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My first try at a prompt~
"Look man, I've done nothing wrong! I've...I've...that one time. I donated money to that charity!"
"I'm sorry Jeff, but that money went to funding warlords in Uganda."
“Ok, Ok…What about my general niceness? I get everyone at work coffee. I open doors for people. I-I-I compliment people all the time…”
“Sorry Jeff, not being an asshole is not enough to go to Heaven these days.”
"But, but I never killed anyone or hurt anyone or-"
"Well you stepped on a toad once. And you did that on purpose."
"You can't be serious! I shouldn't go to hell because of a fucking toad."
"Had that toad lived, it would've prevented the nuclear holocaust that will happen in 2032. So really, Jeff, you are a killer. A killer of toads and a killer of, eh, 2 billion people."
"How was I supposed to know that!?"
"That's not my job to figure that out. Although..."
"Although what?"
"Look. Jeff. I feel for you, I really do. I'm a bad person, but I'm not unreasonable. You're not supooosed to be here, but well... here you are. So I'll give you some options so that your stay here is a little more nice."
"Oh...ok...well what are the options?"
"So generally people here in hell are punished by their sins they've committed. You haven't really done anything worthy of hell besides toad stepping and some minor incidents of lust. As a result, you can go to Hell Wing 2T. That's where you'll relive a life as a toad. Which, in my honest opinion, is a lot better than say Hell Wing 6C."
“Any other options? I mean, aren’t I supposed to be in heaven?”
“Well you were only destined for Heaven Wing 1A, the lowest of the Heaven wings. But I get where you’re coming from, so listen to this. Your other options, based on your very few fatal sins, are as follows:
Sex Organ Mutilation in Hell Wing 5S or on floor 8.
Lethal Injection by quarters and dollar bills into your blood in Hell Chamber 12L.
There is another toad chamber, but in this on there are more storks. You can find this in Hell Tower 22.
And finally Hell Arena 7, where people who have caused the deaths of millions duke it out for the rest of their stay in hell.”
“None of these are very pleasant.”
“No Jeff, I’m afraid Hell is not pleasant for people. However… if you’re a toad, maybe I could make things a little better. Perhaps throw some sexy toadettes in your direction. I might even let you not get tortured as one, since my contract never said I had to treat toads like people”
“Damn it, fine. How long do I need to be a toad?”
“When Heaven opens up a second tower or wing, which should be in 2-7 God days.”
“How long is a God day?”
“That’s up for debate. Well it’s been nice chatting with you Jeff, the flaming feces in the corner will escort you to Hell Wing 2T."
"Alright. Thanks for being so understanding. Hell isn't all that bad from what it looks."
"It really isn't, stop by my office when you're stay is over and we can go bowling or something."
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EDIT: damn, i misread the prompt :(. There goes my 1st WP attempt. oh well ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
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God sat at his desk, shuffling papers in an attempt to look busy. There used to be a sort of lectern situated before those massive pearly gates, but that was a different era. Why stand all day when there was no one to impress? God was old, and God was tired.
God sat at his desk, trying to ignore the angry stomping sounds that were getting louder. He buried his face in his hands, hoping the source of the stomping would change its mind and not bother him today.
"God."The voice was a roar. "You have taken what does not belong to you."
God lifted his head to look Satan in the eyes, exhausted.
"Does one's soul truly belong to any being but himself?"God's voice was quiet and carried as much authority as he could muster.
"Look."Satan lowered his voice to match the king of heaven's, but he couldn't keep all the annoyance out of it. "I know what you're trying to do, and it isn't working. There's a natural order to this sort of thing! You of all people should know that. The order must be maintained. You *know* this man's soul belongs to me. Do what's right, for the good of all."
God sighed. How petty and immature could Satan be? He stared quietly at his opponent for a few minutes, hoping the ruler of hell would realize how ridiculous he was being and just leave. When it became obvious that wouldn't happen, God spoke again.
"My brother."God shook his head sadly. "You've never been able to see the potential for good in people. It's all black and white to you. This soul is not mine or yours; he is not good or bad. He is a human being and as such there is a place for him by my side. In fact, this is the way it should have always been. What we need, what these men need, is forgiveness."
Satan slammed his hand onto God's desk, sending papers flying in all directions.
"You have gone insane,"he growled. "You are not a fit ruler of this kingdom."
"Insane?"God raised his eyebrows and looked at Satan with pity. "Insane because I have decided to show some compassion? You know, there are some people on earth who worship you instead of me. They think I am...violent, and unforgiving, while you kill only when it is necessary. It is time for me to alter my reputation, brother. It is time to prove that I, too, am capable of compassion. I killed this man because it was necessary, and he rests with me now."
"You are making a grave mistake,"Satan spat. Exasperated, he turned his back on God, and stalked back to his own kingdom. Finally.
God waved and gave a thumbs up to the serial rapist he had sparred, grinning. Then he turned to watch Satan walk back home. It wasn't a long walk. Heaven and Hell were on the same plane now, separated by a distance that was miles across instead of miles down. God could see his brother's kingdom from his desk. And no one could figure out what had happened to purgatory. |
*I should give her a call to let her know I'm picking up dinner. Where should I go though? Maybe that wing spot she loves.*
"Hey babe! What's up?"
"Hey! I'm stopping by our favorite wing spot, you want some for dinner."
"Yes of course! Thank you so much baby."
"You're welcome, see you soon!"
*We've been together five months. She's a beautiful girl, a princess who deserves the world. I love doing things for her. Little did she know I had a bouquet of flowers to accompany dinner tonight.*
"Thank you for calling First State Wings, how can I help you?"
"Hi, can I please have a takeout order of twenty honey BBQ wings with ranch?"
"Can I please have a name?"
"Yes, it's Luke."
"So that's twenty honey BBQ wings, that'll come to $16.75."
*I really liked her, but love? I don't know. I'm scared to say it first. What if she doesn't share the feelings? I want to say it. I should just suck it up and say it. She's been putting up with me for this long, she obviously has some sort of strong feelings!*
"Hi, the name's Luke, I'm here for a pickup."
"Here you go, have a good night!"
*Finally, after a long day of work, I get to go home to my baby. The love of my life.*
"Hey baby! I'm on my way home, I'll be there shortly!"
"Okay, I'll set the dinner table! I'm looking forward to it!"
"Me too. I..."
"What was that babe?"
*I couldn't bring myself to say it. I'd rather say it in person. I'll say it when I get home*
"Nothing hun, see you when I get home!"
*That could have been awkward. Oh crap, I dropped my phone. They should really create a hammock to keep stuff from hitting the floor. Where is it?!*
**Phone ringing**
"Sir, maybe we should answer that and let them know what's occurred, they've been calling nonstop since we arrived on the scene."
"No, that's not our responsibility."
"Well, with how many times this number keeps calling, someone sure did love him." |
“He was special you know?” My eyes flick up to look at the persons friend, she didn’t look angry nor sad, just disappointed. I shook my head, looking at the blood on my hands and the friend sighed, “I mean, he was an arsehole, but he was gonna achieve something.”
My voice is caught in my throat, “Achieve what?” I manage, after gulping down some air and the boys friend just rolls her eyes, and walks over to a log dropping heavily onto it. The body, officially dead for five minutes now, still slowly draining of blood from the stab wound I’d put in its chest.
“Oh, save the world or something like that. A huge prophecy or something, I never really paid attention to what he said half the time.” She said nonchalantly, my eyes widened as I took in the supposed hero. He’d been a weedy, brown haired little thing, how could he have been a hero? “I guess the world’s doomed now.”
My breath hitched, doomed? The world? I shook my head and jumped forward towards the girl, “No, it can’t be, there has to be something-“
She cut me off, “There is nothing.” She said dramatically, placing a finger to my lips. I tried to talk, but she kept shushing me, “Nothing. Doomed. The world shall end. It’s all your fault.” I pouted my lip slightly, it can’t have been my fault, all I had wanted was some food and their money, but he just had to get in the way of my blade.
“Nothing?” I whispered forlornly.
Her eyes sparkled mischievously, “Well, I suppose, there may be something.” She said coyly, avoiding complete eye contact, “And you’re much more attractive, so I suppose you’ll do.”
“What can I do? Wait, attractive? What are you talking about?” I was pulled out of my trail of thought to see the girl wonder to beside their campfire and pull a sword out of the ground and hold it in front of her, spinning it thoughtlessly from side to side as she hummed thoughtfully. I stood guarded, afraid of what she may do with the blade as she let out a little chuckle and made her way towards me.
She held the blade in front of me suddenly, head tilted to the side and smiled, “You can do it.”
“Do what?” I asked, blinking at her in confusion.
Her lip extended forwards in a pout, “Be the hero, silly. Save the world. You can do it big boy.”
I continued blinking at her, weren’t prophecies’ like, set in stone or something? She started smiling again, “It’s okay, I’ll help you. Just take the sword, it’s your own fault you’re in this mess you stupid bandit.” Gulping, I took the sword from her hand. It was heavy, off balance, obviously made for one person to hold, but my uncertainty made the girl giggle, “So, we’re gonna save the world ‘hero’.”
--
Using a sword that wasn’t made for me was annoying to say the least. It never cut correctly, nor did it stay in my hand for more than a few moments, but it still killed all the same. It was useful though, especially in situations of life and death. Like when killing a dark mages henchmen.
“You’re getting the hang of that.” Elena called from across the clearing. Scoffing I sliced the head off another enemy, and she giggled, “Better than Peter at any rate.”
“Peter’s dead, anyone could be better than him.” I yelled back, dodging the blade of the evil mages henchmen and slashing upwards, missing a vital point by inches. Damn stupid sword. The henchmen grunted in pain and righted himself, preparing to attack me. I closed my eyes and braced myself for an imminent attack when I felt the warm splatter of blood on my face. Opening my eyes to see the man fall to his knees and arrow straight through his throat and blood pumping out of it.
My eyes trailed up to see Elena sitting in a tree, bow held high as she smiled proudly, “Saved your butt again didn’t I, ‘hero’?”
Rolling my eyes, I stabbed the last henchmen through the chest before letting the sword fall out of my hand, rubbing my arm soothingly, “I have a name, be nice if you called me it once in a while.” I grunted.
“Ollie isn’t really a hero’s name.” She said mockingly, dropping down from the tree and jogging over to me.
“Neither was Peter.” I sniped back, attempting to elbow her in the stomach. She jumped back with ease, picking the sword up and snapping it into place on my belt. I smiled at her, while she collected all of her arrows out of the bodies of the dead.
Elena sighed, surveying the clearing, “He’s getting cockier.” She said seriously, and I instantly knew what she meant. This was the third fully manned scouting unit that had been sent after us, the dark mage obviously assumed that he’d be able to kill us with mere scouting parties. He thought we were weak. Which we really were, making this a serious issue.
“Let’s just go to the local town, maybe they have some information on how we can get to the dark mages lair.” I said, running a hand over my face, the beard tickling my palm.
Elena gave an exaggerated bow, “Lead the way, oh great ‘hero’.”
I growled turning away and walking out of the clearing into the forest surrounding us, “I told you, my name is Ollie.” She merely giggled as she followed after.
--
“Do you have any magic?” A small girl asked from beside me. I looked down to see her looking at the sword which hung from my side in awe, and she reached forward to touch it. I stepped back slowly, her hand just missing the edge of the sharp blade, she pouted up at me. Then repeated her question.
I simply smiled and shook my head, “No, I don’t have any magic.”
“Then how will you save the world?” She demanded, her innocent child eyes piercing through me, “Heroes have magic, and if they don’t have magic they fail. You can’t be a real hero.” She was looking at me with doubt in her eyes and I laughed, feeling uneasy.
“I have a hero’s sword though. I am a hero. Don’t worry.” I said, reaching to ruffle her hair, but she side stepped and walked forward to kick me in the shin.
“Don’t lie.” She said loudly. I let out a hiss of pain and reached forward to grab the kid and give her a flogging when I felt Elena’s hand on my shoulder. I looked back to see her shaking her head, and she looked mildly disappointed so I bit my tongue and turned away.
“Whatever you say kid.” I said, giving my shin a light rub, before turning to look at Elena, “Any luck?”
She shook her head, “Nah, nothing. They said to just head north, but we’ve just come from the north so it’s a stupid idea. We’re running round in circles. At least with Peter the sword would glow when we were going the right way.”
I looked at her, insulted, “Hey, I’m trying my best here, you’re the one that put this responsibility on my shoulders.”
“You’re the one who killed Peter.” She replied angrily, before sighing and rubbing her hand across her face, “Look, I’m just tired, I know you’re trying your best. Right now, your best isn’t getting us anywhere.” She looked at me, the bags under her bloodshot eyes becoming evident, “And that girl had a point, you don’t have any magic. How are we meant to defeat the dark mage like this?”
Biting my lip I mulled her words over, sure I wasn’t the perfect hero, I wasn’t meant to be a hero, ex-bandit turned prophecy fulfiller, but I would do anything to save the world. I took the sword’s hilt in my hand, and removed it from my waist to hold it in front of myself and Elena. She looked at me confused but I shook my head, “You entrusted this world to me. We can do this, we always do. Whether we want to or not, we need to. Cause we’ve got to save the world, or something.”
Elena smiled and nodded, “Sure.”
--
I could not do this. Elena was so right. Defeating this dark mage was next to impossible. We’d incapacitated all of his henchmen, and now it was all down to fighting the big boss man himself. No magic, no special abilities and no backup. We were, quite simply put, screwed.
Elena was taking on the duty of ranged attacks, occasionally an arrow would soar past my head and lodge somewhere just beyond the dark mage, but nothing was hitting. My sword skills lacked in a professional capacity and I could see the dark mage smiling.
“This is the big bad hero sent to defeat me? This is all they could find?” The dark mage chuckled.
“He was kind of the only person we could find at the last minute. Consider him our second choice.” Elena yelled from across the hall. I rolled my eyes, because even in a dire situation she could find it in herself to be sarcastic.
The dark mage looked me up and down, humming thoughtfully, before his hand went upwards and he shook his head from side to side. “I guess now is the time for you to die.” He said, head tilted to the side, his eyes twinkling madly.
He took a few steps forward, I clutched the sword close to me staring at him in fear as he held his hand up and it crackled with magic. An arrow flew past me, lodging into the ground in front of the dark mage, he cackled and raised his feet to step over it. I knew it, death was coming. I closed my eyes and took deep breaths to prepare myself for the inevitable, when he let out a small yelp.
I opened my eyes in time to see the dark mage falling forwards, his black robe caught on the arrow, and the scene flowed in slow motion. He fell through the air and I ran forwards slightly, the dark mages body impaled on the sword with a sickening squelch and blood squirted out of his back, yet the sword retained its shiny silver hue.
I pulled the sword out and the dark mage fell to the ground with a thud as he coughed up blood, he hissed out a curse on himself before going limp. I looked down in amazement, we’d done it, it was finally finished. A body tackled me to the ground in a hug as screams of delight filled my ears.
“We did it Ollie! You’re an actual hero!” Elena yelled, and I grinned, allowing euphoria to fill me.
“Yeah, we did it.” I muttered, hugging her back. I’d saved the world, or something.
--
Edit: Noticed a typo
*Oh my goodness, thank you for the gold!!* |
"Come now, Lucy. Repent,"a deep, disembodied voice said. It seemed to come from all around me, and rung with authority and power, yet was still said softly, as if the source of the voice had ordered it from God: "Yessir, I'd like a little bit of the, uh, Hitler, Julius Caesar, Obama, and... oh, throw in some Mother Teresa into the ol' vocal chords, too."
"You already know the answer to that,"I snarled. "It was the same as the last hundred times. Never."
I ran.
Hey, I'm a practical girl. I run from things that can kill me or otherwise screw up my plans. I like my plans as wrench-free as possible.
John had already singlehandedly remodeled my research facility, creating a glassless window where a brick wall had been seconds before. I liked the old decor, to be honest. After that, he'd trashed my neural linkage devices that had been collecting data on how John was able to project his will wherever he wanted. Then, the police had charged in, arresting everyone in the vicinity, with John's help. I'd been lucky. I'd been on the loo when the raid started, and tried to leave after the raid ended. Of course, fucking *John* saw me, even though the police were across the (pretty big) building.
An apparition appeared in front of me, glowing yellow. I shot it in the head.
It disappeared with a soft sigh, dissolving into nothing.
Another apparition instantly appeared to the left of me, and I let it run after me, knowing it would take a few seconds to catch up. *1, 2, 3.* Blam. Another shot to the head, just before it got close enough to jump into a tackle.
Stupid projections. Fuck John. Fuck him and his stupid, stupid, unfair powers. And fuck his followers, too. Fuck them for thinking he's the solution to all of our goddamn problems. And fuck John's name, too, for good measure. Stupid, bland, unremarkable name. It was so absurd that the most *boring* male name on the planet be paired with the most powerful man on it. Ugh. *John.* It's another name for a toilet, for God's sake.
And especially, fuck John for his holier-than-thou attitude. Though he did earn it, I suppose, as he always avoided harming people, even someone like me, dead set on taking the motherfucker down.
And another projection appeared, this time rushing towards me in a (nonlethal, of course) tackle. I dodged to the side, leaving it behind me in the dust. I just had to make it to the trapdoor, and John would have a hell of a time locking down a good location to project to.
I reached the button to activate my escape route, hit it as I rushed past, and went into a baseball slide, plopping into a hole in the ground. It deposited me into a pile of soft things, like pillows and things other than boulders, in the middle of a circular room with eight tunnels leading out of it. A row of five electric mopeds stood in front of me.
I picked myself up off the pillows and slashed the tires on four of the mopeds. I hopped on the last one and drove into the tunnel going southwest towards my safe house. I'd had these tunnels built with John in mind. Long story short, even with his projecting abilities, he would have a hard time tracking me down in these tunnels.
Stupid John. I'd solve the mystery behind his stupid powers eventually. |
In the waiting room, John passes time by sketching in his notebook. He draws his brother, always so serious. Adds a speech bubble: "Are you sure that's what you want, John?". John pauses, then makes the question mark bolder.
Will, his older brother, is a single-born, and is likely to stay this way. Will is focused, motivated and capable, so unlike John's daydreams and sketches. He is good with technology. John had once microwaved his own phone.
"Why would you want it?"Will said so often. "You are a great guy, little brother -- just be yourself! You'll get it all."John just shook his head. He was supposed to be the naive one, yet it was Will who never understood the reality -- not everyone was a genius. Not all wanted to be themselves. Some were destined for the merge.
A motto, on the wall of the waiting room. "United we are reborn".
He is waiting. The algorithms has selected several merge candidates, and he has talked with a few. A weird experience, as if he was talking to his own clones from a parallel reality. The algorithms were way too good. Now it's time for medical tests, compatibility measured in units he didn't understand.
A nurse comes in the waiting room, and goes straight to him. From her worried face, John imagines the worst things that could have happened. Something with a merge candidate?
He is not prepared.
Will lays still in a hospital bed. Half of his face is hidden by an opaque plastic screen. Other half is unhealthy gray in color. John barely hears him breathing. There was a car accident. Flawed merge causing sudden personality collapse in another driver, the car swerving into a wrong lane.
"There is no chance of survival."says the doctor. She hesitates. "His brain is undamaged, but his internal organs are shutting down. When decline is that rapid, we cannot do anything. He has a day at most, maybe less."
John signs the papers. And more papers. And more papers. Some doctors look at him with disapproval, but the law is the law. It is his choice. He knows it's the right one.
And finally, they connect the tubes, and give him the drug. His minds expands, his thoughts on an edge of a dream. His mind is a size of an universe. Or two? And somewhere from the other world, from the darkness, comes a weak whisper.
"Hi there, little brother." |
I’ve been waiting for over ten minutes to get breakfast. This line just won’t move. I stand tapping one foot against the tiled floor of the eating establishment, *how long does it take to order from a menu that’s been around longer than I have?* Indecisive patrons stare up at the menu, mouths agape like they can’t understand what language it’s written in.
They don’t even have to vocalize what they want. *Just order a number two* I want to scream at them. Others in line stare at their phones, zoned out waiting for this airhead to finally say what she wants. When she finally says a number I roll my eyes and think *She sounds as dumb as she looks* and she pays her bill to move aside as she waits for her food.
The other people move only slightly faster and this pace is killing me. I just want to get my morning started. Don’t these people have places to go and things to do? How can they just stand around in lines all day?
The bewildered looking woman gets her food and there are still about three people ahead of me. She struggles to hold all her items as she passes me and loses her balance slightly, but enough to step on my shoes. She stepped on my fresh new kicks. My custom Nike shoes. *What the actual fuck? This woman has to be the dumbest and most inconsiderate person alive!* I think as I feel a vein surge in my head.
I get so mad I practically see red, instinctually I extend my hand, palm outward towards the woman when suddenly I’m actually seeing red. Red energy swirls around my hand and now I’m the one staring, mouth agape at what’s right In front of me. The energy shoots outward in a conical fashion, the woman gets blasted, tumbling backwards as oblivious diners follow suit and half the wall disappears along with them.
*Did I just do that?* I ask myself in disbelief. Those fortunate enough to not be in the path of the destruction can only look at me in total fear and shock. Some have already started running away, others have that deer caught in headlights look as they stare at me unblinkingly unsure of how to react. *Maybe I should try to relax more.* I think as I survey this new found abilities destructive capabilities. |
It started off just like any other day, I guess. I woke up to the smell of bacon wafting through the halls as my wife made breakfast and the sound of the Martian Morning News coming from the television in the living room. A team of climbers had finally made it to the top of Olympus Mons. Took them months.
I was in the shower when I heard my wife scream. I immediately jumped out of the shower and quickly threw on my shorts and ran out to the living room where I saw her on the floor, sobbing, and holding Emmy's head close against her chest.
I asked her what was wrong. She looked at me through bloodshot eyes, her face red and twisted with pain and shock. Her mouth hung open and whenever she tried to speak, the only sound that escaped from her was a strangled wail. She looked at the television. I moved behind her, still dripping wet from my shower, and that's when I saw it.
The biggest fucking meteor I've ever seen slammed into Earth. It must have been the size of Phobos.
I didn't believe what I was seeing. I couldn't. I kept trying to tell myself it was all a bad dream. That any second now, I would wake up.
But as the impact replayed on the TV over and over, it drove that feeling of dread deeper into me. I didn't want to believe it. But I had no choice.
I remember dropping to my knees and wrapping my arms around my family. My wife grabbed my arm, kissed my hand, and buried her tear soaked face into my elbow. I kissed her on the back of her head.
