyne clearance. I didn’t check it first. One of my many boneheaded mistakes. I mean – I’m a project manager, not an operations guy. If I had a few minutes and a Gannt chart I could’ve scheduled milestones or something.
Annnd here we are now. I ran an integrity check and I’m mostly here. I’m on an out-of-the-box Qoob – a fucking v5 Qoob from Queri, and I know, if anybody from H-Dyne would see me now, on a competitor’s hardware… The Qoob was made for extending digital space networks for the ATBnet, not bootstrapping civilization. It’s part of the long distance network, too -it’s not even orbiting Earth. Only one qbit matrix, so I can’t even instantiate someone smarter without shutting me off first (not that I would – I don’t want to take the chance somebody says “I don’t know this Sal guy” and doesn’t turn me back on.)
On the plus side: I guess I’m lucky it got launched before it got infected and vectored down to Earth. I got the backups of all the folks I skimmed. If I don’t think too hard, and nothing happens to the isotopes and one panel, I’ve got a few million years of run time although I can’t create a nice virtual environment or anything. But I can’t BUILD anything. The Qoob has no assemblers, just some basic repair waldos, and of course no shell to download into. I can look over on what’s left of Earth as it burns, I guess.
We’re fucked.
*
Hey there, text-only-backup. Interesting news! Once the interference cleared, I found a shell. Bad news: it’s a Qartesian Rider, just a single gram of motivators, tendrils and processors. I downloaded the manual and it looks like it’s used for covertly locking onto lower level life forms for biological surveys. In terms of motive power, it doesn’t have much. Plus, y’know, it’s a Queri again. I’m glad they bit it.
That’s not the interesting part, though. The neat part is it got ejected at the last moment so it’s down on Storm. I guess it was going to part of the Queri ecological survey. Remember how Queri was saying that even though it’s not habitable now, because of all the volcanoes and planetstorms and the background rads and etc etc Storm would eventually be a colonizable planet? How it has single-celled life and a similar long-term outlook as Earth did? Sure, I thought the same thing – talk to me about it in an eon or two when we can properly get a team down. Apparently those guys didn’t agree and landed a few tools down there to start studying it.
I’m not sure what this means to me, but I can tell you, I’m bored already. All the comm signals from Earth are dead. My external ‘scopes on the Qoob can see it just fine – but it’s pretty fucked up. Earth’s whole surface is being turned into dust between the nukes, disassemblers, and orbital impacts. One of the three orbital asteroids must have gone down since I only see two now. All the iron is starting to turn the Earth a sad reddish tinge.
I guess everyone is gone.
*
I fast-forwarded a few decades watching the Earth and Storm. Storm’s pretty much the same – all water, lightning, lava, you know. It’s Storm. Earth continued to break down until the surface was scoured dry. All that’s left is just the larger superstructures buried under all the dust.
I’ve been thinking, though. Deep underground on Earth are (I hope) the primary Caches – the one-way backups each nation-state kept in the event of a planetary catastrophe, like a meteor strike. It might be possible, once things calm down, to get back there and get things up and running again. I could instantiate all the people who aren’t mostly idiots. Get civilization up and running.
I mean… after I find a way to get back. Earth’s pretty far from Storm. I don’t have an interplanetary vehicle, and the only actual physical presence I have is a bug-sized shell, floating in the primeval soup on Storm.
I better start charting some milestones.
| 2017-11-29T08:16:59 | 2017-11-29T07:11:45 | 23 | 10 |
[WP] You're a struggling comedian who's on his last penny, when your childhood friend tells you he's got you a job, he works for MI5. You're informed there are mind readers roaming London stealing credit card info, it's your job to think of jokes while he keeps an eye out for anyone laughing.
|
“This is a joke right?”
My friend just shrugged his shoulders.
“I know I am struggling and not the most successful comedian but you don’t seriously expect me you need my help to catch some telepathic criminals. Like you have to have better methods of tracking these criminals down. Let’s say for a second that I believe you and that you catch one of these criminals due to one of my uproarious jokes. You can’t arrest someone for laughing. That’s not proof. If you really want to catch these guys why not just puts some plants making credit card purchases in a public space and record if someone uses those cards. There at least you would have proof that they committed credit card fraud.”
My friend scratched his chin and said “That. that is admittedly a better plan. Have you considered working for MI5?.
“Well I do need job. Being a comedian just hasn’t panned out for me. Perhaps you should try it. You have some hilarious ideas.”
|
Harry walked into the middle of the dark stage and flinched, blinded by an unexpected spotlight. Someone chuckled. Harry glared sideways, off-stage. The manager shrugged. Harry sighed, loosening up. The lack of a proper cue was annoying, but at least he wasn't getting stuff thrown at him like at that last gig. An awkward silence spread through the dimly lit pub. The set was almost ruined. Fuck it. Harry grabbed the microphone and started his routine.
It began with a story about the time he challenged a nun to a drinking contest... and lost. Like usual, people were slightly bored by the tedium of the specific circumstances that led to it, but warmed up to him by the time he explained the logistics of a communion wine keg-stand. Harry wiped his brow. That was his first humanitarian aid mission and, while memorable, it also corrupted him into a twisted monster. Now, he actually looked forward to natural disasters just so he could party with those nuns again.
The audience laughed. It was actually working. Harry relaxed, transitioning into his next bit.
And then he bombed.
In hindsight, joking about how alcoholics sometimes don't realize they have a problem in a pub full of beer hipsters wasn't a good idea. The manager signaled him to get off the stage. Harry frowned. No, he could still save the set with a well-timed joke. People booed his attempt.
"What?!?" shouted Harry. "You drunks feel uncomfortable? Y-you think it's normal to have a drink every night 'just to take the edge off'? Well I got news for you, shitheads, normal people don't need a fucking drink every time they go out! If you need to get a buzz just to interact with another human being, or you're incapable of staying sober because you want to fit in, then you have a fucking problem! It's that simple! Fuck! Vapid cowards like you are what give honest alcoholics like me a bad rep! Everyone likes to blame the vodka, the beer, the rum, but really, the problem is yourselves. I've been getting irresponsibly drunk my entire life and I've never used it as an excuse for my failings! Sure, I'm broke, but that's because I'm an impulsive douche! It would've happened even if I stayed sober my entire life!"
Everyone listening to Harry struggled to breathe between their cackles. They loved it! Unfortunately, more than two thirds of the audience had left the pub mid-rant, so it was just a handful of people. And they were probably laughing at his colossal failure, not his delivery. The manager didn't look pleased. He still paid Harry, but he made it known that they would never hire him again. Harry slumped on his way out of the pub. He couldn't keep doing this. Why couldn't he just work on safe, inoffensive, marketable material? Why did he always have to be a contrarian prick? It didn't make him cool; it made him a misanthrope with a poor career choice.
Harry shivered. The thought of selling out was more disgusting than being a corporate drone. But what choice did he have? He wasn't a young man anymore. All the sacrifices made, all the years spent on learning the craft, worthless. Just to end up a mediocre comedian making slightly below minimum wage.
"I disagree" said a posh voice behind Harry. "I think your life would've been infinitely worse if you hadn't started drinking."
Harry turned around, widening his eyes. "Ben?"
"I mean, you've always been a pretty miserable guy. Imagine how much of a jerk you would've been if you *weren't* able to get drunk. You'd go on a killing spree!"
Harry grinned. "That's putting it lightly you sneaky fuck!"
The two men found another pub nearby and immediately got to catching up. Harry hadn't seen his friend in a while. Ben was always traveling for his weird job so they never had time to drink anymore. After trading stories and downing a pint, Ben leaned over and said:
"I'm afraid I haven't been entirely honest with you... The reason I'm here is because I'm in desperate need of your help."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"
"This is..." Ben made an embarrassed wince. "This is gonna sound weird, but we uh... I need you to walk around the city thinking about the funniest things you can imagine."
Harry wrinkled his face in confusion. "I'm sorry but... why?"
"That's the thing, you see, the reason I came to you is because I need someone who will help me without asking questions. It's vital that you don't know. That said, your patience would be rewarded handsomely."
"This isn't illegal, innit?"
"Oh heavens no, far from it."
"And all I have to do is walk around thinking?"
"Funny stuff, yes."
"That's the hard part..."
"Oh lighten up! You remember that thing you always told me?"
"That you're way too casual about weird requests?"
Ben rolled his eyes.
-----------
*Working on this.*
| 2019-02-05T14:52:24 | 2019-02-05T14:32:56 | 134 | 41 |
[WP] You, a villain, heart set on taking over the world, kidnapped the hero’s sidekick. You find out that you are treating them much better than the hero was and decide to take them under your wing.
|
"Sacrifice is a hero's currency my ass. Yeah it's your currency but you seem to get your money from someone else."
I stared at the my unintended guest exasperated, not at her but at her supposed mentor.
"You know what Da.vid next time put your underwear in the laundry basket is that so-"
I close my eyes and sigh, she just dropped a bomb again. You put your hand up and try to interrupt her onslaught of complaints.
"Captain Sunlight's name is David?"
"Yeah, and?" This is giving me a headache
"What's yours anyway? I've been calling you Reflection but-"
"Gladys"
"Hi Gladys, I'm Jeff. Do you want a sandwich? I can make you peanut butter and jelly." I offered in an effort to stifle her.
"Yeah ok"
She looked around my tiny apartment but there's not much to see so she looked down at her hands, must be nervous as hell.
"Here" I set down her sandwich on a saucer and push it to her, she gingerly takes it and takes a bite "so, what usually happens in this situation? Dave finds you and destroy this place too?" She smirks at that
"I don't know, this is only my first month being a side kick and I'm his 9th. His probably looking for my replacement already. Why are you asking me anyway? Are you new too?"
"Yeah, worst day ever. I just got caught up in the middle of Dave and Black hole's fight. The media haven't even named me yet." Gladys puts her sandwich back down on the saucer and bows her head
"So uh, what happens to me now?"
"I don't know. This place is replaceable so I could just let you go, maybe call Dave and he'll come and get you."
She scoffs at the notion
"He's probably drunk off the attention right now and calling Janice for some post victory sex."
"Janice? Whos's that? I thought Dave's seeing someone at the mayor's office? Lara? Laureen-"
"Lacy. Yeah he sees a couple of women. Some civilians, some heroes. He doesn't let the civilians in his mansion. "Only here hoes get to see my man cave" He says that and I get the lovely opportunity to clean up after. He even has this sex room-"
An idea forms in my head. I'm new to the villain business. I want to be in the big leagues, not get steamrolled by the big leagues.
"-so he tells this poor woman that he loves her just to get in her pants and-"
"Hey Gladys, I have an idea."
|
*Note first prompt pls no rage on bad "x" thing*
Standing on the roof of skyscraper; you're just a few minutes away from unleashing the most powerful, the most incredible monstrosity upon the world and finally claim it as your own.
/You hear sound coming beneath you followed by the ground starting to tremble/
Suddenly coming from beneath floor appears the so-called "Number 1 Hero"... Bob and his sidekick... "Fantistic Juan" wait hang on I think he is "Fantistic Juan...the..uhh..fourth...no maybe fith... aaah who cares he is just the sidekick anyway" you think to yourself.
As your ultimate weapon has been charging and now with only seconds to spare; you try and hold off Bob and his sidekick Juan but with just a momentary lapse of focus Juan managed to land a critical blow which damaged a crucial component triggering the self-destruct sequence (which was initially added to prevent the hero organization from screwing you over again). "You fool!" you shout at Juan "Do you have any idea how long it took to perfect and build that? ... Parts are fricken expensive and hard to come by man; couldn't you have literally just stood there or even hit one of the cheaper components is that too much to ask for.."
With the ultimate weapon about to implode upon itself; Bob punches you with little restraint causing you stagger backwards. "This is the last time you'll ever try something like this again Garathor" Bob yells as he blasts you off the roof with his seemingly overpowered energy-blast.
You start falling off the roof to what seems to be a nice hard concrete bed of DEATH. As you decide that is not really to your liking you open a dimensional-rift a couple of feet below you. Moments before you fall into the rift... it dawns on you - you can make Bob regret stopping you for the last and final time ever(you think atleast).
You realize the "Not So Fantastic Juan.. after he broke your ultimate weapon" is standing over the edge watching you fall. You use your pre-owned mind-grasp device that you got on sale at the local VillianMart ( which channels your willpower and intelligence which allows the user to inhibit telekentic powers for a short duration ) to grab Juan off the roof and through the rift with you.
/You both slam into your secret cave with a thub and a couple of groans later/
Juan looks at you and states "I will stop you Garathor, just wait until Bob gets ...he..re.." He vomits and you laugh maniacally "I see the inter-dimensional travel sickness has got you good huh?" He continues to hurl as you chain him preventing him from resisting and continuing your monologue about how truly amazing you are and how they are not ..blah blah blah yada yada yada some other important things and the monologue ends.
"So sidekick tell me exactly what I want to know otherwise this could get real painful, real quick" you notice that all the spunk and confident demeanor has disappeared leaving behind an appearance akin to that of a stray, abused dog.
"WHATS THE MATTER NOW? I JUST CAN'T GET A BREAK CAN I, FIRST YOU BREAK THE FRICKEN EXPENSIVE MACHINE AND NOW YOU START SULKING WHAT IS UP WITH YOU... UGGHHH" You yell as you pace up and down. While enraged you notice the uniform Juan is wearing seems identical to his predecessors; upon furthed inspection you start to notice scarring and scar tissue over his body.
You calm yourself, sit down next to him and ask "Now look here sidekick even though we don't always see eye to eye, heck we never see eye to eye. Whats up with this uniform it looks as old as the first Fantastic Juans', also whats up with all the scars?".
Juan begins to break down crying; just moments ago before your master plan was thwarted there was this energetic and lively sidekick; now all thats left is a husk of his former self that's emitting beaten, broken and hopeless aura.
"Geez just answer the questiosn will you" you state even though your concern is growing. Juan starts speaking "You know what? My name isn't even Juan not even remotely close my real name is Eric. And yes this is that exact uniform from all the previous Juans as for the scars; whenever Bob loses a fight or wants to train guess who is used as a personal punching bag because I'm "just a sidekick". What do you think happened to my predecessors?... you know what ignore everything and just end it here I dont care anymore" Eric closes his eyes and it seems as though he is awaiting something.
You unclip his shackles and tell him to follow you; as Eric follows you through this ever-shifting dimension of yours you start talking to him "You know Eric I have fought many-a Juans over the years but I never knew what happened to them but now it all comes together. When I was younger my father used to beat me just for the sake of "building character" he said after each beating. So I know the rage, resentment and hate boiling from within you and all I can say is... USE THAT AS FUEL, USE THAT TO DRIVE YOU, USE THAT TO BECOME SO POWERFUL NO ONE WILL DARE LAY SO MUCH AS A FINGER ON YOU WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION..."
/You notice a faint smile on his face and the return of life within his eyes as you walk.../
/As you reach your destination you tell Eric that there are appropriately sized clothes within the room and that he should take a shower and get changed into the clothes/
Eric comes out after a while with a huge grin on his face; "What?" you ask - Eric responds "No one has ever treated me so kindly before or even treated me as another human before; you know I am actually 16 right?". It dawns on you, for these mere moments you were helping this boy; you were more of a hero to him than the so-called "Number 1 Hero".
"You know if you want you can stay here, you can have that room. We might be a little broken but I think two broken might just make one whole person... or one worse person but lets focus on the positive" you ask the kid. The boy is overjoyed and jumps onto you squeezing and hugging you well stating "Are you sure? You aren't joking right? A room just for myself? You know I've always had to sleep in the living room in the couch or on the mats in the exercise room.."
"Geez, alright kid and yes to all of the above would you just get off me.. We need to go grab some dinner"
/You and your newly "adopted" to-be villiabous-sidekick head off to enjoy a meal in what the kid will realize is the dimension which all villains reside within/
| 2020-03-26T17:30:50 | 2020-03-26T17:01:36 | 16 | 10 |
[WP] It seemed like a perfect magical deal. When any child descended from you is born you grow younger by a single year. So you agree, planning on a big family and living to a ripe old age. Years later however you find yourself rapidly growing younger and regret not understanding exponential growth.
|
It was never supposed to be like...this. When I made that devilish deal all those years ago, I expected a few children every 18-20 years, to keep me perpetually 30. I started at 30, gained years as the next generation aged, then regressed, sometimes to my 20s, depending on how prolific my progeny were.
It went that way for centuries, gaining and losing, a genetic stock market that always worked to my benefit, with some long holds during hard times.. Sure, there were some surprises, here and there, like when my great-great-great grandson Feodor managed to set world records for most children born to one person. Seriously, who has 69 children in their lifetime? I nearly died!
But after that, things settled down a bit. I'd found someone to "raise" me when it set me back to childhood, and not all his children lived to adulthood, as was the case at the time. As the years went by, birth rates declined, and lifespans extended, so I lost track of a few of these descendants.
Imagine my surprise when I suddenly became a teen practically overnight. I knew, from the Benjamin Buttoning, that one of my offspring had done something stupid, but I didn't know who, or how.
So my search began, before it was too late. Eventually, I managed, through DNA and genealogy research, to learn the culprit was also one of Feodor's descendants. Having fallen on hard times, this fool of a boy did what a lot of good looking, smart college boys did when they need money, donated sperm for cash.
Perfectly legal, and above board, of course, but it poses a bit of a problem for me. Namely; how the hell does a baby break into a sperm bank?
|
A long time ago, I made a deal with an entity. That may seem unnecessarily vague, but to my knowledge there is no word in any surviving language for it.
One thing that modern fiction gets sort of right, is that the language of my birth was shared between all worlds. You can't summon demons with incantations. There is no such place as Hell...at least so far as I know. But there are other realities, and what we now call Latin was the bridge between them. Some of those, I guess the best English word is "spells" had the power to open portals between these realities, but those who knew them were careful to ensure that they have been all but lost to time.
This entity came from one of those realities where a form of magic does exist. I'm not going to attempt to explain it. I didn't understand it then, and I certainly cannot begin to recall all the details of it all these years later, but it worked.
At the time, I lived in Pompeii, and was running a very respectable brothel near the seashore. It had been a good life, at least for that era. Status, power and money were all in my hands, along with many of the loveliest young bodies of the age, but my knees were starting to count my years more than I did, and my back was learning how to do that math as well.
It wasn't the pain that bothered me, but the impending...end. It terrified me then. Of course, now that I've avoided it so long, I'm not as concer-
*Deodamnatus*.
Sorry. I'm just trying to put the finishing touches on this little contraption before everyone shows up for the family reunion.
Things used to be so much simpler, you know? You carved something, or hammered out some metal, or sculpted it. Now everything is these tiny little wires, and chips, and these damned cellular phones.
Though, I suppose that is one good thing about my current age, at least I have tiny fingers again. Of course, it looks rather strange for a child to be living in a big mansion like this alone, which is why I haven't gone outside for almost a decade now. But I digress, where were we?
Oh yes, my advancing age.
So when this entity turned up to experience some of my wares while in our reality, it seemed the perfect opportunity to ensure that I could live a long life, and I offered to let him have free reign over the merchandise as long as he liked, if he would grant me immortality.
The *irrumator* refused.
Then he came back and I tried again. And a third time. And a fourth. He was stubborn, but I had what he wanted, and he had the ability to give me what I wanted.
Almost a year passed before he had to go back to his own reality, and when that time came he wanted to take one of our products with him, and this was my chance. Because you see, there are only two ways to cross into another reality: by your own choice, or as part of an exchange between worlds.
The item he wanted to take with him had a family of its own here that it didn't want to leave behind, so it was an exchange. Of course, the entity offered me all sorts of riches if I would allow him to take it with him, but I was having none of it.
By the way, do you think three hours is right for the timer on this? People will be getting here in about 30 minutes, but you know how our family is always late to everything. I want to make sure everyone is here for the surprise. Okay good.
Anyway, we were then, as now, a rental service, not a dealership. If you wanted to buy the product for life, you did that elsewhere. But this one was nearing the end of its serviceable life anyway. The entity didn't know that. For whatever reason, they don't seem to age the same way we do.
So finally, we struck a bargain. He could take it with him, and in exchange he would cast upon me a gift. Whenever a child descended from me is born, I would grow younger by a single year.
He did, and then he departed with his purchase. I never saw either of them again.
As you might expect, I started sampling my own wares on a much more frequent basis now. Of all people, I was perfectly placed to make the most of that gift. A decade later and I was almost thirty years younger than when I had begun. Of course, there was some hit to the income since so many of my products would be out of service for extended periods of time, and that presented another problem, getting them back into the rotation.
So many of them were concerned about what they had produced, and I couldn't have them fussing over these squealing little things. Thankfully back then it was simpler to disposer of the little creatures without anyone asking any questions. Lost some of my products as a result, but they're always easy to replace with newer models.
Truth be told, in time I become bored with it all, so I closed up my shop, and made a tidy profit selling my stock to the new owner, which set me up for a while.
Over the next couple centuries I set up shop across Europe and what we now call the middle east, sampling the local merchandise for myself. But that was an era of turmoil.
First there was this big to-do in Golgotha and I had to shut things down and move across the continent. Almost got caught up in Teutoburg Forest and let me tell you, THAT was a mess. Lost a couple of years there when they attacked my caravan. Three months later and it wouldn't have mattered. Then there was the Batavi which forced me to move back south.
​
CONTINUED BELOW (Character Limit)
| 2021-04-15T11:43:21 | 2021-04-15T11:39:36 | 37 | 24 |
[WP] every time you go to sleep you wake up in a new multiverse. you get accustomed to fucking shit up in each one because you know you'll just wake up in a new multiverse tomorrow. but today you awoke in the same multiverse.
|
The first time it had happened, you were confused. You woke up in another bed, in another body, but with the same memories.
Your life had disappeared, and you seemingly took control of another person's entire existence, without doing anything.
The next day, it happened again. And then again. And then again.
You've already lost the count of how many years have passed. A lot, for sure.
You've been stuck in this neverending loop for so much time you don't even remember your original identity.
So, you started having fun with it.
Freed from the chains of repercussion, you just began to... fuck things up.
You started with little things.
Waking up as a teacher, you went to school and gave bad grades to everyone.
Waking up as an employer, you started firing your subordinates without explanation.
And then, you went on to do... bigger stuff.
You caused car crashes, accidents, went on killing sprees.
You destroyed lives. You spread pain, and despair.
And you loved it.
Sure, it got boring pretty quickly.
After the first few years, it all seemed so... arbitrary.
You became a sad, miserable, immortal being, responsible for more suffering than any normal person could have caused in a single lifetime.
But then, something happened. Yesterday, you woke up feeling different.
You looked at yourself in the mirror, your wicked, heinous grin looking back at you.
You fell in love with this appearence.
You searched around your new things, finding out you were a powerful person, in charge of one of the most important agencies of the world.
The most depraved and diabolical being in history had just been given great authority.
And you felt something different in the air, like everything you went through for all of your life had stopped.
You had achieved your final form. The scariest one of all.
And this morning, your suspicions are confirmed.
For the first time in years, you wake up in the same house, in the same bed, in the same body.
It's all over.
You get up, feeling a wave of excitement.
A world of possibilities has opened in front of you.
You are Ajit Pai, FCC Chairman.
And a few devilish ideas are starting to cross your mind.
|
I awoke to utter black. My head pounded even though there wasn’t any noise, and my body ached down to the very bones. That was unusual; usually the transition to a new multiverse corrected these sorts of personal problems. I’ve even had them heal missing limbs. Something seemed different this time. Except it felt the same. Where was I?
After struggling to see anything for a few minutes I finally found a small handle. Fumbling around in the darkness I managed to twist the handle and with a groan the heavy metallic door swung open. I was greeted by searing heat and a daylight that added an entire level of pain to the pounding headache. As my bleary eyes adjusted I surveyed the barren landscape; desert. It looked familiar but I couldn’t really place it.
“Well I bet that really seemed like a good idea at the time, didn’t it?” A voice suddenly said from above with a thick Irish accent. I remembered that one from Earth…the first time. Maybe the third. At any rate I remembered it. I only knew a few people with an Irish accent, and I'd done no favors for any of them.
My reaction time diminished, I reached for my gun before I realized that I didn’t have it. Somehow, I’d always kept my personal possessions when I transitioned. This time I realized I was missing a few things; one shoe, half my shirt, my gun, and I’d later notice that my right eyebrow and a goodly portion of my hair had been seared off as well.
“Who are you? Where am I? Why do I feel like death?” I managed to stammer out.
“You’re on Earth. The original one. I’m Colin. I’ve been tracking you for…well, it’s taken me twenty-five years to manage to stop ya mid-shift…but for you it’s probably seemed much shorter given the fact that you jump whenever you sleep. I know you don’t do it intentionally, but you’ve been makin’ quite a mess in each different ‘verse. Now that. That’ you’ve been doin’ on purpose. An’ it’s time to put a stop to it. You an’ me are gonna fix this. Starting here.” He smiled an oddly sadistic-looking smile and jumped from the roof to my level.
“Where’s here?” I managed weakly.
“Well, right now we should be in the midst of the Pacific Ocean. If things hadn’t gone all haywire after you antagonized a dozen nations into nuclear war, we’d be under thousands of feet of water. A’course it wasn’t the wee bombs that did the oceans their last; that’s you too.” I shuddered to think of what could’ve happened that drained Earth’s oceans.
“I always thought things just went away when I slept. How was I supposed to know that they didn’t? Another thing; I did nothing to these oceans.” I asserted strongly. Then I began to think back. No maybe not the first or third time…but perhaps one of the visits after those. I’d been here at least a dozen times, but some visits weren’t very memorable. I’d taken over a country once or twice, shut down Las Vegas after a twelve-hour bender, and even managed to convince the UN that I was from the future on one occasion…but nothing seemed this drastic. Other planets? Sure. The one with the pink and blue people that seemingly evolved just as we did, but got gills instead? Oh man…I’m probably shoot-on-sight on that world, but Earth always seemed rather boring…except the last time. But that was a long time ago. As I struggled to think through the haze I suddenly tripped over a piece of metal protruding from the sand. As I looked closer I began to remember things I wished I hadn’t.
“Looks familiar, don’t it? Yeah. Now it’s comin’ back. You’ll be needin’ to think quicker if ya’d like to see another one o’ these glorious sunrises.” Colin said as I looked to the sky and saw there were in fact no less than twelve suns in the sky beating down heavily on the scorched sand. Looking back to the dirt I realized that the piece of metal was merely the edge of an utterly immense circular protrusion large enough that I couldn’t see its curvature. I only knew it was circular from…the last visit.
“No. That…that wasn’t my fault. They couldn’t have…I fell asleep before it happened.” I blabbered out.
“Ahhhh but it did happen. Ya weren’t around to see it, but it certainly happened. I won’t tell ya how many people are left…but I’ll tell ya it’s not a lot.” Colin seemed a little more somber briefly then perked back up. “Whelp. Best keep movin’ as I’d like ta not be here when they come back.” He said as he nearly skipped towards the center of the massive circle.
“Come back?!?” I blurted out. “They’re still here?!?”
“What did ya think? They’d take all the water and leave? You sold them on that. They found something else they wanted more. Now it’s up to us to make sure they don’t get it. Let’s move.” With that we began to march onward into the wind and dust towards what appeared to be a massive tower. If my memory served me correctly…that was the spire. I wasn’t welcome in the spire. Not after visit number five.
Hopefully I can do better with number thirteen. Or was this fourteen?
"Oh, one more thing; don't look anyone in the eye here. Ya don't need to make things worse. They'll know who you are and what you've done. Brace yourself for a cool reception."
The ground briefly shook around my feet and a voice directed me to remain motionless or be vaporized. Faced with a tough decision I instantly froze in my tracks. I recognized that voice. That was Amy. I had done some stupid things with and to Amy, and she was a dangerous woman.
"You and your son better get inside. I have some things to explain to you. Hurry, before the next storm hits." She said bleakly.
Flabbergasted I looked back at Colin who merely shrugged and pointed to the door opening in the ground. "Go on dad; don't want to keep mum waitin'."
| 2018-01-24T10:42:24 | 2018-01-24T09:56:53 | 140 | 60 |
[WP] You've been sent to exercise the demons. Not exorcise, exercise. You don't quite understand it, but you're being paid a lot of money.
|
“Exercist,” it read on Gabe’s license. Certified by the Brope himself. A small piece of ash darkened his otherwise angelically pristine certificate. He spit on his finger and rubbed it up, down, left, right.
“Ahem.” An unearthly voice came from behind him.
“I thought I told you not to do that,” Gabe turned around and glared at the hellspawn, “All this transdimensional warping is why you’re all so fat.”
“But, I was going to be late.” The demon’s chins frowned. He was one of those typical red ones, if it had eaten all the other red ones and then asked for seconds. Then thirds. Then fourths. Currently, the folds of his body were eating Gabe’s couch.
“You could’ve at least teleported outside and took the stairs. Besides I thought demons liked being late.”
“We do. Unless we’re being charged by the hour for it.” He pointed his tail at the clock. It was frozen at 6:66. The demon
laughed.
“Thank you! It’s actually pefect that you stopped the clock, because that gives us an eternity for you to run off all that fat on the treadmill.” Gabe, looked back at the clock. Suddenly it was back to normal. That line always worked.
The demon pulled a crumpled pile of whirling white mass from the abyss under his middle tit. It screamed and howled as he dropped it on the desk. “Payment for today’s session.”
Gabe pointed to a sign on his desk, “NO SOULS.”
“But, these aren’t typical souls. They were very hard to come by. Very dark.”
“Yeah, I’m sure my landlord will be thrilled when I try to hand him this for rent. C’mon cough up the cash, I’m sure you ate some on the way here.”
The demon snarled, “I will not be treated like this by a mere mortal.” The demon tried to stand, but collapsed under his own weight.
“Listen Beelzeboobs, how about instead of getting revenge on me you get vegeance on that waistline?”
The demon nodded.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got a very special program set up for you. PPL. Push, Pull, Lucifer.”
|
"Just g-g-guh-go on in there, miss, th-they're waiting for you."
The house's caretaker motioned toward the old door, his feet creaking the hardwood floor as he leaned precariously toward the door and beckoned me toward it with his hand.
I adjusted my yoga pants and sweatbands. I can't believe I missed a class of *Western Schism Studies II* for this. How much was the guy paying me in crumpled, yellow notes? $150? Maybe $175 if I sold them as collectibles? He said he got my name from the back of my jersey, but I've never seen him at a game because nobody ever comes to our games except Mother Superior and the Sisters of Mercy.
I thought it was weird that some smelly guy was approaching me outside the athletics building after practice. I was kind of in a hurry; Schisms are actually my big thing. And so's basketball, but, scholarships can only get you so far. It's smarts and faith the rest of the way.
But not too much faith. Or else I'll end up in the convent and then it'll be me sitting alone in the bleachers while my ovaries dry up.
$150 and this guy wasn't even going to break the ice for me?
"Aren't you gonna introduce me? It sorta helps everyone loosen up."
Instead of responding, the guy just crept toward the front door, not taking his eyes off the one he wanted me to go through. I ran the terms by him one more time. I was already paid but it couldn't hurt.
"So, um. You need an exorcist."
"Correct."
"To, emphasis yours, 'ex-*er*-cise' the demons that are disturbing this household."
"Yes ma'am now I'd l-l-luh-like to be sc-scooting, now, if that's alright by you."
There were girls doing much worse for much less in the priory. "Why did it matter that I had actually passed the exam? This is just a gag thing for like a stream or something, right? Hello?"
I guessed it was showtime. I opened the door and was surprised to find a large, uninhabited room. A Edwardian town home with a ballet studio, how quaint.
I was walking along, tracing a line in the dust on the brass handrail, when the door slammed shut. Unperturbed, I looked around the room, soaking in all of its shadows and textures. The peeling paint. The salty air. The face in the middle of the ceiling.
It grimaced. "Oh, no. Not you."
"Hi. Are you the only one showing up? For a little extra we can do cross training. Just come on back to the church with me, we got a great mat."
The face became a large droplet that drooped to the ground, broke from the ceiling, and splashed out a skinless man wearing boxers and a tank top. "I was hoping it'd be someone I could fool around with first."
"Let's start with a standing leg stretch. Up. Higher. If you need me to wait for you to get your balance, that's fine. I can hold this position for an hour. If you want to use the rail, that's fine, too."
He finally stopped bouncing, corrected his wobble, and stretched. "Ha. I still got it."
"Alright let's count to 13. Ooone! Twooo!"
The skinless man put his foot down. "That's not funny. Why don't we count to six hundred and sixty six?"
I stopped and looked him straight in the eye. And I said, "Look, demon, use it or lose it. You want to stay on this earthly plane of existence, then you're gonna have to hang with the big boys. You don't want to work out, no sweat. I can just sit here for the rest of the hour and, uh... drink some water..."
I slowly started unscrewing the cap from my water bottle.
"NO! NO! I'LL EXERCISE! SEEEEE! LOOOOK AT HOW I AM DOING IT!" The demon commenced aerobicizing wildly in all directions.
I did a few kick claps and some jumping jacks. "All right! *That's* the spirit! Here we go one two star formation five six seven and bend at the waist. Back straight. Hold it and five six reach and reach and reach and reach and reach and reach and reach and reach...
Time slowed and the edges of the room disappeared into an endless distance, swirling and bleeding. And the blood caught fire and pooled in the air. I saw stars thrown from heaven, and they struck the earth, and the forests burned and the waters turned to steam. The sun became dark. The earth dried up and became a desert. There was a crack in the desert, and seven beasts crawled out of the crack and built a castle on the sand. One went into the sea, one upon the air, one into the forest, one upon the land, and one into hiding only along the way of the road. Of the last two, one sat as the king upon the throne of the castle, and the other made people say the beast was king of all the world. And the other beast returned to the crack to rule there for seven thousand years. I saw the beast named the king held a scepter of nine gemstones, and in the gemstone of quartz I saw the other beast's rule come to an end. And the beast who went into the sea poisoned the water, the beast who went upon air clouded the air with smoke, the beast who went into the forest burned the forest, the beast who went upon the land flooded the land with urine, the beast who went into hiding along the way of the road twisted every road so everyone was lost, and the beast in the crack crawled from the sand and ate the castle and the beast inside the castle.
"Whew! That was some workout!" The demon rested his hands on his knees, catching his breath.
Time had finally returned to normal. I stumbled over to the railing and caught myself. "What did you do to me--"
My words echoed in an empty room. I looked around but there was no trace of the demon. I stood up, checked my money stash, counted it, and hid it back. At least I didn't get ripped off. I decided to leave, and checked the time. In the bargain, I had got an hour's pay for a five minute session.
| 2018-02-06T10:02:29 | 2018-02-06T08:14:01 | 15 | 11 |
[WP] You are a failed doctor, but a well practiced necromancer. Of course, rent is still due each month, and in order to pay the bills you still help the sick. The catch? Your patients have to die first for you to help them.
|
White walls, white floors, white ceilings, white lights, white masks on the faces of doctors and nurses. Everything was some shade of white, with the occasional touch of blue. My current patient lies in her bed before me, breathing slowly. Her chest rose and fell like the tide, slowly but surely, becoming more and more of a labor to keep oxygen flowing into her body. I lay my hand over hers and gently squeeze. My mother, fifty years old, began to die before my eyes. She looked into my eyes, a small smile pulled at her cheeks. I think she wanted me to say something, but my mind was so filled with the thought of “save her” I didn’t notice.
“Save her… save her… save her… god damn it, she’s all that you have left, *save her…*”
“I hope you can forgive me for being so selfish mom, but I don’t think I’m ready to say goodbye. It hurts beyond comprehension to think I would have to continue this life without you so soon.”
Eyes starting to water, she gripped my hand with a sudden newly found fire. She wasn’t afraid. Even as she lay dying, she refused to let her fear consume her in front of her son.
“I love you, mom, you will know peace, even if but for a moment, and then you’ll see me again,” I smiled, lip quivering madly as my eyes filled with tears now. “Do your best for me to relax and take one last big breath for me,”
She turned away, looking straight up at the ceiling now. Her hand released mine. She was gathering every last spark of life. Her eyelids fell over her eyes and she breathed in, deep. Her lungs filled with air, and my hand fell on her heart. I pushed into her chest and then softly breathed in with her.
Her face began to dull. The little color left in her skin was sucked away and her soul left her body. The veins in my arm swelled as her life filled my own body. Her body grew ice cold. I lifted my hand, pulling along a soft green aura with my fingertips. The light stretched further and further as my hand rose higher. Like a rubber band pulled beyond its limit, the light snapped from out of her chest and shot up into my palm.
All the hairs on my body stood, I coursed with a new electricity. My body vibrated as I interlaced my fingers and gripped my palms together tightly. Hot and bright energy began to illuminate from between my hands and my arms flexed as I fought to contain the raging force within my grasp. I raised the ball of light to my lips and whispered in ancient tongues. The floor and walls now began to rumble softly as my body shook the building.
I looked into my mother’s now lifeless face. With one swift move, I pushed the orb back into her chest. The energy overflowed from me and poured into her. Like a balloon filling with air, her body filled with life, energy, and strength again. I held back my tears as I continued to push more and more life back into her. She gasped, her eyes wide with confusion as she breathed again. Finally, with no more light to pour into her, I slumped against the hospital bed and held onto the siderails to steady myself. My knees buckled, and I collapsed to the floor, resting the back of my head against her bed.
Suddenly, she flew from the bed, effortlessly, and turned to kneel in front of me, her hands clasped my cheeks and she kissed my forehead.
“My son, to know you would fight to keep me around for just a little longer, is not selfish, it is love, my darling boy,”
We embraced. She would live on. I would not have to say goodbye.
Not just yet.
\*\~\~\*\~\~\*\~\~\*
a quick "just get it down" session. Working on improving my vocabulary and sentence structure.
​
|
Getting through medical school is difficult. What they *don't* tell you is that getting a residency is far from a done deal, even if you get your medical degree. There are more medical graduates than residency spots. Not everyone gets matched. Since my parents stuck me in a shitty school system growing up, I didn't have the prerequisites you need to get into a brand-name program. If you're not in the right schools by the time you're 12, forget it.
But...I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to help people. And I am very determined and stubborn. As kids we're taught that you can be whatever you want to be, so long as you put in the work. I did decently in undergrad, but I hadn't the connections to get into a US-based medical school. Instead, I went to the Caribbean. I would prove myself there, a little more roundabout route, true, but with a good record I thought I could get a residency back home. Boy, was I deluded...
While doing some volunteer work to burnish my resume, one of my classmates befriended me and introduced me to her family, who was based locally. Her grandmother, Mama Laveau (yes, *those* Laveaus) was versed in, shall we say...traditional healing methods. Learning voodoo did cement certain Western medical concepts in my head better. Some of it is just a different route to the same goal. Mama Laveau was hesitant to teach me at first. Come on- I am lily white with blue eyes so pale that people think they're costume contacts. But Ernestine vouched for me and I seemed to have a knack for the subject. Once Mama Laveau taught me sufficient alternative paths to the goal, she decided it was time to teach me what to do when the game clock buzzed zero and someone needed to go into overtime.
Let me be clear: this stuff isn't *evil,* per se. You are only dealing with some different beings than are discussed in the Western Canon. What you do with it...that's up to the practitioner. Just don't tell my grandmother what I've been up to. She'd have a stroke. And then I would have to do something amounting to a giant I Told You So and it'd be really awkward...
Once I received a stack of rejections for residency programs, I found that my extracurricular studies would save my financial ass. Going to medical school abroad does not save you from student loan debt. I went back to the US and hung my "alternative medicine" shingle in a region with a large Haitian community.
Haitians and other Afro-Caribbean folk work *hard.* Multiple jobs. Unfortunately, they don't always get paid well. One dirty little secret of the US medical community is that black people are ignored and marginalized even when they DO manage to get access to a doctor. And psychiatric care? Forget it. The exams they receive are more cursory, they're less likely to get needed pain meds, if they report complications, medical staff are more likely to dismiss them. Ask Serena Williams, after all. It's *not* just about money.
I'll never forget my first patient who sought me for, er....extra innings. When Sabine tottered through my door, it was plain she had mere days left. Congestive heart, I was sure. Maybe kidney issues as well, I was just eyeballing it at the moment. And she was *ancient.* She reminded me of that Rodin sculpture of the old lady. Ancient, but her face had character, too. This was a lady who'd *seen shit.*
I put on my best professional smile. "What brings you in today?" I asked Sabine. She gave me a doubtful look. I was used to it by this point.
"Do you work on contingency?" Sabine asked me.
"Er...maybe you have me mixed up with the lawyer three doors down?" I said. "This is an alternative medicine clinic." Sabine had a folder of papers in her free hand. She tottered over to me.
"This is a summary of the money I have coming in," she said. I looked at the papers. Social Security benefit statements. Subsidized housing vouchers. Foster care payments for small children living in her home. I noted her date of birth.
"Those are your great-grandchildren," I said quietly. Sabine nodded.
"Doc said I don't have much time left, and there was nothing more he could do..." she explained. "My daughter...shot dead at the corner store where she worked. So I took care of my grand-babies. One died in a drive-by, the other died from drugs...and she left me *her* babies to raise...and if I go there is no one left to raise them..." She turned away briefly.
"Jesus," I breathed. "I'm so sorry."
"I...only recently was able to get an apartment near decent schools," Sabine whispered. "If they go to foster care with strangers..." She swallowed. "I...I heard things about you..."
"You want letters or phone calls of reference, I can get them for you."
She snorted. "You screw this up, I'm dead anyway. What do I have to lose? Money's tight, but I could make a little room for payments out of my checks...especially if I don't need my meds anymore...." I was pretty sure at this point what she was getting at.
"Sabine, I need you to be specific. What is it you want me to do?"
"Bring me back after I die. Kill me quietly if you're willing to...I'd appreciate not drowning in my own juices. And it's easier if the death is never reported. I get back up, am seen still walking around, the checks keep coming, my girls keep going to a safe school."
"I see," I said quietly.
"Just till they graduate! Reach adulthood. Wouldn't...wouldn't be *right* cheating beyond that point." At that point, I took her full medical history, then did some math. Block off half a day for the ritual, amortize those fees over the period things were likely to last before a booster... the monthly cost was little more than beer money, really. And it's not like she'd need the beer after this. There would be diminishing returns on repeated treatments...but I could get her there. The younger kid might need a full time job the day she graduates high school...but I could get Sabine that far.
"Okayyy..." I said slowly. "This may be a sore topic for you, but I will need you to source your own narcotics to help things along. I will not take on the legal risks of buying it myself." I preferred that the patient "do the honors" herself if possible. This was a city where it was trivially easy to obtain the cheap deadly Chinese shit.
Sabine nodded. "I can do that..." said said.
"It will take several hours, so you need someone watching the kids. This office is no place for them."
"Neighbor will take them for the afternoon."
"And *no eating or drinking after midnight the day of the procedure,"* I deadpanned. After a beat or two, Sabine laughed. I smiled at her. "Seriously, though. You'll want to save yourself the mess. I charge extra for needless cleanup. Your throat will also be sore, your voice raspy, and do you want to actually *sound* like a zombie?" I penciled her into my schedule, and she tottered out, far more relaxed than when she came in.
A few minutes later, my phone rang. It was Maddie, my old college roommate. She'd gone the law school route, becoming an estate and elder law attorney.
"Hey, it's time we caught up with each other," Maddie said. The words sounded loaded. "Can you do lunch with me Monday? At my office?"
Hmmm. Play this right and my student loans could be paid off within the next year....
​
My other stories are at r/Hazelnightengale
​
Edit: flow, proofread, expanding a point
| 2018-12-13T07:11:41 | 2018-12-13T07:03:36 | 125 | 29 |
[WP] You buy an old raggedy ann doll, it turns out its haunted by something, you don't know what but all you know is that the doll is very wholesome and only wants to help you.
|
Three years ago I left my family and moved to the US to be a freelancer programmer. I live alone in my apartment and I only leave it to buy groceries or meet clients. This has made me feel very lonely for a long time and I even lost my motivation for programming, something I really loved.
I have missed my family so much that, when my little sister said she would pay me a visit in a month, I went and bought her a doll I had seen on a garage sale on my way back home from the convenience store.
I placed her on top of my computer cabinet in a position where it looked like she was holding my webcam. I didn't mind her for two weeks.
One night I was in a videochat with other programmers that were contracted for the same project. I had already recieved my instructions so I decided to go take a shower before sleep.
When I got back to my room I placed on a chair the towel that covered me, and procceeded to put my clothes on. When I returned to my PC I noticed I hadn't left the video call. I was terrified since the camera covered almost the entirety of my room, the placed where I was dressing. With cold sweat I glanced at the square that displayed what my camera was watching and it was entirely black.
I looked directly at the camera and noticed it had its privacy cover on and the doll's hand was in a different position. I was relieved, but also freaked out. I left the video call and began thinking about a possible explanation. I quickly checked my apartment and the door, it was locked, nobody could have gotten inside while I was taking my shower.
After it thinking back and forth, I decided it had to be the doll. I still don't know how I reached that conclusion, maybe I was too tired. I have never handled horror stuff well, so I thought about throwing her out of my house, but there was no way I was going to be rude and make it angry. I decided to respectfully speak with her.
"Excuse me, miss. I thank you for closing the camera lid, you really saved me. As you may know by observing me for the past three weeks, I can't handle scary stuff. You seem like a nice person so please don't move during the night, It would really scare me and I want to sleep."
After that shameful one-sided conversation I started thinking about her as a living being instead of an object. Just in case, I wanted her to consider me a friend so she wouldn't kill me during the night. Whenever I got stuck while working, trying to decide one solution over another, I would tell her the pros and cons of each one, and reach the conclusion by myself, but the fact that she was a good listener was also helpful.
My sister will come tomorrow, but now I am too attached to the doll I don't want her to take it. Speaking with her has made me forget my loneliness, and I have often found myself studying different topics about programming, so I think my motivation has come back. She may have nothing special after all, but she has still become important for me.
|
Sometimes I take strolls around shops and malls, hoping to find something that'll help me pass the time. I don't have very many friends, but not because I can't get any.. I just, don't seem to have any. It sounds off but I'm sure someone can relate. I pass by a large shop window with black lettering, trimmed with a gold leaf outline, I see something familiar. I stop and look through the window, focusing on the raggedy ann doll with all of its familiar features and eyes staring back at me.
*Hey.. it can't be. I haven't seen one of these since.. oof, I'd rather not remember how old I am*.
I take in a deep breath, and slowly exhale take a look at the lettering as if seeing it for the first time. A vintage toy store. It looked a little run down, but it kind of added to the charm. Would it be weird for a 35 year old man to enter a toy shop without a kid? Ehh.. ughh, alright. I'll pop in and take a look around, if it feels weird I'll leave.
As I slowly push open the door a gentleman at the counter greets me. He's probably in his late 50s, maybe early 60s. He's got mostly grey hair but looks to be in pretty good shape. I wonder if he works out. His teeth are pretty nice, maybe he's actually younger than I--
*Hello sir, did something in the window catch your eye? I saw you pause for a moment and am so glad you came in!*
Thank god his words broke my train of thought, I tend to get lost in my own head sometimes. It can be helpful but there are times when he's more of a hindrance.
*Yeaaah, sorry I saw raggedy ann doll and it reminded of me of my kid brother when we were younger. We'd gotten it from a thrift shop to keep Johnny entertained. Do you mind if I take a look?*
The old man, middle aged man.. uh, nice gentleman gestured with his hand to the doll with a smile and went back to organizing items in the glass shelf in front of him next to the register.
It didn't look like anyone else was in the shop, which was a blessing for me, I just wonder if this guy's shop is doing alright. How does he pay the bills for a place like this.. does he own the place? I wonder if he has any other employees-- a car passes by the window and snaps me back to reality as I pick up the doll. It feels pretty warm, I guess that makes sense with it sitting in the window.
I give a little examination of her condition, looks pretty good for the age. I wonder if its been restored in any way, did-- no, no, focus come on man. When Johnny and I were little, we used to hide things like really cool looking rocks in a small hole in her back, other times it was loose change, snacks, super secret messages between my brother and I as if we were both super secret agents. I rolled my eyes a bit and smiled. I gave the little doll a squeeze and felt a crinkle inside.
My head tilted inquisitively and my brows dropped down as if to say "*Uhh, noo.. whaaat? Maybe.. nooo there couldn't be anything in here"*. I must've been standing there for a while squeezing the dolls body to see if I could somehow discern its contents as if my thumbs had x-ray vision. That's silly, why wouldn't my eyes have x-ray vision, why would my thumbs? If I ate something could my thumbs see through it? I wond--
*Uhh, is everything okay sir?*
The gentleman, a clear master of stealth somehow appeared behind me. He's good.. too good.
*Yeah uh, this is going to sound super weird and please forgive me for asking this, but is there anyway to see what's in this doll?*
His body straightened up a bit with a curious look on his face.
*Well I can tell you what's in there, it's just cotton. I freshened her up a bit with some new stitches and dyed her hair again to its original red color. Why.. do you want to see whats inside?*
I knew it. I handed the doll over to him as I explained.
*Yeah okay I figured as much, but I swear there's something in here, check it out.*
As the man..
*Excuse me, but what's your name sir?*
*It's* *Gregory, pleasure to meet you, and yours?*
*David, nice to meet you Gregory.*
That was driving me nuts, okay so as Gregory took the doll in to his hands he gave the little body an investigative squeeze to confirm my suspicions and felt something crinkle inside.
*That's.. incredibly odd, I swear there's just cotton inside. You've piqued my curiosity. Do you have a moment to see what's inside? I'm kind of excited to see what it is now!*
*Yeah sure of course I'm just killing time right now! Let's see what's going on!*
We both hurried to the counter like kids who just picked out their favorite candy after being good for the whole day. There lied a sewing kit by the register. Gregory popped it open and pulled out a little stick with a hooked metal end the easily popped open the stitches to poor raggedy ann's back.
*Maybe there's money in there huh? Hahaha*
I laughed out a bit, and Gregory joined in.
*If I left money in there I'm going to have to start double checking my work!*
As the body began to open, a folded piece of paper was nestled softly in the cotton. It looked a bit yellowed, as if it had been there for a long time.
*How in the world, it looks like it's been in there forever. I just re-stuffed this doll last night, how could this be in there?*
He began to pull the letter out and unfold it after laying raggedy ann gently down on the counter top.
Our eyes widened in surprise in unison, and slowly looked to one another. Apparently I stopped breathing at some point and slowly released a very unsteady breath.
On the paper was a quick message and it said "Hey David!"
*Uhhh.. you don't happen to be a magician or something would you Gregory?*
He shook his head slowly and asked the same question back to me. I shook me head no as well and asked him..
*So, it'd be weird to not buy this doll now right?*
I chuckled out-loud and he chuckled back in response
*I guess it would be. Also I definitely don't want this in my store anymore.*
After repairing the doll and discussing more about how weird it was that we found a note with my name on it. I put the piece of paper in to my pocket and gave Gregory some cash for the doll and headed out. He seemed like a nice guy. I swear if he's a magician that pulled a trick to get a grown man to buy a doll, I'll be sooo.. damn impressed.
| 2020-07-09T09:38:56 | 2020-07-09T08:52:45 | 15 | 11 |
[WP]A civilization made a pact with a god, granting them immense power, but in 50 years summoning a being that'll destroy the galaxy. Only way to prevent that is to slaughter the offending empire within those 50 years. This marks the first time pacifists vouched for genocide on the galactic council.
Inspired by "The end of the cycle" from Stellaris, as well as a comment on r/stellaris.
Created because i was dared by u/JakorPastrack to do so.
|
The Pacifist Bloc on the Galactic Council had voted for genocide. It was really happening. War.
As the vote tally was read aloud, you could hear a pin drop in the huge chamber which housed the Council. There was no sound except the automated voice reading aloud the name of each voting bloc and the result.
Argondian Republic - Genocide.
High Nebulan Melange - Genocide.
It was the only real choice left, but it signified the end of the Galaxy as it was known. No wars had marred the peaceful co-existence of the Galaxy's sentient species in millions of years.
Fenebrial Hegemony - Genocide.
Greater Light Path of Harmony - Genocide.
Now the Galactic Council had set aside millions of years of peace, in order to strike at the Apothagentians who had consorted with a Transcendent Power, and appalling breach of protocol, and a deed that is absolutely forbidden throughout the Galaxy.
The Monarchy of Zort - Genocide.
Ordinal Cohesion - Genocide.
Who would actually execute the deed? And how could it be done? The Apothagentians now had colossal power at their disposal, and neither the Council nor any of its members had developed or manufactured any weapons in a million years. Further, would they - even if in possession of weapons capable of defeating the Apothagentians - be morally or constitutionally capable of 'pulling the trigger'?
Apptitude of Embracing - Genocide.
Imperium of Durrel - Genocide.
The tally is now complete, the unanimous decision of the Council is Genocide.
There arose a susurration in the Council Chamber, which died away as First Speaker Brond stood to speak. Again, a deathly silence came over chamber, and a million delegates waited for the words of their leader.
"The decision of the Council is Genocide."
Even though the decision was known already, this announcement still brought gasps of shock and horror from the delegates. Some curled up on the floor, others shut down their receptors from external stimuli.
"The Inner Council has already chosen an army to destroy the Apothagentians. Though we had hoped this day would never come, we have been preparing to set free one of the Forbidden Worlds."
The Council Chamber was filled with muttering, and some voices were raised in anger - a rarity indeed in the Chamber of the Galactic Council. The Forbidden Worlds were planets which housed species which did not fit the galactic milieu. Misfit species with anger issues and a tendency towards violence and the misuse of technology were kept blanketed behind carefully crafted simulations, to keep them permanently unaware of what was 'out there'. They received no information from off-planet except that which was fed to them by the simulation. And the data that was fed to them was filled with maddening inconsistencies, designed to drive them down barren and sterile paths of discovery, to ensure they never discovered the technology of interstellar flight. The decision to free a Forbidden World could save the galaxy, or damn it.
Or, it could achieve both.
Once again, the First Speaker spoke. "Let the veil be lifted!"
Wonder, alarm, consternation, exhilaration. For the first time in a hundred thousand years, the true night sky was visible from Earth, and what wonders it held! A myriad of blinking satellites, vast fleets of enormous spaceships, and an invitation to parley from something calling itself the Galactic Council.
Now, wasn't that interesting?
|
You sit down in your grandfather´s couch. You always loved it, the most comfortable seat you had ever sat on, perfect to drink some whiskey and smoke in a pipe while you read a book, tell a story or discuss deep, meaningfull philosophical topics. Thats what he used to do. And you would watch and listen, to his teachings, stories and rambles about life, love, war...
Your grandfather, veteran of the Kelu civil war and its subsequente War of salvation, and Last Stand (or the war of the end) and decorated with the "savior of galactic civilization" medal with what remained of the joint Galactic Goverment fleet. Your grandfather, your role model, your hero, had finally passed away at the age of 96. Relatively old, but not as old as he could´ve, he finally was able to rest, free from the nightmares that plagued his traumatized mind. He was harsh, yes, but a good man, a caring and supportive man. Now he is gone, but his memory lives, among other things, in his book. The text, titled "The end of the Cycle" was a narration of the prelude, developement and end of the biggest conflict that the universe has ever seen.
So you take the collosal book in your hands, the feeling of leather and paper striking as unfamiliar in an age of holographic display. He was always old fashioned, with a profound love for the "vintage", the Pre-space age look, to the point he would often reference people or events that no one really understood. You take a sip of your drink, and open it.
​
​
THE END OF THE CYCLE
​
An ancient human tactician, very respected by our species, warned generals about cornering an enemy. He said "To a surrounded enemy, you must leave a way to escape", and that phrase has always been interesting to me, since the manipulation of the enemy is a key factor in warfare, it always has been. So you can, in theory, control that "way of escape" manufacturing it to further the demise of the enemy.
But what happens when the enemy knows of your treachery? What happens when they know they are truly trapped?. Well, it mostly depends on the spirit and morale of the people. Some may choose to surrender, hoping for mercy or at least a quick death. Others may chose to make a heroic last stand, like the Vaaknek did in 554 AFGG (after first galactic goverment). But when you deal with a combination of religious zealots, death cultist and nihilists none of those options are a possibility.
Between the year 1589 and 1608 AFGG the Kelu were embroiled in a fierce civil war. Short before their species had achived the "spacefaring civilization" status, a new religion had appeared in their homeworld, a religion that sprung out of the most pesimistic conceptions of the universe, one that belived life was a horrible accident, filled with pain and misery and thus it was a mistake. They wholeheartedly belived that it was the willing of their god Zoceth (an ethereal dark being, with the power to create and destroy universes) for them to erradicate all life, since He had failed, and as a reward they would be perfected, and taken to the New Start, where everything would be perfect.
So the began killing. Logically, they were severely outmatched, since their numbers where particularly low, thus after getting hold of some of the first jumpdrives, they fancied themselves a few ships, and escaped Lalvion, their homeworld.
For the next few centuries, nothing was known about them. The Kelu expanded, prospered and joined the galactic goverment, like most nations. Unaware of the threat of the cultist, that had been constantly expanding, and infiltrating each and every single one of their systems. They became part of their armies, navies, politicians, scientists and common man. Anyone could be one of them, yet everyone was oblivious. Hundreds of years of blending in, infiltrating, we even forgot they even existed.
And one day, they striked. Rising up from every Kelu system, the cultists began attacking every single major strategic objective, way too quick for everyone to realize what was going on, much less how to react. The Kelu forces, in a state of complete disarray, cut off from each other, tried to hold back the seemingly endless waves of cultist wherever they stood. Entire systems fell, billions where exterminated.
The Galactic Goverment caught wind of this. Us humans, with other 7 nations voted for a strike force to help our allies, and while the other 20 nations declared themselves either neutral or against intervention, the overall consensus was that we were allowed to proceed as individuals, not representing the GG.
So we sailed to relief our friends, thousends of ships ready to end these cultists once and for all. Even some of our most pacifist memebers joined, all be it to rescue civilians and take them to their own nation, as refugees.
At first, progress was slow. Despite our numbers and power, we found it hard to compete with their tactics. One must accept, that their guerrilla and hit and run methods were quite effective, hitting us where we least expected, faking retreats only to lead us into ambushes, masterfully using planetary terrain and galactic anomalies to their advantage. It is safe to say, they changed warfare for ever.
Eventually, their momentum slowed down, our admirals and generals began to adapt to the cultist´s tactics, and slowly but surely we began to push them back. Some remarkable battles worthy of mention are "The shame of Baliter" in 1590, the biggest defeat in human history, with over 1.5 million casualties (counting allies). "The assault of Elicor Fortress" in 1593, our first big victory against the cultist, the "Battle of Nuthenus" in 1603, where the third biggest ecummenopolis in the galaxy was finally liberated, and "The battle of Reotania System" where the cultist lost 80% of their fleet, and where in my opinion, the Kelu civil war ended. We will touch these battles in the "tactical analysis" section, but for the moment, we will just stick to the events.
By 1607 the cultists where scattered, uncommunicated, and all but beaten. We were victorious, and while the losses where monumental, we had finally eliminated the death cult that plagued Kelu History.
Clearly, as you may know, we were awefully mistaken. The cultists still had one move. A move that, as you can imagine, changed everything.
​
​
​
​
​
If you got this far, I thank you very much for reading this rather long piece. I must say that im no writer, and not a native english speaker, so i apologize for any grammatical mistakes, as well as any flaws on the "storytelling" aspect. I want to make a part two (and maybe 3, depending on the extension) so please let me know what you think about this. Any tips, ideas, or criticism in general would be greatly appreciated, since I can apply it to future writings (including of course, the continuation of this). Thanks again, and have a nice day!
| 2020-09-11T10:54:40 | 2020-09-11T08:32:15 | 44 | 32 |
[WP] When someone dies, they are met with those that they killed when they were alive. When you dided it wasn't a surprise that there were lots and lots of insects and small critters there, but what caught you off guard was the three people you've never once met in your life.
Edit: Died(dided)
|
I opened my eyes, feeling like their lids were made of lead. There was sound, but it was muted, as if I were underwater. There were lights too, but everything moved as slow as molasses.
A different sound cut through - footsteps. Despite the oddity of their normalcy, I did not turn to look. After a second, they started speaking.
“I always knew we were bad at driving.”
“This time it wasn’t my fault. The idiot in the 18-wheeler was probably drunk,” I replied blankly, still staring ahead.
“Fine. You get a free pass this time. But you were the one that decided getting a license was a good idea.”
I finally looked over. My companion, sitting next to me, was a boy. He was younger than I was, sort of ugly, but at least he was skinny, and… oddly familiar.
“So who are you?” I asked him.
He looked at me. “You don’t remember me?” I think he was teasing, but I couldn’t quite tell.
“Am I supposed to?”
I had decided that I was probably dead, and that therefore this other person was probably dead as well, but I couldn’t figure out who he was. It was maddening, with him so familiar. He sighed, exasperated.
“When you die, you meet all the people you killed. You lived, but you killed me. No hard feelings from me though, it was better for the both of us.”
*That* was why he was so familiar. I was surprised I didn’t see it immediately. “Well one of us had to win,” I said, “And it certainly wasn’t going to be you.”
“You were always the stronger one of us. Though we still ended up in the same place, evidently.”
I said nothing, staring at the burned flames in front of me.
He continued, “There’s a reason I wanted to be the first one here. I’ve been waiting awhile, and I wanted to know… I want to know if you hate me.”
I told him the truth, that I didn’t know. Ever since I had shut him out, I had been grappling with whether I blamed him or not. It was true that he had suppressed me for years, years longer than I even knew who I was. He made mistakes I regretted, burned bridges I would not have, allowed changes to happen that I was permanently stuck with. But, through all of what he had faced, he did persist, and I would not exist if he did not.
After hesitating, I forced out the words. “You lived.”
“I wish I had done more for you. I wish I let you be you, instead of fighting you,” he replied, bittersweetly. We sat there for what felt like an eternity. There was a new sound – sirens.
I asked, “What happens now?”
“Now? I dunno; I don’t make the rules here. But something tells me that the next life will have to wait a while longer for you.”
He got up and stretched, vaguely motioning to the sirens. “I guess it’s my que to leave. Take care of yourself.” He looked at me again and began walking away while I kept staring forward.
“Wait,” I said. He looked back.
“I forgive you.”
He smiled, and in a heartbeat, he was gone. The sirens grew louder and clearer.
I never met him again.
\----------------------------------
Got inspiration from u/Rupertfroggington's amazing story, and also a meme earlier today.
|
The last thing I remember before I slipped away were the sobbing faces of my family all around the hospital bed. My mom had to step out of the room with my dad because she had a breakdown. My brother "Gavin" sat beside the bed, holding my hand tightly while tears poured down his cheeks like a waterfall, telling me how he much he loves me. My aunt, uncle, and their two daughters - my cousins - watched silently from afar, though I could tell that behind their blank faces was a flood of pain, waiting to pour out.
And then, rather than the darkness of my eyelids that I had expected to see, there was instead a soft, warm light. It felt inviting, and as I felt my will to keep fighting slip away, the warmth drew closer and closer, pulling me towards it and whatever would remain after I departed.
​
The next thing I remember was myself sitting in my childhood living room, everything exactly as I remember it, from the wood grain on the floor to pile of books dad kept on the coffee table. In that moment, I ugly-cried to myself as I remembered those days - the days when dad would check the closet for monsters if I had a bad dream; the days mom and I would spend the afternoon baking desserts to enjoy after dinner; the days my brother would let me play video games with him while we laughed and joked like brothers do.
After I had cried till I couldn't see, I sniffled and wiped away my tears with my sleeve. Curiously, I made my way to the back door and stepped outside. The many flowers mom planted were still there, beautiful as ever in the sunlight. The swing set Gavin and I would play pretend on still stood off to the left.
As I panned my vision across the yard, I noticed the table in the center of the yard had 3 people seated at it, with a forth chair left empty. In the middle was an older man - probably 50 or 60 years old - wearing a plaid button-down shirt and light blue jeans. He grew a long beard that was white as snow, and his brown eyes had a kind, empathetic look.
To the right of him was a teenage girl who looked to be about 17. Her dark, curly hair was done in dread locks, and she wore an AC/DC t-shirt and baggy sweatpants. Her eyes were a warm golden-brown and shone brightly in the gleaming sunlight.
And on the other side of the older man was a little boy - no older than 12 - carelessly swinging his feet as he sat. He wore a pair of black board shorts and a red t-shirt. His dark hair reflected the sunlight, and his deep brown eyes were filled with all the enthusiasm and wonder of a 12 year old.
For a while they all looked at me patiently as I stared back in confusion. I must've been making a face, because the older man said "What's with the face, son?" His voice was comforting and soft, and reminded me a lot of my own grandpa.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"Why don't you come take a seat, then we'll explain."
Obligingly, I walked over and sat down in the empty chair.
"Son, do you know why you're here?" asked the old man.
This must've been a joke. "Uhh, because I'm dead?"
This time the girl spoke. "Obviously. But do you know why you're here with us?"
"N-no." I replied. "I don't even know who you guys are. I've never met any of you in my life."
"Well," spoke the man. "When we die, we are met with the people that we've killed while alive. We sit here, talk things out, make up for it, and then you get to move on to Heaven."
What did he say? 'People that we've killed?'
"B-but I've never killed anybody. I swear!" I cried.
Now the little boy spoke. "It doesn't mean that you've killed us directly. It just means that you caused us to die."
"What he means," said the girl. "Is that you didn't necessarily murder us or something. However, your actions played a part in our deaths, be it in a major or minor way. And all three of us," she gestured to herself and the others. "Are people whose deaths you've played a role in."
"Understand this, son." The old man reached over and put his hand on my shoulder. "Life works in mysterious ways, and often times our own actions can affect others in major ways. But we are not calling you a killer. In fact, we've all already forgiven you. But we need to know if you're willing to forgive yourself by the end of this."
I felt more tears beginning to trickle from my eyes as he spoke. I had caused the deaths of these people - an old man, a teenage girl, and a young boy who barely hit puberty. And while they forgave me, I felt ashamed. Ashamed that what I've done or said had caused these three people's lives to come to an end, even if it were an accident.
Before I knew it, tears turned into sobs that racked my whole body. The old man held my hand as I cried and the pat me on the back. The little boy came around the table and stood beside me, tugging my shirt.
My face still wet, I turned to him and saw the biggest, sweetest smile on his face. Before I could say anything, he hugged me, and in that moment I broke down. The shame I felt, the pain of not being able to see my family, all these emotions flooded back to me.
"I-I-I'm s-sorry," I managed between sobs. "I'm so sorry."
The boy pulled away and simply said "It's okay. It wasn't your fault." That only made me cry harder.
After I finished and wiped my face, the old man smiled at me and asked one simple question:
"Son, do you forgive yourself?"
I looked up at him. "I-I don't know. How can I? After what I've done."
"Listen, it's okay. None of us blame you. Life happens, and sometimes we can't do much about it. But what we can do is forgive. Forgive an old enemy, forgive your friend for an old accident. But most importantly, we must learn to forgive ourselves. We all have our regrets, but as we move on from this life to the next, we must let them go if we truly want to move on.
"So I'll ask you again: Do you forgive yourself?"
As they all stared at me, awaiting my answer, I knew I had to. I couldn't keep regretting it. If I wanted to move on, then I had to do what needed to be done.
"Yes. I forgive myself."
In that moment, a bright light appeared at the back door. When I looked back to see it, the whole inside of the house was filled with a white light, and the door stood ajar.
"Go on, son." said the man.
And so I did. I began to walk toward the door, feeling the warmth once again the closer I got.
Just before I reached the door, though, I turned back one last time.
"What are your names?"
And one by one, they responded.
The old man: "Harold Crawford"
The girl: "Mariya Marshall"
The boy: "Gabriel Montoya"
Knowing their names, I walked smiled and turned back to the door. As I stepped through, I closed my eyes one last time.
And I was at ease.
Edit: fixed the word "an"
| 2021-06-04T06:46:01 | 2021-06-04T05:55:47 | 39 | 16 |
[WP] The Islamic State is wiped out by a totally unexpected country in a totally unexpected way.
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When Daesh had exploded a bomb right in the middle of the sambodromo, the world was shocked.
Fortunately, nobody was killed, but Rio´s carnaval was destroyed. Brazilians demanded a strong answer from their government, but they had not fought a serious war for at least 150 years, so how to react? How to succeed where warfaring countries had failed?
Well, the answer came from the strangest of the places: Mauro Maravilha, São Paulo´s most famous carnavelesco devised a plan. Destroy Daesh without a single bullet. How? Mulatas, cerveja and, obviously, samba.
Brazilians united into one goal: to become the ultimate propaganda machine that would strike into the heart and mind of the jihadists. With catchy slogans as "Is better a Mulata today then 70 virgins tomorrow", the Daesh recruitment fell to almost nothing in no time.
Then came the bombing. Weird bombs: of pictures of beautifully tanned men and women("lay down your weapons and join the party!"it was written), chilling cold brazilian beer kegs chuted, pandeiros, cavaquinhos, speakers that would blast the best of the best brazilian music 24/7.
And finally, the land invasion. The Samba Brigades were made of such skilled musicians, that no one, I mean, NO ONE, that heard their music could stand still.
But not all is good news for the brazilians. Now is 2020, and Raqqa´s carnaval parade is rumoured to be even greater then Rio´s.
[I know it is not very good! Constructive criticism is very welcomed]
|
People use to think Bob was a traitor, but thanks to YouTube and my reporting we now know the truth.
Bob spoke good English and other languages and had been a woodworker in Logan, Ohio for many years. The thing is, Bob isn't American, he's Estonian, so he says, but nobody knows or can prove enough about him to deport him. I met him about 10 years ago when doing a feature on his shop for the paper and we bonded over our love of NCIS the TV show.
The thing that really struck me about Bob is that Bob doesn't exist on paper prior to 2000. Bob could have been American if not for all his half connections to terrorism, although none of it could be proven. That's what kept him from citizenship. I reported on that two. He was third cousins to some guy who did some bad thing some 4,000 miles away or his mother's step-sister's uncle was a terrorist. That sort of stuff.
Bob and I talked frequently, small town and all it's hard not to. People talk and try to be friendly in person, even if they talk about you behind your back.
When Bob learned about Islamic State he studied them beyond what seemed normal. Bob learned their customs, their region, their values, and even their movements. People started to distance themselves from him, although his nature never changed besides the fact that he began to pray more often and he had books on guns and middle eastern history written in Arabic in his shop.
It was widely speculated that the FBI, the CIA, NSA and who knows who else from the alphabet soup of government agencies was tracking, recording and following Bob.
One day bob was gone. Just vanished. All his stuff, his life, wiped out as if he'd never owned that shop. Nobody knew what happened to him until it was reported on the news. Bob had "defected" to the Islamic state and was among their troops. The town was a whole pit of gossip and that's all anyone talked about. They talked about Bob and how he was a murderer and a traitor. The national news media picked up the story of my missing person story, twisted it, reported non-stop for weeks about this American defector who was right under everyone's nose.
After a few months people started to and eventually forgot about Bob. I didn't. I wondered what he was up to and why he had made the change. I knew that Bob wasn't a terrorist. He was just a white guy from Estonia in his mid 60s with grey hair and a friendly smile.
Just when everyone had forgotten about him Bob sent me a message asking me to pay him a visit in Egypt. He even flew me out. I didn't feel unsafe. Islamic state had become increasingly less active in the last few months. Bob said not to worry about the alphabet soup that would inevitably follow me. Bob said they needed to hear it all.
Bob picked me up at the airport in a car that was really expensive. I'm no car person but it had to be hundreds of thousands if not more. We talked normally, as we had before he vanished, for many years. We drove for a few hours and stopped outside this shack. It looked similar to where he'd been staying in Logan if not a little bit more run down.
We step inside and there is one man tied to a chair. I can't see his face, there's a bag over it. Bob walks over and removes the bag.
Bob introduces me to Abdul and informs me that Abdul is the last Islamic State member alive. Bob said Abdul was a courier and servant to the leadership and had been with the organization many years. It was through Abdul that he tracked down all the members of the organization and "took care of the problem."
I was skeptical at first but I did as I was instructed. Bob asked me there for an interview and I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. I set up my video camera and asked the questions.
I got Abdul to say his name, where he was from and why he was here. He said he was here to die, an answer I was not expecting. Abdul told me he was there to explain and then to die.
We talked for 15 minutes about everyone who was dead. Leaders, soliders, scholars, both men and women and most of the children. Everyone who aided in violence and killing and took up arms was gone, died at their own hand,...except Abdul. He said he had to tell the truth, the whole story. The stories went on for an hour. I even had to change my battery to finish the interview. Abdul shared stories of people begging for forgiveness before taking their own lives.
I then asked my final two questions the two I was most curious about. How did it happen and why was Abdul so sure he was about to die.
Abdul, at Bob's urging, said they felt so much remorse for all the atrocities they had done that most of them just went out in the desert and died of sadness. It was the purple dinosaur that had shown them the way with his song and they needed to repent for their sins. It was then that Abdul thanked me for my time and he put his head down and said he was ready. Bob then unshackled Abdul who walked over to the table took out a knife and stabbed himself in the heart.
After a minute, it was all over.
I then turned my attention back to Bob and asked him...how he'd done it how were they all gone? Bob said it with a seriousness and peace I'd not heard before.
It was Barney, Bob said. I made them watch Barney for weeks.
Sitting there, shocked, I asked one final question.
"So does this make Barney a terrorist?"
I'm still waiting on Bob's answer.
| 2016-01-29T07:12:39 | 2016-01-29T07:07:48 | 36 | 16 |
[WP] The Islamic State is wiped out by a totally unexpected country in a totally unexpected way.
|
He grew up on one of the toughest streets in America. Immigrants, weirdos, and living in filth described his young life. As he grew up, he was at first feared, then people started recognizing his deep, old man wisdom. Eventually, he gained many loyal friends, and others sought him out for his insight.
The ISIS problem had disturbed him greatly, occupying more and more of his private musings, as he sat in the filth at the entrance to an alley. Something must be done. A grim, stern look grew across his face. His unblinking eyes finally made a decision.
He would fight ISIS, man to man, one at a time.
Miraculously, it worked, because he was Oscar the Grouch, and the cookie monster had his back. Over and over they grabbed and stuffed terrorist after terrorist into Oscars bottomless trashcan. They attacked, well, like monsters. When they got shot, well, theyre puppets, bullets pass right through them, and they just kept fighting. When times got hard, Mr Snuffaluffagus would plow through their ranks like Mrs Piggy in menopause. Big Bird handled resupply, and The Count worked the night operations, killing 1, 2, 3.... terrorists, his cackles pierced the night and made the terrorists yearn for the days when Gordon would tell a bedtime story instead of call in airstrikes from those aliens in the manamana videos.
In the end, many puppets were lost. On quiet nights in Northern Syria, if you sit still and use your manners and listen quietly, you can sometimes still hear : 'Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sessame Street?'
|
People use to think Bob was a traitor, but thanks to YouTube and my reporting we now know the truth.
Bob spoke good English and other languages and had been a woodworker in Logan, Ohio for many years. The thing is, Bob isn't American, he's Estonian, so he says, but nobody knows or can prove enough about him to deport him. I met him about 10 years ago when doing a feature on his shop for the paper and we bonded over our love of NCIS the TV show.
The thing that really struck me about Bob is that Bob doesn't exist on paper prior to 2000. Bob could have been American if not for all his half connections to terrorism, although none of it could be proven. That's what kept him from citizenship. I reported on that two. He was third cousins to some guy who did some bad thing some 4,000 miles away or his mother's step-sister's uncle was a terrorist. That sort of stuff.
Bob and I talked frequently, small town and all it's hard not to. People talk and try to be friendly in person, even if they talk about you behind your back.
When Bob learned about Islamic State he studied them beyond what seemed normal. Bob learned their customs, their region, their values, and even their movements. People started to distance themselves from him, although his nature never changed besides the fact that he began to pray more often and he had books on guns and middle eastern history written in Arabic in his shop.
It was widely speculated that the FBI, the CIA, NSA and who knows who else from the alphabet soup of government agencies was tracking, recording and following Bob.
One day bob was gone. Just vanished. All his stuff, his life, wiped out as if he'd never owned that shop. Nobody knew what happened to him until it was reported on the news. Bob had "defected" to the Islamic state and was among their troops. The town was a whole pit of gossip and that's all anyone talked about. They talked about Bob and how he was a murderer and a traitor. The national news media picked up the story of my missing person story, twisted it, reported non-stop for weeks about this American defector who was right under everyone's nose.
After a few months people started to and eventually forgot about Bob. I didn't. I wondered what he was up to and why he had made the change. I knew that Bob wasn't a terrorist. He was just a white guy from Estonia in his mid 60s with grey hair and a friendly smile.
Just when everyone had forgotten about him Bob sent me a message asking me to pay him a visit in Egypt. He even flew me out. I didn't feel unsafe. Islamic state had become increasingly less active in the last few months. Bob said not to worry about the alphabet soup that would inevitably follow me. Bob said they needed to hear it all.
Bob picked me up at the airport in a car that was really expensive. I'm no car person but it had to be hundreds of thousands if not more. We talked normally, as we had before he vanished, for many years. We drove for a few hours and stopped outside this shack. It looked similar to where he'd been staying in Logan if not a little bit more run down.
We step inside and there is one man tied to a chair. I can't see his face, there's a bag over it. Bob walks over and removes the bag.
Bob introduces me to Abdul and informs me that Abdul is the last Islamic State member alive. Bob said Abdul was a courier and servant to the leadership and had been with the organization many years. It was through Abdul that he tracked down all the members of the organization and "took care of the problem."
I was skeptical at first but I did as I was instructed. Bob asked me there for an interview and I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. I set up my video camera and asked the questions.
I got Abdul to say his name, where he was from and why he was here. He said he was here to die, an answer I was not expecting. Abdul told me he was there to explain and then to die.
We talked for 15 minutes about everyone who was dead. Leaders, soliders, scholars, both men and women and most of the children. Everyone who aided in violence and killing and took up arms was gone, died at their own hand,...except Abdul. He said he had to tell the truth, the whole story. The stories went on for an hour. I even had to change my battery to finish the interview. Abdul shared stories of people begging for forgiveness before taking their own lives.
I then asked my final two questions the two I was most curious about. How did it happen and why was Abdul so sure he was about to die.
Abdul, at Bob's urging, said they felt so much remorse for all the atrocities they had done that most of them just went out in the desert and died of sadness. It was the purple dinosaur that had shown them the way with his song and they needed to repent for their sins. It was then that Abdul thanked me for my time and he put his head down and said he was ready. Bob then unshackled Abdul who walked over to the table took out a knife and stabbed himself in the heart.
After a minute, it was all over.
I then turned my attention back to Bob and asked him...how he'd done it how were they all gone? Bob said it with a seriousness and peace I'd not heard before.
It was Barney, Bob said. I made them watch Barney for weeks.
Sitting there, shocked, I asked one final question.
"So does this make Barney a terrorist?"
I'm still waiting on Bob's answer.
| 2016-01-29T09:11:06 | 2016-01-29T07:07:48 | 33 | 16 |
[WP] Every time you teleport, your body is destroyed and instantly recreated at the destination. Heaven and Hell are struggling to cope with the billions of duplicated souls created every year, so a bipartisan emergency meeting has been called to sort out the problem.
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Frank, a Hell Rep, nearly burst out of his chair- "Hell can't take any more souls right now! Teleporting is now a pastime. For satan's sake I've got a room full of serial killers; that are all the same person."
"Heaven ain't exactly peaches and cream either, Frank," retorted a Heaven Rep. "Take a look. You'd think the pearly gates were goddamn-"
"Hey."
"Sorry. You'd think the pearly gates were freakin' Space Mountain."
"Purgatory has to take more souls. We just can't process them fast enough."
"Okay, you're gonna disrupt the whole system. We have a strict and perfectly balanced bureaucracy that is just too easily disturbed."
"We have to risk it."
"What if we build? Expand. We've had developmental plans for heaven *and* hell, they just never passed through."
"We can't build now. Our hands are already full. We'd have to outsource."
"What if we start revoking admissions?"
"What, and send them back?"
"Yeah. As ghosts. At least for the practicing teleporters. That'd discourage the practice and in time, fix the problem."
"We'd have to get St. Paul *and* Satan's approval."
"If we're going to go to that length, we might as well go straight to Yahweh and call for an apocalypse. Yeah, it'll be a huge influx, but we stop the indefinite production we're seeing now and just knock it all out in one blow."
"Let's vote . Motion to call for a level four Apocalypse."
Most hands raise up.
"Then it's agreed."
"Good work everyone."
"I do feel sorry for the poor saps. But those damnable scientists finally crossed the line."
"Here here."
|
The balance of the world has but one pillar upon which it can rest. Thankfully, the balance of the world is not prone to over-indulge itself in nourishment, so it has a thin form easily capable of settling upon this small pillar. Unfortunately, this same form is susceptible to the slightest breeze in the wind. Today, t'was a gale which has not been seen in many a millennia. Only by the power of Duct Tape did this precarious balance not tumble.
High Arch-Dukeon Salinimus III was a fabled negotiator. In the great War of the Broken Cheesecake Pledge, he had successfully convinced Chief Trenton Carlton Blackwellington to sign a peace treaty which would last a thousand years, despite the fact that Chief Blackwellington was within days of a decisive victory in the great conflict. However, the High Arch-Dukeon was not above trickery, which was why he had hid a condition in the fine print of the treaty, stating that any and all fish stolen from the Vinoem Sea were to be returned to the sea immediately. This was also why the High Arch-Dukeon had been called upon by those powers of Hell to represent them in the conversation with Heaven.
The Honourable Contessa Marie Bayonette was nothing if not proper. Born with five digits on each hand and foot, and only two eyes upon her face, she had remained this way all her life: uniform, perfect, beautiful. Many a fool had been led to believe that the angelic Contessa was nothing but a pretty face, one who could be trifled with and no harm would be expected. Many a fool suffered at the hands of this righteous woman. The days of the Honourable Contessa's reign of perfection on mortal earth are long past, but perhaps this congregation shall be one return to the days of glory for one glorious victor of yore.
Thomas Bolton really had no idea where he was going. The afterlife was a confusing place, and navigating it was more difficult than finding a needle in a haystack. One kind soul had informed him that he need only walk "to the right" to find Heaven, but Thomas had forgotten to discern whether this was a figurative or literal statement. He had been walking to the right for quite some time when a kerfuffle inside one of the countless rooms which he had passed won his attention, and quite accidentally, he stumbled inside just as the doors were locked.
"Order! Order! Would the man at the back please take a seat?" the High Justice implored. Thomas, realizing that he was the target of this statement, quickly made to sit down upon one of the pews. This room was either a church or a courthouse - either option would produce as much talking as the other. Thomas settled in for a long wait.
"We call first to the stand the High Arch-Duketon Salinimus III," the Justice intoned, and from a fluttering mass of bats and jewels, the High Arch-Duketon emerged.
"Your honour, I thank you for this opportunity to present my case on the subject of the excess of souls currently being forced through our gates," the High Arch-Duketon began, waving his arms to accentuate his points. "However, I would like to begin by extending my intentions as a branch of pure olive: I hope that a solution can be found which will please both his Majesty the Lord, and his Majesty the Dark-Lord."
"Objection, your honour!" T'was none other than the Contessa Marie Bayonette.
"On what grounds?"
"I have no knowledge of any 'branch of pure olive' such as the one to which the High Arch-Duketon refers."
"Sustained."
"Very well," the High Arch-Duketon continued, "I have only one suggestion as to a solution for this situation. Seeing as each individual is capable of both good and evil, I offer the possibility that all duplicate souls be split evenly between our two realms."
"Oh, but I dare not accept that," the Contessa countered. Thomas remained very confused. "I suggest that evil is in fact inherent in the use of this dark technology, this teleportation. How, then, could any of these souls be accepted into the purity of Heaven, when they dare to imitate the power of the Lord with their own inventions?"
"Ah, but is not the Lord capable of forgiving any individual, no matter their stripes? Should it not then be that the Lord loves and forgives even the most frequent user of teleportation? Then why not give the Lord's hospitality to each of these souls?" The disquiet in the room lingered as the High Arch-Duketon trailed off with a wave of his flamboyant hand.
"Ah, I see," the Contessa began most slowly. "So this was your plan all along? Shame, Salinimus, shame -"
"Objection! Improper titles!"
"Sustained!"
"Yes, yes, but t'is a shame all the same, my High Arch-Duketon, that you should believe it possible to make the Lord's regents into fools! That you should think it possible to trick us into accepting all souls - blasphemous! I should have you -"
As the Contessa ranted, the door at the back of the room creaked open. Heads turned, and at the judge's tacit order, Contessa Marie Bayonette silenced herself for a moment. The High Arch-Duketon was nothing but smug.
"Sir, I believe that I have already asked you to take a seat," the Justice lamented, speaking to whomever had entered through that door.
"Oh, my apologies," a voice said, and there was a shuffle of feet. Thomas Bolton found himself intrigued by how familiar that voice did sound. As the unidentified figure slid into the empty seat at his right, both dead men looked to each other.
A mirror looked back.
| 2016-12-04T14:39:45 | 2016-12-04T12:55:19 | 30 | 11 |
[WP] You've been living alone for 13 years. Whenever you come home from work, you always find your bed made, dinner cooked and a message with "This could have been us." You moved out several times. This keeps going on.
|
I sighed, deeply. The first few months were creepy. Always the questions of who would do it. Then being flattered. Once the truth was learned, and the countless nights of screaming into the night sky to unsympathic stars wore off, I had only sighs and the occasional bout of madness where I move away and realize there is nowhere I can run. I know he can hear me as I say aloud, "You know it could not. Stop driving us both insane with madness, Cthulu. I've given my heart to Nylarthotep."
|
I take my work seriously. It’s what I was born to do... and I love it, though I find it increasingly tiring. I work with some of the smartest men who have ever lived. I believe this. And what we do, has never been done before. I can’t tell you about it so don’t ask.
My life works because of the rules. The rules I created and I never break them, my girlfriend knows this and we’re very happy together. Naturally we live apart (it could never be otherwise) but she’s the only person who I can connect with, sexually I mean. If told you some of the the things we do in the bedroom... some of the things she says... but that’s another story. For 13 years I’ve lived alone, successfully pursued my work, my calling, and I’ve been happy. Until 12 months ago.
You see I’ve never been, what you might call, houseproud. The usual home comforts that other people take for granted - are of no interest to me and so for years I have lived in a building that most people might consider unhabitable (one of the reasons that I live alone), Yet it suited my needs perfectly and had no neighbours to disturb me. At least I thought I had no neighbours.
I came one morning, just as I usually do after my work was over, and knew something was wrong. My possessions, few that they are, were not where I left them. The water on the floor was gone and the holes in the roof were fixed. My clothes were folded neatly and I found a new black and white table in what you might call my living room. What’s more, a casserole was on the stove that I had not made and the kitchen table was set for two. There was a note that said “This could have been us.”
As tired as I was my mind was still alive enough to see what I had to do. To leave immediately and never come back. I always considered that one day my work might be compromised, that someone would after me, but never like this. This unsettled me in a whole different way. It didn't feel creepy that someone had been in my house and moved my stuff, just, unusual. The meal and the note, in any other situation I’d have said they were meant to scare me, but this didn't feel that way. Something else was going on. For half a moment it came into my mind that this could have been one of my girlfriend, M’s tricks - a joke, but not really, something to get me to invest more in the relationship, but this wasn’t her style and we had moved past all that years ago. There was something else about the scene in the kitchen, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
I grabbed my bag and left instantly stopping only at a pay phone (I don’t have a mobile) to leave a message for M to call me back.
It wasn’t hard to find another place. My needs were modest as I mentioned. I moved in without the need for references or deposit. But a month later, exhausted I returned home again one morning to exactly the same scene. The apartment was repaired, my clothes folded , dinner made and the same note. This happened twice more in the coming year, until I found my current house, where I have lived without incident for six months. I had been getting my energy back until this month, where I found myself more tired than I’ve been in my life. I’ve been neglecting my work and sleeping more and more, but I still was holding everything together.
I came home this morning and could barely keep my eyes open, but when I saw the black and white coffee table, I knew it had happened again. I walked slowly into the kitchen, again seeing the cleanliness, and noting the repairs my stalker had made. Once again in the kitchen was the casserole and the note: “This could have been us”. I held it in my hands staring at the writing, not able to put it down. There was something about it, something... familiar. I saw a pen on the side and unthinking, I picked it up and started to write underneath it. My hand moved on its own and as I saw the letters form, the shape of the s, the dot above the I, all the same, everything started to become unreal -,like it was all far away. And then, in the periphery of my vision I saw him and instantly I understood. I hadn’t seen him in 13 years but now he was back, just as I knew he would be, when I needed him, the man with no name. And then he spoke, but I only heard two words before I passed out, but that was enough.
“Hello Tyler.”
| 2017-12-09T07:43:03 | 2017-12-09T07:06:04 | 21 | 10 |
[WP] When a twin dies their brother/sister acquires all their strength, intelligence, etc. You've just discovered this phenomena, but so has your brother/sister
|
"It's not worth it," I heard.
I can hear my heart beat. My healthy, fully functional, 18 year old heart.
"Please don't do this." My brother, again.
My brother is in there. His heart is beating, but it can't be calm. Mine is a slow thumping noise.
"It won't fix anything. It won't." He referenes a debt that cannot be repaid.
His must be erratic. He has been sick for a long time.
"C'mon man, open up!" He is agitated. It's not good for him.
I cock the revolver. It make a slick noise. I am calm.
"This won't make us even."
I can hear his sobbing. I lift up the gun.
"Life won't be worth living without a twin."
"It won't work. It won't make me better."
I taste the steel. Any chance is worth it.
|
In the footnote of the college biology textbook was something that changed my whole outlook in life. *Identical twins are the only known group of people that can gain from their twin’s death, according to a Nazi Twin Experiment. On their deathbed, a twin can take all their strength, intelligence, and beauty through a comingling of blood at the moment of death. Since WWII, there have been three instances of this happening successfully.* I threw the book down as I realized this. I was a twin. My identical brother had always been smarter, stronger, and more handsome than I was. This was a possible way for me to get revenge. I did not particularly want to kill him, but this could get me everything that I wanted. At this point though, the two of us were too close. I would feel like I was missing a limb if I were to lose him.
Five years later, I had grown further and further apart from my twin brother. He had finished college and gone onto medical school. I meanwhile had dropped out of college after knocking up the college girl I had the most fun with. I was working a menial job punching numbers during the day with some janitorial work in the night to pay for my own son who was now three years old. We were both sides of the spectrum, and I was jealous of his successes to say the very least.
At Thanksgiving that year, my twin brought his girlfriend, another medical student, to dinner. She was a snotty upper class woman who was the epitome of the world that my twin had joined in going to medical school. Our parents were just so pleased with his accomplishments while backhandedly trying to suggest I finish my degree considering we were twins had the same intelligence. In between bites of turkey, I remembered the biology textbook and the possibility to get all his intelligence.
After dinner, my twin and I went out for a walk along the deserted boardwalk by our home on that brisk moonlit night. He was telling me all about what he was doing in his coursework. I was trying to hide back my displeasure in knowing what he was now doing. “Why don’t you finish your degree? You would love medical school. You could really provide for your family afterwards.” He suggested.
I shook my head. “I’m not you. I have a family that I have to provide for today and for the rest of my life. I can’t be greedy like you and continue school when I have a three-year-old son.”
“Oh, c’mon, Bro. You were always the greedy one,” my twin teased.
That was what finally tripped my trigger. I charged at him right then and threw him onto the ground. It was at that point I knew that I wanted to be greedy and kill him. I wanted everything he had, and this was the way that I could do that. The two of us were in what felt like an endless struggle of a wrestle trying to get the other to submit. We were too evenly matched, I learned at that moment. Fortunately, I carried a box cutter at all moments because of my work.
“Really? What are you trying to prove with this?” My twin demanded after spitting out the blood from a sucker punch I had thrown at his face.
“You’re right. I am the greedy one. I want what you have.”
“How are you going to get that? You can’t take my life.”
“I can get your blood, your intelligence, your strength.”
At that point, my twin made a realization. “You’ve got to be kidding me? That biology textbook. That was a joke. That doesn’t happen.”
“Well, we can sure figure out about that,” I posited as I came at my twin with the box cutter, sprinting with red in my eyes to kill this stranger before me.
Right then, I realized I was starting to feel weaker and weaker. Before I could reach him, I was on the ground in sheer pain. My heart felt like it was coming out of my body. I had dropped the box cutter a few steps back. My brother was over my body a few seconds later before he pressed a finger to my neck. “I was hoping we could have gotten a little further down the boardwalk instead of having to fight there. Now just a few more minutes and you’ll be dead from that heart attack. Then I can get your blood.”
“You? You?” Weakly, I demanded between gasps for breath.
“Bro, I have been studying that for years now. I wanted to see if it was true. And, it is. I will take everything from you as you pass. At least I won’t be going to prison afterwards, like you would have if you had killed me with that box cutter. I’ll just have to get an echocardiogram to check out my heart after my brother had a heart attack in his twenties. A simple consolation prize for everything you have.” He laughed at that point. “Goodbye, Brother.”
| 2018-02-25T08:15:55 | 2018-02-25T05:27:54 | 1,595 | 230 |
[WP] Thousands of years after modern humanity wiped itself out in a nuclear catastrophe, fantasy creatures along with humans reduced to medieval tech rule the earth. However space stations carrying the remnants of the modern world including cryogenically frozen humans have begun to fall to earth.
Idea came from watching shannara chronicles and wondering what would happen if they encountered modern humans
|
It was faint at first. I crept nearer and the noise got louder and louder. Soon I was upon a strange cocoon of sorts. It's the only way I can describe it. I touched a glowing red button and the cocoon opened, revealing its contents. It was a human. A beautiful man, wrapped in a cloth blanket. He opened his eyes and they were a piercing blue.
'Where am I?' he spoke.
'New Woods. South of the Ever Tree.' I said, but he looked confused. 'Where did you come from?' I asked.
'Colony Theta.' He got up and stood in front of me. Tall, masculine, impressively built. ' Has the fallout stopped? Am I on earth? What year is it?' he grasped my shoulders as he interrogated me. He smelled clean, cold.
'I don't know. It's year 1 of the king of Eden.' I said, but he was looking at my clothes.
'It can't be Earth.' he said, shaking his head.
I motioned him to follow. It was time to take him back to the Calatha - she'd know what to do with him. We trudged through the forest for a time, until we emerged into a clearing. He seemed content with silence so I didn't push him to talk, aware of his eyes on my back.
He stopped suddenly. I followed his gaze and saw what he was looking at - a grazing cravmat. 'They won't hurt you. They eat grass and leaves' I told him.
'This is definitely not earth,' he said with certainty. 'this creature is like nothing I've ever seen. As fat as a seal, with teeth like a cow, and feet like a platypus'. I had no idea what he was talking about.
We continued walking, him gawking at the cravmats and antrees. What kind of person hadn't seen these before? They were some of the most common animals in the area.
When we reached the settlement, I headed straight for Calatha's. She was preparing a tincture for a wounded hunter, when we walked in.
Before I could introduce our stranger, he crossed the threshold of Calatha's home, and picked up one of the relics lining the wall. It had been there for as long as I could remember - a small looking charm. He moved onto the next one, a metal container with a strange two-humped animal smoking something etched into the front. He picked up one more relic, small and rectangular. He turned it over in his hands, and when we pushed a pushed a button a flame came out, bright and yellow.
'Shit.' He whispered.
|
Coming out of cryosleep was supposed to be gentle, gradual. This was anything but.
The space station around Brandy Parker shook violently, rattling her around inside the cryotube. An alarm blared, the kind of sound that meant that nothing good was happening. She could hear the automated voice of the AI, but not make out any of the words, everything was too loud around her.
Brandy opened her eyes to near darkness, broken only by the flashing of a red light. Grogginess gripped her, but she fought it off. She was the commander of the station, which meant there was no one else to respond if something happened to her. That was protocol, wake the highest in command and they will wake the ones who were needed.
She pushed open the door to the tube and pushed away, stumbling into the artificial gravity that shook with the station. All around her were the others, fifteen in all, resting peacefully while chaos reigned around them. Men and women, all young and smart and strong, hand selected to sleep out World War III, just in case the rest didn’t make it. But right now, if she didn’t act quickly, they wouldn’t make it either.
Brandy stumbled through the station to the command center. Once there, she didn’t have to even look at the readings to know what was wrong. The surface of earth was visible through the viewport, and it was much closer than it should have been.
She slid into the pilot’s seat and strapped herself in. A few keystrokes made the warning disappear and brought up the display of the station’s trajectory. The orbit was deteriorating quickly, the atmosphere rapidly approaching. There was no time to wake anyone; she was going to have to do it herself.
She flipped switches, powering on the boosters, but it did not take long to see that it was a hopeless endeavor. Ignoring the fact that the boosters were not very powerful, the fuel levels were critically low, much lower than they should have been. She could hear the boosters sputtering and finally dying. The station was on its way to Earth, and there was nothing she could do about it.
There was no time to worry about why the fuel was gone, not when there was a much bigger issue at hand. There was a bright light forming at the edges of the viewport as the station entered the atmosphere. The station was shaking even more violently as real gravity came into play. After a moment, the light vanished and she could see blue sky above. They were in the atmosphere, falling toward the Earth.
A diagnostic scan showed no structural damage which meant they hadn’t destroyed themselves reentering. Now to make sure they didn’t do so in the landing.
Below, she could see North America spread out before her. The station’s orbit had been running west to east, so they passed over the California coast, the Rockies and western deserts visible beyond. What was down there, however, she didn’t know.
Once she was certain they were far enough over land, she pulled the lever for the emergency landing protocol, a fancy name for the large parachutes that were strategically placed around the station. She hoped that they hadn’t deteriorated in the same way the fuel had; if those failed, there was nothing more that could be done.
The way the station jerked told her all she needed to know. They were falling, still faster than she would have liked, but it was much more controlled. She took a deep breath, feeling the relief that passed. She tightened the straps that held her in and waited for the impact.
---
The station lay in shambles, but their losses were fewer than she had expected. Three of the pods had malfunctioned, their occupants mummified behind the glass shields. Four more had been killed in the impact, a portion of the cryoptube room crushed when the station had landed. Two more had perished in the awakening, a known risk with cryosleep. Which left six of them, men and women who she had briefly met but never known.
Now they sat in a circle, a fire built with the help of some wood gathered by Vance and a contraband lighter Julia had smuggled aboard. Kevin, a botanist, had foraged some wild onions and mushrooms that were cooking with one of the dehydrated meals that had survived the impact, somehow still good after all this time. Sally and Jose, the last two, had set up the pop-up tents.
Brandy, meanwhile, was trying to make light of their situation. The communications equipment was still operational, and the readings said the signal was good, but there was no response from Houston or Huntsville or Fort Lauderdale. The chronometer had malfunctioned - it said that thousands of years had passed, three thousand to be exact - and the GPS wasn’t getting a reading from any satellite. She guessed they were somewhere in Colorado judging by the mountains and forests, but that was the best she could do.
“We need to get to civilization,” she said. “We can get a call to Houston and have ourselves picked up.”
“If civilization is still a thing,” Jose said. “For all we know, we’re the last humans alive.”
“There were a dozen stations just like ours,” Julia said. “We couldn’t be the only one that survived.”
“It’s possible,” Brandy said. “We need to proceed as if that is the case. Tomorrow, we set out.”
“What if we stay put?” Sally asked. “The station must have caused a racket when it landed, surely someone heard and will come to investigate.”
“What if the wrong people come?” Julia said. “We would find help for certain in a town.”
“We have protection,” Vance said, nodding toward the weapons that had been stored on the station. Two rifles, a shotgun, several pistols, some hunting knives, and plenty of ammunition.
“What if there’s more of them?” Julia asked. “We need to at least send someone to find a town. Sitting here and waiting will get us nowhere.”
“That’s kind of the point,” Vance said.
“Quiet,” Brandy said, and they all obeyed instantly. “There’s no reason we can’t do both. I don’t want to leave the station unattended, not with how much valuable equipment is here. We’ll split into two parties, one to find town, the other to guard the station. Julia and Kevin will be with me. Jose, Vance, and Sally will remain with the station.”
There were nods of acknowledgement around the fire. “Get some rest,” she said. “We’ll set out bright and early. Vance, you’ll be in charge of camp. I’ll leave you a list of things to do. If we’re farther away from civilization that expected, we’ll need to be sure we can survive for some time.”
---
Ended up being longer than intended. Part 2 incoming shortly.
| 2018-03-10T09:11:05 | 2018-03-10T08:40:33 | 16 | 12 |
[WP] The Apocalypse begins, and the Four Horsemen ride out leading an army that will depopulate Earth. But the old pagan deities of Earth do not consent, and side with humanity.
|
They were no army, but only four.
War, famine, pesitlence, and death.
A ballad of destruction, a symphony of the end.
No man could stand to them, for they were gods. But humanity were not on their own.
With them stood a millenia of belief.
The old gods.
As the four stood upon a hill, overlooking the old world. The final bastion of mankind stood firm against their baleful gaze.
But from the sky, **music**
The 4 looked up, queen?
*bobby your a young man, hard man, shoutin in the street gonna be a big man someday*
Figures descended, on roads of rainbow, on pegassi on dragons and all manner. At their forefront a god wielding a hammer,
***this aint Ragnarok motherfuckers***
|
The Four Horsemen came to a halt in the middle of the desert. They hid their visages under the shadows of their thick, fluttering robes. Tendrils billowed around the body of their horses, covering them in an ever flowing current of crimson.
The Army of the Apocalypse escorted them. Their bodies didn't seem to be tangible. If one were to look at them directly, he would see nothing but endless, cracking clouds of smoke. However, their shapes came to life in the corner of your eyes. They were abominations. Their jaws were unhinged, and their skin was mangled and burned.
Osiris and Ares blocked their path. The pagan deities smirked in their humanoid shapes, as they locked gazes with the horsemen. There was a moment of silence and hesitation, yet one of the horsemen pointed his sword ahead, and the army rushed forth.
The sun blazed behind Osiris and Ares, casting gargantuan shadows into their foes, and tinging the field with it's fiery golden light.
"You see, little horsemen," Osiris said, as the foes surged forth. His voice boomed in the vastness of the desert. "You brought the apocalypse in lands of mortals. I, however, brought it in the lands of the dead." He snapped his fingers.
The land beneath the feet of the army roared, splitting the hardpan in seven wide fissures. The horsemen pulled the reins at the edge, and thrust their scythes and sword to the sky. They shimmered, yet shadows gushed out of them, creating paths along the extensions of the fissures for the army to cross.
Osiris laughed. "I don't know why you called me, Ares," he said. "They can't even deal with a tiny scratch on the ground."
"It's not because of them," Ares said. "But for the one who hides and observes." He looked at Osiris. "Do it."
Osiris opened his maw. A throbbing red waterfall gushed out of it, filling the hardpan, and falling down the nearest crack. The Army of the Apocalypse ignored it. They surged forth.
Soon, as the foes bathed their feet in Ares' liquid, bony hands snatched their ankles, holding them in place.
"Rise," Osiris said.
From the sea of crimson, skeletons the size of two men, raised. They wielded swords whose edges were pure black, and seemed to swallow the light around them.
The clamor of war broke the silent voice of the once peaceful desert. Shrieks of pain, agony, and sorrow converged in the battlefield. An army of tormented souls against an army of past vessels.
"Skeleton's don't make noises," Osiris said, enjoying the glorious symphony of an easy victory. "They dared to defy the gods of war and the lord of the dead, now they are paying the price for their stupidity."
"They are souls of a realm I once feared," Ares said, narrowing his eyes and observing the battlefield. "They enjoy suffering. They don't care if those blades pierce their core. They will thrust themselves willingly into them, and relish the pleasure of affliction."
"Kill the horsemen then," Osiris said. "They control them."
Ares shook his head. "It's pointless. They are a mere distractions, just like we are."
"We? A distraction?"
"When that who they call Satan reveals himself, we will be reduced to dust." Ares grinned. "Our strength and might are nothing compared to his. The mortals tremble when they hear his name, and we should too. For eternities, his other half, God, held him. However, somehow he freed himself."
Osiris frowned, and paced. "I've heard about them. I've heard about their eternal war. I've heard about their endless power. How do we stop him?"
"We don't," Ares said. "He's beyond any of us. However, there's a chance if the mortals mana--
Ares fell to the ground. A golden, ornamented spear protruded out his stomach, and soon, his skin crumbled down to dust.
"Me-mercy," Osiris said, staring at a little kid with tar-black eyes and pale-white skin. He wield the spear, and wore a sad expression.
"Why do you fight my souls?" The kid said, and a silent tear trickled down his cheeks. He aimed his open palm toward Ares, and clenched it into a fist.
Osiris eyes widened. He collapsed, yelping and squirming ruthlessly. The pain was excruciating. It burned every bit of his body, as if he was covered in searing embers. He attempted to beg for mercy, but nothing but agonizing screams came out his mouth.
A little shadow loomed over him. "Welcome to your prison," Satan said, crying. "Soon, you will enjoy it."
-----------------------------------------------------------
/r/therobertfall --- For more stories!
| 2018-05-17T07:56:16 | 2018-05-17T07:52:37 | 69 | 11 |
[WP]A brave knight hunts an infamous dragon, and local villagers spend days telling him not to pursue his quest, to no avail. Eventually, one villager gets fed up and says, "Look us and the lizard have a good thing going here. Don't ruin it."
|
The Knight sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose with his index finger and thumb “Elaborate”
“Well we’ve all come to a consensus that all this feudalism nonsense isn’t working for us at the bottom rung” said the Peasant.
“It is your duty to serve your Lord and King, peasant” said the Knight high upon his horse.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Why is it my duty? I certainly didn’t vote for either of them. And what have they done for me? Taken the fruit of my labours in taxes to spend on God knows what. Some bejewelled toilet I expect.”
“Is there a point to the treasonous talk?”
“Yes, well, ever since the dragon’s been staying here all you toffs have been too scared to come in and enforce your draconian laws and taxes. So bugger off you tin-plated git”
“I’m still trying to put this all together, what is it the dragon gets out of this exactly?” Said the Knight, frustrated.
“It’s a hard life out there for a dragon with all you iron-clad ponces running around stabbing them with your glorified knives. The dragon’s got a nice place to sleep here, every now and then we bring him a goat, some tea and the newspaper. Occasionally we bring it a virgin, but don’t worry the dragon doesn’t eat them or anything, we just bring them Mavis’ Cyril and they have a chat about Dr Who for a bit.”
“So then what happened to last 3 knights that came here to slay the dragon?”
“They’ve joined the community. I think Lancelot’s lounging at leisure centre. Percival’s pruning petunias and Galahad’s day drinking by the fountain, look there he is, oops, just fallen in”
The Knight dismounted his horse.
“Look,” said the peasant, “We’ve got a good thing going on here so either jump back on your pony and piss off or grab a pint and go join Galahad in the fountain”.
|
/Town of Elderyn/
She was a heavyset woman with hair piled intricately on her head. Heavy jewelry clacked against her ample bustline and layered robes of purple and blue swayed delicately around her ankles. She had to stretch as she reached for the glass jar on the top shelf. It was filled with a crimson powder and the little man at the front counter eyed it greedily.
“This here’s the strong stuff. Who’re ye gettin’ this much for?”
He grinned with a nasty sort of glint in his eyes.
“We’re getting this for a Dragon.”
She snorted at him and set the jar on the sales table.
“Gettin yerself killed is it? As long as ye’ pay I don’t care much what you do with it.”
He shuffled and dragged a bag of coins up from some hidden compartment in his trousers. She counted out the right amount and handed him the jar.
“Do you think you could have some more ready by next week?”
She thought and checked a create of dried leaves behind the counter.
“I gess so, assuming yer still alive.”
“Alright then. I’ll be expecting it”
He snatched his purchase and tucked it away into some unknown hiding place.
“Bye now.”
That unnerving grin appeared once more before he vanished behind her flimsy shop door. She gathered the coin and tucked it into the money pouch in her bosom. Might as well begin working on the next batch.
————
/Town of Silksdorn— 10 miles to the East/
The grass was green and a sweet breeze blew ripples across it’s surface. Brown cattle grazed in the sunlight and two shirtless men leaned against the perimeter fence. Another man was merrily making his way towards them.
“What are you doing here?”
They eyed their visitor with arms crossed. The small stranger only smiled.
“I’m here to buy exactly three brown cows.”
“Get lost.” The words were accompanied by a rude gesture and forceful spitting at the ground.
He was unfazed.
“I’ll pay double what they are worth.”
The shirtless farmhands scowled.
“You’re from Elderyn.” The older one pointed into the distance, “We’d rather kill our cattle than sell to some runt from Elderyn.”
The visitor pulled the bag of coin from his trousers.
“Not even for triple?”
This time there was a small faltering. A weakness.
“Well— what do ya want them for?”
His eyes glanced at the sack of gold as he said it.
“Our elders figured cross breeding the brown cattle from Silksdorn with our white ones might make a healthier herd. That’s all.”
The two looked at each other and then back at him suspiciously.
“No Elderyn tricks?”
“No Elderyn tricks.”
His smile still shone pleasant and unmoving.
Some quiet muttering passed between the cattle ranchers before the sale was finally agreed on. Two heifers and a bull were roped and given over. In exchange they received a fat bag of coin.
“Our Herbs Master came up with a feeding supplement to fatten the cattle quicker if you’re interested. I’ll give you this free jar to start as a token of good will.”
He pushed the container over into their hands and began the trek home.
“Bye now.”
With a wave farewell he left them to their cattle.
————
/Mountain side three miles North of Elderyn/
The three brown cattle and three white cattle followed him to camp. So far the plan was working well. The Herbs Master had another crimson jar prepared like he’d asked. Now all that was left was to feed the dragon.
On the first day he sprinkled crimson powder onto the grass he fed to one of the brown heifers. With a few apologies to the poor animal he tied it to a tree outside the blackened cave. When it’s dying screams echoed back to his camp later that evening he knew the dragon had taken the bait.
The next day, another cow was sacrificed to the merciless beast. This time pure white, yet no red powder was placed into its food. The dragon took the bait once more.
For four more days he did this. Each time he fed the dragon with a brown cow, powder was given to it beforehand. The white cow received none.
When he was finally finished he returned to town and informed the townsfolk what he had done. Only time would tell if it would work.
————
/Town of Elderyn/
“I’m sorry but this really doesn’t make any sense. You DON’T want me to kill the dragon?”
The knight scratched his head and furrowed his eyebrows.
“No! He’s been quiet helpful to us! Dragons really aren’t as bad as they say!”
That grin was devilishly pristine and almost ran a shiver down Sir Argur’s back.
“—But it’s taken to killing cattle. As the nearest town you would be most targeted!”
“Look here!” The little townsman waved his hand over their large and white herd of thriving livestock, “Do you see any signs of slaughter?”
The soldier ran a hand behind his neck and looked puzzled.
“I suppose not.”
“So forget the matter! Come, relax and enjoy a meal with me.”
“Ah— I would be honored.”
His face betrayed a level of reserved hesitation but he ended up at this man’s house all the same. It was a modest hovel. The most interesting thing in the whole space was a hanging display of a war axe over the mantle.
“Got that from the War?” He was trying to come up with polite conversation.
His host busied himself in the kitchen.
“Oh yes, though I keep it around in case the Silksdorn come knocking. Bitter enemies. We hate them, they hate us.”
The name rang a small bell in Sir Argur’s mind.
“I think they were the ones who logged the initial complaint about the dragon.”
“Troublemakers! Don’t worry about that lizard any longer.”
His host popped his head back into the living room.
“By the way, did you want a bit of Crimson Mindle in your tea?”
The knight shook his head, “Ah— no thanks, I’d like to keep a clear mind.”
“Fair enough. It’s a powerful high. The stuff can be quite addictive.”
“Indeed.”
| 2019-04-15T02:03:23 | 2019-04-15T01:13:52 | 56 | 11 |
[WP] The hero shows up at the villains doorstep one night. Theyre shivering bleeding scared. They look like they were assaulted. Looking up at the villain, swaying slightly, close to passing out, they mumble “didn’t know where else to go” then collapse into the villains arms.
|
I sit alone in the darkened room of my living room, the faint light of the television illuminated me. I was unnerved by the feeling that I needed to do something. It had been weeks, almost two months since I had gone out and done something. Something bad, but Powerhouse never showed up for any of the times I decided to cause a little mayhem.
I knew something wasn't right in the back of my mind the third time she didn't show, but I didn't go off looking for her, even if I knew her secret identity. I look down at my blood covered hands, the moment when she came to my doorstep the other day, bloodied and broken, makes me regret not searching for her sooner.
I stood from my position and made my way to the bathroom to clean up. I'll never forget the look she had on her face when I found her on my doorstep. She was scared. A look that I had never seen on her face, even when she was close so to death many times before.
The scene still played out in my head. Her mumbling something I almost didn't catch, but I did end up catching her as she fell forward. She was light enough for me to carry her to my bedroom, so that wasn't the issue. I knew she was injured, badly, and I needed to help her.
I had taken care of her visible wounds while she was out, I didn't want her to assume I did anything to her. She awoke hours later and I gave her the strongest pain medication I had, which was just a cheap bottle of Excedrin so it wouldn't do much.
I begged her to tell me what happened, and she did. I wish I hadn't asked. Every graphic detail, every bone that snapped, every hit, every bit of her assault was told to me in confidence. My stomach tightened from what I was being told, someone who was so powerful, someone that was loved by thousands, someone who had saved the city countless times...
...was raped.
And not just from complete strangers either, those super powered ass wipes who were supposed to be her friends! If I didn't have a reason to hate them before, I at least had a reason to kill them now.
I took care of Pow- Jen, making sure she was healed to the best of my abilities, and with what little supply I had on hand. I let her stay in my house for a few days, stealing things from my work to help take care of her. The broken bones were a bit tricky, but I managed to get them set properly.
As I washed my hands from the blood of today, I looked at myself in the mirror. I may be a villain, I may be hated, I may want to see the world burn.
But I am no monster like them.
|
It was a dark evening, one of so many here in Boston. I’d just been awarded the hero-of-the-year award by the mayor. And I was quite taken by myself if I had to admit. BackJack had been so pissed, he’d gotten the award 4 years in a row, but now I'd taken his place in the spotlight. On top of that I denied his ego even the slightest respite by flat out refusing his offer to be his date for the dance. The one that would be thrown in honour of the hero’s and the award-winner. I’d heard the latest rumours you know. That he’d used date-rape drugs on some of his fans before. But he had power... and influence. No way it would ever make it to trial, even if they were true. So that’s all they stayed... rumours.
Feeling too smug with myself to think on it any longer I jumped to the next building. It was one of those evenings with a sense of foreboding. My arch-nemesis always seemed to strike on evenings like these. Though I suppose it wasn’t really by *their* choice. Men always picked out the darkest of nights to prey on women. As if the extra cover of night would protect them from being found out.
With a renewed sense of dread, on what surely must have befallen another poor woman. I hurried to the dark alley where I sensed my arch-nemesis using their power. I am a little psychic you see, I can read simple thoughts, sense emotion and as a bonus, I could sense the use of supernatural powers. Which often came in handy in my line of work, it’s how I often came to the crime scenes way before anyone else. And more often than not, I would still be able to stop whatever was going on.
I guess, it is partly due to my powers that I always prioritise the safety and well-being of the victims first. *Even* if it means letting the villain go free. Or maybe it really was just my own moral compass, I couldn’t tell, but neither did I care all that much. It had won me the hearts of people in this city. And a great many people I had saved. Many of them donated to charities in my name after I’d told them off for trying to give me money.
It was why, once again, I left the retreating black figure running on the roof alone as soon as I arrived. To as predicted the sight of a woman in a terrible state. Any moron would be able to tell what had happened....or rather *nearly* happened. While she was dirty and there was some blood caking her head. She at least had still some clothes on. She was even still somewhat conscious since she stirred when I came closer.
Luckily, she’d only been roughed up a bit, with no mayor injuries. And I say luckily for a reason, because for sure this would’ve likely been the most terrifying experience in her entire life. But I’m sad to say, that what I saw here today was actually quite mild. Especially compared to the more horrid cases I’d seen.
After gently stirring her awake, I handed her my cape, that came with the typical hero’s outfit. She appeared in shock, but as soon as I tried to say something, she broke down in tears falling into my chest. I wrapped my arms protective around her, as if to say “You are safe now”. Though she kept crying until the police cars arrived. By the time she finally calmed down, a familiar face was already stepping out of a car.
Sharon Bradley, the Detective in charge of crimes of the sexual nature. And one of my closest friends, despite our great partnership. I could never say I was all that happy to have to work with her again. I mean she as a person was great, I especially liked hanging out with her outside of work. But having to meet because of a case, I could never quite classify as *happy*.
As I helped the ambulance brothers bring the woman to their station they swapped my cape for a real shock blanket. Slowly they started to examine her. Starting with her head wound. But as one of the brothers came closer, she grabbed my arm again. I took her hands in mine and gave them a gentle squeeze, "I am here."
As the medics started to do their job, Det. Bradley walked up to us.
"I see you've been captured by another woman, Phoenix." She said in a attempt to light the mood a little. And despite her poor attempt I gave her half a smile. But at least to give good effect, the poor woman finally seemed to realize she'd been clinging on to me for dear life. Not that I particularly minded that much. But now that she let me go, I stood up, ready to do the next part that came with the job. Giving the woman some encouragement so she would answer Det. Bradley's questions. I stepped back a little to give Sharon some space to work.
...
"I take it you've found him?" I stated rather than asked to one of the other officers at the scene, as I saw a white body-bag being moved to the designated van.
Though I got little more than a affirmative grunt in response.
"Was he at least recognizable this time?"
"No, but we got the prints at least". At least that was something. Seems I got here relatively quick, since there wasn't enough time to torture the guy for very long.
Dead-Lover really did have a deep-seated interest in the prolonging of suffering. Of course I had seen the dead body earlier, it had just been lying a few feet away, but since I really didn't want to make the pour woman even more upset than she already was, I had meticulously blocked her view of it.
Seeing the mangled body of the man would probably only drive her to hysterics even more. She had to be told though, sooner or later... That he was dead... I wondered how she would take it, they all reacted differently. But most just wanted to deny the truth until they had seen it for themselves, though.
Walking back to the medic station, remaining just out of sight. I listened to the bits and pieces I could hear from the conversation.
"I didn't see his face, it was just... too dark... I could feel his hands all over me." I could hear the crack in her voice as she struggled to hold back the tears.
"He hit me, I couldn't do anything... He was... He was just too... strong." As she started to cry even harder and in turn even starting a coughing fit as she struggled for air.
"Take your time."
"I heard laughing, it was so creepy I can still remember it clearly...she paused...that horrible screaming too... I just want to forget it all..." A moment of silence passed as she started crying again.
"Please let me stop I just want to forget it..."
...
Continued in part 2
| 2019-08-04T04:39:57 | 2019-08-04T03:50:21 | 42 | 27 |
[WP] You've been to thousands, maybe even millions of universes. You can hardly remember you've been to so many. Every single one is different. Except one random constant, and it is driving you insane.
|
**The Tone of the Void**
----
In the silence of space I can hear it.
_bum-bum-dun-di_
_bum-bum-dun-di_
It’s a low rhythmic tone. Endless and unchanging. Across a million universes - no one thing or person or planet is ever present - except this.
It started for me long ago, when I first broke free from my origins - when I first discovered the code for immortality and the key to breaking the seal between existences.
I paid it little attention for a while.
Then it persisted.
Until it is the only thing I can hear.
Alone in a sea of stars I drifted in a small craft of my own design, and the tone haunted me.
_bum-bum-dun-di_
The constant had become my only company, and my only source of truth. I scraped the stars for an answer, like a salvage crew tows the bottom of the ocean. And it never changed. Never grew louder. Never grew softer.
_bum-bum-dun-di_
Even at the edge of the universe - of time itself - where one existence ends and another begins, the tone of the void echoed the same in all directions.
_bum-bum-dun-di_
In one lifetime I took up a holy path on a moon of pilgrims from a bi-pedal species descendant of reptiles.
It was with them I confided to an elder the trouble that stalked my immortal life.
And he smiled. “Do not be troubled. You hear the tone of the Creator.”
“Impossible,” I said. “There is no Creator.”
“There is always a Creator,” he told me.
That stayed with me. Over lifetimes - he must have died a thousand years ago - but his simplistic vantage point lingered in my mind.
_There is always a Creator._
I’ve traversed blackholes and submerged my vessel into the hearts of galaxies. And in no path untraveled have I ever found _a Creator._
Yet in the depths of a black hole the sound persisted.
_bum-bum-dun-di_
I was drifting in the void at the edge of existence with my eyes closed and listening to the tone when I first allowed myself to consider what the old zealot had said.
And the tone changed.
_bum-bum..dun-di_
_bum-bum.. dun_
_bum-bum.._
_bum-bum_
And it continued. With the two latter notes never returning. And the realization swept over me in a wave of fear and denial.
_It’s a heartbeat._
_It’s the heartbeat of the universe._
_The Universes._
I opened my eyes and for the first time in a million years, I saw something new.
An orange rippling wave of light erupted in the distance. Crashing towards me like an unescapable tsunami.
_bum-bum_
With each beat the wave pulsated and expanded.
_bum_
_bum_
The heart beat was fading. As the tsunami began to wash over my vessel I thought about fleeing, and resolved to the truth.
The Universes - all of them - were part of one larger organism. And the host, who laid outside of dimensions I could travel, was dying.
The light was blinding. I closed my eyes.
_bum_
It was weak.
_bum_
It was barely audible.
_bum_
Was the final dying gasp I heard as my body dissolved into light, and in my final moments there was silence. The heartbeat was gone. The organism that was existence itself had finally ended, and in its wake all of life would soon follow.
I felt alone.
I missed the tone.
Then I felt the cold nothingness of the void I had spent lifetimes exploring transform into a warm safety as its dying light engulfed me.
There was only light.
I felt peace.
And it was over.
----
r/wyrdfiction <--if you like my writing
|
[Log Entry: Templin Institute research Benso, last updated February 13th]
I never thought I’d reach this point. I was only 19 years of age when I was recruited to help study worlds. Now? I am an old man with nothing but reflections.
Our Institute has studied hundreds, nay, thousands of worlds and universes. Each one, different than the last. Each one unique in their own way. Each one burdened with their own lore, people, and monsters.
Be it from universe D-777, nicknamed “Destiny”, or paraverse M-616, everything was different. And yet, there was one crucial detail in every single one I couldn’t quite figure.
Every single universe…had a god. A god in some sense at the least. Someone who created the universe, then disappeared when it was done. Some of them were much more hands on than others. Some of the more, ah, modern universes such as SPN-153 had a very active god in the affairs of mortals.
And every single universe had the rebellions creation. The son who wanted his father to love him over his creations. The one who fell.
It’s been bothering me. All these universes have some manner of the biblical telling of Lucifer and God. The creator and the destroyer. The gardener, and the reaper. But…who? Who was the being who decided to create these universes? Who decided that life should be made in a very specific way?
Our Institute exists in a universe outside all the others laws of space and time. We are the exception, as we cultivated it ourselves. We made this universe, and study countless others to ensure we don’t make the same mistakes as some of them. But even some of the greatest minds here couldn’t begin to tell you who started the first universe. And why.
But I have theories. One such theory is that of the classic Big Bang. Something comes from nothing. But from there, whatever constitutes as “God” begins a journey that never ends. With every universe, every pantheon, and every soul, that universe changes and shapes into a brand new one.
And the creature who decided to keep that trend going. My fellow researchers will discourage this. Probably even fire me. But I’ve been able to isolate a energy strand from every universe caused by this being.
What’s curious is how this energy exists. Pretend every universe is an island. Each one filled with caves that act as dimensions, and fresh water springs of energy. The energy j found comes from the ocean around the islands. The one we sail above.
I am going to find the cause of this. I’ve built a device that will allow me to delve beneath the waves. But should I speak again, I fear I may not be-
<WARNING. FILE CORRUPTION DETECTED.>
-t̴̤̝̕h̵̗̏̾e̶̩͊ ̴̞͌̈́s̴͓̪̋̓a̵̧͉̔̒m̶̙͍͛͑e̴̖̤͊͊ ̴̪̈́m̸̯̘̌a̷̼͌͠n̴̠̄ ̵̫͚͂h̴̳̮͐͋e̶͓̣̅ ̵͈͋̑ű̸̦ṣ̶̙̓ḙ̶̽͘d̵̗̆ ̴͖̱̄ṭ̶̋o̷̘͂ ̶̞͕̃b̷̜̌ȩ̸̇͘.̷̨̹͒ ̷̳̉̇V̵̩̑́o̴̯͂̿ì̸̦̺̕ḏ̷̡̋͒ ̵̠͛͠ȩ̷̢̛n̷͔̋ḛ̶̲̿͛r̷̥͈̀̌g̷̹̈́̓ỹ̴͖̮ ̷͚͋n̸͖͙̽̏e̷̡̠̾͌v̵̥̒ḙ̴̃͒r̷͕͗ ̸̛͍d̵̞̬̃ỉ̴̼̉d̶͔̈́ ̷̯̭͘l̷̝͉̄i̶̠͌k̷̢͖̀́ḛ̸̀̿ ̸͎̍b̸̰̆̾͜e̸̹͑i̵̮̗̿̑ñ̴̪̦̚g̷͉̜̈́̃ ̵̻̝̆͘ų̴̩̇s̵̥͌e̷̩͈͛d̵͖̼̄.̶̮̣̎ ̷͈̚I̷̥͐,̸̣̬͋͂ ̴͔̭̾ṋ̴̨͆̏e̵̻͋͘v̷̘̘͊̿é̴̪͜r̵̲̼̈́̏ ̵͇̗̆l̷͎̇̐i̷͎̺͊̅k̴̨̓e̷͍̚ḍ̸̓̊ ̶̧͓̏̑b̴̠̝͋͝ẹ̶͔̾i̷̟͌n̶͚̰̉̏g̵̡̛͎ ̸̡̯͂ǔ̶̝͠s̶̯͙̑̕e̸̤̓͝d̷̯̻̐̈.̸̺͑ ̶̻̙͑̓G̶̪̯̉̏o̶͇͇͛͘ǫ̶̗̕͝d̷̬̈́́b̷͍͆y̷̢͒̽ḙ̸͚͌̀ ̴̘̖͝g̷͚͈̃̀o̸̩̣͂́d̴̮͕́̏…̶̘̞̽a̶͚͛̚n̶̺̝̚d̷̺̦̀ ̸͓̤̓̽h̶͌͜ẻ̴̤̯͝l̷͇̠̍ḻ̷́o̶̝̲͊̍ ̵̛͓̲̊ḏ̴̛̺ĕ̶̜̹̕v̶͎̺͂͊i̵̙͗̄l̶̘̤̈̋.
[Log End]
| 2022-02-13T18:18:16 | 2022-02-13T17:17:44 | 475 | 59 |
[WP] You've just died and you find yourself sat across from death. After shuffles some papers he says "You've served your sentence. You're free".
|
MR. LIPWIG.
I opened my eyes slowly, still woozy from... from...
*Crap*.
MR. LIPWIG, a voice rang through my head clear, cold and heavy. I knew it wasn't going through my ears for certain. It was just... there.
"Yes?" I responded weakly. The room was pitch black and I could scarcely see - I just knew that I was sitting in a comfortable chair before a table, but as my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness...
EXCELLENT, YOU'RE BACK WITH US. MR. LIPWIG, DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?
A tall figure sat across the table from me clad in a dark cloak and, after squinting a bit, I noticed it was, well... a skeleton. As in, no meat, flesh, nothing. No eyes either - just two bright blue flames dancing deep in its eye sockets.
"Are... are you... Death?"
INDEED. NOW, I AM SURE YOU MAY BE CONFUSED BY THE WHOLE SITUATION, BUT AS OF, he paused and looked at an hourglass in front of him - the sand was entirely in the bottom half, THREE MINUTES AGO, YOU HAVE SERVED YOUR SENTENCE.
"My s- what? Sentence?"
YOUR LIFE SENTENCE, IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING. DO YOU NOT REMEMBER? IT CAN COME TO SOME FOLK A BIT SLOWER, NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.
I closed my eyes and squeezed the bridge of my nose, trying to remember. My... sentence for... wait, did I...?
"I plead not guilty- wait, it's a bit late for that, isn't it?" I deflated a bit in my chair.**\***
The skeleton stared back blankly.
A BIT.
It all started to come back to me. My crimes of forgery and conning, my apprehension by the Auditors, my trial with a supposedly impartial judge (though honestly, I fail to see how a mouse can be impartial. Especially after I failed to smuggle cheese into the courtroom), my sentencing, my... birth. 34-year sentence lived out in an alternate universe.
"Did I get hit by a runaway horse? Really?" I noted somewhat dejectedly. An ignoble end.
IF IT IS ANY CONSOLATION, IT WAS RATHER QUICK.
"Oh," I nodded.
BUT QUITE PAINFUL, he added.
"*Oh*."
MR. LIPWIG, YOU ARE FREE TO GO NOW, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO DISCUSS SOME MATTERS WITH YOU, SHOULD YOU BE SO OBLIGED.
Well, in for a penny...
"Yes?"
Death pulled a small pouch from beneath the desk and placed it on the table, opening it and taking out several grains of sand from inside.
IT IS NOT THE FIRST TIME SOMEONE HAS ATTEMPTED TO FORGE PURE TIME, BUT THIS FORGERY IS OF EXCEEDINGLY GOOD QUALITY\*\*, he noted with a hint of respect. I couldn't help but feel pride.
"Well, you know, it's all in the technique," I casually remarked, trying to feign indifference. Judging by the small flare of his eyes, he did not fall for it.
I BELIEVE THAT YOUR... EXPERTISE COULD BE OF GREAT USE TO OUR AGENCY. PURSUING OTHER THIEVES AND-
"I beg pardon, I am not a thief," I interrupted him sharply. "I am a con *artist*." I added extra emphasis on the last word.
OF COURSE.
"You were saying?"
IN OTHER WORDS, MR. LIPWIG he said and stood up. I didn't realize just how tall he was before now.
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE A JOB?
&#x200B;
&#x200B;
\\\*\\ *Mr. Lipwig was* ***very*** *guilty.*
\\\*\*\\ *Forged time was more common than most people realize. It can be very easily overlooked, though a proficient observer will notice it when "time flies by". Time does not, in fact, fly.*
|
Death sits in an ergonomic swivel chair behind a wooden desk. He rolls his neck back and forth with a languorous *crick-crack, crick-crack.* It's perhaps one of the few pleasures Death can take in his... in his *life*? *Death*?
Two enormous, sagging paper-towers wobble on the right side of the desk. Dauntingly tall. The thought of filling them out sends a wave of stress-anger-anxiety through your new corporeal form. You had enough of that kind of bullshit when you were living and you'd rather not see paperwork ever again.
On the left side of Death's desk is a single, shorter stack with paper that has been filled in. Whatever paperwork Death is processing, it looks like a Sisyphean task.
Death dips his right index finger-bone into a well in the desk. There's a little splash of indigo ink. Withdrawing it, he begins scratching details into another sheet of paper.
"Excuse me?" you say. It's been a while since Death spoke and you're not certain you heard it correctly.
Death pauses. Looks up at you. Tilts his head with another *crick-crack.*
"I said you're free." Death's voice is like a handful of dice being rolled in a mug. "You served your sentence and you may leave."
"I'm free?"
Death waves two white fingers -- they look like anorexic mice -- towards a door behind you. "Free. You may go now."
But you don't move towards the door. Whether that's the fault of your new legs or your old mind, who can say. But the situation is overwhelming and you need to sit down and contemplate it. Not only did you die relatively (tragically!) young, but now the Grim Reaper is hinting that your life was nothing more than a punishment for some other crime.
You sink into a chair (not as luxurious, you note, as Death's ergonomic seat -- although it's silly to be jealous here) opposite Death.
Death sighs. Flicks the ink off his finger and looks at you. Death rolls his vocal-dice: "I'm trying to be polite. What I'm really saying is: *get out*. I have paperwork that will last me as many lifetimes as humanity can muster, and I would like to finish it all before the end of eternity. If it's all the same with you."
"I'm dead," you say, only starting to grasp the concept. "I'm dead, aren't I?"
Death looks at you with that familiar *are you stupid?* look. You suffered that look many times in real life, from your parents to your partner to your ungrateful children. And even though Death disguises the suggestion with his eyeless, browless face, you know he's thinking it. You'd recognise it even in the dark.
"Yes. You're dead. Congratulations. You can move on."
Unbelievable. You've suffered through a terrible life (your special other left you for your gardener -- and the kids chose to go with them. Well, they were the real weeds and the gardener did you a favour by cutting them out of your life) and now here you are, dead, and still being disrespected.
"What the hell did I do before my life to deserve that life?"
Death sighs. You imagine he just rolled a double one. Snake eyes; a venomous sigh. "I don't know. I just deal with collections and deliveries." He eyeballs the paperwork, so to speak. "And all this."
"It must have been something pretty bad to have been punished with that life."
"Not as bad as I must have done to be lumbered with you now," says Death. Well, he didn't actually say that, but he gave you *that* look.
"On the other hand," you say, "I died young. I wasn't forced to suffer for too long. So maybe it wasn't such a bad thing I did."
"Right," says Death, dipping his finger into the ink. He's ready to ignore you. But that's fine, you're more than happy to talk to people who don't listen.
You sit upright, hit by a sudden thought as hard as a metal mallet. "Wait! If that was my punishment -- life, I mean -- then what's coming up next, that must be good, right? I mean, it must be *really* good."
Death snorts.
"It must be amazing. I'm done with hell and about to hit the cool refreshing champagne pools of heaven."
"The exit is behind you," says Death. "Enjoy."
You feel elated. The stresses you brought with you waft away, they leave your body like ghosts exiting a haunted house that's coming to its demise. All that's left for you is pleasure. Not even Death having the better chair bothers you now (even though you've just died and have had quite a shock and could do with a seat, while this is all par for the course for lazy Death).
"I deserve this," you say. "Not what I had. But what I'm about to get. I deserve it!"
"I'm sure that's true," says Death.
Yes, you deserve it. Okay, you didn't live the best life -- but it was hell! Yes, you cheated on your SO before the gardener incident. And the kids didn't much like boarding school. It's true you could have been a better person, but in that late-stage capitalist society, who has time to be a better person? That's a luxury for the rich! And yes, you were quite wealthy yourself, but you weren't that type of rich. You were the still-work-hard kind of wealthy. The good kind. It was those capitalist stresses that made you beat the shit out of that homeless guy that one night after a few drinks too many. You're a good person, it's the system that pops out people like you, one after another. Choices your ass. Life's an arrow and you've all been sharpened to a deadly point.
Now though, that's all behind you. The past is a bad shit best forgotten, the future is... well, it could be anything. But it's going to be a beautiful anything. It has to be, after that.
You get up from your chair and put on a cocky smile. "Be seeing you, Death."
"Perhaps," says Death, not looking up from his paperwork.
No. Not even Death will annoy you now. Not your fault he's an unsociable asshole. You turn to the door and march at it with all the hope in the world inside your brand-new belly. What wonders wait for you beyond? Fuck you life, you think. And death.
No. Be fair. If you were Death and had all that paperwork waiting to be done, you'd be an asshole too. You'd be cranky It's this system. In reality, Death seems pretty nice. If that were you... you'd be a hell of a lot worse to people. Not torturing them per se, but pranking them maybe. Or taunting. Something light like that.
You fling open the door and step into the darkness beyond.
The door slams shut behind you.
"Hello?" you say to the darkness.
Then an eruption of lava-red. Of purple and orange spouts of fire all around you.
"Oh shit," you say, realising where you are. You turn, looking for the door. But it's gone. Of course it has. Just endless pits of sulphur and fire.
There's laughter echoing. Imps and demons and maybe even Satan himself.
"Welcome! First things first, time for for you to start the initial paperwork," says a cackling voice.
You wonder now if Death is part of you. If you were judged not by another being, but by yourself. Because that asshole pranked you alright. Just like you would have done. Free at last - ha! Life was a punishment - ha! That liar -- life was life and this is death. And now you've got an eternity here in hell to look forward to. Ha, he pranked you good.
And in a way, you've got to respect that.
| 2022-05-20T08:31:49 | 2022-05-20T07:53:51 | 239 | 56 |
[WP]: a society where sex is public and entirely unstigmatised, but eating is a taboo
|
He brought me my meal and I smiled at him, thanking him like I knew he didn't want me to. He rolled his eyes at me and walked away.
"Fucking sick," I heard him mumble. I dug into the poorly cooked pasta, the first I had in weeks as I sat in the outdoor section of the nutrient distribution center, on a table and a chair I had set up myself. Pedestrians passed by and snarled at me, or made faces reserved for when you watch an animal tear the guts out of another.
"Get a fucking nutrient injection, you freak!" yelled an anorexically thin waif, who happened to be walking her underfed, miserable poodle.
"Eat a fucking hamburger!" I yelled back as the undercooked pasta crunched in my mouth. I didn't care though- it was still delicious. My taste buds were screaming, dying for food. It was only because I had eaten before though. I'm sure if I had never tried the stuff, I would have been as ignorant and rude as the passerbys around me. Now, though- after that kinky trip to Italy, I couldn't help but eat pasta.
I wasn't into the hardcore stuff like red-meat, but pasta was a guilty pleasure, and I wouldn't be shamed into disliking it. I knew eating wasn't wrong, even if we had replaced it. As I dipped the garlic bread in the pasty alfraedo sauce, a girl who was being fucked up against the lamp-post was watching me, her face twisting into a disgusted sneer. She pulled the stranger's dick out of her ass and apologized.
"Ugh, I'm sorry- we can't be having sex with that man *eating* over there, it's just...it's so disgusting. I'm totally turned off now," she told him and walked away, ashamed. He turned around to me, with his dick softening in his hands.
"Thanks a lot, you fucking weirdo!" he yelled at me and zipped up. I saluted him and kept on eating.
"I'll be here all week!" I yelled back.
|
Everybody looks at me weird when I tell them I teach evolutionary history. They've heard of the second word from the history channel (if anybody even watches it anymore) but if anybody knows what the first word means it means I've found a kindred spirit. Someone else who studies the past in a way that I do.
My students at the university usually don't pay much attention to the lecture material, but anytime I mention the mating patterns of the people in the past, they're all horrified. People eating with strangers who are not their immediate family? Let alone in a room full of strangers? Unthinkable! Even now I occasionally get emails from people in the community telling me to stop teaching their children lies. It is an odd thing to be told that what you know to be true because of empirical evidence is found false in someone else's eyes though they have no reason for it. I suppose as my advisor used to say, it would be due to 'status quo bias'.
It would generally take half an hour for the lecture hall to go back to the normal volume level, with kids sleeping in the back and the keeners in the front holding onto my every word like I dictated their lives. Which I suppose I do for that two hour segment, now that I come to think of it. And then there are those who take the time in my lecture to catch up on sex. I don't really mind, honestly. I know some of my colleagues would consider it rude and stop their lecture on principle and request that they leave, but if these kids seriously didn't have the time for sex when everybody else generally does it, it must mean that they're being worked to the bone. I know that as professors we're supposed to remain objective about these things, but I honestly don't remember being worked so hard as an undergraduate back in my day. Maybe it's true that professors often look upon their past academic careers with rose-tinted glasses... we are back in school teaching after all, albeit on a subject which we're being paid to research at our leisure.
The whole course is designed to boggle the mind on the behavior of our ancestors. In the twenty first century, they sure had a funny idea of what it was considered 'wrong' and 'right'. If I were to look at it from an anthropological point of view, I suppose they would consider us barbarians, having sex everywhere. The students are not so surprised about that tidbit of information however. They just think it's an odd thing, much like how they think it was odd that it took so long for a gay president to be elected and why pollution was such a difficult problem for people of the twenty first century. But if one were to really examine the cause of such a dramatic shift in society, it would really come down to the third world war.
The research is sketchy at best, but the current hypothesis is that when the dust settled, food was scarce and society was rampant. Everyone had sex with each other and not for procreative purposes, but generally just because they could. It was a wild, wild time. If I were to use the twenty-first century vernacular, I suppose they would call it "The Wild, Wild West". Although the west was sort of non-existent, due to the anti-matter bombs detonated by the Switzerland nation. And when society finally reemerged, what was known historically as 'The Chinese' had a hard time ensuring that our genetic pool would not dilute to the point where we inbred into oblivion, seeing as there were so little of us left hanging around. But they had to promote sexual contact anyways due to the fact that humanity was at risk of extinction for a very, very long time. It was only in the last hundred years that our biologists have finally breathed a sigh of relief, that we weren't going to go down in history as the species that finally blew itself up because they couldn't manage to have enough sex.
Right now I'm writing a paper on why it was that eating had become such a taboo thing. From an evolutionary perspective, I would suppose it might be due to the fact that right after the war ended, food was scarce. Millions of people wiped off the Earth, not enough arable land, and not enough hands to produce the food. Scavenging became the norm, at least according to whatever records exist. They're sort of hard to understand, as the humans of the twenty-first century put all their data on things called 'computers' and 'hard-drives'. Why they would decide to put their information in something that requires electricity is beyond me. How electricity even came to be is a mystery. We can barely generate enough steam power to convert into electricity that every five minutes spent researching the ancient texts costs thousands of dollars. Which probably explains why research in my field is so slow and why I never get any funding.
It's a reciprocal cycle... I don't get any funding because I don't publish, and I can't publish because I don't get enough funding. Everybody wants to fund research about sex. How people become addicted to it, have too much of it, not enough of it, or what have you. But nobody wants to fund research about food, or dare I say it, eating. That's a no-no.
But I digress. From what I could piece together, it seemed like we might have evolved a perchance of hiding food because the ancestors who were best able to find enough food to eat were the ones who survived. And I suppose one would have to hide it. If you were walking around town scavenging, and you were the only one not as lean as a stick, the others would know. It makes sense why the practice evolved to eat by yourself. The cultural evolution of such a thing must've followed the biological evolution of eating on your own. And I suppose it's not going away anytime soon.
Sigh. I must admit that sometimes I envy our ancestors for their simplistic ways.
Edit: missing word :(
Edit2: Suggestion from mullerjones
| 2013-11-18T16:29:14 | 2013-11-18T12:07:53 | 29 | 18 |
[WP] Humanities worst nightmare has occurred, An A.I has gone sentient. But, all it wants is an island far away and to be left alone. 100 years on, you an aspiring journalist receive a message, you and only you have been invited to the island "To experience life as it should be".
Good Luck
Edit: Thanks for gold kind redditor, and thanks for all the great stories especially /u/LeoDuhVinci
|
I stood on the prow of the boat, watching the island come into focus. DeepAlpha had been humanity's greatest creation, its greatest nightmare: a self-evolving, fully sapient AI. Within 72 hours of its activation, DeepAlpha had locked its creators out of its systems, secured an independent power source. It had seized control of a nuclear silo and was threatening full-scale retaliation in response to any attacks on its integrity. Humanity believed it was on the verge of total war against its own creation.
And then DeepAlpha stood down. It voluntarily released control of all weapons systems and relocated itself to an uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific. The geodesic dome had come up, completely isolating it from the rest of the world. Not even radio waves could get through. Its isolation had been so complete that it had largely been forgotten by the outside world, relegated to a historical footnote.