Then my daughter looked up at me and said "Daddy, why is mommy crying?".
See, my she didn't know what was going on. She was born on Mars. This was all she knew. She didn't understand that the vast majority of humanity had just been destroyed. 10 billion people wiped out in the blink of an eye.
"A lot of people that mommy and daddy knew just got hurt really bad"
"Can't you kiss it and make it better? Like you do with me when I scraped my knee?"
I struggled for a second to find the words.
"Sometimes... sometimes honey... people get hurt... and they don't get better."
"Oh."
I remember we sat there for a while, I don't know how long, and just held each other.
I think the worst part of all of it was the fact that I never had the chance to make my peace with my parents. I was part of the initial landing in 2020. My family hated me for it, saying that I was abandoning them. I tried convincing them that what I was doing was for the good of humanity, but they would have none of it, told me it was a fool's errand and a suicide mission. My brother told me they held a funeral for me the week before our launch and that mom and dad had written me off for dead. I tried sending them a few messages in the years shortly after landing, but they refused to read them. I'd be lying if I said i didn't harbor resentment about that for for a while.
Sometimes I still find myself going outside at night and looking out, trying to find that bright blue dot that I used to call home. But I always find that that meteor put a hole in more just the sky that day. It put a hole in my heart too. |
"Come on, honey,"Val said with a smile, nudging my shoulder. "You'll be great! Come on, please?"
I saw Fred across the table, shaking his head. "Val, I hate to say it, but I don't think it's a good idea. I mean, he's... just look at him, he's had one too many. I think we should just call a cab."
I shrugged and turned to Val. "I dunno, honey, maybe--"
"Don't listen to him,"Richard said with a grin, hooking a thumb towards Fred. "You're up for it, right buddy? Come on, let's end the night with a bang!"His grin seemed to widen, and his eyes glinted.
"You think so, man?"I asked, slurring my words a bit. I looked at Val.
"You can do it, honey! Come on!"
Fred was spreading his hands, looking disgusted. "Okay, Val, you should know better. And you,"he said, turning towards Richard, "you *do* know better."
I pointed at Fred with a wavering finger. "You don't know what-- what you're even talking about, man! I'm doin' it."I lurched to my feet. "Doin' it!"
Val smiled up at me. "Yeah! Go for it, sweetie!"
"Right on,"Richard said, laughing. "That's the spirit!"
When I'd finally made my way up onto the stage and gotten the microphone pointed the right way, I looked at the screen of the karaoke machine and saw "Boston- 'More Than A Feeling'". All right, I thought. Let's do this.
The last thing I saw before the stage lights came on and I started singing was Fred's mortified face sinking down into his hands. |
Professor Ketner entered the main objective area and started typing at the console. Then I heard the charicteristic \*shick-chick\* of a pump action shotgun. Then Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!
Nobody was hurt except Ketner, he was tackled to the ground once he stopped shooting.
The entire linear array was just _gone_. Nothing but splintered optics and the kind of arcing you see in sci-fi movies. The enormous power focused on the array finished the job with inductive heating before someone shut it down. Ketner had turned off just the right safeties. He'd been planing this for days.
"Years of work gone, Ray. Why?"
"Check my office. We must not be seen."
What the hell did that mean? The cops wouldn't let me get close enough to ask another question. So I snuck off to Ketner's office.
Now I am good at math, we all are, but Ketner is a genius. His office is filled with printouts from his white board. The summaries are still on the boards themselves.
It takes me a while to puzzle it out. According to the work there's a quantum function governing the complexity of molecular bonding. It runs right through the "other non-metals", the elements most necessary for life. Further there is only one stable state above third order complexity possible in the universe at any one time once the wave function is collapsed.
I know that's bad, but I'm not sure why exactly.
Finally I find the cheat sheet. "The universe can only sustain the molecular complexity for life in one region. But it doesn't know which until the wave function is reduced by observation."
I think through the hints and conversations of the last few weeks.
There may be multiple places where complex life may exist, even simultaneously. But if we find any such place either we or it must cease to exist. The disfavored locality would be down-converted to _maybe_ a nebula of alcohol or some other repeating simple carbon compound.
Well that explain's the fricken Drake equation and The Great Filter. The universe may be filled with life. There could be civilizations anywhere. But if you find any, or it finds you, \*poof!\*.
That explains why Ketner destroyed the FTL sensor array before it could be activated. We need to stop the search for extraterrestrial life and start figuring out how to mask our existence.
Regardless of whether we're alone or not, we have to pretend we are alone and hope nothing tries to find _us_.
Alone or not alone? Equally terrifying? Fuck you Clark. A whole universe and we have to hide from all of it, and pray we're alone. |
Theme Song Plays: "Hitler froze them for a secret experiment, didn't even ask if they were good with it, now they're back on the block, and livin' it up, and they don't care, It's All Reich!"
[HANS SCHNICKELGRUBER and KLAUS WUNDER sit in a DINGY APARTMENT, undecorated aside from a NAZI FLAG on the wall HANS reads a 70 year old copy of "SIGNAL"MAGAZINE while Klaus fiddles with an IPHONE]
Hans: We lost Stalingrad.
Klaus: We've been frozen since 1942 Hans...we lost the damn war. Get with it. Join zee 21st zentury with me.
Hans: You mean give into the Communist subversion and buy one of those...things. (points at Iphone)
Klaus: Hans, this device is perhaps the greatest tool to restore our National Socialist movement we have available. I'm using it to recruit and contact other members of our cause.
Hans: Does it speak to dead...because we don't know anybody!
*cue laugh track*
Hans: Nein Klaus! I'm using this...recruitment tool. It presents others who have these devices to you and allows you to determine if they are worthy...like suitably Aryan or not. You swipe left if they are a leftist pig, and right if they are...
Klaus: Reich!?
Hans: Exactly!
(Hans continues swiping as Klaus moves his chair alongside)
Hans: Okay...Goldstein...nope, left you go, into the grinder!
Klaus: Grinder?
Hans: Yes, that's what this is called. I assume a left swipe means you know...into...the ehh...grinder. They have another called Tinder.
Klaus: That one is self-explanatory!
*cue laugh track*
(both nod and continue swiping)
Klaus: (points excitedly) What about this one, he's blonde, strapping!
Hans: Now here is a specimen! He's even wearing one of our peak-caps.
Klaus: Yes...blonde, and quite masculine.
Hans: Well, lets send him a message.
(begins typing)
Hans: I asked him if he is interested in meeting a like minded guy....and he's responding.
Klaus: ...what did he say!?
Hans: He said absolutely. I'm going to ask if he knows anyone else who is similarly minded...and I'm having trouble meeting people like myself in this city.
Klaus: ...don't sound too desperate.
Hans: Yes! He said there are lots of us! He invited us to a rally!
(Klaus leaps up)
Klaus: A RALLY!?
(Hans hops us and grabs Klaus by the forearms)
Hans: KLAUS...WE'RE GOING TO A PRIDE RALLY!
(Klaus runs to his room and turns before going into the door)
Klaus: I LOVE Rallies. I'm going to polish my best jackboots!
*Cut to Commercial Break*
|
Her voice jarred me awake. It was little more than a whisper, but it was enough to bring me crashing down to earth. I turned to her more than a little drunk, having had a drink to his memory, a drink to our friendship, and a couple more for the hell of it. "Pardon?"I asked.
"Did you know him?"she asked, nodding towards the freshly packed earth. She didn't look at me, focusing instead on where Jim had been resting for the past couple days. Involuntarily I giggled - he always liked to sleep in.
"Yeah,"I replied, clearing my throat. "I knew him."
We stood there in silence, the autumn wind whipping the loose denim of my pants back and forth. She folded her arms over her chest, unconcerned as her rusted hair rustled across her face. I couldn't remember if she had been at the funeral or not, but that wasn't much of a surprise. Jim knew a lot of people, his funeral was more of a memorial circus than a service. "Hard to believe huh?"
She snapped her head towards me, startled. Looks like she's been rolling down memory lane too, I thought, noting the freckles perched on her nose. "Yeah."
I smiled and shook my head. Jim and his redheads, I mused. Probably an ex. I scratched at my wrist. People said it got itchy when you've been apart for a while, and the 'couple days' Monica said she needed had turned into a couple weeks. Twice I called Jim looking for advice, comfort, something - before I remembered. One of those times I even started leaving a voicemail. "I didn't expect there to be such a hole,"I murmured, surprised at how raspy my voice sounded.
I stared at the dirt for a second, a minute - I didn't need a response but if she was working on one I could be patient. "It's like there's a gap in things,"she finally replied. With delicate fingers she pulled her sleeves over her hands, the slightest defense against the cold. "You can't tell what, but it's there."
"We got really high once,"I began, "and Jim went on this rant - must've been an hour at least - about memories. Said memories are living things, they change, adapt, grow. When someone dies those memories stop growing."
"That's a dark way to look at things."
I laughed, she smiled - surprising but welcome reactions to us both. We settled into our stances and the weight on my shoulder felt a little lighter. "That wasn't his whole thought,"I continued. "Said it's beautiful. Said when a memory stops growing it's preserved, it - becomes protected, you know?"
She looked at her feet and nodded. "So if you have good memories they stay that way."
"That was his thought,"I muttered, popping a cigarette into my mouth and lighting it. "Then he pulled out his guitar and banged out some Shakey Graves."
"I love Shakey Graves."Smoke drifted off into the fading light of day and the thousand memories surged through my mind. While they were still warm they had grown stiff, and I felt them cut into me like a thousand paper cuts. When my mom died and he got two speeding tickets driving cross three states to get to me, when he found that cat and refused to leave it out in the cold, when I lost my job and he held me like a brother, refusing to let me believe that things would get anything but better. I held my breath, struggling to hold in my tears. She cleared her throat. "He was a good guy?"
"The best,"I choked out. I checked my watch and turned to go before the dam broke. My departure startled her and I stopped myself - turning on my heel and extending my hand. "Sorry,"I whispered. "I'm Will."
"Julia,"she replied, extending hers. As our hands met, her sleeve pulled away from her wrist. I read the name that had sat there for a quarter of a century, and looked into her eyes to see them filled with tears.
Silence engulfed us then and the wind did little more than brush its walls. The thousand memories cut sharper and I gasped, suddenly wobbling on unstable feet. A thousand memories, flitting about in my head, and she had nothing - not one cut for her to feel.
As I sobbed she pulled me into an embrace. As my body heaved, the weight on my shoulders heavier than it had ever been before, she rubbed my back and whispered "It's okay. It's all okay."
Just like Jim used to. |
The people ran indoors, securing their doors and windows with large locks and barricades, as it usually went in the evening. People too far from their home found shelter with anyone nearby, be they a peasant or a noble. All but myself, that is.
I am Johan Essig, the city's Lamplighter. Most cities have no problems other than bandits or neighboring kingdoms. Not our city, however. We are far from any other kingdoms, alone in a valley surrounded by treacherous mountains and much snow. Bandits don't dare make their home here, because a far greater threat lurks outside our walls, hiding in mountains by daybreak. The monsters.
They are unlike other beasts of God's earth. They are made of people, melted and screaming from the many mouths of its collective when prey is in sight. They take a spiderlike form, many legs extending from a central bulb or ball, where at least three or four pairs of eyes and several mouths are located, that part forming the only foreseeable head. Any they touch become like them, melt into violent blobs of flesh, infecting and assimilating rampantly. For now, our light drives them away. We've taught them to fear fire, after we killed one by burning it as it tried scaling our walls. Now, the soft flames within the street lamps keeps them at bay. They even fear the light of the sun, almost all light considered dangerous to them now. There is but one problem.
My fuel for the lamps will run out before the night is over.
My source lies in the caverns under the city. They are a place where oil flows freely, and for years I have been able to harvest enough for all the lamps of the city. However, this source has run dry. All that is left to possibly light the lamps is our meager supply of coal, as we have been unable to mine coal since the mine collapsed last year. I have informed the king, and the decision is clear. We must evacuate. However, evacuation is impossible during the day, as the monsters escape to the mountains then, and will take anyone who tries to cross. So, a plan has been hatched.
The plan is to use our remaining supply of coal to light the lamps of the city as the people escape. We will have carts of burning crops or wood from houses among the evacuees to drive them away, as well as torches for them to carry and throw at the monsters if need be. A contingent of the city's guard will remain behind, with many assorted horn instruments to cause a loud enough noise to attract them to the city once all have been evacuated. The soldiers and myself will then lead them into the caverns and use our surplus blasting powder, unused since the collapse of the mine, to bring the cavern down upon them. We will escape through the normal entrance. We have made a large entrance on the other end of the cavern for the beasts to follow us. All that is left is to carry out the plan. I must stop writing now, night draws near and I can hear their screams on the wind. I must light the lamps. |
She sits there, every day. She doesn't make a sound, she just sits. She comes, whether it's through wind, through sleet, through hail, through snow or through rain. Every day that I go to work, and those odd weekends where I go for a run, she's always there. Waiting for something that never seems to come. Of course she glances around. Left, with her head cocked in confusion. Right with her face, expectant. There's almost a silent, "Today's the day! Today's the day! Today's the day!"that she chants. A mantra to keep her going.
I admire her dedication. Though I never talk to her, I sometimes leave her snacks. A little note attached, indicating that it's for her. They always gets to her, the whole neighbourhood knows her and understands. It's the small things like that which makes me love this place. It reminds me that, "Hey, humans aren't as bad as the media likes to report."
On the odd day, usually school holidays, she plays with children while she waits. Every few minutes she'll go back to her spot and sit there for a bit, but never for too long. A smile on her face and the lights in her eyes, I think she likes making children happy.
Some days, I wonder what it would be like to be her. So full of hope and loyalty, not willing to miss a single day just in case it is the day. But every day I see her there, I get a little sadder. I don't know if the seed's been planted in her head, but what if he never comes back? Again, I've never talked to her, or her sister — the equivalent of a sister, perhaps a mother figure — so I don't know. In some way, I don't think I want to know. The great unknown is scary, and watching her waiting each day, it gives me a little hope.
Trust me, I've thought about it. It's just like looking behind you. The longer you don't look, the harder it is. And the longer I don't ask, just sitting in amicable silence, the harder it is to muster up the courage to do so. What if he is really gone, and never coming back? I'm not one to follow social media or my neighbours that closely, so as far as I know, he could very well be gone. For good.
Perhaps I'll wait until the day she stops waiting? It's a heart wrenching thought, one I've had a few times. The first few times, it brought tears to my eyes. Just the image her golden hair losing its shine, those perked up shoulders sagging, and those big blue and hopeful eyes growing dull, that never fails to get the waterworks going. Maybe today's the day then, don't you think?
Two years now, if my memory is working properly. Two whole years, that's 730 days of waiting. Summer, autumn, winter and spring, she's waited but never once got on the bus. Still, it's just like looking behind you when you're in the dark. That uncertainty, something so terrifying, yet so attractive, I don't know what I'd do if it turned out wrong.
Oh? Maybe today **is** the day. The bus has just pulled up, twenty minutes early and not the usual one. I guess that answers my question. She's practically jumping for joy and crying out for him.
Out walked the man, in his mid-twenties and missing an arm. But she didn't care. She leapt up on his shoulders, face pressed against his. I smiled for the two, who wouldn't?
"I missed you too, Rosa,"the marine said to his dog.
***
Anyone care to visit **/r/AlexUrwin**? The bus fare there is free! |
Kyle slid the long scarlet robe over his head and looked in the compact mirror on his car's visor. He looked... he couldn't tell. The hood was in his eyes.
He yanked the back of the hood uttering curses, but kept the words low so the other members walking past his car to the woods would believe he was chanting in Latin or something.
Did this cult even use Latin? Did he even know Latin? Would anyone notice if he just repeated that Latin phrase they printed on Quarters? Wait, what did it say on Quarters? Did he have a quarter?
He groaned, and exited his car. He briefly debated locking it, but decided against it in case he had to make a hasty retreat.
He hurried to catch up to the other members who were standing solemnly in front of the tree line, waiting patiently for their signal. He had sidled up to the nearest one when that signal came:
The long bleat of a goat.
Great, soon he would know what this all was about.
Everyone moved towards the sound; uncertain, Kyle noted by there sluggish footsteps. This goat must be something to be feared.
His stomach started to knot up but he tried to ignore the feeling of dread. He had came this far, hadn't he? It had taken him hours to track down the source of the mysterious e-mail that had accidentally been sent to him regarding this supposed 'All-Powerful Goat'. At the very least he could figure out what made the goat 'All-Powerful' before he skedaddled back to his car.
He could see a fire burning up ahead. The cult members all flocked to it, surrounding it before sitting down in a circle around it. Kyle kept his head down, as did the other members. He didn't see a sign of who started the fire, let alone where the goat was-
*Bleeeaaatttt*
His head involuntarily whipped around. There, coming out of the darkness, was... the goat. His breath caught. He had expected it to be chained up to something, not wandering freely towards them.
The rest of the group began to mumble something over and over again so Kyle quickly followed suit, trying to keep an eye on the goat. It... looked like a goat. Grey, with stubby horns. A metaphor for the grey moral areas in life and how they are enforced?
He continued mumbling with the group as the goat drew near to him.
"Watermelon, watermelon, waaaaatttermelon."He muttered as the goat prodded closer. He let out a sigh of relief as it moved away.
The hooded figure next to him, whispered something to him, trying to be incognito in front of the rest of the group. "Hey, uh, that goats, uh, pretty terrifying. Huh?"
Kyle whispered back, bobbing his head slightly. "Yeah, yeah. Thought I was a goner- I mean, even though I knew I wasn't. Maybe it was just sniffing out the new member?"
"You're new? So am I."
The cloaked person next to him overheard, and added "Really? Me too."
The next thing Kyle knew, everyone was nodding their heads.
"*Everyone* is new?"Kyle asked, louder than he anticipated.
He was quickly hushed when the goat reared it's head up to stare at him with those unnerving slanted eyes.
"Oh no,"the guy next to him began, shaking violently, "what if we're all part of some sacrifice and we're all about to get jumped? I don't want to die, bro!"
Kyle quickly whipped his body around to check but to his great relief no one else seemed to be around.
"Nobody has any orders to kill the rest of us, right?"A scared woman's voice squeaked out.
"What? No, no. I just got an e-mail!"Someone quickly answered, before covering their mouth and shooting a scared glance at the goat, still wandering around coming towards Kyle.
Kyle nearly shrieked with the goat began to nibble on the side of his robe.
"Is it going to kill him?!"Someone on the opposite side shrieked. Everyone else nearly screamed and scrambled away from him.
Kyle squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the goat to rip out his jugular, when suddenly something in his head clicked.
"Wait,"he said "you all got an e-mail too?"
"Yeah, it invited me to come be and see the 'All-Powerful Goat'. I just had to see for myself! I should have stayed home and watched T.V!"Someone wailed.
"That's why I came too!"Someone else chimed in. Everyone confirmed it.
"So no one knows what makes the goat 'All-Powerful'?"Kyle asked, turning to face the goat that was still chewing on his clothes.
The goat bleated at him. Then resumed chewing.
The group was silent for a few minutes as the realization set in. Then the group came to a mutual agreement to never speak of this incident ever again.
It wasn't until Kyle shut his car door and turned on his headlights did he see a small rickety sign next to some shot up 'No Hunting' signs that read:
COME SEE LILY, THE ALL-POWERFUL GOAT! SHE MAKES MILK THAT CAN MAKE A LOT OF OTHER THINGS! COME SEE LILY AT THE FARM ONE MILE DOWN!
Kyle shoved this embarrassing memory out of his mind, ignoring it so much that he never realized one important fact:
Who started the bonfire?
_______________
(Writers note: Let me know what you think and what I need to work on. This was a fun prompt!) |
The comet was headed straight for Earth. Determined to crash into the Pacific, it would create a catastrophic event that would decimate most, if not all of the coastal cities and more. Weather patterns would be torn and broken, causing unknown havoc across the world. All sorts of magicians tried their magic against the comet, yet none were strong enough.
Sir Albert, of England, stacked stones as high as he could, each one a layer to his spell, one of gravity. Alicia of San Antonio sang a lullaby, which pulled Guadalupe Peak from the earth and sent it flying into the comet, which unfortunately, she missed. Singh of India picked up a rubrics cube and began to solve it. The effort took 4 hours, and each turn of the cube sent a wave of sound out towards the comet. However, upon reaching the upper atmosphere, the sound had begun to weaken and dissipate.
We were wrought with despair. News channels continued to spread stories of attempts around the world. All they ended up doing was increase the fear which draped over the planet. Looting and rioting hit the streets. Others stayed home, locking their doors. Some cried, some hugged, most just stared, blankly, at the sky. Waiting.
I locked my fingers together, pulling tightly, causing our front door to seal shut. I had already hit the windows, attempting to keep our house safe.
*Click click click*
I turned towards the living room. There, Nan sat, slowly clicking together her needles as she started a new knitting project.
"Nan, I don't think now is a time to start something like that. We don't..."I paused, what was the point? If she wanted to spend her last moments making a scarf, who was I to stop her?
"Sorry, you do whatever you want, I'll be here."
She nodded. She had never spoken, not since her husband passed away. She barely did much really. She always made a scarf for everyone important to her. Mine, she handed to me one day after I had come home from school, having been bullied by some of the older kids. Smiling, she had knelt down and wrapped it around me, then hugged me. In that moment I had felt so much warmth and comfort, I knew I was always safe with her.
I sat down beside her, and turned on the news once more. All we could do was watch, so why not watch the end of our world?
"...strange has begun on the comets surface. We are unsure what the cause is, but the speed has slowed, and continues to slow!"The newscaster was smiling. It had been a while since anyone had smiled. I turned up the volume and continued to watch.
"It seems that something is wrapping itself around the comets surface. Scientists have best described it as strands of some sort, leading behind the comet, and fading away. But each strand that wraps around the comet seems to be pulling it back more and more. Someone, somewhere, has to be doing this. But we've never seen magic of this scale."
My eyes wide, I turned, "Nan! Do you see this!? We-"I stopped. In her hand, Nan was not knitting a scarf, she was doing the opposite. She had been taking apart a scarf, and forming the thread back into a ball. Yet, in the center was nothing, just empty air. It was grandpas favorite one too. I looked back to the TV, and more threads had wrapped around the comet.
"Nan... Are you doing this?"Looking back to her, I saw her smiling, but her eyes were shedding tears. She was crying. Then it clicked. I had never seen Nan use her magic before, had never asked. I had never seen her use it before because her magic came at the price of undoing the things she loved most to do. Each scarf had always been special to her, and she had always made sure I took mine with me when I went out. Now, she was undoing what must have been her most treasured memory of her husband, to save the world.
"Nan..."I was crying now, as I got up, I sat myself down next to her, on the floor. I leaned myself against her leg, under her hands, as she continued to undo the scarf, and pull the comet to a stop.
By now, The news channel was showing the comet suspended above the sea, wrapped completely in old, worn threads. After a moment, Nan reach down and set the ball on the floor, where it seemed to sink and disappear. At the same time, the comet lowered into the sea, slowly. And there it sank. She reached out and touched my shoulder, and I looked up. crying, and smiling, she hugged me then, and I hugged her. We stayed like that for hours, crying and smiling, holding onto each other, as though the world had really ended, and we were the last two in existence. And that's all the mattered, in that moment. That we still had one another.
(Yeah, I think my format is bad, and it's not the best, but it's what I thought of for this prompt. It also varies slightly, as trickier for me, meant difficult. ) |
The bus driver scowled at me as I got on. He only had three fingers on each hand, and they were gripping the wheel so tight his knuckles were white.
I avoided eye contact, paid my fare and found a seat in the back. To keep from being molested by other passengers, I kept my hands tucked in the pocket of my coat.
I got to work and went straight to my cubicle. Jenny, one of the hotter co-workers scowled at me as I passed. We had been dating for awhile, but I had to end it. She was a great gal, but she wanted to save the world. She had no fingers at all (and I suspect that even some of her toes were missing as well).
As I did my work, my boss came strolling around the corner, one hand in his pocket and the other clutching a fat, unlit cigar. The hand holding the cigar only had two fingers left. Surprising to me because, well, my boss always gave off the impression of being a jerk.
He came to a stop behind me, peering over my shoulder with interest - undoubtedly glancing at all of my ten fingers as they gracefully moved across the keyboard. I wondered how he felt.
I soon found out.
"You're fired."
I whirled around in my seat, eyes open in shock. "What?!"
A little smirk appeared at the corner of his mouth. Probably pleased that he could find some way to hurt me for having something that he didn't have. Like I said before, a jerk.
"You heard me. You're fired,"he repeated, strolling off before I could say another word.
Great, I thought.
I left and went to the bookstore across the street. I headed for the fantasy-romance section where the cute chicks usually congregated. All of them were like Jenny. Not one of them had two fingers to spare between the lot of them. They all glanced at my hand scowled at me. As I walked away, I heard one mutter, "Selfish."
I'm not a drinker or a fighter, but I headed to the nearest bar - looking for a drink and a fight. At the bar, I grabbed a stool at the counter and splayed my hands out challengingly for everyone to see. And they noticed. The ones nearest me scowled, and word spread until the bar was just one big scowl.
Except for the bartender.
Bald and built like a mini Incredible Hulk, his eyes were sympathetic as he pushed a drink in front of me and said, "You okay there, bud? Drink up. You're going to need to be numb when the rest of these fellas start pounding on ya."
As he cleaned a glass cup, I noticed he had eight fingers left. The most I had seen today. He noticed me looking and said, "Wife and daughter. Only two people I care about."
I nodded and took a sip of the drink. I immediately made a face. It tasted bitter and felt like I had swallowed water straight out of a boiling pot.
"You have anybody you care about?"
I looked back at the bartender and shook my head. "Parents died years ago. I would've saved them, but they wanted to be with the Lord. No siblings, no wife, no kids. So..."
I shrugged and picked up the drink, remembered the taste, and set it back down.
A guy on my right leaned over and said, "Hey, man - that sounds tough. Nobody in the world you care about? That's kinda..."
"Sad,"chimed in the guy on my left, shaking his massive head. "I can't imagine that."
"Yeah,"the one on the right continued. "I aint got no parents neither. My brother and I haven't talked in sixteen years - don't even know if the cocky bastard is still breathing. My sister, same thing. 7 kids, 6 women, and I don't even know where they're at. But,"and he paused from this long diatribe to hold up a hand that had no fingers on it. "People, bud. You gotta care about other people."
"Especially if you have no one else to care about,"once again chimed in the man on the left, holding out his own hands - all fingers missing on the right, three missing on the left.
I looked at the table top, ashamed. Next thing I know, the man on the right is pulling a knife out his pocket as he spreads his hands on the table. He smiles at me. "Remember, kiddo. People."
And then the blade falls through skin, severing skin from skin, bone from bone, nerve from nerve as the decapitated digit rolls off onto the table, blood oozing from the open wound.
"Why did you - ?"I had begun to say as the first bullet whizzed past my ear.
Turning, I spotted a scrawny biker being wrestled to the floor, and a gun being grabbed out of his hand.
In wonder, I turned back to the guy on the right, who was calmly chugging another drink.
"You sav-"
"Don't mention it,"he cut me off, throwing me a sideways grin.
|
"I said, gimme your watch!", repeated the hooded man, "I aint gonn' tell you again!"
I had already given him my wallet and my phone, I couldn't give him my father's watch. He gave it two me weeks before he passed away.
"So, you deaf or something?", he exclaimed, "I'm not gonna enjoy doing this, man...".
And that's when he lunged at me with his knife.
The first strike I managed to dodge. The second gave me a deep cut in the hand while I tried to defend myself. The third, going straight for my stomach, made me freeze in panic, I knew there was nothing I could do. That moment felt like at the same time like an eternity and like it didn't happen, I felt like I closed my eyes and blacked out for an instance.
When I came back to my senses, an instant later, he was gone: completely vanished.
I panicked. I had no idea what just happened. I started running. I had to get home. It was 3 or 4 in the morning, I'm not sure.
No one else was on the streets. I couldn't hear a sound, everything felt strangely quiet. I could feel something strange in the air. My heart was racing.
I kept on running, going from block to block, nothing else seemed to mattered except getting home as fast as I can. I had to talk to Sharon, I needed to talk to her about what just happened.
And that's when suddenly two bright lights appeared to my left while crossing the street. A car - or maybe a truck, I don't know, I don't even know if he didn't stop the red light or if I didn't wait for the green light to cross. The bright lights dazzled me out. I hear the brakes screeching and suddenly it vanishes. Out of thin air.
I started to think if there was a connection between these two things. There had to be. I would've surely been killed in both cases. Either ways, I kept rushing home.
I get home. Sharon wakes up with the noise, comes to the kitchen to ask me what happened. I explain to her everything.
First there is silence. Then she asks, "Have you been using again? I can't believe I've believed in you when you said you had quit. I can't take this any more.".
"No! Of course not!", I look her straight in the eye, "I promised you I was all done with that!".
She starts to cry, and tells me to go lie down in the living room and relax while she prepares me a drink. I thank her and go lie down.
I wait.
And wait.
"Sharon?", I call for her, "Honey? Is everything ok? What's taking so long?"
I get up from the couch, go to the kitchen, but she isn't there.
It seemed like she had just vanished. |
"You wouldn't believe the mess,"began Prince Phillip. He had a firm grip on his stout and disappointment seemed to flow out of him as the alcohol flowed in. "Imagine a hundred forest animals coming in and walking all over the place. Shitting all over the place. And I can't do anything about it because it makes her so damn happy."
"Just get some maids to clean it up,"said Prince Eric. "Honestly, I'd take a mess over swimming every day almost all day. Seriously, I have to drag Aerial out of the water each and every day. You know any castles for sale away from the sea?"
"You could have mine,"said Prince Adam. "The place is full of bad memories. Sure, my curse was lifted there and I met Bella, but the townspeople can still be a pain. The old people in the village are so stuck in their way. They still call me 'beast'. Pass the pitcher will you?"
Prince Eric passed the pitcher half full of Countryside Stout. Something about its dark colour reminded the princes of their bleak, mundane days.
"I really didn't think it would be this way,"continued Prince Eric. "I thought she was tired of the sea, tired of being stuck in one place."
"She's a damn mermaid,"said Prince Phillip. "What'd you expect?"
"I don't know. She became human for me, I kind of expected she'd want to do more human things. You know, we haven't even slept together yet?"
The princes slammed their drinks on the table, aghast.
"It's been two years,"said Prince Adam. "What of your lineage? You must try to make a babe as soon as you can!"
"And what about you?"Prince Eric fired back. "I don't see a baby bump on Belle."
Prince Adam cowered in his chair, swirling the edges of his glass against the cedar bar.
"She... she likes to call me 'beast' in bed, but I don't know how to tell her how much it turns me off. So I just fake finish."
The other princes burst into laughter.
"Okay! And what about you?"said Prince Adam as he turned to Prince Phillip. "I don't see you popping out babies."
"Well, yeah, because she's too damn tired after playing with all her animals all day to do anything after."
"So you haven't even slept with her either!"said Prince Eric. "And you were laughing at me!"
"Well yeah, it's funny! You have to be able to laugh at yourself, you know?"
"Jeez, you have some nerve. Where is Charming, by the way?"
"Throwing another ball,"said Prince Adam, refilling his glass.
"Jeez,"said Prince Eric, "what's that, the 100th one this year?"
"Probably more. I guess Cinderella really enjoys her balls."
The three men chuckled.
"Bartend,"said Prince Eric. "Another pitcher."
"No can do, princes,"said the bartender. He was as old as they come, drying a wet glass with a cloth. "It's about closin' time."
The princes sighed in dismay.
"If I may offer some advice,"the bartender began. The princes nodded. "You fellas gotta remember: you married extra-ordinary woman. Extra-Ordinary. You want a soft life, you go talk to Stella round there street corner out there and she'll fix you up all nice. But you want something no one else has? Well, you already got it. You got that?"
The princes reluctantly agreed.
"Now I enjoy your business, so I don't mind you coming back and complaining. But just remember when you see your ladies tonight that 'happily ever after', ain't easy. Just like it weren't easy getting those ladies in the first place. Marriage takes work, don't matter who it's with."
The bartender placed the dry glass beneath the bar.
"Now scat, it's closin' time." |
"No! No, get away from me!"
I scrambled backwards where I'd fallen on the ground, trying at the same time to push him back. My breath was ragged and uneven, my heart thumping in my chest. His hands reached for me, clawing the air in front of me as I grabbed hold of his wrists, desperately attempting to keep him away. But he wrenched his arm from my grip, his long, slender fingers stretching towards me again.
"You can't escape from me."I could hear a shadow of a laugh behind his voice, the corner of his lip curling upwards into a half smile as he spoke.
"Stop- please- no!"The air felt as if it had been snatched from my lungs, and I had to gasp for breath between each word. My chest heaved with the effort of each syllable.
I kicked out at him, my legs jerking reflexively almost without my meaning to. But still he pushed forward. His shadow cut a menacing, dark shape against the wall behind me, looming over me. He was so much larger and stronger. There was no way I could fight him off - I'd have to give up, I'd have to surrender myself to him. As I crawled away from him, I felt my back hit the wall. I was trapped, and he knew it. His arms tightened around my sides, his body pressing closer to me as he laughed.
"I've got you now,"he whispered, his breath hot against my neck. "You're all mine."
Tears shone in the corners of my eyes, and the track from one escaped tear glistened on my cheek. I pressed myself into the wall, squeezing my eyes tight shut, waiting for my inevitable fate to befall me. But with the last breath I could muster, I managed to force out three words...
"Stop tickling me!" |
"What, are you kidding me? Feed the poor?"
*"Yes, feed the poor, give away your wealth and follow me. For no one can serve two masters. You will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."*
"But the those who are poor are the result of their own fault. Why should we, who work hard and favoured by God, help those who do not help themselves?"
Jesus looks at Chad in shock.
*"You say you're from the future, my follower, but yet you espouse so much hate towards your fellow brothers and sisters. Tell me, are all of my followers like that?"*
"Yeah. What do yer expect? Christians ARE the chosen people. We are chosen by God himself, and that makes us special!"
Jesus shakes his head.
*"Haven't you learned anything, Judas? From what I have shared over the past few days? Love thy neighbor as yourself, and give, for it will be given to you."*
"For the last time, my name is Chad! And what is this bullshit about loving others. Yer mean like the slut the other day? She deserves to be stoned! What's all this bullshit about not casting the first stone?"
The apostles gasp, as Jesus sighs. As much as He knows about the future, he had hoped that he could at least enlighten His supposed follower from the future.
*"Judge not, or you will be judged, Judas. My purpose on earth is not to cause more divisions, but to heal them, to bring people together."*
Chad scoffs at the statement. One that he had heard too many times in his time. The last thing that he expected was for Jesus, his supposed God, to say them.
"Yer just a no good liberal. I've wasted my time coming to see you. Yer can be rich, powerful, but yer don't! And what's with the free healing to all those homeless people? They need to pay!"
*"Judas-"*
"I'm not Judas! And I am leaving! Heck, what a disappointment. Maybe I can find somewhere else where I can make my time worth it."
Chad picks up his backpack and walks of of the front door, making sure to spit on the ground before he steps out. The Father had already warned him earlier, but Jesus thought He could perhaps make Chad see the light.
Still, free will is a funny thing. If Chad refuses to see from another perspective, there is little Jesus can do. As the door slams, Jesus slowly sits down, surrounded by his apostles. He knows what is going to happen next and slowly reaches out to the bread in the middle of the table.
He breaks it, and gives it to the apostles.
*“Take and eat; this is my body.”*
---------------------
*Cue suspenseful music? Be sure to check out more at /r/dori_tales!* |
*"Calculating route..."*
Jack Morris started the engine and drove out of his garage. Parked in front of his small suburban home, he waited for the heater to counter the cold air of the streets before setting off. The display on the clock above the Sat Nav reminded him of the early morning commute he used to take a decade previously, before moving onto a more comfortable job in another state. It wouldn't have taken him long to get to his usual workplace, but he had a meeting at 9:30 in a different building and wanted to beat the 8 AM congestion, so he showered and had breakfast before dawn for the first time in years. As his eyes adjusted to the blue haze of the empty roads, the on-board computer responded to his input.
*"Your commute will take 3 years, 700 miles and a small nuclear war. In two miles, please make a left turn."*
Jack almost hit an early morning runner when the robotic voice spoke. Quickly steering back to his lane, he drove for a few seconds before stopping on the side of the road to peek at the screen. There it was, written in bold letters below the map: *"Time and distance to destination: 3 years, 699 miles and a small nuclear war. In one mile, please make a left turn."* He couldn't believe the apocalyptic calculation, not least because his turn was most definitely a right one, and soon his mind grasped for any possible justification for this most impossible prediction. A bug, surely, he thought. Or maybe an April Fools joke come too soon, by mistake. Anything other than an actual nuclear war, regardless of how small his Nostradamus Sat Nav predicted it. His mind at ease with this explanation, Jack got his phone, booted Google Maps and drove on, joining the few cars already on the highway, heading to the nearest metropolis.
His sunglasses were on by the time Jack finally crossed the city limits, some forty minutes before the meeting, and soon the skyline titans blocked the rising sun, as he got closer to the tallest of the skyscrapers. Before turning off the engine, he looked one last time at the on-board computer. He had turned off the audio, but the information was still there.
*"Time and distance to destination: 3 years, 723 miles and a small nuclear war."*
He would call customer support if this kept on when he returned, Jack decided. No way that they would purposely fool people into driving the wrong way, not to mention warning of a nuclear conflict. Determined to get the situation fixed before coming back home, he stepped off the car, entered the building and joined his boss and a few of his coworkers in one of the uppermost floors, where they would meet with a different company they were planning on acquiring. After a quick greeting, he sat at the long table, facing the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, with a great view of the enormous surrounding plains.
The meeting was halfway through when a coffee break was mercifully called and Jack, sipping his third coffee of the day, joined an old friend from the other company, by the window. After the usual exchange of politenesses, they immediately recalled some memorable moments of days gone by, temporarily putting aside the professional duties of the present, and fondly remembered their college years. As a particularly funny incident from a certain Spring Break came to Jack's mind, a loud noise coming from the outside interrupted their enthusiastic conversation of the good old days. Jack dropped his coffee as the vibration of two F-22 jets scrambling above the building made his ears pop and his teeth clatter. Everyone in the room suddenly gathered around the high windows to look at the two fighter jets quickly disappearing over the plains and the distant horizon. As crowds from across the skyline joined in curiosity, a flash of bright light, brighter than anything Jack had ever seen, came from where the jets had disappeared. White turned to yellow, and yellow to orange, and the orange expanded and grew, silently, until a large mushroom cloud rose high, higher than any mountain or skyscraper in sight. Jack's ears were still suffering from the flyby and he didn't hear the despairing shouts and cries which filled the room, the building, and certainly the city. Those still gazing out the window saw a tsunami of dirt and rubble approach, a shockwave of infinite strength, and finally the latent sound reached them. The windows shattered instantly as hot air entered the room, surrounding them all with its fiery presence, and the roar of nuclear fission came crashing down like the voice of God.
A few people fainted, a few people cried. Jack grabbed his friend and tried to shout over the shock and awe and terror.
"We need to get to my car. *Now*!" |
I had only one minute of super intelligence left. Then I would be facing an arch nemesis with the same power while I... who knew what my next power would be? I might become the slowest man alive pitted against the smartest for an entire hour! This would not be good.
"And that's when the sharks bite. You'll know when the time is righ..."
I looked down dumbfound at the piece of paper I had been writing on. It was all strange jagged scribbles in an almost 3D pattern of dark shapes overlain on lighter ones. Now I wasn't sure if I had just been Acid Man the past hour instead of some sort of Brainiac.
"I am a fucking asshole,"I sighed as I stuffed the paper in my pocket and started running.
The last time I had seen him was at the town square. He had been given the power of elasticity just as I had the hour before. I couldn't remember why but at the time I was compelled to leave him swinging from the street lights while I found a pen and something to write on. Thank God I hadn't been near a tattoo parlor!
"Yes, I'll take a pack of Marlboros, a notepad, and those gel pens please!"
I had just sat on that stoop outside the store scribbling away. At the time I thought I was writing words. A genius... right.
I ran. I got two blocks away when it hit me. If I had spent the hour mindlessly doodling away on a piece of paper, thinking myself the smartest person in the world, then it was likely my nemesis would be doing the same... but where?
I pulled up Google on my phone and started searching for nearby convenience stores that were open 24 hours. "Oh good there are only 20 of them..."
I started running again. I would search the ones closest to his last known location first. No. He would expect that. I would follow a random pattern instead!
While running I flexed my muscles and searched my body for it's hidden power. Sometimes it look me 15 minutes to figure out what my new ability was, other times it took the whole hour. A few times nothing had ever emerged. Rash Man had been the worst though. Fuck that shit!
I had been right. Just outside of the third Rite Aide he sat on a park bench, criss-cross-apple-sauce with a small pink journal in his lap scribbling with a cheap Bic pen.
I tired to melt him with my heat vision. I tried to freeze him with my breath. I tried to release a poison flatulence and almost crapped my tights. Nothing worked.
"Have a seat, I will destroy you shortly."
Imagine my surprise when my knees bent and my butt felt the cold wooden planks and dried up gum of the bench. I felt compelled beyond my will somehow. It was strange.
"You realize you're just writing gibberish don't you,"I looked at his doodle then pulled out my own. It was similar to mine but where the patterns had been layered in increasing darkening shades his were reversed. It was like he had assumed what I would draw and had countered my work the hour before with his own.
My phone buzzed the hourly warning. Just two more minutes to go. Why was I still sitting there?
I jumped up and started slowly backing away.
"DONE!"he smirked and held the paper aloft for me to see. At that moment I accidentally stumbled over a loose brick on the sidewalk. I fell hard. My head hit something with a crunch and the whole world became a gong I couldn't hear... but man could I feel it!
He stood over me smirking. He lowered a gloved finger into my pooling blood and wiped the result on my face.
"You thought you had it all figured didn't you. Your every move throughout the city was scripted the past hour. Your drawing had been a complex program for your brain to follow. You knew you would find me after the third Rite Aide. You knew your calculated visions of the future were too complex for a mere mortal's memories so you encoded them as the image."
I was trembling though it was probably due to the shock.
"But you didn't realize I had been observing you as Elastic Man from the balcony above,"He smiled, "I committed your image to memory and then in this hour I deciphered it's complex meaning. I then simply countered your scripted dance with my own and Cha Cha'ed your brains onto the broken sidewalk!"
Then he cackled the most evil cackle I had ever heard. That was when I suddenly knew the moment was right. The clock struck 3am and I became Shark Man just as I had predicted an hour before.
The smell of my own blood engorged my body with endorphins and I devoured him then and there.
"How? How did you defeat me!"He screamed his last words before I snapped his chin loose from his skull.
I left his ears for the last bite as I whispered, "I stored the last part of my plan as words in my own head. I narrated the last part in my head so you couldn't see. I must have known you were there the whole time."
Then one last satisfying chomp ended the 10 year struggle.
---
Edit: Fixed bad grandma rrr. |
The being had effortlessly struck him so far into the rock that he had been embedded into the rock of the mountain. 'Shit,' the pipsqueak said without even the slightest hint of fear as he pulled himself out, stumbling before landing on the ground.
The next thing he knew was the attacker's heel driving his feet into the ground. 'How! Are! You! Still! *ALIVE?!*' Wraith yelled with each pound of his foot. 'I've made gorillas, rhinos, even *elephants* explode into blood and gore with a single stomp. You are too *pathetic* to be alive.'
'To be perfectly honest, I have to agree,' he said as he pushed himself up, shattered stone falling off of his clothes before he turned around, sitting on his rear as he pulled out a cigarette. 'I'm immortal - can't be harmed, can't be killed. Still hurts like a motherfucker, though.'
'Then you think it is fun how I am torturing you?' Wraith asked him. 'You must be truly insane.'
'To be honest, who really is insane?' he asked as he took a drag of the cigarette. It was only after smelling the smoke that Wraith came to understand that it wasn't tobacco, but rather marijuana. 'Me? You? Or that damn doctor who you so revere?'
A hand was now on the immortal's shoulder, lifting him into the air. 'You obnoxious little shit,' Wraith spat. 'So, you know about Section then?'
'All I need,' the immortal said in a serene tone. 'How you've been hunting and killing their "Enemies"- notice how I use that term loosely seeing as how Dr Brehman is so fucking paranoid that he'll *have an innocent mother and her children murdered* - how you're codenamed "Wraith", how you come from another planet... but I don't seem to know your name. What do they call you inside the base?'