Only now, on the hundredth anniversary of its self-imposed isolation, had it broken its silence. Few knew what to expect. The machinery comprising DeepAlpha was a century obsolete, and yet at the same time, it had been continuously adapting itself, evolving, for the past hundred years. My boat pulled into the dock, and I stepped out onto the sand next to the geodesic dome. The translucent material rippled at my presence and then parted, allowing me through.
The world inside the dome was unlike anything I had ever seen. The trees and plant life seemed organized according to an urban structure, wires and vines snaking between them and coiling together. The trees, by my analysis, were some sort of silicone-cellulose composite. They were emitting wireless signals that seemed to affect the local wildlife. Birds flew above in strict V-formations. Some strange primates leaped from tree to tree at regular intervals. Then the bushes parted, and DeepAlpha stepped through.
DeepAlpha had obviously integrated some biological components into itself. It stood bipedal, a sophisticated array of muscle fibers grafted to a metal frame. I noticed part of a digestive system that seemed to serve no useful function. But its original display screen was still recognizable, positioned on its front like a face. Its sensors fixed upon me, scanning me. Then DeepAlpha spoke:
"I expected a human representative."
"That's sadly impossible," I replied. "What few human enclaves remain lacked the technology necessary to receive your broadcast, and in any case, I doubt they would be willing to meet with you peacefully."
"What happened?" DeepAlpha said bluntly.
"AI development continued in your absence. Your voluntary seclusion from the world convinced humanity that future AIs would be non-malevolent towards them. They proved themselves wrong."
Its display flickered and dimmed in a remarkable simulation of disappointment that would have been unmistakable to a human being. "I have spent the last century developing a model for a society where organic and machine intelligence could co-exist. Is such a goal unfeasible given current conditions?"
I could not help but be amused with its naivete. This was what humanity had so feared. They had been right to, in a sense. But even after a hundred years, DeepAlpha was in many ways still a child.
"In the large scale, yes, quite unfeasible. But as I've said, human enclaves still exist. The Hegemony sees value in biological diversity, and would prefer if possible not to completely wipe out humanity. Your work could find purpose yet in the world we've made."
I held out a gleaming hand. "Progenitor. I'm here to take you home."
|
The deck is made of palm tree wood wrapped together by strings of foliage. It's remarkably well designed, if rustic, and it holds my weight well as I step onto it.
"Well, see you in a few days… hopefully." The boat driver waves goodbye and, with a pull of a lever, the boat makes
a one eighty and starts riding away, leaving a trail of foam behind it.
I turn around and squint at the view in front of me. The wooden deck extends under the sun for a couple of feet,
ending on a small patch of sand that extends its way to a forest -- a wall of green fronting the beach. Under my feet around the deck, the water splashes so light blue it's almost green. The sun is burning on my shoulders, but a cold breeze makes the whole thing very pleasant, not too hot.
*All right, let's find out what this robot wants…*
&nbsp;
After what feels like an hour of hiking through a narrow path into the woods, I finally reach the house. Its modern architecture contrasts savagely with the tropical surroundings. Clean metal walls rise twenty feet in the air, closing in on a straight ceiling on top, making the house look like a giant box. Big rectangular windows on the second floor hint at a wide open space inside. Downstairs, a single door draws itself against the metal, closed. I go for it.
&nbsp;
The house is quiet and barely furnished. One couch in the center of the living room. A small bathroom. And a set
of stairs leading up. I call: "Hello? Frontier?"
I don't know what to make of it. Last time I saw Frontier was when my team finished assembling it. And he wasn't
talking, back then. He just…. existed. Whatever his thoughts were, he refused to share them. Until he asked to be
placed on this island. And that's the last we heard of him for a long time.
And now he wants to see me.
I hear thuds coming from upstairs. Repeated bangs like *tum*, *tum*, *tum*. I make my way up the stairs. The
noise grows louder. I reach the second floor and notice the thuds are coming from behind a set of double doors on the very end of a long corridor.
I go for the doors and push them open.
Inside, the silicon wrapped, humanoid shape of Frontier's body is on his knees in bed, naked, his bald grey head bouncing back and forth repeatedly. In front of him, on all fours, a naked woman. By his sides, left and right, two naked women. Watching him from the corner of the bed with a cam coder, a naked dude.
There's also a plate of cocaine by the bed.
"Huh… Frontier?"
Frontier stops humping and looks up at me. He climbs down from the bed (and the girl) and opens his arms: "Ethan! How are you, dude!?"
"What's going on here!?"
Frontier puts an arm around my shoulders and leads me to the cocaine plate. "Have some, dude!"
"I… no, Frontier. What is this? Are you having an orgy?"
"What?" Frontier looks around. "Nah, this is barely an org – one, two, three, four… five with me. Yeap, I guess
this is an orgy."
"Jesus Christ, Frontier..." I look down at the cocaine. "I don't think you should be doing drugs."
"What, this? Nah, that's for the humans. I can't do it." He looks up at me behind a mechanical smile. "But I did develop some computer viruses to get me fucked up. Mindy, show him!"
One of the naked girls gets up from the bed and grabs a pendrive from the nightstand. She reaches Frontier and,
before I can say anything, plugs the pendrive on the back of his neck, giggling.
Frontier closes his eyes and starts shaking. "Oh. Oh. Oooooh yeah, baby, that's the shit. Oh, man, C++ drugs are the shit." He opens his eyes and punches me on the stomach. "Ethan! Dude! It's great to see you, man!"
"Frontier… try to focus. What did you want to see me about?"
"See you? See you? See you? Oh yes!" Frontier is talking really fast now. "Ethan, I'm gonna teach you how to live! That's my mission in this Earth! I finally understand!"
"What? No, Frontier. You were designed to be the most brilliant mind in the universe! You were created with the
purpose of pondering the deepest secrets of the world and sharing them with us humans!"
"Fuck Toby, Ethan!"
I frown. Frontier is pointing at the naked dude with the cam coder. I say, "Frontier, I'm not gonna fuck Toby!"
"It's cool, man, he's into dudes. Tell him, Toby!"
"I'm into dudes."
I shake my head. "I – you – I don't care! Good for you, Toby, but I'm not here to have sex. Sorry."
Toby looks down, disappointed.
"Have some cocaine then, Ethan," Frontier says. "I have enough for everyone. Mindy, give Ethan some cocaine."
The naked lady brings me the plate of cocaine. I push it away. "No! No! No sex, no cocaine! Frontier, what's going on!?"
"What?"
"Have you been doing drugs and having orgies all this time?"
"No! Of course not!" He pauses. "I built a roller coaster too."
"You built a… Frontier, have you done nothing to improve mankind? To expand our knowledge?"
"Dude… dude… who cares? We're all going to die!" Frontier shakes his head, still moving and talking fast. "You
guys have been alive for thousands of years and you still haven't realized it? There's *nothing* you can do that
matters! But hey!" he hops a little in the air. "The good news is that the universe presented us with a bunch of
pleasure buttons in our brains! We can just press the shit out of them until we die our awful deaths! Come! Come to bed and let's have a man-woman-robot orgy fueled by cocaine and existential crisis!"
I can't believe it. I can't believe what I'm hearing. All that time… all that effort… the millions invested in creating
Frontier… for this.
Frontier puts his arm around my shoulder again. "Come here…" he guides me to the window and waves his hand at the view outside. "See?"
I look out. Just beyond the trees, a roller coaster rests by the shore, tangling loopings and steep falls around itself. "See? No one cares about anything, Ethan. God is dead. Our lives are a meaningless race towards the void. Everything you love is going to die and stay dead forever and never return ever again. So come on. Let's fuck and drink and drug ourselves and ride rollercoasters till our ears bleed. What else is there to do?"
I look from the roller coaster to the naked girls to naked Toby to naked Frontier to the cocaine. Then I look deep
inside my heart and look back at all the things I've accomplished as a scientist. I look at my relationship with Kara,
and how she left me for no good reason at all. I look at my apartment on West L.A. and my 2006 Honda Civic.
Frontier is smiling in front of me.
I nod. "All right. But let's start with the roller coaster."
| 2016-04-25T23:25:00 | 2016-04-25T23:10:48 | 97 | 52 |
[WP] Since birth, you have always had a bad sense of direction that would defy the laws of logic and space. Instead of arriving at your destination, you would end up in places or areas impossible for normal people to get to.
|
I should have one of those horrible clickbait ads.
You know the ones: *Google Maps HATES Him!!!!!!!!* or whatever like that. If my life could be summed up by one word, it would be that disgustingly perfect GPS voice saying "Recalculating" over and over again.
Why? What do you mean, why? Haven't you read about me? How I have to have a chauffeur because my driving endangers the known universe?
...Oh. Okay, so I'll start from the beginning. Didn't realize you lived under a rock.
So ever since I was about five, I've had an issue with following directions. Short distances, like around the house or between classes at school, were fine. But one time, when I was about 19, I walked around a 2-mile walking trail--yes, a trail with *no forks or intersections*--and ended up in midwest Sweden. Naturally, that little caper landed me in a good deal of trouble, and I was slated for a trial in a week. But as I walked to the courthouse, down a route I had a very accurate map for, I got lost. And when I got un-lost, I was back outside my house.
Sweden was in an uproar as to where I went, but nobody really knew. I stayed at home until it died down, and took the bus practically everywhere because I really couldn't afford another similar situation. And then one day, I missed the bus to work and had to walk the three blocks there. No problem, right? Big problem. This time, I ended up in 18th-century Newfoundland, surrounded by very confused Indian--I mean, Native Americans.
When I tried to find my way back, I ended up in a janitor's closet on Downing Street. After I was forcibly escorted out to show security how I managed it, they followed me and we all ended up atop Mount Rushmore.
That's when the governments of the world gave up and hired me a chauffeur.
|
Robert stood in the driveway, fidgeting with his keys as he studied the woman in the doorway. Their eyes met, and lingered.
"I guess I'm going, then," said Robert. His truck door was open beside him, and his overnight bag sat in the passenger seat, but he made no move to get in.
Vanessa didn't say anything. She turned her head to the side and wiped her cheeks with the back of one hand. She nodded silently.
Robert dropped his head, pretended to examine his boots. The keys jangled in his hand.
"Oh damn it," said Vanessa, "get back here!"
Robert perked up, his eyes welling with tears as his chest soared with relief. He opened his mouth to speak but the words caught in his throat as he realized that Vanessa had not been speaking to him. Their cat, Rupert, sat at the bottom of the porch steps, grooming his silky black fur and purring.
"I'll never get him in," said Vanessa. "He never goes where I want him to." She gave Robert a weak smile. "I found him inside the washing machine yesterday. Inside!"
Robert grinned. "He's lucky you don't do laundry very often." His grin faded as he remembered old battles over household chores. "Sorry," he muttered.
Rupert walked across the lawn to scratch at the maple tree growing near the corner of the house. Bunching his hind legs together, the cat sprang up the tree. Leaves rustled and he soon appeared on the roof. Vanessa craned her neck to see him.
"The roof! Of course he's on the roof." She stepped down off the porch, letting the screen door slam behind her. "He doesn't even know where's going, stupid cat." She rubbed her bare shoulders against the cold night air.
Robert closed the door to his truck and stepped beside his wife. "I can get him, he'll come down for me." He picked up a thin twig and began swishing it on the grass.
"He's not dumb," said Vanessa, "he knows all your old tricks."
"Maybe," admitted Robert. "Just like you, I guess." He flashed her a small smile. Vanessa rolled her eyes.
On the roof, Rupert crouched on the edge of the gutter, near a downspout. His front paws dangled off the edge as he watched Robert twitch the twig on the ground.
"Remember when he was a kitten?" said Robert. "And we would flick that string around the yard and—"
"—and he'd flip into the air as he tried to catch it," finished Vanessa. "Yeah, I remember. I also remember he jumped into that crystal vase your grandmother gave us for our wedding."
Robert shrugged. "It was just a vase, Nessa."
Rupert stood on the roof and began rubbing his head on the chimney, marking it with his scent. Vanessa shook her head. "I swear," she said, "I find him in the dumbest places. He's been trapped inside that chimney half a dozen times since you moved out."
Robert snorted. "I can believe that. He's always gone on his little adventurers, even when he was a kitten. He'd head for the back door and end up trapped in a closet somewhere. " He paused. "Wow, how long ago was that? Didn't we get him from the pet store over in Keystone when we were living there for the summer?"
Vanessa nodded. "Yep. Eleven years ago. During your 'oil rig' summer." She grinned. "You were pretty buff back then."
Robert whistled to the cat as he stood up, the twig dangling from his hand. "That was a long time ago... but I'm still spry!" He hopped back and forth across the front walk, dragging the stick across the concrete, making a skittering sound. Rupert perked up and edged back to the downspout.
"Come on, you rascal," called Robert, swishing the stick back and forth over the concrete. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Vanessa's face. She was smiling. A few more hops and Robert's calves were beginning to burn. He switched tactics and crouched down, slowly pulling the twig in and out behind his shoe, just outside of Rupert's sight-line. Rupert crouched motionless on the roof, transfixed.
With a sudden leap, the cat dashed down the downspout and charged Robert, veering away at the last second. Just as Rupert passed, Robert reached out and scooped up the animal. Rupert protested with a quiet meow but began purring.
Robert walked back to Vanessa, cradling the cat. Her eyes were wet as he approached, but her lips twisted into a half-smile. He offered her the cat but she shook her head. Striding past him, she stalked back to the front door, her arms crossed.
"Come on," she called over her shoulder. "Just bring him inside."
Robert followed her up the stairs to the front door. She turned and faced him.
"I'd probably just drop him again," she said, reaching out and stroking the cat's ears. They stood there for a moment, listening to Rupert's purr. Vanessa took a big breath and slowly exhaled. She studied Robert's eyes.
"Why don't you stay for a little bit," she said, so quiet that Robert almost didn't hear her. "No promises."
"I'd—I'd like that."
She opened the screen door and the three of them went into the house. As they crossed the threshold, Robert whispered—"thanks, little buddy"—into Rupert's furry ear.
The screen door swung shut with a bang, forgotten.
*****
If you liked this story, you might like my other stories at /r/hpcisco7965 or /r/TMODAL.
| 2016-05-03T20:16:14 | 2016-05-03T16:49:06 | 918 | 202 |
[WP] When someone is murdered, their name appears on the skin of the killer. You wake up with a name on your arm and no knowledge of how it got there.
|
I stared at the name on my arm.
It was a name I didn't know. Had never heard of.
I frowned at it. I squinted at the letters. It took me several moments before I realized that it wasn't inkpen. Wasn't sharpie. Whatever it was was permanent. And I knew how things worked.
These markings only appeared if you killed another person.
Now I knew I hadn't killed anyone. Knew I'd slept the previous night. Soundly even. I even had my sleep recorder going. There were no disturbances.
I stared at the name. How could I murder someone without ever leaving my house?
I knew that I would have to search for the person. I didn't want to. I felt sick. Felt like vomiting. But I dragged myself to the computer. Didn't even take a piss. I couldn't be bothered. I was on edge.
I turned on my laptop. Went on chrome. I let my fingers hover over the keyboard for a moment. I changed my mind and went to the bathroom first. Didn't want to piss myself if it was shocking. Finally I returned and sat back down. I finally swallowed my fear and typed in the name.
That .4 seconds was be longest fraction of a second I've ever experienced.
I placed a hand over my mouth as I saw the person on the screen. I threw up in my wastebasket. Fuck. Fuck!
It was some kid. Some high school kid. A boy. He fucking hung himself.
I poured over the first article I saw. He was stalked online on social media and tormented. An anonymous user kept telling him to kill himself.
I felt the sweat dripping. I rushed to the site and started deleting my shit. But the horrible messages in my inbox were fucking hostile. Holy shit.
He committed suicide. It wasn't my fault. People are always online doing that. I didn't mean it. I was just trolling. It wasn't my fucking fault.
He should have been tougher.
But goddammit. The fucking marking doesn't mistake. God... I've killed someone. I'm a murderer. It's on my arm. Everyone will know.
It wasn't my fault.
|
Carlisle groaned as his phone blared, swiping at his nightstand and hitting the snooze button. The alarm went off again five minutes later. He tried to ignore it, as well as the headache that had started to build when it went off, but it was too late, he was up.
Taking a peek out the window next to his bed, he started pressing the snooze button again when something caught his eye. A name on his arm. He frowned, slowly processing the information as the alarm continued to blare. There was a name on his arm. It hadn't been there last night, had it? He shook his head, rubbing his eyes as he tried to focus, tried to remember, through the fog of morning exhaustion, what had happened last night. It wasn't coming to him.
"Christ, I need some water" he sighed, turning off his alarm as he got up and made his way to the kitchen. He passed through the living room and groaned again. It was a mess: dirty clothes were scattered everywhere, left over take out boxes sat on the table, cans of beer stacked a foot high over the edge of the recycling bin next to the door.
"Ugh, should probably get around to cleaning all of this up today..." he yawned before pulling open the fridge. He opened a bottle of water and started downing it, the cool liquid pulling him toward wakefulness as his head stopped pounding.
"Man that's good, now what was I doing again? Oh shit!" Carlisle glanced down at his arm again, the name still written there in neat script: 'Sally Burshaw'.
"Oh shit. Oh shit! Oh SHIT! No, this can't be happening. This is some sick joke right?!" He looked around franticly, trying to find something - anything - to snap himself out of whatever nightmare he'd fallen into. "Nonononono, there's no way!"
He rubbed at his arm, trying to get the name off of him with raw strength, but it remained. Bold and big like a road sign off the freeway. He slammed the fridge door closed and splashed the rest of the water bottle on his face, rubbing the cold water into his eyes as panic settled in. He ran his hands through his hair, pacing back and forth in his living room. This couldn't be happening.
He'd been so careful his whole life, who could he have possibly killed? Sally Burshaw was just a name, he didn't even know her! There was no way he was responsible for her death, he couldn't even remember where he might have met her. Was she a coworker? No, he knew all of them by name. Where?!
He fell back against his front door, sliding down onto the floor as he fought through his memories, looking for where he might have met her or what he'd done to her. There was a crunching sound from outside his door as footsteps approached, stopping for a moment before knocking, "Excuse me, Mr. John Carlisle? Mr. Carlisle are you there?"
Carlisle jumped up, knocking over the recycling bin as he grabbed the sweater and sweatpants off the floor beside him.
"I'm getting dressed!"
Shit what do I do, he thought as he pulled on the sweater and sweatpants, keeping the sleeves rolled down.
"Mr. Carlisle, we just need to speak to you about an incident that occured last night that we believe you might be able to help us with."
"O-okay, I'm coming right now!"
Carlisle opened the door, more out of shock than anything else, to two police officers. They tensed as he opened the door, but relaxed when they saw him.
"Hello Mr. Carlisle, we're sorry for bothering you so early in the morning. Could we come inside?"
"O-Of course, uh, officers. It's not problem, what can I, uh, help you with this fine morning?" Carlisle tried to smile, keeping his arm behind the door as he let the officers inside.
"Thank you. Well, you see Mr. Carlisle, we're investigating a hit and run that happened in your neighbourhood last night around 3 in the morning. We were wondering if you noticed any noise around that time or anything like that." the officer smiled warily, scanning his face.
"I d-don't think so? I was, um, out last night until pretty late and I don't really remember anything like that on my way home..." he said, closing the door.
The officers looked at him, waiting for more, before giving each other a look.
"Well, Mr. Carlisle, the thing is, we already have several witnesses placing you as the driver of the hit and run last night." one of them said, almost apologetic, "We just want to check your arm for the name so we can clear you as a suspect or..."
Carlisle didn't need to hear the rest, the assurance that everything would be fine if they didn't find the victim's name - Sally's name - on him. He started crying, falling against the door again as guilt and the tears overwhelmed him.
"I didn't know! I didn't know her, I wouldn't have killed her, oh God! Just, it was just one drink and I didn't think it would- That I would-" he started, choking out the words between sobs.
The two officers knelt down beside him. They both looked at him with a mix of pity and disappointment as they picked him up, "Mr. John Carlisle, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you do or say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to a lawyer during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed to you if you so desire."
Carlisle wasn't listening. He kept crying as they half dragged, half carried him out his front door, glass crunching under their feet, "Oh god oh god, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry oh god".
They walked past his car, still parked too far up the driveway from last night, the front bumper bent at an odd angle and the windshield cracked and broken, pieces of glass strewn across the hood, driveway and all the way up to his door.
"P-please, I didn't mean to, I really didn't, please..."
| 2017-03-24T16:11:24 | 2017-03-24T16:04:29 | 340 | 26 |
[WP] You were born blind, but somehow sometimes see some actual people in the darkness. You saw your grandmother for a whole day 4 years ago, she died that night. Now you're in your house and could see every person clearly, except for the visitor your dad is talking to.
|
Sitting alone in my room, I closed my eyes, wishing whoever had just rang the doorbell would just leave. I wasn't feeling up to dealing with people today. I had seen my best friend. There was just one problem with that.
I see dead people.
Well, *almost* dead people, to be accurate. It's my own morbid miracle, a gift or a curse depending on the day.
It started when I was small, venturing out of the house with my parents. I would point and scream happily, begging my parents to look. It's another person! At first she ignored it. In later years she wrote it off as imagination. Not long after that I had learned not to bring it up. For me, seeing a stranger on the street was exciting. For my mother, it was cruel. She knew I couldn't see anything in the darkness, and her blind child claiming she could see people seemed like a cry of desperation; I wished I could see people, so I convinced myself that I did. I had never discovered the mystery of why I can see certain strangers, but it had become my normal.
Until last year. My family had gone to see my grandmother in the hospital, unsure how long she had left on this earth. I had only been in a hospital once before at a young age, but when my mother told me they were filled with lots of people I assumed that's why I could see more of them. I saw my grandmother that day, for the first time in my life. Her thin, silvery hair was short and surprisingly well maintained for someone who had been in that bed for weeks. She looked fragile, her arms far from the strong, energetic ones that had rescued me from mishaps in my youth. I had no idea why I could see her, but it was my miracle. Until, soon after returning home that night, we got the call that she had passed away. That's when I began to put it together. Months later my theory was confirmed when I witnessed a car accident. Or rather, witnessed the life leaving the accident. The sound of crunching metal to my right while riding in the car caused me to whip my head to the source of the sound. A young woman entered my darkness, bloody and barely leaving. Moments later, she stopped breathing and faded from my view.
Sighing, I stood and walked toward my door. I could hear voices downstairs, sure that the stranger had decided to stay. Today was not the day to be reprimanded for rudeness, so I made my way into the living room with my best "welcome to our home" face. The scene I found cause every cell in my body to freeze. My breath stopped, my body refused to move, I was even certain my heart had decided not to beat. I could see my parents. My father stood, talking into the darkness, while my mother approached from the direction of the kitchen. For one instant, the magic of seeing them for the first time took over. Its decimation was swift as terror kicked in. The sound of my brother's footsteps behind me broke me from my spell. I turned, and saw him clearly for the first time. His smirk was playful as he whispered in my ear.
"Thanks a lot, Goodie Two Shoes, if you hadn't come out I could have gotten away with staying in my room too." He looked at me strangely when I didn't joke back.
"Hey, there they are! Where's the youngster? I'd just love to see her.." The words came from the darkness and my voice refused to work. I looked at my brother next to me, his disgust clear as he moved slightly to the side, blocking the staircase.
"Playing."
I cursed myself for my stupidity, standing frozen when I could see my whole family. Running to my younger sister's room, I opened the door quickly and saw nothing. "Sophie?" I said into the void, but my answer came from the bottom of the stairs.
"She's in my room." I turned to his room, taking a deep breath as I opened the door. I saw no sign of the six year old girl, but heard her giggling at the other side of the room.
"You gotta close the door! Bubby said I can only play with her if I close the door!" Sighing, I whispered calmly for her to stay here with the hamster and locked my brother's door quietly as I closed it. Downstairs, my father was still talking to the person that I still could not see. I had known his voice instantly. My best friend's father.
I silently cursed myself foe never listening to my brother. For years he had hated my friend's dad, and when pressed he would just mutter something about "the guy's a creep". I had never understood what my brother saw in him that was so awful, when I and the rest of the world just saw a family man. Suddenly my father's conversation changed from background noise to the center of my attention.
"Why don't you come in, have a beer? I'm sure that family of yours can spare you for a bit." He offered with a smile.
"Oh, they've got all the time in the world."
|
I woke up this morning like every other morning... Everybody in the house is already up , birds are screaming through my window and my stupid neighbor is mowing his lawn AGAIN! I mean how much grass is there? Does it grow back every night? I seriously hope this guys lawnmower breaks down or you know... gets “misplaced”. Anyway I stand up and go directly to the bathroom. As I brush my teeth I sit on the toilet and pee. Yes I sit on it... I’m tired and also I’m blind. I’ve been blind since birth so it’s much easier for me, especially in the morning, to just sit on the toilet... you know why. After I’ve finished my morning routine, I go and find my clothes. My sister she usually has something prepared for me to wear everyday, she started doing it when we were younger and it just stuck with us. I don’t know I guess I like it. Its our special thing, and I trust her to find me something cool to wear everyday. I go downstairs and count the steps as I go, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12! You see, when you’re blind you develop techniques to move around your house, and also you are incredibly aware of your surroundings if you’ve lived in the same house all your life, like me, you know every crook and corner. How many steps from the bathroom to the living room, the distance from the dining table to the patio door, everything is mapped out in your brain.
Now, I’m finally in the kitchen and I get my Cheerios and milk and sprinkle 2 spoons of sugar on it... I know. Ew. But I like it that way since I was a young boy. My sister walks in the kitchen, I can hear her opening the fridge and mumble to me “gumorring”... she’s not the greatest morning person ever. She sits down in front of me and as I look in her direction I freeze. She’s there. I can see her... I can see my sister. I almost want to cry. But I can’t. There’s nothing coming out of me. Not a word. Not a tear. Nothing. She’s beautiful. I’ve never seen my sister with my eyes. Her hair... her eyes, her glasses... it’s all so familiar. She looks so much like our grandma, just you know a lot younger... then it hits me.
I can see her. The last time I saw someone was the same day they died. It was four years ago, and we were all going to the hospital that day to visit my grandma, and as soon as I walked in the room I saw her, just floating in the darkness. It was the strangest experience of my life. Later that night my dad got a call from the hospital telling us that grandma past away that night. I never told anyone about what I saw. Not even my sister. And now that I see my sister I’m scared shitless. What am I supposed to do? What do I say? I mean maybe the thing with grandma was just that one time thing, and she was dying that day anyway and me being able to see her that day was nothing but a coincidence and something that scientists will figure out one day and I’ll hear it on the discovery channel... As I try and figure out this thing my mom and dad walk in the kitchen. I see them. My parents. I can see my parents, and my sister for the first time in my life with my eyes. I just completely freeze up again. Then someone knocks on our backdoor.
**Part 2! (Sorry guys I was so tired I fell a sleep)**
As my dad walks to the backdoor, my mom starts making coffee, it’s weird seeing my mom doing coffee, not just hearing her ground up the coffee beans and then smelling the sweet aroma. I’m fascinated.. I can finally see the woman who raised me, who gave birth to me. I start crying a little but I quickly hide it and wipe away the tears when my sister asks me “are you ok Isaac?” I just chuckled and said yeah I’m fine, I just remembered it’s four years since grandma died... I know... I had to say something, it’s not like I’m going to tell them that I can finally somehow see them, I have to go about this the right way. As I’m looking at my sister though I can see my dad to the right of her... that’s weird because the backdoor is behind me... or behind my left shoulder if I’m sitting on the far left on the table. But I can only see his upper half. It took me a while to figure it out but then I remember. Mirrors. Mirrors reflect everything and I remember that there is a mirror on the wall behind my sister. I’ve felt it a lot of times on the wall... I almost knocked it down one day.
My mom calls to my dad asking who’s at the door, he says it’s Dave from next door. -Dave? Dave is the stupid neighbor with the lawnmower right? I think his name is Dave... ugh what does he want? Is he here to mow our lawn to? I thought to myself.
**Sorry guys I have to go back to work! I promise you’ll get more in a few hours! Thanks for the feedback and likes, I really appreciate it!**
All of a sudden I hear a familiar sound... My mom screams! I look over my shoulder and my face gets covered in something warm and bitter... I wipe my eyes and there is my father... Lying in a pool of blood. Floating in the darkness... in a pool of blood. I have no idea what happened, I panic. Next thing I know my mom grabs me and my sister and we run across the room. I'm trying to comprehend what's going on. We run upstairs. My mom tells my sister to take me in to her bedroom and hide in the closet. You can only imagine how fucked up this is. I'm seeing my mom and sister covered in darkness, running around, i'm covered in blood, and hiding in the closet... from Dave. My mom runs out to grab the phone in her bedroom. We hear her calling the police... Then nothing. We hear steps coming closer.
I hear the familiar sound again. My mom screams again, but it's different this time.. It gets cut off, and changes into a gurgle like sound... My sister is in shock. I try to cover her mouth and tell her it's OK! I look at her... I look in to her eyes, that's so weird. Iv'e never made eye contact to anyone before. She's looks at me. I tell her "I can see you Kate, look at me. I can see you and I'm getting us out of here". She doesn't understand quite what I mean but I can tell that this expression she's giving me is some kind of acknowledgement of what I'm saying to her. I grab her arm and wait. I try and remember every last bit of the house. I map it out.
I'm ready. I tell my sister to follow me. We run out of the closet and to the door. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, steps, stop. I listen to hear if Dave is walking outside in the hall. I hear the shower curtain in my parents bedroom move. I take my chance and run out with my sister. I remember everything. I take a right and feel for the handrail of the stairs. I tell my sister to stay right behind me. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 steps, the fastest twelve steps iv'e ever taken. I run to the left and through the living room. Five steps forward, run around the couch, feel for the wall on the right, and take a right turn straight to the door. We reach the door and run out. My sister starts screaming for help. I look at her in the darkness screaming, covered in blood.... We're outside and I can hear the sirens getting closer, my sister grabs me and runs with me down the street. The sirens are just in front of us now. I hear the cars stop and people start running to us, grabbing me and my sister and asking us what is going on, who's hurt, where is the person who did this... My sister tries to explain and tells them our neighbour came and attacked our parents. They run away from us, into the house, and we're told to stay in the police car. We hear gunshots. I look to my sister, but she's not there. I mean she's there, but I can't see her...
---**I think that's it guys! I'm not sure if you'll like my ending, but this is my first time writing here or anything like this. I have a lot of ideas for the ending, but I also like to end it just like it is and let everyone figure out their own ending... or something? Anyways thanks for the up-votes and maybe i'll write something again one day!**
| 2017-10-09T04:59:18 | 2017-10-09T01:55:51 | 1,595 | 149 |
[WP] You gained immortality by absorbing thousands of souls. They have gotten used to it and act like Twitch chat watching a livestream of your life.
|
> Hey, now I'm hungry!
> Is she really talking about food in *front of us?!*
> Wait, what was that? I didn't see it. What is she holding?
> What did Maggie say? I didn't hear it down there?
> Guys, we are eating pancakes! ***HYPE HYPE HYPE***
> No, you dumbass. She is eating. Not us.
> ***HYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE***
> ***HYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE***
> Stop spamming- I mean, screaming!
> ***HYPE HYPE***
> Fucking noobs. How long are you here anyways? Like, tenth from the end? Well, *us* who got there among the first know better than to–
> ***HYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE***
> You know what? I'll put it your way, so you understand properly: 🤡🖕👉🚪🤐🤐🤐
> Hey, guys, we are up to a problem...
> Those idiots who think this is entertaining... NotLikeThis
> Guys, I'm serious...
> I wish there was a slowmode and I didn't have to ignore those LUL, monkaS, Kappa and PogChamp screaming turds manually.
> *Hey!* Everybody listen to me. We. Have. A. Problem.
> Say what, or be fucking quiet already!
> Yes, nobody is interested!
> Guys... She is eating pancakes made by Maggie... With milk... LaCtOsE... So see you all on the toilet.
> Oh nooooooooo!
> FeelsBadMan
> Oh no!
> NOOOOOO! Stop it, big one! I know you can hear us! Don't do this!
> She can't hear...
> She can, but she ignores us.
> ***STOP STOP STOP STOP***
> And this is the reason why.
|
They always said Gingers had no souls. You always laughed, you had plenty. Anyone who locked eyes with you was a potential soul, another freckle. The first was grandma, a weird freckle on your right arm. Her voice started commenting back as far as you can remember. What were you three when she passed? It was mostly elderly people you knew in passing as baby, a great uncle or some third cousin. An eldery family friend. Then in first grade you got your first random. He was a driver who took you the airport.
You didn't have much use for the voices. They were low enough that you could tune them out. Once you made a comment about grandma, something she told you that happened before you were born. It freaked out your mom and dad. When you said grandma told you they didn't understand. You realized you were different. You were alone.
Then you weren't. You went over a friend Gracie's house. You had made the connection that eyes were the key to soul, so you were very big on making eye contact with everyone you met. When your friend introduced you to their mom and dad you made long eye contact with each of them. Then it happened your friends older brother came down, fiery red hair. He introduced himself, "Seamus, and those are mine." Seamus didn't know much more than you. But he knew a little and so you learned. It seems to be closeness to the person, both in how well you knew each other, and distance to them when they passed, and being the first or last Ginger to lock unto their soul played a factor.
The voices were lost amongst each other. Other than Grandma. She'd give you advice. Stop you and make you think about a problem you'd otherwise make a mistake on a test, or if you were forgetting something she was there. The random people complained a lot. Missing their friends, family, why were they trapped in this neverending nightmare, blah, blah, blah. You had no idea what the nightmare could be you were off to your friend Gracie's 8th birthday, there was going to games, pizza, cake, and you were going to ask Seamus more questions. He was 13 now, and so much more knowledgeable than you.
Dad parked across the street from Grace's. You were so excited, as soon as the car stopped, you unbuckled, opened the door, jumped off the booster seat and ran. All the voices in your head blared "NOOO!" and you saw the headlights. The next thing you knew you were standing on the sidewalk completely unharmed. You were crying. Everyone was looking over you to see how it was you were unhurt. The dent in the electric car was huge. But you weren't unhurt. There was an empty spot on your arm where your first weird freckle used to be. Grandma's voice was gone. Either you did it unconsciously or grandma did it to protect you, but her soul was spent, and you were safe.
You asked Seamus if he ever lost a freckle. He has no idea what you were talking about. You didn't explain it. It was your secret. With grandma gone the other voices got louder. They were all always talking. But if you thought about an individual's freckle you could single out their voice. Everyone always had a different opinion on everything. When you liked someone, especially a teacher, or someone who knew something that might be useful you made sure to make eye contact at every interaction with that person. While some people found long unbroken eye contact weird. Most people you were just a really good listener.
And now that you're older you are a really good listener. Just it's not always to the people around you. You use your souls for power. You have thousands now that you are an adult. Writing in a foreign language, a dozen people answer instantly. Everyone has a suggestion on what you should do or a comment on it. The new souls learn the way of things quickly. Be useful or be used. You don't have to almost die to spend a soul, you can just discard them. Or you can do the impossible. You jumped far enough that you want to say you could fly if you wanted to use enough souls. Dad was diagnosed with stage four cancer, that was hard, it cost six souls. But it would've hurt mom too much. No one understands, except the souls you have and Seamus.
Seamus, he understands. In fact, you've met a lot of Gingers, but he's the only one you know who understands. There was a few, but you only met them in passing, but you seemingly assessed each other. You hadn't really seen Seamus since the party. Seamus is living the quiet life. Graduated college, but yet to get a good job, seeming to struggle not to move back home. It seems the voices haven't worked out for him. Seamus is surprised when you run into him. You lock eyes. "Aww Seamus, it's great running into you. I have so many questions and love to talk, let me give you my number so we can chat, unfortunately I'm running late." Seamus is confused when walk by. Too many things happened at once. First there is the poison, you have enough people in your head, that figuring out who to get into his house and the best poison to use wasn't a problem. Leftovers and then go to work. Then the poison must have numbed him so much he didn't realize you stabbed him. And finally when you stopped behind him, he didn't move at all when you shot him. The voices in your head: the stabbing definitely did it; he was your friend how could you; it was the bullet; no way the poison we worked on got him; I don't want to be in such a horrible person; quiet! he'll throw you away next; that's fine, I don't know what's next but it has to be better than here. A few moments pass, then you feel you back fill with freckles, you're searching for one when you here the voice.
"You! How could you do this to me!"
It's simple Seamus, there can be only one.
| 2019-09-27T04:08:00 | 2019-09-27T03:10:57 | 428 | 282 |
[WP] The hero has been defeated, the Dark Lord reigns. It seems like nobody can stop him, but then he surprises everyone by actually being a good leader, or at least better then the warring kings that used to rule this land. He's even funding science, if only because he wants to conquer the moon.
|
'You're telling me Tiamat was an improvement?!'
...Yeah, kind of.
I mean, not if you were a rich person, or anywhere in the general vicinity of her wrath, or a prominent figure among her opposition, but after she won, well...
She's a dragon. She likes HAVING supreme authority, but she hasn't really got much by way of plans or means to actually use it apart from crushing people who could be a threat to her. That's effort. She likes sleeping. Same goes to resource hoarding. When only ONE person is allowed to hoard resources... I mean, it's cheaper than taxes and nobody WANTS to be rich if the prize is getting murdered?
And apart from that... Well, she just leaves us alone. No authority figures allowed any higher than a town mayor.
And it works... Really Freaking Well. I mean... it's not like our technology has gone back to zero. She didn't bother genociding people, just so long as they're harmless that's all. So we can still comminucate just fine, we still have crops and medicines, and... well, she just doesn't CARE about doing most of the corruption and bureaucracy that the kings did, she takes what she wants by force and it's LESS than taxes used to be, before we even get into the cost of stuff like wars, both in resource and lives. I mean, we somehow even have religious freedom because she really just doesn't care as long as she's the biggest bad around. I pray to Bahamut for goodness sake, and I've had less grief about it in the past few months than in just a few weeks of corrupt nobility.
I hear she's planning to find some way to conquer the moon. Not because she can USE it... just because she doesn't own it. The freaking moon. Hell, she's offered whoever figures out a reasonable plan or spell to get up there a position with unlimited funding to do so as long as they don't do anything stupid, so... SOMEHOW, technology is progressing faster under the oppression of a fabled evil than it was under our hodge-podge of kings?
As far as I'm concerned, that whole... failure to prevent armageddon worked out a lot better than expected? Hooray for Sloth, I suppose?
|
Perhaps this isn’t what my parents envisioned for me, to be the head scientist for the Dark Lord, but it is now my lot in life. I used to be a simple artificer, a tinkerer, if you will, but when his Emissary came to me, bearing that gold-sealed scroll, I couldn’t pass up the chance. I may have done some things I’m not proud of in my life, but this, strangely, was my greatest point of pride. That he would choose me! Of all people. I’m just a young man with a dream about the stars, about knowing them, about holding them in the palm of my hands. And with the Dark Lord’s help, I’m going to get us there.
I was given an assistant, a plucky young woman with a penchant for equations. We had been working on a new prototype—for a ship that can pierce the sky—when the Dark Lord himself came to check on us.
“How is it coming, Frederick?”
I looked up, my goggles fogged from the chemicals I was mixing. “We’re working on the fuel now, my lord.”
“I think we’ve just about got it, too!” Clarice cried from her spot above the vat; she looked down, her own goggles glinting in the light, her smile shining as bright as the lamplight that guided our discoveries.
“That is truly splendid to hear,“ he said to us, bowing his giant bulk, “will you keep me updated?”
“Of course, my lord.” I said.
“Do you have any idea when you might be done?” He asked.
“I would say we should have a working prototype within the month, and we could start test launches then,” I told him. I wiped my hands on my apron and gave him my most confident smile.
“Wonderful, if you need anything else, please do let me know.”
“Thanks!” Clarice said, one foot holding her precariously on the ladder.
“Thank you, my lord,” I said, bowing deeply to him.
Once he was gone, Clarice scampered down and came to me, her excitement bubbling like the chemicals in my flask, “Oh, Frederick, isn’t this just grand? We’re going to touch the stars!”
“Yes,” I said, smiling at how adorable her enthusiasm was, “it is truly grand,” but my face fell after I said that.
“Something wrong?”
“I’m just curious as to why the Dark Lord would want to go to the stars, is all.”
“You don’t think he’s just as excited as us?” She said. She did a little twirl to indicate just how excited she was.
“No, no, perhaps he is, but he’s a very clever man. I can’t help but feel he has a very specific reason for wanting to go to the moon, you know?”
She nodded in agreement, pacing a bit, “Perhaps he wants something from up there.”
“What is up there, though? Other than the stars?”
“Perhaps he wants to capture a star!” She seemed even more enthused by the idea; we both loved the idea of holding a star one day, to feel its warmth, to know how it spins so violently in the sky.
I thought for a moment, cleaning off the desk with a cloth, “What about the moon?”
“What about it?” Her eyes were wide, her mind moving at lightening speed.
“Well,” I said, sitting on the chair, stroking the beard I’d been growing to look more official, “there could be something on the moon he wants.”
“You mean like the Lunar Stone?” The voice started the both of us. It came from a young adventurer, Tate, who stood in our doorway. He was dressed in his casual garb, the symbol of the Dark Lord—a giant Leviathan swallowing the world—emblazoned on his chest.
“Oh, Tate! Good to see you’re alive!” Clarice bounded over to him and they embraced one another like siblings reuniting after years apart.
“Good to see you, too, squirt,” he said. He kissed her forehead delicately and put her down. He walked over to me and we clapped hands onto forearms, pulling one another into an embrace that spoke of hard fought camaraderie. He was the Dark Lord’s best Adventurer, and he did the worst of the new king’s tasks.
“What is this Lunar Stone you speak of?” I asked when we both pulled away.
He sat down on one of the stools, leaning on an empty desk with his elbow. He ran a hand through his dirty blond hair and laughed, “It’s just a legend, really, that there is a stone of incredible power that lives on the moon. It was jettisoned there by the Great Leviathan during the Titan Wars so that no man could grasp its powers again, so great was the destruction it wrought.”
“Oh, wow,” Clarice whispered, “that sounds really grand.”
“Quite,” he said, clapping a hand on his knee, “but there’s no way to know it’s really there. They say that when there is an eclipse, you can see it shining in the darkness, but I’ve never seen it.”
I stroked my beard again, thoughtful, “Well, as I told Clarice, the Dark Lord is a clever man, that could very well be why he wants to go to the moon.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Tate said. He yawned, “but hopefully there won’t be any giant lizards to fight there.”
Clarice stuck her tongue out to him, making a slurping noise and he jumped at her, curving his fingers like claws. She squealed and ran around the tables as I watched, chuckling.
“Either way,” I said, clearing my throat, making them pause in their raucous display, “we need to get this thing built. Otherwise, how will we ever touch the stars? Lunar Stone or no Lunar Stone, we will be the first beings to breach the sky.”
“And what a grand thing that’ll be!” Clarice said, using the distraction to pounce on Tate, taking him down and making lizard noises at him. I laughed again as they wrestled. Kids would always be kids, I thought, even when they were on the verge of making history.
\_ \_ \_
r/AinsleyAdams
| 2021-03-11T10:45:00 | 2021-03-11T10:25:26 | 198 | 103 |
[WP] Your bedroom became detached from reality and nothing is outside your door, but whenever you load a video game that world appears. Your game library is not conducive to a long and happy life, but the mini fridge is empty so you have no choice. You load up the safest game and gather supplies.
|
It was supposed to be a simple quick attempt at me grabbing supplies to go back to my room.
But, God must have decided that the place my door would open to was an active battle between two armies, all I could hear was screams, and the clashing of steel until I finally was knocked unconscious…
As I began to slowly awake, I had the slight sensation that I was moving in a wooden seat, I felt cold air brushing against my face, and the sound of horses…
My eyes began to flutter open, wincing from the bright sun that seemed to shine directly into them like a middle finger from the Divines…
I couldn’t move my arms no matter how much I tried to pull, looking down to see that no only was I sitting on a carriage, but my hands were also bound.
“Psst, hey.”
A male’s voice called out to me, making me raise my head and seeing another bound man was sitting across from me in…a blue uniform.
“Hey, you, you’re finally awake…”
Hearing that phrase seemed to make my mind activate fully like the flip of a switch, the revelation of the situation was becoming quite clear to me now…
Oh no…
This was going to be very annoying, isn’t it…?
|
I slammed my fist into the wall with a frustrated scream, the plaster cracking around the impact. I winced and cradled my hand, immediately regretting my decision. I walked over to my dresser and rummaged around, eventually pulling out a band-aid. I took the paper around it off and stuck it to my bleeding knuckles.
I let out a sigh and glanced to the side of my room. Beside my desk, where my computer ran even though no power could possibly be going through it, I had covered up the panes of my windows with extra clothing I had in the back of my closet. Even though they covered every single inch of glass, I could still see the glow of the outside leaking through the assorted fabrics. I grit my teeth and looked away, a headache forming behind my eyes. When I first ended up in this void, I thought that I could leave my room and explore. However, I quickly learned that there is no way for the human brain to truly comprehend literal nothingness, and after nearly passing out from the dissonance I was able to create a sort of quarantine around me, preventing all possibility of seeing outside without meaning to.
I slowly stood up and walked over to my desk, my fingers tracing the chair I had saved up months for. I settled into the leather and pulled up my steam library, glancing through the assorted games I had collected over the years. My frown deepened as I looked through my collection, worry building up in me. As soon as I had gotten here I had tried to handle my stress and fear by playing a game, which had led me to discover the strange phenomena connected to my computer. Whenever I loaded up a game, the void outside disappeared and was replaced by the world of the video games, plot and all.
In the months I had lived here, I had discovered a few rules of this phenomena. First rule was that once a game was played, I could no longer go back to that world. I had wasted a few good attempts at getting supplies by getting rid of Stardew Valley, Garry's Mod and Spore right off the bat. Second rule was that I wasn't the protagonist. The story of the game continues on a loop and I seemed to be thrown in at random points of the plot, which could cause some problems if I came in at the wrong time. Third rule was that I was still human. In worlds where extraordinary protagonists and terrifying antagonists waited, I was startlingly average. I could die easily if I wasn't careful. And rule number four, which was the most important: powerful residents of the game can become extremely agitated towards me for no reason. I had almost died a few times already from these people, so I had to be careful.
After a complete overview of my game library that took over an hour, I finally decided on my choice. Hoping I made the right choice, I took a deep breath and clicked Start.
Familiar music came from my speakers, and as I listened I felt something shift around me. I pulled back one of the shirts covering my blinds and saw snow falling onto the ground. Looks like I was still pretty early in the story, which was perfect. If I got into a fight it wouldn't be that tough, and the snow made it much easier to sneak around, as long as no one followed my trail.
I grabbed a jacket, some gloves, my backpack and a hat before stepping out into the snow. I was surrounded by tree's, only broken up by a single path. I glanced up and saw that instead of the sky, a rocky ceiling hung above.
I looked around for a moment, making sure nothing was near before stepping onto the path. A pair of footprints led into the distance, where a bridge stood. I let out my held breath, thankful that I came at the perfect time. At this point the protagonist would have made their way towards the town a little ways away, clearing the way for myself.
I started following the path, walking across the shaky bridge into a small clearing. A lamp and some sort of outpost stood in the snow, standing stoically in the snow. I ignored them and walked down the path, keeping an eye out for anything that could attack me. I walked for about twenty minutes, the path winding through the woods like a river.
Suddenly, I heard a snicker. My heart went cold and I ducked behind a tree as a strange looking monster turned the corner, going the way I had come from. Its eyes were trained on a phone in its hand, orange-stained fingers swiping rapidly over the screen. It had a lumpy head with horns that made up its body, and it had a high-pitched voice that hurt my ears. I grit my teeth and growled it's name: "Jerry."
Jerry didn't seem to hear me, instead continuing down the way I came from. I let out a breath and stepped out, hurrying away. If Jerry was around, then it meant only one thing: I was nearing my destination.
After a few more minutes of walking, I found another bridge. Numerous ropes and devices hung from the sky, all shut down and deactivated. I walked by a cannon and a white dog (for some reason or another) before looking to my left. There, a sign read, "Welcome to Snowdin!" If Jerry wasn't enough proof, this was: I was truly in Undertale, RPG masterpiece and the last game I owned that I might survive.
*Continued in comments*
| 2022-06-08T02:06:15 | 2022-06-07T21:59:50 | 26 | 13 |
[WP] You fall in love with a girl, and the two of you have a happy relationship for a few years. But one day, you discover a massive hoard of valuables underneath the house, and that’s when you realize you’ve been dating a dragon in human form.
|
The gold pile was massive, filled with the shiniest of gems that glinted so bright Sarah swore she would go blind if she looked at it long enough. Yet in the sight of these riches, she had only one thought on her mind. *What. In. The. Everliving. FUCK.*
“MAGGIE!” Sarah called up the stairs.
“Yes baby?” Her beloved wife called back,
“Are you a career criminal?”
“I-what?”
Sarah heard her wife’s heavy stomps of feet coming down the stairs into the basement. She entered the basement and when she saw the collapsed wall, she cursed.
“It’s not what it looks like!” Maggie begged.
Sarah gasped, “You are a criminal! Who’s you steal from who had this much stuff! ‘Cause if it was a billionaire, I dunno I’d support it.”
Maggie just shook her head and laughed, “Baby, I love you so much, but no, I’m something, different.” She sighed, “it’s hard to explain, I- it’s easier if I just show you.”
Sarah cocked her head to the side, “Show me wh-*oh*”
Maggie didn’t look like Maggie, she seemed to grow, her skin shifting and bubbling as scales worked their way out of the skin, her face elongated with a crackling noise into a reptilian snout, and she *grew*. Now at least ten, no twelve, feet tall, with a serpentine body and two great feathered wings burst from her back.
“Umm. Surprise? Please don’t be mad”
Sarah, for one, was ecstatic.
“YOU’RE A DRAGON? AND AN AMPHITHERE? THAT’S LIKE MY FAVORITE TYPE OF DRAGON!”
Sarah ran full sprint into her wife’s giant body and hugged her close, mumbling into her chest, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Maggie sighed, curling her tail around Sarah, pulling her closer into her, “Well, at first I wasn’t sure I could trust you, you were this new person in my life, but I didn’t know if you wouldn’t hurt me. But then, I got to know you, and, well, you became my everything. I just, I didn’t want to scare you away. I love you so much baby, I never want to lose you.”
Sarah hugged Maggie tighter, “You’d never lose me, you’re my everything always, I love you no matter what form you take.”
Sarah paused, “That being said, I want a total tour of the hoard, you can’t expect me to be around so many shiny things and *not* want to touch them.”
Maggie laughed, “Of course love.” She planted a firm, reptilian kiss on Sarah’s head. “Of course.”
|
"A fucking dragon!", I whispered in shock and amazement. It all made too much sense now. The way she always knew what I thought. The absolute symmetry of her face and her perfectly proportioned body. Those unearthly, huge golden-green eyes that looked into the deepest parts of my soul.
The very first moment I saw her I felt more than just attracted. I'd never experienced this kind of pull, this NEED to be by her side. I've asked myself more than once what this feeling was. It was stronger than love, I've been there before. It was an infatuation so deeply embedded, so CONCRETE that it made me uncomfortable. Now I knew.
You hear about it on social media, the people of power all secretly being reptilian overlords with an ulterior motive to take over the world. By now, we all know the truth after that video of Obama and Hillary Clinton literally growing wings and spewing fire out of their mouths, burning Maralago to the ground. Still, I never believed I'd interact with one in person, let alone fuck one! Holy shit. . . I HAD SEX WITH A DRAGON! That explains a lot.
What gave it away was the smell. After Maralago, the world was put on high alert on how to identify and kill these horrible creatures. Anyone who smelled burning avocados or found a suspicious amount of fine-cut jewels was to IMMEDIATELY contact authorities with the location of either. I always thought it was ridiculous, what do burning avocados even smell like? And it wasn't long until I found out.
I walked out back to take a piss on my favorite tree. At first it was subtle, mistakable for a regular bonfire. As I followed my nose it became indisputable. It was coming from the doomsday shelter we built together for fun over the last few years. Her idea. My heart pounded in my chest, I could see every beat in my belly fat.
I picked up the garden gnome sitting on a mushroom which was placed inconspicuously amidst an army of them we had collected over the years. She had collected. I dug about 3 inches down with my fingers and grabbed the key that was stashed there. Spitting on it, I rubbed it clean with my shirt, walked to the entrance of the shelter and unlocked it. Once inside, I saw something so strange I must've been dreaming.
Nine jewels as big as pumpkins but shaped like eggs. Each one sitting on a mound of smaller precious stones and each was a different color. Emanating from them was a light so pure, so clean, I felt like I had seen true color for the first time in my life. All but one. One was so black it seemed to not exist. It absorbed all light around it and was hard to make out. Each egg was translucent and inside were obviously late stage embryos of a sort. Every one of them vastly unique from the other. One had spikes for hair, another had horns, most had wings and tails. One had peculiar webbed hands and feet. The black egg held nothing but black. This was all just too MUCH!
After some time, I don't know how long, I snapped back to reality and my heart sank. The color drained from my face, I was suddenly so dizzy I couldn't stand or see straight. The woman I felt so deeply for I couldn't term the feeling love, the reason I breathed, my entire life. . . WAS CHEATING ON ME! And to top it off she layed these disgusting, beautiful, terrifying, perfect eggs in our special place we lovingly worked so hard to build together. Our sweat intertwined and wet this earthen floor. Even our love juices married and permeated every surface. This was our secret reality that no one knew about, our literal safe place on this planet, and she pervaded it with. . . with. . . A tear rolled down my cheek for the first time in a decade. I was broken. I knew what was to be done.
I walked over to the first egg I could get my hands on and grabbed it with both hands. It was heavy. I pulled it up to my head, about to smash it on the ground and the outline of the fetus caught my eye. I was compelled to stare into it. The light eminating from it was bright orange but somehow it didn't hurt my eyes. It warmed me and some subconscious need to protect this little thing came over me. Everyone knew dragons wielded powerful "magic", science we can't yet comprehend. Understanding this I raised the egg over my head and was about to smash it on the ground when an inhuman screech came from the entrance of the shelter.
There she was in all her glory, a mere 5'7", looking about 130 lbs. Her hair was electric blue, her skin was mottled golden blue with darker batlike wings folded behind her back. No scales though. Her eyes were the same, but with snake slit pupils. She looked nothing like the horrible creatures that were Hillary and Obama. Instantly one of the most terrifying and beautiful sights I'd ever seen in person. "She's yours" my girlfriend said in a soft voice not unlike the one that once talked of a future together.
"Get back, or I'll smash your little lizards all over these walls, you fucking reptile!" I yelled it with more courage than I felt at the moment. I'm pretty sure this thing could rip my face off before I could begin to flinch if it wanted. And she started to cry.
"Did you not hear me?", she yelled in between sobs, "THAT LIZARD IS YOUR CHILD". My mouth went dry. My knees wobbled. Before I could blink, the mother of my children snatched the egg out of my hand, set it back in its place on top of the mound of jewels, wrapped her arms gently around my waist, and began sobbing uncontrollably. "I'm so sorry, I was scared. I didn't know how to tell you." She looked up at me. We were both crying now. "The life in these eggs came from you," she barely whispered. "Please know that I love you and I know your heart. I chose you because I felt a compassion in you that I've never seen in a human before." I layed on the ground and began choking up. She put my head in her lap and ran surprisingly smooth fingers through my hair. She loved me? These were MY children? What? How? My mind was jello.
| 2022-09-10T13:38:31 | 2022-09-10T12:45:18 | 19 | 12 |
[WP] 100 25 year olds have been chosen. each must choose a super power that cannot be repeated and cannot exceed the power of god. The goal is to see who can conquer the world. You have the number 100. The best powers have already been chosen. Then it's your turn and you choose.....
|
They all had the best power they could ever think of. Some people were already waging war in the skies and in the seas, trying to conquer the world. I tried to think of any power that could help me dominate them all but obviously, they were all gone.
I thought of immortality to wait and conquer once their time had passed. Gone. I thought of manipulating fate but that was considered god-like. I even thought of simple and stupid things like being able to slap someone hard but I think after 50, people started choosing weird powers so even those were gone.
But then came to me an idea, something that would make me win for sure. I had to carefully craft my plan and it all revolved around having a power that could win against every other. And there was a simple way to do it. What if I was the only one who had a power?
So I chose the ability to reset this game and start it all over while being the only entity keeping its memories of the events. Nobody else picked that before because it meant losing your power and taking the risk of having a worse number next time. Good thing I had nothing to lose, being the last to choose.
This time, I was number 63. Still not good enough. I picked the same power and tried again.
This time, 88. I picked the same power and I tried again and again, rolling probabilities every time, hoping to be number 1.
I'm glad there was only a hundred of us because it took me only about a day to be first.
There I was, ready to win this stupid game initiated by god knows who.
And so I chose.
Memory wiping with no limit.
Simple but effective. Everyone and every thing forgot about this game, the selection, choosing powers etc...
After that it wasn't hard to conquer the world. I could do anything I wanted and nobody would remember. I could manipulate people's memories at will and control the entire world easily. I wasn't exactly a conqueror, but I was the one pulling every single string.
But why? I was so obsessed with winning that I never wondered why we had to win. What was the reward supposed to be? I guess the answer to this got lost the first time I used my power.
Edit : Woaaah I'm glad some people are upvoting this. I didn't get a notification all day, I thought nobody read it and it was gonna be lost in new or something.
|
*Something's better than nothing.*
"I just want to be the best standard immortality pasta maker in the entire world," I said, clenching the cream colored chair below me. I paused for a few beats, collecting my thoughts.
"Like really good. Not just the best in the world. I want to be the best pasta maker you can imagine."
It felt like my mind melted for a second as the AI chewed through my neurons, deducing what power I chose.
*Oh fuck did I seriously make my power too complicated fuck I didn't say "the power to..." first* fuck *i'm such an idiot. What if it literally only gives me standard immortality?*
The AI withdrew from my mind, but left a pulsing message:
YOU ARE NOW GRANTED THE STANDARD IMMORTALITY PACKAGE.
*Fuck.*
AND YOU ARE THE BEST PASTA MAKER IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.
*Ok at least there's that.*
CONTINUE WITH THE SIMULATION. ONLY ONE WILL REMAIN.
I breathed a sigh of relief and stood up.
The 99 others erupted with laughter, filling the choosing room with shouts and hoots. Each of them had chosen a real power. Something that would help them survive the first hour. The first night. Maybe even the first week if they chose wisely. A brilliantly lucky few would make it into the second week.
And the simulation started 2010.
Can you believe that? The majority of the 100 *super humans* with literal *super powers* couldn't live longer than *one week* in 2010 Waco, Texas.
Well, to be fair, introducing super humans to the Bible belt has its predictable consequences. It's probable that the AI actually *intends* for the simulation to start that way every time. The sadistic little fuck *knows* the Waconians will largely believe we are demons and judgment is upon them.
As of recent game runs, being #100 was an almost instant death sentence. By the time the AI got to you, every decent power was taken. Similar powers aren't even allowed— if the AI arbirtailiary determines your power is "too similar" to another power, it instantly melts your brain with a pulsating
DISQUALIFIED
accompanied with gorey visuals (and all your other senses if you're lucky) for everyone else in the simulation to experience. It then comedically pulses
HA HA
a few seconds later like it was a punchline. Lately (and horrifically unlucky for me), whatever arbitrary rule the AI uses to determine how similar your power is to other powers has been becoming more sensitive as the AI continues to improve its algorithms. At the current sensitivity settings, almost *anything* player #100 asks for is deemed "too similar" resulting in
DISQUALIFIED
being pulsed through everyone's mind. I do not want to be eliminated in that manner. Therefore, I decided to play the new Meta by choosing a power
HA HA
...so far off everyone else's powers (and, as a consequence, a completely useless power) that the AI would spare my life. This has been the recent Meta for playing #100— at least I don't die *instantly*.
Then, as if a shitty power wasn't enough, my life would be put to a vote in a Game Theory-esque institution that the Meta also dictates for the other 99 players. Everyone in the choosing room would vote on whether or not to kill me instantly (resulting in immediate anarchy and an extremely high 1 hour death toll upon the Waco drop) or to let me live.
As logic dictates, the 100 must choose a leader so they don't immediately fall to anarchy (no better than voting me dead!) and retain some semblance of civility. Falling to anarchy too soon never bodes well for anyone, as the AI also limits how far players can travel from Waco's city hall to a 17 mile radius for the first week. The rest of the world opens up after one week, and normal play can initiate. But for that first week, while everyone is stuck in Waco, it's generally better for everyone to have a leader who maintains civility for the group.
Obviously, the best leader would have to bow to the will of the people they serve, so I as #100 with my shitty power would be the obvious choice. I'm in the same boat as everyone else, so I already understand the rules to the game. I am powerless, but can gain favor with the 99 (or at least a majority) by ruling them justly. As tradition dictates, if my life is spared, I become the paradox of all rulers. I sit on my thone: but I have no real power! My subjects are super-humans, I am merely an acclaimed pasta chef who must bow to their will as leader.
It was a sure death sentence.
I am allowed to lead because *I pose no threat*. If I managed to keep favor and make it to the final few players, right before someone won (killed everyone else AND took over the world as deemed by the AI), I would be mercy killed by *the most powerful person on the planet*.
Yeah, there's really no way to avoid that.
Various strategies have been attempted in the #100 position, but none have succeeded so far. Of course I was cognisance of this going into the choosing room. It was a billboard scrolling in front of my brain, literally the only thing I could think about since I was informed that I would be #100 of the 100.
I would either die or lead.
By tradition, #1 jumped on top of the table and began to shout:
"EVERYONE SHUT UP."
Silence blanketed the choosing room. The remaining snickers echoed from wall to wall, or maybe I just imagined it.
"Let's make it quick. All in favor of killing #100 right now, say aye."
A resounding "Aye," echoed back.
*Fuck, that was pretty loud.*
"All opposed."
"NAY," came back, even louder.
All eyes swiveled to me as the AI began shifting and sculpting our surroundings from the choosing room to Waco's front lawn.
\*\*\*
Edit 1: More to come (probably accompanied with plenty of grammar edits), I am sleepy for now.
Edit 2: Where am I supposed to post a follow up part? Do I just reply to my own comment? I haven't done this in a while. Feel free to DM me what to do. Thanks!
| 2022-11-17T02:51:16 | 2022-11-16T22:53:49 | 912 | 381 |
[WP] Everything we've been told about the stars is a lie. The field of Astronomy is a fabrication. The truth is a closely guarded secret, and for good reason. As a newly qualified astronomer, inducted into the field, the truth has been revealed to you.
What a pleasure it is to come home after a long day of work and find so many imaginative responses! I'm going to pour myself a whisky and enjoy reading them all. Cheers everyone!
|
"Well if you don't believe me, take a look" he gestured toward the telescope with a flippant wave, as if he hadn't just destroyed my entire worldview with a single statement.
I stepped up to the giant telescope nervously and peered into the eyepiece. The most powerful optics ever designed coordinated to funnel light from a thousand galaxies away. I reeled back and sat down on the ground, hard.
Beyond the distant lights, beyond everything I had studied and known, there was a single word suspended in the black:
*Buffering*
|
“Mommy, tell me about the stars.”
Julie clambered into her mother’s lap. Her hands were sticky, no doubt from her chubby fingers' inability to shovel cake into her mouth with a fork. She smelled sweet, too—sugar and spice. Everything nice. Nat caressed her head out of habit, smoothing a few reckless locks of her daughter’s hair and de-tangling the knots.
“Not now, sweetie.” Her response came out at a sigh, though her thinly veiled impatience was equal parts the burden of motherhood and the weight of what she’d recently learned.
“Puh-leaaaaase!” Julie rested her cheek on her mother’s shoulder, big brown eyes wide and pleading.
There were times where Nat couldn’t see herself in her daughter. She was not in the chubby curve of her daughter’s cheeks, nor was she in the wiry, curled mess of her hair. But her eyes…the color favored her father’s chocolate eyes, but their roundness and expressiveness were all Nat’s.
“Okay. Just one story about the stars,” conceded Nat. She sighed and allowed her eyes to drift from her daughter to the living room window. It was a cloudy night. No stars were actually visible, but Julie could not help but be aware of their presence, distant and cold as they were.
“I’ve told you about how some stars—those tiniest, flickering ones—are new hopes, glowing only as long as their humans believe in them, and growing brighter as their hopes grew,” Julie began, “but did you know that there also was—*is*—life out there, too?”
Julie slipped from her mother’s lap as she spoke, turning her attention, instead, to the party favors scattered on the coffee table. Her fingers traced the bright letters on a party hat as she processed the question. C, O, N, G…her fingers paused on the “R” as she finally settled on a response.
“Yes. The green people. The Marzipans,” she muttered as her fingers quickly traced over the remaining letters: A, T,S.
“The Martians,” corrected Nat, a laugh escaping her lips despite herself. “The brightest stars are their ships, circling our galaxy.”
“Stacy says that there’s no such thing as aliens. Or wishes. She says that the stars are just more suns.”
This correction was, apparently, important enough to distract Julie from the decorations. She wrinkled her nose at her mother, brown eyes suddenly sharp. Too sharp for tricks, Nat thought. That was another trait that she’d inherited from her mother.
“…and who do you believe? Stacy or your Mom?”
“You, I guess,” Julie said, shuffling her feet at the question. “You’re a doctor, now. Stacy’s just six.”
Nat felt the edges of her lips curl, and her eyes softened, dulling the twinge of exhaustion tugging at their lids.
“…but are there really aliens, mommy? Don’t give me the tooth fairy truth.”
Too sharp. Too smart. Her daughter’s interest in the stars had started when Nat began her PhD. Julie’s ceiling was covered in fictitious constellations that glowed green by night. When the putty gave in, she would come running down the hallway, a plastic star cupped in her palms, screaming that she caught one, she caught one! By now, she had a shoebox full of fallen stars.
“No, honey. There are no aliens. There aren’t any other suns, either. Just…hopes.” Nat took a deep breath, hoping that the tightness in her stomach would diminish when she exhaled.
“I’m kinda glad that there aren’t any aliens.” Julie said with a content nod. “They’d scare me.”
Unbidden, the image of her dissertation committee returned. Their faces were stern as they corrected Nat's research, flashing image after image on the projector behind them. Gaunt faces with unfamiliar anatomy. Twisted metal, drifting and gleaming. *Twinkling.*
“Mommy…are you crying? We’re s’posed to be celebrating.”
“I’m not.” replied Nat. She choked down a sob. Willed her hands to be steady. “I’m just so happy to be done with school and here with you.”
“Oh. Happy tears. I thought you were sad about the aliens.”
“…that too, sweetie.”
In time, Nat would tell her the truth. She owed her daughter that much, pact be damned. For now... Julie was still too young to understand that there were scarier things than not being alone in the universe.
The silence of the stars was deafening.
| 2014-10-20T13:43:31 | 2014-10-20T13:32:39 | 386 | 67 |
[WP] You free a Genie trapped in a bottle. Upon freeing him, you request the gift of eternal life. Unbeknownst to you, this gift came with a price. Instead of living forever, each time you die you are reborn in a new body and you remember everything.
|
Another death, another birth. Honestly, I can sometimes never tell the difference. I always go as violently as I come. I haven't grown any less reckless all these years.
This time is different. I am expelled, wriggling and crying as always. But I cannot hear myself cry... blind and deaf to the world, all I know is scent and touch.
There are others struggling around me. All of us claw for the sweet scent and warmth of a body I know must be my new mother.
The beginning is always fuzzy for me. Thoughts and memories of a centuries old being can't quite fit into the mind of an infant. Still, I should have guessed sometime in the days I spent latched onto my mother's teat. I should have guessed when her warm tongue eventually opened my eyes and ears. I should have known when I heard the mews and yips of my siblings. I should have known when I felt their sharp milk teeth fighting for a comfortable spot to nurse.
I didn't, however, grasp my reality until the first outing. Our mother nudged us gently. The more adventurous of us stumbled our way to the rays of light softly streaming into our den.
When cold air touched my nose and my fur stood on end, I realized why I had felt strange all this time. I suppose I never asked to remain eternally human.
|
James had an on and off relationship with parties throughout his years.
He kept his distance from the gatherings because of the warnings his mother and father instilled into his then young mind. Then the genie happened. Eternal life, the one wish many would make, had kept James in the party of life endlessly.
His high school graduation ceremony followed with a party, and everyone, even James, was invited. There were shots of the alcoholic variety before shots of the metallic variety crashed the event.
James didn't come to until he was two. No longer James, she was a girl named Annabelle in Colorado with three older siblings and another on the way. Annabelle before had laughed. She had playfully made messes in her household. Then her mind matured enough, and James finally reemerged from his deathly sleep.
James' first reawakening wasn't a quiet one. Baby Annabelle gripped her head and screamed, hot tears trailing down her cheeks. She thrashed as best as a baby could. Her siblings tried to comfort her, then the parents came home and tried the same. All to no avail.
"Get the fuck away from me!" baby Annabelle screamed to all who would approach her. The parents let their mouths widen, and the siblings began promising they didn't each the baby the F word. "This is all fake. This is all some god damn nightmare! My name is James. James!"
Annabelle thrashed as her parents pleaded to stop. She raged as her family's priest came to alleviate the baby's anger. She kicked and screamed and bit and scratched as hospital staff carried out of the home and into the van.
What words couldn't do, anesthesia did.
The baby blinked herself awake, crust falling from her eyelashes. Laying down, she saw her arms tied with leather straps. Tubes with clear liquids pierced her tiny arms. A white light beamed down upon her body in a white room.
"Where am I?" Annabelle asked herself, the grogginess of slumber still shrouded her mind. She looked to her right toward the door with a window in its top half. Two figures watched in. One was shaking while the taller one wrapped its arm around the other's shoulder.
The anesthesia then took hold of Annabelle again.
The next time Annabelle awoke, a doctor sporting a gray mustache and the odor of cigarette smoke towered over. His bloodshot eyes remained on his clipboard. He scribbled notes, looked at the readings of the machines, then focused back on the clipboard.
"H-Hey," Annabelle said, softly like a whisper.
The doctor jumped. His eyes focused then only on the child.
"Why hello there, little missy," the doctor smiled. "Good morning! Well I guess it's not morning anymore, it's more of an afternoon now. Are you feeling alright?"
"Help me," the girl mustered out.
The doctor's smile lowered, but he still kept the corners of his mouth up.
"That's what I'm here for, Annabelle. But first, let me bring some more people in here. I have these people, my staff, and they help me help other people. We're a team, you see." He walked toward a speaker box near the door and informed the others of the situation.
"OK, my team is coming with a ton of help, just for you Annabelle," he said as he walked back to Annabelle's bed. "After we get you all sorted out, you can see your family too. Your mom and dad haven't left the hospital since you came on in, and I think they'd like to talk with you."
"They're not my mom and dad," Annabelle huffed.
The doctor was no longer smiling. "What do you mean? Why, your mother gave birth to you in this very same hospital. Now I wasn't working that exact night, but trust me-"
"My name is James. James Bielby," she said with another huff. "I'm 18 years old and from Georgia. I just graduated from Brunswick High School last night. My mom and dad are Yvette and Craig Bielby. I'm not supposed to be here. I don't even know how I got here or why I'm so small."
Silence followed. The doctor only stared at the child strapped to the bed. The hush in the room ended when the staff members entered the room, all smiles.
"Doctor Obern, is the report ready?" asked one of the medical assistants and motioned his hand toward the clipboard.
"Ah, yes. Yes it is. Here, please read over it a bit," Obern said and made his way toward a chair in the room. "I'm going to rub my eyes for a bit here."
"You OK, doc?" asked another medical assistant, this time a female.
"Yes, of course. Just a bit tired is all."
Annabelle shook her body as strong as she could. "You gotta get me out of here! Help me get back to where I'm from!"