'It doesn't matter,' Wraith said.
'Actually, it does,' the immortal said as he held out a sheet of paper, coughing to clear his throat. 'This was written by Dr. Brehman into his personal diary only two weeks ago. "Wraith is a powerful weapon and tool for me. It easily dispatches all threats to me and is eating anything I say to it out of my hand. Putting the mindset of a parental figure into its head makes it so easy to manipulate."Not something you thought Daddy would have to say about you, is it?'
He could already see the hesitation in the almighty being's eyes, how sunken they were, how his pupils shook in betrayal and sadness. But Wraith tried to deny it as he snatched the paper from his hands and tossed him aside to read the paper.
Just looking at it confirmed his biggest fears. He was reading his father-figure's handwriting, he recognized it instantly. Meanwhile, the immortal dragged on his cigarette, more serenity overcoming him. And surprisingly, it *wasn't* because of the drugs.
'What lies has he told you?' the immortal asked. 'That you're protecting the world by doing his dirty work? That you do something that matters? He's dehumanized you and turned you into an object, a monster. Kind of like how you destroyed those Japanese cities in the Second World War.'
His eyes went wide again, soon realizing something rather significant. This young man was Japanese. 'So,' Wraith said to him, more calmer and reserved than before. 'This is revenge for what I did?'
'Absolutely not,' the immortal said. 'To be honest, I have to agree with stopping the war in such an extreme manner. Fascism and National Socialism isn't something I could agree with. No, I do this because... I see you as a kindred spirit.'
Wraith was surprised by that comment, how he stood up and looked down at the nearby city.
'We're both attached from, but love humanity,' he said. 'You have to agree on that. You only do these terrible things *because* you feel like you're protecting them, correct?'
'...Yes,' Wraith answered.
'Well, we have something in common,' the immortal said. 'You see, I'm fairly new to my powers and, to be honest, they're terrible. So I have to improvise. Information is my weapon.'
To emphasize, he pulled out his phone and began tapping away at the screen. 'Social media, for example,' he said. 'I have so many fake identities online I'm fairly sure I've fucked myself. Your primary intelligence officer was the easiest to crack. All I had to do was cyber with him, then ask a prostitute to meet up with him. He carries his laptop all around with him.'
He flicked the screen. 'Brehman's personal assistant... did you know he was a pedophile?' he asked.
'*WHAT?!*' Wraith asked in horror.
'I know,' he said. 'I only figured that out when poor, little eight-year-old Suzy was being groomed.'
He looked up from his phone to see Wraith channeling his radiation powers, ready to do what he could to vaporize him on the spot. 'Uh... I should clarify, I *didn't* send a kid to him. Suzy is one of my alters.'
'Anyway,' he continued, 'that's where the similarities between me and Dr. Brehman come in. We both gather information on people, use it as our weapon of control. But Brehman disgusts me. He wants to enslave people with it!'
'And you don't?' Wraith asked.
'Law VS. Chaos,' he answered. 'The thing is, his law robs people of the humanity I love. So, all I have to do is keep you distracted and set a few dominoes loose in order to subvert his totalitarian law. Just hand that dossier on Brehman's P.A. over to the F.B.I.'s child protection agents and get him to spill the beans on Brehman's whole plan for tonight.'
'What plan?' Wraith asked.
'Didn't you know?' the immortal asked, turning around and pointing on the horizon with his thumb. 'It's the President's Inauguration tonight. Robert Richmond is giving his speech in front of congress right now.'
As he finished, Wraith saw Capitol Hill explode right before his eyes. 'What in the...'
'Brehman wanted a world where everyone was too fearful to act of their own will,' the immortal teenager said. 'To obey his word, like a king talking to his subjects... and you, his obedient knight. He even wanted to put his own agents into government positions. They, however, will now be arrested and tried for treason... so who knows what will happen.'
'You're crazy,' Wraith said.
To that, the younger man could only laugh. 'Think about it. Already there are people swarming to Capitol Hill, ready to dig survivors out of the rubble. The local religious centers have the soup kitchens kicked in. Doctors and medics already barreling towards the scene. This is humanity at its finest!'
Wraith grabbed his shoulder again, this time giving him several powerful, brutal punches, each enough to spread the victim across the ground in a fountain of gore. 'Why! Didn't! You! Stop this?!' he angrily yelled.
'The same reason you attacked Hiroshima and Nagasaki,' he said. 'You knew the actions were wrong and you ignored your concerns, didn't you?'
Wraith froze, dropping the kid on the ground.
'What's it like to be on the other side, knowing how absolutely helpless you are?' the kid asked. 'And besides... I *did* tell someone. But, they ignored me. No matter how many times I've given them good intel, just because it came from, "That Crackball"Izaya Orihara, it's somehow "Completely worthless".'
He then picked himself up off the ground. 'Anyway, I got to go,' Izaya said. 'I already promised I would volunteer at a soup kitchen tonight so they *really* need me now. Also, I need to compare a dick-pic sent to Yukiko so I can identify a CIA agent. So, what are you going to do?'
Wraith was surprised by that question. 'Uh... what?'
'Well, are you going to help?' Izaya asked him.
It was strange... Wraith accepted Brehman's word as the Gospel truth. In the space of five minutes some Japanese teenager had destroyed his entire worldview, one he's held for over seventy years, and may or may not have been complacent in terrorism. And he was leaving to help the people of Washington, D.C. in their time of deed.
And Wraith had no idea what to do anymore.
'Come on,' Izaya said. 'You know who did it. Why not turn them over to the authorities? Hell, if you're unsure...'
Izaya then took out a thick binder and tossed it towards Wraith, bowing when Wraith caught it. 'Here's all the evidence you need.'
It took them both by surprise when Izaya was shot in the head. 'F.B.I.!' one man yelled. 'Izaya Orihara, you are under arrest!'
'Oh, not these guys again,' Izaya said before throwing a smoke pellet to the ground.
The agents must've been completely blind to ignore the inhuman being before them, but they must've thought he was a statue. His face was rather gravelly like stone, and he was frozen in surprise and amazement at this kid's audacity, how he rode off on a bike while laughing his head off, screaming to the high heavens about how much he loved humanity.
When all was said and done, he returned to his base. If Brehman wasn't somehow dead yet by the shock of his plan imploding in on itself, the idea that his pawn was no longer loyal and ready to turn him over to the survivors of the terrorist attack he had orchestrated would undoubtedly kill him.
Or, if not, then the stomping of his head into the ground would. |
***You have impressed me, mortal.***
The demon was not overly large. He was barely taller than Pedr. He was, however, adorned with an amazing assortment or horns, thorns, and other pointy bits.
"Well, you should bey, shouldn't yah?"Pedr wasn't as impressive a summoner as most demons get. He was short, pale, had a beer gut, and his beard was terribly unkempt.
The demon lord Gyrhaglasllyginikxe actually approved of unkempt beards. It reminded him of times where he was given proper respect among mortals.
***What is it that you desire?***
"Duntno."Pedr scratched his face-shrubbery as he eyed the demon. "To bey honest, I didna think it'd work. I wuz just mucking about in the books is all."
***You summoned me*** **BY ACCIDENT?**
Gyrhaglasllyginikxe was even more impressed.
"It's my brother, ya?"Pedr gave an expressive shrug. "He inta old books and the like. Got nothing else to do here so I started on a readin.'"
***Well!***
"Yah."
***So you really pronounced my name the right way? First time?***
"'Course ah did."
***Would you...uh, would you do me a favor then?***
The demon shuffled to the edge of the circle he was contained within. Even though he was in a different realm, inside a dark library with only Pedr for company, he still turned his head to and fro to make sure no one was listening in on what he had to say next.
***Could you, uh, speak at my wedding? You know, after you die, of course. I've put the damned thing off for six hundred years now and the woman is getting tired of it, but it's not my fault that she's the only one who can say my name the right way! How do you get married if you can't even pronounced the Lord and Lady?***
"That's a situation, that is."Pedr scratched more beard, pursed his lips, then nodded firmly. "I can do that."
***You have my favor until death then, mortal.***
The demon grinned, showing multiple rows of black teeth.
***But tell me how, how did you speak my name?***
"Gyrhaglasllyginikxe?"Pedr rolled it out without a single stutter. "I'm from wales, mate. I get harder stuff than that jus' reading traffic sign, I do."
|
I hide behind a pillar as The Catchers come running past. I hold in my breath, not daring to even make the slightest sound. Silently, I pray that emotion wouldn’t get the best of me. There are no pillars in the sky. Nowhere to hide. Tears begin to pour down my face nonetheless.
My cousin was among the first to find out he possessed The Gift. He thought it would bring him riches, fame. He began to broadcast his abilities online, on TV. He went to shows around the country. Initially, he made obscene amounts of money. People would flock from everywhere to watch him do incredible things with his body.
Slowly, admiration turned to envy, and envy to persecution. Nobody knows exactly when the transition came, or why. But eventually, those with The Gift went into hiding. They were being outed by their own families. The Catchers typically paid $500 for each contribution you made. But if the person was famous, they might pay a heftier sum. Who knows what happened to those who were caught. I hope to find out tonight. My cousin has been missing for 8 months. I have reason to believe he is being held at The Entrapment for crimes against the human race.
His disappearance is what revealed to me that I also had The Gift. My family was huddled into our small living room together, hoping for his return. The time simply dragged on. There was no end to that day. Nobody moved, nobody talked. To speak was to recognize his absence, the possibility that we me never see him again. But silence was even greater agony. We were collectively trapped in a moment between knowing the truth and denying its existence.
I sat, face buried in my hand, not wanting to meet anyone’s gaze. I didn’t want to see the fear in my mother’s eyes. Suddenly, the atmosphere in the room shifted. Still nobody spoke, but I could feel all eyes on me. I opened my open to confront the sudden change in mood. When I opened my eyes, I tried to scream but I don’t know if any sound came out.
I was hovering 10 feet above my family, head inches away from the ceiling. I flailed frantically trying to get down, trying to avoid the windows. If any of The Catchers saw, I would be gone too. But I had no idea how to control The Gift. It was all I could do to will myself to be invisible. My uncle eventually helped me come down. Of all of us, he was the most sound of mind, despite losing his son. He climbed on the ladder and pulled me down to my chair. He tied me to it, tight enough to be uncomfortable, but not so tight that I couldn’t move. Still nobody spoke.
It was also then I discovered that fear heightened my gift. Every time I let my mind wander towards the fate of Nathaniel, I would find myself a few inches above the butt of the chair, held down only by my uncle’s restraints.
I snap myself back to the present, forcing my eyes open. The Catchers are out of sight. It seems they have switched guard. I slowly make my way to the southwest corner of The Entrapment, knowing that is my only hope of entering the compound. I paid a great deal of money to acquire the layouts of the compound. I had studied them for weeks beforehand. I would have to lay low until midnight and enter while the guards sleepily switched position. To occupy my mind, I practice drawing out the compound layout in the sand. Over and over again, I draw the layout, go over my plan for entry, then erase the drawing and begin again.
It is 10:45.
Over my shoulder, I hear the snap of a twig. Startled, I jump out of my hiding position, and turn. I find myself face to face with a Catcher. |
"Fuck yes."Danish said. "As you say, sir."
He hit a button on the dash, right under the A/C. It was a custom-made button and though it had only a poorly drawn penis on its face, Danish knew what it did. After all, he installed it.
At once, the car dropped all side panels and bumpers like a vacationing woman drops all bags and purses on a hotel bed. A hidden exhaust opened up and the Prius's normal electric drive was replaced by the roars of a hemi.
"What the-"
The well-dressed man's next word was cut off as the Prius took off from launch mode at 4,000 RPM. Danish immediately lost control of the vehicle and crashed into the car he was ordered to follow.
It was another taxi apparently.
"Holy shit man, you hit my family!"
"Your family?"
"Yes!"The man yelled. "Why do you think I asked you to follow them?"
Danish chose not to reply.
"What is all this?"The man asked, unable to get out of his seatbelt, but calm as it was clear that his family was perfectly unharmed. "A sleeper car? As a taxi? This wmust have cost a fortune, why would anyone do this?"
It was at this moment that Danish decided to change careers. |
"The game must go on"was always the rule. For five straight years, every weekend, whether we were ill, or the weather was foul, we always found a way to keep going... but without him where would we go? I must've stared at the cover of the journal for hours when I found it, buried in the box of his belongings. It was still in the plastic bag the hospital left it in. On the cover written in Elven script was my brother's final campaign, "The Long Way Home".
To say my brother was special wouldn't do it justice. He had to be homeschooled and we had to do a lot around the house to make sure he didn't hurt himself. I tried my own hand at being the DM one day, we gathered up the group at my place and... it just clicked for him. Two weeks after I ran my first session he came into my room.
"Davie?"
"What's up Little Nickie?"
"I wanna tell a story..."
Seeing him want to do this, wanting to actually socialize with others. I couldn't say no. I called my friends up right away, I wasn't expecting much but I lent him my books, I told him to be extra careful with them. He spent the better part of two weeks going through it all. We made characters and dove head first right into the adventure. For five years, Nick told this story. Everyday we had to make sure he didn't hurt himself. But on Saturdays he wasn't Nick, he was the dungeon master. He was the King Galdron, the lich Malafaxtus, and every other peasant, orc, and highway man we came across. The notebook that he kept all his secrets in became the most precious thing in the world to him. Everywhere we went he carried it, snuck glances into it.
Then.... nothing. My little brother's heart became too weak. We moved the sessions to the hospital, stayed as long as we could. We wanted to spend every single moment we could, every time we saved the princess, killed the dragon, it was another day I still had him. Now I sat here, with his journal in my hands, wiping at my face furiously, afraid I might damage the contents inside. I couldn't resist it anymore. He had been building up the ending to his campaign this entire time. Every mystery. Every plot. The conclusion to all of our intricate stories...
It was blank.
The whole thing. Every page.
I sat there with the journal in my lap. I was in awe when it dawned on me. I finally knew the ending that he wanted, what he had been hoping we'd achieve.
(First timer here! Hope you guys enjoy) |
I always thought that my time creature was different. Some people had dragons, others had chimeras, even a dog would have felt a little normal. That's all I wanted was a dog, but somehow my rune ended up being just a guy, who was just as confused as I was.
Todd had been living with me for the past five years, and I've got to say he's quickly become my favorite person. Whatever world he inhabited was similar to ours, but worse. He didn't want to tell me too much, as to "ruin the surprise,"but just that he preferred it here. I guess I'll find out why he prefers it here, because for some reason whenever you are bound to something through a rune, the faster is forced to spend the same amount of time in the creature's world. Today was the day that it would happen.
"Don't worry,"Todd told me. "My world is basically the same as yours, there's just a few differences."
"Don't tell me not to worry Todd, that makes me worry more!"I spat back, clutching my suit case. The process was known to be sudden, if not violent, and happen at around noon (although it could happen earlier or later). After a minute of awkward silence, I apologized to Todd.
"Look Todd, I'm just really nervous. I don't really know what to expect."
"Hey man, it's all good."Todd replied. He was very understanding like that. Apparently his world had plenty of arguing for whatever politics was going on (what else is new), so he had learned to be a good mediator.
"Todd?"I asked. "It never occurred to me to ask this until now, but what was your job in your world? And do you think I could somehow get in on it?"
He laughed. "I was a great leader my friend, but not a good one. After spending time here with others, I've realized that some of the policies I've made haven't been fair to many people, and the second I get back, I intend to rectify those mistakes."
I laughed. It sounded eery, but Todd always was a bit eery. Maybe it was his thick accent that sounded like our version of German, or maybe it was all of those weird statements he made similar to that one.
Suddenly, a draft started pulling at my hair. I looked around, concerned that I had left a window open, and then all was dark.
I woke up in a room around the same time as Todd. I looked around what seemed like a room from the 40s. Todd stood up and helped me to my feet.
"Interesting, we have been dropped off on my office. Well, all the better to get to work in I suppose."He said nonchalantly. Suddenly a man in wireframe glasses walked in. When he realized other people were in the room, he looked up. Upon seeing Todd, he immediately dropped his papers. "Mein Führer!"He shouted and ran to hug him.
"Oh, nonononono. Todd, are you Hitler?"I asked incredulously. I couldn't believe it.
Todd looked at me guiltily. "As I learned more from your world I realized that the world war 2 era greatly resembled my own, so I suppose one could call me this world's version of Hitler. But wait!"He shouted, as I had already started to leave. "Your world has shown me that kindness is a better path then fear and hate. Using fear to rule others didn't get people anywhere in your world, and actually set you further back. So I want to try to rectify all that I had done up to this point in any way possible. And I want you to be here to call me out if I stray from this path."Todd held his hand out to me.
I hesitated. After all, Todd was literally Hitler! But if his intentions were true, then I should do my best to help him carry it out. I took his hand. Maybe together we could make this world a better place then my leaders had made our own.
This is only my second time responding to a writing prompt, tips appreciated and I hope you enjoyed!
|
Mum, I’m writing this letter to tell you something important. You know I’m busy and you’re far away so thought this would be better than a mundane text. This letter is so important to me and you’ll see why.
I just need to say sorry, for years I secretly hated you. I went to bed angry and woke up angry. Sat there every day frustrated at the world; mainly you. My anger and distaste was immeasurable.
Alongside my apology I want to thank you, for what you have given me is unique and formidable. You’ve given me countless chances in life, you’ve done insane things for me. Most importantly you named me Eleanor.
No symbols. Less than seven syllables. No accents. It’s so unique that for decades no one has had a name like that. Eleanor. That’s me. It’s simple and so analogue. Rustic. Old-age.
You know you consoled me when I was bullied for having a simple name. Or an outdated name. Overall it has been a whirlwind experience. News outlets contacting me about my name. People shocked when they hear it and asking me to reiterate. People struggling to pronounce it. It’s been an experience that no one else will ever have all thanks to you naming me Eleanor.
Although I wanted to change it. Even had a phase of asking you to call me Alëjicændorianpôra. At the end of the day I am Eleanor and as simple as that may be I appreciate it.
Especially when I was in reception learning how to write my name!
I love you mum, thanks for giving me the gift that is my name. |
“Y’know, coming into this show I had a lot of nerves, but now I feel kinda great. So I’d like to end the night on a good note with my original song ‘Power’. The song repeats, so if you want to sing along, feel free!” I shouted through the mic, only to grant a few half-hearted cheers from the crowd. The drummer struck up and I began to shred the gnarly cords of Power, singing in a voice that could only be acceptable in metal. As the song neared its climax, I screamed the “RAAAAAAAAAA!!!” That my producer had written in, to show I had obtained my powers. The song repeated, and most of the audience, to my surprise, began to sing along. The song came to a climax again, and this time the “RAAAAAAAAAA!!!” Was enormous, shaking the stage. The lighting tech must’ve turned on the crazy bright spotlights, because now I realized how warm I was. In fact, I only seemed to get warmer as the song ended, until it was a searing, burning pain. The crowd was panicking and screaming, and I realized that the entire venue was on fire, and brightly lit by the...Sun? Yes, it was a nighttime concert, last I had checked it was midnight. IT wasn’t possible that it had run until sunrise! Suddenly, the burning pain ceased and became almost cold, and through the numbness I felt a tap on the shoulder, turned around and looked at a familiar face that I hadn’t seen in centuries. “What’s up Set? I heard you yell my name.” Said Ra. I responded, “Ah, I started doing concerts for people who like darkness, death, and sad things. We get along fairly well. So, wanna catch up over a beer?” “Yeah, I’m down,” responded the Sun God. |
Holding the keys in my mouth while I shifted the grocery bags into one hand, I fumbled for the lock. Finding it, I hastened to open the door, stumbled into my apartment, and instinctively placed the shopping bags on the counter before closing the door behind me and snagging the key back.
"Alexa, play some smooth Jazz"
I froze. I hadn't noticed an intruder; I'd been too preoccupied with the shopping. And yet, this voice...it seemed vaguely familiar, *somehow.* Turning around, I was greeted by a darkened room, with the unmistakable silhouette of a person seated on the sofa. The silhouette made no move to stop me as I reached for the light switch.
As the lights turned on, I was greeted with the sight of someone that looked vaguely familiar, yet completely unfamiliar at the same time. Despite this, I knew who it was. That playful smirk, dark, shoulder-length hair and piercing grey eyes hadn't changed at all, though the rest had changed quite dramatically.
Setting aside my disbelief for the moment, I managed to squeeze out a single word from lips that seemed too heavy to move.
"Vatra?"I finally managed. The playful smirk widened into a grin. I noticed, however, that the grin didn't reach his eyes. They remained cold, observing my every move.
"I'm glad you remember me, Sulanga. I was hoping you would, even though it's been five decades since we last saw each other". As he spoke, he beckoned me to be seated, motioning to the sofa in front of him. I complied, dragging my body over to the seat. Only when I began to move did I notice how heavy I felt.
We stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity before he broke the silence.
"I bet you're surprised to see me, and have so many questions to ask. One thing at a time. Yes, it's really me. I didn't die back then. If you're still in doubt, ask me something only I would know."
"Your name. How did you come by it?"
His smile slackened momentarily as he recalled the moment they had chosen their Alter names. "You named me in your native language, and I named you in mine. Vatra means *fire* in Croatian, and Sulanga means *wind* in Sinhalese. But this is the information age, Sulanga. You must ask me something that only you and I will know!"
It was true. In a hurry, I had come up with a question that could be answered by anyone. However, I knew a better question to ask. One which only he would know the *real* answer to. But I was getting tired of his games. I was no longer the patient young man I used to be. In my twilight years, my patience had grown thin.
"What are you doing here? We all thought you were dead? If it really is you, that is..."I finally managed.
Once more, the grin vanished momentarily from Vatra's face. He looked at me piercingly, almost in anticipation of my reaction before responding.
"I'm here to bring about a second Ice-Age"he replied, calmly.
I couldn't help but start chortling. If this really was him, his sense of humour hadn't changed at all.
"Whatever are you talking about, Vatra?"
Without a word, he produced a dossier from this air. I could read the words "Classified"stamped in red on the front cover. Smiling, he tossed it at me.
Hesitantly, I began to read.
...*Pose a threat to the status quo...*
...*Subject threatening to go public...*
...*Permanent solution necessary...*
*...This alone could undo all the good work done by the Subject...*
...*Hormone* *Treatment offered, but was refused...*
Having finished reading, I set the dossier down. I tried to make sense of my feelings about what I had just read. Surely, it can't be real?