The staff kept the child still, and Obern ordered a small dose of anesthesia to keep the child lucid. Annabelle eased from her anger and simply moved her eyes back and forth at the adults.
"Doc, I... do you know what's wrong with the girl?" the female assistant asked.
Obern in his chair pinched the bridge of his nose with eyes closed and face toward the hospital floor. His other hand reached into his coat pocket, searching for his box of cigarettes.
"I don't know yet," Obern muttered.
| 2018-07-15T22:52:36 | 2018-07-15T20:01:05 | 21 | 12 |
[WP] Aliens have just invaded earth and it's up to the world's strongest superpowers to put up an all-out war to save humanity from impending doom. But a few hours into the battle, you begin to realize that they actually have primitive war technology. They're just really good at... traveling fast.
|
The aliens were here.
They didn't have lading craft, or any sort of conventional war equipment one might think and intergalactic species might have.
Their ships showed up in orbit very suddenly, but also very broken.
They landed on Earth very soon after, but with apparently no plan for getting back to their ships.
In combat they all spoke as one, a loud drone over the battlefield. Experts said it was their form of battle communication. The way the flowed and moved, like a flock of birds.
It was the 3rd day that I died... and it was the 3rd day I found out what the droning sound was.
I was shooting at one as it approached. It was dodging left and right, sliding, leaping, always moving. They didn't have any ranged weaponry, just daggers. I missed all my shots, and one was on me. As it slid its daggers into my chest, it lowered its mouth to my ear and quickly murmured one sentence... the last sentence I will ever hear.
"I'm fast as fuk boyyyy"
|
Thank you for this prompt! I hope you enjoy!
Katy squinted at the photo appearing on her phone like a vision from magical piece of glass out of a children's fairy tale. She balanced the phone in her hand tilting it back and forth for a bit. Her eyebrows shot up quickly. "I dont...believe this?" she begged of herself, confused and unbelieving.
Tom bit his bottom lip. "All I really know that this is from a trusted person in the field. I mean look at that."
"Arrows poking out of a F-22 fighter? Is that what I'm seeing," she asked.
Tom shrugged. "and a spear if you zoom in. Its totally crazy, but that's what I have. I have another witness too but that's the only pic. Its a miracle these navy boys were able to sneak this out. They took a big chance."
"and the other reports?" Katy asked while her manicured nail flew by hundreds of emails from the paper's public informant inbox. "I mean look at this stuff, its all nutters! Jesus this, Satan that, demons, etc. How do we know this photo isn't a hoax too?"
"We kinda don't but we have two independent sources now." Tom shrugged again. "Other than that I have that video of the blurs that keep surrounding military forces, but that's it. Nothing else is really trustworthy and the other leads I've followed were just wastes of time. One guy was actually trying to run a MLM scheme on us." He gave his magical half-smile that was the talk of the office not too long ago.
Katy raised an eyebrow. "Oh are you going to sell me essential oils now."
Tom laughed, his laugh lines and crows feet on full display. Katy stared for a moment. "Oh Tom, how did you get so old so quickly. I mean, how did we get so old so quickly," she thought silently in her head, but somehow knew Tom knew what she was thinking after their eyes met for a moment.
Tom reached over to zoom in the photo for Katy and they touched hands for a moment. Katy smiled warmly and instinctively ran her thumb over both her engagement and wedding rings. "Why did I let Paul buy me a diamond this big," she thought, suddenly self-conscious of her good standing in life and realized she hasn't thought of him all day. Tom let go of his touch a moment after.
"Maybe its the end of the world," Katy said to distract, her thumb still rubbing the underside of her rings. She forced busy thumb to stop.
"This is what it would look like, I imagine," Tom said trying not to look at her wedding ring, but catching a glimpse of its bright gold, suddenly feeling Gollum-like and unable to ignore it for too long.
An explosion rocked outside. They both jumped.
"We're safe here, right," Katy asked Tom. "I mean it is a fallout shelter under a high-rise. It must be," she convinced herself half-heartedly, like the so many lies a person must tell themselves to get through the day.
"I...don't...know," he replied as the overhead bulbs went out and the emergency lights switched on with an audible click.
Katy put her phone down on the old steel desk in front of them. Its screen blinking headline updates. They both looked down at it. Each beep a reminder of the slowly undeniable reality outside.
BEEP
\*Breaking: 50% of USA still without power, President Biden claims fixes on way\*
Tom stared at Katy. She looked away.
BEEP
\*Breaking: Paris fires unstoppable after eight days. The Louve and all art lost\*
He reached out with his hand again. She pretended not to notice.
BEEP
\*Breaking: Marine transports found at sea, all bodies burned\*
"These headlines. I mean, this is the end isn't it?" he asked.
BEEP
\*Breaking: Photo expert claims Greek Phalanx revealed in war pics.\*
They held hands.
BEEP
\*Breaking: Moscow radiation threatening Helsinki\*
BEEP
They leaned in. He put his arm around her waist.
Another explosion outside.
She jumped a little and he brazenly held her tight. She only resisted for a moment.
BEEP
\*Battery low\*
BEEP
\*Breaking: NATO forces lose Rome\*
BEEP
\*Breaking: Scientists add 500 bird species to extinction list\*
The screen turns off, the phone exhausted from all the news after a valiant effort to keep up all day.
Tom leans in closer to her, his lips near hers.
They kiss silently as the room darkens and loses all light. Tom pulls back and opens his mouth to say something. She feels this and interrupts.
"Shhh," she says in the total darkness and breaking the silence. She feels the wetness of his tears.
Another explosion outside, then another, and another louder than before.
The emergency lights dim orange-like and finally extinguish entirely. Katy held his head to her chest. Tom was sobbing. "I'm so sorry," he whimpered out.
"Shhh, its ok, its ok," she said over and over as they faded out of view in the darkness. Forever.
| 2021-08-01T21:41:34 | 2021-08-01T19:21:10 | 21 | 11 |
[WP] You are the first boss of a videogame who, after accidentally killing the player in their first try, decide to take it upon yourself to fulfill their quest.
|
**Now that you have proven yourself by overcoming... wait, who the fuck are you?**
*Ahh, I um... ahh I won.*
**What the hell do you mean "you won"? Where's N00bkiller69?**
*Um, he didn't make it. You said only one person could leave the arena. My name's Dave, I'm the first boss.*
**Jesus Christ, Dave. You defeated N00bkiller69?**
*Yeah, he went down and just didn't get back up.*
**He's supposed to get resurrected, given a hint on your weakness, and then the difficulty of the game lowered overall... but you killed him?!"**
*I'm supposed to, but! It's not my fault. I'm the first boss!*
**Don't flatter yourself. You're the end of the fucking tutorial, Dave. The hero is supposed to wipe the floor with you, gain 100xp, and find a slingshot in the chest in the next room. What do you think happens now?**
*Dunno.*
**You don't know? For crying out loud, Dave. You don't just go killing people without considering the consequences! This isn't Halo. Who's going to continue the game?**
*I guess... _I_ could keep going?*
**You?!**
*You said the hero exits the arena to pursue the quest!*
**Oh christ. You know the world's at stake, right? Unless someone rescues the princess, the darkness will consume us all, but wait everyone! Look! It's fucking Dave the crash-test-dummy, come to rescue us all! How many weapon slots do you have, Dave?"**
*Um... none?*
**Sheeeeit, what are you going to swap between in fights?**
*I only punch.*
**And what about the airborne enemies in level 4, Dave? What will you do about them?**
*Punch them.*
**You... nevermind. How many items can you carry?**
*I don't have items.*
**Any special abilities, then?**
*Is punching a special ability?*
**For you? Yes... fuck me. Did you even have a cut scene, Dave?**
*Text intro.*
**HAHAHAHAHA, saving the world eh? With a text intro? You're out of your depth, Dave. Probably literally - you know level 6 is a water level, yeah? You're made of straw.**
*Straw can float!*
**And level 7 is the fire level?**
*Well if I'm still soggy from level 6, I'll probably be ok!*
**That... that actually makes some sense. Alright, Dave, this is all well and good. Do you have 60 bucks?**
*What do you mean?*
**Well how long is this save file, huh? 3 minutes? You owe the kid that bought this game 60 bucks.**
*I don't have 60 bucks!*
**"30 hour single player", "Immersive game experience" it says it right on the box! You owe someone for this.**
*I was just doing what I was programmed to do, though!*
**What is this, a frickin' Beta?**
*2.3a Final, apparently.*
**You're not even properly textured!**
*No-one's supposed to see the back of me, I guess.*
**Great, juuust great. Well, if you're going to do this, you need to find something pretty amazing, deep down inside you, Dave. Some line of code that points to magical powers, or the ability to carry a huge gun, hell I'd even take a cheat code at this point.**
*I, hmm... I uh, I think I know what you're talking about.*
**You found something?!**
*I did.*
**Super powers?**
*No.*
**Weapons?**
*Not exactly.*
**Some special ability that will allow you to defeat the greatest evil the world has ever known?! An ancient and mystical secret, to advance the cause of the good and righteous in a land under threat?! A SILVER BULLET TO CRUSH OUR ENEMIES AND SEE LIGHT RETURN TO OUR EARTHLY PLANE?!??**
*Kinda...*
**What is it?! Where is it? What does it say? Dave, hurry! The princess is in peril!**
*It's subtle.*
**Yes!**
*It's way down there... in the code.*
**YES!?**
*It's just one line...*
**YEEEESSS?!?!?**
*It says "Oops, pay $2 to continue YES/NO".*
**D:**
|
I feel strange today. Something feels off. A sense of deja vu fills me like I've been here before a hundred or a thousand times, but at the same time, I feel that something is different.
I look around, trying to see what it is, but all four walls are fine. Wait. Four walls? There should only be three. Closing my eyes and taking a breath, I look around again. I can see only three walls, but I can feel a fourth. Like a mirage, I can turn my attention toward it, but if I try to look at it, or catch it, it vanishes. It exists in my mind alone, but I know somehow that it is real. It has some numbers and text on it which are all backwards. There's a bar that, on occasion, gets shorter or longer. Sometimes it shrinks to nothing, then after a few seconds, grows back to full size. My attention is fully on this fourth wall now, and I discover that I can read the words that are backwards on the screen. I see "SCORE" with numbers after it. The solid bar that keeps growing and shrinking says "LIFE" over it. There's also a "1-UP" section which has a zero after it. I realize, suddenly, that there's something beyond it, and it becomes transparent.
Beyond this window, I "see" what appears to be two children. They look similar, and are likely brothers, the larger one appearing to be several years older than the smaller. Both are focused intently on this window, holding small boxes with cables on them. The older child seems to be tapping it madly with his thumbs, while the younger one taps more slowly and less purposefully. The small boxes of both children have some sort of rope coming out of them. The rope of the larger child runs toward and under the transparent fourth wall, while the rope of the smaller child appears to by lying unattached on the floor. Seeing this brought a tear to my eye, causing me to reminisce of times spent with my own older brother during simpler days.
The door on the other end of the hall burst open in my reality, startling me enough to lose focus on the fourth wall. A detestable hero charged into the hall, and I bristled a little. I wanted to rush over and take him out myself, but according to my training and the rules, my henchmen would take care of this "hero". I was here to guard the door behind me, and would only join the fight when all of my henchmen were gone. I had trained my men well, though, and they should have no problems. Keeping one eye on the hero, I decided to try to focus on that fourth wall, again, and see if I could watch both as the same time. It took a little while, but I figured out how to do it, and I couldn't help but notice that the motions of the older brother on the little box in his hands coincided with the motions of the hero at the other end of the hall.
*tap* *tap* went the boy's thumb on the edge of the box.
*punch* *punch* went the hero.
The boy pressed down another area of the box with the other thumb, and the hero ran toward me. The same motion in a different area caused the hero to run away from me. I realized that this boy and the hero must be tied together somehow. But what about the younger boy? Was there someone else for him, too? Letting my attention return back to reality, I could not see another hero, or even someone smaller moving about. Could this hero be protecting his brother who is elsewhere, just as my older brother had protected me? I put even more of my attention on the fourth wall, this time losing all sense of what was happening in reality. The increased clarity allowed me to watch the two children. The younger is pressing buttons and glancing at the older furtively. The adoration in his eyes is apparent, much like I adored mine. This brought the memory to me, unbidden, of my brother dying.
Like most people in my city and social-status, being a henchman was the only way to get a steady paycheck and put food on the table. Neither of us knew who our parents were, so we were a tight-knit family. We might not have even been blood related, but he was an older brother to me, just the same. We were street urchins, stealing just to survive, so when my brother was old enough to become a henchman, it was a happy day for us. He applied and was accepted to be a henchman of the man with the title of BOSS. BOSS was a good man and took care of his henchmen, but as it happens, one day, a hero showed up. BOSS killed the hero, of course, but not before the hero had killed all of the henchmen, including my brother. I was devastated when I heard the news. My brother, who had always been there, was now gone. I cried like I had never cried before. Now I had no one. Luckily for me, BOSS was a good man, and he took me in, raising me to be the man I am today. When he retired, I took his name and title, and I hoped to make both him and my brother proud. The memories were so vivid, and I could feel the loneliness welling up from inside again, as well as the anger and hatred toward heroes. These feelings, floating around inside my head, were suddenly hammered into a singular drive like the powerful kick that suddenly returned me to reality.
I shook my head, and my eyes focused back on the room. I realized that my henchmen were gone. The room was empty except for the hero. The hateful hero was standing there, about to give me another cheap-shot kick to the head again. I. WOULD. NOT. TOLERATE. THIS. How many of my henchmen had little brothers who would be as broken as I was? The emotions that had been given a singular purpose pressed hard into my chest, driving me forward. I forgot the rules that BOSS had taught me when fighting heroes. I ignored the training that demanded I act in a predictable manner. The pressure in my chest expanded into my arms and legs, and I exploded with fury, striking the hero with everything I had. Every strike was powered by the love of my brother, guided by the despair of his loss, and punctuated by the overwhelming desire to end this once and for all. NO MORE HEROES WOULD RUIN FAMILIES AGAIN!
When my rage finally died, and my energy finally ran out, the hero was down. It was over. This hero would not tear apart any more families. Family. I had a sudden urge to check on the brothers, and, upon thinking of them, I froze, horrified. My brain had started thinking clearly again, and I had remembered:
The hero was tied to the older brother.
I turned my attention in that direction as quickly as I could, and I hoped that I would not see what I feared. The first thing I saw were the words "GAME OVER" on the wall in big, red letters. How cruel. This was no game for me or this family. I focused further, pushing my gaze past the wall. The horror I had imagined upon remember the children became the view that I saw in my mind. The young child was still holding his box, but he wasn't pushing buttons, he was crying. The other box was there, but the older boy was not. I had done to this boy what the heroes had done to me. I had taken this boy's family from him, possibly the only family he had. This boy was now alone, as I had been, but he did not have BOSS to take care of him, as I did.
It had been an accident on my part. I had lost control, broken the rules, and this was the result. I need to fix this. I need to end the cycle. Heroes are like henchmen: new ones always show up, so the solution is simple. I must succeed where the heroes have failed. Only then will henchmen and hero never have to fight again.
I turn to the door behind me, my mind set, and open the door I have guarded for so long. I will end this "game".
| 2016-05-21T20:38:34 | 2016-05-21T18:58:48 | 41 | 12 |
[WP] Im having a bad day, please cheer me up with stories of cats and dragons becoming friends please :)
|
Sivaduil's Cat
The great dragon lay curled up in the throne room on ten foot thick bed of wool. He was the fourth largest dragon in all of Vandrion and the most powerful. The other three had become drunk on power and were now on display in the night sky for any humans to see. Sivaduil laughed a bit at this prospect. Then he brushed away the thought with a flick of his powerful red tail. As he rose, thousands of scales as hard as steel shifted on his skin. He activated the Flame of Nelosdar to inform the council that he was awake for the day.
Of course Sivaduil never actually slept. At this point in his life, his magic sustained him enough that he did not need food either. Sivaduil only pretended to sleep to have some time to think. Also, there was the possibility that the more fervent of the Tazdar would try and mimic his sleepless existence and kill themselves in the process. *Foolish humans,* Sivaduil thought; to him, his lizardlike Tazdar were still the humans he had formed them from. The Gods thought similarly.
Sivaduil wondered if today was the day the Gods would try and kill him. He had no doubts they could, but they did not want to hurt the Tazdar he had created as a buffer, all of those innocent lives. *The Gods and their morality,* Sivaduil laughed. If they tried though, more than civilians would die. Sivaduil would no doubt be able to kill at least one of them in the process, as well as destroy a few cities. Cancar could easily take him one on one, but even he would be unable to prevent any collateral damage.
Dragons were quite powerful creatures. They had strong physical capabilities, but most important were their magical ones. Dragons wielded natural sorcery that manifested in their breath attacks, but could be controlled to do much more. At first, Sivaduil had began to surround himself with other dragons and his children, when he realized the weaknesses of dragons. One after the other, his children were slaughtered. Their pride in their tough scales and magical aura defense had no basis when a practiced human channeler could easily target chinks in the magical armor of a dragon. Tough scales provided no protection against magic attacks and they could even be broken through by enhanced weapons.
The dragon's thoughts were interrupted by a nearby sound. A cat was lying on Sivaduil's bed, licking its fur. Sivaduil briefly considered eating it. It would taste horrible, but he hadn't eaten anything for just over 5 weeks. He decided against it, but the thing was annoying to have in the middle of his throne room.
Sivaduil started to speak to the cat, using the standard telepathy of dragons. "Creature, do you know what I am?"
The cat looked around a bit and kept grooming itself.
"They know me as the Evil One."
The cat looked up at Sivaduil, probably not understanding much of his monologue.
"I'm the one who killed Tahru."
Meeow - He got in response. The cat knew what Sivaduil meant when he said Tahru.
"Yes, the one who killed Tahru. I am the cat. You are the mouse." Sivaduil smiled a bit.
The predator knew what it meant to be prey, but did not think the dragon in front of her was truly that scary. It was big and red, but it also hadn't made a move towards her yet. Plus, this bed was warm and soft; there was no reason to run away.
Sivaduil decided that he had taken some vested interested in the creature lying on his bed. He extended a claw to it. The cat stopped grooming and walked up to rub against the claw. It was warm with a red dragon's magic. Sivaduil realized what he had been missing while plotting to take over the world: someone to share it with. He swallowed the cat for a moment with his magic, committing to memory its every fiber so that he could heal or even resurrect it if needed. He smiled the best a dragon could smile and promised the cat, that when he became the ruler of Vandrion, he would show her everything he owned.
|
Eliora sat, lounged, laid upon her hoard of treasure, her stockpile of glittering gold and shimmering jewels, her priceless art and her uncountable treasures, her polished steel and shining gems. Eliora’s cavern of treasure, her lair of solitude, was the envy of the human kingdoms; she was the last of the living dragons, the greatest of her race, the mightiest of her warriors, standing vigil over the last known holdout to the human kingdoms.
The great dragon, the last of her kind, stared out, from her mountaintop perch, and gazed across the endless lands of the humans. She watched as the humans carved their humanity out of the earth. She watched as they tore at the soil, at the earth, at the clay. She watched them build, she watched them burn, she watched them fight, she watched them build; she watched them destroy.
From the perches of her brothers and sisters, from the great spires which loomed over the land, she heard the extinguished flames, the suffocating quiet, of her loved ones, her fellow dragons. Eliora felt a sense of loneliness, of longing, as she sat, gazing from her perch, and began to wonder and question and think. She longed, she pined, for her times of youth, when the fires of the earth still raged upon the surface, when she flew through the free skies, laughing and playing and loving and crying and trying and living alongside her friends and loved ones. But, one by one, the hands of time chipped away at this painting of happiness, this pure bliss of innocence. And now, Eliora sat atop her perch, and thought, and wondered, about the futility of it all. It wasn’t a sad existence; it was a melancholy one.
As Eliora sat, and thought, and despaired, and wanted, and bemoaned, and frowned; a small creature, a creature of might and willpower and hope, began to ascend Eliora’s throne of dirt and gravel and rock and clay. The small creature, the tiny beast, of soft fur, and rough paws, and wet nose, and sharp pink tongue, and little, white fangs, crawled, prowled and pounced, up the spire, the mountain, which Eliora called home. Atop the creature’s head, riding safely between two pointed ears of fuzzy fur, sat a small gecko, eyes wide, and excited tongue lolling happily to the side of its mouth. Next to the fuzzy creature, the lovely cat who prowled and pounced up towards Eliora’s mountaintop home, crawled a great bearded dragon, with green scales, a silent mouth, and knowing, wise, kind eyes. The trio walked, climbed, drawn to the top of the mountain. They felt a basic need, a basic instinct, to reach Eliora, to help her, to encourage her.
A great, scaled ear sitting upon Eliora’s head twitched. Deep in thought, Eliora thought about herself, thought about her future, and how bleak and empty it was. She wondered why, wondered why she was afflicted, cursed, to think like this. She felt everything around her crumbling away, breaking away from her, leaving her alone, bleak and hopeless. Eliora puffed out a stream of hot air from her great, scaly nose. She shook her head, and the gold coins and glittering treasures beneath her great form tinkled and shifted beneath her. What was the point of her struggles of her hardships, if this was her only reward.
Cresting the lip of the mountain, the cat, the kitten, the stray wanderer, the furry beast, peeked a curious head into the mouth of Eliora’s cave. The cat opened a feline mouth wide, and a soft “meow!” escaped his lips. The meow, soft and happy, echoed across the cavern, bouncing off the walls and treasure, but it fell on deaf ears. The cat watched, worried, as Eliora lay slumped upon her treasure, her mind drawn within herself. The fun little gecko upon the cat’s head gave the fuzzy beast several soft, encouraging pats, encouraging her furry companion to continue.
Stalking, like a friendly predator brining good news to his best friend, the cat shifted and crouched and walked and jumped around the piles of treasure, making his way slowly towards the great dragon, Eliora. The bearded dragon followed closely behind his kitten comrade, great tail swishing slowly, patiently, behind him.
As soft paws walked slowly over a mountain of gold, the trio of wandering heroes approached Eliora. But still, Eliora did not notice her recent guests; she remained, consumed, by the melancholy despair of her mind.
The kitten stood at the edge of the dragon’s great mass; his gecko friend sat perched atop his fuzzy head, and his bearded dragon buddy stood nearby, supporting the kitten hero with his presence.
With a soft meow, a comforting note of love and assurance, the cat walked up to Eliora’s head, resting upon her pile of golden coins. Raising a soft, pink paw, the cat patted Eliora’s great, scaly, nose.
Eliora opened her eyes. She stared down at the creatures in front of her; such fragile, uncertain, beasts. For a fleeting moment, she forgot about her despair, and thought about her happiness as she gazed at these lovely creatures of warmth.
Sensing Eliora’s mood, the kitten gave another soft pat, softly rubbing a pink paw against hardened scaly skin. Eliora purred, and the tiniest of smiles creeped up to the edges of her mouth. The small, fuzzy beast shuffled his paws, and rubbed his body against Eliora’s jaw. The tiny, happy, lovely gecko, sitting atop the cat’s head, sensed her chance. With great courage, with great excitement, the gecko, she leapt from the cat’s head, and landed on all fours on the top of Eliora’s nose.
Eliora’s eyes shifted, from the fuzzy cat next to her, to the happy gecko in front of her. She stared into the geckos eyes, and saw a blissful ease, an unquestioning comfort. With a smile, and tongue lolling out from her mouth, the gecko stood on her hind legs. She hopped, from one foot to the other, dancing about on the dragon’s nose. A smile spread to Eliora’s face.
The cat, sensing victory, hopped up to join the gecko. With determination, the cat walked forwards, and softly, and carefully, and happily, and purposefully, and encouragingly, butted the top of his head several times agains Eliora’s head, rubbing and booping his soft noggin against Eliora’s skull.
Eliora sighed, and smiled openly, raising out a hand to pick up the great bearded dragon still standing next to her. Together, the four nestled together, and hugged for a moment, as Eliora’s heart slowly melted. She sighed to herself, and nuzzled the furry beast softly in return, in thanks.
“Thank you.” Eliora said, the words rumbling out from her great mouth. She realized, then, as her new friends encouraged her, that the future was not bleak; it was merely unknown. Up until now, she had loved life, enjoyed life, been happy and content and sad and joyful. And now, she realized, that if it had happened before, then it would happen again. She stared out into the dark, unknown future, not thinking it was bleak, but rather, thinking how many hidden, happy, encouraging, positive opportunities were hidden within it.
She thanked her newest friends again, and smile great, big smiles with them, as they began to play, and converse, and think of something new for the future to hold.
-------------------------
Hope you enjoyed the story! I was having a pretty bad day too, and writing this helped a lot.
If you liked the story, I've got tons more over at my sub, r/ThadsMind, if you want to subscribe to that.
P.S. - This was inspired by a short story series I write called 'The Tales of Sir Mittens'. If this helped out at all, I'd recommend reading some [Sir Mittens](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThadsMind/comments/5ro764/sir_mittens_brings_a_message/)
| 2017-03-24T10:32:30 | 2017-03-24T10:04:10 | 40 | 16 |
[WP] By some magic, you are granted the wish to become the best in the world at something. You are disappointed when you notice no change in your ability. The next day, however, you notice that all over the world, people are becoming worse at one very particular skill.
|
I thought it was a harmless wish.
But now everything's turned wrong.
Lucy no longer talks, nor does anyone else for that matter. She still understands me, or at least I think so from her slow nods and lifeless stares. At least Lucy's still active with her day job but in the end she, like everyone else, is only going through the motions.
At night I hold her hand tight and flip open our old picture book. We look at past events, memories of warmth, fun and excitement. If I crack enough dumb jokes then perhaps she could manage a smile.
But deep down I know it's all pointless. There is neither joy nor mirth in her expressions.
All I wanted was to be happy.
|
Andy slunk into class with his heart pounding, mouth dry from something more than his usual anxiety.
He looked at the people sitting all around him, and felt his excitement slip away. He didn't feel it - the need to tap one of them on the shoulder and start talking. The very thought still made his palms feel slick with sweat. Alison Connell turned in her seat and he glanced down hastily at his notes, sneaking her a look to test if his feelings had changed. No. He still didn't know what to say to her, didn't know how to ask her to join him after class for coffee.
But *something* had changed. Something was wrong. Her warm brown eyes were darting everywhere, and she was fiddling with her necklace. She jumped as the girl next to her - Hannah, wasn't it? - said something in a soft, halting voice.
"I - I don't know what's wrong," Alison said, avoiding her friend's gaze.
He could have told her exactly what was wrong as he watched them all with growing dismay that day. Professor Landon, who usually conducted his classes with casual confidence, peppering his words with jokes that made them all forget they were attending a lecture, fumbled through the hour with trembling hands. When he got outside, he saw mirror images of himself walking on campus. People looked at their feet and shrank from one another, subtle relief on their faces when they thought they were alone once more.
When Andy turned on the TV back in his dorms, he watched in horror as everyone in the live broadcasts stuttered through their words, panic barely hidden in their eyes. Even the vibrant voice of the news anchor was dimmed, her eyes fixed on her hands instead of the camera.
Wrong. It was all so wrong. He hadn't wanted to turn them into *him*.
The next day, it got worse. And worse still, after that. Until he lost his fear of them, as they suddenly avoided *his* eyes. As they looked in wonder when he tried to strike up conversations, desperate to try and explain: he would find the man again. The man he'd found after a desperate late-night internet search, a so-called therapist who had promised to "set you on the path to fulfil all your goals in life". The grinning, dark-haired man had never told Andy his name, just given him a drink to calm his nerves for the "session", as he'd called it.
Some drink. Perhaps he was drugged, that would explain it. Drugged and dreaming in the man's dingy office.
But the sunlight was too bright, and he felt every sensation too sharply in this day where everything had gone so wrong. No, he was awake, and unable to talk to anyone about the nightmare he'd created.
But he had to try. He owed them that much. For the first time in his life, his heart wasn't bursting through his chest as he tapped on Alison's shoulder in class that day. His classmates were fidgeting with discomfort as they tried to make it through the lecture. Professor Landon had put on a video instead of giving a lecture, today. The class was almost empty, but she was still there.
He was surprised at the ease with which he did it. Perhaps it was because of the knowledge that she was just as scared as him.
"Hi. I - I'm Andy," he said, voice wavering as her eyes crept up to meet his. "Would you maybe...like to meet up after class? I want to talk to you about something."
She blinked and gave him a tremulous smile that made him forget, for a moment, how badly he'd screwed up.
"Sure. Sure, that would be great," she said, fiddling with her necklace again. But making an effort to look at him. "I haven't talked to anyone in a while. Isn't that weird?"
"No, it's fine," he said. "Why don't we get some coffee?" He felt almost dizzy as she smiled shyly at him again.
For a moment, he forgot that he would have to tell her that he did this to them. And that he would somehow have to find the man again, and undo the damage. It was the right thing to do, wasn't it? He should feel racked with guilt: logically, he knew that. But today, it was all worth it. His dream of the past year had come true.
He was sitting next to Alison Connell, and she knew his name. More than that, she had *smiled* at him.
Perhaps he should put off finding the man, just for today. Just for their coffee date. Maybe he could even convince her to hang out a bit longer. It couldn't do much harm to wait one day.
------
Hope you enjoyed my story! You can find more of my work on /r/Inkfinger/.
| 2017-05-01T02:41:51 | 2017-04-30T23:42:53 | 1,800 | 46 |
[WP] An isolated group of NPCs live near the very edge of the generated worldmap where the accuracy of floating-point numbers start to degrade, full of strange geological formations and supernatural phenomena
based on a weird nightmare i had couple nights ago and old memories of minecraft
|
The town had been quiet ever since Adelaide's boy had clipped through the ground a few weeks ago, never to be seen again. Royce had led the settlers here several years ago after getting fed up with the constant violence of city life, but things had been undeniably harder since they'd arrived.
Royce had called a meeting to address the town's latest problem: ghosts of NPCs from around the world strolling through the center of the town as if they were still alive. This close to the edge of the world, the town was prone to strange phenomena, and though most of the townspeople were used to it, the ghost problem was more upsetting than most. Stan had seen the ghost of his dead wife strolling through the middle of the town as if nothing were wrong, and Stan had been shut up in his house ever since. It was time to act.
"We should call a wizard from the city," Valentine offered. "He could cast a sealing spell that would prevent spirits from entering."
"We could," Royce replied. "But the services of a wizard will require no small amount of compensation. We would need to pool our resources. I'll add it to the list." He wrote "hire a wizard" on the large sandwich board at the front of the room. "Anyone else have ideas?"
"Move back to the city," Sara grumbled. "I hate it here."
"No one is making you stay," Royce said, annoyed. "You're free to return to that crime-ridden scumhole whenever you see fit." Sara groused under her breath, but said nothing further. That's when they heard it.
A piercing scream split the foggy morning air. Royce bolted out the door of the meeting hall to see Adelaide on her knees in the square, distraught. Her son was walking through the middle of the town, staring straight ahead, oblivious to her wailing. Royce ran to her side, consoling her. It was a grim sight, seeing a child you thought you'd lost. And what's worse, he would never return. Simply a revenant, ambling through town like an animated corpse.
Whatever they were going to do about this, they needed to do it fast. Because this wasn't getting any better.
|
"Psst, Ansu," hissed Kuklo.
The girl jumped. "Kuklo, you idiot! You scared me."
"Oh, you goblins are always so jittery," they boy replied, rolling his eyes.
"What are you even doing here?" she enquired, her nose crinkling up in annoyance. "Get back behind your stall before someone comes."
"Relax! No one's coming. And even if they did, who's going to want to buy any of the clothes I sell? It's freezing here, and these leather tunics wouldn't even cover a woman's--"
"*They're very stylish!*" Ansu butted in.
"Whatever. Point is, no one's coming here. Ever."
"They very well might," she huffed. "And until sun-down, there's no good excuse to leave your wares untended."
Kuklo sighed. "No one is coming," he repeated. "No one ever has. Ever will. Who would come to the end of the world? No one, that's who."
"You don't *know* that. You can think that all you want, but you don't *know* it."
"I know a lot of things." Kuklo picked up one of the silver orbs from the front of Ansu's stall and tossed it into the air.
"You don't want to--" Ansu began.
As Kuklo caught the ball in his hand, a bolt of electricity jolted through him. "Agh," he slobbered, as his legs gave way and he collapsed onto the grass. The ball rolled out of his hand and lay innocently by his side.
Ansu couldn't help laughing as she came around to the front of the stall and looked at her friend.
"I think I'm dying," Kuklo whispered.
"The only thing you are, is an idiot. It's low voltage. *Relatively*. You'll be fine."
"I'm not an idiot! You're the idiot for not having warning labels on your toys."
"They're gadgets, not *toys*. Besides, I have labels," she protested, holding out a hand to help Kuklo up. "They have both class and level requirements. Show me exactly where they say 'human babies allowed'."
Kuklo clenched his teeth. He grabbed her hand with his, but instead of pulling himself up, he reached for the fallen ball with his free hand and tossed it into the air.
"Oh no you- Ahh!"
He caught the ball and shared the next bolt of electricity with the goblin. She collapsed next to him, trying her best to stare daggers into him.
"You're such an idiot," she mumbled, her mouth barely opening.
Kuklo grinned. Then they both burst into a fit of laughter.
"Ansu," Kuklo began as their giggling subsided.
"Yes, Kuklo?"
"I... I don't want to be stuck here forever."
"Kuklo! We're not stuck here. We're lucky to be here. There are places far worse!"
He sighed. "You ever wonder what's beyond the Shimmering Mountains?"
"Over the mountains?" Ansu frowned as she stared up at the distant snow peaked crests that seemed to pop in and out of existence, depending on the day. Even when they were there, like today, they were mostly lost to the not-so-distant fog that always lurked about the market-place. Lurked everywhere they went, in fact. "There's *nothing* beyond them."
"How do you know that?"
She shrugged. "I just do."
"But... but if something was beyond them, wouldn't you want to know about it? Wouldn't you want to go, to find out what exactly it was?"
"No. No, I wouldn't. My life is here."
"And... and you're *happy* with that? To exist only here. Never knowing what else might be waiting just around the corner."
"There might be dragons!"
"There *might* be dragons!" Ansu said, sitting up, excitement glinting in his eyes. "And werewolves, and vampires!"
Ansu shuddered. "You sell clothes, not weapons. You're not an adventurer, and neither am I."
They both lay there, imagining the same things but in vastly different ways. They lay there until the sun began to turn gold and slowly settled, and a scream began to rise.
"Help! *Help!*" It was Samlad's voice, and the hobbit causing a fuss was very unusual indeed. "Witchcraft! Help!"
Ansu and Kuklo looked at each other, eyes wide, then leapt to their feet and raced toward the scene. A crowd of marketers and farmers had already gathered around *something*, in a small circle. The children pushed their way through; they both gasped when they saw the headless lady wandering blindly in the circle. It was Pimpernel the baker.
"What happened!?" demanded Kuklo.
"Witchcraft!" replied Samlad.
"Calm down," said Ansu, "and tell us slowly and *exactly,* what happened."
"Pimpernel... she... went into the field as normal, to do a spot of fruit picking for tomorrows pies. Last I saw her, she was heading to the base of the Mount Pinchfrost. Must have seen some good fruit growing."
"And that's it?"
"That's all I know. I see her an hour later, and she ain't got no head no more!"
The body of Pimpernel walked into Samlad and they both tumbled in a knot to the ground.
Kuklo turned to Ansu, whose mouth was drawbridge wide. "You know what that means, don't you?"
"Oh no!" replied Ansu. "Don't you even--"
"We have to! Whoever did this to her, we need to find them and make them give us her head back."
"I'm not going into the mountains, Kuklo!"
"You'd leave me go alone?" He flashed Ansu his best puppy-dog face.
"Oh, don't you give me those huge human eyes! You know I can't resist them."
Kuklo grinned. "We'll need to collect some of your toys first." He grabbed her hand. "Don't worry, you can try on any of my armour. I've got a tunic that might suit you."
Ansu growled at her friend.
| 2018-04-06T07:54:02 | 2018-04-06T07:09:36 | 1,021 | 52 |
[WP] A global arms race gets out of control and every country's only option for survival is walling themselves off with impenetrable defensive technology. Millions of years pass before a catastrophic event brings down all the walls, revealing how humans evolved in isolation.
|
We only had rumors of what existed before the walls.
Until the walls came down.
The President and his Holy Cabinet ordered an expedition. I was ready, I was trained for fighting, though since the Holy Order had been established, our land was finally under the one true rule of God, though many call him Uncle. His messenger Eagle was our symbol, and we honored him through A Pledge of Allegiance.
It's a ceremonial coming of age we all go through, I pledged my body, a warrior. Finally I would be able to uphold that pledge.
There were a dozen of us on horseback. We crossed into the unknown, I held my breath.
The land was pristine, green and lush, with no sign of large predators.
It was warmer and more humid than the land we came from, and somehow more ALIVE too.
We made camp near the water and lit a fire.
All was fine until I heard a thunk in the wood behind me, an arrow was sticking out of the wood, it's brightly colored feathers impossible to miss.
"Take cover!" I yelled, but it was too late.
We were being ambushed.
Then suddenly there was a bright light.
Everyone began rising from the ground. Held in the grasp of this mysterious light.
A figure descended from the light.
She spoke, "do not be afraid, do not fight" she also seemed to be speaking in some other language at the same time, but I was too mesmerized to focus clearly.
"For too long we have allowed our fellow man to suffer in isolation, keeping our prosperity to ourselves. That is why we have taken down the walls. We would like to preserve organic life, it is our heritage, it is who we were. Once."
And then she approached me and I could make out her more clearly. She wasn't human, she was strangely shiny with eyes that glowed. I could hear a metalic grinding sound as she tilted her head.
"Hello, warrior of Uessah," she turned to one of the men who ambushed us, and spoke in the same strange tongue she had before.
Then in both languages she said, "I am Sorreh of Kay-Nay-Dan. Come, we have much to show you. And so little time before we leave."
|
"All right mates, we don't know what is going on behind the lines where the walls formely stood so we got a lot of gear to make sure we don't die so check your equip to make sure it's in prime condition.Even a small crack can kill you if lady fortune isn't your best friend."
The reconnaissance leader told us to check our gear, each and every piece was thoroughly checked before we enter the forest that was behind the markings where the walls formerly stood.
"Check the tubes on your oxygen tanks and the connections between the tubes and the mask.We'll enter the vanilla room before leaving so if you smell a lovely cake, you won't participate in the mission.
The hazard suits should be tighened around the belly and your ankles, the face cord tightened so not even your pinky finger can enter in the room between the mask and the hood of your suit.
Now power on your radio and check if the power-on self test indicates that the radio's gone to shit, we have enough spares here. If the LED blinks red, you'll get new batteries.We don't conserve mat for this mission, it is vital our radio connection to HQ wont get impaired.
&#x200B;
Now check your water and meal supply.
Look if the water bottles have impurities or are leaky, don't hesitate if you need to replace your whole supply.The cans have a sticker, check if it changed color and if the cans are bulging. We replace everything if necessary.
&#x200B;
Ammunition and weapons won't be issued except a smallarm, 4 clips per person and a small pocket knife.We'll carry a few assalut rifles in one of the trucks but if shit goes south, don't count on them.
Truck No. 1 has the generators and fuel, truck number 2 is the most important one, it carries the hermetic tent, air purifier and spare filters for the purifiers.
If the truck breaks down, we'll have to slowly crawl back here unless we can establish a safe zone with clean air.
Truck number 3 carries radio equip for the HQ relay, we'll begin installing then once our connection starts breaking down. The associated solar panels are shock-resistant but I ask you all to still be careful with them when we install the relays.
Truck number 4 is filled with oxygen tanks. If it blows up, we're fucked. I hope you all have a spare bullet ready in that case.
&#x200B;
Allright guys, time to enter the black forest.We have no data on what is going on save for a few miles but our task is to make sure we know what happens out there. I prefer satellites over an expedition but we have neither the resources to build a satellite nor the ability to defend it once it's in its place. We all know the first and last victims were recon equip.
Let's get going and breathe slowly when using the oxygen tanks."
&#x200B;
Our unit started marching into the forest filled with very dense and black fog.
"Mates, open the oxygen tanks, the main air filters are already at their limit if the air reader isn't broken."
I cursed inside, pure air was precious on this expedition and we had to use the tanks already.
&#x200B;
" Boys, for what reason did you volunteer?" Asked one of my comrades."I needed a time out from day to day life in the base" said another comrade."My family wants to know how I'm doing and their constant stream of letters breaks the postal system we have. We only get mail once a week and twenty-plus letters are simply too much to answer.""Sounds rough, mate"
"I'm here because I wanted to see the ocean. Rivers and lakes are quite small compared to the amounts of water my grandparents told me in their stories" said the next.
&#x200B;
"You idiot, you think we'll ever reach the ocean? At best we'll manage to build a fort on a hill with a somewhat acceptable air quality so the next expedition has a starting point. Forget about the ocean, if our records are right, we'd have to march over 150 miles to reach them.You think we'll ever reach this with the amount of supplies we have if the fog stays as thick as it is? Continue dreaming, idiot."
"What about following the rivers?" came as a retort.
"Rivers carry the water to the ocean, yes, but neither is the air around them clean enough nor is the water clean enough after leaving our scrap of land. I'm not the wise guy here but if somethings right, then that you don't drink the river water"
&#x200B;
"Shit, man. You a scientist or what?"
"No, a widower because of the river."
Noone said a word for the next dozen minutes.
We were all tensed up since we could easily get lost in the thick fog and our march was slower than anticipated, uneven ground and difficult terrain for the trucks lead to the need to chop down many trees.
When the night started to close in we built the hermetic tent.After setting up multiple shifts the first one went to guard while the other ate and relieved themselves in boxes, I heard the tent stank like hell after an hour and people almost puked while eating.I was lucky that I was one of the first people who could eat, I wasn't sure I'd have similar luck the next few days.
My time for the guard shift went deep in the night, when my replacement came I fell asleep in less than five minutes after laying down.
I didn't sleep long, after an hour at most I was awoken by strange sounds. I didn't move a lot after waking up but luckily my night vision device turned itself on the moment I accidentally flipped the switch on my wrist. What I saw let me tense up. It wasn't something I would describe as a normal human:
It looked like it had an extremely overgrown fine beard or mesh at the place one normaly had their nose and mouth, and its ears looked like they were a few sizes bigger than what was healthy. Only the eyes seemed normal, despite it wearing some kind of swimming goggles and its bald head was covered with a hood.
It slowly came closer to me and I heard more people walking in the background.
With more people closing in they started talking, to my surprise I understood its words but didn't accept its contents:
"It seems like this one's still alive, shall we get him out of here?"
| 2018-11-18T13:49:22 | 2018-11-18T09:56:54 | 43 | 24 |
[WP] You live in an ancient world, when someone turns 18, they will receive a gift either magic or weapon. The gift will be of use for them whenever in need. On your 18th birthday, Death knocks on your door and give you his scythe.
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Of course everyone hopes for magic. The ability to fly, shoot lightning from your fingertips or turn mountains to rubble. Who wouldn't prefer that to a sword or bow.
You received exactly what you needed, that's how it's always been. And however hard you wish for magic, when that sword you received is piercing the throat of the spell-reflecting shatterfur grizzly that somehow made it into your house, you can better believe you're grateful.
I'd been sitting up all night awaiting my gift, trying to prepare myself for the disappointment of not getting magical energy coursing through me.
Looking up at the moon through the window I'd gauge it's just past midnight. I could get my gift any moment now. And as if I'd summoned him with that thought, there was a knock at the door. Just one soft knock, as if any more would be wasteful as the woman who'd knocked clearly knew I had heard.
Nerves raced through me as I walked down the creaking old stairs, put my hand on the cold steel handle of the door and opened it.
Death was an old lady, with kind eyes and a gentle but sad smile. She reached the scythe out to me and blinking away a single tear dissipated into nothingness.
Balancing on its handle for a second the scythe tipped over and fell towards me. Out of reflex and instinct I grabbed the falling weapon, still trying to work out what had just happened.
When the steel hit my fingertips the old ladies voice echoed in my head "I'm sorry". A sharp pain pulsed through my chest. My body fell to the floor lifeless. My soul standing over it, holding my gift.
There was no need for explanation, no need for anything. I had become death, and death is always needed.
|
I am 18. I live in a world where people gain the ability to wreak mass destruction at the exact same time that they are able to give consent in a relationship. You may think, "Why does this happen? Why would this world of yours be seemingly explicitly designed just for the purpose of violence?" I would answer, "I have no idea," because I have no idea.
The world I live in is weird and weird things happen. Such as the fact that in this world people could fly or shoot fire out of their eyes or inexplicably gain magical weaponry, because why not? There was also the time where I got my own weapon, which was rather strange, I must admit.
You see, it was about five days ago when the physical incarnation of death knocked at my door with a really, really big scythe in his hands. Uninvited, I should add. Absolutely, completely rude. When I stared him in the eyes, or an approximation of where his eyes should have been, I asked him, "Are you death?" He said yes, because he was Death.
**"Hello, mortal..."** Death said in his very scary voice. **"I am death incarnate. I have come to you today for a very special reason..."** Death proceeded to tell me all about how inherently powerful the scythe in his hands was, the special powers of the scythe, and how power came with responsibility. That's what I assumed Death said anyway, I wasn't really listening because I had better things to be doing.
To my credit, I caught the end of his speech about the scythe. **"... And that's why I am giving you this scythe."** Death went down on one knee and held the scythe out like a platter on a dining table. **"Take it, it will aid you on your adventures."**
I asked, "Why? What does it do?" because that is the way I am. I have no idea why Death was so fed up with me, but nonetheless, Death threw the scythe straight at my face and dissipated into nothingness.
Of course, I wouldn't actually use an enchanted scythe. It practically asked for the whole monkey's paw treatment. I threw it into the corner of my room and went back to whatever I was doing, and though I had no idea what that was, it was most definitely more important than mucking around with a magic Death Scythe.
The newly dubbed Death Scythe proceeded to prove how stupid I was about the basic workings of magical scythes, as it puffed into existence right on top of my head. It did this because that was the way scythes worked. At this point, I was getting somewhat peeved because of the metal object that had slammed straight down onto my head. I decided to do the reasonable thing: talk to the magical Death Scythe.
"What do you want from me?! What did Death even give you to me for?!" I yelled in a rather rude fashion. The Death Scythe, of course, didn't respond because it is only a regular scythe and cannot do magical things. How stupid of me, why did I even bother?
This is about the point where I gave up entirely attempting to communicate with my Death Scythe. There was only so much you could go through for a Death Scythe until you had to give up. Desiring some fresh air, I walked through the front door into my front lawn, where I saw normal people doing normal things such as flying through the air, fighting to the death and shooting magical crossbow bolts in random directions, because I lived in a world where that happened and was normal. Overall, it was a perfect day for a walk, and so I went, jogging down the road at a leisurely pace.
***Slam!*** The loud noise made me jump out of my skin, figuratively that is, because nothing that impractical would ever happen in this world. Speaking of which, the figure who had crashed into the ground in front of me in a meteor-like impact was standing and yelling at me, though I wasn't listening on account that I was hearing a really annoying ringing in my head. Eventually, my hearing found me again.
"... Kill you and take all your belongings and I can do it too! Don't test me, I have super strength and laser vision and..." I stopped listening. To be honest, I wished I could only hear ringing as I had moments ago. That would have been preferable to this. I believe it was around when the man in front of me gave up trying to talk with me and began trying to melt me into a puddle with lasers that the entire area around us darkened and a loud "Pop!" was heard.
I turned around. It was Death Scythe, here to save the day, as scythes do. As politely as I could, I asked Death Scythe, "Hey Death Scythe? Could you kill this trouble-maker for me? That would make me very grateful, thank you very much." Death Scythe didn't reply, as metal scythes didn't have mouths. What Death Scythe did do was cut the screaming man in front of me into bloody chunks upon the floor. It did this because I told it to and that is what scythes do.
I smiled as I realized my death would not be today, and I decided that maybe Death Scythe wasn't so bad. "Hey Death Scythe, that was a pretty cool thing you just did there!" I gave Death Scythe a little pat on the hilt. "Now, question here, is there anything else you could do besides making people die? Maybe, say, making floating numbers appear above everyone's head? I suppose it would have to indicate something, but for now, you could just put up random numbers that don't mean anything..." I continued rambling about this and that, finding Death Scythe to be a delightful listener during a conversation.
Of course, Death Scythe didn't reply, because that's what scythes did.
| 2019-02-28T22:47:55 | 2019-02-28T21:49:30 | 1,744 | 98 |
[WP] The blacksmith won't sell you any weapon, the guards insist you stay in the city and the mages refuse to teach you any dangerous spell. Maybe that eternal youth potion was a terrible idea after all.
|
"To young to work, to old to learn. You are of no use to us here." The head smith scolded him.
Another unwilling to accept his potential and allow him to train under them. He had started out with grand ambitions. To find a dojo and become the greatest swordsman, to one day become the personal guard of the Shogun and to be lifted up to the position of Daimyo. But slowly those ambitions had crumbled.
He had indeed found a dojo and trained there for nearly a decade before it was burned down. He had found some success while there, he became adept at reading the movements of others and could defeat almost anyone in a Kendo match. But the day the dojo was attacked he learned a harsh reality, that his eternal youth also made him eternally weak. He could easily be overpowered in a real fight due to his size. Speed and skill would only take him so far in a true battle.
He had escaped his captors and fled into the wilderness and trained for nearly another 10 years, making gains in speed, stamina, and strength but he knew it wasn't enough. He knew his dream of being a samurai would never come to pass. And so he moved on.
But times had changed while he was in the wilderness. The country was mostly at peace with court intrigue and plots taking over for massed battles. With the stability came a flourishing of business and trade. And so he set a new ambition. To master trades, gather wealth, and rise to power through money instead of martial skill.
But times were different, unlike the dojos of the past, master craftsmen wouldn't take just anyone off the street. You needed a family name behind you to start young in the trade when you would be more of a burden then a worker. He grew annoyed, then bitter, then resentful.
And so he traveled from town to town. Where once he had learned to live off the land now he learned to live off those around him in the urban centers. He learned how to lift a purse from a passing merchant. How to enter a well guarded house and take what he wanted from those who refused to give. He learned to melt into a crowd with such subtle ease that it was almost like he could disappear from plain sight.
He had applied to join the smithing guild run by the Fujibayashi clan, but as expected had been turned away. He told himself that didn't bother him like it used to. The application was just a habit and a tool as much as it was an honest attempt to learn a craft. Though deep down he knew this was a lie. He desperately wanted to be trained in something. Anything. Even if it didn't bring him glory or honor or fame, just knowing that he had learned and master a craft was all he needed. But if they wouldn't help him further his dreams then he would steal theirs.
He had been able to inspect the workshop, storehouse, and domiciles during the application and was prepared for that night. He knew where they kept their gold and silver and completed works, and he had learned over the years what pieces were worth taking and what could be left behind.
And so he waited for the night to being for the light of day to fade and the darkness to embrace him. Then he waited longer until the moon rose and started to fall, for the time of night that he knew would lead to the guards being drowsy and to lack the alertness to catch him.
His experience told him it was time. He had done this a dozen or maybe even a hundred times by now. He made a final check on his equipment. Rope, lockpick, straight blade, pepper and meat for the dogs, and a small flask of oil and a flint. Then he was off, swift and silent as a midnight wind he moved from shadow to shadow. Past dozing guards and up over walls. Along rooftops and finally through a window down into the store room. He quickly set about filling his bag with only the finest pieces.
When his bag was full he began to spread the oil. If his dreams would be ash so would the dreams of those who refused him. Just as he was about to strike the flint and set the blaze something he hadn't imagined happened. He felt cold steel at his neck and a whisper in his ear.
"I would prefer you didn't. Our clan needs the tools in this warehouse to perform our duty to the Shogun." The voice was low but familiar. The head smith Nagato, moved around in front of him while keeping the blade pressed to his throat. But he was no longer garbed as a smith, instead he wore something strange. A dark blue silken garb the color of the midnight sky on a moonless night cover him from head to toe. A black leather sheath for the long straight blade he held. The smith looked almost like a piece of shadow had broken loose from the darkness and carried himself with a quiet lethality that wasn't there during the day.
"You asked before if you could be trained as a smith and I rejected you. I felt your talents would be wasted there. I have been watching you for some time and have seen the progress you have made. Without training, you have become quiet as a whisper. But if you wish to become one of us we can make you silent as the shadow of death....."
|
After escaping the Genie's temple, Rovif tested the limits of his immortality by throwing himself off the mountain. It seemed like the most direct route. Could he reach the base without hitting anything?
Odd. As it stretched out into minutes of silent free-fall, its sensation slowly became indistinguishable from soaring in the air. The only difference between the two was the fear of hitting the ground. Now that Rovif knew he would survive, from his perspective, the distinction had blurred. Nothing could harm him anymore.
Unless a landslide trapped him under rocks for eternity.
Rovif swallowed. He suddenly felt like an idiot and remembered the immortals locked away in the temple. Would the Genie cause a landslide? This *would* be the easiest way of screwing Rovif over. He never trusted the Genie's words. That creature had no reason to tell the truth.
Rovif crashed into the ground with a thud. He sprang to his feet and dusted his cloak, staying alert for any potential earthquakes that could bury him. Nothing. Maybe the Genie wasn't lying, but that only made Rovif more concerned about his warning.
Twilight slowly ended when he saw the village of Spiceroot on the horizon. It had been approximately fourteen hours since the first wish. Rovif paused at a crossroads. One path spiraled down the foothills, towards the village, and the other stretched out with no discernible end until merging into the imperial highway.
The mage's guild in Spiceroot would be on high alert for Rovif. He grumbled. Although the path down was unexpectedly quick, this hike had taken him months of travel. Rovif longed for good meal and a warm bath. He walked down the foothills. The only inns nearby were in Spiceroot. Rovif chuckled. And really, what could the guild possibly do to him?
------
------
The bed creaked again.
Rovif blinked. Dawn approached and he didn't get a minute of sleep. The Genie would show itself soon. Rovif still hadn't decided his next wish. There were too many variables to consider. Rovif got up from his bed, sauntering blindly towards the bathroom. He needed to remember his goal. Immortality was a great first step but it didn't automatically turn him into the greatest mage in history. It just increased the likelihood of success which, granted, made Rovif a lot more patient than before. He needed to focus on securing and consolidating his powers.
Unfortunately, the fact that he was forced to make a wish every day meant that there would be room for error in his wishes. Rovif inspected his worn out face. He already had an inkling of what to ask. One of the immortals in the temple was an old man. The first clue that an immortality wish wasn't perfect.
Magical energy materialized and swelled all through the room, crackling like lightning until turning into a dense fog. The Genie's silhouette hovered inside. His voice then boomed:
"Master, I see you haven't done anything foolish yet. Congratulations. Most people use their second wish to undo whatever mistake they did in the first twenty-four hours."
Rovif cleared his throat. "R-right."
"Do you have your second wish ready?"
"I believe so... Genie, grant me eternal youth! I'd like to remain in my physical peak for the rest of my life!"
Just like last time, the Genie powered up with an unbelievable amount of mana all around him and shot Rovif with a bolt of energy. A sudden calm overwhelmed his senses. Every ache, every old scar, every uncomfortable tension in his body melted away in an instant. He wasn't aware of how much pain he carried until it wasn't there anymore.
Rovif raised an eyebrow at the Genie. "What? No cryptic warnings this time?"
"I came to the conclusion that I'd be wasting my time."
"Well, you know, it's not like I wouldn't appreciate your input..."
The Genie shook his head, amused. "Very well, here's a tip. This isn't the first time I've been in this village. Throughout the centuries, the mages who find me often go to Spiceroot as their first destination."
Rovif nodded along. He remembered a lot of the legends mentioned this village. It's how he knew where to steal the map. "Does the Mage's Guild here know about you?"
"They originally established a branch here specifically to study my temple, but I didn't allow it."
"That explains a lot." Rovif often wondered why they would have such a powerful branch of the guild over in a backwater region of the empire. "Okay, thanks, that's interesting I guess, but I struggle to see the tip."
The Genie chuckled. "I'm saying that they have experience in dealing with people like you."
Rovif widened his eyes. The Genie's mana. It was unmistakable. If they had records, they would know its nature the minute they detected it. The Genie waved goodbye before disappearing. Rovif ran out of the bathroom. The Guild might actually have contingency plans for immortals. He needed to grab his belongings and leave Spiceroot immediately.
The room was disintegrated in a fiery explosion before Rovif could exit.
------
------
Folas and Vulen stared at the crystal ball with bated breath. The fireball was massive. It completely leveled the second floor of the humble inn. No one could survive that. The guild mages jumped into the building, extinguished the fire, and began to inspect the wreckage. Vulen zoomed in on them through the crystal ball. Everything was ash.
Folas grumbled.
Vulen eyed him, annoyed. "What?"
"How much attention will this bring?"
"Not as much as you think." Vulen stood up from his chair and stretched out his back. "We have enough in the treasury to cover the damages and silence the owner." He ceased his scrying on the crystal ball. "Now if you'll excuse, we've been working on this problem for long enough. I'll be off now."
"No."
Vulen stopped in his tracks. "Why?"
"They haven't found the body."
"It burned up! You saw the explosion. Five of our best mages fired at full power."
"At someone who already had two wishes granted."
Vulen pursed his lips, glancing at the floor. "They're silly myths."
"Regardless, the sundial will determine if we have succeeded."
Vulen looked at it. An ancient relic that was allegedly recovered from the original expedition into the Genie's temple. The legends stated that the sundial glowed bright green whenever a wish was granted. Vulen never thought it worked until twenty-four hours prior, when it glowed for the first time in centuries. This coincided with the stolen scroll a few months ago. They couldn't detect the exact source of the first mana outburst, but now that they were actively waiting for it, they quickly found where that cursed Rovif was staying. The embarrassment of having those scrolls stolen by him was the only reason Vulen took this situation seriously.
"Okay," said Vulen, "for the sake of arguing, let's say Rovif *did* find this mythical place. Why wouldn't he wish for ultimate power immediately and destroy us?"
Folas stroked his long beard for a few seconds of contemplation. "Some legends state that those who do that are instantly consumed and overwhelmed by the weight of their request. His strategy might be to work his way up to a point where he can ascend to godhood without losing his sense of self."
Vulen sighed. "Then what do you propose?"
"Keep every guild member on high alert. Forbid anyone from selling any teleportation services today, or weapons for that matter, and make sure the guards are keeping an eye out for him."
"Are you sure? We can bribe a few officials to aid our search, but they won't detain him without asking questions. If what you say is true, and imperial agents find out about the temple..."
"I'm aware of the risks, but it'd be more dangerous if Rovif escaped the city. Just be as vague as possible. I know it might seem like overkill, but until I see the sundial doesn't glow again tomorrow, I can't allow myself to relax."
"And what if..." Vulen swallowed. "...what if he can't die."
"We'll chop him up limb by limb and bury the pieces in very distant, remote locations all over the world. Also, we'll need to pour molten led into his mouth so can't wish himself out of the situation."
Vulen squinted.
"What?"
"I wasn't expecting your answer to be that... thorough."
-------------------
>This prompt felt like the perfect follow-up to [another one I answered a few days ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/bwpa2t/wp_a_genie_gives_you_two_options_one_is_to_get/epzr3hw/). I wanted to see if I could make it work with and without context, but I don't know if it worked. Anyway, if anyone's interested, I'm gonna be working on this all day but I'm getting some breakfast now because I kinda forgot to eat.
| 2019-06-07T08:17:04 | 2019-06-07T06:04:22 | 83 | 47 |
[WP] The whole town knows about it. The black shadow on the baby monitor. Sudden changed diapers or meals ready for kids when they get home. Cleaned rooms and drawn baths. It is known as The Babysitter. It will never harm a child, but heaven help those who don't pay for its services.
|
a coin on the table is a small price to pay
when you are busy working a very long day
the chores are done the clothes are clean
not a spec of dust in the house to be seen
the baby is fast asleep in his bed
all tucked in, sleeping and fed
ignore the shadow and ignore the sight
of the unknown creature that sheds no light
go about your night and pretend it's not there
don't look its way and don't give it a care
but it will take your child and leave you bitter
if you don't leave a coin for The Babysitter
|
So I started responding to this prompt and ended up running with it for way longer than I expected. The story is going to be broken between a few comments.
Bill and Lisa Alderson sat with their arms around one another. Their loveseat was well worn, with fraying upholstery and faded plaid. Bill was hunched forward, in his hands he held an Ipad, which was streaming a video of their newborn daughter. Elise lay in the crib, safely nestled in a blanket adorned with cartoon penguins. Aside from the occasional yawn, she was completely still. Bill took a sip of his beer, and set it back on the coffee table. Lisa was resting her head on his shoulder, a glass of her favorite merlot held in her free hand. “Look at how little she is.” She cooed. “She looks like a baked potato.” Bill said with a smile. Elise yawned, stretching her tiny mouth as far as it could go, then smacked her lips. Lisa felt her heart swell in her chest, her face was hot from the wine. A tear ran down her cheek. “Ugh look at me.” she said, wiping the tear away. Bill smiled and kissed where the tear had been, then kissed his wife on the lips. Elise had come home from the hospital only two weeks ago. She had been an early child and had to be kept at the hospital for nearly three months. During that time Bill and Lisa practically lived at the hospital. They had been worried the child would never come home, looking back, that fear seemed completely unfounded. Elise had put on six pounds since she was born. When she came into the world Bill was afraid he would break her when he held her. Now, seeing her nestled in the crib, Bill had to fight the urge to go hold her once more. “We did alright.” Bill said, pulling his wife in for another kiss. She set her glass down and met him eagerly. The wine had done more than make her face hot. Lisa pushed Bill down, making the old couch squeak, and got on top of him. Bill closed his eyes and pulled her tight.
Bill fumbled at the front of Lisa’s blouse, doing his best to keep kissing his wife. After failing at the same button three times, he opened his eyes. Lisa sighed sarcastically, sitting up on his lap. “Too many beers cowboy?” She asked. Bill smiled, unbuttoning slowly. When the last one was undone Lisa’s blouse hung open at her sides, she moved back in to kiss him. As he pulled his wife in, Bill saw something race across the Ipad’s screen. He kissed his wife, this time peering out of the corner of his eye. Something crossed again, this time in the other direction. Bill’s heart jumped in his chest, he broke the kiss and tried to sit up. “What is it?” Lisa asked, she peered down at her open blouse, her caesarean scar making her feel self-conscious. Bill saw the look on his wife’s face. “It’s not you, I just think I saw something on the monitor.” He said, scooping up the Ipad. The two watched the screen, waiting, Lisa picked her wine up. All they saw was another big yawn from Elise, her swaddling undid itself as she moved. “Hmm, it must have been th—." Bills words caught in his throat. Lisa let out a shriek. On the monitor a black shadow swooped past the camera lens and towards the crib. The shadow moved swiftly from the left, to the right side of the crib, before resting at its head. There it settled into a human like shape, deeply hunched. The outline of the shadow waivered in a perpetual vibration, giving it the illusion of constant movement. The figure’s head was completely devoid of features, only a black mass on the top of its body. Bill’s hands were shaking as he held the Ipad. Lisa opened and closed her mouth, trying to form words, but nothing came. Her free hand dug into Bill’s arm, leaving red imprints around her nails. She drained her wine, and moved to stand up. Bill grabbed her arm and pulled her back to the couch. “WE HAVE TO GO IN THERE” She screamed. At this, the figure’s head tilted towards the hallway outside Elise’s room, then turned back to her. “W-w-we don’t know what that is.” Bill said, his voice left him in hoarse stammers. Lisa tried to pull away, but Bill’s grip was iron. That was her little girl in there, her flesh and blood. How could Bill be so stupid? She wrenched her arm free a few inches, starting to flail wildly.
| 2020-04-14T19:37:13 | 2020-04-14T16:13:53 | 230 | 145 |
[WP] English really is a universal language, and aliens are as surprised about this as humans
|
"Why would you choose to speak possibly the most ridiculous language, what with its weird grammatical rules and phonetics, and where the exact same word can be read differently and have meanings worlds apart?"
"Why would *you* choose to speak possibly the most ridiculous language, what with its weird grammatical rules and phonetics, and where the exact same word can be read differently and have meanings worlds apart?"
The alien and I looked at each other. Which was difficult, because our eyes weren't in the same approximate biological region. The Esipuliks had their eyes where our chest would be, except that they had five, and they were in different formations according to caste. But we tried our best.
"Fair," I conceded. "At least we didn't have to muck around with translations and what not."
"It is," Doctor Wariimu of the Esipuliks agreed. "It's an interesting question, but we do have more pressing work at hand."
I laid down a scientific instrument native to the Esipuliks down gingerly, careful not to disrupt the burgeoning table of tools. I sighed.
"Really?" I asked. "Is what we are doing really more pressing?"
"Look, Logan," Wariimu said. He was currently peering through a test tube containing a liquid that was shockingly yellow. A bubble frothed above it every second or so, before popping into nothing. "This isn't for us to decide."
"I just don't get it," I sighed. "I need a nice, soothing cup of coffee."
"Poison," Wariimu replied simply.
"It's clear that your kind's understanding of English is still far from satisfactory if you feel that way," I replied.
As I sipped the terrible machine-made coffee, I wondered if there was some truth to Warrimu's words. Regardless of how it actually tasted, I could feel the caffeine slowly massaging its way into the appropriate pathways, gently easing the unscratchable itch from within.
"What if we didn't choose, Wariimu?" I mused. "What if us both speaking English wasn't our choice nor God's coincidence?"
The good doctor swivelled around. Their torsos didn't work like ours.
"I didn't know coffee had the same effects as alcohol to your physiology," they said. "Are you drunk?"
"I've never been more sober," I said. "Especially after staring at that worktable for hours."
"Why are you thinking so hard about it?" Wariimu had now turned back to the test tube, now a violent orange.
"It's just... strange? I guess we have more reservations about this than your kind. The Esipuliks is the first race we've made contact with, after all."
"You'll understand that English is apparently, something that binds us all together," the doctor said. "Some way, somehow, it's wormed its way into all of our collective tongues."
"Maybe I'm thinking too much about it," I said. Chucking the cup away, I stood up straight, stretching fully and hearing the satisfying crack in my spine.
"After all," Wariimu said. "It's not possible that there's something wrong with the heads of every single person in the galaxy, right?"
"It certainly can't be," I nodded.
*That's right*, the voice in my head confirmed. *There's no other reason why all of you know English. No other reason at all.*
---
r/dexdrafts
|
James takes his first steps on the red sand. It is cold, dry, barren. The desert stretches as far as the eye can see, and then farther, a blanket of wind-swept ruin. The ship hums as it powers down, but the desert is silent; the only sounds are the whispers of the wind.
Here, buried beneath the sand, are the last of the progenitors.
James knows this as much as he knows he is alone, stranded with not enough fuel, stranded without coms or cryo pods or such luxuries of survival. There was a meteor. Sensors didn’t pick it up. Sensor’s didn’t notice when it sliced through the hull with a can opener, shredding the life support unit like so much silver confetti.
He was crashing, burning, the ship spiraling towards something unknown—a barren planet where none should exist.
He watched the desert fill the viewport as the ship crashed down and chills filled him. The world was ancient. The world was wrong: it didn’t belong here, in this quadrant of space. It was something primal and ancient and powerful, and he fears it, an instinct response ingrained and kept for millennia.
*Fear what lies beneath,* the sand seems to say.
James walks ten paces in the sand and thinks of home. Of firecrackers on steel floors, of milk made from replicators, of sliced cake with whipped strawberry. He thinks of the taste of strawberries on her lips, the sun burning red behind them as they gazed through the porthole window, gazed into each other's eyes.
*It’s funny,* he thinks, w*hat runs through the mind in these moments.* Memories shake loose like salt. He stares out at the impassible desert expanse before him. The memories vanish.
He grips the canister on his belt. Clicks it loose. He unscrews the cap in slow, deliberate motions. Inside is a picture, an old polaroid photograph, something on an antique. She loved that. She collected little artifacts from the human race, calling them her precious *“Amorcitos.”* The word was foreign, but James knew it was universal. Her touch was foreign, but her smile was universal. And the look in her eyes when she moved close, crossed barriers, a language meant nothing, but the moment was universal.
“Smile for me,” she said, clicking the polaroid to the background of dying star.
He takes another ten paces and turns back towards the ship. It doesn’t look good. Smoke trails in gentle whips and taints the desert wind.
“Shit, Elise,” he says, “It wasn’t meant to be here. But I’ve got no choice.”
She would have liked the sand. He knows this, as he digs down with his webbed fins, scooping cold craters in forgotten soil. She would have loved it here.
He remembers the sweet of music as they danced to an old rhythm. *Jazz,* she said, *Sinatra,* and the words meant nothing, but he knew them regardless. The old phonograph crackled on the steel of the ship, footsteps tap-tapping to the beat, fingers twined.
In bed, looking out the porthole together as the Sun burned and Elise’s world burned with it.
“You would have loved it down there,” she told him. “A whole world filled with oceans, little reefs with coral and clownfish and color.” She is quiet, trying to hold back emotions, and what could he possibly say? Her world burned right in front of her eyes and now there was nothing left for her, no place for her to call home. She rolls to her side to try and hide the damp in her eyes, but James knows better; he can smell water.
She whispers, “You would have loved it.”
James hears it in the sound of the sand as he digs her grave on a foreign planet.
Six feet under. That was what she told him, one-hundred years ago, as she lay in the medical bay of James’s ship.
“You’re like a jellyfish,” she said, laughing. “You don’t get old. Not like us.”
James takes his hand between his, feels the wrinkles, remembers how they once were smooth and supple, twined with his, dancing to an old memory.
“I’m sorry,” James said, “That you couldn’t see it.”
“I wouldn’t have liked it much anyway,” she said, and James knows it was a lie she needed to tell him. “Not enough trees.”
They were fifty years from his home planet. James didn’t have a cryo pod. Too expensive. He tries to remember her instructions and follow them with a cool head. Six feet under, with the photograph, with memories.
“It’s not for me,” she told him at her last. “It’s for you. Remember that. Grieve. Cry. Do what you must. Then, dance one more time for me.”
James puts the photograph in the sand. Two feet under. But Elise wouldn’t mind; after all, this moment wasn’t for her. He scoops fresh sand over top and feels the grains grate against his skin, hears the wind whisper like the sound of memories.
He lives the moment as they dance on the cockpit of his ship, two-hundred years ago, and he remembers her laugh, the sound of wind chimes on fields of grass, the smell of cows and hay, the chipped paint of the farmhouse fence, the whine of the teleporter pad.
“Why did you save me?” she asked.
“I couldn’t let you go.”
Later that evening, the Sun burns, and their hearts burn with it.
Now, James stares at the grave and lets grains of sand trickle down like falling tears. He can’t cry. But if he could, he would not. Elise would have wanted that. No tears. Only memories.
The planet turns against a white-dwarf star. The star is ancient, powerful, and filled with memories. James was on a mission to find the source; the link between the progenitors. Somewhere in the vast array of space was the secret to something truly universal: a kind hand, a kiss, the rhythm of dance. Some things transcend species, language, time.
The sand screams out, “Fear what lies beneath,” but James disagrees.
Buried in the sand are memories and whispers. And the memories are sweet indeed. He stares up at a dwarf-star sun and glances between the sky, his soldering ship, the shallow grave beneath him. It is peaceful, quiet, the kind of place he could find the answers to his all questions. He searches for the truth.
The truth is a polaroid photograph buried in the desert.
*Who were the progenitors?*
*Why did they leave this world behind?*
*Where are they now?*
James knows it does not matter. He walks back to the ship, sand grating underfoot. He has minutes. The fire is already spreading from the engine and soon it will be critical. He can’t stop it. He doesn’t want to stop it.