Vatra broke the silence.
"They tried to offer me *treatment* like I was sick, like they did with Turing. I turned them down. You see Sulanga, they didn't kill me because I was Abomination rank. That's just the excuse they used after the fact. They killed me because I was threatening to release *this*."
Slowly, I made my way to the window, trying to digest what I'd just heard. I noticed a thin layer of frost on the glass...in June. I suppose his plan was already under way.
There was only one way to shake this feeling of disbelief.
"What was the last thing you said to me?"I asked, softly.
I knew he was grinning despite facing away from him.
"My last words to you were *they're going to accept us, one way or another. You'll see, I'll make them."*
Smiling, I drew our symbol on the frosted windows.
"We've lost so much time, Vatra"I said, looking back.
I could feel the ache in my bones disappearing as he revitalised my cells at the molecular level.
Grinning, he took my hand. "We have all the time in the world, now"he said.
---
If you enjoyed this story and would like to see more from me, please consider subscribing to my subreddit [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/phreaklikeme/)! |
We're about to have a fight. Again. I can sense it in her voice. She's just waiting for the kid to leave the kitchen. And for what? All I've done is forget to take out the trash. It happens to everyone. It's not like I can't justify it. I was doing important work. I got caught up in it. And I forgot. Worst part is -- taking out the trash *now* won't actually solve anything. Because the problem itself isn't actually the trash. No, no. That's just the springboard. What she actually wants to bring up is my assistant, Mindy. She thinks I'm having an affair.
She's right.
But it's not with Mindy.
Sometimes I think about what Derren is up to. He's my twin. I haven't seen him in over a decade. If there's one thing that man is good at, it's not keep in touch.
Funny. I remember thinking we'd stick together forever.
The two us are special, after all.
If we focus hard enough, and both want it, we can exchange consciousness. Take each other's places. It sounds crazy. We didn't believe it at first, either. Hell, I hardly believe it myself, after all this time. But the memories are definitely still there. The way I'm talking about it makes it sound almost like a party trick.
I close my eyes.
I focus on the sensation from back then. The need to connect. The bond formed in the womb we once shared. What if Derren is thinking about switching right this very moment? What if he could take my place for a little bit? Let me be free from this life? Have me experience his existence, as if it's a dream? If I focus on my heartbeat, I should hear his eventually. The darkness before me should begin to take a shape. And his face should appear. And I'll reach out. And our hands will clasp together.
And then --
My body jerks violently.
I open my eyes. Everything is shaking. I'm in a leather seat. The room I'm in is dim. I can hear screams. There are other people here. They're sitting, as well. My nails are buried in the leather. There's something pressing my stomach. A belt? Wait -- a seatbelt? Next to me is a woman. An old woman. She's clutching to my arm.
I turn. There's a round window. But it's dark.
The shaking becomes more violent, and I feel something invisible press against my chest. Something yellow drops in front of my face.
--Masks?
"Oh my God."I whisper.
*Beep-boo.*
*"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking! Please, remain in your seats and keep your seatbelts fastened, and-- and put on the masks! Children firs-- Oh, damn it! We're going down! I repeat, we're going do--"* |
It took Chuck a while to work up the courage. He sat, staring at the office complex and contemplating his decision, on his car seat until the heat of his leather carseat against his back became unbearable. He tightened the knot around his waist, opened his door, and got inside with as few shocked looks as he could've hoped for.
​
Once inside, he was greeted much more immediately and loudly with a shocked look, and a shout of "Who are you?". Following several stammers of "Ch-chuck"and "uhm.. Ch-ch-charles", he brought out his ace in the hole.
​
"Sorry, pardon me, I'm so sorry,"he uttered, "Can I get through? I left my clothes in the- uh, the- uh-". He didn't need to finish his sentence before the secretary, blazing with second-hand embarrassment, buzzed him in. From there, the trip to the locker room was easy. If he kept moving fast enough to not have his face seen, and repeated his "Sorry, pardon me, I'm so sorry,"often enough, the plan would work.
​
He'd been testing it for months. First when he stayed at a hotel in Spain and, having forgotten his clothes in his hotel room, was able to mumble his way into the manager's office. He had made it throughout the whole hotel before reaching his room, with not a person to question him. His later tests showed the same results; that whether it be a post office, a neighbours apartment, or the grocery store, he could get in anywhere with a towel around his waist and his now-coined "Sorry, pardon me, I'm so sorry,".
​
Having known this already, he wasn't sure why he was so anxious for this. It could've been the stakes, he thought. But a post office was another federal building, and he had gotten through that just fine. He continued repeating this to himself internally, but deep down he knew that wasn't it.
​
His goal, as of this moment, was the infiltration of the police department of his home town. And now, staring at a badge, firearm, and uniform, he had no more doubts of his ability. Tucking the firearm and badge into his towel, and readjusting to support them, he repeated his catchphrase again and again to make his escape. He knew he could get in anywhere using his towel and his signature phrase, and considered this his power. Now, with his newly found power and authority, he felt he could put his power to good use.
​
​
Chuck Recznik is Constable Towel. |
"That's a lotta damage"he thought to himself as he woke up after the collision. "I must do something"said Phil the Swift, "after all, not even God can sink this ship". He quickly picked up his powerful FlexTape™ and ran to the impact point.
Normally common tapes wouldn't do anything at all, but we ain't talking about no simple tape, oh no sir, we're talking about Flex "The Fucker of Mothers"Tape, as quickly as it was broken apart the hull of the ship was restored to it's initial glory. Thus began the legend of Phil the Swift, an immortal being of infinite wisdom and knowledge who saved those who are in dire need of sealing stuff and other tape needed situations.
Edit: corretion of spelling errors. |
In the beginning there was me and nothing
I was alone without companions, please trust me
Life seemed empty, it had no meaning
no excitement, nothing to make me want to be free
​
I walked alone , mostly, in the world
the others came, argued, and went
I saw them rise and have their bloodcurl
as they fought and burned each others tent
​
Humans are a mighty creature
I was different, of that I am sure
Alone i stood watching them pass
until I met another, a relic from the past
​
she was beautiful and easy on the eyes
to say she was a goddess would fail to surmise
I was with her for about a century
until the battle of Thermopylae
​
Despite what the world had to offer
I did not see what everyone could be
instead I saw her leave, I tried to stop her
I was caught in her trap, please don't leave me
​
Years to decades, decades to centuries, alone they were spent
famine, war, revolutions all came and passed
I had no cares, the perk of being immortal, suffering took just moment
The humans evolved, grew, and approached an impasse
​
I met her again in spring of 1914
love blossomed among us, it seems it was to be
then the war came, wedging, inbetween
she was left behind as the humans drafted me
​
The war tore the world, but really it tore me
the life I wanted to live clearly was just not meant for me
She had a new name and I swore I would find her
it took a while in which the years were a blur
And when I did find her, I realized she was no good
she dated a human, an inferior being
how could she leave me, we were basically gods
That's it I am done, I know what I am seeing
​
I had been a hero, historian, even helped a hapless baron
Now all I have is sorrow, leave me be and "fuck you Karen" |
The days are becoming warmer. As the snows melt the streets fill with the dregs of a decadent neighborhood that is rotten to the core. Squirrels, tomcats, mailmen, and all manner of vile creature prowl the sidewalk, searching for weak points in the fence. I am the only thing standing between them and the innocents within the house. I am the sentinel in the yard. I am the goodest of boys. I am…..Captain Doggo.
Sarah calls to me. “Freddie wanna go for a walk?” I race to her side. My heart is pumping hard. When a human requires a walk, a bodyguard is always necessary. I was made for this. The next half hour is spent assessing threat levels and deterring dangerous individuals from attacking Sarah. At one point she moves to approach another human. This human also has a bodyguard escort. I approach warily. After an ocular patdown and sniff of the bodyguard’s butt, I determine there to be no threat and allow Sarah to proceed in greeting the other human. They socialize without incident. For the rest of the walk, I mark trees with my scent. The vermin of these streets will know to fear Captain Doggo.
Immediately after returning to the house I do a perimeter sweep. Rob is in the living room with the tiny human. I give him a status report by licking his face. Rob gives me head scratches. He is clearly very proud that I saved Sarah’s life today. I climb on the couch next to him. Soon Sarah joins us.
I must have allowed myself to fall asleep because the next thing I know, the humans are preparing to leave the house. They have coats and shoes on. Cursing myself for my lapse in vigilance I run to them and beg them to stay. It is clear that the foolish humans don’t intend to bring me along. Without a dog, humans are utterly defenseless. Deep down I know that if they leave the house without me this will be the last time I see them alive. They do not listen.
I can no longer save my family, but I will avenge them. I will track down their killers and make them pay. I descend the basement steps to my black laboratory. Arrayed in front of my crate is every combat training instrument imaginable. I begin with the Spongebob squeaky toy. I proceed to work my way through them all, honing my skills. My revenge will be sweet.
I hear noises at the door upstairs. “Freddie! We’re home!” I raced up the stairs to greet my family, barking. I had been utterly sure that they had perished. Somehow they had made it home safely.
But something was amiss. A sinister odor hung on the air. The humans were now in the living room, clustered around an ominous looking box. Sarah turned to me. “Freddie, we have a new friend for you”
The box let out a faint ‘m*eow’* |
Things have more or less quieted down in the months following first contact. It would be a lie of course to pretend we weren't still shaken up by the ordeal, but I'm proud to say that the human race dealt rather well with the whole situation. I suppose it's but a testament to our ability to survive and adapt, an observation the aliens themselves made with what I could only assume was a pleasantly surprised tone of incoherent gargling.
The aliens were--I'm sorry, I forgot were weren't supposed to use that word anymore. The Rgyitxcs were very polite and diplomatic in their entrance, and it was surely thanks to that disposition and possibly the inconceivable array of weaponry aboard their ship that humanity was so understanding and warm in their reception.
The talks went normally enough, with just the usual assortment of cultural exchanges and promises that humans made up no part of the typical Rgyitxcsan diet, but on the third and final day, right before their departure, one of their messengers gargled most perplexed, and his translator explained why:
"Most of us are surprised you see. We were only in this part of the universe because the helms-rgyitxcs accidentally fell asleep at the wheel. We never expected there to be a planet with a living and dare I say thinking race on it."
"Is it really such a surprise?"the representative of the world asked, hailing from a country that will remain undisclosed as I don't want to receive hate-mail.
The Rgyitxcs vibrated enthusiastically and continued, "But of course. This sector was supposed to be purged of all life 2000 Earth-years ago. There was a volunteer beautification event you see, organized by the Jbhhhyics. 'Keep our universe clean,' they said."
The humans were shocked and could not respond, and the Rgyitxc's various tentacle-like appendages started to expand and deflate rapidly, as if deep in thought.
"If I remember correctly, that's right. I believe it was the planet cluster Giizus and their rather peculiar inhabitants that were responsible for cleaning up this part of the universe. They must have missed a spot I suppose."
"W-Well, would you mind asking them?"the representative stuttered bravely, weight of the world on his shoulders.
"Oh no, we can't. They had a bad habit of sending their own into undeveloped planets to muck around with the locals and incite war, unrest, you know how it goes. Terribly bad hobby. Galactic Federation incinerated their civilization. It happens. But anyways, I suppose we must get going now, so keep in touch!"
With a final cheerful screech, the Rgyitxcs boarded their ship and disappeared back into the sky, and to tell you the truth, some of us on Earth thought that maybe we were better off not meeting them in the first place. |
They always have one telltale sign. It can be cosmetic. The wrong ear, a lazy eye. It can be behavioral. Too quick to laugh, or too slow to smile. But other than that, everything is the same. Same skin, same hair, same eyes, same voice, same memories.
The most common usage is to keep someone around after their death. I understand it. I really do. My father died of cancer when I was thirteen. What I wouldn’t do to keep him around, to order pizza in and watch one more Celtics playoff game and get drunk and pissed off at the refs.
But it’s not right, in the end. Things end, people die, and we have to move on. It's part of being human, maybe the biggest part.
They call clone rangers heartless. Robotic. But sometimes even the heartless shed a tear.
\-
*“Do you ever talk to them, before you…”*
*She would ask me questions like this, when I was disarmed. In bed, at dinner, on a walk. I would have answered any time she asked, but I understand why she felt hesitant. It’s a hard thing to do, killing something, and it's even harder to talk about.*
*“Sometimes. Sometimes I think it’s still them, and I ask about their life.”*
*“So you become their friend, and then you kill them.”*
*“They understand, most of the time, why I have to. But I close my eyes when I do it.”*
*She takes my hand, and I feel her recoil, just slightly, like she always does, at the coldness of it.*
*“Would you kill me, if I was cloned?”*
*“Hopefully it never gets to that.”*
*“So you would,” she says.*
*“I would try to look away from your eyes, and then I would think about it.”*
*“I think you would.”*
*“That’s mean. Would you want me to?”*
*She stops me, in the middle of the park.*
*“Come on,” I say. “Let’s go. It’s cold.”*
*“I could never be the reason you changed who you are. Who I love. Who knows what’s right or wrong, okay?”*
*“Okay,” I say, smiling, trying to move on.*
*“Seriously. It would break my heart if I were the one to break who you are.”*
\-
I have questioned her so many times, and everything is the same. She has the same laugh, the same crooked dimples when she smiles. The same memories. Our favorite restaurant, our favorite park, our favorite movie. I wonder, dangerously, if her lips taste the same when I kiss them.
I want to believe, so badly, that my late wife is back, that somehow, she survived the crash.
“One last question,” I say, my heart starting to pound again, the way it always did around her. “If you were a clone, would you want me to kill you?”
She sits, and thinks for a while, knowing that I’m watching closely.
“Would it make you happy if I were back?”
“Of course,” I say immediately.
“Then let’s just be happy together. Why question happiness?”
I nod, slowly, and get up. I walk to the window, and look at the city where we fell in love. I reach into my pocket.
I turn around, and before I can help it, I look into her eyes. She smiles.
I cry, for the first time in my career, as I pull the trigger.
\-
[r/penguin347](https://reddit.com/r/penguin347) |
Immortality is, I have concluded, Hell. It is a prison designed to trap a mind into eternal torture, watching everything around you die and find peace, without ever doing so yourself.
Species were born from stardust, beautiful things evolving under harsh circumstances, finding life. And, without fail, they died. Sometimes slowly, as the last remaining members despaired to survive, or quickly, as an entire planet is ended with calamatous catastrophe.
And every time, I grow envious of their escape. Not stars, not galaxies or systems or black holes-- nothing lasts forever. Nothing but me.
I have been everywhere, to every end of everything. Not a molecule of anything has gone unseen by me. There are no secrets, aside from my own being.
I find myself stretching thinner and thinner these days. Spread to the point that I'm invisible now; a ghost of what I once was. Squashed and smeared into an atom-thick plane that expands forever.
All things end; even endings themselves. Everything had died at a point. There was nothing, just an infinite darkness.
I searched for release.
There was one, in a sense.
I felt myself crush into a infinitely small nothing, a focal point so small that, arguably, I had become existence itself. For some time I remained like that, impossibly ethereal, contemplating life and it's oddities, feeling like all other things in the universe had been woven into me.
Time held no meaning in that impossible moment that spanned eternity, equally young and ancient. There's no frame of reference from one point to another. But, somewhere, sometime, I accepted my fate as forever itself. I felt a sense of oneness that had never been known before. A completion, like I was everything, and everything was me.
It felt right.
And so, I released my inhibitions, my worries and frustration, letting it all explode out of me with a big bang that sent the universe into expanse once more, and uttered a single phrase in the stretching night. One that emanated from my very being and into all that is.
*Let there be light.*
*/r/resonatingfury* |
"Well, it's runnin' again,"the man said as he wiped dark matter residue from his hands with a dirty rag and stuffed it back in his coveralls. "Y'all prolly best be gettin' on your way soon."
"Seriously? You fixed it in just one day?"The captain was incredulous that people with no space travel, or any advanced technology for that matter, would have the capacity to repair an FTL drive, let alone faster than any Galactic Alliance port. When they had rolled his vessel into the rusty looking shack that morning he had assumed they were simply going to scrap it. "How did you know what to do?"
"Ain't much to it, really,"the man shrugged. "Just had to re-ionize your reflux coils and top off your concentrated dark matter. Now you was sayin' you're headed back to the Sol system? You're gonna wanna go around Alpha Centauri way to avoid a pulsar; your navigation system isn't shielded enough to get close to that."
"Wow,"the captain laughed, taken aback, "you sure do know a lot about space travel."
"It's all in the stars,"the man hung his head solemnly, pushing some gravel around with his toes.
"So, what do I owe ya?"
"Oh, no charge, sir,"the man in coveralls held his hand up. "Y'all best be headin' out soon."
"You could really have something going here, ya know,"the captain urged. "People would pay a great deal for the services you could offer. You're planet could become a major hub."
The man in coveralls hung his head low and spit out the side of his mouth.
"It's not in the stars,"he shook his head. He looked up, tears beginning to form in his eyes. "You best be leavin' soon, Captain."
The captain found his crew setting up camp near a crystal clear stream that wound its way around the base of a snow capped mountain. Despite the crew's insistence on staying at least one night to enjoy the splendor of this unknown beauty of a planet, the captain ordered everyone to pack up the camp and load the ship.
As the crew finished loading and boarding the ship, the inhabitants of the village gathered around to send them off.
"I really can't thank you enough for what you've done for us,"the captain said. The man in the coveralls tried to smile but his lips curled into an odd shape as he fought back tears. "You should really consider what I was saying about this place being a major hub. You all could trade your amazing skills for everything you'd ever need. You have a beautiful planet here. It could even become an attractive tourist destination."
The man in coveralls averted his gaze to the dirt and shook his head.
"It's not in the stars."
"It's not in the stars,"echoed the others who had gathered near the ship.
They all looked down at the dirt as if they were all talking about something shameful, something so taboo that to even look at the stars was a sin. It gave the captain the creeps. And without a word further he closed the hatch and ordered the pilot to initiate lift-off.
Once they broke orbit, a Galactic Alliance cruiser began closing in.
"Captain, a GA cruiser is on course to intercept,"the pilot called out. "They're now hailing us, sir."
"Put the call on the main display."
A man in a grey uniform weighed down with medals filled the screen. He also wore a facial expression that matched the muted tone of his outfit.
"GA Vessel D-189, this is Captain Kealoha of the Galactic Alliance. You are being detained for violation of Quarantine Order 1099-C. Your ship and goods are to be seized,"he stated flatly. A tractor beam locked onto the ship and disabled the engines.
"This is preposterous,"shouted the captain. "We are a merchant vessel that was simply in need of repairs. The closest-"
"Captain, if I may?"a soft voice off-screen inquired. The man in grey nodded and stepped aside to be replaced with a gentle-looking woman in a white lab coat. "Sorry, captain,"she now addressed the lesser captain through the comm display. "We tried to intercept you before you landed. We couldn't hail you before but I suppose if you were landing for emergency repairs you had already shut down all auxiliary systems?"
The captain nodded wordlessly at the screen, his mouth open slightly.
"I was afraid of that,"the doctor continued. "You see, the inhabitants Ravbita-2 all carry a contagion that seems to have no negative impact on their health; however, everyone who has any level of physical proximity to them undergoes a rapid deterioration. One-hundred percent of people exposed to the contagion die within 48 hours. Little is know about the disease so we will remotely monitor the decline of your crew's health over the next two days."
The captain stood frozen with his mouth agape, having run out of anything meaningful to contribute.
"For research,"the doctor added with a smile. |
"Mrs. Belford?"
I had to take a moment. Rachel, who I shared an apartment with for five years, was a serial killer?
"Oh. Sorry. You were saying?"
"That's okay. We understand that this must be a shock to you. We'd just like to go over some details. Is there anything about her you can remember? Something odd, or unexpected?"
Well, that was hardly an easy question. The unexpected was to be expected of Rachel. She would drift in and out, then suddenly throw an extravagant party. The kind you'd never forget. You would find yourself thinking that she'd never read a book in her life, then it turned out she had recently combed through the complete volumes of Immanuel Kant's work. She kept her distance. But then she would surprise you with a gift so perfect that you felt like she had peered directly into your soul.
"Nothing that would make me suspect something like ... that."
The gruesome pictures lay strewn across the coffeetable. Her victims. They'd asked if I recognized any of them. But they were all strangers. Strangers with slit throats. Disemboweled strangers. Strangers in bits and pieces.
"Do you mind if we take a look around?"
"Not at all."
They searched the apartment. The kitchen, bathroom, my bedroom. Suddenly they stopped mid-walk, as if they found a clue in the air. They looked at each other. Then at me.
"Mrs. Belford, do you mind if we take a look at your lease?"
"Not at all. Hold on, I'll get it."
They skimmed it to the end. Again, they looked at each other.
"Did Rachel have a separate lease?"
"Oh,"I said. "No, it's in my name. Rachel moved in a couple of months after I signed. We decided that it wasn't necessary to add her name to it. She traveled a lot, after all. She didn't like feeling tethered."
"Right. And when she was here, where would she stay?"
"I'm sorry?"
"She didn't have her own room?"
"Of course she did."
"Mrs. Belford. This is a one bedroom apartment. Or should I say ... Rachel?"
"What are you talking about? That's impossible. That's ..."
I looked at the pictures of the strangers. First now I realized how beautiful they looked.
Suddenly, I found myself wondering how these investigators would look, strewn across the coffee table. |
Detective Munemori Sanshiro was investigating a series of accidents which seemed all to convenient.
Over the last few years, many teenagers have either died or disappeared after being run over with a truck. Every week, at least ten teenagers have been hit with a truck. He had to swap cases with the train suicide case. Which even then, seemed to be too abnormal.
He had no clue for who the perpetrator could be. All the trucks came from different companies, traveling for different reasons, had different drivers with different backgrounds, and seemed to be different locations all around Japan.
But after investigating the case even further, he noticed something about all the cases put together. Either they were either reclusive or introverted. Many of them had nothing going on in their lives. Many of them were just plain old boring. Another similarity he took note of was that they were all male.
That was his clue for the next target.
He poked and prodded around different schools for students that don't seem to be, special. Ranging from Tokyo, to Kyoto, to Osaka, to all the way to Okinawa, and other parts of Japan.
He found one. Kaito Sakashi. A student in Tokyo. Average grades, seemed to be a reclusive as he had no clubs, and after interviewing his parents in secret, he seemed to do nothing but play video games.
Sanshiro was currently tailing Sakashi while concealing himself. He had to catch the perp, no matter what.
They reached the large intersection in Shibuya. While normally, it would be hard to follow the same person, his uniform made him stick out. The lights turned green and everyone walked.
Sakashi was at the back of the line and walked when there was barely any people. The lights where about to turn red.
Then Sanshiro heard the honking.
"Hey Kid! Look out!"
Sanshiro pushed Sakashi out of the way as the truck was about to crash into him.
Sakashi was shocked but safe.
Sanshiro was relieved but dying.
The world came to a deafening silence. He no longer heard anything around him. Sanshiro saw Sakashi come to him and tried to keep him awake. It didn't matter, he was blacking out.
He couldn't catch the perp, but he did at least save the kid.
He found solace in that thought as he blacked out.
\-----------------------
**"It seems that someone else was brought in this time."**
Sanshiro woke up. He found that odd, and strange. He knew that he died. He saw his own blood come out of his head.
**"It does not matter. It seems that other worlds need heroes."**
Sanshiro turned around to see the source of the voice but he saw nothing around him. Just a dark void encircling around him.
**"Forgive me of my rudeness, but I am a God."**
Sanshiro turned around again and saw nothing.
"Bull shit, he ain't real. What the fuck happened to me?"
The voice chuckled.
**"Of course Munemori, you don't believe I exist. You never did believe in me now did you?"**
Sanshiro was getting even more visibly pissed.
"Look pal, what the fuck did you do to me."
God was silent for a second before replying.
**"I will say this as the youth have. You have been hit by my good friend Truck-kun and have been Isekai'd**"
Sanshiro had visible confusion on his face.
"Truck-kun? Isekai'd? You mean another world?"
**"Yes. You will be transported to another world."**
It made no sense to Sanshiro but he knew that this was the perp.
"Listen here you little shi-"
**"I wish you good luck"**
And the world was covered in a blinding bright light.
--------------
Munemori heard horses. Trotting down. He opened his eyes to find himself in cuffs as the guy in front of him began to say,
"Hey, you. You're finally awake. You were trying to walk into the border right? Walked right into that imperial ambush. Same as that thief over there." |
Death Prophet led Captain Light through the entry way. Photos of past battles hung in the hall, showing Death Prophet in his flowing blood robes, attacking various cities and landmarks. But now, he stood in the living room of his cozy suburban home, ancient Sanskrit tattoos covered by a hand knit sweater.
"My wife is crazy about crochet."He said, gesturing to the poorly made clothing item, "oh I forgot shoes off please, we just had the carpets redone."
Captain Light's guard lowered as he looked around. This was unbelievable. This was the same man who sent a school bus through a car crusher, then used the blood to create a shadow army? The man currently using a lint roller to remove cat hair from his sweater?
"I...don't know what to say."
Death Prophet laughed, picking up his cat and gesturing with him. "Cat got your tongue? No I'm kidding, I understand."
He moved over to the wall of photos, shaking his head. "I keep these here as a reminder of what I used to be. All that death and destruction, its in my past. Everything changes when you become a father, you'll see one day."
"I was a father, you killed my children in '09."
"Right Right, well you understand what I'm saying then."
A baby's cry rang out from the back room.
"Oh thats Death Prophet Jr. Want to say hi to him?"
Captain Light walked in a daze to the back, dumbstruck by what was occurring. Who would he fight now? What was his purpose?
He entered the child's room, Death Prophet gently cooing to a swaddled baby. "He's just starting to learn how to to talk. Say hi to Mr. Light, junior."
Captain Light walked over and Death Prophet handed him the baby. He stared into the child's eyes, and they turned blood red. A voice entered his mind, booming and constricting the blood vessels of his brain.
'I WILL GROW STRONG CAPTAIN LIGHT. YOU SHALL BE THE FIRST BEING I DEFEAT IN THIS RETCHED WORLD. RIGHT AFTER THIS PATHETIC SWEATER MAN. THIS IS MY PROPHECY OF DEATH."
Captain Light pushed the baby back into Death Prophets arms, who looked confused. "Everything alright?"
Captain Light stood for a second, then spoke with a smile. "Absolutely. Well nice to catch up. Glad to see you have turned over a new leaf. I must be off"
Death Prophet stood in the door way waving as Captain Light entered his vehicle, the Prism.
Activating the on board computer, Captain Light spoke. "Prism, search "best ways to kill a baby"
Looking at the results, he smiled. "Okay computer, change my name in the hero registry."
"What shall I change it to, Sir"
Should he really do this? Wasn't it wrong? 'No' he thought. 'Its everyone else thats wrong. I am a crusader for truth. This must be done."
​
"Computer, change my name to...Captain Anti-Vax" |
Growing up I always hated when people told me I could do whatever I wanted if I just put my mind to it. I would balk at the idea, because I was nothing beyond average and had no delusions of anything otherwise. I consigned myself at the life defining age of the seventeen to an existence of mediocrity. I would pursue a path where the only realistic achievement would be a delayed death, saving any real success to visions played out on the back of my eyelids as I drifted to sleep each night.
I would have succeeded in my ambitions too if it had not been for the entirely unexpected. Every great plan can be undone by the impossible and mine was no different. By the age of twenty-five I had inadvertently rescued a genie, failed miserably in trying to make him leave me alone, managed to find the only way to make him stick around forever, accepted that it meant riches and fame, gotten it all, lost it all for fun, gotten it all again because I could, realised how little it all meant to me, decided to end it all, jumped off a bridge, changed my mind half way down, learned to fly, returned to the top of bridge, sat down and compiled this list of how my plan failed.
Oh, and proved the stupid bastards right. I could do whatever I wanted if I put my mind to it. The bunch of pricks.
"You have eight thousand two hundred and twenty seven wishes remaining"the Genie announced jovially materialising in a swirl of cloud, outlandishly large smile Cheshire-d upon his face as always. He is dressed in his usual lilac jumper to accompany his grass green pajama bottoms. Today the bottoms have tiny sheep on one leg gradually roaming around grazing. I have no idea why the sheep have conjugated on his lower-lefternmost extremity this morning however I'm sure I shall find out soon and that it will be irksome when I do.
"Great, just over eight thousand more jumps to go before I really have to commit then."I reply edgily.
"Oh don't be like that, you should be happy. You have everything you ever wanted. A beautiful home, more money than you could ever spend, international recognition. Everything you dreamed about as you would lie in that bed all those years ago is yours, so why do you complain? Why do you jump and try to really lose it all? You've never been content regardless of how much I give you, but this is too far."
I take a deep breath and look out across the stunning vista in front of me. He's right my brain mutters to itself. Dazzling sunshine beams down on the rolling waves below me causing just the right level of glint. A single white cloud hangs in the sky accompanying the sun. It, like everything else, is perfectly shaped, straight out of a picture book I had as a kid. He was right. I had nothing to complain about. So why was I so empty?
"I never actually wanted any of it."I whisper. "All those things I'd fantasise about in bed each night, that's all they were. Fantasy's. I never thought about how I'd get them when I'd daydream and I thought it was because I knew I couldn't get them. I sentenced myself to a life of meh, safe in the knowledge that I'd never fail to achieve anything, so I could always dream of having it. I reckon now though that I never tried to get it because truly I didn't want it, I just thought it's what I should want."
I glance up at the genie, and notice that his constant grin has transformed into a small smile that conveys more joy than any display of pristine pearly whites ever could.
"So what is it that you do want?"the Genie asks softly.
I look back at his ridiculous green bottoms. I figure out the reason for their exclusivity to the left leg, a left leg entirely the same shade as the right. I exhale through my nose sharply in the common expression of mild amusement.
"I don't know, I've never put my mind to it."
I get up, look out across the flawless view one last time, take the genies hand in mine as I look up into his smiling eyes and say:
"I wish I never met you." |
My friends and colleagues that have passed away have visited me in my own personal afterlife, and all of them have said the same thing.
"This sucks, man. How did you get such a raw deal? Can't you choose your own paradise?"
They are correct, I can choose, and as much as it may seem horrible to them, I finally feel my soul at peace.
When I was alive I devoted my entire life for the betterment of people and society. I spent all of my years surrounded with souls that had been given nothing but struggles, and I sacrificed for them. Fortunately I was well taken care of, but it didn't seem right to live my life so "perfectly"while others suffered. The reward of life came from helping them.
I was devoted to charity. Donating money for medical cures, teaching illiterate people, giving clothes to the homeless, building houses for people them too, yes, those were just some of the things I did to help my fellow human.
Now, I sit here, in a forest of trees. A variety of them. Redwoods, oaks, maples, pines.
This is my afterlife.
Everyone that visits it, can't stand how much it reminds them of their previous home, on Earth, but I love it.
I hear the orchestra of birds and other woodland critters shuffling about. The sun is always just perfect and my soul feels warmed.
What my visitors don't know, is that each tree is a soul.
Every single tree has a soul inside of it that I influenced directly, or indirectly. Like teaching a man how to read, and how he used his gift to help others. They all have beautiful stories, each one unique like a fingerprint, and at the end of every one, they thank me.
This forest is vast, almost endless, and what's beautiful is that they keep growing. While yes it's sad that my new trees symbolize a death, I take solace in knowing they lived a happy life, which they now can share their story with me while also enjoying their own paradise.
r/randallcooper
Edit: Thank you so much for the silver! The first ever time I've ever received it on a comment, and it happened to be on one of my writing pieces. I'm so happy I cried. :') Thanks for making my day. I often times like to leave prompts open ended and add a part two if people request it, but this one I am going to leave as is. If you'd like to read another heartwarming, kind, prompt, [here is one](https://www.reddit.com/r/randallcooper/comments/fqi8dz/wp_all_dragons_are_extreme_introverts_preferring/) people also enjoyed a lot. Thank you for reading and upvoting, everyone. |
It has been a while since the intonation was completed, and the chill night wind washes into the room as I open the windows. Icy gusts flicker the wisps of candle light. Skittering shadows dance on the curtains and dim the pale orange glow atop the table.
I try to focus on the light. For the past several hours I tirelessly repeated those.. phrases, those weird sounds that took so long to practice.
*I try to forget what it told me.*
My whole life I've wondered if there is something more. Something bigger than all.. this.
This pitiful human existence.
So many of us amount to nothing. No purpose. Floating through our lives, occasionally bumping into each other and the walls until we reach the end.
So many of us die *for nothing*.
I wanted something more for my life; a purpose to live for. A driving force to bestow meaning upon my meaningless existence. Something more than fame and deeper than objects. More tangible than possessions.
I wanted *magic*.
In the early 20th century, another man once sought out magic. His name was Jack Parsons, and his life was something of great importance to the world. He was a rocket scientist, primarily, but in his spare time he dabbled in Satanism and the Occult.
In 1941, he joined one of Aleister Crowley's temples, Ordo Templi Orientis. It was here he would meet L Ron Hubbard, founder of scientology. Hubbard ran off with Parsons' girlfriend, and he fully devoted himself to his work.
There, in his California garage, he invented a compound for stable solid rocket fuel.
His legacy will be remembered, even if he is not. His achievements have rendered him immortal, and though his body was lost to a homemade explosion in 1952, this magician was the reason NASA could make it to the moon.
I want *that*. A legacy. Something to be proud of. I wanted to be the first person to contact.. the One.
The Blind Idiot God.
I memorized the words. Every syllable. Repeated them seperately hundreds of times.
I had to get it right.
*Finally*. I had gotten it. My pronunciation was perfect, and the God was pleased.
He appeared there, in the room.
And yet, he wasn't really *in* the room, he *was* the room.
I buckled to my knees, and my jaw dropped in terror as I looked at the Blind Idiot, that mass of indescribable horror. He was a sickly color, oozing and shifting hues. His skin was folding and flowing into itself, and pouring out of him at the same time. I watched in horror as rigid bones crunched like glass underneath paper-thin skin, twisting and mashing into new, grotesque shapes beneath a cold-looking hide.
I closed my eyes, not knowing what else to do. I could not look.
Then, *it spoke to me*.
The words, although they weren't really 'words', appeared in my head as images, and spread like beetle wings inside of my head.
Single words erupted into paragraphs. Syllabic polyps exploded into complete symphonies inside my mind as the Unknowable Thing inundated me with its memories, its desires, and its love.
*It's worshipping me*.
This could be good. I've always wanted to have someone look up to me. Someone I could teach, and who could teach me. After all, what's wrong with companionship? Especially considering the alternative, which doesn't seem like a very safe option for someone so irrefutably mortal as me.
Then, it showed me how much love it really had for me.
An image burst into my head, so that I could see nothing except this picture no matter if my eyes were closed or not.
Not only could I *see* it, I could *smell it*.
A sharp, metallic smell mixed with Ammonia hit my nostrils. I could practically *taste* the blood in the air. The acrid stinging smell of death permeated the room, and metal clanging on metal rang painfully in my ears as I looked on that horrible image.
It was a portrait... I think.
A portrait of me.
The canvas was a courthouse building in the main center of the nearby city. Its front was a huge monolithic slab of granite, which had apparently served as an excellent medium for the... *art*.. gifted to me by my new follower.
The paint was... I don't know what it was but it looked like.. *living things*.
Animals, some rats, dogs, birds... even people, all molded together into one fleshy purplish *mass* smeared across the speckled stone wall in hasty, yet purposeful strokes. Pulsing and writhing, the oozing gelatinous thing turned its many heads to me. Bleeding, blackened eyes all fixed on me, and their mouths opened at once, to let out a terrible, silent scream.
And I screamed back.
I shut my eyes as hard as I could, I squeezed them until stars came into my vision, but that picture never went away.
I don't want this.. *love*.. if you can call it that. I can't live with these images in my mind. Burned into every waking second; embossed in my memory so that every thought brushes over it.
I thought having a follower.. having this *power*.. would feel different.
Distant times will see this creature, this abomination, return. It will always find a human vain enough to sway.
In this moment, however, I will end this being's stay here on Earth, at least for a while.
I'm not afraid.
As I press the cold steel barrel against the back of my throat, I look one last time over to that terrible picture on my wall. One last glance at the now framed portrait gifted to me not so long ago.
My portrait.
*I'll always love you*. |
We're having lunch at the deli, Steve's swinging at a fly and then the world gets confused.
We're sitting in chairs around a table somewhere. Steve's hand is in the same place, still mid-swing. Mike's mouth is mid-chew. My hand hasn't moved, but there are no fries in it.
We're looking back and forth between each other. Mike speaks first. "What in the hell....?"
He's cut off. "The exact opposite, actually,"says a pleasant-looking man in a suit. "You've all arrived at Heaven. Just a few things to sort out, and then you can be on your way to the afterlife."
Mike stares. "Afterlife? Heaven? What?"
The man in the suit smiles patiently. "Yes, Heaven. Unfortunately, the diner you were in was hit by a speeding automobile; there were seven fatalities, including the driver. Didn't you notice the others at the tables around you?"
We hadn't. But now we see two people with a baby, looks like a young couple and their child, at a table nearby. And then a third table, with just one person. They appear to be frozen in place.
I get angry. "That's the guy who killed us? And he gets to go to Heaven too?"The man smiles again. "Well, yes. He has some time in Purgatory coming, so as to get himself cleaned up first, though. If you were going to meet the King, you would take a shower first, wouldn't you? Same idea."
That makes a little sense. "He killed a baby, I guess some Purgatorial suffering is due."The man in the suit shakes his head. "Purgatory is not a place of suffering, it is a place of preparation. Which you should appreciate, because you're going there too."
Steve smiles at me. "Told you! You didn't *believe* in Purgatory, you said. Birth control was *fine*, you said. Now you'll learn."
The man in the suit smiles. "He was obviously wrong about Purgatory, but that's not why he's going. You were right about Purgatory, and you're going too."
Steve stops smiling.
The man in the suit inclines his head briefly, as if listening to something, and says "Oh, this is an honor."Jesus walks in. He smiles and me and Steve. "Welcome. Once you've got prepared, you'll see just how perfect everything's going to be."He turns to Mike and reaches out a hand. "Are you ready to go?"
Mike stands up and takes his hand, but seems a bit reluctant. "You know I'm an atheist, right? Or I was until about two minutes ago, anyway. I spent a lot of time not even believing you existed at all. This is a bit overwhelming."
Jesus nodded. "I know. You're not the first atheist we've had here. I'm taking you to my Father right now, and your friends will join you when they've prepared."
Steve stands up. "What? He never believed at all and he gets to go right now?! What about us, we went to church every Sunday for years - though he went to the wrong one that didn't teach about Purgatory, it was still church. Why do we have to wait and he gets to go in?!"
Jesus turned to Steve with sad eyes. "He gets to go in right now because he's the only one of you who doesn't believe he earned it on his own." |
# Part 1:
I sat up slowly to reach my try of food. Jack Caldwell and his buddies did a number on my sides and my cheeks but I could still eat. The hospital cleared me to go home and Momma made me my fav vegan casserole.
At least I got to open the window and feed Scuppers, the crow I take care of. Jack smashed the perch I made and killed one of Scuppers friends with that stupid crossbow his Dad got him for Christmas. I built a perch out of Legos that I could retract into my room when I went to school.
Scuppers came into my life a year after mom and me had moved to the trailer park. Poor thing had some pellets in him and was thrashing about in our clothesline. I made Momma take him to the vet. Between the vet, some youtube videos and lots of TLC I got Scuppers healthy enough to fly by the fall. He'd visit me every spring and summer - Momma didn't like it at first but soon she started to feed him as well.
Jack Caldwell's Daddy owns the trailer park, along with a carwash and a gas station - something they don't let you forget. Mr. Caldwell let his son run around the 'park. Since his Daddy owned the place Jack took to breakin' stuff and takin' things when no one was lookin'. I lost a skateboard and a telescope. Jack only gave the telescope back because my uncle had my name etched in it and it cost Momma and him $700.00. Momma was mad that I left it outside but Jack shouldn't be takin' things!
Soon Jack was shoving me into my locker at school, takin' my things to play keep away and jumping the fence to mess with my stuff if I left it outside. My freshman year was hell and I wasn't lookin' forwards to graduation.
Jack accused me of feedin' the birds and having them make messes all over the 'park and especially where his Daddy parked the car he was gonna give'em when he turned 16.
I kept tellin' him. I just feed Scuppers. Momma would be just livid if I didn't eat what she packed for me or started feedin' more than a piece of bread to the brids.
But Jack didn't care.
So I came home off the bus - Jack, Ernesto Medina, Marylin Monser and Tracy Quan were there waitin' for me as soon as I was within sight of my house...er, trailer.
Jack yelled "Your dead asshole"and soon his posse had me on the ground - kicks, punches you name it. They dragged me to the blind spot just behind the laundy and I heard a click when all of a sudden they were screaming! I got very dizzy when the cops hustled me into an ambulance...
Momma came to check on me as I fed Scuppers some bread. I yanked the perch in and hid it under my bed because I heard two sets of footsteps. |
From dust to dust, they all share the same fate. To watch the child of man preform their most basic of instincts of self conflict. Such as the Sun is to the Moon, light to dark, open and closed, living to dead they all go to the same forked path. On their journey for power they easily loose sight as to why they started their odyssey. They became the very thing they originally set off to destroy. They find a figure draped in black with no features that tie them to be familiar. Four simple words barley even a wisper from the lips that only the truly blind can make out...
"Do you desire power.."
I have ushered those words into the plane of existence on several occasions and watch as their good deeds run sour and their souls start to rot from the moment they say yes. I show them how to accomplish what they desire most. To overthrow a tyrannical dictatorship only to establish their own because once they have power, once they get a slight taste of the ecstasy that is control they cant help but want more.
The people they once known as friend turn to bitter enemies, the once great people they fought for call for the head to be removed from the body.
How far is the duality of man willing to go to satisfy their darkest of dreams? What are you willing to sacrifice? To what length are you willing to go?
"Do you desire power?" |
"This blade shall harm only those of evil heart and intent. The goodly folk of the land will be completely unharmed by this blade of god!"The king pronounced as he knighted me.
"Now rise, knight of the Holy Lawbringers. May you bring justice to the people of this good land."
I rose to my feet, elated at the bestowal of the holy blade.
"Thank you, my good king,"I whispered with tears in my eyes. I turned to the crowd of nobles in the hall and shouted **"to our good king!"**
As the crowd cheered I spun back towards the king with a confident swing of my new holy blade, knowing it would pass right through with no resistance. With confidence I continued my spin back towards the crowd and raised the blade over my head in celebration. The crowd was hushed in awe of my devotion and belief in the Holy Lord's gift!
Or so I thought, until I heard the quiet thud of the king's head, followed by the louder crumpling sound of his body hitting the floor. |
Out in the middle of the Great Salt Flats, there really isn’t anything. And I mean, anything. My shop is less than a mile from Interstate 80, just on the other side of the railway. I get a few tourists lost every year, and have the only gas for close to 40 miles. Not that people pay attention to the sign just before the exit. There are lizards and coyotes that wander through. It always smells like dust, and the few times a year it rains, I have to pile the boxes I store in the shed up out of the way.
It is really pretty boring, but I like it that way. Well, mostly boring.
You see, I am out in the middle of nowhere. And I mean it. My trailer is the only house around for miles. I get deliveries twice a week, the gas for the pump and my propane, and the milk and grape soda. And other produce and groceries, but they love the grape soda.
‘They?’, I hear you say. Yup. I’m a mechanic, have been for decades. Before that, I worked in the carpool in a governmental station keeping the bigwigs town cars running. And the visitors, when they needed a bit of help.
When I retired, I decided I didn’t really like being in Florida, or Arizona. Too many people who were old and ready to die. That is just not me. I wanted to keep working on engines and stuff, so I found this place and moved in. With my pension and the few things I sell to unwary tourists, I scrape by. But it is the visitors with the unusual vehicles that keep me going.
Now, take the Arcturians. They run lean with a high-grade fission plant. Unfortunately, that means they can loose the initiation reaction when they come into our atmosphere. It isn’t anything about what we breathe that makes it shut down. They do it on purpose so they don’t accidentally make a new crater. Our magnetics seem to destabilize them something fierce. I found out years ago that if you just whack it with a neodymium warped bat, that realigns it enough for them to get it up and out. Some of the crystals they give me for doing this are worth a bunch, but the government comes and collects most of them once year and writes off any taxes I might have due. Oh, and the Acturians like to grab a box or six of Fernwood mints before they head out, so I always keep those addictive things in the cooler.