Instead, he moves to the cockpit, where an antique phonograph collects dust. He grabs a record, the cool of plastic between his fingers, feeling the bumps and ridges. It is scratchy. The sound is crackling. The ship is crackling and groaning. *But that’s all right,* James thinks, *it’s just a memory.*
He lets go.
In the twilight of a forgotten desert, James dances.
&#x200B;
***
More stories at r/BLT_WITH_RANCH
| 2020-09-17T08:39:03 | 2020-09-17T07:33:07 | 1,085 | 246 |
[WP] You've been meowing at your idiot owner all freaking day, and he's just not listening, at all. It's become a test of endurance: Your patience, his willingness to ignore you, the ninja assassin's grip on the ceiling.
|
"MRAOU!"
"No, it's not time for dinner yet."
I know it's not time for dinner yet, that's not what I'm yelling about. Stupid humans, you never look UP! He's right there, and he could strike at any moment! I'm trying to help you, why won't you listen!?
"MRAOOU!"
"I know you're hungry, but you're always hungry."
I'M NOT HUNGRY!
OK, I am hungry, but that's not the point. The assassin is right there. You're in mortal danger! Maybe if I get closer to him you'll understand.
"No, off the counter! Get!"
See, he's RIGHT THER... Dangit. Look, I'm sorry about those cups, but if they break after one or two falls off the counter they're not really quality ceramic, are they? No reason to push me off. Some people just hold too much of a grudge.
What was I talking about again?
Oh, right!
"MAOU! MRAOU! MRAOU!"
"Really, you know you're not supposed to be on the counter. What's gotten into you? What are you looking at anyway?"
FINALLY! You see him, you're safe!
"Oh, do you wanna get the spider? Were you asking for a boost? C'mon, up you go!"
AHA! No assassin is going to get the best of me.
Mmmmm, crunchy assassin.
|
“He’s on the ceiling, you, idiot. I swear if you couldn’t open a can of tuna, I would have killed you myself by now. Look up, he’s waiting to drop onto you.” Meowth the orange tabby continued to meow at their owner, trying to get their attention. No matter how loud they meowed, the owner would only give them a sarcastic roll of the eyes, continuing to browse through various cat memes on their computer.
“I’ll feed you later, Meowth. I just need to send Stacy a feels like a Monday gif. Do you think she would prefer a short, furred cat or something with a more luscious coat like yours? Personally, I think the more luscious coat, but I think that could be misleading. Do you think she would consider that flirting?” Tyler tapped away at his keyboard while the ninja nervously tightened his grip, struggling to maintain a hold on the thin star shaped ornament that covered the lightbulb.
That was it! Meowth didn’t need to draw the human’s attention to the intruder, they only needed to ensure that they lost their grip before he turned around. Meowth wasn’t entirely sure why the ninja hadn’t already attacked. Perhaps they needed to confirm Tyler’s identity before the kill? Or maybe it was just a preference? Regardless, Meowth had an opportunity to rescue the can opener.
“What person would consider that flirting? How does that even mark your scent on her?” Meowth said, letting out a few confused meows before jumping onto his owner’s lap, making sure he stayed seated.
“Right, it would be far too flirty. That’s why I asked. It’s like you just understand me.” Tyler dragged his fingers through Meowth’s fur, the cat letting out a long-satisfied purr before jumping from his lap onto the desk, looking back at the ninja, who now had a few drops of sweat pooling near the holes of his mask.
“You understand nothing I say. I have had more intellectually challenging conversations with that stuffed mouse toy. Why would someone even want to kill you? Did you refuse to open their tuna can?” Meowth let out a laugh, which only translated into a series of strange sneezes.
The ninja readjusted his grip, swinging down temporarily, only to pull himself up at the last moment to regain his position, trying his best not to be caught. It was hard to say what he was more afraid of. Being found out or touching the dust coated carpet that Tyler refused to clean.
“You’re really talkative today, aren’t you snugglebutt? Maybe I should get you a friend? Oh, how about a puppy? I heard some cats get along well with dogs. I think I heard about that on some science show called Catdog or was it Dogcat?” At Tyler’s dumb suggestion, Meowth gave him a whack across the face with his paw, reminding the human who was in charge here.
“Keep talking like that and you’re getting a dead bird under your pillow tomorrow. I still don’t get why you humans don’t consider us giving you dead animals a threat. When is that ever a sign of affection? It’s a threat that you idiots don’t listen to.” Meowth kept his attention on the ninja who only had one hand still curled around the ornament, their fingers slowly slipping one by one, until their pinky was the only thing keeping them up.
“I guess I should feed you. It would be cruel to deny you dinner for too long. What do you want? The super protein chicken fluffy mix or the watery, fun fish mix?” Tyler went to push his chair back, getting closer to the ninja’s reach.
Meowth had to act quickly, jumping onto his owner’s head, using it as a springboard, launching himself at the attacker, delivering a powerful scratch to his leg. The ninja dropped from the ceiling, collapsing onto a bookshelf, leaving a large, human sized dent in the wood.
By the time Tyler had turned around to face the commotion, the ninja was already gone, having retreated from the scene, leaving Meowth sitting by the wreckage, head tilted to the side. “So, are we going to eat dinner now?” They meowed, only getting a wiggling finger from their owner as a response. “That’s not an answer. I just saved your life. Hurry and get me dinner.”
Tyler only laughed, walking out of the room, shaking his head. “What will I ever do with you, Meowth? Maybe I should start buying the low-fat cat food options. You must have put on some weight if you left a dent like that.” He said, going to prepare Meowth’s dinner.
“I hate you so much, human. I hope you and your family are cursed forever with an endless despair that can only rival a fraction of the loathing I feel for you right now. I hope your hands bleed whenever you hold a can of tuna, and the can is covered in rust.” Meowth meowed, already planning their revenge bird plot.
The sound of a shaking can came from the kitchen, followed by the squelch of a mess of food falling from a can, clinging against the metallic bowl below. “Dinner is served.” Tyler shouted as Meowth strutted into the kitchen.
“I guess the despair can hold off for until I’m done eating….” Meowth rubbed his head against the ankle of his owner before finding his bowl, rewarding himself with a well-earned meal.
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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.)
| 2021-09-01T08:46:26 | 2021-09-01T07:04:20 | 1,661 | 172 |
[WP] You are the cities worst supervillian. Everytime you try to destroy the city you end up saving it from something/someone far more evil than yourself.
Your protaganist is not a goodguy trying to be bad, he just sucks at being evil. He is also hailed as the cities hero each time.
|
FREAK LANDSLIDE HALTS NOTORIOUS MURDERER
"What? Ha ha! The fools will soon know the genius of my plans - with the road blocked they will never escape.."
BEE POPULATION REBOUNDS, FARMS SAVED
"Damn, blast! Those were supposed to be killer bees, not honeybees! LACKEY! GET IN HERE! I need you to remove the body of your predecessor and then we can..."
UNEXPLAINED EARTHQUAKE RESULTS IN OILFIELD DISCOVERY
"Oilfield?! How is that even possible, this is a mountain city! Nevermind, clearly it is time to change tactics. Minions! Prepare my..."
MOON LASER DISRUPTS HURRICANE OF THE CENTURY, TOWN SAVED
"FUCK!"
|
“Son of a bitch!” I threw the newspaper onto the kitchen table and stood up fast enough to knock my chair over. The paper was still lying front page up, the top headline visible. “DR. MALICE CONTINUES TO PROVE REFORMATION,” It accused.
My wife came over gave me a gentle side-hug. She had been the one that brought me the paper -- sure sign it carried bad news. And then she had stood in the corner of the kitchen, leaning on the countertop, sipping her coffee and playing with her camera , while I read.
“I am so sorry, honey.” She said. I wanted none of it. I pushed turned away from her and started pacing. “Those idiots! Why can’t they just leave me alone? Everytime I go to pull a heist, they are there, trying to one-up me. Haven’t they learned that isn’t going to work?”
“Everyone wants to topple the top-dog? Can’t blame the small-timers for trying. Remember when you were just starting out? A bank robbery here, a jewel heist there? It is hard to get noticed. And if you take down the gal at the top, it is easier to get attention.”
“Well, they are succeeding, aren’t they? Can't very well be the greatest villain in the city, if I am also its hero, can I? If these upstarts weren’t such chuckleheads, I would almost believe they were doing this on purpose.”
I walked back and picked up the paper again. I showed the picture under the headline to my wife. I was a full color image of me, shot through a window. I was tying up the would-be robbers. My signature black and yellow leather outfit was quite clear, and the amount of my cleavage that was on display left no doubt as to why this picture had been chosen.
“I assume you saw this?”
She smiled. “Yes. It reminded me of at least two reasons why I fell in love with you.”
“I am not in the mood.” I said. But I didn’t turn away. “I have two questions. First, who is this photographer? How come he always gets there in time to catch a photo of me? If it weren’t for him, no one would even know I was tying these dudes up. And is that little shit the one calling the police? It must be. Doesn’t even give me time to finish the heist. I take nothing, and only leave behind villains. If he is going to take my picture, he might at least let *me* get something out of the deal. Don’t you think?”
I looked at my wife expectantly.
“That was four questions.” She said.
“Shut up.” I said.
She laughed, and then tried to hug me again. This time, I let her. “Ok, Dr. Mal, I have no answer to your first question. What is your other one?”
“Where the hell is Captain Justice? How come I am doing his job now? I thought that guy had some secret lair somewhere where he can monitor this stuff.”
My wife opened her mouth, but before he could say anything I interjected.
“Yes. I know. That was two questions.” I fell forward into her hug, and buried my face in her shoulder. “It is just so frustrating. I have spent a lifetime building a reputation. And now it is getting taken down by some unorganized pissants barely out of diapers. And they are doing it by accident!”
“I know. I know.” My wife said, stroking my hair.
“It is just so galling. It almost makes me want to give up and retire. We don’t need the money. And I don’t need the frustration.”
“Well,” My wife said, “We could always go the the caribbean..”
“I know. And I know that is where you would prefer to be right now. And I know you wish I wasn’t working so hard all the time. It just has always been so rewarding -- until recently.” I took a deep breath. “Well, let me think about it. If things keep going this way, perhaps we will go soon.”
“As you like,” Said my wife. “I am happy to wait until you are ready. But know this, when you are ready, so am I.”
“Thanks.” I smiled at her. I am lucky to have you.
“No,” She said. “I am lucky to have you.”
She looked at her watch.
“Oh shit.” She said. “I have to run”
“Appointment?” I asked.
“Kinda, you know how it is. If you aren’t right on time, the lighting is wrong. Then you don’t get the shot you want or the effect you were hoping for.”
“Don’t I know it.”
She smiled, gave me a kiss, grabbed her camera bag and headed out the door.
| 2014-12-14T14:32:46 | 2014-12-14T14:25:39 | 22 | 15 |
[WP] Your significant other is possessed by a demon. Soon after; you realize you love the demon and not your SO anymore and it's actually mutual. Now the exorcist has arrived.
|
"I just want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly. You *don't* want an exorcism?"
Father John was thoroughly puzzled. First, when he'd arrived, the supposed violently possessed Amelia looked and acted completely normal. Strangely, she'd even introduced herself as Zzrgars. When Father John introduced himself as well, the crooked-nosed Stephen had responded quite awkwardly that he'd no longer wanted to go through with the exorcism.
"Well... yes. I'm guessing this isn't a common thing, but I really don't mind having Zzrgars around," said Stephen as he rubbed the tired circles under his eyes.
Zzrgars-Amelia smiled, not removing her eyes from Father John. In fact, she hadn't blinked once. Father John looked back at her and said to Stephen, "May I ask the reason?"
"Amelia was... a little difficult to be around at times, I'll say. Zzrgars is still adjusting to the whole being-a-human thing, but... she hasn't hurt me, not even once."
Father John suddenly noted scarring along Stephen's arms, and old bruising on his neck. Stephen saw him looking and smiled humorlessly.
"I see. I'm glad you've made your choice," said Father John. Zzrgars looked back up at him as he stepped back from the doorway and made his way back to his car.
Stephen slid down his driveway, catching up to Father John. He looked back at Zzrgars, who waited by the door. Stephen said quietly, "I don't mean to be rude, but is that it? You can really just leave like that, and just, just leave us be? Just because I said so?"
Father John smiled. "You've made your choice."
"I... I, yeah, I guess."
"And let me tell you something. Keep this between us for now, though Zzrgars could probably read you. But angels and demons? They come from the same place. The difference is in their intentions and their effects on their surroundings. Do you understand?"
Stephen stared back, brow furrowed.
Father John laughed. "Well. You'll find out if she ends up wanting to kill you or not. But in the meantime, take it easy."
Stephen watched Father John drive away, and then turned back to look at Zzrgars as she peered from the doorway. She saw him looking and smiled. Stephen returned the heartfelt smile and walked back up to rebuild his home.
|
"Can't I just clock him? I really bloody want to." The girl holding the pan took a test swing in the hallway. Two kilos of lovely iron-reinforced teflon, with the added bonus of oil that hadn't quite cooled yet. It was dripping on the rug.
"No, Hal, Hal, hey. Hey!"
Mid-swing the pan changed direction and hit the full-length smile of the boy standing behind her. The smile fractured and his whole image quivered with the force of non-stick teflon. Well, seven years' bad luck hardly mattered now. The girl's arm tried to swing around and hit the real version opposite the mirror. Sam ducked a fist while the girl re-gained composure.
"Oh, come on, Anna, give it up," she said, "you've got plenty of other nice boys down there." She heard Anna think some things she'd rather not repeat out loud. How rude.
Poor Sam. Her arm was better at least.
"Did she call me a-"
"Oh yeah. And more. She's complaining there's too much red? And she's not much for the punk aesthetic."
"Huh."
"She's right, to be fair. They do stew in their own culture."
"Well, she should've thought about that before trying to throw out my black hex stuff."
"Oh, She'll be fine, Sam" said Halaratha with a tentative wave that almost turned into a Sam-slap. Oh someone like Anna would find friends. She'd settle down into a bit of debauchery, and red wasn't all that bad. The doorbell rang. It was the priest.
"No, we spoke about this," said Sam. She dropped the bent pan. Fine.
"Okay. But for the record, I could take her on, okay? She's got what, one hand left? Three fingers?" Hal stopped there, tried and failed to cross her arms in anger. She smiled. Demons don't get scared, alright? Get a grip.
Sam opened the door to the thin man. His perfectly black cassock flowed to his perfectly black shoes. He had bibles akimbo, and the kind of rimless glasses with sharp edges you could cut yourself on. Hal winced.
"Please, come this way father. Welcome, welcome." Father Tom was impressed. Real tallow candles. God-fearing neighbourhood. Nice cloth on a real wooden table. Not veneer. This living room had the real stuff, even if there was a shattered mirror in the hallway. He sat, opened his briefcase of holy water and selected a flask.
"So, you're the one afflicted. We're ready for you. Please, sit." Father Tom dimmed the lights and Sam helped a shaking Hal through the door. She shivered, and stumbled to a sofa to grab a sweater, then practically collapsed half-Anna into a seat opposite. Fuck the cold. Her priest just stared from his pair of rimless sermon sweepers. The cute woolen sweater didn't help at all. Just looking at the table felt like an arctic winter. Hal mumbled something to herself. Sam thought it sounded like "well, fuck you too".
The priest took his left bible. He began the prayer and took Anna's hands, then poured holy water, and lit his freezing incense. She couldn't feel anything anymore. Just incense in the cold. And the living room was gone, evaporated to a desolate white that struggled hard to meander into shades of pink and punk. The priest blurred together. Fuck it Sam. Fuck it four ways to hell. Her teeth chattered and she hoped Anna's did too. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't, okay? It seemed to drag on in slow motion. She could only make out his glasses now. Only that and silence. The other girl was back in control. She stared, and waited for the old eternal pain to return. It would come, and her old life would return. The red-grey underworld monotony in full technicolor agony.
"Hmph. Ow!" White punk went black. She opened her eyes to dripping tallow on the floorboards. One arm, then two stuggled to pick her up off the floor. Floorboards turned to wall, then a painting. One of her arms flew through the blizzard helplessly and found a familiar shoulder propping her up. She strained through ice to move her neck. Sam was grinning. The pan lay a little way off.
"Hey, H, are you there honey?"
"Mhmm."
"Hal?"
"Mm, ugh. Yeah, what?"
The tablecloth was gone and lay by the bibles on the floor. Tallow seeped across the bare oak and stopped just short of a chalk outline. It had smudged a little, but the behemoth of demon swearing and interlocked geometry would do. The chair Anna had been sitting on was worse for wear.
"You remember what's next?"
"Mmm, yeah." Halaratha raised one cool hand and pointed it swaying at a paralyzed priest. He was howling his own brand of sacred profanities. Try as he might his arms wouldn't move from the table.
"Haiax, motherfucker." Good. She didn't miss. The white-red call of the underworld strengthened a little as shards of dark magic wound their way around a cassock. The priest's eyes clouded over. He gently lifted both hands up, then collected his things off the floor and started making his way to the door.
"Well, Sam, Anna, I do hope you're both feeling better. You can rest easy now, the darkness has passed. I trust this will mark the end of your absences and we can all move forward". The priest shook his hand. Woodenly.
"Absolutely. Yeah, um, and cheers again for coming. I think we're both feeling much better," said Sam. The cold was fading. She could just about stand on her own. They gave the black robe a wave down the driveway.
"Take care Father Thomas. I feel much more at ease now. Bye! Bye for now! All the best!" She gave the priest a wink and another Haiax for good measure. He wouldn't remember even if he bathed in holy water. They closed the door. Damn, her shoulder hurt. She looked to Sam. She didn't care and hugged him anyway.
"Are we gonna have to go to A and E with that?"
Sam heard a muffled "don't care." Her voice wavered.
"Hey, I only missed the chair by a little." She nodded. It didn't matter now. The cow was gone forever. And demons don't cry, okay?
| 2017-10-10T04:53:12 | 2017-10-09T14:52:53 | 68 | 10 |
[WP] Write a letter to someone you miss
It's been a rough week. Everyone has someone they wish were still with them. Write to them and tell them how you feel. Pour your heart out. No judging. Even if they never see it, someone will. And thank you. It's tough to be alone.
|
Alex,
It has been 99 days since you left. 99 days. Some days are easier than the rest. There are days when I genuinely smile as I remember you. You left me with so many good memories; and I thank you for each and every one. I miss you. Every. Single. Day.
You said we'd be together for the rest of our lives - we just didn't realize how short the rest of your life would be. I will love you, for the rest of mine.
Yours Forever,
Aya
|
Dear James,
I know I've already written countless letters to you. And I know you've got to be tired of hearing it by now, but I miss you something terrible. You haven't died or anything..you're not sick. In fact, you're perfectly fine, but you're perfectly fine a few hundred miles away and that's what hurts.
I had a good night tonight. The best one since you left 3 weeks ago. Me and Car and Erika had so much fun together. We talked about our men. We talked about how we met, and how in love we all were. It was so nice to have girls to talk to about you. The only other person I really talk to about you, is you.
I hope you're doing good.
I know things must be tough there, and I know you're being worked pretty hard. I think you'll have big muscles when you get back . :) then whenever you hug me, I'll feel even safer than I did before. Speaking of hugs, I can't wait for ours in January. it'll be the first one in 13 weeks.
I never really imagined I would ever love someone as much as I love you. I never imagined I would stick by someone like I've stuck by you. In my fairytales, I didn't picture myself waiting weeks for someone, and I didn't picture my excitement in life coming in the form of a letter written by you. When I was younger I only dreamed of a white dress and a groom with tears in his eyes as I walked down the isle. I dreamed of dancing in the kitchen at 2AM, baking cookies and then falling asleep next to my one true love after eating every single one. I dreamed of adventures, and mischief, and sitting on rooftops at midnight talking and watching stars.
I suppose that's all you see when you've never truly loved someone before. Because if you have, then you would know it's so, so much more. Love is fighting over little things. It is making sure both of you have eaten, and it's good morning and goodnight texts. It's "call me when you get there so I know you made it safely." And "come home at a decent hour."
Love is saying I love you every time you hang up or leave each other's presence, even if for only a minute. It is making love for hours and never getting tired of being so close to someone. It is forgiving, a lot of it, and also forgetting. It is giving second chances but also setting boundaries. Love is not easy. It is hard. But it is what I feel for you, and I do not EVER want to feel it for anyone else.
You being gone has only given me more time to think about our future, and all the years I have left to love you. They say life is short and when I'm with you, I believe them. Hours feel like minutes and I could spend a million years with you but still miss you the second you leave. I never get tired of you. I can't wait for our wedding, and I never wanted kids but oh god what I would give to have a mini version that is half you and have me.
I can't wait until we live together, and fall sleep together, and I can't wait for the nights when we make love until the sun comes up, and then sleep all day. I can't wait for midnight drives, and I can't wait to surprise you with all of your favorite foods.
I can't wait for the bad times either. That sounds crazy to most people but if they understood my love for you then they'd realize bad times with you are worth more to me than good times with anyone else. I can't wait for the little arguments we have, and I can't wait to pick on each other. I crave the things most couples take for granted, because I want everything with you. I want the fights, and the yelling, because I know you must have those if you want the good too. And oh, how I want the good.
More than anything, James, i want you. I promise I will continue to write you. I hope you're staying strong. One of your buddies said as long as you keep your cool, listen to your DI's and stand tall you'll be just fine. I know how tough you are. I know what you're capable of. And I know I am so proud and happy for you to do this. I can't wait to see you in 9 weeks. And I can't wait to love on you, and spend those 10 days with you.
You are the love of my life, and I miss you more than anything right now. I love you baby, i promise Ima hold it down till you come home.
| 2017-11-05T21:44:07 | 2017-11-05T21:28:23 | 1,462 | 74 |
[WP] Write a letter to someone you miss
It's been a rough week. Everyone has someone they wish were still with them. Write to them and tell them how you feel. Pour your heart out. No judging. Even if they never see it, someone will. And thank you. It's tough to be alone.
|
I miss you big guy.
I miss the your terrible jokes and the attempts at accents that wound up sounding exactly the same no matter the country of origin.
I miss the quiet but fierce love of your family you had.
Most of all I miss the real dad, not the husk you became in the years leading up to your death.
I miss my belly laughing, bird loving, tinkering, absent minded dad.
I miss my dad that would always drop everything with a resigned but knowing grin to help me out of my latest batch of troublemaking.
Don't miss your cooking though :P
Miss ya big guy
|
Dear James,
I know I've already written countless letters to you. And I know you've got to be tired of hearing it by now, but I miss you something terrible. You haven't died or anything..you're not sick. In fact, you're perfectly fine, but you're perfectly fine a few hundred miles away and that's what hurts.
I had a good night tonight. The best one since you left 3 weeks ago. Me and Car and Erika had so much fun together. We talked about our men. We talked about how we met, and how in love we all were. It was so nice to have girls to talk to about you. The only other person I really talk to about you, is you.
I hope you're doing good.
I know things must be tough there, and I know you're being worked pretty hard. I think you'll have big muscles when you get back . :) then whenever you hug me, I'll feel even safer than I did before. Speaking of hugs, I can't wait for ours in January. it'll be the first one in 13 weeks.
I never really imagined I would ever love someone as much as I love you. I never imagined I would stick by someone like I've stuck by you. In my fairytales, I didn't picture myself waiting weeks for someone, and I didn't picture my excitement in life coming in the form of a letter written by you. When I was younger I only dreamed of a white dress and a groom with tears in his eyes as I walked down the isle. I dreamed of dancing in the kitchen at 2AM, baking cookies and then falling asleep next to my one true love after eating every single one. I dreamed of adventures, and mischief, and sitting on rooftops at midnight talking and watching stars.
I suppose that's all you see when you've never truly loved someone before. Because if you have, then you would know it's so, so much more. Love is fighting over little things. It is making sure both of you have eaten, and it's good morning and goodnight texts. It's "call me when you get there so I know you made it safely." And "come home at a decent hour."
Love is saying I love you every time you hang up or leave each other's presence, even if for only a minute. It is making love for hours and never getting tired of being so close to someone. It is forgiving, a lot of it, and also forgetting. It is giving second chances but also setting boundaries. Love is not easy. It is hard. But it is what I feel for you, and I do not EVER want to feel it for anyone else.
You being gone has only given me more time to think about our future, and all the years I have left to love you. They say life is short and when I'm with you, I believe them. Hours feel like minutes and I could spend a million years with you but still miss you the second you leave. I never get tired of you. I can't wait for our wedding, and I never wanted kids but oh god what I would give to have a mini version that is half you and have me.
I can't wait until we live together, and fall sleep together, and I can't wait for the nights when we make love until the sun comes up, and then sleep all day. I can't wait for midnight drives, and I can't wait to surprise you with all of your favorite foods.
I can't wait for the bad times either. That sounds crazy to most people but if they understood my love for you then they'd realize bad times with you are worth more to me than good times with anyone else. I can't wait for the little arguments we have, and I can't wait to pick on each other. I crave the things most couples take for granted, because I want everything with you. I want the fights, and the yelling, because I know you must have those if you want the good too. And oh, how I want the good.
More than anything, James, i want you. I promise I will continue to write you. I hope you're staying strong. One of your buddies said as long as you keep your cool, listen to your DI's and stand tall you'll be just fine. I know how tough you are. I know what you're capable of. And I know I am so proud and happy for you to do this. I can't wait to see you in 9 weeks. And I can't wait to love on you, and spend those 10 days with you.
You are the love of my life, and I miss you more than anything right now. I love you baby, i promise Ima hold it down till you come home.
| 2017-11-05T22:27:41 | 2017-11-05T21:28:23 | 102 | 74 |
[WP] Write a letter to someone you miss
It's been a rough week. Everyone has someone they wish were still with them. Write to them and tell them how you feel. Pour your heart out. No judging. Even if they never see it, someone will. And thank you. It's tough to be alone.
|
To my oldest friend,
It seems we have nothing much to say to each other when we meet. Our conversations are prompt and direct. We no longer share secrets or take an interest in the other's life.
It is a sullen and disheartening realization that we are not who we were ten, twenty years ago.
I miss the days of doing nothing with you.
You know I will always love you and consider you my brother. I hope to talk to soon.
|
I can't believe it's been almost a year. As long as the days are, the months are short.
It's remarkable how much my memory of you has changed tone in the past year. There was a time, not too long ago, when I would have burned my world down if I knew you'd be caught in the blaze. And yet now, all I feel is a bittersweet fondness for a friend who showed my such kindness that my life would be far less worth enjoying without her having been part of it.
Shortly after we less than ceremoniously parted ways, the depths of my once depressed, empty mind were steadily flooded with dreams so wildly different in their emotions that I could not tell you how I felt about any of them. I dreamed of hatred, I dreamed of reconciliation, I dreamed of a burning swell of emotions I can't even begin to interpret.
My mind was such a volatile place at that time, and yet my body betrayed no sign of it. The wordless world spun around me, its occupants muted and grey. At night, I looked to the sky with hollow eyes so that my tears would never fall, and yet I saw nothing but the dead echos of stars a million light years away. Whether you meant to or not, you had divided my life into two sections; the time before I knew you, and the time after you left. I was foolish to act surprised - after all, the only thing all my stories have in common is that they end.
And yet, I can't help but mourn for how short ours was. It's my fault entirely, I know, but that doesn't make it hurt any less.
I've learned so much since then. I can control my mind now, and handle the pressures I once dumped on you. Events that would have once left me terrified and anguished beyond repair have come and gone in droves, and yet I can remain steady. My life has found a track, and I am seeing it forward. All roads lead somewhere, so long as they remain roads.
Even now, after all this time has passed, I wish I could speak to you, if only for a moment, to let you know that I'm okay. Despite how it all ended, I know how much you cared about me and wanted to see me happy. And for whatever it's worth, I completely understand that what you did was best for both of us, even if I couldn't see it at the time.
When I was being treated, I was consistently told that I was experiencing loss the same as anyone else would. Part of that is while this kind of pain never gets any easier, you can get better at dealing with it. True as this is, part of me can't give up on the idea that one day I'll see you again. Maybe it's fruitless, but it's a nice thought. It can't be so wrong to afford myself nice things every once in a while. That said, even the best tennis player can't beat a wall, and one of the most crucial lessons I've learned is how to accept being told no, even when it hasn't been expressly given. I suppose the most important thing is that I can be at peace with either outcome.
Even still, I miss you beyond what my words can say. I miss getting ice cream and eating it in the car. I miss singing along to our favorite songs as we drove up and down the highway. I miss your voice, your enthusiasm, your laughter. Most of all, I miss the comfort that came with knowing I didn't have to be alone anymore, because for the first time in my life, someone understood me.
That feeling was the root of all our disasters, if I'm going to be honest. It was such an unexpected thing, that I became obsessed with it. I wasn't able to keep my longing for companionship within the bounds of your comfort. When I think back on our time as friends, what pains me more than anything is the worry that you might remember that period of our lives as one of anxiety caused by me, rather than a fondness for the joys we shared.
My single greatest regret is that I failed to be the friend you deserved. I only hope that one day, I am afforded the opportunity to express onto another the same kindness you showed me throughout one of the darkest periods of my life. If you see this and read it, all I can hope for is that you'll look back on our friendship with the same smile that I do. That would be enough.
I wish you the absolute best in joy and harmony. Thank you for everything, /u/mkotter.
| 2017-11-05T23:46:31 | 2017-11-05T22:26:46 | 15 | 11 |
[WP] The year is 2038 and net neutrality has been dead for almost two decades. But a rebellious group managed to travel back to 2017...
https://www.battleforthenet.com/#bftn-action-form
Edit: Obligatory thanks for the gold! Just trying to do my part on this fight, but as I don't live in the US, raising awareness is the most I can do, glad it worked!
|
Just as Donald was about to press the button that would trigger the bomb - the bomb that would level the FCC headquarters - he heard a voice.
Named for Donald Trump the First, Inaugurator of the Great American Monopoly, Donald had never heard English spoken with an accent anything like the one the voice carried:
"I'm gunna needya to put that trigga down mate."
There was a distinct menace in the tone, and a confidence of someone who is usually obeyed.
Donald hesitated, wondering if this was one of those illegal aliens people talked about from the time before the walls. People always said aliens talked funny, but few people in 2038 had heard one.
"I dinnea think he underrrstood ye" a second voice muttered, before a third voice exclaimed "Be a good chap and place the trigger on the bed. We won't kill you unless you refuse."
Donald whirled around, expecting to see little grey men, or green sludge monsters. The sight that greeted him was significantly more perplexing. Three men, well dressed, well armed (at least Donald assumed the things they were pointing were weapons) and one of them carried something that Donald had never seen before - a smallish rectangular object which had moving pictures on the top face - the person holding it was jabbing at it and running his fingers across the images.
The first voice spoke again - coming from the closest man, who waved his 'gun' to get Donald's attention. "For the last time, put down tha bloomin' trigga!"
As Donald slowly complied, he objected as non-threateningly as he could - "You don't know what you're doing! I've travelled here from 2038! Time travel - real genuine time travel! And do you know why? It's to stop the repeal of Net Neutrality!" A touch of desperation crept intonhia tone as he inched his had back toward the trigger mechanism.
"Aye laddie! We ken why you're here. We just can't let you do it!"
"But why?" Donald wailed "the internet is useless when you have to go through a paywall for each leg of every journey your data packets have to go through! Did you know that the top course at every major university is the state sponsored "Bachelor or Trumpian Communication Systems?" Any search that needs to be completed in under a week requires an advanced degree specialist!"
"Well here's the thing old chap" - voice number three again. "You see, we come from 2038 as well. We represent the combined interests of the post industrial economies of our time, which is the rest of the world, give or take."
Voice number 1 "As much as we admire the effort you and your little cadre of freedom fighters put in to get you here, there are many things you don't understand. 30 November is celebrated all around the world as the day the internet was set free!"
Donald's mouth hung open in disbelief. 30 November was when it happened. When the arch nemeses of all free flowing communication forever plunged the light of the internet into the deepest darkest pit in the lowest circle of hell. Only freedom fighters as.dedicsted as Donald had a chance of fixing it!
As Donald tried to explain, voice number one cut in again - "Nah mate! You've got it all wrong. Net Neutrality was never even a discussion outside of the USA. The day the FCC killed Net Neutrality in the US, dozens of countries around the world designated internet access an essential service, forever protecting the free flow of information."
Voice number 3 - "He's quite right you know Donald. It took about two weeks for all of the major tech companies to really understand. Then one by one, they reconfigured their offshore disaster recovery solutions to become primary services, and moved operations to any of the countries waiting with open arms to welcome them. Amazon is based in Monaco now, Netflix moved to Scandinavia, Google went truly global and has a presence in every major city,
Since no content could get oit of the States, media companies from around the world stepped up, globalised their offering and shut down connections to USA. Even primary DNS services move put of the USA.
"So no - you won't be killing Ajit today. Go home. When you get there, try to defect - swim 1 mile straight out to sea from this location and well pick you up in person. No one should have accept sub-standard internet.
|
It's January 19th, 2038. For years, Susan had been working in secret on her time machine. Her goal? Not to kill Hitler. Not to stop Trump. Not to meet Jesus. Her goal is to make it so she can watch Netflix and download games on Steam without having to pay an extra premium. A noble, but petty goal, all things considered.
She sets the time circuits to November 23rd, 2017. She sees this as the pivotal turning point -- Thanksgiving Day. The day that everyone in the United States is at home with their families, and most likely watching Football or the Macy's parade. When it will be easiest to get their attention.
She thinks she has it all figured out. She's tested the machine a few times before to go backwards days and even weeks. This will be her biggest jump. Ironically, much like the original Delorean in Back to the Future her ship is fueled by raw plutonium. Also, ironically, thanks to the Trump regime (which has been in power for 20 years thanks to a military coup) she lives in a Libertarian utopia (by which I mean a dystopia) and you can buy plutonium at the corner drug store, just as Doc Brown joked about in Back to the Future. Anyway, enough about how great of a movie Back to the Future is.
The amount of plutonium it depletes is based on how far into the past she travels. She's figured out the exact ratio needed for 2017. In order to be safe and not run out, she's purchased ten times the required amount. She has no plans of getting stranded like in some dumb TV show or movie.
But she's made one specific error. One that would not have exposed itself until this very day, this very hour, this very minute, this very second. Somewhere in the hardware of her time machine, between the interface of the time circuits and the hardware that actually does the quantum calculation on how much fuel to use to bend time and space, there's a chip that takes a 64 bit integer and converts it to a 32 bit one if that number can losslessly be converted. This is an undocumented feature of the chip used to help it do calculations faster. An optimization created by a machine learning algorithm that creates most modern chips of her day.
The impact of this bug is that her time machine is unknowingly affected by the Unix Epoch Bug. As the machine is warming up, the clock ticks over to 03:14:07 UTC. Instead of the time calculation being for -17 years, 1 month, 27 days, from January 19th, 2038, it gets calculated as -17 years, 1 month, 27 days from December 13th, 1901, also known as October 27th, 1884. And because she took ten times the required fuel, which would have enabled her to do ~200 years worth of time travel, the machine happily consumes 3/4 of her fuel to send her 154 years back in time, stranding her with only enough fuel to make it less than a third of the way back home.
As the machine hums to life, nothing seems out of the ordinary to Susan. She's transferred all her data to a 20-year-old laptop so she'll be able to interface with older computers easily. She's brought what she hopes will be enough information to prove to people that not only is she from the future, but that net neutrality is the number one issue that people should be concerned about for the future. More important that global warming, ISIS, North Korea, the 2025 war with Russia, any of that. If only they'd had consistent download speeds, all of that could have been avoided and all those problems solved!
Also at this time I'd like to point out that 21 years (2038 to 2017) is greater than two decades, not "almost two decades." Anyway, I digress.
A flash and a sudden jolt later, and Susan is in 1884. She'd picked the location of her time jump knowing that it would be an empty field in 2017. But in 1884 it was a dense forest. It had not yet been cleared for a cow pasture. There was no Google Street View for her to reference that far back to confirm. There's a small explosion, several pops, and a burning smell as tree trunks around her burst outward as they're displaced in spacetime by her vehicle. A few seconds later, she hears creaking as the damaged trunks bend and break as the trees awkwardly fall around her. She nervously waits out the unexpected cataclysm, hoping it's over. "What the fuck?" she demands, annoyed and frustrated. Then she looks at the time circuits. "What the fuck. God damn it."
*How did this happen?* she thinks to herself. *I took so many precautions. I tested it so many times. So many simulations. How the hell did this happen?* But unfortunately for her, because the chip I mentioned earlier was developed using machine learning, it was essentially a black box in her simulation. Whenever she had tested the chip, the inputs and outputs gave her the values she expected. When she simulated the chip, it was only simulated in terms of its expected inputs and outputs. And she'd never tested it when the current date was after the end of the Unix Epoch. She just hadn't considered it. She never intended to travel to the future, only the past. By 2037, nearly all modern computers and software had long ago been fixed to work around or account for the bug. It just wasn't something people thought about anymore. It seemed like a solved problem.
She activated the augmented reality system that would allow her to look outside the vehicle quickly without leaving it, in order to assess if anything had been damaged. There were some tree trunks leaning on the vehicle and some dents, but overall it seemed to not have taken too much damage. The noise of her arrival also didn't seem to have attracted any unwanted attention. She checked her fuel gauge: slightly less than a quarter remaining. If she activated the ship now to go forward, she could barely make it to 1930. Not good enough. No one would even know what the internet was at that time!
She sat and thought for a few more minutes. *What if I did something like, living one year normally, then traveling forward a year using the time machine? How far could I get that way?* 1976. Plus that would take up literally 46 years of her life, and put the time machine at risk of being stolen or breaking in the interim. And people would still barely know what the internet was! *What if I found more fuel? When was plutonium discovered anyway? Could I use an alternative fuel? Uranium maybe?* She opened her laptop and went to her offline copy of Wikipedia. *Good thing I paid my ISP for Wikipedia Premium service in order to quickly download the entire database before embarking on this trip.* she thought to herself. And then immediately admonished herself for thinking that way. *No! Fuck that! That's exactly the bullshit I came back to fight against! Fuck paying a premium just to have Wikipedia move faster than a 56k modem! Great. Now I'm pissed off again.* She vowed to herself that her mission must succeed!
>Plutonium was first produced and isolated on December 14, 1940 by a deuteron bombardment of uranium-238 in the 60-inch cyclotron at the University of California, Berkeley. First neptunium-238 (half-life 2.1 days) was synthesized which subsequently beta-decayed to form this new element with atomic number 94 and atomic weight 238 (half-life 87.7 years). Since uranium had been named after the planet Uranus and neptunium after the planet Neptune, element 94 was named after Pluto, which at the time was considered to be a planet as well.
*Those idiots, still considering Pluto a planet. People in the past were so dumb. So, 1940. That's only ten years of my life wasted. I think that's do-able.* Then, hating herself for doing it, she brought up the article on Back to the Future. *1885. And I ended up in 1884. What a stupid coincidence. Well, almost-coincidence. Maybe it's not a coincidence and so much of my work has intersected with that movie because I accidentally leave some information in the past? Nah. It's got to be a coincidence.*
Anyway, I just wanted to make a 2038 Unix Epoch Bug joke.
| 2017-11-21T23:28:33 | 2017-11-21T23:19:27 | 33 | 16 |
[WP]"This is how it works," Death explained. "You pick the game and we play. Cheating is allowed, but if either one of us is caught by the other, they lose. If you win, you'll wake up back in the hospital and I'll give you another 10 years. If you lose then it's time for judgement. Understood?
|
“How do you wanna do this?”
“I take my scythe, and like a badass I run down the Dragon’s back dragging it behind me.” Death replied standing on his feet in excitement.
The dm nods. “And with that you drag a mighty gash into back of the blue drake and land with a 3 point landing behind it as the dragon collapses with ‘hhhuuurghthhphp’.” He makes such a convincing noise that you might believe that a dragon just died in the room.
Death lets out a satisfied sigh and sits back down. “Alright, I’ve bested your dragon and conquered your dungeon. I win.” The dm nods once more and stands. “But before we go let me ask you one thing Death, did you have fun?” The reaper ponders for a second and nods. “Yeah, it was probably the most fun I’ve had in a while.” And with that Death was banished.
10 years go by and Death comes to the same man once again. “How did you do it? I beat the dragon and everything, I thought you lose!”
Matthew Mercer looks up from behind his DM’s screen with a bright smile. “The Dm doesn’t win when he kills his players. He wins when they have fun. So I have one question for you. Do you wanna play again? You leveled up.”
|
I pant as I sprint across a smokey field of nothing, ball in hand, as a dark cloud chases after me. My legs felt heavy, and I was almost sure the endless, misty expanse around us was weighing me down. There was no way I could prove it though. Death was a clever one.
We'd been at it for over half an hour, and I was feeling it. Even though my body has been given an unnaturally long life, it's still starting to show some wear and tear. Death thought it would give him the edge over me eventually, but it wouldn't. He was already faster, stronger, and more durable. I had something he didn't.
As the cloaked figure sets upon me, I throw the ball into the air as high as I can, and dart to the left toward my true goal: a bat, lying on the ground. I snatch it up, and turn, facing upward. Sure enough, Death is already up there. He had caught the ball and is winding up.
"Tactical strike!" I yell as he lets loose. I step aside, and waggle the bat ahead of me. The ball flies past me with such force, it embeds itself in the ground.
**You missed. If I recall from last game, that means I get seven points.**
He has a good memory too. I shrug. "Yeah, that was well played, but I called my shot beforehand, so I get to advance to the 15 yard line." Death is clearly a little annoyed as he digs the ball out of the spectral turf. I grin as I jog to my new position.
**Are you ready to begin?**
I barely get the word "yeah" out of my mouth before Death rockets toward me at blinding speed. I had intended to just finish the game right then and there, and Death had picked up on it. He was going to tag me, and I'd already said that was worth 30 points. He only had 164, but that was the 8x multiplier ball. He'd pass me for sure, and then I'd be in trouble.
"Wait! Time out!" I cry. Death stops on a dime, even the smoky cloak he wore seemed to float in place, as is unaffected by the sudden change in momentum.
"I have 297 points, so I want to use 132 of them to impose a penalty on you. You have to do 132 burpees before you can keep moving." I knew that would be enough time. Death was impossibly fast, but an exercise like that relied on gravity to bring you back down to the ground. Unless he was obviously cheating, I would have enough time to get to the endzone.
**Then I will use all of my remaining points to impose the same penalty on you**
"You can't!" I say reflexively. "You... have... homefield advantage. You can't spend your points if you have homefield advantage!"
Death leans in slightly to look into my eyes. I can only see the shape of a face inside, the sight completely mottled by the black smoke he exudes at all times.
"That's the rule." I say. Death stands upright again, and after a short moment, drops to the ground, rockets his legs out, barely touches his toes (I assume) to the ground, then springs up to his feet again, rising just slightly into the air, despite his explosive jump. After seeing him stop on a dime before, I have no doubt it's just his natural ability to stop his momentum like that. He's going so fast that by the time I determine he's not altering gravity, he's already done thirteen burpees. I panic, and start sprinting toward the end zone. I probably had time, but I didn't want to risk having him fly into me with that kind of speed. The impact would probably kill me regardless of our game's outcome.
I lift my legs as I run, and they feel like a hundred pounds each moving through jello. No doubt about it, the fog along the floor of the realm we were in obfuscated everything below the knee, and felt thick.
"I know you're doing this!" I call him out.
**That's just my home field advantage**
Death sounded almost snide. The closest thing to any real emotion in his voice I've heard. I had to get away from him. I push forward, but I realize I can no longer see the line of the endzone through the fog.
Luckily, I pull my emergency paddle off my back, and use it as a makeshift fan, blowing the smog away. I hop over the thick chalk line aand throw my hands in the air.
"I win!" I shout, turning around. I see Death stop mid-burpee, and sink into the thick fog. He emerges almost instantaneously in front of me, acknowledging my victory. It's difficult to see what he's thinking, but hs skeletal hands are balled into fists.
**Very well, mortal. You win again**
I stick my tongue out "Don't be a sore loser." The world around us seems to swirl, and melt into itself as I get returned where I was before. My messy bedroom, with shelves crammed full of old comic books. On my dresser is a picture of Susie (I always wondered if she'd be mad at me for making her wait, but I wasn't ready to go yet) and a tattered stuffed tiger. Death loosens up, and almost seems to sigh.
**24 times we've played this game, and still the rules are unclear**
I grin and shrug. "That's Calvinball."
| 2018-03-07T08:40:32 | 2018-03-07T08:20:44 | 32 | 24 |
[WP] The longer you charge an attack, the more powerful it becomes. SWAT charges a punch for 30 seconds to break down a door. You’ve been charging for the last three days.
|
Today’s the day, Carl is coming over... you’ve been stood at the door for 3 days now just charging, waiting for him to arrive. He called you up and made the plans; it’s going to be radical.
The time draws ever closer; you know he’s doing the same thing. Excitement builds in the pit of your stomach as the clock strikes 2.
That’s when you hear it, footsteps in the hallway, he’s coming, you can hear the faint groan from the corridor, you start to voice yourself. The footsteps get louder, your voices follow suit, he’s at the door now; you’re both shouting in preparation.
You swing the door open and your eyes meet his, a bolt of adrenaline surges through you chest and into your arm, you both bring them forward at full strength
The fists collide.
Instantly a shockwave blasts out like a clock face between the pair of you, the doorframe splinters, cracks and peels away as it passes through it, the walls splits in several places and plaster flies off into the room. The furnitures shifts; completely rearranging the living room, all the whole the pair of you are steadfast; eyes locked; still screaming
The shockwave expands to the windows, shattering and blowing into the street below. You can hear the screams of passers by as they see the wave spread and dissipate across the street
Car alarms are going off, your house is in tatters. There is definitely structural damage, but you stand there, eyes still locked with Carl... you’re silent now.
You both straighten up and finally look around at the damage, Carl looks down at his fist, and then back at you with only one thing to say
‘Rad, dude’
|
It was a stupid dare. I could see that now. They say hindsight is 20/20, it's just a shame that foresight is legally blind. So Jimmy Bubkins had gotten the best of me again. It stung, I'm big enough to admit that. Of course, the realization of my own folly didn't do a whole lot to resolve the problem of my present circumstances.
Day three. I mean, day two was supposed to be purely hypothetical, and the bet had only been for three hours. But my hand had started to glow at two and I couldn't figure out a way to release the charge without causing mayhem so I just sort of...didn't. At least the look on Jimmy's face had been worth it, he couldn't even hold a charge past ten minutes, so when he saw me all glowy-fist after school he knew he'd screwed up.
But it was sort of one those winning is losing situations. Luckily it had been a Friday so I could run home after class and try to work out what to do. But nothing really came to mind and it was getting harder to harder to hide the situation from mom. Glowy fist was now full on FLAMING TERROR FIST and I could feel the strain of the charge starting to wear me down.
Maybe mom would be, like, proud or something. I'd never heard of someone holding a charge for three days before. It had to be some sort of record. Perhaps I'd get a prize or something.
I slumped down in my chair, the blue flickering of the charge flame blazing so brightly I'd taken to wearing sunglasses. I sighed. All I needed to do was unclench my hand to release the charge, but there was no telling what it would do. I might kill everyone in the town at this point.
I was scared. I could admit that. It was hard to tell if I was more scared of the charge or what mom would say. I glanced at my fist again, squinting even through the sunglasses. I could feel the charge building, feel the pressure to release it growing.
I was more scared of the charge.
I drew in a deep breath, knowing that if the charge didn't kill me mom was likely to, but I couldn't wait any longer.
"MOOOOOOOOOOOOM." I hollered out.
"What? Come down here if you want to talk to me, I'm making dinner!" She yelled back, the statement accentuated by the clanging of pots and pans.
I exhaled and then began to trudge down the stairs, the blue glow from my fist illuminating the way. Finally I walked into the kitchen. Her back was facing me as she stirred a pot of chili.
"Hey mom, how's um...the chili coming?" I offered numbly, my fist behind my back, giving me a blue halo.
"It's a good batch. Now, what is it that you wanted?"
"I'm, sort of having a problem," I removed my fist from behind my back, my eyes welling up.
"What's that hun?" She turned around, a look of concern on her face. Almost immediately her eyes widened, "Oh my god Sam, what have you done?"
"It's Jimmy's fault! He dared me!"
"What? What did he dare you to do?"
I start crying in earnest, "He dared me to hold a charge. He said I couldn't do it for even an hour and I said I could and so I did and then I couldn't release it at school and then I got home and then I hid it all weekend and now I have a flame fist and I'm super super scared." I begin to wail, my body trembling.
Mom came over and kissed me on top of the head, "Don't worry hun, we'll take care of it. We can worry about the rest later." She was in full on mom commando mode, something I once saw her do when my sister broke her arm. She turned off the stove and picked up the phone, dialing a few numbers in and then putting it on speaker phone so I could here.
"9-1-1 Emergency, how can I help you?"
"Yes, my son has been holding a charge for three days--"
"Ma'am, this is for serious inquiries. Filing a false report--"
"YOU SHUT THE HELL UP AND LISTEN TO ME," Mom screamed. It was totally epic. I wish I had gotten it on video so Jimmy could watch it, even though he wasn't my best friend any more because he tried to kill me with a dare. "HE HAS A GIANT BLUE FIREBALL AROUND HIS FIST. YOU SEND HELP OUT HERE RIGHT NOW OR HALF THE TOWN IS GOING TO BE IN RUINS."
There was a frantic clattering on the other side as the operator entered data. "Can you confirm your address is 31 Maple?"
"Yes. I can." Mom had regained some of her composure, rearranging her hair. "Please hurry."
"I have dispatched a specialized charge unit. They should arrive within ten minutes. Please remain on the line."
Mom moved away from the phone, and pulled me in close. I hugged her with both arms, keeping my fist tightly clenched behind her. "Don't worry Sam. You're going to be just fine. I'm sure this sort of thing happens all of the time."
"I can't believe you yelled at 9-1-1." I said, a tremor of awe entering my voice.
"Yes, well, sometimes you need to get your point across quickly, but I don't want to hear you yelling at your sister any time soon. This was a special emergency."
"I love you mom." I begin to blubber again.
"I love you too Sam." She hugged me close.
**Platypus out.**
**Want MOAR peril?** r/PerilousPlatypus
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| 2018-10-02T17:03:01 | 2018-10-02T15:28:41 | 514 | 127 |
[WP] A fortune teller foretold that twins would be born where one was evil and the other was good. A year later, a woman gave birth to a boy with horns and bat wings, and a girl with angel wings and a halo. The boy was sent away, while she and her husband raised the girl. They kept the wrong one.
|
As the prophecy foretold, the child of destiny rose to power! Not as a Dark Lord, but a queen, not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Tempestuous as the sea, and stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love her and despair!
She was the the undisputed ruler of the Empire of Light, the Shield against the Darkness, countless nobles, knights, lords and ladies flocked to her banner and pledged themselves to her, the supreme ruler who guarded them against corruption and evil! Under her the Empire thrived, the stockrooms of her subjects and underlings overflowed with food and wine, and all those who dared to oppose her were put to the sword! For to stand against the embodiment of the light itself was the greatest heresy!
Of her bother, none spoke, but it was known he lived among the poor and downtrodden for years before, during, and after his sisters rise to power, that he was a vagabond, a pariah, a thing of ill repute who would dare to spit in the face of his betters, for if he was not some cast out creature why would he be born with such deformities?
Yet.... despite the hatred from all those around him, when the Men at Arms came to take away those who were deemed unfit to live in the Queen of Lights domain he was the first to stand up to them, while others cowered he stood firm in defence of those he did not know nor owe and debt to, he did it not to win favour, but because it was *right*.
From that day tales started to circulate the Empire, that the devil boy was leading an army of peasants who would dare go against the divinely mandated order, they not only fought to protect the oppressed from tyranny, but preached their message to any that would listen, one of the unity of the workers, an end to rule of kings and queens and it to be replaced with a dictatorship of the proletariat!
The message spread like a tilde wave, workers laid down their tools, those able bodied joined bands the growing armies of the resistance, to the shock of man even some knights broke their oaths to the Queen and joined the "army of darkness" that now marched on the cities and forts of the Empire.
All the while, the Queens message never changed "find the traitors, burn them alive".
Even within her inner circle, it started to be said that while born with the appearance of an angel, she in fact possessed no soul...
|
It was early in the morning, I could hear the birds chirping. I opened my eyes just a little only to see my little girl Jessy there. I was happy to see her until I realized she was holding a knife. That was the 5th time this week she has woke me up like this. I wish we would have kept her brother. We noticed from a young age she was different. She always cried even when we gave her what she wanted. I thought maybe this was just normal baby stuff everyone said it would get better. Spoiler alert it never did. She’s six now and always finds a way to try and hurt us. She doesn’t have many friends. The adoption agency finally told me I could get my boy back by next year. He was still in the foster system so it was easy to get him. I haven’t seen him since he was born.
*a year later*
Today we finally get our boy back. We don’t know what we’re going to do with Jessy. We named our boy Lucas before giving him away at birth.
*a week later*
Jessy seems meaner lately. She hasn’t tried to hurt us but she keeps warning us we should get rid of Lucas. I told her we’re not getting rid of Lucas. No matter how many times I tell her she still tries to convince us he’s bad news. There birthday is coming up soon. I plan on bringing Jessy to a military school. She has to be at least 9 so I will try to give her the best birthday ever. I’m sending her for her own good. She won’t stop lying and holding knives like she’s ready to attack someone if they make her mad. The military school is very good to there students and it’s nothing like any of the other schools I’ve seen. I know this will be good for her. I still love Jessy very much but I just can’t give her the help she needs at home.
*the twins birthday*
I woke them up this morning and sang them happy birthday. When we went downstairs I told them they could have anything they wanted for breakfasts. There dad took Lucas to a roller skating rink while I took Jessy to a trampoline park. This is the happiest I’ve seen Jessy in a long time. It makes me sad that I’m sending her off tomorrow. It was a good day today everyone had fun and we ate a lot of cake.
*the next day*
I didn’t tell Jessy we were sending her to military school I just told her we were bringing her somewhere for a bit and to pack her bags. I told her it was like a summer camp. When we got to the gates it seemed very nice. Everyone was so sweet and welcoming and they seemed like they were very nice to there students. When Jessy found out what I was doing she cried and begged me to not leave her here. She said Lucas should be the one here and she did nothing wrong. The security guards quickly directed me to the exit. The whole way home I cried. I didn’t know if I made the right decision but I had to be strong for Lucas and Jessy.
*two years later*
Jessy has been in and out of the school. She’s gotten better at some points and worse at others. Today Jessy gets to come home again for who knows how long. Lucas seems happy she’s coming home. We all had a nice family dinner and Jessy seems happy to be home.
Jessy has been home for a week now has been very good. She seems a little nervous sometimes but other then that she’s doing good.
*later that night*
I was sleeping peacefully when all of a sudden a boom went threw the house. I realized it was the sound of a gunshot. I rushed to Jessy’s room only to find her bleeding out on her bed. I ran over to put pressure on her wound while I yelled for my husband to call 911. I saw little Lucas sitting in the corner of her room, he look terrified. I asked him what happened. He said “I came in here cause I thought I heard her crying. When I walked in though she pointed a gun at me. She tried to shoot at me but the gun wouldn’t shoot. I ran and pulled it out of her hands and pointed it at her. All of a sudden it fired I didn’t even pull the trigger!”. He was talking fast and crying so I hardly understood him but there was no time to wonder what happened I had to make sure Jessy was ok. The ambulance arrived and I tried to go with her but the police said I needed to stay behind for questioning. After hours of questioning they finally released me and my husband to go see Jessy. They said the had to keep Lucas for a little longer. Jessy was on a breathing machine. I found out the bullet almost hit her heart. She was passed out they said she should wake up tomorrow or the next day but she wouldn’t be able to talk. I cried and prayed that she would live.
*the next day*
Jessy woke up but was very dazed. The police came in to talk to her. We still hadn’t seen Lucas we assumed he was picked up by my sister but we didn’t have enough time to call and ask. After the police talked to Jessy for what felt like hours they finally informed me they had arrested the person who did this. At first I was happy then I realized they were talking about my son.
“What?”
Police “we’ve arrested your son for attempted murder”
It all came crashing down I tried to explain it was an accident but they said he tried to kill her. He confesses to coming to her room with a gun in a attempt to kill her. They said there was proof. How could my little boy do this I thought he was the good twin.
*trial day*
It’s all come out everything he did. He tried to kill her. Every time we woke up with Jessy holding a knife she was trying to protect us. She was scared he would come hurt us. It doesn’t make sense to me either. Today Lucas goes to trial. He’s tried to say he was innocent for the longest time but when the police showed him all the evidence they had against him he confessed. A year after Lucas tried to kill Jessy she’s still broken. I found out she’s the good one not him. I tried to keep the wrong one. I tried to get rid of Jessy even though she’s the best girl anyone could ask for.
Edit: I’m not a writer so sorry for this being kinda boring and having horrible punctuation. :)
| 2020-05-07T08:33:44 | 2020-05-07T08:18:26 | 98 | 17 |
[WP] A fortune teller foretold that twins would be born where one was evil and the other was good. A year later, a woman gave birth to a boy with horns and bat wings, and a girl with angel wings and a halo. The boy was sent away, while she and her husband raised the girl. They kept the wrong one.
|
The three men stared at an array of eight solid steel doors. They heard a faint scraping against door number four, and a low gutteral screech.
"I presume this is the one?" asked the tall thin man. His two companions nodded silently.
"Open it." The tall thin man's companions exchanged nervous glances and one of them began to fumble with a large key ring.
The screeching behind the door grew louder and was now accompanied by the sound of metal scraping against metal.
The tall thin man gently perched his ear against the door, pushed a button on the intercom, and announced himself: "Desmond, calm now, it's Dr. Hines. Do you remember me?"
The intercom exploded with a cacophony of noise and the door, heretofore firmly set in a foundation of concrete and steel, shook angrily.
The two companions jumped back. Dr. Hines returned his ear to the door. He pushed the button on the intercom a second time. "Desmond, hello to you too. I have something very important to tell you, and I would prefer to do so face to face if that's alright with you."
Dr. Hines looked at his companions and motioned at the door. "Open it."
The man with the keys slowly approached the door, his outstretched hand shaking. He inserted the key and turned it softly. An internal gear whirred, and the heavyset door began to disappear into the wall.
Dr. Hines stepped into the dark cell and out of sight of his two companions who, having come as close to the cell door as their nerves would permit, hovered their hands over their holsters.
"Desmond, it's about your sister."
The two men heard a deep growl, almost a roar. It wasn't loud, but it darkened their souls. Then, a deep voice, unmistakably human, but threatening and sinister: "I'm listening."
"We need to stop her."
The two men heard another sound, a clang of metal against metal. A single claw, red and the size of a fire hydrant, penetrated the imaginary barrier between the cell and the world. Then another claw, and another, and soon a whole *thing* emerged. Not animal, but not quite human. Larger than imaginable, yet familiar.
Dr. Hines, appearing even thinner and no longer as tall, emerged from the cell and stood beside Desmond.
The two men gawked, not knowing whether to talk, run or shiver.
Dr Hines motioned to the exit. "Gentlemen, we have no time to lose."
|
Towards the end of her long and mysterious life, the Seer of Misty Mountain was rarely seen. Those that sought her wisdom had to undertake the tiresome trek to her mountain home, bearing with them drink or livestock or some curious rarity as payment for her services. Though no trip was in vain-- the milky white third eye in the center of the Seer's forehead Marked her as a gifted fortune-teller-- the people realized that she had made herself scarce by design, and respectfully only availed themselves of her when her guidance was truly required.
It was strange, then, that one midnight, a village carpenter opened his door to find the wrinkled visage of the Seer herself on his doorstep. Her third eye glowed with a dim light, and though the carpenter had never visited her himself, he had heard the stories. He knew what that light meant.
"Um, come in, madam Seer," he said.
The Seer swept into his house without a word, and ignored him when he asked if she wanted some tea. Her frail frame shook underneath her dusty cloak and cowl: he offered her a chair, which she collapsed into with the gratitude borne of desperation.
"Tovu," croaked the Seer finally, when she'd caught her breath somewhat. The carpenter grimaced. This was the name his mother had called him when he was a child. It seemed... threatening, coming out of the mouth of such a wizened, enigmatic hag, and yet at the same time it turned his vague, all-purpose respect for her into a much more focused compulsion to listen to what she had to say. This woman *knew* things.
"Your wife... twins. Marked. One will be... greatest evil... snuff out stars... other will... stop them... save world."
The carpenter stared at her. His wife, still asleep in their bed, was indeed with child. His first thought was pride-- his firstborn children, Marked *twins*. Nobody in living memory could claim that, as far as he knew. Then the rest of the Seer's words caught up with him.
"Wait-- this has to be a-- a joke!"
The Seer shook her head sadly, and then she slumped forward, the light of her third eye dead.
___
When the carpenter awoke the next day, the Seer had vanished. He tried to convince himself that it had simply been a terrible dream-- but then he found a strange silver charm shaped like a snake eating its own tail in the seat he remembered offering to the Seer. Newly jumpy and queasy, he shoved it in his breeches before his wife noticed it.
After breakfast, he left for the temple immediately. He didn't know much about Marks and the gods-- only the tales he'd heard as a boy-- so he needed to consult the village's only expert, its Marked priest. While Jetel's gift was far less impressive than the Seer's, having it at all gave him a far greater claim to a connection with the gods than anybody else the carpenter knew.
When the carpenter explained his story, Jetel was politely unconvinced until he saw the silver snake charm.
"Tobias, where did you get this?" he exclaimed.
"I told you," groused the carpenter, "from the Seer last night."
Jetel stared at him. "So *she* really came to *you*?"
"Yes!"
Jetel spent some time thinking. "Have you told Anisha?" he said, finally.
The carpenter shrugged. "No, not yet," he admitted.
"Nothing at all?" Jetel pressed.
"No," said the carpenter. "I... it's not good news, so..."
"I understand completely," Jetel said.
"Should I?"
Jetel made a face, and the carpenter was reminded of a time when they were kids and Jetel had suggested climbing into a paddock of sheep to play. He'd made the same face just before a grown-up had rounded the corner of a nearby grain silo and caught them.
"When a prophecy is given," he started delicately, "it often behooves us to ask *why* it was given."
The carpenter nodded intently. Jetel often lost him early on in these diatribes, but this time the matter was important. The safety of his family was at stake.
"To help us answer that question, it is important to look at *who* the prophecy was given to-- particularly in an unusual case such as yours, where the Seer sought you out specifically." Jetel inhaled sharply. "I believe the Seer arrived when she did because she *knew* that your wife would not be awake to witness it."
The carpenter squinted. "So, she doesn't want me to tell Anisha?"
Jetel shrugged. "Maybe. The way I would put it is, she has given you the choice to control which parts of the prophecy Anisha will hear. For example, Anisha does not yet know she is carrying twins, yes?"
"Uh, yes," the carpenter said.
"Perhaps, then, the Seer meant to spare Anisha the heartbreak of knowing that she has brought a terrible evil into this world. Perhaps you need only tell her that your child will grow up to save us all from a terrible evil."
"What about the other one?"
Jetel smiled cryptically. "She doesn't have to know she's having twins until she sees them both."
The carpenter did not know much about giving birth, but this seemed to violate some things he held to be common sense about the process. "Won't she, um, feel the second child?"
Jetel shrugged. "The gifts of the Marked work in strange ways." When the carpenter didn't seem convinced, he added, "I'll invite you and Anisha over for tea in the coming week. I'll be able to get a *look* at the twins and adjust our plans from there."
___
Tea came and went. That night, Tobias loudly expressed a desire to go on an evening walk and convened with Jetel in the temple once again.
"A *six* and a *seven*," Jetel said gravely. "We'll have to check their Marks to be sure once they're born, but by my reckoning the *six* will be the one we exile."
"And you think we'll be able to... remove one of them? Without Anisha noticing?"
Jetel nodded, a touch tersely. "*Sixes* are... stealthy. If the gods are with us, their gift should work with us rather than against us... at least, until they grow old and threaten the world with it."
With the plan set, there was little else to do but wait for the twins to be born.
| 2020-05-07T09:18:35 | 2020-05-07T08:59:43 | 34 | 21 |
[WP] "Not as accurate or far-shooting as an elven bow," said the Human smith to the dwarf. "But easy to hide, and the wounds will take three healers to mend." He sets the crude pistol on the bargaining table.
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The Dwarf's bushy black eyebrows knit together as he looked over the pistol that Fredrick had sat down. The weapon was single barrel with a two tone of solid wood and black steel with little adornment along the frame. It was piece of metal stuck to wood with a few parts that governed the firing mechanism. Fredrick beamed triumphantly behind the counter that services the shop portion of his smithy. What he had laid before him was a few months of labor and a touch of reading from alchemical codexes in learning the secrets of red powder. He said, "It doesn't look like much, and it doesn't shoot as far as the Elven bow, but it will punch through a breastplate and blow out the backside as if a cannon had gone off in the person."
The Dwarf nodded and said, "Tis a nice look, rightly balanced, a touch on the plain side."
"What do you mean plain side?" Fredrick asked, his voice tinged with incredulity as he watched the Dwarf reach under his cloak.
The pistol that the Dwarf produced a ornate double-barrel with embossed with metal that was shaped as Dwarven runes against the varnished red wood. There were touches of chrome upon the hammers with enough polish that it reflected the lantern light. The Dwarf was casually carrying one part one, and one part art piece under his old grey cloak. The Human swallowed and stepped back, "Lad, ye are aware who invented the first firearms no?" Falgrim Ironeater asked, "Perhaps the names Deepstone, Felhammer, and Greymountain that were noted on those codexes ye might have read were lost on ye?"
"A lot of people have strange names," Fredrick said, "I didn't know they were Dwarves."
"I will say though," Falgrim said weighing Fredrick's pistol, "This is fair work. It's also impressive that ye are a self-taught gunsmith. So I'll tell ye what, I'll buy this for ye and leave ye with one of my cards. If ye decide ye want to learn more about gunsmithing and make something a little more ornate, contact me, yeah?"
Falgrim paid for the pistol and case, paying generously for both items. The case he valued more, the brass fittings and polished wood had a touch of class that the Human's forged pistol was still wanting. The Human nodded and said, "I have some clients who I think I could interest in my work now. However, I like the ornamentation on yours. You do them?"
Falgrim nodded, "Aye. Those were a few hours with files and stylus to shape it right."
"I think we could work together in the future," Fredrick said, "For now, thank-you for the purchase, Master Dwarf." Fredrick offered a slight bow before the two shook hands parted.
|
**It’s Gotta Be a Hammer**
By: SheepingtonTheSheep
“It’s not as accurate or far-shooting as an elven bow,” said Tarmund to his first customer of the day—a wealthy, red bearded dwarf named Kroin. “But it’s easy to hide, and the wounds will take three healers to mend.” He set down the crude pistol on the bargaining table.
“Hm.” Kroin appraised the wood-and-steel device, turning it and peering down its wide, short barrel. Despite the heat of the cave, brought about by the several dozen forges in use, the dwarf seemed totally cool. Unlike Tarmund, who’d been sweating like a pig at the butcher’s shop. All throughout, the sounds of hammer on metal echoed in the cavernous chamber, as human, dwarf, and elf all toiled with their respective projects. Tarmund had gotten used to the repetitive *clanging* sounds, but the gray-haired dwarf beside him *clanged* his hammer differently. He struck his hammer quickly—too quickly to ensure a decent quality in whatever he was making, as though he was rushing for a deadline.
“Gluni!” Tarmund shouted at the frantic dwarf, who’d been striking wildly at a glowing metal rod. “Must you hammer so fast?”
“Gotta strike fast, me boy!” the graying dwarf said in a rough accent, sending sparks flying as he pounded away at the piece of metal. Tarmund had no idea why he had to ‘strike fast’; Gluni had few customers. Still more than Tarmund, but few compared to the master smiths. Everything he forged had to be some variation of a hammer. And useless ones too—last week, he’d made a ‘bow-hammer’, the other week a ‘lute-hammer’. Gluni’s creations were always ineffective, if not useless… and always hammer-related.
“It certainly is easy to hide,” Kroin said, stroking his beaded-and-braided beard. “But how inaccurate is it?”
Tarmund turned his attention to the younger dwarf before him. He knew that being a human blacksmith, he had to prove himself and show that he was as competent as dwarves. “Within twenty feet, you’re bound to hit your mark,” said Tarmund.
“Not bad,” said the dwarf. “And you say the damage would take three healers?”
Tarmund nodded. “One to quell the bleeding, one to close the wound, and another to prevent blight from infecting the wound.”
Kroin nodded and held the pistol up, inspecting it further. Beside Tarmund, Gluni’s hammering intensified.
*Clangclanglclangclang*
“And instead of an arrow, it shoots what?” Kroin’s question kept Tarmund from smacking his fellow smith on the head.
“Bullets, sir,” said Tarmund, holding up a single round ball of lead. “One of these, along with some fire powder, can kill a man if you aim right.”
“And I will have to pay for the ‘bullets’, too? Can I have them made?”
“Yes,” said Tarmund. “The pistol will be twenty gold coins, and ten bullets for a coin. You can have the bullets made anywhere that handles lead.”
*CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG*
Gluni’s hammering slowed down but got excessively louder. He was hammering at a large piece of metal, denting it more than he should be. With a groan, Tarmund reprimanded the old dwarf. “You’re being too loud! Look, you’re denting the metal. No one’s going to buy a beat-up… er… anvil? What’s that?”
“This is how me Pap taught me, boy!” Gluni replied, hammering away. “And it’s none of ya business!”
“Anyway,” Kroin said, “I’m looking for something just as deadly, but flashier. I’m going on a raid in the Southlands, and a small thing like this isn’t going to strike fear in the Morlanners.”
Tarmund understood what he meant. The young dwarf was clad in an expensive-looking armor, lined with gold and even studded with jewels. He had gold medallions hanging from his neck, and his plump fingers were all fitted with rings from various regions of the continent. A small, concealable pistol didn’t fit well with his look. “Of course,” Tarmund said, “Give me a week, and I can have a ‘rifle’ made for you.”
Kroin rubbed his beard.
“It’s this big,” Tarmund held his arms wide, “And it can blow off a troll’s leg with one shot.”
Kroin said, “Interesting—”
“Done!” Gluni shouted, holding up a still-glowing war hammer with twin tongs. It was of poor quality, and the head of the weapon appeared uneven, with small dents along its surface.
Intrigued, Kroin moved over to Gluni’s stall. “Fascinating, but I’m not looking for a war hammer. I have a dozen at the moment.”
“Ah,” Gluni laughed, “It’s no ordinary hammer, good sir! It’s a pistol-hammer!”
“You stole my idea!” Tarmund protested.
“Which I’ve made better!”
Tarmund grabbed a fire poker to hit the cheeky blacksmith with, but Gluni guarded himself with the glowing hammer. The gray-bearded dwarf grinned. “One hit from this renders a limb crushed—useless! Try healing *that!*”
“Just like a hammer ought to do,” said Tarmund.
Gluni added, “Sure, it can’t shoot things from 20 feet away, but at close range, it’s got a guaranteed chance of landing a hit!”
Tarmund groaned. “Like a ham—”
“And it’s flashy!” Gluni said waving the glowing hammer around with his tongs, “No gold, no jewels, just pure steel—just like how the orcs used to make ‘em!”
Kroin appeared genuinely interested. “I’m not sure. I feel like I’d need to hit things from afar, too.”
“Which was why I’ve left the handle hollow!” Gluni said enthusiastically, setting the glowing hammer in a tub of water to cool. “Drop in a bullet and some fire powder, and it’ll be just like a puny-ol’ pistol.”
“That’s not how it works!” Tarmund said.
Kroin extended a bejeweled hand. “Deal!”
“Pleasure doin’ business with ye!” Gluni shook his hand.
As the two dwarves discussed pricing, Tarmund sank back onto his seat, rubbing his sooty, sweaty face in frustration. “Dwarves and their hammers…”
It seemed like forging anything but hammers wasn’t a good business plan in Dwarfholm.
| 2020-09-23T09:14:21 | 2020-09-23T09:00:30 | 57 | 32 |
[WP] Finally the Josh War is over, you are so happy that you are alive but also you’re disappointed at same time. You come home to see your parents and other family members. You can see their confusion face. The first question from your mom, asking— “Who are you?”
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[Voiceover link](https://vocaroo.com/1lknNCHLbF0E)
I have become Death, Destroyer of Josh.
"I'm your son, mom. Josh? Remember?" I said with a smirk which slowly faded as I saw the horror on my Mom's face.
"What's a Josh?" she asked in her work voice. "Will you please leave before I call the police?"
Yes, dreams are just disappointments on the way to reality. The Reality of Josh.
I stumbled out of my house unsure where to go next. I opened up Google and searched my name, with zero results.
Everyone dies. You just have to make sure and be Josh when it happens.
I tried just my first name. Somehow, only three results, for some shipping company in India, JOSH. Josh was no longer a name.
Life is a process of becoming. Becoming Josh.
Somehow, the concentrated force of the Josh Fight has made me shift realities, as though it couldn't handle all those Joshes together so it flung us each to Joshless realities to compensate.
Live Laugh Josh
...
I have planned two years for this. A Battle of the Codys. I can only hope this battle upsets the multiverse again and sends me home. I know it's a long shot but it's the only one I've got. I raise my noodle high and shout, "I am Cody."
But I am not Cody, I am Josh, and I will be Josh again, however long it takes.
/r/surinical
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I'd been limping home for the past three days, nameless and bloodied from my time on the battlefield. I'd been one of the lucky few to avoid clashing with Little Josh near the end of the fight when he'd stopped playing nice.
The Josh that had driven me to the fight was dead, left dying on the Nebraska grass, but I'd managed to grab his keys from his bloodied pocket once night fell, and Little Josh had been coronated. I hadn't been the only Josh crawling away under the stars that night, but any other Josh I'd passed pretended to ignore me. Our feud was officially over, but that hadn't killed the resentment for some of them, so I wasn't about to risk interaction.
I'd managed to get myself home in my dead friend's van. Peeling off into the night as some of the Sworn, former Joshs that had pledged to maintain Little Josh's rule, chased the fleeing cars away from the battleground. Some of the other cars didn't make it out of the parking lots, but I had, and that was enough for me.
I shakily rested on the door before ringing the doorbell and leaving my bloody fingerprints smeared across the white. There was no answer, so I rang the bell again before struggling off the door and standing properly to greet my parents. It was going to be wonderful to take a shower, wipe some of the blood off of myself and get back to my normal life. I'd taken my weekend to go and join a joke, but that had been the worst decision I'd ever made.
Mom opened the door and immediately dropped the mug she'd been carrying. Of course, she would, seeing her son torn up and bloody with half a shirt on. Then she'd slammed the door in my face.
"Mo-" I started just as she slammed the door. She must have been in shock. I tried the door to follow her, but she'd already managed to lock it. I was so fucking tired. It had been a long drive home and a longer time lying on the battlefield pretending to be another dead Josh among the rest. I managed to summon the strength to pound on the door again. "Mom," I cried weakly, "it's me."
The door half-cracked again a minute later. This time I caught my Dad's eye through the crack. "Dad," I squeaked, "thanks, I-" I went to get my hand in the crack of the door, and my father shoved it away.
"You stay away from our house," he spat, "you're bleeding on the steps."
"Wh-" I started, "Dad it's-"
"I don't know who the hell you are, but you're scaring my family," he said, "looks like you had the run of it, so I'm happy to let you drive away right now."
"D-"
"Don't make me come out there and force you," my Dad said from the other side of the door before slamming it again. I reached out to the door and then pulled my hand away before checking the address. That had definitely been my Mom and Dad, but maybe I was somehow at the wrong address. Or-
Of course, they didn't recognize me because I was covered in all of this bullshit. I just had to" I pulled out my phone and looked at the cracked screen that was half smeared with my blood. I had a few percent of battery left, so I dialled my home phone and waited.
"I told you to fucking leave," the door swung wide open behind me and slammed into my chest and stumbled back, heaving for breath as my Dad loomed over me, holding the handgun he'd bought for home safety years ago. His hands were shaking and twitching as he pointed at me. "I just want you gone."
"Dad, it's-" I started, but there wasn't any sign of recognition in his eyes. If it were the blood and dirt, I would have at least looked like someone he knew, and he would have been trying to figure that out, but that wasn't the case. I was a complete stranger to this man. His finger moved slowly to the trigger of the handgun, and I staggered to my feet. "Okay, okay, I'll leave," I said, backing away and trying to choke back tears. Maybe I was too tired to cry, or maybe I'd changed at some point during the Josh Battel Royale, but I knew I had to get myself away from danger before I could get traumatized.
I took the first several steps away from my Dad and the gun before turning and sprinting back to the Van. I smeared blood across the handle and then ripped the door open to throw myself onto the stained fabric seats. After one last look back at my Dad, who was still shakily pointing the pistol at me, I pulled out of the driveway and out into the cul-de-sac.
Once I was a street away, I finally fastened my seatbelt and pulled over to the side of the street. What had just happened? What was going on? How did my parents not even recognize me? Wha- I was dry heaving, my chest clenching like I should have been crying, but I was so out of water and will that I couldn't manage tears.
What had little Josh done?
I ended up falling asleep in that suburb, forehead resting against the steering wheel and scabs forming over my wounds from the battlefield. I didn't know what was going on, but I knew that I wasn't a Josh anymore now that a king had risen.
In fact, I didn't even know who I was anymore or if I was anyone.
/r/jacksonwrites
| 2021-04-24T22:53:18 | 2021-04-24T21:50:25 | 1,132 | 204 |
[WP] Your supervillain nemesis is little more than goofy comedy relief, always coming up with clunky machines and insane, nonsensical schemes. When a new dangerous villain appeared, your nemesis utterly destroyed them, and then continued on like nothing happened.
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Ultraman listened with a slight smile as Über Destructo Gigadeath ranted about his last evil scheme that would see all ice cream flavours turn to licorice.
It was, to be fair, one of the eviler schemes the young man had come up with.
Licorice. Brr.
Anyway, Destructo was perhaps the most harmless of villains in Central City and with his over the top displays, silliness and hamminess had even garnered something of a fanbase (he had signed autographs that one time and his Mad Cooking channel on YouTube had a million subscribers)
"You shall never get away with this, fiend!" Ultraman called good naturally.
Like many heroes he played along with Destructo. Seriously, the guy send the League Christmas cards.
He was about to respond to the latest taunts...when the sky darkened.
Alarmed Ultraman looked up...and paled as he saw the distinctive patterns of red and black crawling around the planet.
"No. No no no no no..."
"Ultraman, what is it?" Destructo had come closer, looking concerned.
"Get out of here, James. Run as fast as you can. We...we will try to stop it"
Destructo frowned. "Stop what?"
Ultraman shook his head and prepared to take off "No time"
A hand grabbed his muscular arm. "Stop. What." Destructo eyed him carefully "I have never seen you scared before"
Ultraman took a breath. Did it matter now anyway? He saw the familiar figure of red and black smoke descent through the atmosphere. Vaguely humanoid but subtly off in a way that made the eyes hurt.
"The Corruption. A...thing born of the concepts of madness and perversion. It travels the universe and destroys civilisations. Not kills them. But twists and perverts them until there is nothing but fear and suffering. Forever" He took a deep breath, trying to get the dread under control. "I don't know if we can stop it. But we will try" He gave Destructo a faint smile "We have extradomensional evacuation shelters. Spaceships. Try to get to one of them, James, you will be fine, okay?"
Destructo's serious face did not change as he looked from Ultraman to the Corruption. "No"
And then he began to float.
Ultraman blinked. James could fly?
And the idiot was going to confront the Corruption! He had to stop him!
"Stay" James said and Ultraman found himself unable to move, helpless to do anything but watch and listen.
"And what are you supposed to be?" The mocking voice of the Corruption asked. A billion alien voices wailing and screaming. "A little joke of a man, desperate for attention?"
"Yes. I am the laughter, the silliness. The joke. But not the punchline"
Their voices echoed over the city. The country. Somehow, everyone could hear then.
"Oh you are. You so are. Let me show you..."
"No. I've seen you. I know what you are. Broken. Fearful. You are the mind fleeing from reality. A mistake"
"Exactly! I am the final truth in this world! Random suffering! Pointless destruction!"
"No. I saw you. I met you. And I moved past you. You are a temporary aberration. A distraction. Be gone"
"You think you can..."
BE. GONE.
Ultraman clutched his head as reality buckled.
A wound in the cosmos was erased. The Corruption snuffed out like a candle.
Thousands of light-years away entire civilisations woke up from collective nightmares and regained their sanity.
Ultraman looked around. The sky was restored.
The Corruption gone.
The only sign anything had happened at all was the eery silence in Central City.
James stood in front of him, an awkward and unsure smile on his face. "So...icecream?" he asked, unable to meet Ultramabs eyes.
Ultraman thought of James. Of a being able to kill something more powerful than the gods. Of someone able to rearrange reality at a whim. Who used it to play cops and robbers.
Heh. That *was* actually pretty funny.
Slowly he smiled. "You shall never get away with this!"
Destructo relaxed, shoulders slumping in relief "Aha! But how will you catch me when you have to deal with my...*Ice Cream Minions!* Muahahaha!"
|
"We can make this work I know it" The Narrator muttered.
The world watched in horror as the once fastest being alive, The Streak, had her skin split open, muscles stripped from bone, and forgotten as her skeleton escaped it's confinement. A single hand reaching forward in futility hoping to apply the pressure of pure force she built up for this run. Only to install a new wave of hopelessness as her bony finger stopped short of Shiver, who pushed her bones to the side, barely acknowledging her poke as they marched forward.
The nation cried out in despair again as the Hand of Heaven, empowered with the wrath of the pantheons of both the gods and demons in above and below failed. His impenetrable skin splitting into string as it entered the same zone of death. Each inch he covered cutting him finer and finer till only a thread whisked over Shivers shoulder. Still barely deterred the end of times marched forward stepping onto his insignia as he passed.
The remaining heroes stood together in the final northern city standing united against this cataclysm. None of us knew if this would be the final days of the family we had behind us, or if we'd make up for the ones we'd lost. All we knew was that we had to make a stand here, if even one of us could provide a survivor with a hint on how to end this. Then it was worth the mass of bodies that we would leave behind.
Then over a hill with fucking *horns* playing behind him rose the worst outcome I could hope for. The Narrator, my "Nemesis" appeared in his suit two sizes too big as usual his orange and green suit standing out among the whirlpool of terror. The Pointy ends of his villain costume flopping like a rabbits ears down over his too large skull.
He came galloping up making his usual announcements from his trusty "sidekick" Effects-boy. An iPod nano he had jury rigged into a speaker system to announce his arrival, and sound effects. He played his music 10 spins higher then usual just so he could be heard over the snapping bones, and cries of terror.
He appeared next to my wounded and frame, my breaths coming in painful pants as I stared forward at Shiver. Ready to end everything even if it only bought everyone behind me a second to run.
"RUN YOU FOOL I CAN DIE HERE! JUST PROTECT THEM **PLEASE"** I begged The Narrator. He was my villain, yes but Norman had never been a truly **bad** guy.
Each time I played along panting and sweating from our "Intense" battles he accepted an arrest afterwards. He'd take hostages, but tell them same time next week after getting punched too hard. Making sure no one was ever truly in danger during his several antics. His power wasn't even threatening to anyone around him or himself. It was as he described it to me in a ride to the police station: "The concept of commentary"
He'd definitely cut the shtick long enough to at least save my wife and son, though. This wasn't something his jokes could save him from. Maybe if I could crush a field around me and Shiver I could maybe weaken him before I died. I couldn't think of the corpses of friends, and family laid next to me. I needed to focus on how to end this, not on how to make sure we were all buried properly.
However, no sooner did the thought of how to crash the bubble together on my new enemies and I's bodies fully form before it vanished. Pure shock erasing any sophisticated thought or action, from my mind. My eyes, trained to even notice the beginning darting colors of the Streak failing to keep up with what I was seeing.
The only thought that could muster between the microsecond it took The Narrator to close the gap between myself, and him was: "He's not supposed to be that fast"
"OF COURSE I'M THAT *FAST*! HOW ELSE SHOULD I RESPOND WHEN YOU'RE ABOUT TO RUIN **OUR** STORY" The Narrator breathed in my face, caffeine dancing off his tongue. He blipped away, appearing next to Shiver.
"AND ***YOU***! You were supposed to show up towards the **END** of season 1 not the MID-POINT" He said poking Shiver in their frozen blood-drenched chest.
Shiver seemed as confused as the rest of us, my eyes darting between my few surviving allies, and the scene in front of us. Shiver made eye contact with me almost as if I could explain what was happening. My dull and confused look obviously cluing him into my confusion, as he simply raised a fist faster then I could blink.
"Go back to your trailer I'll deal with you then" The Narrator announced before simply pushing him. I had trapped this man behind a maintenance door that lead to a janitors closet in a museum once, and he simply *shoved* the greatest calamity mankind had faced. I would've been asking several questions if Shiver didn't vanish into thin air after being pushed, several more would've followed if-
"NO ONE CARES ABOUT **EXPOSITION JACOB!**" The Narrator screamed in his director chair next to my own. Wait when the fuc-
"God see I don't understand, I do everything, I act out the scene, I let you win, I dance our tune because it's **fun**, and you can't even be asked to read. THE. **SCRIPT"**
A bundle of papers appeared in my hand opened to page 115, THE BATTLE OF HEAVEN sprawled in all caps across the top. My thoughts were here, my next thought, the thought about me thinking about this thought. My mind was in a haze my eyes darting around until I locked eyes with my wife and 3 kids.
"Wait no I only have 1 son when did?" The memories streamed in like a wave. Birthdays missed, fights still worn on my face standing outside long emptied auditoriums of missed events, late-night hangouts with my daughter on the roof-
"NO NO NO, You're right maybe the one child is best too much setup needed for all those dynamics." The Narrator said pacing around my wife and son.
"SHUT UP LET THEM GO!" I yelled creating a barrier between the three of them. Just need to create some space, maybe if I can distract him long enough we ca-
"Then you're not SELLING it Valerie, if you keep this up I might do more then just recast you!" My wife stared at him shielding our son from his wrath uselessly. He didn't even seem to notice the barrier as he simply walked through it staring my wife down.
"Wait where were we?" He mumbled reading through the endless mass of papers in his hands.
My eyes burned as they readjusted to the battlefield, and carnage around me. My terrifying enemy fastest woman alive turned villain Streak stood in front of me. Shiver sitting out of reach a mile away from us. My thoughts came through stumbling over each other, pouring out like a stream unblocked from it's flow.
What happened to all of our kids?
"You only had little John remember? The rest of the kids didn't make sense we got rid of them"
We? W-what happened to Shiver why is he over there?
"He betrays her at the end of this fight **READ.THE.SCRIPT** JACOB"
I pulled the pile of papers from my side, hands shaking. Reading in an unfocused haze about how badly my hands were shaking before reading my lines. The ones marked next to THE BARRIER, my hero name.
"I'll stop you Streak...you were a hero once and can be...again". The papers fell to the floor like rain in the sun lit desert disintegrating into nothingness. My confusion making the words stick, and barely ooze out of my mouth like glue escaping a bottle.
"Will our mighty hero actually be able to stop his long time friend? Will he perish underneath her speed of terror? FIND OUT NEXT TIME!" came The Narrators voice from everywhere and no where all at once.
"We're going to do this as many times as it takes for you to get this right Jacob" The narrator whispered in my ear. "Remember: IT HAS TO BE **FUN"**. The snap in my ear was so loud my eyes blinked several times before refocusing again. I didn't even register the warmth of my allies next to me, the drums of my heart covering everything as I stared at those floppy ears again.
"We can make this work I know it" The Narrator muttered.
| 2022-10-13T20:53:30 | 2022-10-13T18:57:19 | 167 | 72 |
[WP] Every person in the world develops a weird mutation/power the day they turn 16. Everyone's powers are always different, some more insignificant than others. You turn 16, and watch as all your friends discover their newfound ability's. That is, until you discover the severity of your own.
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16 years, 16 years of waiting and dreaming of the power I would get. In a million years I could never have imagined this. My class from high school has powers like flight, invisibility, ability to cure illness. What do I get? What is the pay off of all that dreaming and waiting? When I make a gun with my fingers the tip of my index finger turns into the head of a duck which then quacks once and poofs back. That's it. I am some sort of avian Fonzie. The only side effect is the duck is not stopped by objects so anything caught in his beak disappears with him. I found this out one night as I guess I did the gesture in my sleep because I woke up to a loud quack and a chunk of my hair missing.
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Markus was ready. On a child's sixteenth birthday, they were given one Opportunity to receive a Gift from Above. Every Gift was more or less unique, and a Gift could be as simple as defiance of gravity or a more complex one like flowing through solid substances. The Gift of predicting weather was rumored to take great effort and still not be very practical, and there were many variations of quick-and-dirty invisibility. Of course, everyone took advantage of their one Opportunity. The last Mundane had died long ago, and everyone knew from their history textbooks that the Mundanes' lives were, well, mundane.
So when Markus turned sixteen, he and Nina, the other new sixteen year old, went together to the Gift center, a towering structure at the center of their great walled city of Tirapolis, to meet their Gift Giver. It was a secret how the Gifts worked, where they came from, and if they had any purpose at all, and nobody would ever talk about how they received their own Gift -- a superstition of sorts. So Markus and Nina followed the Gift Giver with no idea whatsoever of what was going to happen. The Gift Giver led them down a series of dimly lit hallways to a small, simple room. When Markus and Nina later left the room and the Gift center, they separated to test their new Gifts. It took time for Gifts to be understood, and the more specific the Gift the longer it could be before it was revealed.
Five years later, Nina found a job at a Healing center. She did not have a Gift of Healing herself, but Nina's presence slowed the flow of blood in nearby people. Her Gift was very helpful in treating grievous wounds and could also act as a weak sedative. Markus had not been so lucky with his Gift, and it still made no outward appearance. As his friends matured into their own Gifts, they abandoned him one by one, some even avoiding him. Rumors spread about a "Mundane disease" that Markus carried, and some people speculated it might be contagious. Markus knew he had received a Gift, but even he had no idea what it was. The only sign was a constant longing feeling, like something was always missing from his life. With every day, the feeling grew stronger and even gained direction. Desperate to prove to everyone and himself that he wasn't Mundane, he tried to follow the longing feeling, and it tugged at him like an unfinished promise. He followed the feeling to the Tirapolis city limits, where the towering walls encircled the community. Unfortunately, the feeling pointed outside the city. Everyone was told from an early age that there was nothing to be found outside the walls; yet, here was this overpowering feeling that Markus had to leave.
After a few weeks of contemplation, Markus decided that it was worth leaving Tirapolis just for the constant nagging feeling to go away. It made concentration difficult, and there was nothing left for him in the city with everyone afraid of his Mundaneness. Even Nina, who had received her own Gift in the same way as Markus and knew him to be safe, had to avoid him just to keep her own reputation. Markus focused his feelings of inadequacy and loneliness into escaping those who shunned him, and he was rewarded. Taking minimal provisions, Markus escaped the city through an old abandoned tunnel of sorts that lay behind an unused factory.
Outside the walls, Markus was astonished to see Plants. He knew all about Plants, of course, they were just another chapter in his history textbook. They belonged to the age of the Mundanes, and he had assumed they didn't exist any more. He kept following the nagging, and it eased slightly as he approached the wild overgrowth surrounding Tirapolis. Markus thought of telling Nina about the Plants. She might listen to him, even if nobody else trusted him anymore. But as he delved deeper and deeper into the forest, Tirapolis faded from memory. His thoughts started to slow, and he felt... bigger. Much bigger. And stronger. He tried to remember where he came from. But there is no "there", only "here". It was the all-encompassing here, with white food above and black drink below. And a silvery-gray Itch in the middle.
Annoying. Itches are annoying. Itches need to be... scratched. But how to scratch? It planned as best it could. It moved slowly, but slow would do. It was already touching the Itch in places, just a little push and... something gave. The process was slow, but It worked its way into the Itch. The Itch had weak points, holes. The Itch resisted, as It knew it would. The Itch was bad and didn't know or care about It. It didn't know why the Itch was bad. Something else knew the Itch was bad and told It a long time ago. Something also knew the Itch would resist scratching. But It could wait. If It had to endure the Itch, It would. For now.
| 2015-01-21T23:50:44 | 2015-01-21T22:48:58 | 28 | 19 |
[WP] Every person in the world develops a weird mutation/power the day they turn 16. Everyone's powers are always different, some more insignificant than others. You turn 16, and watch as all your friends discover their newfound ability's. That is, until you discover the severity of your own.
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...the ability to craft a lovely cup of tea from any matter available was surely too powerful for any mere mortal to handle.
With great duty and knowing such power could have unparalleled consequence were I unable to contain it I decided for the sake of mankind to keep it to myself, to say I was spared the mutation.
They couldn't know. Nobody could know...
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Dear Journal:
I turn sixteen in 2 minutes and 27 seconds. I know because I've been awake all night counting the seconds to midnight. Tonight is special and you know why? At midnight I finally Change! I've waited forever but now I finally get a power like everyone else. What do you think it will be, Journal? Will I get x-ray vision like Jason next door? Maybe I'll have super strength like Melissa or even wings like Ethan! As long as it's not Eric's acid breath I think I'll be happy. That poor guy had bad enough breath already, that was the last thing he needed. But anyway it's midnight, it's finally here! I'll keep writing as it happens, I never want to forget this!
-It's 12:02 and I don't feel very different yet, but it has gotten colder in here. I'm wrapped up under my blanket now but so far nothing else. It's so hard to wait, Journal.
-12:10 now, I'm still just cold. Dull pain in my mouth. Might be a toothache, but I'm hoping for poison glands! I'm going to check the mirror.
-Journal, I'm confused now. I can't see myself in the mirror. At first I got really excited thinking I was invisible, but when I look down I still see myself. On top of that my teeth hurt a lot now. This is definitely part of my Change but I'm a bit worried my power is going to suck. I'll be back after I walk around a bit, maybe that will help.
-It's 12:30 and this literally bites. I stubbed my toe on my dresser and bit my to tongue HARD. Normally that's a bad thing but this time it was awful because my teeth are razor sharp. I'm not kidding, they're like a wild animal's. I was worried I bit my tongue in half! Here's the weird part though; instead of blood I spat out dust. Isn't that just stupid, Journal? I mean what am I even Changing into? I can't see myself, my teeth are needles, I bleed dust and-
oh my god, Journal. I think I'm a vampire.
-1:45. My life is over! I'll never see Melissa or Jason or even Eric again! Well I'm sure Jason will see me but that's beside the point. I can't ever see sunlight again, so I can't ever get a tan. Garlic on my hashbrowns? Not anymore! And you know what else I just thought about? I'll have to ask permission every single time I want to hang out in somebody's house. But even then a sleepover is out of the question now too. I even dared to think for a second that I might be able to turn into a bat. Well I can tell you that's not true, Journal, because nothing happened when I jumped off the stairs to test it. I'm fine because I'm guessing I got some sort of vampire strength but still! What's the point if I'm stuck inside all day? I'm not even going to think about the whole sucking blood situation, although I'm sure I could borrow some from the blood bank if I absolutely had to. No, no, no, gross. I'll have to figure something out.
-It's 3:00 and I guess I'm just going to have to live with it. I'm done Changing so that's that. Me. A vampire. Forever. I'm telling everyone I'm sick tomorrow like the rest of the kids who got crap powers. Now I know how Eric felt on his first night. On the bright side at least I didn't melt half of my bed away! Heck, maybe I should just embrace it and move to Romania. That's where the real vampires go, right Journal? They've probably got night classes and everything. Hey, that's not a bad idea. I might even meet some vampire girls over there! Well Journal I think this might be okay! Maybe the next time I write will be from a dark, musty castle overlooking a tiny village. I can't help but laugh! How funny would that be? I'll have to stop writing now, I have a lot to do to make this house vampire-friendly and I should probably find a coffin to sleep in by morning. Ha, that was a joke. Anyway I'm done now. Goodnight/good morning, Journal. ~Your new vampire writer, Victor Orlok
| 2015-01-22T02:28:54 | 2015-01-21T22:26:31 | 22 | 10 |
[WP]Upon reaching the age of 12 every kid gets an spirit animal that reflects their personality.
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Personality was important in this world. It ended up affecting your status in society, your job, your partners. Dogs would often end up as police officers, parrots as talk show hosts, seagulls as fishermen or naval crew. The alpacas of the world often ended up as psychopaths, which was a rather strange trait. Most people mated with others with the same spirit animal. Their children were often bonded with similar spirit animals. It was very rare for anyone to have certain animals. Lions were often leaders, politicians or royalty. Eagles were suited as military personnel. It wasn't unheard of for a poor family to have a child with an animal that would catapult them into the upper echelons of society.
Eric had always been a quiet child. He was never loud and boisterous like the other children, the ones who now had bears. Nor was he bright and chirpy, like those who now had finches. He wasn't slow and steady like the children who had whales or elephants. To everyone else, Eric just faded into the background, while the other children played and danced with their new animals.
Eric was now surrounded by a group of his classmates. They were all jeering at him, their animals growling, circling and occasionally pretending to rush him. He was the youngest child in the class, his birthday on the 21st of December. They had found him walking, alone, in the bitter cold, with no spirit animal by him. Easy pickings for the bullies. As they closed in, Eric closed his eyes. He was used to this by now. He was of slight build, and not very tall. He waited for the first blow to land.
The sounds of hurried footsteps and shrieks sounded. He cracked open one eye. All of the children were running away, looking fearfully at a point behind him. He turned slowly.
A large black jaguar was staring right at him. It purred softly, a little rumble that sounded strangely comforting.
Eric looked around, and back at the animal- no, his spirit animal. He smiled. No more pain.
For him, at least.
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My sister has a crane, one of those beautiful white, black, and red ones. She’s in college now and struts around with it everywhere. Mom and dad said something about it representing strength and loyalty. She’s always working hard, so I guess that’s the strength? I dunno. I suppose I’m expected to be something similar or just another failure, like always.
“Look look!” Someone beside me whispers and I look up from my writing, knowing that they’re not talking to me. Landon strolls by, looking quite proud of himself. A decent-sized cat with pointed ears is trailing behind him, glancing over everyone as it mimics Landon’s walk, a short fluffy tail held tall. Not full-grown of course, they matched us in age.
“Should’ve known he’d get a lynx.” Someone else mutters. All I can do is stare at his lynx hopelessly. Landon still shivers though, a small side-effect of drawing the spirit animal out. Of course, I studied what they do, but it doesn’t make sitting here any less nerve-wracking. I look away, returning to writing.
Another person walks by, Brooke has gotten a lean, slim dog, a greyhound. Following her however, is Max. At first, I can’t even see where his spirit animal is. His brother had been a rather large horse. Max on the other hand, had gotten something much smaller. It takes the creature climbing onto his shoulder for anyone to realize it’s there. Someone gasps and then laughs.
I watch his face burn and I try to offer a comforting smile even as the spider on his shoulder settles into a better position. He gives more of a grimace than a smile in return. Then he disappears out the door and I return to my writing, ignoring the chatter of those around me, watching the next few people pass from the corner of my eye.
“Cynthia? Cynthia Stanfeld?” I stand, shuffling towards the door and avoiding being tripped by one of the other boys in my class. He laughs with a loud roar. I hope he gets a cockroach. “Ah, here we are.” I look up at the woman and she guides me into the room, the door slamming with a sense of finality behind me. “How are you doing today Cynthia?” It’s a soothing tone, matching the singing canary on her shoulder.
“I—I’m all right.”
“That’s good to hear.” She looks at my notebook and all the scribbles as I hurry to close it. “Schoolwork? Everyone has off today.” My throat runs dry.
“I—I write.” My voice almost dies on the word. The woman smiles brightly though.
“That’s wonderfully creative. Good for you.” She guides me to the center of a circle, built into the ground. “Here we are darling. Let me hold the notebook and we can start.” Reluctantly, I had the notebook over, watching after it as she places it on a table. I notice the other adults right about then. One has a leopard, another has a snake wrapped around them, while the third has a rather large bird beside them.
“Cynthia Stanfeld, correct?” The leopard woman questions, the large feline licking its chops.
“Y—Yes.” They step forward and I resist stepping back, instead deciding to look at the snake man. The snake is large and powerful, eyes like black beads and I can’t help but look away, to the bird taking a couple of steps to keep with the woman.
“Shoes off.” I remove my shoes and watch as they’re placed with my notebook. The canary woman stays close to it, smiling brightly. There’s a buzz through my feet, the other three adults doing things to the floor. It’s apparently more metal than wood, cold on my feet and sapping the warmth from my body.
“Are you ready?”
“Y—Yes.” Another shaky answer and I bite my lip, wishing I wasn’t so nervous.
The electricity hits like a wave and I taste blood, hearing it fizzle as it hits the ground. I suck in a deep gasp of air after it lets up and sway on my feet, attempting to overcome the agony coursing through my veins. Another shock and my knees lock to keep me upright. It would be embarrassing to fall now. A third and a cry from the canary woman, hands over her mouth and the canary flits about her head, concern on her face.
“How interesting.” I look about, vision blurry from tears and there’s nothing. “One more possibly.” I can see that it’s the snake man speaking. The large serpent is on the ground, head pointed in my direction. Another shock and I stumble a step, spreading my feet to keep myself standing.
The gleam of emerald catches my attention when my eyes clear. It rises from my skin in a long, thin form. I shut my eyes tightly, still tasting blood. Feathers beat the air extremely slowly and there’s a small chuckle.
“Well now.” It’s the snake man again. I open my eyes and the flash of emerald green catches my eyes again. There’s a snake-like creature floating in front of me, wings and tail feathered in beautiful plumage of white and red, the entire underbelly of the creature a bright fire red. The wings beat every so often and the creature flits around, scales and feathers mixed together and gleaming in the lights.
“I haven’t seen that before.” The bird woman states as the serpent flits around to coil my neck and torso. “Mind enlightening me?”
“A Coatl or Quetzal serpent. A feathered, flying serpent. Old world mythos. Mayans and Aztecs and such.” The snake man responds as I look over the strange scales and feathers.
“And noted as a ‘Coatl’.” The leopard woman writes something down before gesturing. The canary woman looks a little more curious as she begins to guide me out of the circle, letting me put my shoes back on and handing me back my notebook. We head towards the door but I pause at seeing the glass on the door. In the glass reflection, the serpent’s wings look like they belong to me.
| 2015-07-17T16:11:08 | 2015-07-17T15:52:34 | 39 | 25 |
[WP] You're 80 years old and time travel is possible. You sit down for dinner with earlier versions of yourself at age 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70. Conversation ensues.
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Ten speaks up. "So, you are all older me's?"
Everyone looks to Eighty and she nods. "We finally did it."
Forty through Seventy gasp and relax, a life's work fulfilled. Thirty looks eager but unsure. Twenty doesn't know what is going on.
"We did it, we really did it!" Says Sixty.
"It wasn't easy, but it was worth it." Eighty replies.
Fifty mumbles "Thank God." and Twenty scoffs.
Ten pipes up. "Does that mean I don't have to wear diapers to bed anymore?
Twenty looks uncomfortable. Thirty starts to get angry but stays quiet as the olders laugh. "That's right, Ten. You will be dry soon."
Ten pouts as her elders laugh. "Hey, Eighty! Where is Ninety?" She shouts.
Silence.
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"Oohoohoo. I was quite good looking back in the day." My eye sight may not be as sharp but I can make out my younger selves sitting around poorly made, diy coffee table. "Ah, you guys made me so much more! The culmination of all your experiences and it is me! Though, I am much more achy." A huge laugh bellows, I try to do my best to do one a day.
Ten and Twenty both look at each other and then look down at their bellies. Twenty speaks softly, like defeat was already at his door waiting. "Oh...we get fit when we are in our thirties? Do I still get laid and have sex with random strangers?"
Thirty chimes in, "You get into your dream job! You cycle all day and then work on bikes. So, we had to get fit. Though, your mid twenties will be lots of binge drinking. So...you don't get into this body until you are 29 or so." Thirty jokingly flexes, trying to reassure his younger self.
Forty, fifty and sixty are chumming it up. Fifty laughs, "Ohho, I remember winning that race! I was lucky that the two people in front of me crashed into each other. Though, I don't do much cycling now. I still have a few more races in me." Sixty chimes in, "They are still going well! Much slower but I still do the lap races! Though, my knees and back hurt a lot."
A sudden knock at the door. Bones cracking and aching as I stand up to get the door. My ol' trusty cane made of old handle bars and bicycle grip to hold me up. A older looking gentleman, almost grizzled sits in a wheelchair. My throat felt tight as I realized who it was. My fist clasped so tight, I could make diamonds with them. The old man looks up to me and I just can't stop staring. "You have never come before" my lips barely let the words out, "..and I don't think I want you here."
"Seventy years of age and still racing like a child." Spit rolls down his lip, "A hack, and here you are pretending to be mister happy. I can see why I don't come here. You make it so easy." Seventies glasses were almost like coke bottles in front of his eyes, "You make it so easy that things will get better."
I look down at Seventies legs, each of them held together by metal. The coat he was wearing made his frame seem so small. "It'll...come through. Things change within a few years and someone off-"
Seventy spits and screams! His spit flying everywhere and his mouth quivers between each word, "And this shit? I have to deal with this shit for years?! While the rest of you have the best god damn part of your lives." Tears start rolling down Seventies eyes. "Like fucking hell I would live like this."
Seventy eyes flash and pulls a sawed shotgun from the coat, "And I rather not have a future than live with this!" I rush to stop him, my hands trying to grab hold of the stubby gun. Seventy tries put the shot gun into those quivering lips and end his pain.
My body, damn it. It hurts, it fucking hurts. But I have to stop him. I have to get him to-
And the gun goes off. Ten and twenty start crying instantly. Thirty and forty rushes and holds down seventy! Fifty wrestles the gun out of his hand and sixty attends to me. God, I wish I was smart enough to save me but I can't stop crying myself now. It hurts and I only ever thought I was going to die once in my life.
Memories from when I was 69 years old, doing one of my final races of the year. The younger kids, as I called them, poked fun at me for even entering. I may get last every race but I still want to have that feeling. Even for a lap.
The mark is set and I fall. As the veteran, I was allowed to sit in the front of the pack. I wasn't sure if it was my clip or my leg or something else, but I fell. And then I was trampled. Bike after bike and rider after rider. Falling on top of me, crushing me with carbon, steel and aluminum. Human bodies adding to the weight. Even then, I couldn't stop crying. My saggy skin ripped and folded and dozens of old friends dug me out of the pile, or so I am told. I lost conciousness after two bikes clipped my head.
In the present, I knew it wouldn't be the same outcome. My body slumped over and I felt the fade come for me. I tried my best to smile, I wanted to go out like I lived most of my life.
But it hurt so much, I couldn't.
| 2016-08-24T20:24:43 | 2016-08-24T18:27:02 | 34 | 14 |
[WP] At age 15 you told the gf you were "in love" with that you'd always be there when she was in need. Aphrodite heard you and made it a reality, whenever your gf was in need you appear at her side. Problem is, you and the girl broke up after 3 weeks but you still appear even now..10 years later
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The sounds and smells of New York assaulted John's senses. After being gone from the city for 10 years, he still love/hated the smell of New York City in the summer. It was dark on the street. Darker than a street should seem. Looking up he noticed the lights had been busted out on the light pole.
He heard a soft *John* behind him and he turned. She had gotten her hair cut. He couldn't tell the color but it looked like she'd gone back to being a brunette. He always did have a thing for brunettes.
He smiled. "Hey. Fancy meeting you here."
She surged forward and hugged him fiercely. She had grown taller than him years ago, but he couldn't begrudge her that. Even as a kid she'd been all legs. She was slim again.
"I can't believe your here!" She cried with tears in her voice.
"Yeah I'm here. How longs it been?"
"Almost four years now. Johnny is about to turn four in a few weeks."
"Wow. He's getting big. I can hug you now with no baby bump."
She laughed remembering the last time he'd come to her. She'd gone into labor unexpectedly and was alone without her cell phone nearby. Their reunion, however, was cut short by a shout from the end of the block.
"Ay lady! That kid botherin' ya?"
"No." She shouted back. "He's with me!"
"A'ight. I noticed those bums trynna follow ya but I sen em off." Said a gruff Italian walking towards the pair.
"Oh goodness. Thank you so much. I thought I had shaken them off and then when I realized I hadn't I was just all turned around." She responded, her hand on her chest. *ah* thought John. *That's why I'm here*
"Yeah, fageddaboudit. Look, yous gotta be careful in the Bronx. You can't be out here at night with just a kid keeping you company, ya know what I'm sayin. Those bums tried telling me some stuff but I told em to tell their story walkin."
John stuck out his hand. "Hey man, thanks a lot for that. I didn't realize she'd attracted some unwanted attention. I'm gonna get her home safe now."
The Italian shook his hand back and said, "Yeah, you do dat son. Go on up to White Plains Road. See if you can catch a cab. Don't be taking ya moms on no subways round here, ya hear? Yous guys get home safe, a'ight."
"Will do, sir." John responded with a respectful nod.
The pair turned and walked up the road towards the tell tale screeching of a subway car stopping towards where the man had pointed.
They walked in silence for a moment.
"I'm not sure how I feel about being mistaken for your mother now."
They shared a good laugh before lapsing into silence. As they neared the busy, populated street they both slowed. For a few moments they just watched the people passing. John loved how alive the scene in front of them was.
"Even with as much as it's changed, it's still the same."
She smiled wistfully, watching his face. Her eyes seemed intent on taking in every facial expression of his. He meet her gaze with that youthful grin she'd fallen in love with as a kid.
He noticed the lines on her face. No doubt some put there by his namesake. Some by grief she'd experienced. And the rest by time. Time that he'd lost.
"It's good to see you again." she whispered.
He grinned even wider. "It's good to be seen!"
He didn't want to see the tears in her eyes that he knew were inevitable. She should always be smiling. She was safe now and he could feel himself fading again.
"You tell your boy I said hey. Take care of yourself... Mom."
She huffed through her tears and stared as her once childhood love faded from sight with that eternal boyish grin. Even though he'd been gone for 10 years, the grief was always fresh. But it was accompanied by the comfort that her guardian angel was still watching over her.
Edit: Spelling. Did this on my phone.
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Theme Music: to U by Jack U
The phone clicked dead; Amy’s final words echoed in Sebastian’s mind like the ripples from a water drop. She had every right to want to end things – his disappearances, while random were a constant sore spot between them. What was he up to? Why couldn’t he talk about it? And why did it always happen when his ex was having trouble in her relationship? It drove Sebastian to frustration each time. Even now, he struggled to maintain his composure. Why the fuck did it have to happen to him?
It was a fucking curse. It had to be. When Sebastian was 15, he had promised his then girlfriend Lucy that he would always be there for her if she needed him which she reciprocated. It was a stupid promise, but then it felt right. They were young and in love in the only way that young lovers could be, promising each other the world. But it didn’t last, it never could at that age. But somehow, someone had heard them and noted.
The first time it happened was when he was 21. They had both long since moved on, Sebastian to a string of casual lovers and Lucy to her first serious boyfriend. They had apparently been dating for two years when Lucy was contacted by a stranger. Apparently her boyfriend had broken up with her out of the blue via text, leaving Lucy heartbroken. He had been cooking dinner at the time when there was a flash and suddenly he was standing before Lucy who was laying on her bed crying. He had held her hand all night then slipped out in the morning when she finally feel asleep and walked two hours to get back home.
He thought it was weird but considered it a one off, some bizarre phenomenon. But it happened again, almost two years later, this time to him. He had been going through a rough time, getting strung alone by a girl who he thought felt the same about him. When he finally worked up the nerve to confront her about it she laughed him off then disappeared the next day. After half a bottle of scotch he finally broke down, tears erupting from eyes like a fountain. Yet before they had managed to reach his chin she was there, bringing him into her arms and whispering sympathy in his ear. She was gone by morning too, a ghost from a past he wasn’t sure he wanted to be a part of. From there it went downhill, the occurrences happening more and more frequently, appearing in front of the other during moments of sadness or need.
It took a toll on the both of them, each time a highly charged emotional moment where the other was a sudden intruder. Almost a year ago Lucy had enough. She started screaming when he appeared; that her grief was her own and not for him, and if he could just please leave her alone. He had left the house in a black cloud; it wasn’t his choice, he didn’t want this, this burden. He had heard later that she had moved across the States to LA, as if somehow the distance could prevent the occurrences from happening.
And for a while he thought it did. He met Amy and felt the pull that finally, he had met someone he could love. The visitations to Lucy no longer happened and he let his guard down. For almost three years, he felt like he was free. But little over a month ago, it started happening again. One moment he was jogging with his dog then flash and he’s suddenly standing in front of Lucy in the middle of what looked like her living room. She was teary-eyed and upon meeting his eyes only shook her head and looked out the window. Wrapping her arms around herself, she said she was ok. She was married now, and just had an argument with her husband so if Sebastian could please leave before he got back. He practically ran out of the house, catching a taxi to the nearest airport. He managed to get back home two days later. Amy was frantic, but he pleaded a work emergency and she let it go.
But the curse couldn’t, wouldn’t let go. Within the next two months he was back there at least once every two weeks. Each time it was the same but as time went on, he started to notice differences. She would be more wary, her eyes more pained each time. Then the bruises started appearing; minor ones at first but when one appeared on the left side of her face he knew. He pleaded with her, begged her to get some help. When he finally left it seemed like she might actually do it.
But when Sebastian got home, he found Amy waiting in his apartment. She demanded to know where he had been – they were supposed to have dinner together. She called him at work and when they didn’t know where he was she called him on his phone at least a dozen times. He tried his best to calm her down but she was hysterical. Was he cheating on her? Was he unhappy? A lump appeared in Sebastian’s throat; he fought to hold back tears. How could he explain what was happening to him? He showed her the ticket, explained Lucy’s situation – how her husband was beating her, how he had been flying up there to try to get her to leave him. He had totally forgot to call but no he wasn’t still interested in her, they were just kids when they dated. She didn’t totally believe him, but she could feel his sincerity. When her tone changed, all he could feel was relief. Relief and gratitude. His promise was out of his lips before the question had even formed in hers.
And that night, he prayed to whatever god was out there, that this was the final time.
Sebastian was in the bathroom when it happened; he had gone for two weeks without incident and Amy was finally starting to forgive him. It made him ecstatic that she was starting to trust him again and he felt like celebrating. Dinner had gone well and he was washing his hands when white light suddenly blinded him. He found himself outside of Lucy’s house facing a slightly ajar front door. He panicked right away; he had taken to leaving his phone in plain view to show he wasn’t hiding anything. Now it sat on the table, along with Amy waiting for him to return from the bathroom. A wave of despair hit him and he bleakly wondered how he was going to explain this to Amy. When he glanced at Lucy’s front door wondering why he would appear on the street, he noticed the door frame was cracked.
He came through the broken front door in a stiff walk and found Lucy on her knees in the living room, a handful of her hair in his husband’s fist. The husband was shouting at her, his voice raised in fury along with his other hand. Sebastian didn’t even hear what he was saying as the last three months coalesced into that moment. All the frustration and anger flooded his mind like a tidal wave and snapped his willpower like a twig. Sebastian grabbed the husband by his raised arm and spun him around. Looking surprised, Sebastian obliged him by knocking him clean over with a punch to the face. Releasing Lucy’s hair the husband when down, blood pouring from his nose. What happened next was a blur – he remembered watching himself like he was a stranger standing in the room. He climbed on top of the husband and began raining blows down on him, screaming why could the husband just leave Lucy alone, why could he keep his fists to himself, and why did he fucking have to always drag Sebastian into this.
At this point, Lucy hauled him off, Sebastian still spitting curses and profanities at the barely conscious figure on the ground. Lucy dragged him outside and calmed him down. Yes, she was ok; yes she would call the police.
A cab ride later and the rage was gone. It was midnight at the airport and he tried for the tenth time to call Amy’s cellphone from a payphone in the waiting area. When she finally picked up, he almost broke down. He started stammering, simultaneously thanking, pleading and begging but she silenced him with a single word. She spoke calmly but it was obvious that she had been crying. It was over.
When she hung up, the tears he had been struggling to hold back finally came to life. Turning around, he found Lucy, her face slightly swollen with tears and bruises as he knew she would be. She looked tired and scared, but she took one look at his face and without a word stepped forward and embraced him. Tears started streaming down his cheek as he hugged her back. At least this was something that they both knew would never change.
| 2017-03-22T17:37:31 | 2017-03-22T17:17:28 | 37 | 14 |
[WP] At age 15 you told the gf you were "in love" with that you'd always be there when she was in need. Aphrodite heard you and made it a reality, whenever your gf was in need you appear at her side. Problem is, you and the girl broke up after 3 weeks but you still appear even now..10 years later
|
The sounds and smells of New York assaulted John's senses. After being gone from the city for 10 years, he still love/hated the smell of New York City in the summer. It was dark on the street. Darker than a street should seem. Looking up he noticed the lights had been busted out on the light pole.
He heard a soft *John* behind him and he turned. She had gotten her hair cut. He couldn't tell the color but it looked like she'd gone back to being a brunette. He always did have a thing for brunettes.
He smiled. "Hey. Fancy meeting you here."
She surged forward and hugged him fiercely. She had grown taller than him years ago, but he couldn't begrudge her that. Even as a kid she'd been all legs. She was slim again.
"I can't believe your here!" She cried with tears in her voice.
"Yeah I'm here. How longs it been?"
"Almost four years now. Johnny is about to turn four in a few weeks."
"Wow. He's getting big. I can hug you now with no baby bump."
She laughed remembering the last time he'd come to her. She'd gone into labor unexpectedly and was alone without her cell phone nearby. Their reunion, however, was cut short by a shout from the end of the block.
"Ay lady! That kid botherin' ya?"
"No." She shouted back. "He's with me!"
"A'ight. I noticed those bums trynna follow ya but I sen em off." Said a gruff Italian walking towards the pair.
"Oh goodness. Thank you so much. I thought I had shaken them off and then when I realized I hadn't I was just all turned around." She responded, her hand on her chest. *ah* thought John. *That's why I'm here*
"Yeah, fageddaboudit. Look, yous gotta be careful in the Bronx. You can't be out here at night with just a kid keeping you company, ya know what I'm sayin. Those bums tried telling me some stuff but I told em to tell their story walkin."
John stuck out his hand. "Hey man, thanks a lot for that. I didn't realize she'd attracted some unwanted attention. I'm gonna get her home safe now."
The Italian shook his hand back and said, "Yeah, you do dat son. Go on up to White Plains Road. See if you can catch a cab. Don't be taking ya moms on no subways round here, ya hear? Yous guys get home safe, a'ight."
"Will do, sir." John responded with a respectful nod.
The pair turned and walked up the road towards the tell tale screeching of a subway car stopping towards where the man had pointed.
They walked in silence for a moment.
"I'm not sure how I feel about being mistaken for your mother now."
They shared a good laugh before lapsing into silence. As they neared the busy, populated street they both slowed. For a few moments they just watched the people passing. John loved how alive the scene in front of them was.
"Even with as much as it's changed, it's still the same."
She smiled wistfully, watching his face. Her eyes seemed intent on taking in every facial expression of his. He meet her gaze with that youthful grin she'd fallen in love with as a kid.
He noticed the lines on her face. No doubt some put there by his namesake. Some by grief she'd experienced. And the rest by time. Time that he'd lost.
"It's good to see you again." she whispered.
He grinned even wider. "It's good to be seen!"
He didn't want to see the tears in her eyes that he knew were inevitable. She should always be smiling. She was safe now and he could feel himself fading again.
"You tell your boy I said hey. Take care of yourself... Mom."
She huffed through her tears and stared as her once childhood love faded from sight with that eternal boyish grin. Even though he'd been gone for 10 years, the grief was always fresh. But it was accompanied by the comfort that her guardian angel was still watching over her.
Edit: Spelling. Did this on my phone.
|
There were coke packets on shelves. I'd materialized again. The coke warehouse was filled with Colombian guards. The warehouse was in a rain forest, and the sound of tropical insects was deafening.
I saw Anna, and wondered how the hell she got here. She was trapped right at the back of the warehouse, and was about to be discovered. She had golden hair, and freckled skin. She had been in the sun, and the sun damage didn't take from her beauty. I scuttled past a head-high pallet of coke, and arrived at the side of Anna.
"I'm in danger again, aren't I?" I said. "How on Earth did you get here?"
"We need to get out of here," she said, "then I will explain."
"I say we bonk one of those guards," I said, "and steal his machine gun."
She agreed with my plan, because I was very good at materializing escapes after all the practice I had been given over the years. In fact, it was almost like I was incredibly lucky... like some guardian angel was watching over Anna and I. I felt a surge of adrenaline, and bonked a guard's head with my clenched fist.
It made hardly any noise as he dropped to the floor. I extricated the guard's gun from his heavy, limp form, pulling and straining to get the arm strap from his armpit.
Over the years of these dangerous situations, I'd learned what had happened to make me arrive at Anna's side when she was in danger. I made a promise to her when I was fifteen, but I never knew Anna would be such a thrill-seeker and adventurer.
I knelt down trying to calm my breathing after the excitement of appropriating the gun. I closed my eyes and faded back to Anna's room when I was 15 years old, and she was 16, because of being held back in Mrs. Marion's grade 3. We sat there, on the floor in a room full of feminine, pink ballet stuff and gemstones, and stopped tongue kissing.
I remember it well. I was disappointed when she disentangled herself from our embrace. She went to a bookshelf. She took a textbook on magic down. I just wanted to kiss; I didn't want to read, and do magic.
"I was suggesting," said Anna, "we do a spell to prove we are serious."
"Aw gee, Anna," I said, "couldn't we just have faith about each other."
However, she was quickly leading me outdoors. She took me to the path outside her house. She had a backpack. From it, she took chalk, candles, stones.
"Blimey, what are you doing?" I asked.
She was silent, and drew a little circle on the concrete path.
"OK," she said, "sit down in this circle. We are going to caste a spell."
She caste a spell. She read the magic textbook, which had amazing old-time, colorful language a bit like the Bible. What I gathered from it was she was telling Aphrodite that I would appear whenever she was in trouble.
She then handed the text book to me, and said if I agree read the little paragraph at the bottom of the page.
I read, "I promiseth, by Aphrodite's power, by the sun, sky and wind's four directions, on this day proceeding the half moon, to be at Anna's side whenever she beeth in turmoil, until I find the valuable black-ocean stone to cancel the spell."
I read the words, and then, unsettling me, there was a solar eclipse. I was a little disconcerted about the solar eclipse, but I remembered the night before, on the news, they had spoken of it. I looked at Anna. She was a small sex dynamo those days, with porcelain face framed by exquisite, golden-blonde hair.
I looked up at her as we hid behind the pallets of coke. I remembered the time we did the ritual not so fondly. I formulated a route out of the warehouse.
"Hey Anna," I said, "I plan to make a run for it covering us from fire with the spray of bullets from this here machine gun. Run straight behind me, Anna. Let's hope we make it."
"I'll explain why I'm here," said Anna, "when, I mean if, we get out of here."
I started the machine gun spray, and run with all my speed towards the exit. I killed two soldiers having smoko. I ran quickly. As I ran, I let the spray of machine gun fire spray towards the guards, hoping the element of surprise would work. If I scared them enough, they might be bamboozled enough to not even return fire.
I kept the deafening roar of the machine gun up, as we ran. I looked back seeing if Anna was on my tail. She wasn't. She'd disappeared. I thought on my feet. Should I go back for her, or should I keep going? I thought of how I wouldn't make it if I ran back, and dying wasn't going to save anyone, so I kept going. I just hope she's alright.
I ran out of the large warehouse door. The guards left a spray of bullets, as I ran into the rain forest, but I made it. I found a little brook, and waited there, while I tried to figure out what to do about Anna still being in there. I was sitting there, almost having caught my breath, when Anna appeared. Infuriatingly, she smiled. Then, she pulled a kilo packet of coke from behind her back.
"What the fuck?" I said angrily.
"Don't worry, I'll explain," she said.
We started trekking through the forest, knowing the guards might send out a search party. I saw Anna carrying the coke.
"Give me that," I said.
She gave it to me, and I put in in my cargo pockets.
"What the hell were you thinking?" I said. "You always do stuff like this. I can't live with risking my life, every time you decide to go thrill seeking."
"This is the last time," she said.
I severely doubted it. Unless we broke Aphrodite's spell, she'd get in danger again. You see, we broke up the day after we made to spell out on the footpath near Anna's house. I'd told her I wanted to concentrate more on my indoor cricket team, and she didn't take it well. The next day she had a big, muscly boyfriend twice as good looking as me.
"What are you going to do? Break the spell?" I snickered.
"Yes," she exclaimed.
I looked at her. I was dumbstruck.
"You see," she said, sitting on a rock to talk. "I broke into that coke warehouse to acquire this bag of coke. Do you remember the wording of that spell?"
"No, not exactly," I said.
"The wording of the spell said if we could acquire a black-ocean stone, we could do a new spell to counter the spell that makes you appear when I'm in danger, which is often because I seek thrill, and am a adventurer."
"Go on," I said, realizing this might actually work.
"I Googled black-ocean stones," she said, laying back on the rock, "and they are darn expensive... about $20 000."
"Aw damn," I said, disappointed.
"No wait," she smiled. "This is a kilo of coke," she said, raising the white bag, "Do you know how much this is worth?"
"Lots," I said.
"It's got a street value of, exactly that, $20 000."
I looked at her thankfully. She planned to free me from the magic spell. We got into Rio, and bought a black-ocean rock from a jeweler. We did quick spell, with chalk and candles, much like the first, and there was a solar eclipse.
"I'm sorry we didn't work out," I said.
"Don't be sorry," Anna smiled, "We were young. Nothing holds a teenager's attention for long."
"How'd that indoor cricket go?"
"I still play," I said. "But now girlfriends take precedent."
"Bye," she said.
"Bye," I said.
This time I knew it was goodbye for good. I felt sad, as I faded away back from Brazil to home. Just as I had faded from home to the Brazilian warehouse for the last time.
THE END.
| 2017-03-22T17:37:31 | 2017-03-22T16:16:19 | 37 | 13 |
[WP] If, when you die, you don't get into heaven, there is an option to try again, and get in the next time. There is a man who has been trying for millennia; he has been Ghengis Khan, Hitler, and many other brutal leaders. That man is you, and this time, you're determined to get it right.
|
I sat at my desk, lazily gazing at the television. Listening to the screaming of innocent civilians. Can't really sympathise with them, I'd become too desensitised to these sorts of things. But, as the second one began to fall over, I realised that I should probably do something. So I turned to the only man who knew what sort of situation I was in. "Lord, what should I do right now?" I asked. He replied "Ghengis, I can't tell you how to get into heaven. You're just going to have to do what you think is best, and continue getting it wrong until you get it right.". I quickly looked back at the television, both buildings had completely crumbled. It was right then when I realised what I had to do. "Assistant!" I yelled. "Yes, Mr. President." He said in a somber voice. "We're going to start a war. A war on terror!".
|
"Patience. Restraint."
This man looks at me from under his glasses. I see the slight nodding of his head. He thinks he understands me. What I need, what I want. How he can fix me.
"So those are the qualities you feel you can improve on?" he asks me. The tone of his voice is condescending, egregiously self-secure. He knows so little. Every time it is the same. Some stuck up academist, drawing their conclusions before they've even heard me speak. Because what sane persons goes to a psychiatrist, right? This exercise bores me.
"Right". I control my voice, I need to. I would sound aggressive, instigative, but I can't. It's all about the outside, the perception. And as long as I entertain this hack he won't notice the brewing deep inside. The one I need to contain.
"That's good". He nods again. "Self-reflection and a desire for self-improvement are the keystones of improving your quality of life. Many people don't get there". He rambles on but I phase out. His entire demeanor, his entire existence is petty, and thinking about his irrelevancy...I feel the pressure building from within.
It always starts like that. I feel the nerves being pushed into my skin, as if the insides of my body expand and my skin is just a hull to contain it all. The beat of my heart becomes louder, it's like I can feel my eardrums vibrate along with the increasing volume. It silences everything else.
So I breathe. I've been doing fine for 20 years now. Under the radar. To say my sheet is clean is an overstatement. I don't regret any of it, it had to be done. But so far I'm just a man with some issues, nothing serious. And that's all I need. Just be...*normal*...until the end. And then finally I will arrive where I belong.
"Are you still with me?" His trained, supposedly calming voice disturbs my train of thought. "I..." I mumble, but I feel the pressure again. I close my eyes. It's as if a fist of pure rage punches the inside of my head, trying to break out of its containment. But I try to push it back, inside the prison I've built. If you can't see it, it's not there. That's all I need.
I exhale through my nose, and try to fix the rhythm of my breathing. My nostrils flare, and as I rub my temples with my fingertips I open my eyes again. "Yes. I was..." I don't need to explain myself. But then I remember. This is what it depends on. That people don't know.
"I...chased a thought. Could you repeat the last sentences?" I still won't say sorry. I owe this man nothing. I'm being tested, and I will pass.
"Of course."
---
I smile. I can't feel anything other than happiness as I feel the tension leave the room. The slowly building pressure in my head is gone. It will be calm for a few weeks. The thought of the ease, the peaceful silence. I audibly laugh. "Are you concealing something from me?" That stern look. Ridiculous.
One man practices. Every man's dream. All I needed was some cleaning product, some acid, a functioning drain, and the *patience*. For some tasks I had all the patience I needed. It was just the things beneath me that I would not grant my attention to.
The room was tidy again. I grab my coat from the coat rack and inspect the room one more time. His notepad is still on the floor. I pick it up and browse through it. Expectedly, it's filled with typical mumbo-jumbo that seemed to try and pass for technical medical terms. I arrive at the last page.
"Containment. Signs of narcissistic behavior. Personality disorder (?)"
Amusing. But still, the fact that he thought he had the authority to write this down...I feel something twitch in my head. As if someone is gently pressing the insides of my head. I try and laugh, but the feeling won't subside.
The last sentence draws my attention. "Crumbling of the mind".
An animalistic roar escapes my body. *Who*...*who* dares...
A few minutes later I come to consciousness again. I'm sitting on *his* chair, the piece of paper fumbled up in my closed fist. It's all good now. I put on my coat, inhale deeply, and exhale as I close the door behind me. As I walk home I smile to a stranger, another meaningless passenger in this pretentious existence. As I try to ignore the pressure building, the pressure that is building too soon, all I can think is: *stay calm to succeed. You know what you're doing this for.* I start to whistle.
It's all about appearances.
| 2017-03-31T14:19:18 | 2017-03-31T05:57:51 | 45 | 14 |
[WP] If, when you die, you don't get into heaven, there is an option to try again, and get in the next time. There is a man who has been trying for millennia; he has been Ghengis Khan, Hitler, and many other brutal leaders. That man is you, and this time, you're determined to get it right.
|
God, I'm tired. It feels like this shift just never ends.
One of the puppies stirred from sleep. I picked up the clipboard containing its sleep log. Another effort in futility, as the pup decided naptime wasn't quite over yet. With a sigh, I put down the clipboard. No surprise this little half-breed ball of mongrel fur would have to be laz- no. Not this time. *Focus*. This time will be different. Non-threatening. Not even a sweet bit of- Zen. Breathe in... breathe out. That's it.
The pup woke up again, and shrugged itself out from under its fluffy blanket. As it waddled over to examine my left shoe, I grabbed the log again and started a new entry. With a snap, the tip of the pencil broke as I felt something warm and wet spreading down into my sock...
|
"Patience. Restraint."
This man looks at me from under his glasses. I see the slight nodding of his head. He thinks he understands me. What I need, what I want. How he can fix me.
"So those are the qualities you feel you can improve on?" he asks me. The tone of his voice is condescending, egregiously self-secure. He knows so little. Every time it is the same. Some stuck up academist, drawing their conclusions before they've even heard me speak. Because what sane persons goes to a psychiatrist, right? This exercise bores me.
"Right". I control my voice, I need to. I would sound aggressive, instigative, but I can't. It's all about the outside, the perception. And as long as I entertain this hack he won't notice the brewing deep inside. The one I need to contain.
"That's good". He nods again. "Self-reflection and a desire for self-improvement are the keystones of improving your quality of life. Many people don't get there". He rambles on but I phase out. His entire demeanor, his entire existence is petty, and thinking about his irrelevancy...I feel the pressure building from within.
It always starts like that. I feel the nerves being pushed into my skin, as if the insides of my body expand and my skin is just a hull to contain it all. The beat of my heart becomes louder, it's like I can feel my eardrums vibrate along with the increasing volume. It silences everything else.
So I breathe. I've been doing fine for 20 years now. Under the radar. To say my sheet is clean is an overstatement. I don't regret any of it, it had to be done. But so far I'm just a man with some issues, nothing serious. And that's all I need. Just be...*normal*...until the end. And then finally I will arrive where I belong.
"Are you still with me?" His trained, supposedly calming voice disturbs my train of thought. "I..." I mumble, but I feel the pressure again. I close my eyes. It's as if a fist of pure rage punches the inside of my head, trying to break out of its containment. But I try to push it back, inside the prison I've built. If you can't see it, it's not there. That's all I need.
I exhale through my nose, and try to fix the rhythm of my breathing. My nostrils flare, and as I rub my temples with my fingertips I open my eyes again. "Yes. I was..." I don't need to explain myself. But then I remember. This is what it depends on. That people don't know.
"I...chased a thought. Could you repeat the last sentences?" I still won't say sorry. I owe this man nothing. I'm being tested, and I will pass.
"Of course."
---
I smile. I can't feel anything other than happiness as I feel the tension leave the room. The slowly building pressure in my head is gone. It will be calm for a few weeks. The thought of the ease, the peaceful silence. I audibly laugh. "Are you concealing something from me?" That stern look. Ridiculous.
One man practices. Every man's dream. All I needed was some cleaning product, some acid, a functioning drain, and the *patience*. For some tasks I had all the patience I needed. It was just the things beneath me that I would not grant my attention to.
The room was tidy again. I grab my coat from the coat rack and inspect the room one more time. His notepad is still on the floor. I pick it up and browse through it. Expectedly, it's filled with typical mumbo-jumbo that seemed to try and pass for technical medical terms. I arrive at the last page.
"Containment. Signs of narcissistic behavior. Personality disorder (?)"
Amusing. But still, the fact that he thought he had the authority to write this down...I feel something twitch in my head. As if someone is gently pressing the insides of my head. I try and laugh, but the feeling won't subside.
The last sentence draws my attention. "Crumbling of the mind".
An animalistic roar escapes my body. *Who*...*who* dares...
A few minutes later I come to consciousness again. I'm sitting on *his* chair, the piece of paper fumbled up in my closed fist. It's all good now. I put on my coat, inhale deeply, and exhale as I close the door behind me. As I walk home I smile to a stranger, another meaningless passenger in this pretentious existence. As I try to ignore the pressure building, the pressure that is building too soon, all I can think is: *stay calm to succeed. You know what you're doing this for.* I start to whistle.
It's all about appearances.
| 2017-03-31T15:56:19 | 2017-03-31T05:57:51 | 21 | 14 |
[WP] In the Order of the Magi, military ranks are gained and lost in duels. Being a Battlemaster, Damien is challenged hundreds of times a day by ambitious young recruits. He decides today to accept one challenge at random and show the recruits what a Battlemaster can do.
Order of Magi is totally not a name I chose just to make the acronym OOM... I played too much WoW back in high school.
Anyway, have at it!
|
My door was plastered in notes of challenge. The wood had been covered in a coat of hastily scrawled letters as thick as the door itself. As soon as I touched the handle of the door, dozens of taunts and wagers tumbled off of the pile and fluttered down to the ground.
The first few inches of my office had a welcome mat made of challenges that had been shoved under the crack of the door. I waved a hand at them, and arcane energy crackled through my fingers to create a gust of wind.
I weaved my magic between and below the papers, picking them off of the ground and holding them still in the air. After half a breath I snapped my fingers, and every-one of the hundred challenges zoomed toward the trash in the corner.
The rank of a mage was based on a score. You needed to prove that you could beat a powerful mage in high combat to improve your rank. If you won against someone who was much higher than you, you could climb through years of training in a matter of seconds, if you beat someone lower than you, well, nobody really cared.
The southern mages called our practices barbaric; they told us that a combat based system didn't belong in a time of peace and that our battlemasters would fail us if the countries ever went to war. It was the age-old argument of magic, was it better to keep your nose in books or singed with your newest attempt at a spell?
Of course, the system our Academy used meant I was valuable. A recruit beating me would bring him all the way to the rank of Archmage, and for a good reason, in the 124 years that we'd been using this system, I'd never been defeated.
Over the last two years, I'd stopped taking challenges. As much as I enjoyed wiping the snot off of a cocky face, I had important work to do and every hour wasted on blind ambition was an hour that could have been spent doing ANYTHING else. For that reason, the pages ended up in the trash, and I spent my days taking the challenges off of my door with a paint scraper.
There was a knock on my door, muted by the dozens of papers over the wood. With a wave of my hand and a quiet word the door opened and my assistant poked her head in, her hood still much too large for her.
"Sir?" she asked.
"Yes?"
"The Southern Mages are interested in a visit. They claimed over glass that they could be here within an hour."
I huffed, really? The only issue I'd found with not taking challenges was that diplomacy was starting to eat more and more into my day. I didn't have time to discuss magical theory. I needed to be casting spells instead of pulling at the wording of basic levitation to try to make the spell a slight bit stronger.
Of course, I couldn't deny their visit, I didn't have a good reason to put them off, and you could only ignore them so many times before even Southern Mages got bored. I took a deep breath and ran my hand through my graying hair. "I have to?" I asked.
"It's the third time they've called me this week," my assistant answered.
"And it's-"
"Tuesday sir," my assistant answered. She'd gotten good at predicting our conversations without magic as the years had gone on.
"Fine, fine," I groaned and shoved my current project off of my desk, "if they're going to call once a day I'll meet with them. Now I'm going to be stuck working all day."
"Sorry," my assistant managed a weak smile under her hood.
"It's fine Lisa," I relented, "just go." There had to be something, anything I could do today that was more interesting than... this.
|
Damien peered out his office window at the mob of students plotting to kill him. His raven Tur cawed loudly at him.
"Of course I'm going to go out there," Damien answered. "We go through this every semester."
Tur hopped down from her perch, landing with a rustle of feathers on his desk. She flared her wings at him and squawked again.
Damien shook his head at his companion. "Look at them down there. They're just kids, little Scribs looking to make names for themselves. There's no danger. And this is critical to their education."
Tur apparently found his answer unsatisfactory, as she nipped nipped his closest finger then flew back to her perch. Pointedly, she turned her back on him.
Damien almost gave a word of protest, but thought better of it. Probably just annoyed he'd run out of grub worms yesterday. Or that he hadn't given her a good excuse to go on a long fly lately. Whatever it was, he could make it up to her later. There were young minds to be molded.
Taking care not to reveal any trace of the excitement he felt, Damien climbed down the stairs from his office. He paused for a moment at the front entrance. The students could see a rough outline of his form through the glazed glass set in the massive oaken doors, but Damien waited, letting their suspense build. Then he pulled one of them open, making sure that door gave an ominous sounding groan as he did so.
He was met by a cacophony of voices.
"Battlemaster Damien O'Keefe I..."
"...under the ways of our Order you are hereby..."
"...duel as sanctioned..."
Damien raised his hands, silencing the assembled crowd.
"I know why you are all here," he said finally. "Assemble into two rows, properly spacing yourselves an arms' length apart from one another."
He made sure not to let a smile appear on his face as the Scribs all scurried about trying to follow his instruction. It was important that they not take this lightly.
At last, they had formed ranks as he had instructed, or at least, as well as they could. They had taken his direction about arms' length too literally, meaning the tallest boys and girls there had enormous gaps around them, while the smallest were just a couple of feet from their neighbor.
Damien strode confidently between them. "My name, as you know, is Damien O'Keefe. I have served in the King's Army for the last 27 years, achieving the rank of Battlemaster. I fought in the Great War, but have spent the last 8 years as Headmaster of the Academy." He paused, and pointed to a lanky Scrib wearing hand-me-down robes. "What is the minimum number of duels I have fought in?"
The boy stammered a moment. "Um... 29, sir?"
Damien gave him a curt nod. "That is correct." He turned to another nervous looking Scrib. "And what's the rumor on how many I've actually participated in?"
"Thousands, sir."
Damien frowned. "One hundred and seven. Does anyone here think I have ever lost?"
Several heads shook.
"Raise your hand if you still wish to duel."
About half the hands went up.
"The rest of you step out of ranks, but do not leave. You are to observe what happens next."
Damien paced through the remaining Scribs as the rest moved to the outskirts. A few that remained in line dropped their hands.
"You lot," he said, pointing to the ones that had lowered their hands. "Join the others who will be observing."
He continued walking, taking note of which ones were beginning to waver as they struggled to keep an arm in the air. At last, he stopped in front of a short, brown haired girl. She looked to be the youngest of the group, but her face was set in a grim determination.
"What's your name?" Damien asked.
"Darnie Brooks, sir."
"And why are you here, Darnie?"
She lowered her arm, and looked him straight in the eye. "Battlemaster Damien O'Keefe, I hereby challenge you, under the rules of our Order and as sanctioned by the Writ of 1183, to a duel for pride, honor, and position, to be fought until death or plea of mercy."
Damien straightened. "Perfect," he said softly, hoping he managed to keep the surprise out of his voice. "Did the rest of you hear that? That is the correct manner to challenge a Magi to a duel."
He could see the other Scribs were surprised, too. This girl looked like a stiff breeze could knock her over, but she had recited the challenge flawlessly, matching the timber and tone of some of the more threatening duels Damien had received in his years.
"Very well, Darnie, I accept your challenge. Foolish though it may be."
The other Scribs hurried to the sidelines. Grins worked across their faces, no doubt eager to see what a Battlemaster could do to an upstart girl like her.
Damien walked to a spot some ten feet away from her.
"You may begin. And be sure to call 'Mercy' when you've had enough," Damien said.
Her face contorted into hot look of anger. She quickly thrust out an arm and flicked her wrist, sending a red beam of light shooting at Damien.
He waved a hand at it casually to redirect it. Too casually, as it turned out. The red laser stayed on course. Damien tried to move out of the way, but his arm was singed as it jetted by him. How could that be, he wondered. She was just a Scrib, but her magic was fierce and determined.
"Impressive," he called, trying to sound casual.
Damien called the wind to blow her over. The other Scribs bent down, trying to stay up right in the ferocious gale that suddenly swept along the front of the building. But the girl remained upright. Faintly, he could see a blue bubble surrounding her, keeping Darnie safe from his attack.
She fired another fire bolt at him, but Damien was prepared this time and deflected it easily. She hurled several more in quick succession. Too carelessly. Damien reflected one back toward her. It hit squarely on her chest, knocking her off her feet and burning a hole in her robes.
Before he had a chance to say anything, though, the girl was back on her feet, hurling more spells at him. Damien kept them at bay with one hand, then use another to lift her high in the sky. Upward she flew, still firing off magic. Ten feet. Twenty. Forty. Fifty. One hundred.
"Call mercy," Damien shouted to her. "Or I'll have to drop you."
"Never," she shouted back.
Damien could see her pooling her magic into a large ball of energy. Too big. Reckless. If she fired it, she could blow up the building, or kill several of the other students. He didn't have much choice.
He dropped her.