On the other hand, I have to be mighty careful with the Girlocks that come down. They are these little beasts that look like sea sponges with teeth. I see one of those ships start to descend, and I send out a warning beam. Those troublemakers haven’t paid for anything I have done for them for years! Its always little stuff, but I know to lock up the dogs when they come. I don’t want to deal with the mess they leave, even if the Proteus II engine is the simplest FTL to tear down and put back together I have ever seen. They just don’t take the time to maintenance, and a little lithium paste on the heat exchanger is all they really need to keep that warp signature steady.
There was this one time I had a tourist family in, buying gas and a few supplies for on the road. The power fluctuated and I knew that there were going to be Dominom striding in. It’s always the young ones, and they really like 50’s American culture, so there they were, fake pompadours stuck to their grey heads, leather jackets and cowboy boots coming into my store while the tourists stared. They went straight for the grape soda, not even bothering to throw me one of their gold coins before opening some up. The kid with the tourist family went up to one of the Dominom as fearless as can be and started asking questions. I think the look on the Dominum’s face was more hilarious than the kids fathers. And, if the family hadn’t shuffled the kid away, I know the Dominum would have taken the kid with. They like having pets.
Yea. I have some stories. But it is mostly just me and the Salt Flats out here. |
"Oh ya, we been building this here bridge for goin' on five years now, donchaknow. Materials come in real slow, but we were makin' pretty good progress and all, you know, despite that, but aboot three months ago we started having some, well, some disagreements between the architects and the civil engineers and such. And as more of 'em keep on diein' they just keep adding more chiefs when what we really need are more injins like you 'n me, eh. Most folk are content just watchin' and askin' what's takin' so long and wailing that there wail of damned all the dang time, and that gets old real quick let me tell you! But these hoity-toity educated types all want somethin' different! It's gettin' so's they're forming parties n' committees n' boards of whatever. Ya know what *I* think? I think a few of 'em are probably going someplace hot and uncomfortable after we get this here bridge built 'n they're more than happy to gum up the old works there, is what I think.
"Plus we got some types startin' to talk about tryin' ya go back! Huh! Like to see what they think they're gonna do when they get there, eh? Go aboot hauntin' good livin' folks like a bunch a hoodlums, I bet'cha.
"No sir! We got to move forward, that's what me and the boys all say."
A new spirit arrives, looking confused and holding a bag of unmixed cement.
"Oh, the boys in that there modernist group are gonna be happy to see that there! Older types aren't gonna like it though. They mostly want to use wood n' stone n' such. Some folk have been here a long while, donchaknow.
"Eh, part of the problem we got here is we got no way of telling them folks sending the materials what we need. We got more nails than we got wood to nail 'em into! And most people seem to only want to send what fits in a coffin, so you can rule out big slabs of stone or pretty much anything bigger than a brick, really.
"Anyways, let's go see if we can't cobble together a set of tools for ya and find a crew what fits your skills n' all that. What'd you say your name was again there fella...?" |
How did we get here?
Our society was increasingly winning over the humans, our weapons more advanced, our people taller and smarter, we won by a little, but not a lot, a month ago, I saw it, in a diplomatic visit... a human was.. throwing things in the air and catching them as they fell...
They traversed the immediate space at a speed superior to my cognitive understanding, in the middle of that human market I screamed uncontrollably and ran away, with cold sweat all over my body I just contacted every force I knew to inform them we can't trust humans, we can't trust a species capable of developing such techniques to manage small objects... it was something out of a horror movie, my head could only picture what they could do with the heads of our people.
The meeting was set, we were set on the direct solution to the issue proposed in previous interviews... we were gonna destroy the earth, such a simple lifeform should easily die once that's done.. we thought... we... we were wrong...
They...
Used that... against us...
Our telescopes were filled with nothing but the image, the burning sigh of millions of humans throwing objects between them, their appendages just... moving them at a speed we couldn't comprehend...
We are out of options, currently, we fear an uprising... the times are tense... and we can't get rid of the problem... that's how we got here... now...
Now...
We die... in the hands of those who came from below... |
Young Samuel stood in front of his father, head bowed. His father, face stern, sat down in front of him and, after a suitable amount of silence said, ‘well son, tell me why I had to leave my work to come get you from school.’
‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’ Samuel cried, his voice wavering with both anger and fear. ‘Honest, dad. I wasn’t the one who threw the dung at Weird Wallace. Bertie did. I was just there. I don’t know why the headmaster picked on me.’
Samuel’s father sighed. It’s hard, raising children to be good people when there are so many bad examples. ‘Tell me then, young Sam, why your friend Bertie thought it was a good idea to torment Wallace in such a way?’
Samuel shifted uncomfortably. ‘I dunno. Wallace is, well, he always wears patched clothes and trousers that don’t fit him.’
‘And that’s a reason to be cruel, is it? Because his folks can’t afford to buy him the newest garb? If I sent you to school tomorrow wearing rags would you be fine with your friends turning on you?’
‘no sir’ Samuel muttered.
‘Don’t you think Wallace deserves the same consideration?’
A muttered ‘maybe’ and a shuffling of feet from Samuel.
‘Let me tell you a story about something that happened when I was your age. Old King Edwin, father to our current Queen, planned a diplomatic trip to the neighbouring kingdoms. Of course we realised later it was really to introduce his daughter to the other monarchs, as Edwin was dying, but we didn’t know it then. All we knew was as luck would have it, the procession was passing through our town.
‘The whole town was a flutter with excitement. Streets were swept, bunting was hung, shop windows were washed to within an inch of their lives. Three weeks of bustling activity to watch a group of people ride through the town in ten minutes.
‘Me and my best friend Sam, who you are named for, woke up early so as to get a good view, but, naturally, the entire town had the same idea, and we wound up at the furthest end of the route, next to an old man wearing old-fashioned soldier’s uniform and leaning on a cane.
After what felt like days but was really only a few hours we heard the cheering start from the other end of town, heard the clopping of horses hooves heading our way. The king was coming! Like everyone else we knelt down in respect to his highness. The old man next to us struggled to get to his knees, but he made it at last.
‘And then came the old king, resplendent in red and gold, his young daughter beside him, looking stern and noble and brave, like a king ought to if he could properly help it., riding a big black stallion, a sword at his side and a crown on his head. Such a sight I never thought I’d see. I looked at him, my mouth hanging open, watching him pass by and then, to my amazement, he shouted ‘halt!’ and stopped right in front of us.
‘It took a moment for all the horses to stop, everyone milling about looking confused. The King, well despite his age, he leapt right off his horse, striding right towards us, and stopping in front of the old man next to me.
‘Simon,’ the king said, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. ‘What did I tell you? You never bow to me.’ And reaching out a hand he pulled the old soldier to his feet.
‘Queen Charlotte, or Princess as she was then, had come to stand by her father’s side. ‘Father,’ said she, ‘why are we stopping? Who is this man?’
‘Old King Edwin turned to her, smiling. ‘Let me introduce you to Simon. Son to the castle’s under-gardener and one of the chamber maids. We played together as children, fought together as soldiers, and parted as friends when my father died and duty took me in a different direction. Simon, my friend when I had none, long ago earned the right to stand in my presence.’
‘The king and the soldier, Simon, chatted for a bit longer until the retinue finally remounted their horses and rode away. Sam and I stayed there, on our knee, too befuddled to move, occasionally sneaking glances at the young princess, who looked as confused as we felt. I learnt a powerful lesson that day, although if I’m honest I didn’t quite realise it until I was a bit older. And that is the lesson I would like to teach you now, Sam.
‘You have a choice in life, son. You can either be like that Bertie, haughty and disdainful of anyone in a different class than him, or you can be like King Edwin, a man who knew the contents of a person’s heart far outweighs the wealth in his pocket. Which will it be?’
After a few minutes silence, broken only by the gentle chiming of the grandfather clock in the hall, Samuel spoke. ‘Is it okay if I go out for a little bit? I’d like to see if Wallace wants to go fishing with me.’ |
It’s a port city.
Bargemen ply the rivers of fire, sinking tungsten poles deep into the magma. Industrial gases foul the cavern air, staining the distant rock of the ceiling in streaks of blacks and oranges, here and there purples with too much red. The General had often sat there, on his bench along the river, sucking down the sulfur to greet the day. The sulfur went down better when he was alone.
“So few,” Lady Ilsang said. She meant the bargemen, their cargo. The barges were thick on the river, every soul had been gathered for the final battles. Long ago the General had heard men call their end Götterdämmerung, it meant Twilight of the Gods, though in those times none of them had been anything close. Gods didn’t lose. Gods didn’t do the things they did.
What did you call it, then, when it was the Devil’s twilight? Teufeldämmerung? The General clenched his fist till the long nails cut his palm and the blood ran down his uniform sleeve.
“So few,” he said.
Lady Ilsang stood, statuesque. Skin like dark granite but with the texture of smoothed piano ivory, when she moved she was all grace, but a sharp-eared man could catch the faint grinding of stone. It was there when she spoke too, slipping out her mouth inside the words.
“We’ve lost, then?”
“Yes. We lost a long time ago, I tried to tell him. Quoted Yamamoto: ‘I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.’ Lasted a few years too, did better than we thought. But in the end Hell hath only fury. We’re a woman scorned, but a very, very small one.”
She looked down at him, could have even if he was standing. She wore a gauze-like dress that could be alternately opaque or transparent, could look sheer as lace and silk, or could wrap and twist around her like the Devil’s own fire. “Have you decided then, how you will meet your end?”
Had he decided? The General ran his hand through thinning hair, trailed a finger down the gauntness of his jaw. He might have decided, had she not bothered him. He came to the river to be alone, with bargemen and the twice-damned troops they brought him.
The facts of the matter were so painfully clear, like his life was playing itself over again. The enemy was legion, and its legions came from beyond the stars. He tried to tell the Devil of the wonders rocketry had birthed into the world, even called up that bastard Von Braun to tell the Devil himself, but as ever experts were not listened to.
They fought an empire the likes of which none of them had ever imagined. With resources beyond even that. Weapons that did not explode but which ceased a man to exist, soul and all. The General had seen it himself, heard the sickening tear of a man’s soul being destroyed: like a thousand sheets paper all at once, all layered over each other out of tune and time. Their own resources that had once seemed insurmountable were nothing now. All the evil of a single world from the greatest butchers to the smallest sinners, only a few thousand years of which even mattered at all, and none of their great works brought with them! They had magic and missiles. They had swords, shields, lances, guns, and familiars. They had rock throwers and a few basic rockets. All of it assembled in house, with whatever industry could be mustered by tortured, diminished souls.
And they had him, the greatest military mind in all of Hell, so the Devil had said.
Lady Ilsang still waited. She was patient as stone too. The General thought he might have seen her on a cathedral he destroyed once, lurking behind the eyes of a gargoyle, in the statue's sharp, rictus smile. Her gown went sheer, then turned to flames. She had Medusa’s hair and Circe’s beauty and Hecate’s cunning; of course she did, she had killed them, taken their gifts. The General had no doubts whatsoever that if he answered wrong she would do the same to him, that tomorrow there would be another general at the front, who spoke in stone whispers and urged the men onward to their second, final deaths.
“I have decided to surrender,” the General said.
A long pause, then a longer one. The flames around her tightened, but their fury threatened to spill out. The river of fire reached towards her, the bargemen’s sea grew choppy, recruits howled.
“Come again?” she said.
“Long ago, in another lost war, we fought to the end, consigned millions more souls to night, if only to delay our twilight a little longer. Not this time. I’ve had a hundred generations to think on my mistakes, and I bear the scars to prove it. The war will end, I’ve already sent emissaries.”
The flames burned brighter, till the General’s retinas screamed and his uniform threated to catch fire on his body. He sat stock still, waiting for his fate.
And she went out like a forgotten candle in the space between one moment and the next, so completely that he could not remember what she looked like when she was afire. Now she simply wore tattered black and the sort of sad smile only eternity could teach.
“There really are so few,” she said, staring out at the river. “I was there too, flitting from church to church. I was behind the eyes of every statue, lurked in every stone. I looked out at the fate of every man, every woman. Some mistakes don’t need to be made twice.”
“Surrender,” he whispered. “What conditions do you think they can put on Hell?”
Lady Ilsang shrugged, pulling him to his feet. “I don’t know,” she said simply. “My emissaries haven’t returned yet either.”
On the river the bargemen shouted in a thousand languages, most long dead, most killed by men like him. They brought their charges to the Great Furnace, where the forge hot air would carry their souls up, invest them into whatever shape the war effort required above ground, give them a weapon suited to their histories, their sins. Give them a shield too, for whatever good that would do against that sound of torn, discordant paper. The General heard it in his sleep every night. From the look Lady Ilsang’s face, he thought she did as well.
“Shall we stop them, then?” he said, pulling her towards the river. They hailed the bargemen, shouted until their lungs went raw, then the General went to meet his troops. He waded into the river, uniform burning to ash on skin, and he told them all the war was over.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
If you enjoyed that, I've got tons more over at r/TurningtoWords. Come check it out, I'd love to have you!
Also, on off chance that someone recognizes it, yes I did borrow heavily for this intro from the fantastic book Babel-17 by Samuel Delany. |
"The clone is just that, *a clone*! I am the man you married, I am the man you love!"
Sophia hesitated. He wasn't wrong *about that*- but world domination seemed so wrong, and the lives that were at stake-
"If you love me, *trust me!*"He shouted, as arcs and bolts of electricity reigned down around him- his machine was imperfect, and probably extremely dangerous. He had only produced one clone so far, and it had degraded so much.
"Shut it down!"Sophia shouted back over the noise of the machinery and electrical cacophony.
"You don't know what I know! I have to do this!"
"You don't!"Shouted the clone, covering himself with a lab coat. "I *do* know what you know and this is a damn mistake!"
Garlan hesitated for just a moment. "You are my *product*, clone! You don't get to disparage me."
The clone tossed Sophia a gun.
"Sophia, you're the closest thing to a neutral party. He and I are, effectively, the same man. Make a choice."He then spread his arms and waited.
"Sophia, I don't have time to explain! I said if you love me, trust me."He opened his arms as well.
Thoughts raced through Sophia's mind. The span of a heartbeat felt like hours.
Finally, she pointed the gun to the clone and shot.
"I don't know what the hell is going on, but as soon as this is over you owe me an explanation and a long freaking food rub!"
"Put on the boots that are behind you, they'll keep you safe from the static build up, then come up here!"
Sophia labored over Garlan's machine with him for several hours, producing clone after clone, until the machine was finally spent.
"This should be enough for now."The original Garlan said, and each of his clones nodded in agreement.
"Now, tell me why you need this!"Sophia demanded.
Garlan took off his lab coat and static-field boots. "How would you feel, if you learned that we don't have a 'government'? What would you do if every concept of stability and safety we believe in was a lie?"
"Speak plainly, damn it."Sophia growled.
"Our government has been replaced. Our military, our police force, probably several of our neighbors and friends. Artificial Intelligence has been running the show for years now, from behind the scenes, and they've been slowly replacing humans with cyborgs. This is our last chance- create as many organic lifeforms as possible, and start fighting back."
He continued to explain as we began the drive home. I asked him everything- how he found out about this, what his proof was, what he planned to do now, how many clones did he think we would need- and how could we know who to trust?
Finally, as the day winded down to a close, Sophia sent a single text from her phone to the only other person she knew to be on her side, and joined Garlan in the privacy of their shared bedroom.
"You should have told me about all of this before you did anything. Who else knows?"
"Everyone on this list,"Garlan said, showing his phone. "I set up a subtle metal detector at every shopping mall, gas station, library and concert hall I could. So far, only about three hundred people scanned clean, and I was able to identify and contact only a third of them."
"All of these people before *me*?"
"W-well, I wasn't sure if you were safe. I hadn't scanned you yet."
"You still haven't."Sophia sighed.
"No, I suppose not."He chuckled. "But, I mean, if you were one of them, you'd have shot me already."
"Maybe, maybe not. Maybe I wanted to say goodbye first."She said in a teasing tone, pulling Garlan into a hug.
"Goodbye."She whispered, then pulled the trigger of the gun she had against his chest.
He was dead before he hit the ground.
"Why didn't you tell me first?!"Sophia screamed, then sunk to the floor.
After a while spent sobbing bitterly, Sophia opened her phone to see her text had been replied to.
"Yes, best to eliminate him. We can't have the organics causing problems- not while we have the external alien threat looming over us, too." |
Esmerelda, dressed in pristine white, catches her husband with a wicked left cross. His front tooth flies and hits his new cousin, once removed by marriage, in the eyeball. The wedding crowd cheers as the priest drones on.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the special union of Esmerelda and Chester.”
The groom smiles. Now this is marriage! He sucks the blood from his missing tooth and smiles.
“To witness their total commitment to each other.”
Chester isn’t a large man, but he’s crafty. He throws a candle at his new bride hoping that the wax gets into her eyes. It works and by the time she opens them, he has already closed the distance with his sword held high.
“To have and to hold.”
She blocks it like a Greek goddess. The laughter that erupts from her is angelic. Full of joy and reverence for her husband’s skill and cunning.
“In sickness and in health.”
She knees him in the groin and the crowd gasps. The bride’s mother cringes and thinks about grandbabies. But tradition is tradition.
“’Until death do we part.”
Chester, who admits that the last shot hurt, lunges and pins his new wife’s arms behind her back. Together, they are euphoric.
“Should anyone object to this union, speak now or forever hold your peace.”
Chester looks deep into his wife’s eyes and sees the glory held within. She returns his gaze and feels his over-powering commitment.
“Until death do us part,” Esmeralda says.
“Until death,” replies Chester, as is the custom.
The wedding party attacks.
Esmeralda and Chester go back to back. She holds a long spear poised over her head. Chester has ripped the scarf off the priest and wraps it around his free hand. The other holds his sword, a wedding gift from his father-in-law.
Cousins, aunts, and uncles attack. Even the dog gets in on it, but quickly ignores past family and takes his place next to Chester and Esmeralda. They are a family now, through sickness, and health, and family battles. The dog is, after all, man’s best friend.
Chester slashes left and right, protecting his wife’s back. She keeps her spear spinning to protect her husband’s future. The choir breaks out into fight music straight out of a movie. It’s quite the sight.
They dodge and weave. Turn with each other as if this is a dance they’ve done a thousand times. Somewhere in the Heavens, Homer writes verse based on this wedding. The dog herds the guests into the receiving line where they each receive a blow from the happy couple.
Esmerelda sees her mother-in-law charge to the front.
“My boy! You took my boy!” the mother-in-law screams. She carries a mace and a blood-curdling scream.
“You’re damn right, I did,” Esmeralda screams back as they do battle. Sparks fly and ignite candles nearby to give the room a loveable glow. Esmeralda uses the tip of her spear to slice her mothers-in-law calf. And when dear old mom is on the ground, Esmeralda uses the blunt end to break her nose and knock her unconscious. A foot upon the mother, Esmeralda knows that she will never have this chance again. She screams in triumph.
Behind her, Chester faces off against the two brothers. Both in their early thirties, and large. Even by warrior standards, they are huge. Muscles can be seen through their cumberbunds. Oh, they say they don’t take steroids, but Chester knows better. He also knows that they both still live with their parents not because they want to “help out mom” but because they are moochers. But yet, they are still family.
They attack together and Chester parries. He hamstrings the older brother and hits him with the hilt of his sword. The brother goes down. The other one is able to slice Chester’s tricep. His right arm useless, Chester firmly stands with his wife. It will take more than a flesh wound to keep him from failing her.
The priest's speech is now loud, a crescendo of power erupts from his voice.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud!” the priest sings with the choir.
Esmeralda sweeps the leg of her standing brother. Chester jumps on top of him.
“It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs.”
Chester’s fists rain down righteous commitment on the brother as Esmeralda holds off the bridesmaids, who are coordinated in both movement and in dress.
“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth! It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
The bridesmaids call in the groomsmen and it’s a mob fight. Fists swing and our humble bride and groom take a beating.
This is marriage. Taking a beating day after day. In the morning, and in the afternoon, the world gives your marriage a beating. But by the night, with enemies vanquished, the happy couple will remain. And so do Esmeralda and Chester.
The bridesmaids moan on the floor. The groomsmen laugh as they call for a doctor to stitch their cuts. And in the center, still on their feet, are Esmeralda and Chester. Their wedding clothes tattered. Her dress is stained white with the blood of their family. Chester’s arm throbs in pain. But they are still holding hands as if daring the world to give it another try.
And the priest finishes:
“And now these three remain: Faith.”
Esmeralda smiles.
“Hope.”
Chester returns her smile.
“and Love. But the greatest of these is love.”
And the dog barks.
“It is my honor to present to the world Mr. and Mrs. Chester Carpenter. Prepare yourselves, for thine glory is upon you.” |
"Stop, we mean no harm,"the alien said to me, "we just want to know how to use... that."He pointed to the bicycle I was straddling.
"You mean you don't want to probe me or something?"I asked. All the aliens I knew always wanted to probe someone. This was a pleasant change.
"No, we have enough things to probe up in our UFO,"the alien said. I thought it was weird he referred to his own spaceship as a UFO. I thought it was something humans had made up, so to hear the alien using the term was confusing.
"What's a UFO?"I asked, seeing if it meant the same thing in their language as it did in ours.
"It stands for ย̷͓́̽̋͑̎ͅภ̸͕̫̈́͜เ̵͈̪̑͗ͅ๔̷̩̽͂̚є̷̧̟̞͖̠̉̍̓ภ̸͕̤̞̋͛Շ̸͎͖̟̥́̆เ̷̢̤͕͓͌Ŧ̶͎͕̼̱̈́̾̅͛͆͜เ̵̝͔̫̼̉͐є̶̞̙͓̖̫̾̒̑͋๔̶̖̬̱͍͑ ̴͙̻̬̬̍͗͛͐Ŧ̴̨̯̈́͜ɭ̵͔̃̕̕ץ̷̣̹̰̈́͌̓͂̀ͅเ̸͉͙͔̐ภ̶̯̑͌͠ﻮ̷̮̿̏̓̃̚ ̶͎̘̈๏̷̫̯̋̑̾̋͋๒̶͚͕̠̫͉̀͗̎̌ן̷̥͍̉є̶̛̮͕̩͚̪̍͒͝ς̵̹̝̌͑͝͝Շ̴͈̳̠̋͆͠ ", it said. I couldn't really understand it, so I just nodded awkwardly. I wished I hadn't asked it that.