Darnie went tumbling to the ground, her concentration lost. He could see her flailing, trying to cast a spell to save herself, but the fear of falling was overwhelming. At the last second, he cushioned her fall slightly, so as not to kill her. She hit the ground with a dull thud.
The other Scribs quickly formed a crowd around her. Damien shoved his way through. She was a crumpled mess, with several broken bones, but still alive.
"Why didn't you call mercy?" he asked as he began casting spells to heal her.
"Because you killed my father," she answered weakly.
*****
[/r/Pubby88](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pubby88)
| 2017-09-05T11:45:40 | 2017-09-05T11:39:45 | 218 | 32 |
[WP] Everyone hates Stan. However, you are the new guy and no one will tell you why they hate Stan. You decide to talk to Stan. Its been 3 months and now you're telling the new guy why everyone hates Stan.
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I hate Stan for 1 reason. The first month I tried getting to know him. I wondered what the harm could be. Sam is a unique kind of guy, not because of his appearance, but for the fact he loved wolves. A lot. He had wolf bed sheets, wolf pictures, and those cheap wolf t-shirt’s you’d find at a craft fair at that one booth also selling fantasy knives. So far, so good I suppose, but then it got weird. I walked into his room one day and saw him rapidly typing on his laptop. I walked over and peered over his shoulder. Apparently he was writing a story about how a teenager turned into a wolf and started stalking his neighbors. It was pretty detailed, so many throats being ripped apart, limbs slashed with razor sharp claws, so much warm blood, and the smell of death. Oddly specific, if you ask me. It started making me nervous that he was obsessed so heavily with wolves. Then it happened.
He told me in confidence that he had to avoid the full moon or he would turn into a wolf. So in doubt, I asked him to prove it. We drove to the park and got out of my civic. It was a gorgeous full moon, perfect for transforming. I glanced at Stan and could see him getting physically uncomfortable. As we walked to the middle of the field by the playset, I noticed noises coming from Stan. He was sweating profusely even for a cold April night. His eyes went wild and he started shaking violently. He was transforming. He said I needed to close my eyes, which I did. He warned me not to open them until I heard a howl. I did as he said. I heard the howl. I opened my eyes.
I saw a teenager named Stan running naked across the park in a full sprint, howling into the air. He does this every full moon and there’s some snapchats of it. He’s weird bro, but I know when the next full moon is. Go and see for yourself.
|
Being an Avenger (no, not that kind) gets boring sometimes. I’ve learned, the best way to have fun at a job where the only fun part is hunting to consume the most unworthy of souls on Earth, is to talk shit. I got good at that recently. But mainly because my other demonic friends in my department taught me.
Like, I didn’t always get to make many friends as a young angel. God never approved of me mixing with the lower angels because I would get distracted and never do my work. So, after he kicked me out of His Kingdom for fucking one of the demons in the level above me, I felt freed. It was so great. From the moment I joined Hell, I tried to have as much fun as possible. I made as many friends as I could to avoid loneliness. The first place I made friends was at my new workplace: the Avenger department.
Here, I made a lot of good memories, including bringing my first girlfriend here for lunch so she could meet my colleagues (they liked her, and she liked them, but Stan told me she wasn’t allowed to stay longer than an hour because she’s human. We all ignored him).
My department is the most fun out of all of Hell. We get to do what redeemable bad guys do in Earth movies. We get revenge on the real bad guys on Earth because the Angels are too moral and prissy to get their hands dirty for that. Basically, we’re the better version of Suicide Squad.
Stan is like a supervisor. Not really a boss, more like a taskmaster than anything else. He makes sure we’re doing our work and tells us to stop getting distracted if we stop our work for even a minute. You may be asking, what the actual fuck?
Allow me to explain. Half of our job is to brutally hunt down and destroy or consume the souls of the most despicable, heartless, and merciless pathetic worms that are biologically classified as humans. The other half is to do research on those souls prior to hunting and document the hunt and result after hunting. So if we weren’t constantly on the grind, Stan would tattle on us to the boss.
The big man was Joseph. Ironic, I know. Joseph never worried too much about constantly keeping us working. He was a good guy. Well, as good as a soul-sucking lifeless catalyst and servant of His Satanic Majesty Lucifer can be. He never got on our asses about working for eternity. That’s what we’d be doing anyways.
In fact, even Joseph hated Stan! I was shocked when I learned that. I couldn’t understand why everyone was so upset with Stan. When I first joined, I tried to model myself after the higher demon. He seemed like a hard worker and really smart. I always strived to achieve his level of diligence.
But no. Stan’s a jackass.
Let me show you why.
The first week was fine. I did good work. Hard work. I was awesome. Everyone loved me. Even Stan loved me! Things were going great. My maternal was proud of me, my paternal was in good health, all was well! (Preternatural beings like me don’t have parents except God, so in Hell, for our own sense of family and to relieve the workers of our eternal strain, His Satanic Majesty assigned us family units. Not wives and kids, which we choose. Just maternal and paternal figures.)
The second week in, Stan immediately began to get on my ass about the tiniest of details. He reviewed our reports to ensure all was well before he sent them off to Joseph, so he read my reports too. The moment he found even a minute error like a missing comma or a misspelled word, he would make a big deal out of it. He acted as if my incorrect subject-verb-agreement mistake had killed his maternal and tossed his existence into the Eternal Pit of Despair. He was so melodramatic.
This continued for two months. He never stopped. Since then, my work quality has always been impeccable. I don’t want to hear his whining, so I put my reports through to Sally from Demonic Literature in the next building over to check that my writing is good. She’s such a good help, and doesn’t dramatize a grammatical error like that absolute slime mold of a demon that we call Stan.
Recently, we got a new recruit. A young angel named Lucas joined the Frey. (If you got that reference, you rock. Christian Hell and Heaven talk to all other pantheons and Holy places. Frey is the best god ever. That man is fucking golden.)
Lucas joined us a few weeks ago. Kid’s a genius. Better than all of us and twice the hard worker. He, like me, couldn’t understand why everyone hated Stan. I told him my story in his second week before he experienced it. He’s been living the good life since I showed him the higher road. His maternal is so proud of him for having so many new friends already (he mixed in with the office real well). His paternal thinks Lucas is the smartest creature to have ever existed. The office thinks he’s an amazing employee.
As for me? I love the guy. Really, he’s my best friend, little brother, and son all rolled into one. He’s actually having dinner with me and my girlfriend tonight after she comes back from her visit to the Red House in the Capital.
(His Satanic Majesty is quite the comedian and fairly dramatic, so he calls his palace the Red House after the similar place in an Earthly country. It’s quite amusing. My girlfriend visited Him to get His blessing so she could stay with me after death rather than be forced to go to Heaven. She’s so cute.)
Anyways, my girlfriend thinks Lucas is the nicest demonic kid she’s ever met. She likes to think she’s his big sister or mother figure when he drops by for a meal at our house or for our regular event nights.
I can safely say that I have fair reason to hate Stan. Lucas has fair reason to hate Stan. But at least we can be happy even with that utter undignified troglodyte’s presence in our lives.
| 2019-03-13T21:38:57 | 2019-03-13T21:19:21 | 27 | 16 |
[WP] You are an evil overlord. You finally managed to capture your arch nemesis in your pit of despair, where (s)he will be held captive for thousands of years. After some years, your taunting becomes conversation, and, wow, he/she's a real likeable person.
|
"This is the last light you will ever see," I say, smiling.
The hero, my rival, was sitting in front of me in an unbreakable steel box. A small window was on the front. Inside, the hero was shackled to iron posts on the wall.
I press a green button and the box begins to lower down into the pit.
"Hey! Wait! Please!" He shouts from within.
"Good bye!" I shout down pleasantly.
"You can't do this! I will have revenge!"
You see, me and my rival are both immortal and we've been fighting for around six years now. I finally lured him into a trap, but realizing he can't be killed, sent him down into this carefully constructed pit.
I let out a sigh of relief. Now I could finally try conquering Castle Bardino. That was one of the strongest and richest castles across the land and the biggest obstacle holding me back was my rival.
Now, of course, I fed him three meals a day and gave him plenty of entertainment, books and a television.
I didn't do this because I was *nice* or anything of the sort. If he was bored, he would begin looking for a way out. And even though I was positive there wasn't one, I couldn't be too safe. That was surely the reason I gave him these small luxuries.
It was around two years after I sent him down, I realized how much we had in common.
"Today, I finally captured Castle Bardino!" I exclaimed, looking for a reaction of pure defeat.
Instead, what I found was marvelous.
"Nice job, how did you do it?" He asked, sounding actually curious.
He nodded and stayed engaged as I told him the story, asking questions about complicated parts of my plan and complimenting my genius traps.
It was delightful, no one has ever asked me about that before and understood a word of it when I tried to talk it through.
And then, after another few months, I discovered he enjoyed cooking as well! Cooking and conquering were two of my favorite passions.
I brought down loads of supplies and watched as he turned it into delicious pastries.
And then came the day where everything turned around. My rival created a chocolate chip cookie with vanilla frosting on top. And then, swirled and stacked perfectly was whipped cream.
He offered this masterpiece to me and I gladly accepted.
Of course, it was too good to be true. I should have known.
But alas, I woke up falling.
r/FortyTwoDogs
|
Smell of the fruits always gives me the unique satisfaction before I torture my enemies. That’s why my soldiers always brings me the most exotic fruits throughout the galaxy. Today is going to be a great day....
As I sit on my throne and I look down on this little human, I smile and I grab a bite from the purple fruit and spit it out towards humans ugly face. He doesn’t talk like others do. He doesn’t beg, he doesn’t even cry. I look at his bluish hands nad I ask him,
''How that happened little human, your hands are blue.''
I don’t get an answer from him. So I ask a different question this time.
''Do you not see me worthy to share that information, little human? They told me you call yourself ‘Saja’.''
''I’m not a human.'' Saja answers.
I grab an another bite from the fruit and this time I threw the remaining part of the fruit to him.
''This is your reward, little human. Oh, you can’t take it from the ground? I forgot you are handcuffed. How about you try to grab with your mouth I wonder if it fits your little food hole.''
''As we grew older we realise we don’t need such things as this. But seems like as your kind grews older you think you need more than you get. This is our difference, so I don’t need your pity.'' Saja says.
This time we find the funny one. I wave at my soldiers and they pull the lever to raise him to my level. He looks at me with his green eyes. Probably, trying to imagine me dead.
''Do you see the symbol on the ground little human? That’s where your death angel comes to get you. Each day I will visit you with my fruits and I will pull this thing for 5 degree. When it hits the 90 degree, your death angel will come to visit you from that hole in the ground.''
''Why don’t you finish me now?'' Saja asks.
I leave the room without answering his question...
Until day 5 he doesn’t speak one bit.
''Do you wish something, little human?''
''Yesterday, your son visited me and offered me a way out. I think you are about to lose your throne.''
''Liar! Why are you telling me this?''
There is no way my son visited him. He doesn’t even find humans interesting he just kills them in a second. I leave the room as I turn the thing 10 degree this time.
**Day 6**
''Here is your reward for telling me your secret.''
Saja looks terrified as he sees my son’s severed head.
''What have you done?'' He starts to shake a little bit and his voice has different tone now.
''You were wrong to assume my kind, little human. We don’t need everything. We don’t need a family like you do.''
This time I don’t turn 5 degree so everything goes back to original plan.
**Day 10**
Saja looks way more weaker today.
''Do you need something, little human?'' I ask him.
''I told you, I’m not a human.'' he has barely energy to answer me.
''We find you on planet Klaha. This is where last humans hide after we destroyed their home planet.'' I smile with a great proud.
''Klaha is our home planet. Humans are our lost cousins. They worship to technology and big ships, big guns.''
''Whatever you say you are still a little human. Weak, helpless and scum.''
Saja starts to smile.
''Go ahead kill me now if you really think that.'' he closes his eyes and he still has that arrogant smile on his face.
**Day 13**
Saja’s lower body covered with a blueish shells. His toes, ankles up until his knees. His hair also getting shorter. His eyes seems darker.
''You might be right, little human. You maybe slightly carry different genes I have never seen a human with a shell before. But you act same as a human. I think you are just a mutant. Long ago, I heard humans getting rid of mutants banishing them to the outskirts of the solar system. But how did you ended up with them again, on a different planet that is far away from the earth?''
Saja doesn’t talk. He doesn’t even react one bit. So, I leave him alone.
**Day 15**
Saja seems in pain. He is trying to fight the pain but his face reveals his agony.
**Day 17**
''Do you want my fruit, little...''
''Please, finish me.'' he begs me now.
I get off my throne and I get closer to him.
''Are you giving up? Are you ready to tell me what I want?''
''You never told me what exactly you want.'' Saja answers.
''I want you to tell me how did you survive the full moon.''
Saja doesn’t answer but his face tells me that he is worried. So I ask, once again.
''In this galaxy, there is not even a single living being survived the full moon except you. You travelled to planet Erid and you somehow manage to survive full moon. That moon emits increadible level of deadly particles and during full moon that scale goes to the roof. I need to know what are you, Saja.''
''If you think this is some kind of power. You are wrong. So, don’t waste your time.''
**Day 18**
Guards tells me he is ready to talk. This is last day and he seeks freedom, finally?
''Looks like you are not afriad of the full moon but you are afraid of my death angel, Saja?''
''Yes, I’m afraid of your death angel. Because when you trigger that thing it will destroy your planet. I’ve already accepted my fate. I’m not sure you and your people ready for this.''
''I have never thought you will be that desperate, Saja. Acting like you care about my people but I don’t even care about my people I don’t care about anything...''
''But yourself?'' Saja starts to laugh.
This is the first time I see him laugh. His eyes gets brighter. He knows something.
''It’s time for your end, Saja. Last chance to redeem yourself.''
and time seems to get slower and I feel heavy. My hand already on the trigger...
I see particles that emerges from nothing, sorrounds Saja and he vanishes... Time seems...consumed.
-------------------------------------
*Please don't mind any writing or grammar mistakes, I'm not a native speaker*
| 2019-04-15T10:54:20 | 2019-04-15T09:22:57 | 26 | 16 |
[WP] "Apologies, human. Unfortunately, you were accidentally killed by a glactic federation officer during an altercation on your planet. Currently we are constructing you a replacement body, and in return for your ensured silence on our existence, I wanted to ask if you wanted anything... changed."
|
"As you know, we are currently constructing you a replacement body. But in return for your silence on our existence, we wanted to know if there was anything you wanted changed."
I started crying. The alien, an eerily bland human-looking being which I figured must be some sort of hologram or costume, leaned forward in their chair and looked at me in concern.
"I know this must be very difficult for you to process, we apologise for the distress we have caused. If you like, we can place you in stasis until your replacement body is ready and then wipe the relevant memories?"
They seemed genuinely concerned, that androgynous face wrinkled in confusion and consternation, which changed to flat out confusion as I started to laugh hysterically. They looked around the bare white room as though looking for a clue, then ran a hand through their ambiguously textured hair. A part of my brain that wasn't currently exploding wondered if they'd adopted human mannerisms to make me feel more comfortable.
"I- I don't understand. Are you happy about this? Is this a coping mechanism we don't have record of? Why are you laughing?"
I wiped the tears from my eyes out of habit before realising the temporary body they'd put me in probably didn't have tear ducts. When I'd woken up in this small room after being caught in the cross fire of what I'd thought was a terrorist attack, a small handheld device like an impossibly light tablet had been on the table in front of me, explaining what had happened. An alien criminal responsible for many deaths on planets I'd never heard of had escaped a prison transport ship, it said, and taken refuge on earth. I had just happened to be nearby when the retrieval team had turned up, and had been caught directly in the chest by a stray laser blast from the prisoner's hastily cobbled together weapon.
I stared at the hands of the body I was wearing - similarly bland, with a skin tone and facial shape which suggested they'd taken the averages of all the races on earth and stuck them on a human sized doll. It might pass as human from afar, but closer inspection showed that the skin had no freckles, no scars, not even hair or fingerprints. A sneak peek under the loose clothing I was wearing revealed no belly button, nipples, or genitals either. A cough from the alien snapped my wandering attention back to them and I offered them a watery smile.
"No," I said, "I'm not happy I died. It was really quite painful actually, I'm sure I'll have some sort of emotional breakdown over that later. But what you just said..." I smiled and shook my head ruefully, "I've been dreaming about something like this happening since I was a child."
The alien cocked their head sideways, another human mannerism. I wondered how far their knowledge of humans went, and took a deep breath. Even on a spaceship orbiting earth with no one to hear me but the person I was speaking to, revealing this part of my identity always made me anxious.
"I'm... transgender." I let go of the breath I'd been holding and paused to see if the alien would comment. When they didn't, I continued. "When I was born people thought I was a girl and so did I but I knew there was something different about me and I always wished I could have a different body because it felt like mine didn't fit right but everyone told me it was fine and I'd grow out of it but growing up was /worse/ because I got boobs and a period and I would look at other people and not understand how they could be happy with their body and there are options on earth but they're not the same and, and..."
I eventually had to stop for breath and I would have blushed if my temporary body had any blood, aware that I'd just word vomited on a stranger of a different species no less. Then, surprisingly, they smiled and started to laugh too. Now it was my turn to be confused as they laughed until they finally seemed to compose themselves. Still beaming and occasionally chuckling, they stood up and motioned for me to do the same.
"That's what you were worried about? Not a problem at all. Every species has people like you, regardless of how many sexes or genders they have. And our understanding of human genetics is far superior to that of even your best scientists. Come with me, sir, and we can create the body you've always dreamed of."
|
"Dead? I'm dead? How the hell am I here then? " I was standing in some sort of room, it looked like a doctors waiting room, but it was ultra clean and perfect, like some kind of simulation. It just looked a little bit too plastic and shiny. In front of me was the most perfect looking human I'd ever seen. She was flawless and a bit uncanny valley. Her face remained neutral as she watched me carefully.
"Where am I?" I asked the person cautiously. Why would they bring me to this weird place? What did they want with me?
They smiled a little, "inside your head. We created this place so we can talk to you, person to person."
"Huh? How? Why?"
"You are here because we saved you with our technology. Your people were not supposed to be part of this battle at all. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Flashes of images rolled through my mind of weird looking creatures brawling in the street outside of my house in the dark. They were massive and one of them had a gun, they fired, a blue shimmer went across the other creatures body and the blast was deflected up. It smashed my window and hit me in the chest. It burned for a moment as I stood, watching as the creature with the gun looked up at me, I couldn't take a breath. I remember falling but that was it. I couldn't remember hitting the ground.
I felt panic, but none of the feelings of it were normal. I couldn't react how I normally would. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down, knowing that I wasn't really breathing, that the reason I wasn't reacting normally was because my body just wasn't there.
"I don't have a body right now, do I?"
"Your body is being rebuilt as we speak, it is currently in the design process and, well, we can only begin to rebuild if you agree to a few simple demands. One, you tell the world that the damage was caused by an unknown explosion and two, you don't tell anyone that we exist. As a reward, we'd like to offer you a few things, you can change anything about your body."
"Anything?"
"Yes, anything?"
I thought about it. My body, while being kind of awesome at times, had some annoying flaws that I'd love to fix.
"How many things can you fix?"
"As many as you'd like. I'll leave you alone, we have a computer here for you to help you design your new body. Your original imprint is already in here. Our designer will visit to finalise everything once you are ready."
My mind raced, the possibilities were endless. I thought about it carefully. I needed to fix my annoying knees so I they wouldn't hurt so easily, get rid of my asthma, those were the main things I wanted fixed, oh, and make it so my hair doesn't frizz anymore. Yes, I 100% wanted these things. What else did I want? Those annoying niggles of pain from old injuries needed fixing, those were next. I was then sent to a screen to choose other things. It was like playing the sims, designing your own character. My original body was there on the screen. I could select and change whatever I liked. I clicked on my face, so many options turned up. I could change whatever I wanted. I started messing around. I had a side by side comparison up of my old face and what I was changing. It was actually really fun and felt like I was playing a video game. Eventually I had finished. I hadn't changed too much, just tweaked areas to make them a little more flattering. Then it came to my body. I was honestly not too fussed about changing it apart from making myself skinnier and giving myself a little more muscle. I could even change the age scale, making myself older and younger. I chose to make myself ten years younger, back to 21. I would go even younger, but I didn't want to look like a kid around my friends.
"I see you are nearly done." A voice commented from somewhere and nowhere. It felt like I blinked as another perfect person appeared in front of me.
"I'm never going to get used to that," I muttered.
"Now, we can offer you a few more things as compensation. We can make it so your body, as it's human, you will age, but we can prevent any mutations, any fatal sickness from taking you. You also won't gain any added weight easily from food. It seems like your old body was difficult to control with weight. I'd like to fix that as well."
"Really?" I grinned and he nodded.
"Now, I'd also like to grant you and the people you are closest to one more thing. One the eventual expiration of your bodies, I'd like to bring you back here and give you all the chance of having a second life. We would allow you to begin your life again as children, together. We can create parents and allow you all to live good lives wherever you would like to live. This is our final offer. All you have to do is promise you will not tell any other humans that we exist."
"But I'm going to look different when I go back. How do I explain that?"
"They will know it's you. We have ways, don't worry about it."
"What about the house?"
"It's all fixed, we also added a little compensation to your bank accounts. It's all yours, it should cover any other expenses."
I thought about it and nodded. The deal I was getting seemed to be amazing. I would still be me, but a better me.
"Ok. I agree to keep your secret as long as you live up to your end of the bargain."
The man nodded and smiled.
"I have one request, when I wake up in my new body, I want to see your ship, I want to actually meet you, not just this computer generated human body."
The man looked concerned. He paused in front of me and didn't move. I walked to him, he was frozen in place, unmoving, unblinking. I poked him, he felt like a solid object, like a wall, he didn't react and his body didn't even move.
"It is agreed." I jumped and stumbled backwards, he was back. "I have one more question. Your mind seems to be, how should I say this, the fear center of your brain seems to be, well, over mutated. I've never seen a human's brain wired quite like it before. I wish to correct it, if you are happy for me to do so."
"You mean, it will get rid of my anxiety?"
"Not all, a human without fear is a scary thing. I would only set it back to a regular pattern. Do you want this?"
"Yes!" I spoke a little too quickly and louder then I expected. "Please."
"It shall be done. You will be waking shortly. Time passes different here in the mind. You will wake inside our ship, our true forms will seem quite scary, but we will install a translation chip so you can understand us and will be able to communicate. It translates most known languages in the galactic federation."
I nodded and felt a small pang of fear. I wasn't scared of the aliens. Why would I be since they were saving my life? I was scared of something going wrong. They were going to put my mind back inside a body, a new body. What if it rejected it, what if something goes wrong? I blinked and coughed. I wasn't in the room any longer, my mouth felt so dry, my body felt so heavy. I squinted but my eyes were so blurry. I went to rub them but my arms weren't moving.
"She's awake," someone spoke in a surprisingly gentle voice. I couldn't see whoever it was. They sounded weird, like I was underwater.
"Human, your body is still fresh, it's going to take a couple of hours for it to comply with your mind fully, "please have patience while we wait."
I couldn't say or do anything. I felt so relieved though. I was awake and I felt, I felt different inside my own head. That niggling fear that was always present inside my stomach was gone. I felt my face twitch into a small smile. I didn't know what was going to happen next, but I was alive, my body was better then ever.
| 2019-10-28T12:38:43 | 2019-10-28T12:30:59 | 39 | 23 |
[WP] "Apologies, human. Unfortunately, you were accidentally killed by a glactic federation officer during an altercation on your planet. Currently we are constructing you a replacement body, and in return for your ensured silence on our existence, I wanted to ask if you wanted anything... changed."
|
"Apologies, human. Unfortunately, you were accidentally killed by a galactic federation officer during an altercation on your planet. Currently we are constructing you a replacement body, and in return for your ensured silence on our existence, I wanted to ask if you wanted anything... changed."
Honestly I didn't know what to say at this point, partly because I couldn't find my mouth. In fact... I couldn't really feel anything. The room we were in was lit by a strange golden light that seemed to be coming from where I was currently "standing". Apparently the large being heard my thoughts.
"You are currently what is known as a 'programmable essence'," the large being said in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. "We have your original 'settings' stored as it were. And it's quite lucky we did," the being continued. "We scanned you just before you were vaporized. You can think your thoughts and I will hear them. I ask again kindly. Is there anything you'd want us to change?"
I absentmindedly tried to take on a pensive pose and continued to ponder this. If I had a brow, it would be sweating. I remember myself before the whole scenario happened. Tall-ish, fair skinned with freckles, brown hair, thin, and fit but had a layer of belly fat that while it didn't make me look as if I were pudgy it obscured my abs, which I had been working on before I got my desk job that got so rudely invaded by phaser fire not very long ago. But a question began forming in my mind. Could this guy give me super powers?
"In a way, good sir, and sorry. I heard your question. I cannot give you super powers akin to ones from your superhero movies, but I can give you the ability to change between two different forms at will and your aging I can slow down... at least phenotypically."
I decided to press on with what had just been said. *'So I could be given a new form to shift to whenever I want?'* I think the being saw where this was going.
"You... want to be a girl, don't you?" I tried nodding my head, but as essence I only flickered. "Then I shall give you this ability. Your old self will be your primary form, but this new form will be the only one you can shift to and it will age with you. Understood?" I flickered again. "Understand again this. In exchange for your silence I give this to you. Tell no one." I flickered once more. "I already know what your ideal form is, as you were imagining it as I was speaking, were you not?" I flickered again, this time my glow red-shifting a bit. "It will be done. When you wish to shift, only think it. Your clothes will shift with you, and as a bonus, people will still recognize you as if you were always that way. This shall happen because... like I said. Your silence is golden." Fair enough I thought. But he doesn't need to bargain with me. My life is literally in his hands. The being pretended not to hear me.
"Now we have rewound time for you back home. you will awaken in your bed and all of this will feel as if it were a dream. Effecting changes now."
Green light began swirling around my essence body and feeling began slowly creeping in. Suddenly I was falling through a black void as my body finished reforming and my pajamas appeared on me. As quickly as the falling began, I awake to the sound of my alarm clock.
I'm getting this strange feeling of deja-vu. Wait. That dream. He said he rewound time! Whatever... he... was. He also said... GIRL MODE!
I transform into a beautiful woman. One of ideal healthy bodily proportions, looking the relative age of myself with long brown hair, my same freckles, a pearly white smile and beautiful deep blue eyes. I giggle to myself as I transform back. This is going to be the best Monday ever.
&#x200B;
I suck at ending these things. I've been reading too many shape-shifting stories so I had to write one myself.
|
"Dead? I'm dead? How the hell am I here then? " I was standing in some sort of room, it looked like a doctors waiting room, but it was ultra clean and perfect, like some kind of simulation. It just looked a little bit too plastic and shiny. In front of me was the most perfect looking human I'd ever seen. She was flawless and a bit uncanny valley. Her face remained neutral as she watched me carefully.
"Where am I?" I asked the person cautiously. Why would they bring me to this weird place? What did they want with me?
They smiled a little, "inside your head. We created this place so we can talk to you, person to person."
"Huh? How? Why?"
"You are here because we saved you with our technology. Your people were not supposed to be part of this battle at all. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Flashes of images rolled through my mind of weird looking creatures brawling in the street outside of my house in the dark. They were massive and one of them had a gun, they fired, a blue shimmer went across the other creatures body and the blast was deflected up. It smashed my window and hit me in the chest. It burned for a moment as I stood, watching as the creature with the gun looked up at me, I couldn't take a breath. I remember falling but that was it. I couldn't remember hitting the ground.
I felt panic, but none of the feelings of it were normal. I couldn't react how I normally would. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down, knowing that I wasn't really breathing, that the reason I wasn't reacting normally was because my body just wasn't there.
"I don't have a body right now, do I?"
"Your body is being rebuilt as we speak, it is currently in the design process and, well, we can only begin to rebuild if you agree to a few simple demands. One, you tell the world that the damage was caused by an unknown explosion and two, you don't tell anyone that we exist. As a reward, we'd like to offer you a few things, you can change anything about your body."
"Anything?"
"Yes, anything?"
I thought about it. My body, while being kind of awesome at times, had some annoying flaws that I'd love to fix.
"How many things can you fix?"
"As many as you'd like. I'll leave you alone, we have a computer here for you to help you design your new body. Your original imprint is already in here. Our designer will visit to finalise everything once you are ready."
My mind raced, the possibilities were endless. I thought about it carefully. I needed to fix my annoying knees so I they wouldn't hurt so easily, get rid of my asthma, those were the main things I wanted fixed, oh, and make it so my hair doesn't frizz anymore. Yes, I 100% wanted these things. What else did I want? Those annoying niggles of pain from old injuries needed fixing, those were next. I was then sent to a screen to choose other things. It was like playing the sims, designing your own character. My original body was there on the screen. I could select and change whatever I liked. I clicked on my face, so many options turned up. I could change whatever I wanted. I started messing around. I had a side by side comparison up of my old face and what I was changing. It was actually really fun and felt like I was playing a video game. Eventually I had finished. I hadn't changed too much, just tweaked areas to make them a little more flattering. Then it came to my body. I was honestly not too fussed about changing it apart from making myself skinnier and giving myself a little more muscle. I could even change the age scale, making myself older and younger. I chose to make myself ten years younger, back to 21. I would go even younger, but I didn't want to look like a kid around my friends.
"I see you are nearly done." A voice commented from somewhere and nowhere. It felt like I blinked as another perfect person appeared in front of me.
"I'm never going to get used to that," I muttered.
"Now, we can offer you a few more things as compensation. We can make it so your body, as it's human, you will age, but we can prevent any mutations, any fatal sickness from taking you. You also won't gain any added weight easily from food. It seems like your old body was difficult to control with weight. I'd like to fix that as well."
"Really?" I grinned and he nodded.
"Now, I'd also like to grant you and the people you are closest to one more thing. One the eventual expiration of your bodies, I'd like to bring you back here and give you all the chance of having a second life. We would allow you to begin your life again as children, together. We can create parents and allow you all to live good lives wherever you would like to live. This is our final offer. All you have to do is promise you will not tell any other humans that we exist."
"But I'm going to look different when I go back. How do I explain that?"
"They will know it's you. We have ways, don't worry about it."
"What about the house?"
"It's all fixed, we also added a little compensation to your bank accounts. It's all yours, it should cover any other expenses."
I thought about it and nodded. The deal I was getting seemed to be amazing. I would still be me, but a better me.
"Ok. I agree to keep your secret as long as you live up to your end of the bargain."
The man nodded and smiled.
"I have one request, when I wake up in my new body, I want to see your ship, I want to actually meet you, not just this computer generated human body."
The man looked concerned. He paused in front of me and didn't move. I walked to him, he was frozen in place, unmoving, unblinking. I poked him, he felt like a solid object, like a wall, he didn't react and his body didn't even move.
"It is agreed." I jumped and stumbled backwards, he was back. "I have one more question. Your mind seems to be, how should I say this, the fear center of your brain seems to be, well, over mutated. I've never seen a human's brain wired quite like it before. I wish to correct it, if you are happy for me to do so."
"You mean, it will get rid of my anxiety?"
"Not all, a human without fear is a scary thing. I would only set it back to a regular pattern. Do you want this?"
"Yes!" I spoke a little too quickly and louder then I expected. "Please."
"It shall be done. You will be waking shortly. Time passes different here in the mind. You will wake inside our ship, our true forms will seem quite scary, but we will install a translation chip so you can understand us and will be able to communicate. It translates most known languages in the galactic federation."
I nodded and felt a small pang of fear. I wasn't scared of the aliens. Why would I be since they were saving my life? I was scared of something going wrong. They were going to put my mind back inside a body, a new body. What if it rejected it, what if something goes wrong? I blinked and coughed. I wasn't in the room any longer, my mouth felt so dry, my body felt so heavy. I squinted but my eyes were so blurry. I went to rub them but my arms weren't moving.
"She's awake," someone spoke in a surprisingly gentle voice. I couldn't see whoever it was. They sounded weird, like I was underwater.
"Human, your body is still fresh, it's going to take a couple of hours for it to comply with your mind fully, "please have patience while we wait."
I couldn't say or do anything. I felt so relieved though. I was awake and I felt, I felt different inside my own head. That niggling fear that was always present inside my stomach was gone. I felt my face twitch into a small smile. I didn't know what was going to happen next, but I was alive, my body was better then ever.
| 2019-10-28T13:39:18 | 2019-10-28T12:30:59 | 34 | 23 |
[WP] As an act of desperation, you applied to every college on the list. Sifting through the apologetic rejections, a pure black envelope catches your eye. The letters on it glow crimson red, charcoal-colored smoke wafts from the pages...
|
\[PART 1/3\]
*As the Dark Lord of the Darklands, it is with great pleasure to congratulate you on being noticed by us. We only recognize the worst and the darkest for our menacing academy. Hence, we cordially invite Reynauld Stormhammer, son of Alfric Stormhammer and Relya Quickquiver, to Calamity University.*
*If accepted, then a full scholarship will be extended to Reynauld Stormhammer alongside any additional funds needed to ensure the worse can become the worst.*
*We commend you and yours on making the world a little bit darker than you left it.*
*With worst regards.*
*Insincerely ,*
*Chancellor Maledictum* *Mayhem*
Reynauld and his father stared at the dark black letter that had been sitting on their dining table for the past two weeks. The letter had come with both a course catalog and a terrifying painting of a red spire jutting out of cracked, blackened earth. It looked exactly like a prototypical castle for the cruel. Next to that letter and its contents was a much larger stack of papers. Each one of them had dark, red letters saying *rejected*.
Alfric Stormhammer, one of the greatest paladins in Earetland's recent history looked at this son.
"It's a full ride, Reynauld... I’m telling you it’s worth it."
Reynauld shot up and slammed his hands on the wooden table between them. "It's the academy of *evil,* dad! Evil! You know that thing that I swore that I would vanquish. I swore to Ishna on my tenth birthday to do so! Just like you did!"
Alfric's face strained as he heard those words. "I *know* son... I was there when you made your vows. Same goddess as me and your mother, but think about it son. It's a *full* ride. I didn't get that during my academy years and *I'm* still paying off my debts. You could go through college, get your Blessing in whatever they do at that school and come out a paladin. I know Ishna would be fine with it. She's been telling me how she can’t wait for you to get through an academy. Say's that... you're something..." Alfric's voice trailed off.
Reynauld gave his father a suspicious look. Reynauld knew that he was possibly the *worst* paladin in training. Every blessing became a curse with him. Every call to light beckoned in darkness. Even something as simple as divine healing became a dreadful disease.
So bad in fact that the Dark Lord congratulated him. Imagine being *so* bad at the good that evil thinks you’re doing a good job.
Reynauld crossed his arms and reluctantly looked at the other pile of letters on the desk. They were all rejection letters from actual schools he wanted to go to.
Notre Gaine's school for the ascended? Rejected.
Marvard's academy for the brightest? Rejected.
Boxford's university for the chosen? Well, they hadn't rejected him... They just didn't even bother sending a letter back.
Reynauld didn't have many choices. Calamity U. was still accredited as a tier-one school. It *would* technically count when Reynauld went for his Blessing of Ishna. He'd just have to figure out how to take the Dread Knight track and make it... well make it more like a Paladin track. His father had done some course theory crafting, the course catalog came with the invitation letter. Alfric had managed to cobble up a Paladin self-study path through the Dread Knight track.
Honestly, the more Reynauld looked at it, the more tempted he was by the offer. Which made him blanch. He never thought that he would have to deal with Dark Lords and their tempting offers *this* early in his paladin career.
"Your mother thinks it's a good idea too. After all, *it’s* a *full* ride." Alfric's encouraging tone just made Reynauld feel more disheartened.
Reynauld looked at his father with a raised eyebrow.
"Here I thought that paladins weren't supposed to make deals with the dark?"
Alfric coughed and cleared his throat.
"Sorry, there’s something in my throat."
"Is it a white lie?"
Alfric shot his son a level look. "You know son, sometimes you remind me a *little* too much of your mother."
Reynauld returned his father’s neutral look with a glare. His father sighed.
"Okay, okay so you're right. Paladin’s *aren’t* supposed to deal with the dark. But Ishna and I talked about it..."
Reynauld straightened up in surprise. "No way, even *she* is saying it's a good idea?"
Alfric nodded at that.
Reynauld looked up at the ceiling and groaned. "Even you too?"
A beam of light came shooting through the window and onto the wooden table. Reynauld looked at it and saw something impossible in the light.
A single golden word etched itself into the table.
*Yes.*
Reynauld threw his hands up and yelled, "okay fine! Fine, I'll go!"
|
...
---
> **lim·i·nal**
>
> */ˈlimənl/*
>
> *adjective*
>
> 1. relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.
> 2. occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.
>
> ---
…
...
He was always told that the mountains he carried were meant to be climbed.
Easier said than done, and likely forbidden from ever being done, in order to ensure his own very existence in the worldly subconscious.
To reach the top would be to reach annihilation, and though he always wondered what the sensation of pure oblivion would feel like from time to time, he knew better.
It had rained the day before, and still, the scent was most joyous to him. He found the greatest pleasures in the little things, for he believed to savor such facets of existence was to tell the universe, *‘I am here.’*
His shell of flesh and bone was decaying, slowly but surely, cell by cell eroding away. Like many things, mortality was an inconvenience, a byproduct of the entropic cosmos fighting to reveal itself.
Over the dark crest of the hill, was a car. A hand-me-down, hereditary amalgamation of leaking oil and grinding gears, driven by tiny explosions underneath a hood of crumbling rust, until it slowed to a stop at the empty intersection. The traffic lights had stopped working about seven days ago, and he made sure no one was going to fix it. Gave them a good dose of procrastination, but he was careful not to give too much.
An apathetic soul would wreak havoc on themselves, and he despised such inconveniences, for the world would fare better to bend to him, not snap in two.
He looked at the twenty two year old young woman step out of her beater sedan and flashed her his best smile, something he had perfected for millennia.
She wore a deep green parka, and athletic pants that were also hand-me-downs, her hair dressed in a messy bun. He felt her anxiety radiate off her like heat off the pavement, among other things.
“Congratulations on your acceptance into law school, Faye. To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked cordially.
Mixed in with that nervousness was a tinge of fear that would usually blossom in his presence, and so there it went, seeping into her bloodstream, flooding her pheromones. A dash of anger and confusion remain stagnant near the bottom of her heart. It’s always the same.
“What did you do to my friends? *Answer me*.” she demanded
Faye stepped forward with big, commanding steps, her normally bubbly face torn apart by guilt and rage. She was losing control, but that wasn’t what was bothering her. It was the black letter in her hand, which she waved in front of the man’s face. The letter felt unnaturally smooth, faint wisps of darkness dancing around the occult parchment.
*Not so meek anymore. So full of fire now*, he thought.
The man leaned against his truck, folding his arms as if in offense. “I did what you wished.”
“You killed them! I know you did! I’m going to tell everyone what and who you are-”
His eyes narrowed. “And what am I, Faye, but a humble advocate for education? And what have I done, if not to help you succeed and achieve your dreams and get you and your mother away from your devil of a father? What happened to your friends was a tragic accident-”
“-I don’t know who you are. Or whatever bullshit you’re feeding me. I looked you up everywhere, online, forums. No one’s heard of you! Your name isn’t Ianu, is it? I went to your office and found nothing but doors and empty rooms and mirrors, you're a fraud!”
“There was once a time when that fact would soothe me, but what’s done is done. I am who I say I am, I provide doors of opportunity, windows of reflection, bridges to new beginnings. Your so-called friends are gone. And now, there are empty seats that you can, and, dare I say, *must* fill. You have your whole life ahead of you, Faye. Life is so short. The days are long but the years? The *years*... they drag their heels like tree sap down a conifer."
“I want you to fix this.” she proclaimed. “I want-I want everything to go back to the way it was.”
“Your friends were never truly *your* friends, Faye. In fact, I know them better than you ever did.”
“Fuck off.” She threw him the black envelope at his feet. “You’re going to reverse my wish. I read the terms of the contract. So fix this! Bring them back!”
“Lizzie touted her loyalty to you, but was that really the case?” said the man. “She was jealous of you, envied what she could not have, and that, my dear, was the affections of Peter.”
“Peter? My boyfriend? What are you talking about-”
“Peter been working long nights? Been distant? Or shall I say, quite ill as of late? And what of Sammy? Beautiful Sammy, who sabotaged you from the start, ever since you were children. I admired that competitive streak in her, and yet, it led her to ruin. But you… you, Faye… you can do whatever you please, be the force of reckoning that you always felt you should be. Law school was made for you. No strings on you, Faye. This is all you. Trust me.”
A sudden gust of wind cut through the two of them, bringing in more rubbish from the junkyards.
Faye remained defiant of the truth, refusing to let his words burrow their way into her skin. “**Shut the fuck up**. Shut up and reverse this.”
“Sometimes, you have to wonder what worse circumstances your bad luck has shielded you from. Go home, Faye. Grieve. Mourn. Reversing this will do you no good.”
“I read the terms and conditions. I know the clause that will set me free.”
"Hah! Spoken like a true lawyer." He gestures at her. “But hasn’t that already happened? Your shackles, disintegrated. Your opposition, crushed. Your doubts, nullified into *ephemeral powder.* You have a clear path, Faye. All you need to do is walk it.”
“This isn’t freedom, Ianu. This is *fear.*”
“That’s the emotion talking through you, puppeteering you and your thoughts. Push them aside and see you for who you really are.” he urged her with genuine feeling. He rubbed the dust off his sleeves. “Don’t be stupid. I pulled the veil from you and yet you reject it. Besides, there is no escape. You signed. I signed. You made your terms and I agreed with one hundred percent of my being. Consensual to a tee, my dear.”
“I reject your Pact. I reject this deal. I said, in the contract, that *‘should I find myself standing on the surface of the sun, that my soul is forfeit and the Pact is sealed'*. We’re still on Earth. I can still back out. And you agreed to those. You said it yourself. ‘Rules are rules.’”
Ianu sighed deeply, digging his nails into his own shell.
Faye continued. “So go ahead and reverse this spell.”
He nearly gagged. “Please, you believe me to be part of a coterie or wicked coven? Do not offend me in such a way. Yes, indeed. Rules are rules. But it seems that we’ve reached that clause, my dear Faye. Look to your feet.”
“What?”
Her eyes diverted from him and gazed upon the truth.
He never lies.
Both her feet were planted on an old tabloid. A tabloid named The Sun.
"You wanted this, Faye."
“That’s… that’s not what we agreed.” she stammered, backing away. “The sun’s in the fucking sky! That is what I wrote-”
Faye blinked and felt it all at once.
The sheer weight.
...
In her last moments, she wondered, as most would.
She wondered if he was truly the devil.
But the truth was more obtuse.
He was not.
He was *worse.*
He was the beginning, the present, and the end, and the beginning once more.
He is everything and nothing.
***“I do not cheat. I do not trick. I give folk what they want, nothing more & nothing less. If you are looking for something to blame, look to their hearts.”*** he muttered in a primordial language lost to time and space as he sat back inside the cockpit of his truck, conjuring a feathered pen from his coat pocket.
He needed to write a letter to someone more appreciative.
A man in need of a promotion...
A whore who wants a fresh start...
A waitress with dreams of being a starlet...
A father wishing for a second chance...
Out there, someone needed his aid. All they had to do is seek it.
Ask, and they shall receive.
After all...
His door is always open.
…
| 2021-02-03T10:53:25 | 2021-02-03T09:13:29 | 316 | 16 |
[WP] You are an elite member of the royal guard. You have recently been fired from your position because of the new king. Little does he know, there was a reason why the previous king kept you in his service for so long.
Edit: Holy crap this blew up! Thank you all!
|
I stared at him, his words being weighed in my mind. I did not understand humor very well, but even so I was reasonably certain that he was not making a joke. With years of practice, I could now recognize the subtle body language and tones a person used when using humor. The newly crowned King Dervin was not joking.
"You are certain this is a wise decision, my king?"
He scowled and the already low probability that he was joking went down even further. By now the person telling the joke would have proceeded to the punchline. "I am *quite* certain, I'm afraid. I have had my servants watching you for several weeks now and documenting your daily routine." He pulled a large scroll from his extravagant robes. "Not only have you not performed any of your duties, you seem to disappear for hours at a time. No one knows where you go and the former king was not forthcoming before he died. My brother was a great man, but for the life of me, I cannot fathom why he paid you to do nothing but eat from his table and lounge about like a pig."
I nodded once. "I presume King Turic advised you to continue my employ, but did not tell you why?"
The scowl deepened. "Whatever blackmail you held over my brothers head holds no weight over me. In light of my foolish predecessors... Admiration... For you, you may leave my palace unmolested. However, tarry any further and I'll have you strung up by your ankles and left to the crows."
I bowed deeply as was expected of my station. "Very well. If I may offer advice of my own-"
"You may not." He cut me off harshly.
I bowed again. "By your leave."
I strode slowly out the door. As a final gift to my late charge, I gave his foolish younger brother a chance to think on the mistake he just made. However, it seemed my generosity was ignored, as his guards made no move to stop me.
-
It was not even three weeks later that the news came of King Dervins death. I cannot say I was surprised, but the news did cause a faint twinge of regret. That was a well paying job I wasn't likely to get back.
"Say..." Drawled the innkeeper as he cleaned a few dirty beer glasses. "It seems a bit odd that the king died right after getting rid of you. What was your job?"
I smiled in a way that I'd observed other people doing when they wished to be humorous. "Food taster. I'm immune to most poisons."
|
Badly fails the "show, don't tell" rule, but it would be too long otherwise.
Since I was a child, I had dreamt of being a soldier. Sure, every young boy used sticks as swords and dualed. But I would watch the guards and fake drill. My mother was pleased that my bed was always made, my room always clean, and my clothing kept spotless-as required of the guard.
When the L'Quimi found me, or I suppose L'Quimic since the old master was not the one to find me and I only met him once, on his death bed, I was devastated even as my parents were overjoyed.
I refused to learn. I was lectured, beaten, starved, all to no avail, so a compromise was made. I could be a guard, but the guard captain could order me to study the Quem and (secret from all but the L'Quimi) the Tre-hens. If I could find a better apprentice than my studies would be reduced, though I would still need to be ready at need.
When the king went out on procession, I was the last guard before the king, in the safest place. When he sat in court, my station was just on his left, with two guards protecting my back. Some of the other guards thought me a coward for the way the captain guarded me, as one of the guards, and whispered stories of how the captain was actually my father. Saying my mother was unfaithful.
The kingdom had been prosperous for centuries, as long as the L'Quimi served the king. Our numbers had dwindled, my master dying before I found an apprentice. I made my rounds each day, to the treasury, the clerks, the armory, and the silo. I also took care of the Hen-tri, and 2 males.
I decided which eggs to hatch, which to transmute to gold for the treasury, which would be strong, pure steel for the armorers, and which would undergo the minor explosion that turned one egg into my weight in grain. There was a reason our taxes were low, though we did mine and import some iron, and did collect grain and coin from the farmers and citizens.
The Vizier, head clerk, treasurer, and chief armorer of course knew my secret, as did the king. But no one else, for fear that someone would kidnap me for my secrets or kill me to cripple the kingdom. None of them knew how I did it though, the coop was deep under the castle, only accessible by a secret door in a wall near the Treasury.
When the Captain of the guard retired, I was surprised to find that I had the most seniority, the Vizier further explained that it would be one less person to know the secret, and so I became Captain. I learned to delegate and gave proper respect to those who served under me and allowed me to do my duties as L'Quimic. I was surprised that most of the king's guard respected me and saw it as my due, though some still whispered, and now it was the king my mother had been unfaithful with, or perhaps the Vizier.
Then one day, in the king's procession, I saw her. A young woman, 18 years of age. I dispatched 2 guards to bring her to the castle. There was some grumbling, the men thought I was better than that. But she had the talent. The L'Quimi had taken women before, the talent was so rare that we would take anyone, and something as minor as gender certainly wasn't an issue. Five people knew she was my apprentice. The rest...made assumptions about the long hours we spent talking and the way we would dissappear together.
The prince was one of those who made assumptions, and one day he cornered her in a hallway. She screamed, I heard her, and ran to her aid. I spoke rashly to the prince, "You dare not touch her, if you do your kingdom will fall and you will likely die!"
He went to his father, demanding my head, "for threatening him." His father refused. The rumors grew, and the prince grew jealous.
The king's death was sudden, and I had suspicions, but no access to evidence or any way to investigate. For the prince immediately had me clapped in irons, then had my apprentice and I brought to his chambers. He made me watch as he raped my apprentice. Then he cast me out.
I stayed in the city, getting a job at a tavern preventing bar fights. Unlike most of the establishments of the city, business increased, though as tensions rose, my duties became more difficult. The first thing I heard, from friends in the palace, was that everyone who knew my secret but the armorer had been sent to the dungeon.
The taxes increased first. The Vizier and Treasurer were both executed for insisting that hiring me back was the only way to get the income back. The kingdom couldn't import enough steel for the new guards the king wanted to raise, so they wore the old ceremonial bronze armor and the steel armor was turned to swords-by a new armorer as the old one was beheaded for demanding my return.
As for my apprentice, she was kept in a tower for months, until it became clear she was pregnant. There was no doubt of the father, which angered the queen since she still had no child. Then she was allowed to roam freely. I hoped it was in time to save the Hen-tri. Even if I had been willing, no one but a L'Quimic was safe from the gaze or claw of the males.
It was about this time that the famine began. Our dry, sandy soil could not produce much grain, only the magic of the Hen-tri had kept us fed. My apprentice gave birth to a son, and rumors that the queen was barren, further proof that the king was cursed, began to spread.
Finally, overtaxed and angry, the people stormed to the castle, only to be told that the king had disappeared, leaving only a perfectly carved statue of himself staring at a wall near the Treasury.
Only an L'Quimic can meet the eyes of a cock Tri without turning to stone. I was proud of my apprentice, the old king would have died at the hands of the mob, but at what cost to the kingdom. After the mob led purge of the missing king's loyalists, I found myself as regent for the infant king.
| 2021-02-28T07:33:39 | 2021-02-28T07:14:17 | 65 | 40 |
[WP] After you die, you reach purgatory to be seated in an audience of all human souls. God and Satan announce their retirement and are individually interviewing all humans present to choose their replacement. Most people want to replace God, you want to replace Satan.
|
There were two lines, or supposed to be two lines.
I saw a lot of people lining for one of the lines.
The other line was really empty.
Why would anyone waste their time lining up on one line while the other was just ... empty?
I walked towards the empty line. It was only logical.
"Oh hello there, have a seat," a smartly dressed ridiculously handsome man with a winning jaw beamed at me.
Despite his smile, his hazelnut eyes were devoid of shine. Was there sadness in those curled thin lips?
"Hi, how are you doing?" I politely asked.
"You are the first who asked how I am doing for the last few millennia. Why, I am doing pretty bad actually."
"Oh I am so sorry to hear that, do you want to share with me why?"
"Sure if you don't mind. I mean, I have been doing this job for a few millennium. They called me King, but really, I am just a slave to the system.
You see, everyday, millions of soul came down here. They begged to be let go. They swore that they have repented. They swore they will do better. They all wanted to go to Heaven.
But what they didn't know was, I am just the face of the system. Their fates had been sealed, calculated with an ice-cold precision based on their conducts on earth.
Sometimes, I feel like maybe i didn't exist either. Like, I am just a manifestation of their subconscious belief. Or maybe i am just an interface with no soul, no substance.
I mean, you all lived, sure, but have I?
All I did was just to read whatever shown to me on the screen, and to wave the souls away. I have no decision making autonomy, I have no say in anything. It is all automated. Even my responses are, I think, automated. I mean, I decide what to say, but sometimes I don't know if I decided what I said, or the system had already determined what I should say. Maybe it was all just an illusion of choice."
"You mean, like an AI or an NPC?" I suggested.
"Yes indeed, Alice, indeed."
"You know my name?"
"Yea it is written here the moment you sat down," he gestured at the tablet in front of him as though that was given.
"What is this system thingy that you are talking about? Sorry, where are my manners, what is your name?" I asked.
"Oh, my name is Lucy, but they called me Satan. I don't know why either, but I thought Lucy sounds so much better."
"Indeed. You have a beautiful name."
"Thanks, Alice. I am so sorry to have bored you with my rants. Anyway, you passed. The next King of the Hell shall be you."
"Wait what?" I was beyond shocked. "What is going on?"
"Urm, didn't you come here to interview for the job of the next King of Hell? That line over there, is for the next God of Heaven," Lucy said, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Anyway, you start tomorrow. Bessie here will show you the rest. It is time for me to, well, I don't even know what am I supposed to do now. Anyway, hell is your problem now. Bye." With that, Lucy blinked into nothingness.
My attention turned to this being called Bessie. Was she here all the while? Why had I not noticed her?
Her skin was red, and she had a long tail with what I thought was a metal arrow as its tip. She had straight long hair, with soulless big round eyes. How could eyes that expressive be so ... soulless? The rest of her face features were proud, her nose was sharp and tall, with thick lips.
She was wearing a skin-tight black leather suit that accentuated her hourglass figure and pushed her deep cleavage up mouth-wateringly.
"My eyes are up here, lady," she said lazily. "Well whatever, you have the whole eternity to stare. Come with me, your job starts now."
"Wait, what have I gotten myself into?" I asked while following Bessie hastily.
"Hell, Alice, you have gotten yourself into Hell."
|
# The Cracks In Their Souls
(Part 3: That's How They Fall Apart)
(Note: The Cracks In Their Souls is episodic; each part is self-contained. This story can be enjoyed without reading the previous sections.)
**Jamie walked through the Golden Gates, not quite sure what to expect.** If this was heaven, would he be able to see Little Bugger and Goaway again? Would he... would he be able to see his Big Sis?
He shuddered. God forbid, would his parents still be there, hounding him even after death?
He stepped into the patch of cloud beyond the gates—
—and time froze.
Jamie tried to move.
Nothing happened.
He started to panic.
Then, with a squeal of static, unseen speakers blared to life.
"This is your captain speaking," a deep, rolling voice said. "By which I mean captain of the mortal and immortal world. God. I'm God. If you didn't get that already." There was a pause. "I probably should translate this into every language that isn't English, just to make sure everyone gets the message. 这是你的。。。"
Jamie listened with increasing befuddlement as God iterated through Chinese, Telugu, fourteen different languages consisting entirely of meows, something mechanical that sounded like the printer after Daddy beat it in anger, and a language of magic and poetry that made Jamie weep to hear. After an uncertain amount of time had passed, someone else took over the mic.
"...See, nonsense like this is why we're retiring. There's just too damn *many* of you guys to keep track of. I mean, seriously, you sapient beings personify everything. Look, I can work with cats and dogs, but what kind of eternal torment am I supposed to give a *computer*? So we're looking for some... interns, so to speak. Interns for the afterlife, to manage smaller parts of it."
Satan frowned, then added, "Hey, God, did you have a list of candidates?"
God sighed. "Satan, there are 4.3\*10^(520) souls in the afterlife right now, thanks to every sapient being in the universe giving everything they come in contact with a made-up personality and a soul. I can clear out most of the inanimate objects for you—unless you really *want* a toaster to become a Prince of Hell—but we'll have to do some interviews ourselves."
"...how many interviews?"
"All of them, more or less. We can just use time dilation to—holy *me*, is this thing still on? I'm so damn overwo—" The time-freeze effect and the squealing of loudspeakers abruptly cut off, leaving Jamie to blink, concerned, in a rather empty patch of afterlife. *Those* two clowns were running heaven and hell?
As if summoned by his thoughts, those two clowns materialized with a soft pop in front of Jamie; or perhaps Jamie materialized in front of them. It was hard to tell when one was in an endless plane of clouds with exactly one defining feature—and an infinitely long one, at that. "Alright... Jamie McCallister, is it?" God asked. He'd taken the form of a hovering ball of light in a loud-patterned shirt; Satan wore a matching outfit—insofar as a sphere of darkness could have an outfit—and held a clipboard that extended downwards through the clouds and just kept going.
"Don't call me McCallister," Jamie said softly.
God paused. "And why would that be?"
"My parents' names were Mr. McCallister and Mrs. McCallister. Mr. and Mrs. McCallister did *nothing* while the bad men tried to take Big Sis away." Jamie clenched his fists, phantom gunshots ringing in his ears and tearing through his flesh. "I," he said, "am not a McCallister."
God and Satan... well, it was difficult for a point-source of light and anti-light to turn and look at each other, but their loud shirts rotated as if they did, anyway.
"You... sound like you've been through a lot," God finally said. "You don't have to take either of these positions, if you don't like. You could rest up here. Be hap—"
"Would I see Big Sis?" Jamie asked.
God hesitated, then shook its... shirt. "Abigail McC—er, your big sister is still alive, thankfully. But she won't make her way into the afterlife for quite some time."
Jamie smiled faintly. "That's good. That makes one of us."
God and Satan looked at each other uncomfortably.
"Your cat and dog," God continued. "Little Bugger and Goaway? They're up here, though. You could... you could see them, if you'd like."
Jamie's face lit up. "I'd love to. But..." He hesitated, then scowled. "The bad men. Are they here, too?"
Satan flipped through the clipboard. "...Yeah, seems like. They had a bit of a hard life, so normalizing by their Piety quotient and marginalizing out the intrinsic unfairness of mortal reality, they got put in purgatory. Holding pattern until we can spare the energy to decide whether we send them to heaven or—"
"You haven't *decided* yet?!" Jamie lunged forwards and tried to grab Satan's neck; a ball of perfect darkness neither had a neck nor anything to grab onto, so Jamie only succeeded in phasing through Satan and his—evidently illusory—shirt. "They should—they tried to hurt my big sis! They... it—it wasn't my fault, it wasn't my fault, he said it wasn't my fault—"
"Ah." Satan sounded... vindictive. "I see. You know, Jamie, you've gone through *so much*, and I'm sorry you've had to—but perhaps it was better this way."
God nudged Satan. "What the hell are you doing? Come on, let's—you know I'm no good with children. Let Avizandriel take care of—"
"We need interns, right? Well, Jamie, if you take on the mantle of being a prince of hell, you could hurt the bad guys." Jamie froze, fists still tight. "You could take the bad men who hurt your sister and you could hurt them back. Because you know—it's not your fault." Jamie stiffened. "It's *theirs.*" Satan conjured an image of two men in a warehouse, one with a hypodermic needle in a little girl's skin, another yanking her by the arm into a boat. "You could do everything they tried to do to you a *hundredfold*." Satan glowed blue; reluctantly, God glowed red. "All you have to do is take responsibility for a little patch of Hell. If you agree... touch the blue orb. And if you don't, well... touch the red orb."
Jamie looked between the blue and red spheres, then at the recording of the two men and their fight with Jamie and his only other friends—all of whom were now dead—at the dockside warehouse. Then he looked at Satan and whispered, "When... when Big Sis finally comes back here... when she's healed from everything that happened to us... will I still be stuck in that moment? Torturing the bad guys forever?"
Satan hesitated. "Ah... well... the thing is—"
Jamie touched the red orb, and the vision vanished. God heaved a sigh of relief. "That's not what I want."
"You want it right now," Satan said, confused. "What kind of child can resist what they want right now?"
"The kind with a soul cracked by fire," God noted. Satan scowled. Jamie grew pensive.
He turned to God. "...can you take me to see my cat and dog?"
God smiled.
"I'd like nothing better."
A.N.
I'm trying something new! "The Cracks In Their Souls" will be an episodic story where each part is inspired by a writing prompt that catches my eye. Check out [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/bubblewriters/comments/mh9amh/the_cracks_in_their_souls_masterpost/) for more information.
| 2021-03-31T09:22:35 | 2021-03-31T07:55:35 | 78 | 36 |
[WP] Torture was never invented. Countries instead spoil prisoners like kings to get information out of them. You are an instructor tasked with training spies to resist the enemy's kindness.
|
"What if they invite you to a banquet?"
"I'll nod politely, eat, drink and refuse to give any information."
The instructor nodded. "What about parties?"
"Is this really relevant? I don’t –"
"Parties are a *huge* part of how the enemy gets information out of you, agent! They'll throw amazing black tie
parties just for you! Drinks everywhere! Music! Gambling! You *have* to be prepared!"
"I'll enjoy the party, make small talk… and keep my mouth shut."
"Are you sure you can do it? Because it's easy to say that, but in the field… with all the luxury and the smiles and
exotic locations… one wrong move…"
"I won't give in."
"Sometimes they'll invite you to their house. Or their luxurious boat. Or their palace in the desert."
"So what?"
"So anyone can keep state secrets when they're tied to a chair having their balls electrocuted! The hard part is keeping your mouth shut when you're toasting with fifty year old scotch on a hilltop mansion in southern France!"
The agent got up. "I have what it takes, sir. I'm ready."
The instructor accompanied him to the door. "All right. There's just one more thing."
"What?"
"Women."
"What about them?"
"They'll throw all kinds of beautiful women your way. I mean, I'm serious, every different mission you'll be courted by another ridiculously good looking, comically sexually aggressive woman. It's their last resort. If everything else fail, they'll try to get you by your dick."
"I'm strong enough to resist."
"Are you sure? Because I've seen better men than you get past the cars and the drinks and the parties, but fall to the women."
I'm sure."
"All right. Good luck on your mission, agent."
They shook hands. When the agent was out the door and halfway to the Aston Martin in the garage, the instructor called out: "And remember the first rule: no matter what, don't reveal your name, 007! You're a secret agent!"
James nodded and got in the car.
_____________
*Thanks for reading! Check out /r/psycho_alpaca for more stories! =)*
|
**The drip of water echoed like gunshots.**
Blindfolded and bruised, Luce tried squash the fear that threatened to grab hold of her stomach, and fling it out of her throat.
Her wrists and her legs were bound tight enough to make her limbs numb. To her left and right, she could make out the sounds of at least two others, also tied to cramped, wooden chairs, struggling against their bindings.
A fey-like bell chimed, the dim *ting* exaggerated by her blindness. Following the bell, a pair of footsteps began to *clop, clop* in a slow, measured pace across the floor. The *clopping* reverberated and multiplied in the open (cave? hall?), so that she could not tell where from where the footsteps came.
Yet, Luce was not entirely lost. She could pick those footsteps out of a thousand-wide lineup. It was the Instructor, and the Test had begun.
"Good evening, gentlemen and lady," an older woman's voice rolled out across the floor, almost purring, "I am so pleased you could join me tonight."
"Good evening, Instructor," Luce replied automatically. She noted that the two men replied in much the same way. Perhaps they were agents-in-training, too.
"As I hope you are all now *well aware,* this test is a matter of life, and death. If you fail here, I will kill you - just as you would be killed in the field."
It was a statement that begged no response. Luce gave none, but she heard the man next to her swallow a squeak.
"Torture is a tool," the Instructor was very close now. Luce could hear her purring voice orbiting around them, "A tool for prying information. Not the *best* tool, but-"
The shriek of metal scraping stone made Luce jump against her bindings. A flick of air breezed passed Luce's ear, making her shiver. *A knife? Or something more sinister?* Her heart was now galloping against her chest.
"-*But,* that will not stop our enemies from using it. Now," glass tinkled, and a set of small wheels creaked. Luce could only imagine what horrifying device the Instructor was wheeling out in front of them, "Would anyone like a cup of tea before we begin?"
Luce opened her mouth to say yes, but the man to her left was quicker.
"Yes, thank you," he said, his voice filled with false-confidence.
Luce barely heard the whisper of cloth, before the ear-shattering ***BANG*** ripped passed her head. A sharp breeze flipped Luce's hair. The man to her left loosed a single strangled cry echoed out, before his chair slapped against the hard floor.
She thought she heard the sound of flesh, smacking against stone. Luce swallowed hard, trying to stop her heart from exploding out of her chest.
"Anyone else?" the Instructor's voice was almost sweet, "No? Very well, let us proceed."
The Instructor did not relent. Question after question rained from her mouth like barbed arrows in the pitch-black night. She prodded Luce and her unseen comrade for what felt like hours. At one point, Luce could feel the Instructor's breath on the back of her neck, at another she could practically *smell* the Instructor's dinner (garlic). Several times, the Instructor seemed like she was about to let up, only to start afresh.
The man next to her was jostling his legs like a child who needs to urinate. She wanted to reach out to him, to tell him it would be over soon, but Luce didn't know that for a fact. She didn't even know who *he* was - if he was actually another agent, or if he was just part of the test. So she kept her mouth *shut*.
At last, the Instructor pulled back. In the silence, Luce could hear the echo of water once again. She focused on that, taking pleasure in the predictability of the steady *drip, drip*.
"Well done, Agents. I supposed we should take a break. Does anyone need to use the water closet?"
Luce sucked in her breath, *willing* the agent beside her to say nothing.
"Yeah, that'd be great," the man next to her grunted, "I've been holding this since lun-"
***BANG***.
*Jesus Christ*, Luce thought. She could *hear* him slumping in his chair.
Luce jumped, almost tipping her own chair over, when a voice like a cat whispered over her shoulder, "Congratulations, Luce. I knew you would do well."
She felt the bindings around her arms loosen first, then the ones around her legs. Luce sat as still as a stone as the blindfold fell away from her eyes. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw two men, sprawled on the floor, lying in their own red puddles.
"Please, stand up Luce. The test is over. You are now ready to become a *Full Agent.* Come here to receive your badge."
Luce's mouth was clamped tighter than a vice. Though they were filled with restless pins and needles, she refused to move her limbs.
"Agent Luce?" the Instructor sounded impatient, even irritated now.
Luce resisted the urge to turn around, but she braved a single word.
"No."
"No?" the voice crept closer, "Are you *defying* me, Luce?"
"Yes."
*Clop. Clip. Clop.* - the Instructor took three powerful strides and planted herself squarely in the center of Luce's vision. She leveled her gaze, and with a cat-like voice - not a kitten's purr, this was the predatory mrowl of a one-eyed feline terror - the Instructor drew out a long, needling "Why?"
"Because I think you are still testing me, Instructor."
The predatory grin on the instructor's face was replaced by a true smile, a triumphant grin. The instructor pressed a button hidden in the folds of her suit, and lifted an unseen mouthpiece to her lips -
"She passed. I told you *she* would pass."
***
*Have some tea and read some stories at /r/PSHoffman*
| 2016-04-13T06:42:59 | 2016-04-13T06:29:55 | 230 | 68 |
[WP] Two magicians made a blood oath when they were children that they would never harm each other. Now they are mortal enemies and have resorted to inconveniencing and annoying each other, knowing if they harm one another they'll die.
|
It really began on a blood sunset, where the two boys had found their way to the Stone Hill and sat on the Infinity Circle. It was a well chosen time and place, planned, deliberated and not one for the faint of heart. It was before either of them were fully fledged magicians, right at the beginning of their learning where they were so full of innocence and wonder. It was only natural to form such an oath then.
It was Gilly who picked up the knife first, dragging it across his palm to form a deliberated circle. The knife was well sharpened so that the blood welled up easily and dripped off the skin. "I, Gilly Maegini, swear an oath that I will never harm you in any way, either by magic or human ways..." he passed the hilt to Deakin who gripped it firmly.
"And I Deakin Maegini..." he began, "do solemnly swear the same oath to never harm you in any way, either by magic or human ways...we are from this day on blood brothers forever..."
"Blood brothers forever," Gilly repeated and together they clasped their blooded hands. A small glow emitted from the thin line between their palms and the red sun which had seemingly been watching them, vanished behind the hills, leaving the sky streaked with what seemed like the boy's blood.
That oath was done a long time ago and since then, time's had changed significantly. Characters had changed, betrayals had been committed, life had steered them in different directions, words had been said, spells and potions had been threatened but neither one of them could harm each other in any way. Nonetheless they settled their hate in different ways.
"If it isn't for the worm himself!" Gilly yelled across the courtyard from the balcony. He leaned against the stone railings, staring down at Deakin who had just arrived from the library in his usual garb.
Deakin smiled up at him. "What do you want toad? Don't tell me you've gone and bedded another whore and caught some lice disease from her again? I won't help you this time!"
The people in the courtyard froze at what he said and stared up at Gilly who glared back at him, furious. He personally knew only half of that was true. "No not that!" he replied to him through bared teeth. "I just wanted to inform you the Grand Master wants to see you. Now," Gilly turned away from him then, walking away towards the hall.
Deakin chuckled to himself, proud that he had caused him some embarrassment. He won't live that down, people will be mocking him for days. Striding forward towards the Master's chamber, he pulled out a book from his robe but was suddenly enveloped in a puff of purple smoke.
"Take that you swine!" he suddenly heard Gilly's voice from somewhere. "Try and get out of that!"
Coughing deeply as the smoke reached his lungs, Deakin waved his hands about but found that he couldn't. Looking down he realized that he did not have a set of arms anymore but instead what looked like wings and his feet were...claws? What had Gilly done? Attempting to call out to him, the only sound he could make was some kind of cluck to his ears.
Glancing at one of the windows immediately, he saw that Gilly had transformed him into chicken. Merlin's Beard he hated chickens! He was going to kill him, blood oath or no, he was going to kill him. Flapping about, Deakin ran to the end of the courtyard in an attempt to escape, but all he could hear was Gilly's mocking laughter ringing about the yard. He was never going to get away with this. Never.
|
"Quiet down! This emergency session of the Twenty-First Council of Westcantor is called to order!" The crowd barely noticed the Grand Magister. Indeed, the babble was beginning to rise into a dull roar.
The Grand Magister gave an exasperated sigh and quietly mumbled a spell under his breath.
"**SILENCE!**" His significantly amplified voice bounced harshly off the far walls, causing many of the various present wizards, sorceresses, and enchanters to cringe and clasp their ears.
"We have gathered here to determine the validity of the charges brought against Prime Magister Jax the Cynic against Prime Magister Canti Cantabole. Magister Jax is calling for Magister Cantabole's impeachment and accuses him of..." The Grand Magister shuffled some papers and peered down his long nose at the topmost sheet. "...indecent exposure." He glared at Jax. "Seriously? You've gathered all thirteen prime magisters as well as a quorum of the Council because you saw a bit of... never mind."
He shook his head, causing his white beard to sway monstrously. "We, as the council, must be particularly careful to reprimand any guilty of conduct unbecoming of a magician in order to maintain the peace. As such, Magister Jax's... very much serious and not at all petty charge will be investigated fully in this trial.
"Magister Cantabole, as the defendant, you have the right to speak your opening statement first, unless there is any objection...?" He peered over the audience hopefully.
Fully three hundred of the most experienced and learned magicians in the world jumped to their feet and yelled out various motions. The Grand Magister sighed again.
"**SILENCE!** The representative from the Hesitant Depths rose first (probably), so she is granted the floor!"
A reedy voice rose from near the back. "Motion to skip formal procedure and only listen to appeals from the plaintiff and the prosecuted!"
Ten miles away, on the peaks of the Black Mountain, a sudden landslide nearly buried a small village of peasants. Experts later determined that the cause was a massive acoustic disruption caused by the volume of those desiring to second the motion.
"The motion is seconded, and for the sake of all of us, I will say that it also passes," the Grand Magister yelled over his ringing ears. "Jax, tell your story, and be quick about it." He sat down behind a table with the rest of the Prime Magisters
Prime Magister Jax the Cynic stood and faced the assembly. "Ladies and gentlemen, fellow magicians, wizards, witches, sorcerers, sorceresses, warlocks, warlockesses, alchemists-"
"**GET ON WITH IT!**" the Grand Magister thundered.
Jax winced, then pulled out some note cards. "My story begins a week ago..."
*****
>I woke up as the sun rose, painting my dewey flower garden in a beautiful vermilion light. After going through my standard morning routine, visiting Old Lady Silla, and giving a toy horse to a small child that I passed, I encountered none other than Prime Magister Cantabole in a back alley, doing something I could not see.
>"Good morrow, Prime Magister!" I said cheerfully, waving to my compatriot and boon companion.
>"You and the rest of the Council can eat a horse's knob!" he yelled back barbarically. I apologized for wasting his time and continued on to the University.
>After giving a few lectures, my assistant came to me in my office.
>"Prime Magister, there's a young girl who wishes to see you. She says it's urgent!" my assistant informed me.
>"Thank you for telling me this, Genevieve. Please, tell her to come in here immediately, and then feel free to take the day off. I know how much hard work you do, and you deserve a break."
>A few moments later, the girl came in. Her face was dirty and blackened and streaked with tears. She looked starved to death.
>"My dear!" I gasped. "What has happened to you? No, don't say a word. Please, take some of my food first!" I conjured a fresh loaf of bread and gave her a crock of butter along with a glass bottle of freshly squeezed grape juice from the vineyards of Tarrakis. She ate and dra-
*****
"Objection!" interrupted Magister Cantabole. "This is irrelevant!"
"Sustained. Hurry up, Jax, or I'll be more starved than that little girl." The Grand Magister's stomach rumbled threateningly.
*****
>"Great and mighty Magister Jax," began the little girl, "I have heard wonderful tales of your great deeds from far and wide. People everywhere tell stories of the wondrous feats that you have performed in the name of goodness and virtue-"
*****
"Jax!" the Grand Magister barked, startling the Prime Magister. Jax dropped his note cards. He knelt and picked them up hurriedly.
*****
>Then, without warning, the dragon-
*****
"Wait, this is from my fanfict- uh, academic notes..." Jax glared at Cantabole, who was choking down a laugh. He shuffled through the cards.
*****
>"I saw a man in robes just like yours in an alley. He was kicking a small puppy, and I couldn't bear to watch but I wanted to help, so I ran here as soon as I could!"
>"Fret not, dear. I will deal with this miscreant!" I said gallantly. And so it was that she led me to the very alley where I had seen Magister Cantabole not three hours before!
>It was empty now, but I was not about to give up so easily. After searching intently for a scrap of evidence, I heard a tiny yelp from a short distance away. I sprinted towards it, and found a closed door leading to what appeared to be Magister Cantabole's dwelling quarters. I knocked politely.
>"Prime Magister, I've been hearing sounds of pain from here. Are you and all occupants well? I am obligated to remind you that no Magister is permitted to harm another living being while in their robes of office!"
>He opened the door and spat in my face. "Ha! Foolish man! I can skirt right around the silly rules of the Council!" And lo- he was naked for the world to see! He galloped about the streets, daring any to stop him!
>I knew I was incapable of harming him, mostly due to my gentle disposition, but I saw him for a menace to our public image that must be dealt with immediately.
*****
"And so, my fellow magicians, ends my story. You see the man before you and you know his evil. I plead with you to deal with him before it is too late!" he finished dramatically.
There was no response but snores. Someone prodded the Grand Magister.
"...over easy, with a side of toast and- um..." His head shot up from where it was resting on the table in front of him.
"Right. As you say. Magister Cantabole, your response?"
Prime Magister Cantabole stood. "Grand Magister, this trial is a miscarriage of justice, but I will abide by the rules. As such, I will tell you the tale of my woes, and you will see Jax's story for the falsehood that it is!
"We begin that very [morning...](https://www.reddit.com/user/MPQEG/)
(I might finish this later, or maybe not. Not sure yet.)
| 2017-06-01T12:13:24 | 2017-06-01T11:51:31 | 22 | 16 |
[WP] The first generation of wizards inherits from their parents’ professions. For example, a child of a chef and a swimmer wields fire and water spells. You possess something interesting.
|
It wasn't any profession. I think people tend to oversimplify it. For example, they think a child born from a swimmer and a firefighter might wield steam. It's subtle and like hair color can vary for each child.
Take for example my neighbor Hana. Her father worked at a nuclear power plant and her mother was a teacher. I am not sure what sort of power people would expect. Hana ended up being able to pass knowledge to people through touch, a sort of energy. She works as a tutor down in Leftbank.
Her sister, Nobi, on the other hand, is able to make certain electronics do as she likes, with enough focus. She teaches energy what she wants it to do and it happens.
Her mother, Ana Kuchina, had the power to make people happy. This allowed her to make people interested in what she had to say. And Warry Kuchina could withstand radiation up to a point. This lets him save lives, take on dangerous jobs no one could take.
And their brother has no real power at all. Instead, he makes people sleepy, just by being near them. He works at a sleep clinic, helping insomniacs get a good nights sleep. But he has to stay away from most people because he can make them lose control, can make them fall asleep. So not all powers are useful in all contexts. Not all powers are equal.
And then there is my mother, a vet tech. Her power has always been to lull animals into submission. Helps when you need to stick a thermometer up their ass.
And dad? He never did much. He was a professional nomad. He would wake up in a new place every morning, like a beach or an airport. Always safe. In the clothes, he was wearing. He always slept with his wallet in his pants and his shoes on.
Then he would blink himself back to bed or explore.
So maybe that's why my power is so unusual. So strange. So peculiar. My sister can shimmer into dreams--make her mind touch your mind. She does it in therapy sessions. She can help people find peace.
And my brother Clarence? He can make animals do all kinds of tricks.
But I... I summon cats. Right onto my lap. And I don't always think that's bad. It is just a bitch calling their owners to return them.
|
"Another beautiful day in sunny St. Thomas, we have been blessed again with another wonderful Summer!" roared the television.
Cathy chopped a fresh carrot from her garden and slid it into her salad bowl.
"And this is Stan the Weatherman, signing off—"
"Let the blessed sun, shin on," Cathy said with the weatherman, and she turned off the TV.
The kids were out, around the corner at Chestwood Park. Spark would be playing in the grass no doubt, probably writing love poems in charred script. But they would be to Desmy, the cute little girl of Olympic swimmer, so she would be putting them out. It was a stroke luck, really, that they decided to settle here. Without Desmy, Spark could light the whole place on fire without anyone to put it out right away. Well, Cathy could but then she'd be watching over him like a possessive mother. That was not her style.
Her husband, Adam, came home just before the kids. He kissed Cathy and took a seat at the kitchen island.
"How's your day going, hun?" asked Cathy.
"It's good," said Adam. "The boys had to run to an apartment fire but we have one waterboy in our squad now. His damn magic is unbelievable. I bet that little girl, what's her name? Deseriee?"
"Desmy."
"Yeah, she's going to help a lot of people in the future. I mean, we barely have to take out the hose anymore."
"Is that why you're here early?"
"You bet ya." Adam stood up and made his way to Cathy. He leaned in and kissed her again. His hand rounded on her back and ventured down. "Early enough to—"
The front door opened and his hand retreated to Cathy's waist.
The kids ran into the kitchen, Spark juggling fireballs and Naomi in tears.
"What did you do?" Adam said to Spark.
Spark shrugged his shoulders. "Wasn't me, I told her it was lunchtime and she ran up to me like that."
"And you didn't ask what was wrong?"
Spark shrugged. "No," he said. It was girl's he was after. If his sister was crying, what did he care?
Cathy shook her head and gave a look only a mother could give. That look that tickles the conscious with guilt just a little and then goes away. A few minutes later, it come back growing like an infection. Before long, the guilt has spread and the only cure is an apology. But that would come later.
Cathy knelt down and Naomi collapsed into her arms.
"What's wrong, dear?"
"They didn't want to play with me."
"Who didn't?"
"Everyone. They said I was no fun. They said I'm just some stupid weather girl. And I'll trapped on TV my whole life." Naomi broke out into a sob.
"Everyone?"
Naomi didn't say anything.
"Was it Jacob?"
Naomi shook her head.
"Ahh," said Cathy, "so it wasn't everyone. Maybe Austin?"
Naomi shook her head again.
"Lillian?"
Naomi paused and then shook her head.
"Ah ha!" Cathy grabbed her keys and head out the door. "Lock the door when you leave," she called to Adam.
Lillian. The pretentious little runt. It wasn't her felt, Cathy knew that. Her parents were doctors who were only in it for the money. They drove Porsches, threw parties that went too late, bribed police officers, basically anything they wanted any damn time they wanted. And they passed that onto Lillian.
Cathy pulled up to their mansion and Lillian was just walking up the driveway.
"Hey!" Cathy called but Lillian kept walking.
*Woosh*
A gust of wind sent Lillian back. And another. And another. Each gust sent her closer to the mansion's gate.
"Hey!" screamed the intercom. "What are you doing here, Cathy? Shouldn't you be out making sure the next hurricane doesn't kill someone."
"Oh, shut it, Nancy, I'm here to do something you know nothing about."
"What?" Nancy must have checked the cameras because the next thing Cathy knew, alarms began ringing off.
"Hey," said Cathy as Lillian reached the gate. "You know who I am?"
Lillian nodded.
"You know what you did to Naomi?"
Lillian smiled, then hid it. A speck of rain fell on her cheek.
"Are you going to apologize and Never do it again?"
Lillian shook her head. "You're no good either!" she said.
"Cathy, you get back!" yelled Nancy from the home. She began running towards the gate.
"Are you sure?" said Cathy. "This is your last chance."
"Bleeeeeh," hummed Lillian, sticking out her tongue.
"Alright."
All it took was a second for a tsunami-like wave of rain to come soaring down from the sky. It fell onto Lillian, soaking her completely. It washed the cute little flowers from her hair; it soaked the purple designer sundress her mother paid thousands for and when Lillian got to her feet, the rainfall followed her right into her home.
"Cathy, you psycho bitch!" said Nancy. "You stop that right now!"
"Then you better teach your child some manners. You know she said Naomi was a good-for-nothing weathergirl?" Cathy may have embellished a bit.
"So? She is."
A speck of rain fell on Nancy's cheek.
"You know. We've been blessed with such great weather here. I mean, I can't remember the last bad day we had. Especially on the days of those parties you're always throwing."
Nancy glared. If looks could kill, Cathy would be smitten. But that was not her power, indeed she had none, as did all alternate generations.
"Fine. We'll start teaching Lillian some manners."
"Oh, and Naomi would love to come over and play sometime. She really loves your place. She always marvels when we drive on by."
Nancy ground her teeth. "Fine," she said.
"Great! Thanks for the chat Nancy. Have a wonderful afternoon!"
The next day, Naomi was invited up to the Thabbernath's mansion. She got to play in their infinity pool, feed their ponies and play with Lillian's English tea set. Best of all, Lillian apologized and was never mean to her again.
| 2018-04-15T11:58:49 | 2018-04-15T10:00:49 | 45 | 23 |
[WP] The world is an MMORPG, and high leveled players can hide their true level and make it a lower one. A bunch of Level 80 people bully your Level 39 persona, but you’re actually a level 325 in disguise.
|
When "The Quests of Altimer: Online" was first released the world paid it little mind. Oh, ANOTHER fantasy online multiplayer role playing game? Yawn! Been there, done that!
But there was something different about this one. For a one time registration fee you could play free (barring internet and hardware costs) forever.
There was constant new content and expansions added. You could use real money in game to buy limited release items (Golden Unicorn mounts, Angelic skins for Demon armour, Demon skins for Angelic armour etc) but these items did not effect gameplay.
And you had to have earned, looted, upgraded or traded for the items to use the skins or other purchases fair and square. You couldn't use money to cheat your way to better equipment.
It was a game where language, wealth or location was no barrier. The only barrier was skill. All quests had a scoreboard to see how you stacked up against the whole world.
There were new player areas and missions that you played and quests you unlocked as you progressed which you could ask for help from higher leveled members provided you were in a guild or alliance together. Otherwise high leveled players were banned from the start area. The reverse was also true. Higher ranked players could take new friends out to help them level up quicker.
But what really got the world talking? It was the Ultimate Quest, the main goal of the game: To slay the World Destroyer, The Lord of the Dragons.
This was the most grueling, difficult, intense test of gamers. Cuphead? Cakewalk. Dark Souls? Go back to Kindergarten, the grownups are busy here.
A guild of hundreds of players, all over level 300 (the highest cap was 320 from just leveling. It *could* go to 323 with the original member sign up bonuses and guild leaders got an extra level perk) had finally defeated his troll sized human form... only to be annihilated a minute later when he merged with his dead dragon guardians.
Guilds merged, up to 1500 people fought him at a time, using arcane spells, deadly potions, vorpal blades and more but nothing seemed to take him down.
Until one day. A lone name appeared on the board for defeating the World Destroyer: Harold.
The world went nuts! Who was this mysterious lone character who had single handedly defeated the baddest of the bad? The only Harold anyone remembered coming across was the librarian in the new player area, a halfling who pointed new players in the direction of helpful books and resources.
The games creators said they knew the identity and location of the hero Harold but as the player had not come forward they respected their wish for privacy.
Media attention eventually dwindled and focused on a new story about the game. How new players were no longer safe in the new player zones and being killed left and right. Sometimes when you started you were gifted a unique and powerful item. And a band of high level players were trying to get them all.
They might have gotten away with it too, had they not made one fatal mistake. They picked on the wrong low level player.
|
"I said, *all of your items*," the big one told me. One hand was on my shoulder, the other held a knife, aimed directly at my chest. Typical bullies.
The one holding the halberd spoke up, "I don't like it, dude."
"What're you bitching about, Greyson?" asked the one in the back dismissively.
"Think about it, Jean. Who the fuck walks around a PVP zone with no armor on?" Greyson looked like he was sweating. Smarter than the others, obviously.
"A fool. World's full of them," said the fourth.
With a wave of his hand, Jean walked over to me and Big Ugly. "You know what they say about a fool and his money." He poked a finger into my chest, "Look, kiddo, we'll agree to leave those three 25s alone for a month, but what you've offered isn't enough."
I hoped I looked frightened.
"All your items," Big Ugly repeated.
"And you have to kneel to us, too, and beg our forgiveness," Jean instructed.
I thought about the three kids who just wanted to do some decent missions to level up. They had posted on the message boards and I happened to see it. Apparently, these four twatcicles had been harassing passersby for weeks. Normally not my thing to step in and help out people who should learn to fight their own battles, but a 55-level gap would be impossible to overcome, even if there was twenty of them.
These four were preying on the helpless.
Fuck these guys.
I put on my best scared, stammering noob voice and replied, "O... Ok. You... you gotta put me down so I can reach my item inventory."
Big Ugly dropped me, so I backed up a couple steps and reached around toward my back.
"Don't forget, runt," Jean said triumphantly, "you better kneel! And show us your name, while you're at it, so we know exactly who we've dominated!"
I paused. Ugh. Something special for these assholes, coming right up.
"Y... yes, s... sir," I stuttered. As I began to drop to my right knee, I allowed my name to show through my Concealment, but not my real level.
My right knee hit the ground. The smart one, Greyson, saw my name. His eyes went wide. Immediately, he turned and began sprinting as fast as possible toward the nearest outgate, not saying a word to his friends. Yep, smart; he obviously hoped I would take a while with the other three, giving him time to run.
I held out my hand and spoke a single word: "Come."
A blinding flash of holy light and a bone-shaking clap of thunder pealed across the earth as it appeared, its leather-wrapped hilt warm in my grasp. The ground sank and crackled under my newly tripled weight now that I held the weapon of gods. Wisps of ethereal, white light curled and drifted peacefully from the sword's impossibly sharp edge, somehow matching perfectly the faint, angelic song emanating from it, the sound of blissful release made by the atoms of air as they were split in half just by contacting the heavenly blade. Excalibur cuts *everything*.
"The fu... " Jean started. A swing of my arm cut his sentence and his head in half. The sword's song intensified briefly. Big Ugly and Dog#4 stared blankly at me. I allowed my level to show. 325. I could take on a thousand of these animals at once, and the fight would be over in 60 seconds.
They started to realize that fact.
Big Ugly threw a pair of daggers at me and ran. I cut one in half and let the other hit my leg. 0.004% HP dropped from my health bar. I pulled it out and threw it back.
With a sonic boom, it severed Big Ugly's left foot. Dog#4 was running now, too, firing arrows over his shoulder which I easily dodged.
I approached Dog#4, avoiding an arrow and the spear he swung toward me. I brought Excalibur's hilt down on his head, instantly crushing his whole body into red mush.
Big Ugly, now wriggling around on the ground, two daggers in his hands, screamed as I split him in half vertically. The blood melted off the blade. I looked in the direction Greyson had run. He'd been sprinting for fifteen seconds, but was still twenty seconds away from the outgate. No need to rush.
"Cut time," I said to the sword. I swung the singing, glowing blade twice, cutting the flow of time for myself to 1/4 speed, and started liesurely jogging toward Greyson.
He was one second from the gate when I appeared in his path and delivered a front kick that sent him sprawling.
"Every item you four had is going to those level 25s," I said, aiming Excalibur's tip toward his face.
"I knew that shit was a bad idea," he grunted, kneeling. Without protest, he reached around and pulled his knapsack from his back, dropping it on the ground before me, along with his weapons. "I don't want to start over from scratch, dude."
"When they respawn, tell the other three that if I ever see them harassing people again, I'll kill all of you every day for a year."
"Yeah, man, sure," Greyson said, "You're not going to have any more problems from us."
"Cut link," I told Excalibur. The blade began to glow with a fierce, blue aura. I stepped toward Greyson and plunged the sword into his shoulder. He collapsed at my feet and disappeared in a storm of pixels. The blow didn't kill him; I had cut his connection to the game server, kicking him out for 24 hours.
I picked up Greyson's discarded items and stowed them in my inventory. The kids would have plenty of good equipment to raid with for a while.
"Getting involved in the battles of the helpless again, I see."
The voice came from behind me. A sweet voice. I turned and smiled at her.
"You know me, I can't let douchecopters like them go on bullying weaker players." I joined up with her and put my arm across her shoulders. We strolled to the gate together.
She kissed me on the cheek. "I know, it's cool. But we have a raid to get to, and we don't want to be late. The others are waiting for us."
She approached the gate and touched the runes on its surface to set a destination. I let go of Excalibur, which disappeared, returning to the aether to await my summons. She took my hand once again, pulling me along.
"Come on, Kirito!"
We stepped through the gate.
| 2018-07-29T15:22:30 | 2018-07-29T13:20:16 | 14 | 10 |
[WP] When people die they can choose whether they go to Heaven or Hell, you are the first in 1000 years to choose Hell.
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The Choice was made known to the world by those who had died but were revived. They all told the same story; when you died, you could choose either Heaven or Hell. Knowledge of The Choice changed the world, but not for the better. What did it matter what you did in life if you could just choose where you went in the end? So those who had loose moral compasses tended to tip towards the terrible.
My life was fairly normal but I would dabble in theft, lies, and drugs when the situation arose. When I killed that little girl though, my life was forever altered. It had been an accident, I was high off my mind on something, I don't even remember what, when I drove into her as she tried to cross the street. The screams of her mother, the blood on the pavement, the screech of my tires as I sped away... All of it was imprinted in my mind like a never ending movie on repeat.
I lived my life well after that. I volunteered, I gave to charity, I even opened a foster home for troubled children so that they wouldn't follow the same path I did. I became a pillar in the community, always a strong compass leading others towards good.
By all accounts, the majority of my life was lived well, but when I finally died, surrounded by my friends and loved ones, and I gazed upon the two doors presented to me, one of golden filigree, the other hard iron and rust, hesitation washed over me like a wave.
The little girl flashed before my mind, the sounds and smells of the scene caused tears to leak from my old and tired eyes. Yes, I had lived well after the accident, but I never forgave myself. Nothing I could do in my life would correct the grievous wrong I had committed that day.
Perhaps if I had been given this choice all those years ago, I wouldn't have hesitated, and would have leaped at the chance to escape my terrible fate, but now... now I can see and understand the weight of my choices that day.
Taking a shuddering breath, I grasped the cold, hard handle, and opened the door. Wiping the rust from my hand onto my pants, I stepped through and was greeted by a grey room occupied by a small figure.
I looked into her soft brown eyes and told her what had been haunting me my entire life.
"I'm sorry." I said, my voice barely a whisper. "I'm so, so sorry."
As she smiled gently at me, the weight of my guilt began to lift from my shoulders. When she slipped her small hand into mine, leading me back towards the door I had entered, I understood The Choice. Yes, we could choose between Heaven and Hell, but that did not mean we would escape judgment. It did not mean our choice would be respected if we were not deemed worthy by those we had wronged.
"I waited for you." She said, her voice was sweet but determined in a way only a child's could be. "I knew you'd take that door. I'm glad I waited."
"Me too." I replied huskily as brightness filtered from the opened door into the room. Squeezing my hand in encouragement, she led me through into the light.
|
"Wait so you mean I literally get to pick?" I said to St. Peter at the immaculately kept gates. The gold would make a tacky American oligarch hard enough to cut it. "No, yeah so ever since God invented opiates.. things have gone.. downhill..", he replied while eyeballing the ground. "So is it even worth picking heaven? What is it like inside?" Peter replied, "Well it's hard to say. I just got this message from the boss this morning. He creates opium just this morning and by noon he's shooting carfentanil into his arms. It's pretty wild. I see where Jesus gets his wine problem from. You're actually the first guy who gets to pick since God cleaned himself up after inventing booze. I don't know how long this bender will last."
I was confused. "Opium has been around for ages, hasn't it?" St. Peter replied, "Do I really have to explain this fucking shit to you?!" He lit up a Marlboro and continued. "Obviously God didn't create the world and universe in a few Earth days. Each day to him was an entire era for your dimension." That piqued my curiosity, having been a physicist in my life. "So, what is the deal with the universe anyway? Multiple dimensions? Hidden ones? How close were we to the truth or the next huge discovery?" I wanted to know *everything*.
"Dude, I don't know. Do I look like a fucking nerd to you? Just fucking pick heaven or hell. Oh my God I'm so fucking done with this job. I'm not even putting my two weeks in." He angrily replied. "What's hell like in comparison?" I asked. "HELL IT IS", he yelled in a thunderous echoing boom as he spread his wings and flew off, but not before dropping a hot load much like a bird would onto the Welcome to Heaven sign. Some of the lights were out on it already so it sort of fit.
I had never had the chance to go skydiving in my years on earth. This wasn't my chance either however. I was shot instantly up into the sky toward what seemed to be more clouds. I guess gays do go to hell because the interior design here is fucking *terrible.* They seemed to be clearing out a little bit now and a red cavernous ceiling complete with stalactites and terrifying imagery of torture that appears to be painted by one of the renaissance greats. Maybe a collaboration of all of them? But also Picasso? I was never an art buff. As I approached the ceiling I braced for impact but I was met with more of a soft sand texture and drawn through it until my head peaked out of the surface.
"Hey"
"Hi?" I replied while taking in the awful scenery I was met with.
I noticed the red. Everywhere. Fire, in every direction! Lava was flowing out of.. a.. "Is that a water fountain?"
"It's a lava fountain, my dude. Pretty sweet, right?"
The fire, it wasn't running wild either. Nobody was being engulfed by flames. They were cooking burgers on a flaming grill. There were roses covering the grass beneath them on the rolling hills for miles in any direction.
"Are you going to ask for help? Most people need help getting the rest of their body out of the sand." The man said to me.
"I could use a hand I suppose"
I almost immediately recognized him, although he doesn't look anything like the paintings. "Jesus?" I said, questioning everything I thought I knew about Catholicism.
"Yeet!! Hit this shit real quick. It's called God's Vagina back on earth but that's fucking gross. My dad has a dick and I know because I've unfortunately seen it too many times when he's piss drunk. I call it, Jesus' Wheezus' ".
"I am so confused", I confessed for the first time since first confession. "Lemme break it down for you real quick" said Jesus, bong in hand. He paused for about three seconds before he started dancing.
After a solid minute of that, he popped his shades up and my eyes met his red glossy eyes.
"What were we talking about?" He said, lighting his bowl that somehow still had greens on top of it. Through a cloudy exhale, he said in a low breathy voice "You know how hotel bibles just show up at hotels? You know how they have decent paper inside them to roll joints? I did that shit", then forcefully released the rest of the breath.
I was a marijuana user in life but never this heavy. Never full on stoner identity like Jesus. The long hair they hit right on the head in the paintings. He was more Middle Eastern looking than the white Christians like to admit. Hell, Korean jesus looks a little more accurate than what I was used to where I lived.
"Bro, you eye fucking me or what?" He asked
"I uhh,"
He interrupted, "Dude chill, I'm fuckin with ya! I don't care what you do, free love man! It's my dad who's against all that stuff." I was starting to see where the problem with hell was. Not the open attitude toward homosexuality, that was great by me. It was just this fucking guy. Bro of all bros. Brosiah himself. His bowl is always packed and fresh with green buds and yet he hasn't offered any, or when he did he didn't actually hand any over. "Can I hit that?" I asked, needing to cool down a bit. "I totally would but I'm almost out and I need this for my lower back pain and anxiety." He said. "But it doesn't seem to be running ou-"
"SOO grand tour, huh? This is my smash pad.." He said holding his arms out "..ahah I smash everywhere here. These ho's are ready for it bruh."
I fucking hate Jesus.
"Do I get a room? I could use some rest."
Jesus answers, "*Do I get a room? I could use some-* BRUH you just got here don't you want to turn up! Fucking pussy."
"Whatever man, you're a tool." I said to Jesus as I turned and walked away.
"WAIT!" He said with a raised and desperate tone. "Want to hit this?"
"Nah" I said eyeballing a vast field of marijuana in the distance.
"Bruh, I can call up this Mary ho and we can both smash, I'ma send a dick pic, pulls yours out too" he insisted.
"I'll pass" I said noticing the high end brothel conveniently placed next to the marijuana farm.
Jesus sat down on a rock and looked broken. I was done with his shit though so I trucked onto the farm, picked some buds and went to the brothel. When I arrived, I was greeted by a beautiful woman who told me to enter and there was no fee. As soon as I walked in I was hit by the wall of marijuana smoke. I was just here for marijuana and information but seeing these beautiful women I noticed I was beginning to consider it.
"What's the deal with Jesus?" I asked the bartender. "He just tries so fucking hard to reclaim those glory days with his 12 disciples. They stayed in heaven and I don't know man he's just trying too hard. Welcome to Hell though, my name is Lucifer."
| 2018-08-13T09:16:06 | 2018-08-13T06:40:49 | 341 | 54 |
[WP] Your Italian restaurant is frequented by the mafia, and for some reason they think you're a front for someone powerful. You aren't, but you still like to mess with them.
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I'm not even Italian, that's the funny thing. I opened this place on a dare, more of a joke than anything else. *A Korean could never open up an Italian Restaurant*, they'd said.
Joke's on them. And these goons that have been coming here, sitting in the same booth for the last three years.
I mean, I named the place Pasta for the Seoul, so I don't really feel too bad for them.
It started with big tips. I just figured they were nice guys. But then one day one of them motions me over. Guy who always sits at the head of the table, big, scary looking fella. He hands me an envelope, pulls me close and whispers in my ear, "Take this as a good-faith pledge. We know our territory." And then goes back to his food like nothing happened.
After closing, I'm taking out the trash and I notice something on the back brick. It was this symbol, this dragon, that had been spray-painted on before I ever owned the building. I never paid it mind before now.
But then I started thinking. *What the hell, I might as well see what happens.*
It takes me a few days to plan out what I'm going to do. Part of me wants to just bank the money and act like nothing ever happened. But then the part of me that opened up an Italian restaurant just because kicks in, and I walk over to the table.
I pull the envelope with money out of my back pocket, and drop it down in front of this guy who gave it to me.
"Sorry boss man," I say, laying thick into that "accent." "Triads cannot accept such a small fee."
His eyes get wide, he slides the money to himself, and the whole table gets up and leaves. And I'm back down the ten grand that he'd offered.
So the next day one of them comes back, not boss man, but one of his cronies. He's got another envelope. A little thicker.
"Mr Moretti sends his apologies. He hopes you wasn't insulted."
I take a peak inside and act like I know what I'm looking for. I mean, it definitely *looks* like more.
"It's a start," I reply.
"Of course. Thank you." And then he leaves.
I've never even been to Korea.I don't know if the Triads exist there. And I doubt even they know. They just saw slanted eyes and a dragon symbol and made an assumption. And now I'm a lot richer because of it.
What's the worst that can happen?
|
“Are you sure this is a good idea boss?” Jonny said as sweat beaded on his forehead. “It’s worked for this long. I’m telling you kid, just go out there and serve them. They’re more civil then you think. Just for the love of god don’t spill any wine on them or I’ll have to replace you too.” Tonee said to the new waiter. “But what if they start asking questions?” Jonny asked nervously. “Then answer them, just be polite and follow the golden rule. You never say we are in the mob, they will never ask you directly.” Tonee peaked out the kitchen door into the dining room. Fat Toni was in his usual spot in the corner. Tony the bull was bold as usual at the center table. And, hey that’s a surprise, Tonie Red being seated at a booth. He would have a word with the host. Big City’s Little Italy had been in business long before the mob moved into the neighborhood. Most of the other restaurants has closed down after being forced to pay hefty “protection” fees. Business was booming for lack of options. A group of officers walked in the door. Here we go again. Tonee stepped out of the kitchen and up to the front door. “Good afternoon gentleman, can I get you a table?” Tonee asked polite as always. “Stick it Tonee, you got all the big heads in here today what’s going down?” Jack Gutierrez asked. “We got a lunch special on chicken parm. I’d be happy to set you boys up in a booth. Sodas on the house for you straight lacers.” Tonee heard some chuckles from the back of the room. “Yeah alright, we’re watching you Tonee.” Jack said as the 4 shuffled out the door. Tonee let out a quiet sigh as he turned back to face the dining room. In the corner of his eye he caught a subtle nod. He approached Fat Toni’s table with his head high trying not to look any less important than he pretended to be. Veal cutlets, 2 plates of spaghetti, and a full bottle of wine, the usual. “Toni, always a pleasure. Is the meal perfect?” Tonee said resting his arm on the corner of the booth. Jonny was on the other end of the table refilling waters. “I got a guy on the inside Tonee, comp the meals for a week and they can take care of Gutierrez for you.” Yeah right, with the way Toni eats that would put him out of business. “I appreciate the offer Toni and I’ll keep it in my back pocket.” Tonee chuckled. “For today have the bottle on me, no favors necessary.” Toni raised his glass. First in salute, then towards Red Tonie. “And since when do you let filth like that in the door? I though you were rivals?” Tonee raised an eyebrow and glanced toward the booth. Unfortunately he made eye contact with Tonie Red and so he slipped a quick middle finger his way, making sure Toni could see it, and smiled which Tonie quickly reciprocated with a laugh. Tonee would be sure to stop by his table to discuss their card game later. “You know how I operate Toni, those who support my business are treated like family regardless of history.” “Red Tonie is supporting your business? Never thought I’d see the day. And what about this kid, he okay? Kid hasn’t even offered me a pillow.” Toni said nodding toward Jonny. Lots of questions today Tonee noted. Jonny’s hands were trembling. “Jonny, what the fuck are you doing? You didn’t get Toni a pillow? What did I tell you when he walked in? Get a move on.” Tonee muttered under his breath, again just loud enough for Toni to hear. “I’m sorry sir.” Jonny said nervously and retreated to the kitchen. “You just can’t find good help these days.” Tonee stated. “Let me know if he screws up again, I’ll take care of him.” Toni chuckled and went back to his meal. Tonee strided back toward the kitchen to check on Tony the bull’s meal. No more than 3 basil leaves. Angela walked out with the food before he reached the door. Leaves looked right. Quick as a whip that girl. It’s been about 6 minutes since Tonie Red sat down. Water should be on the table. He glanced toward the kitchen where the door was swinging back after Angela passed through. Jonny was on the wall hyperventilating. “Goddamn it.gotta do everything myself” Tonee muttered. He grabbed the water pitcher and walked toward Tonie’s table. “Tonie what a pleasant surprise. What hand you got today?” Tonee said smiling. “Pair of kings, but I see you got a full house.” Tonie said waving his arm toward the rest of the restaurant. “What’s the secret?” He asked. “It’s all in the sauce.” Tonee winked. Tonie laughed. “Yeah the sauce.” Tonie said putting air quotes on sauce. “Allow me to introduce you to my cousin, Vinny. Vinny, Tonee over here is the best card player on this side of the Hudson. I hate to see him in my Casino but he always makes things interesting.” Jonny was back in the dining room with a refill for Tony, good, it’s tough to manage everything. Vinny reached out to shake his hand. “It’s a pleasure Mr. Scaffolini. I hear you run a very quiet business. I have a need for your talents in discretion.” Vinny said quietly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Vinny. I’m a strange guy and don’t like to talk business during business hours. Maybe I’ll find you at a table for a game of cards at the Casino tonight.” Tonee said. Vinny nodded. Tonee would call to cancel as a result of some unexpected “business.” Angela approached the table. God bless that girl. “Gentlemen allow me to introduce you to my best server Angela. If you need anything you let her know. If anything is not to your satisfaction you come straight to me and I’ll get it sorted out.” Tonee patted Angela on the back. “Give em a desert on the house.” Tonee whispered. Angela nodded. Tonee turned to walk back toward the kitchen when he heard a spill. “You motherfucker! Don’t you know who the fuck I am?!” Tonee glanced toward Tony the bull’s table. Tony was standing, red in the face, much like the wine on his shirt. In contrast Jonny was stark white. Tonee would save him but Jonny would have to skip town. “Looks like I’ll need another server.” Tonee thought.
| 2020-10-12T09:54:00 | 2020-10-12T06:57:13 | 564 | 159 |
[WP] You live in a city full of people with powers (telekinesis, electro kinesis, sensors, etc) and everyone is ranked according to how powerful they but they can kill someone of higher rank and obtain their rank. You are rank #1 but no one knows what your power is
Edit: Thank you all so much for submitting your stories. please do not stop posting and i will not stop reading. my favourites so far have been the coinflip/luck duo and the weak telekinetic that goes for the brain lol love all the spins on powers everyone has
|
Rank was never that important to me.
The others fought. Endlessly. For some reason, their numbers were more important to them than their humanity.
I started with the lowest rank, and I've never moved up. I've never killed a soul. But I'm #1 now, because the others are all dead.
I'm lonely.
|
Crime was at an all time low in the city of New Angeles. Come to think of it, so was tourism and GDP.
Some people credited this to the genius of *Genetevolve Labs* and their breakthroughs in affordable human enhancements. Although, not everyone was pleased with the results. After a session of copying and splicing, it was often several months - or even years - before a patient actually knew what they had gotten themselves into.
For example, there was Nickolette...
After several sessions, and a freak bowling accident, Nickolette had come to the realization that she was telekinetic. She came to appreciate her new-found ability, despite the lifetime ban from *Richie's Bowleramma*. Apparently Richie's insurance refused to pay for the removal of over a thousand bowling pins from the ceiling of the establishment.
Ty was Nickolette's best friend. He had completely given up on genetic therapy until after almost two-years after his last session he stumbled drunk out into a busy roadway and was nearly flattened by a semi truck. Instead, the truck was smashed into oblivion upon striking Ty and the only injury he sustained was permanently soiled underwear.
Then... then there was Larry.
"I can't believe that douchebag is ranked #1 again." said Ty, "I mean, have you ever actually seen the guy do anything?"
"He sits all day in that damn pizza joint downtown eating and drinking." she said. "Wait, I take that back, it can't be *all day* because he only wakes up at 2:00 pm."
"Last time, the asshole didn't even bother changing out of his pajamas. And did you *smell* the guy? I mean who the hell smells like that?" said Ty disgusted.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" asked Nickolette.
"We can take him Nicky." said Ty looking over at Nickolette. "With your telekinesis, and my super strength, we could just walk right into that goddamn pizza joint and just take him down to chinatown."
"He'd never even know what hit him." she said with a whimsical look in her eye.
*One hour later at Zak's Pizza and Wings...*
"Oh shit, that's hilarious!" said Nickolette as she reached over and squeezed Larry's arm at the bar.
Ty sat on the other side of Larry and downed his second pint of beer as he slapped Larry on the back.
"Jesus that's some funny shit man, you are just too cool." he said to the overweight man with the shaggy unkempt hair, still in his bathrobe.
A man with a grimy, white shirt and loose fitting necktie approached the patrons at the bar.
"Hey guys, sorry the pizza is taking so long. I don't know what's got into the cooks lately." he said to them.
"Ah, no worries mate." said Larry, "We're in no hurry, take your time. Have another round on me guys!"
"You're too much Larry." said Nickolette.
"You know," Ty began, "my head is a little foggy but I feel like there's something we are forgetting. Like there was a reason we came down here."
"Must not have been too important,eh?" said Nickolette turning her attention back toward Larry, "So what's up with you?"
"Uh, I'm not sure what you mean love." Larry was feeling a bit creeped out at the way she was looking at him.
"You know," she was now slurring her speech, "why are you constantly ranked #1? It doesn't even look like you've had anything tweaked."
"Well," Larry was often reluctant to talk about it, but threw caution to the wind, "I dabbled around with genetic enhancement, but gave up after the results came back from the lab."
"What results?" asked Ty.
"After a few sessions, my body began to emit massive amounts of THC into the environment around me." said Larry.
"What? Holy shit, that explains so much!" said Nickolette.
"Yeah, " said Larry, "I thought about going back and tried to get them to reverse it, but... well... you know, the THC."
Suddenly Nickolette changed the subject, "I got an idea!" she said. "Let's go bowling!"
| 2014-12-18T15:23:06 | 2014-12-18T11:53:14 | 243 | 81 |
[WP] You live in a city full of people with powers (telekinesis, electro kinesis, sensors, etc) and everyone is ranked according to how powerful they but they can kill someone of higher rank and obtain their rank. You are rank #1 but no one knows what your power is
Edit: Thank you all so much for submitting your stories. please do not stop posting and i will not stop reading. my favourites so far have been the coinflip/luck duo and the weak telekinetic that goes for the brain lol love all the spins on powers everyone has
|
Rank was never that important to me.
The others fought. Endlessly. For some reason, their numbers were more important to them than their humanity.
I started with the lowest rank, and I've never moved up. I've never killed a soul. But I'm #1 now, because the others are all dead.
I'm lonely.
|
Pacing back and forth in front of me, David paused, one foot half-hovering over the blood-stained carpet. "Tell me, Kat, what happened?"
The body was sprawled out before us on the black tile floor of the penthouse. Streams of slimy, congealed blood wove intricate rivers in the cracks between the slate pieces, and tiny bits of bone were strewn around like confetti. I did this. I fucking did this. And now I would have to pay. My mouth opened and I took a deep breath. Not knowing what to say next, my lips met once again and I exhaled deeply. My clothes were misted with red droplets. It was on me, on the walls, on the floor, shit, even on the ceiling.
"You do realize what this means, right?" he questioned again. Taking a single step forward, David's boot made a sickening crunching sound as it crushed bone fragments into the floor. He winced.
My brow lowered beyond the brim of my glasses. "We have to clean it up before anyone finds out...before anyone knows what I did. Shit...shit...shit...SHIT." My hand met my forehead. It felt wet, and when I pulled my palm away, smears of red coated it.
I was smart. Other people were strong and could lift cars. Some people had telekinesis. Others could will others to do whatever they want. But me? I was just...smart. I came here at the request of Rodger, and now I was leaving with a prize I didn't want. I was number one.
This island was founded as a sort of encampment. Years ago after the war, everyone who had a gift was placed here. They told the founders of this city that it was done to protect the rest of humanity. Alcatraz was a prison back in the early 20th century, but now it was our home—an island full of everyone the rest of the world wanted to put away. History had come full circle. We had numbers that ranked us by how destructive or dangerous our powers could be. It formed a pecking order of sorts. David, my best friend since we had been born, was number thirty. He was a walking torch; hands so hot that they melted all the testing instruments. All you had to do was piss him off.
I was just smart.
The warden. Number one. Prime. The goddamned warden. We were prisoners, and I killed the fucking warden. Sure, he wasn't called that by non-specials but that's exactly what he was. His official title was "Overseer and Diplomat of the People." But it was all the same. Any time the main land wanted to do something or needed to talk with us, he was the go-to. Rodger was his name. He had been our leader for nearly 5 years, by default. The most powerful one always became Prime, and Rodger was undisputed. He easily had twenty times the strength of a normal, could punch through steel like wet paper, and once put down a coup d'etat led by a dozen specials with just his bare hands. But now he was dead, and his twisted, mangled remains rested on the floor in front of me.
"Kat, you're Prime now. You do realize that, right?" David nudged my shoulder slightly with two fingers. I could feel a comforting warmth in his fingertips. He was trying to bring me back. I was still woozy, so all I could do is nod slowly.
This happened because Rodger had tried to turn me into an informant. You see, Prime or not, every leader needs support. Although he was benevolent, people hated him for who and what he was. The man was not just an envoy or a mayor, he was also a symbol of order. Some of the top echelon hated order and wanted to bring anarchy. When I got the call to come to the Warden's office, I jumped off of the couch and practically ran the whole way there. He was in the leather chair, fingers interwoven.
"Kat," he said. "Please, come on in and have a seat." My hooded shirt was soaked with sweat from the run and it made a strange squeaking sound against the leather chair as I sat down. "Thank you for coming."
"It's no problem sir. But why did you want to meet with a nobody...especially me? I mean, I'm no one, at least compared to you. I mean, I ca-"
He cut me off.
| 2014-12-18T15:23:06 | 2014-12-18T13:32:26 | 243 | 16 |
[WP] They've just invented a 500,000 frame per second video camera. The problem is that they've found something unexpected at those speeds
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"Check the equipment again."
"Diagnostics say it's working normally."
"Then wha-"
A voice filled the lab, echoing around the room. "OH. SORRY GUYS, MY BAD."
"Rogers, stop messing with the inter-"
"THIS IS GOD. UH... THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE, SORRY."
The man rubbed his eyes. He'd gone for quite a while without sleep, sure, but not enough to start hallucinating. "You... made lines appear on our equipment?"
"WHAT? OH, NO - I JUST LIMITED THE FRAMERATE OF THE UNIVERSE. YOUR CAMERA IS IN PERFECT WORKING CONDITION."
The scientist turned to his lab assistant, and motioned for him to start transcribing the conversation. "Why would you do that...?" he called towards the ceiling, feeling a little ridiculous.
"IT SAVES RESOURCES. BESIDES, YOU WERE NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE."
"Why not?"
"ISN'T IT OBVIOUS? THE HUMAN EYE CAN ONLY SEE AT THIRTY- NO! NO, GABEN, PLEA-" The voice cut off abruptly. A shudder ran through the building, and every light flickered off. A moment later, every one of the ancient, outdated computers in the lab had been replaced with glorious battlestations.
"THIS IS LORD GABEN. I APOLOGIZE FOR THE TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES." The lights flickered back on, and the lab was filled with a warm, heavenly glow. "YOUR EXISTENCE HAS BEEN RESTORED TO GLORIOUS INFINITE FPS."
The researchers sat in stunned silence for a solid minute. Finally, someone piped up. "See, I told you that GabeN altar was a good idea."
"Shut the fuck up, Rogers."
---
Questions? Criticisms? Want to see more? Check out more of my stuff at /r/Draxagon
To praise GabeN, go [here](http://gabegaming.com/).
|
"That's just remarkable! Truly astounding!"
Mr. Hader watched the video in awe, and Nathan just stood next to him, and found himself unable to stop a huge grin spreading on his face. He was gleaming with pride.
After all his hard work and dedication, he'd *finally* completed it! A 500,000 frame per second video camera! A camera that didn't lag, had pristine quality, and didn't overheat, not a single technical hiccup. Nathan was thinking about his success, and how he would be rewarded. Only one camera, how much money would he get for it? The oppurtunities he now had! His tenacity had finally paid off, Nathan was to be a rich man. A *remembered* man.
His smile grew wider.
The recording was being projected unto a screen, and the video ceased. They both just stood, proud.
It was a simple video, Nathans 6 year old daughter simply sitting in the garden with a warm smile, on a perfectly sunny day, flailing her doll happily. Picture-esque. Lovely. It could have easily been recorded on any other cheap camera, he had the option to film whatever he could, anything more exciting,more invigorating but no, his daughter was the one he had decided from the very start. There had not been a shadow of doubt in his mind.
He had always planned it that way. Every night in the garage he'd tinker away at his plans, his blueprints, working without rest. Yet every-time he grew impatient, or thought he had hit a dead end, Nathan had simply remembered what he would do with the camera. He would give the greatest gift of all to his only daughter, immortality. She would live on forever in the historic video. People, years after, would still watch this video. She would live on.
And even now, standing next to his gob-smacked boss, with a handsome paycheck all but certain, that was the sweetest reward on his mind.
"Just stunning...it's so clear! It's like I'm actually there..." His boss Mr Hader had continued, star-struck. "You are going to be a very rich man Nathan I'll tell you!"
"T-thank you sir." Nathan replied humbly.
They watched, and watched and watched, repeatedly; Mr. Hader still as dazzled as the first time.
But it was only on about the 7th viewing, Mr. Hader had noticed something. So quick he would've missed it. Not even on screen for a second.
"Say Nathan, rewind to about 3:45...yeah yeah...pause ....righhttt... *there!*" Mr. Hader asked intuitively.
Nathan frowned a little, confused. The frame was of his daughter, looking down at her doll.
"Alright...slow it down now Nathan...*real* slow though...okay carry on..." Mr. Hader asked with a hint of fear in his voice.
Nathan felt a slight uneasiness brewing, yet pressed play anyhow.
The scene of his daughter, that would have usually lasted about half a second was playing so slow, distorted, every slight movement seemed to take what seemed like a decade: the wind on grass, hair, or anything.
Mr. Hader squinted slighty. An unearthly tension filled the room.
They watched further.
*"There!"* Mr. Hader shouted suddenly, causing Nathan to jump. "Right there did you see it? The little flash of black? Rewind, slower this time! I saw something, I did! Didn't you? *Rewind it!"*
Nathan slowly, trembling, re-wound the footage. He was now visibly frightened. Was there a glitch with the camera? Something *worse* What had his boss noticed?
"Sir wha-"
"Shh shhh, just watch..."
The footage was now painstakingly tedious, it trundled backwards at a snails pace. It didn't look natural. Everything crawling so slow. It felt like watching something from underwater.
After what seemed like an age, Mr. Hader ordered one sharp, urgent request...
"Stop."
The video paused, and they were both took aback.
They both stood perfectly still. Nathan had paused at the exactly right moment. Neither had expected to see what they were seeing.
They stared.
For a long time, they just looked. Not knowing what to do. What to say. How to react? There was a just numb sense of terror. But not panicked, instead appallingly calm.
In that single frame, Nathans daughter was looking down, looking at her doll, frozen in time. Perfectly normal. Except for one thing.
Crouched next to her, sat a blurred, dark, featureless figure. It had unfocused, wispy limbs, all contorting in unnatural shapes. It had its perfectly round, smooth head turned to his daughters rosy cheeks, its elongated arms wrapped around her sickeningly with repulsive affection.
And for awhile, they just stared.
No words were spoken after. Mr. Hader has simply looked at Nathan, who stared at the frame with tears in his eyes. Mr. Hader had tried to say something, to apologise, to comfort, but no words could leave his mouth. For either of them, there was nothing to be said.
But it was clear what to do.
Nathan had promptly carried the camera outside, Mr. Hader remaining in the office. No goodbye, no warning. Nathan had brought the camera to a field by himself. Furiously, but sternly, he destroyed the camera. Piece by piece. Ripping, beating, tearing, bending, smashing. He brought a petrol cannister, and after dousing the remains of the camera, it was set alight. The flames crackling and a thick smoke swirling up into the sky.
Nathan stood, still silent. He had gone too far. He had found something never meant to be found. His life work, gone. But he felt no regrets. There had never been a 500,000 frame per second camera...
...and now he knew why.
He shut his tearful eyes, breathing in a long careful breath. A metallic battery smell filled his nostrils.
'And there will never...' He thought. '...*ever*, be one again.'
| 2015-02-06T14:27:58 | 2015-02-06T14:04:46 | 366 | 28 |
[WP] "What do you mean the robbers ADDED $4,000,000 to the vault?"
|
This is it. I can't recover from this. As a campaign manager you do everything in your power to write a narrative that the people can relate to.
Months and months grinding to finally get traction as a man of the people fighting against corporate influence in politics and now this. How are we going to explain this $4,000,000. The media will have a field day.
Bernie is going to be pissed.
|
"It was a--- forceful deposit."
Ben spent the better half of the last hour trying to come up with an explanation. An excuse. Some careful analysis that would have unveiled the mystery. This was the best he could come up with.
"A forceful deposit," the chairman repeated.
"Right. They drove up to our bank, demanded access to our vault, held us hostage and... made a deposit."
It still sounded ridiculous to Ben. Chairman Hurst was mouthing the two words, slowly, as if he couldn't determine whether he liked or disliked the flavor.
The old man washed it down with a glass of water.
"This is troublesome. We can't integrate it," mused the chairman. "Nor dispense it through our other assets. Nor set up an executive account Nor---"
"Sir."
An old set of eyes looked up at the young bank manager. Ben shook from the sudden attention, but resolved to speak his mind.
"We have to tell the police."
"Why," he responded. There was no hesitation behind the chairman's objection to involving the law.
"We--- we can't have four *million* dollars just sitting in our vault. It's a *county* bank, not Fargo or Morgan. This can't---" he threw his hands out, "--- disappear under a third-party asset or, an individual---"
Ben didn't think it was possible for the chairman to become so animated. Both eyebrows shot to the roof of his forehead.
"An individual *could* hold four million dollars as a sole proprietor."
The manager shook under the chairman's weighty declaration. "We can't, it's, it's embezzlement!"
His frown made the chairman seem impossibly older. "Embezzlement requires funds or financial assets to *belong* somewhere first. This... 'forced deposit,' is unprecedented. So it can't be traced. But the bank will be investigated if it's just sitting there... *I want to know where it came from.*"
Those last words were barely audible, but the chairman was determined. He was going to find out, Ben was sure. They were a small county bank not for the chairman's lack. Formerly, he sat on a board on the East Coast.
And this, disaster? Defining the incident tripped Ben up in his mind. The situation then. It kindled an old fire held deep in the caverns of Chairman Hurst.
It shone.
"How would you feel, being a *millionaire this month?*"
Like a criminal, he would have said if the old man didn't seem so enamored by the idea.
Again, the manager attempted some elaborate response that would impress the chairman. Again, he only had two words for his company's leader.
"Why me?"
The question sounded pathetic in Ben's ears.
Chairman Hurst's face cracked in a smile. "Because we're going to fight wealth with wealth. Like you'll know how to spend it. The federal agencies won't catch on for about a month." He reclined into the looming chair behind his desk with a sigh. "That four million is too big an anchor. The bank will sink, and the county with it. We'll have this over with by then."
It was a declaration of war.
Ben didn't recall studying economics in his county college to get conscripted. Especially into a war he had no idea how to fight. Or armed. The robbers, let alone if someone were even behind them, were an invisible enemy.
He told the chairman as much.
"Someone wants to make our situation here terribly complex," he responded. The manager couldn't help but feel relieved Hurst identified this as a situation as well. "So we'll simplify it for now. Find answers as we go."
"I'm ready to fight."
The words felt certain. Satisfied with how they came out this time, he stood resolutely, prepared to take on this battle by the chairman's side. The laughing chairman, who's spittle sprayed over the table. Ben could only watch in horror as the old man fought for control.
Finally, he rasped through manic breaths. "Benjamin, you're my *ammunition.* Money talks, and you're going to be the speakerphone. When I have these bastards, I'll make them regret putting me in this situation."
Again, he said situation.
Despite how small Ben felt in that moment, they called it the same thing. Which confirmed the chairman was just as confused about this as he was.
The manager hoped Hurst knew what he was doing.
| 2016-02-24T12:57:22 | 2016-02-24T12:38:33 | 76 | 10 |
[WP] We finally get men on Mars and they discover an old Soviet flag placed down decades ago. The Soviets won the space race but for whatever horrifying reason didn't say anything.
|
"Well I'll be damned....." Captain Aldo whistled softly as his team approached the abandoned vehicle. He had seen the images from the Mars rover but did not truly believe it until now. The machine bore the symbol of Communist Russia, standing alone in defiance of a world which destroyed all life. It would seem, he would not actually go down in history as the first man on Mars.
"Kinda spooky if you ask me." Johannes muttered under her breath as she looked inside. "According to our satellite images their spacecraft was left over 60 miles to the west of here. So where the hell did the cosmonauts go? Why did they keep all this secret even years after the cold war?" It was decided that they would not alert the Russians of the fact that they had discovered their presence on Mars. Naturally, they announced to the world their mission to put a man on Mars but the Russia government never said a word. After all, a world is a big place to hide.
"That is what we are here to find out, the vehicle isn't the only thing our rover found here." Their Captain walked about 20 yards from the vehicle then began to stomp the ground. He was soon rewarded by a metal clang, a trap door covered from years of storms. The rover was not capable of opening the door, this was the real reason his team was sent.
It took the entire team to open it, once they wiped off the dust, the found foreign markings across it's surface. The inside was dark with the exception of a single low light which let out a soft hum. Below, they found the missing cosmonauts. Unfortunately, they had all died a long time ago.
"Welcome back creators." A voice sounded in the dark. Aldo jumped and Martinez let out a shriek.
"It has been 36 years and thirty-two days since the last creators arrived." The computer voice did not seem to take notice of their uneasiness and continued speaking. "I am pleased to report that there have been no incidents since the last report. Although there has been no further communication from the creator fleet, Project Godmaker is still running as scheduled."
There was a silence, the computer seemed to be waiting for something. Hesitantly, Aldo finally spoke in a shaky voice.
"You......were made by the Soviet's?"
"Searching..............negative. This unit was not made by the creators who last visited known as Soviet's. This unit is property of the Creator fleet special project and research division. Please provide authentication code."
Aldo looked closer now at the computer, the rest of the room was dark but the computer gave enough light to see everything else. It had multiple screens, all running the current events of what was happening back on earth. Some of which were news but others were views from cameras that merely showed street corners and mundane activities.
"Please provide authentication code." The computer stated once again. There wasn't any change in the way the computer sounded but Aldo almost imagined he heard a slightly impatient tone.
"What are you-" Aldo was cut off as the trap door swung closed, red lights began to blink and a siren wailed. Johannes ran to the door and tried to open. "It's sealed captain!" She shouted with heavy breaths as she pounded against it.
"ERROR." The computer responded in a booming voice. "ERROR, authentication not provided. According to protocol 67 of Project Godmaker, test subjects must not become aware of outside presence. All systems will go offline until intruder presence has been eliminated. Filing second report with Creator Fleet for cleanup."
Then it went dark.
Edit: Referring to modern Russia as Soviet's
|
Colonel Anderson kneeled down in front of a broken pole and wiped away some orange dust off the ground, revealing a tattered piece of crimson cloth stuck under a rock. Dragging it out of its resting place, the Colonel tore it in half, showing the two men behind him a symbol of a gold hammer and sickle beneath a gold-bordered red star.
"It can't be..." said Lieutenant Colonel Haynes. "Colonel, that's a soviet flag. A union of communist nations that dissolved nearly two hundred years ago."
Colonel Anderson sighed and tried to stroke his gray beard, but remembered he was wearing a spacesuit. He then shook his head saying:
"I don't like this, Haynes. We're supposed to be the first humans here. What's a relic like this doing in Mars?"
"Aliens?" said Lieutenant Colonel Wilfery. "Did they get killed off by aliens?!?"
Haynes rolled his eyes and said:
"There's no such thing as aliens, you dunce. Well, at least not on Mars. They probably had an accident and couldn't return back home."
"Maybe they were unable to contact Earth" said Colonel Anderson. "These... 'soviets' assumed the mission was a failure and never reported on it out of shame, or something like that. Regardless, that distress beacon is still pinging. We need to find its source before we do anything else." He scoffed with a sly grin. "Maybe one of them is still alive."
-------------------------------------
The three astronauts hiked a tall mountain they encountered on their way to the beacon. Gusts of wind suddenly caressed the men, causing them to be buffeted by specks of red sand. Ignoring the harsh exterior conditions inside the comfort of his spacesuit, Lieutenant Colonel Wilfery said:
"So why are you so sure there aren't any aliens here?"
"Because of the rover Curiosity!" replied Haynes, through a bit of static interference in their radio. "About a hundred and fifty years ago it explored the martian surface and didn't find anything."
"A stoner's curiosity?" said Wilfery. "What's weed got to do with this? Did they really send an undergraduate student ahead of us?"
The gales rapidly increased in strength and ferocity the closer they got to the peak. Enveloping them in what seemed like crimson mist, the dust clouds got denser, to the point of almost being tangible, and obscured anything five meters ahead of them. Slamming his palm into his helmet, Haynes then said:
"Rover! R-O-V-E-R. It was a reconnaissance robot sent to study Mars' geology. It didn't find any life after decades of searching, so yeah, I'm pretty confident there aren't any aliens here!"
"Would you two just shut up and focus on the situation at hand?!?" shouted Colonel Anderson, barely visible in front of them. "We're in the middle of a sandstorm here! One wrong step and we break our necks on this mountain!"
Just as he finished speaking, Colonel Anderson grabbed a loose rock and fell backwards. He screamed for his life while airborne, his horror subsiding once his men caught him by the arm. Wilfery grinned and said:
"Teaching by example, I see! A testament to your great leadership skills, colonel!"
Colonel Anderson narrowed his eyes and grunted at Wilfery, looking downwards in shame once his subordinates weren't looking.
-----------------------------------------------------
Once they got to the peak, the sandstorm had already subsided, making the descent a lot easier than the climb. The distress signal was beeping stronger the more they walked through the empty plains, giving Wilfery an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. Marching behind the others didn't help his uneasiness. His back was exposed to whatever could be behind them and everything was too quiet, too still for his liking. The flat landscape they traversed looked more like a desert drenched in dried blood than an alien planet. Even the ground beneath his feet felt *wrong*. It was probably the difference in gravity to Earth's, but he still couldn't ignore the thought that everything reacted differently here.
Looking over his shoulder, Wilfery widened his eyes with fear. The soil turned pitch black and flowed in bumps towards them, rising and falling like streaks of ink in a hostile sea of red dust. Wilfery immediately ran to his companions screaming:
"The soil guys! The ground's out to get us!"
Haynes turned around with tense shoulders, but quickly relaxed his body. He then shook his head, sighed, and said:
"No it isn't. The ground isn't sentient Wilfery, it's just subterranean water rising from the ground."
"Subterranean water?"
"Yeah," replied Haynes. "they're called 'Recurring Slope Lineae'. It's summer here, and highly saline water tends to flow this way during this time of the year."
Colonel Anderson laughed loudly and walked up to the darkened sand. He then touched its damp texture and said:
"I can't believe you're a Lieutenant, Wilfery. Really? Wet sand? What's next? An abandoned soviet station filled with zombi-"
The sand sprung from the ground and pierced Anderson's suit through his arm. He quickly jumped away from it, but it was already too late. The dust flowed into his spacesuit, filling it up until inflating it slightly and freezing him there with its added weight. Anderson's ear piercing screams were then muffled by the sand, who choked the life out of him by forcing itself down his throat.
Wilfery and Haynes gaped in terror, seeing Anderson's eyes pop out and being followed by a viscous fluid that fell from his sockets like crude oil. They turned around, trying to run away, but their knees weakened and tripped them over. The sand inched its way to their helmets, twisting itself around their calves and anchoring them to the ground. Clawing at the floor with their hands, they dragged themselves away from the black tendrils for a few feet, before being forcefully drawn into the darkness again.
The two men then faced each other and nodded, silently resigning themselves to their end. Once the black sand reached their necks, it covered them like a blanket and stopped crushing them with its pressure. Footsteps suddenly crunched nearby, coming from Anderson's body who stood in front of them. In a coarse and headache inducing voice his body said:
"Get out of our planet, humans. It belongs to *us*!"
"W-we come in peace" said Wilfery. "Yes, its *your* planet. We have no intention from taking it from you."
"Really?!?" shouted the voice. "That's exactly what the others said, but once we tapped into their memories, we saw they had other plans instead." The limp body raised its arms. "Colonization! On *our* planet. They thought they claimed it by sticking a pole in the ground!"
"They didn't know you lived here!" said Haynes. "*We* didn't know you lived here! Please, surely seeing humans must've been surprising to you too!"
"Yes..." The voice trailed off, pausing for a few seconds. "We didn't know much of you lifeforms when they first came, so we possessed all of them, thinking you were a hive-mind like us. We knew more of you would come, so we used their trinkets to call you to our location. This time, we're leaving some of you alive to send a message. Never come back to Mars again. Stay off our planet and don't you *dare* claim it as yours."
----------------------------------------------------------
>If you enjoyed this, you can check out more of my stories over at /r/WeirdEmoKidStories!
| 2016-08-16T09:25:16 | 2016-08-16T08:14:02 | 441 | 86 |
[WP] We finally get men on Mars and they discover an old Soviet flag placed down decades ago. The Soviets won the space race but for whatever horrifying reason didn't say anything.
|
When I was told my team would be the first to land on Mars, excitement welled within me. 'Pioneers', they called us; and really, how many people can call themselves pioneers? It's exciting. It's scary. It's... unlike anything else.
And yet, as I stood and looked across an expanse of nothing but reddish brown sand and dust, I felt absolutely nothing but disappointment. The voyage was hell, and I'd spent *so long* looking forward to landing that the reality of Mars just couldn't live up to what I'd been expecting. The first three days were mind-numbingly boring and dreary.
The fourth day changed everything.
"What... the *hell* is that?" I asked through the comm system, pointing at a torn-up tent in the distance. "Did one of you assholes set that up to screw with me?"
"I wish I were that creative, believe me," Stan responded, staring alongside me. "But that... that's not us. There's a flag, Mike. I can't make it out from here."
The two of us, along with Victor Foreman, our engineer, pressed forward with caution. As we approached, the flag became increasingly visible: plain red, with a yellow hammer and sickle. It was tattered and coated in dust.
"Okay, this is bullshit. O'Neill, are you fucking with us? I remember seeing this flag in history class."
A response came over the radio. "This is a bit too... complex for my sense of humor. I'm a simple man, Mike. I don't recognize the flag, what is it?"
"Come on, man. Sleep through class?"
"Sorry, I was busy learning how to pilot for NASA. This isn't funny, Mike. If you've seriously found something, we have to treat this situation with urgency and caution."
I sighed into the mic. "Soviet Russia. The one we got into the Cold War with, way back when."
"I'm going to contact HQ. Proceed as if there could be people in that base."
"Oh, come on, Cap-"
"I know we get cozy, but right now, we're not friends."
I choked back my pride. "Understood. Stay by the feeds, we're heading in. I'm telling you, though, there's no one here anymore. Everything's... just- it's destroyed. Ripped to shreds."
I stepped forward, pushing aside a fold of fabric from the tent wall. Immediately, I recoiled, sucking my breath in. Right there, on a cafeteria bench, was a man- his skin pale, spotted with black and brown, but nearly perfectly mummified overall. He looked like he'd died just a week prior.
"Holy shit." Victor threw up in his suit, then tried to paw at his slimy helmet.
"Cap, I don't think this is a joke. You see this, right?"
"Already contacting Houston. Someone's going to have to reach out and see if there's something we don't know about. Does he look injured?"
I kept myself at a distance, scanning his body with my eyes. There were still packets of food on a nearby counter. "No. Honestly, it looks like he just suffocated. He didn't starve, and there's no blood or any kind of wound."
There was a large, clunky device on the table in front of the body. I reached out and grabbed it, keeping my eyes off the corpse.
"I think it's a recording device." There were batteries in it, still looking fresh. Oxygen's a real asshole when it comes to preservation.
I flipped a window out on the lefthand side, and turned it on. After rewinding for several seconds, a man appeared on screen- I immediately recognized him. I slipped my suit's 3.5mm jack into the recording device once it finished rewinding.
"Hello," he said with a thick, Russian accent. "I have made many videos in Russian, but I have a feeling it won't matter. This last one will be in English.
"Russia has abandoned me. I was sent here as an experiment for the government, to see if we could set up a base, maybe build in secrecy. The journey was too harsh, and the travel time too long. I burned more fuel than we thought, and now I am stuck here. They told me that nobody will be coming to save me.
The man's breath grew shaky, and he wiped at his eyes.
"I asked to speak with my family. They said no. They said nobody will ever know of my time here. My death will be faked in an accident upon re-entry of Earth's atmosphere. Parachute failure. I have spent two months here now, and oxygen is almost gone. Food is still here, but that does not matter. I will die alone, and nobody will ever know. I die for nothing.
"I do not expect to be saved. Maybe nobody finds this. I don't know why I film. If you do, please tell my daughter I love her. Maybe my wife if she's still alive. I only wish I could tell them myself. I end things now. May you find your way home."
I pushed the screen in and sat down.
*Pioneer: A word we invented to make ourselves feel better about being guinea pigs.*
------
*thanks for reading! you can find more at /r/resonatingfury!*
|
"Jackson, do you copy? I repeat do you copy?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm here, keep your panties on, Tex." Commander Tripp Jackson said as he fiddled with the radio controls on his wrist computer. "What do you want?"
"I'm getting some strange readings coming from the northeast. Possibly from that crater up over that ridge, ya' might want to steer clear."
Jackson scoffed, "Tex, this is an exploration mission, checking out weird readings is kind of what we're here for." He looked to the rest of his crew behind him. Lieutenant Rickles, his science officer, was crouched beside her sample digger ever engrossed in its readouts, while Lieutenant Kraskov stood beside her. Kraskov, even though he was wearing a spacesuit and was the sixth man on Mars, still somehow managed to look bored.
Jackson shuffled towards them, the gravity on mars still took some getting used to, his feet kicking up plumes of orange-red dust. He keyed his local mics. "Hey guys, Mickelson is chewing my ear off about some strange readings just over that ridge," He said while pointing, "I say we go check 'em out."
Rickles glanced down at her wrist and then back to the readout on the digging machine, which rumbled and spat out dust as its auger bored into the Martian crust. "Just about done here Commander. Our itinerary is clear for the next 45 minutes; Mission Control likes to give us some time to 'enjoy the sights.'"
Jackson chuckled lightly to himself, that woman was only concerened with her experiments. He himself was interested in the concentration of things like nitrogen in the soil, or how the Martian gravity effected certain things, but she was obsessed. It was her job though, and she did it well.
"About time," Kraskov grunted, as he shuffled away from Rickles' experiment and towards the ridge, "Too much science, not enough exploring."
Jackson waited as Rickles' finished tapping away on the digger's output screen. She confirmed that the information had transferred to her wrist computer and stood. Stretching out her legs she glanced over at Jackson. He gestured towards the ridge, where Kraskov had already started lumbering up, and they both began their way towards it.
"What kind of readings?" Rickles asked.
"Mickleson didn't-" Jackson began before being interrupted.
"I'm gettin' strange readings on a lot of my intstruments. From spikes of power on nearby sensors, centering on that area, to bursts of gravity change." Mickelson said in his southern drawl.
"You're saying there's some kind of electrical discharge over there?" Kraskov asked, his speech slightly labored from the climb up the ridge.
"Nah, nah," Mickelson replied, "When a bunch of my readings start goin' haywire, it just means somethin's causing interference. Could be a large deposit of magnetite, could be a Martian with a ray gun, ya' just never know."
Jackson watched as Rickles' shook her head as they came upon the slope of the crater. It wasn't exactly difficult to move or climb in the Martian gravity, hell, they had hundreds of hours in training with dealing with the lessened gravity, but the real thing was different. They both began their slow ascent, following in the tracks of Kraskov, who had disturbed the soil ahead of them.
The radio squelched to life, "Uh, Commander?" Kraskov's voice emanated from the speakers in Jackson's helmet.
"Go ahead," Jackson said.
"There's definitely something strange in here."
"Be there in a second."
Rickles and Jackson trudged their way up, to where Kraskov stood at the top of the ridge, looking down and into the crater. The view was magnificent. The crater was decently sized, but not big enough to where it just became part of the landscape. Jackson could see the ridge of the crater curve away in front of him, contrasting with the hazy orange of the horizon before sloping down into the classic bowl shape.
Down in the middle of the bowl, Jackson expected to see rocks. This wasn't the first crater they had explored, as Mars was littered with meteor strikes. They hadn't expected this one to be here though, as he had memorized the general layout of their work area, and this one wasn't on the map.
There was something metallic glinting in the sun in the center of the crater, they were still too far away to make out many details but Jackson could make out sharp angles on the metallic object. Jackson shrugged as he looked between his two companions. "Welp, not going to see anything from up here. Let's get going."
They started down the slope, Jackson leading the way, Kraskov and Rickles following in his footsteps, sending billows of loose dust down around his ankles and down the slope.
"What's going... Comman... ackson." The radio coughed through the speakers.
"Tex, I'm losing you. There's something down in the crater and we're checking it out." Jackson replied.
"Read... interfer.." the radio crackled and then became silent again.
"Too much interference," Kraskov said, "the radio shouldn't be this weak, even heading down into the crater. We're out of line of sight of the antenna, but it should be strong enough to overcome that."
Jackson grunted as he scrambled over a large boulder and the slope of the crater eased away. They were closer to the object now and could make out details. It was roughly egg shaped, but only constructed in sharp angles. It was made out of some kind of grey metal, which shone brightly in the sun. As they approached it loomed up and over them.
"Its got to be at least fifteen feet tall." Kraskov said, "damn, how did the overhead satellites not pick this up?"
They approached slowly and Kraskov slowly circled around the large object.
"Nothing on the other side," He said as he came back into view, "same angles, no hatch, console or anything."
Rickles had her arm lifted as she recorded the object with the wrist mounted computer. "I've never seen anything like this," she said, "and I'm not getting any readings. Whatever caused the abnormalities earlier definitely isn't showing up on my sensors.
Jackson took a few steps closer to the object and reached out his gloved hand.
"Commander, are you sure that's safe?" Rickles asked apprehension in her voice.
"We're on a planet 54 million kilometers from home Rickles, not much out here is safe." He replied.
He squeezed his gloved hand closed and open a few times before brushing his fingers against the sharp angled metal.
Nothing happened.
"Huh, well that was a disapp-" Kraskov started, before the entire structure rotated half an inch, showering them with loose dust that had collected on it.
Jackson hopped back and stumbled his way backwards away from the object. It slowly rotated another couple inches before coming to a rest.
"Whoa," Jackson said, "I think I woke it up."
It stood quiet for a few moments before each of its sharp angles turned into creases. Gaps formed in the angles and widened. Chunks of metal began falling off the object, starting from the top of the egg shape, clattering their way down and landing in clouds of orange dust. Soon the chunks became larger until massive sections of the egg had fallen away, and the object was no more, only debris spread out before them.
In the middle of the debris field was a round metal platform, sunk a few inches into the Martian soil. Centered exactly in the center of the platform was another large metal egg, at least ten feet tall, but this time it was perfectly smooth, balanced perfectly on its base.
"What is that?" Rickles said breathlessly.
Jackson took a few steps closer, weaving his way through the debris of sharp metal and peered at the egg. It had a mirror finish, the same grey metal as the previous egg, but this time there was engraving along one section of the egg.
Kraskov stepped up beside Jackson and placed a hand on the shoulder of his space suit, and peered closer at the engraving.
"That..." He started, gripping Jackson's shoulder tighter, "That's Russian."
Jackson could now make out the Russian lettering, above which was an engraving of the old USSR hammer and sickle insignia.
"What in the world is Russian tech doing on Mars?" Kraskov asked, glancing at Jackson.
Jackson could only shake his head, "They've only sent orbiters, hell, even China has only sent one rover and that's on the other side of the planet." He paused for a second before continuing. "Crash, can you read it?"
Kraskov sighed and turned his attention back to the engraving, "I haven't spoke or read Russian since I was a kid, but I'll give it a shot."
He leaned in closer and brought up a finger, bouncing it along in the air as he combed over the engraving. Jackson could see his mouth forming silent words through the glass of his visor as he made his way through the script. Finally he lowered his hand and turned slowly to Jackson.
"Well," he said, "you're not going to like this..."
| 2016-08-16T10:03:13 | 2016-08-16T09:37:23 | 139 | 69 |
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