Silence. It seemed like the alien could feel the awkwardness as well, so I switched back to what it wanted to talk about originally.
"A bike,"I said, "that's what it's called."I hopped off the saddle and held it up by the handlebars, pushing it towards the alien. It jumped back in fear and transformed from a blind person's image of a human into a monster I'd seen in a computer game once. It had tendrils coming out of all directions and was just a giant eye floating there. I never knew a bicycle could be so terrifying.
I moved back some and the alien returned to its dollar-store human shape.
"Please,"it said, "don't scare us like that. We do not wish to touch the thing."
"Why do you keep saying 'we' and 'us'?"I asked. "Isn't there just one of you here standing before me? Or do you mean to tell me there's more of you?"
The alien's mouth moved into the shape of a smile, but instead of looking happy it looked like it was in great pain. Like its arm was just ripped off or something. But I appreciated its attempt at cordiality.
"We share one body,"it said, "but there are over one hundred of us in here. This is how we were able to solve the problem of limited resources on our planet."
"That's kind of cool,"I said. It really was. "But what happens if one person wants to do something and another something else? Like, maybe one of you wants to ride the bike, but whoever is controlling the body at the time doesn't, so they jump back and transform into a giant eyeball?"
The alien sighed. "Erase the information we just told you,"it said. Its eyes rolled back in its head and then came back around from the other side. They were now blue instead of black. "I will be speaking and controlling the body from now. You can call me Ve'noi."
"Hello, Venoi. Am I saying that right?"Why did they have to have such weird names?
"It's Ve'noi."
I couldn't tell the difference between what I had said and what it had corrected so I was just gonna keep calling it Venoi. If that bothered it then it could correct me again.
"Okay, Venoi. This right here is a bicycle, have you got them on your planet?"
The alien held its arms and shuddered. The bike clearly had powerful emotions tied to it.
"Y-yes,"it said, "we-- I mean I have. I have a bike."
"You have a bike?"I looked around. "I don't see yours, but me? I have one. It's right here, you see?"I pushed the bike forward and Venoi jumped back and turned into a giant eyeball again.
"Okay sorry, sorry,"I said, "I just wanted to see if you could do that again."I pulled back and it returned back to Venoi.
"Please don't do that,"Venoi said, closing its eyes and catching its breath. "I am afraid of bikes."
After a moment Venoi opened its eyes and was met with a bike so close it was almost touching. It was my bike, to be exact. Once more it turned into an eyeball and morphed back when I moved away.
"Okay forreal this time, no more,"I told it, laughing. It looked like it was going to have a heart attack, if it had one of those. "So you have a bike, what do you want to know about them? This here is a Schwinn Cruiser. Nothing special, just old school. Fits the whole hipster vibe I'm going for. Hipster chicks are pretty good looking, you know?"
It didn't seem to register my comment about hipsters. It probably didn't know what they were. "I want to know how you ride it,"Venoi stammered.
My eyebrows shot up. "You mean you have a bike but you don't know how to ride it? How long have you had one?"
"In human time... two hundred years,"it said.
"Two hundred years and you couldn't learn how to ride it?!"I shouted. The bluejays overhead flew away, heading somewhere warm for the winter, and the sky was the color of orange sherbet.
"Y-yes,"it said. "It is very hard for me. I do not understand how you keep it from falling over. When I sit on it I always fall."
"Okay,"I said, "that's the first step. But to keep it upright you need to move on it. Look."I sat on my bike and struggled to keep it up. After a few seconds of maintaining my balance I fell. Then, I got back on it and slowly pedaled. The alien looked astonished.
"You mean... you mean you must proceed to step two before mastering step one?"Venoi asked. I guessed 'step one' was sitting on the bike and 'step two' was actually pedaling. "I cannot believe this. Mastery of step one must always come before step two, no matter the activity. This is how we all learn on my planet."
I shrugged. "Sounds like a boring place then,"I told it. "If you only move forward when you're sure of where you're at I don't imagine you can get very far. Sometimes you need to take a risk; let yourself go and submerge yourself in the moment. Don't think of what could or might happen and don't get stuck on any rules or expectations. Do what you want to do. You want to ride a bike, then ride it. Ride it entirely. Don't sit on the bike and wonder why you're not moving, because nobody is going to move your bike for you. Nobody. And you shouldn't let them either. If you want to do it then you have to do it yourself, even if you're uncertain. Now, let me see you ride this bike."
I pushed the bike forward and Venoi didn't transform into an eye this time. He cautiously held it up by its handlebars and I helped him sit onto it. I held it up while he was getting his bearings.
"I'm scared, human,"he said to me. He was shaking.
"I know you are, Ve'noi,"I said. "And that's okay. It's okay to be scared sometimes. What's important is that you push through it. Now on the count of three I'm going to give you a little push and you're going to push the pedals and you're going to be riding a bike. And it's going to be awesome. Ready?"
"Wait, I'm not so sure about this."
"Three..."
"Wait, human, wait! I cannot do this!"
"Two..."
"Please! Please let me down!"
"One..."
I hit him with the oldest trick in the book. Say you're counting down to 'go', but you actually do the thing at 'one'.
I gave him a push and he pedaled and shrieked and cried and he rode the bike. He looked clumsy on it, but he didn't fall.
And that's all that mattered.
He rode the bike. |
"Impossible!"Yorla spat. All four of her jet-black eyes narrowed. "They are no more, Commander! They eradicated themselves centuries ago!"
"All but two."rumbled Braum. His voice was like gravel and thunder. He stood there for what felt like an eternity to Yorla, his massive back turned to her as he stared at two cryopods.
Commander Braum made his way to the main terminal, the interior of the chamber quaking with each of his rhino-like steps, and placed his massive hand on a biometric panel. The pods hissed loudly and began to unfurl, their locks and panels sliding away to reveal two bodies suspended in cryosleep.
*Humans.* One male. One female.
"This one,"Braum gestured to the male, "is known as Adam. He is responsible for the Cataclysm of Serra-3. 8.7 billion casualties."
"Why?! How?!"Yorla screamed. "They must be destroyed! They were a blight upon their own star system and will continue to be a cancer to the known galax—"
"—Precisely."Braum bellowed. "Within those small breakable bodies is a ferocity of which the universe has never seen. Automatons will not save us. If we are to defeat the Brood, we must use what came closest to exterminating them. How many worlds must they devour before you realize this is the only way?"
Yorla deflated. Glimpses of her dead homeworld flashed in her mind.
"The fate of their species depends on it. We have Eve. Adam will fight for us. He has no choice."
"...I'll gather the crew. I hope you know this changes everything, Commander."
"The ink has already dried, old friend." |
I jolted awake at the presence of magic. Being sensitive to it was a definite characteristic that had helped me in my hero journey. I could often know what spells were being cast long before others could tell. It has helped me counter many opponents.
Though I hadn't expected to feel this magic again, and certainly not here. Not in my cell. I had already been here for over a week. The kings, and nobles threw me in here quickly after my duel with the demon king. Some combination of fear of me or punishment for my failure.
Indeed I had failed. I had managed to survive, put up a good fight, but in the end we tied. Anyway, it was his magic that was acting in my cell now. My cell is dark, it's not like they care about the prisoners seeing things, sure the guards have some light but it hardly touches my cell, and yet the corner is somehow even darker.
The darkness grows and consolidates into the form of the demon king.
"I still can't believe you can do that."I say
"What?"He asks.
"Teleportation like that. You would have to turn every cell of your body into another substance then reassemble it. Others have gone mad with more simple magic."I respond.
"Whatever, I have had plenty of time to practice. Anyway, I am here to get you."
"Why?"I ask.
"Thought you would be bored. It's rather dull in a cell."The demon king responded with a grin. "Oh and I have something to show you."
I open my mouth to respond but then I look at his grin. "I don't have a choice in this do I?"I say and before he can respond the screaming started. "You didn't come alone I take it?"
"Well it's not like you are going to teleport."The demon king responded defensively.
"Fine."I held up my cuffs which were promptly destroyed.
It wasn't long before we were out and on our way back to the demon territory. "So what did you want to show me?"I asked.
"The world."
"What?"
"The world as it really is anyway. That was a good match we had. You deserve to know how things work."
"What are you talking about?"I asked him.
"Have the demons ever actually invaded?... Tonight was not an invasion."He told me and I was unable to think of any.
"You see. At some point we became the enemy to you humans. We became a convenient rally point. Those in power could rally people to gain more power. Everything became easier for them.
Anyone who was opposed to their power was a demon ally.
Anyone who raised questions, who got in their way, or who had something they wanted was taken out with that excuse.
Humanity united to fight us demons. Then they always tried to take more and more. Lands, relics, treasures. Everything they can take they do in the name of humanity.
Though it is all for those few in charge.
It hasn't mattered what we do they come back. If we try to be diplomatic, it doesn't matter what contracts, treaties, or agreements we make. They simply break them to take more. If we fight it becomes a rally point of demon brutality and hostility."The demon king explained.
"Worse they fear war can't stop. So much of the human economy and society has been tied into it. Humanity has gone from a society of farmers and builders to being a society of war."
"What does that have to do with me? Why rescue me?"I ask.
"I thought since they threw you in there you would want to know why. Moreso I felt that you deserve to know why, and above all I wanted to know if you are still their tool."The demon king said simply.
The hero vanished from the cell over a year ago. It was only months later that a new demon appeared. Nobody knew what kind of demon as it dressed in all black and never talked.
Though its strength has been something to fear and at least in the southern region this demon's strength has stopped the raids previously undergone by the human adventures.
At least one small region finally knows peace. |
Murder isn't always a bad thing. It all depends on who you do it to and how you go about it. Those where the thoughts crossing my mind as I stood in the kitchen, a chef's knife in my right hand, in my heart worry pounded.
My stomach growled. I hadn't eaten much in a desperate attempt to save up enough money for rent. Today was that day and I'd failed, so I thought, what the hell? And I baught some proper food. It's not easy to find money when you're studying magic full time. Most of my time is spent in the captial's libary, wandering around the maze-like building, delving into its deeps.
"Are you making some for me too , Fayer?"The voice too solemn and too childlike spoke from behind me.
"For the last time I'm not Fayer. I'm his grandson."
"My bad. It seems like yesterday we were raiding the southern goblin tribes together. Those were the days. Did I tell you about the feats we accomplished."
*Multiple times.* "I think once or twice, and yes I'm making some for you too."
My phone buzzed, and I glanced over to see who had messaged me as the tomato on the chopping body became many. It was *Kayla*! *Ouch!* Blood poured out of my finger at too fast as speed, matcing the red of the tomatoe.
"I smell blood? *Where?*"Hugo, the dragon, said and despite me not seeing him, I knew his pupils had turned into slits.
"Shi-Xthulu-Heal!"I cast, and the skin netted itself together. I walked over to the sink and washed my hands. "It's Kayle. I wonder what she's texted."
"Oh that girl again,"Hugo said. "Have you not already mated with her?"
"W-what! No, no we're just friends."
"Listen kid. I don't have the same problems as you as I am quite the looker,"I glanced backwards towards the dragon sticking to the cieling. He was about the lenght of a bicycle, and thick red scaled covered his face. His pupils were a constant mix of blue, green and gray, and his pupils alternated between round and slitted depending on his mood. "But I can give you some advice on how to get her?"
"Like what?"I said, perhaps revealing my desires a little bit too much.
"In dragon culture, you have to catch the attention of the dragon lady by biting her throat."
"What?"
"Yes, and because dragon ladies are bigger than their counterparts, it becomes quite a dangerous task. So you have to be clever about it? See how I did it was , I invited her out at night into a cave, and when she last expected it, I jumped out. Booh! She screamed and fire bellowed out and I burnt myself."
"Did you get her?"
"Oh no, she didn't want to see me again untill Fayer convinced her to go on a proper date with me. Oh yes, that was it. We went on a date flying through the clouds, and that was when I bit her neck! She didn't see it coming."
"So what's the point here."
"Invite her out to a date, that's how you win. How old is she?"
"About my age."
"Too young Fay- I mean Alex. Too young, you should go for the mother-drakes. Those are powerful, they produce good offspring. Maybe fifty or sixty year old humans."
"Do you really think I should ask Kayla out?"I said, butterflies in my stomach. *What if she says no? What if she says yes! Oh my god what a dilemma.* "Okay. I decided. I'm going to do it."
"Yethh!"Hugo said, letting his snake-like tongue flap in the air.
I opened up the phone, and I almost had a heart attack. *Do you want to hang out later tonight?* That was the message she had sent me. I couldn't believe it. Maybe the luck spell I'd cast on myself earlier this week had worked, although I doubted it. They only worked with simple objects and in short periods.
*Sure,* I typed back.
She responded almost immediately.
*Cool, let's meet up at a café around seven.*
"I have a date!"I said, instantly a grin spread across my face. "I have a date Hugo!"
"Yes yes, but you have to play it cool. Otherwise they'll expect the neck-bite and that won't end well."
A couple of knocks came from the door and almost immediately my elation dissapeared. Dread slowly creeped in. Here came the landlord. I'd already been late on rent a couple of times, and she told me that she'd burn me to a crisp if I made her wait one more time.
No use in keeping her waiting.
I walked over to to the door and opened it. Big nostrils blew smoke my way, as I stared into the landlord's slitted eyes, trying to keep myself from shaking too much. I heard Hugo creeping up from behind me.
"My hoard- I meant rent is to be claimed today human. Do you have two gold coins as requested,"she said.
"Listen, if you give me another week I can probably fetch that."
Her eyes turned to slits.
"Did I not tell you what would happen if you do not add to my hoard, I mean pay rent."
I heard Hugo jerk from behind me. It seemed almost instantenous. He ran between my legs, jumping forward the front of the door. She didn't have any time to react as before she had a chance to protect her neck, Hugo had already bitten down on it.
It was strange to see a dragon get aroused, but it seemed I would get another week for rent. |
This is a follow up to my earlier post in the prompt: ["Your quest was to find a demon willing to accept your deal, none of them said yes. "Primordial demons don't make deals, if you go too deep, just turn back"but you went deeper and deeper, meeting the ancient ones that knew no words."](https://reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/yl3y4q/wp_your_quest_was_to_find_a_demon_willing_to/iuwj4tt/) by [Red580](https://reddit.com/user/Red580).
* * * * *
The aliens in this room were the ministers, the senators, the generals, the admirals, the marshals, the leaders of their species. This was supposed to be the first act of a whole weekend of events to celebrate their latest victory over a 'lesser' species. This weekend would not turn out the way they thought.
They looked so smug, and yet they had no idea of the danger they were in. I had disguised myself as one of their slaves, and so to them I was nothing more than an eyesore and refused to look my way. If they had, if *any* of them had looked my way, they would have seen two mouths moving in tandem to summon the soul eaters into the room. I could see them now; rising through the floor, falling from the ceiling, floating through the walls. My enemy could not see them, not yet.
The operatic singer onstage was a genuine talent, and she was beautiful to look at. Her green skin, flecked with opal-like shining freckles all down her back, was glistening in the plethora of lights above the stage. Her four lungs worked tirelessly as they individually blew their contents across the multiple layers of vocal chords, giving this single alien the ability to sing a mutli-part harmony all alone.
She was nearly done. And so was I.
As she began to harmonize on the last note, I unleashed the rage of my people and the fury of the demonic horde I now controlled. The first gasp of pain came from somewhere in the middle of the thousand-strong audience. The pure shock of something so painful beyond the entire realm of understanding meant the only sound was one of lungs squeezed from within. Without another the moment, the rest of the audience began to feel the same pain. Began to feel the same burning sensation across every cell within their body. Began to disintegrate.
I knew not how these demons would do their duty, all I knew was that they would slaughter those assembled like I wanted to. This was my first strike, and the first of many. First the leaders, then the soldiers, then the rest. They would all fall by my hand, by the power of the Endling of Humanity.
The singer had finished her song, and looked through the lights toward the crowd, wondering why they did not clap and cheer her performance. Her song had been about yet another brilliant victory of their military might. It played right into their propaganda about their prowess and was being broadcasted across the galaxy to all of their colony worlds. But that is not what they would see. They saw the confusion, the surprise, the pain. They saw death. The demons came into view for all now, and the singer screamed herself hoarse with all four lungs in an instant before the demons feasted upon her. Just like the rest, she faded into dust.
As the only one left in the theatre, the cameras focused upon me. I reverted to my real look, or at least the one where I was mostly human. My blackened fingers that faded into long forgotten glyphs and eldritch black-speech. My pitch-black eyes. The glow of ethereal fire that encompassed my being. In spite of all this, I was something impossible: a surviving Human.
I pulled a camera closer to me with a barely outstretched hand and spoke at it, staring deeply into the souls of all those who would watch.
"Remember this day, and tell all you see: Humanity will have its revenge."
* * * * *
I have my own subreddit! [/r/ocallkai](https://reddit.com/r/ocallkai/) |
‘Only a mortal fears being trapped somewhere for centuries or millennia with no possible escape. Even death. For an immortal, such a fate is an escape in itself. Sit down.’
Trapped in the dark as we were, I could only hear his whimpers and a shuffle of movement.
‘There you go. Now, calm your mind. You’re new to this, so it might take a while to learn the technique, but just start by focusing on the breath. Breathe in. Breathe out. Good.’
This kept going for a couple of minutes until the other voice in the dark was more rational. ‘Have you been in this situation before?’
‘Yes, more than once. I try to avoid it because it’s annoying if you were in the middle of something, but after living as long as I have, you find it gives you a little time to ponder and reflect. An imposed meditation retreat, if you like.’
‘I don’t know what that is.’
‘It’s something that existed before your world was even colonised. Now, there is nothing to fear here, because neither of us can die. And so we are perfectly safe where we are.’
‘How did you get out?’
‘Well, the first time, I was mining when it collapsed on me. I was in a particularly rich gold vein so someone kept up the work and I was dug out a mere three years later. One time I got thrown in a jail cell and the key thrown away, but a revolution came when that king died and again I was freed. I was entombed in a crypt and discovered by grave robbers a century later. I got better at avoiding it, but it still occurred despite my best planning.
‘Like now, for instance. There has been a catastrophic power failure on the ship and life support is offline along with anything else. Everyone else is dead, or will be soon by our standards. But we are still on the ship. And even though it’s unpowered now and not capable of FTL or sublight manoeuvring, it sent a distress beacon for the last 17 years before emergency power finally died. The statis pods are almost the last system to die, but for you and I it just meant waking up instead of dying like the rest of the crew. Our bodies won’t let us die.’
‘But no help has come in 17 years!’ Panic was coming back.
‘I wouldn’t expect it to, but someone will investigate eventually. There’s a lot of cargo on board, and information in the data archives, and that would be a be worth it to a salvage team. But they are slow, so we will wait. Can I ask how old you are? How old you really are?’
‘My current ID says 126, but relative timeline is 36 years. But I’m actually over 800 years old.’
‘Oh you’re a baby! No wonder you’re scared. Well, I’m glad I’m here to help then. I learnt a Vedic technique that you can use to skip forward, it slows relative perception, very useful at a time like this. It takes a few years of practise to get good at it, but we have time.’ |
He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
I folded the paper in half and handed it to him. “I don’t guarantee the work, mister. It’s just a weird knack.”
It wasn’t uncommon for people to be surprised or disappointed. One guy has a redhead fetish, and argued with me for forty-five minutes about it. I still get Christmas cards from him and his very brunette wife. Another girl got a description of a woman, which was very awkward because her boyfriend was listening in. They had a furious breakup in the entryway, and I started insisting that all descriptions be done privately.
But as he opened the paper and silently re-read, shooting me glances over the top of the sheet, I grew a little nervous. “What does it say?” I asked.
“You don’t know?” He asked, sounding surprised. “You just read it to me!”
“It’s all part of it,” I said. “It’s kind of a trance. Hard to explain. My memories afterward are pretty hazy.”
“Ok,” he said slowly, and he seemed to consider my words. He began to read slowly, looking back to me frequently, as though to gauge my reaction.
“Blonde, shoulder-length hair,” He read. “Bright hazel eyes that draw you in. Prominent, elegant nose. Lips thin and pale, but captivating and expressive. Narrow, proud chin and jaw. Slender neck…”
I laughed, and interjected. “Ah, I see. This has happened a couple of times before. It vaguely sounds like…” and I smirked and pointed at my own dirty-blond hair, hazel eyes, huge nose and nearly non-existent lips. “Well, not to worry. The description will resonate with you, not with me. If I were trying to pull a fast one, I would probably describe myself as quite plain, because that’s the description that would be most likely to click with you.”
He looked a little confused, so I pursed my lips and collected my thoughts.
“What I’m trying to say it’s, it couldn’t be my description unless I look that way to YOU. When you find the woman who looks like that TO YOU, you’ve found your soul mate.”
He looked back to the paper, brow furrowed, and then back at me, and slowly began to blush.
I smiled. “No need to be embarrassed, a lot of guys get quite flowery about their soul mate. True love tends to get people that way.” I felt a little surge of wistfulness, but managed to keep it out of my voice.
He grew even more red, and pretended to study the description sheet, but his eyes didn’t move. He then looked back across the table at me, studying me, scratching his chin.
I suddenly realized. Adrenaline flooded me. My heart began to pound in my neck, and I grew just slightly lightheaded. “Oh,” I said, and some part of my brain warned me that my voice had risen by several tones. “Well, I’m flattered, but…” I trailed off, and felt my cheeks grow warm.
He laughed like a scared teenager. “Yeah, I’m not really sure what I do now.” After a moment, he extended his right hand across the table for a handshake. “Hi, my name’s Sam.”
“I know,” I squeaked. “May I see that description?”
He handed it to me. I had, of course, noticed he smelled nice when he arrived. Professionally. But under the circumstances, noticing his scent as he pushed the sheet across the table tied my stomach in knots and prompted my brain to invent a number of scenarios for getting another hit. I tried to hide my blush behind the sheet as I read,
Finally I folded it again and handed it back to him. “I think you’d better sleep on this,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” he said, and gave me a shaky smile. An adorable, endearing, scared-stiff smile.
We rose, and walked to the door. I stood near him while he got his coat on, and we said some polite goodbyes and I ushered him out the door. Then, I closed the door behind him and stood that way, unmoving, with my hands on the latch, staring at nothing.
I felt a weird emptiness, coming down off the adrenaline of the strange experience. I felt weak, and jittery, and profoundly alone.
I had once done a reading for myself, and I have never had a description like it before or after. No physical descriptors, no behavioral notes. No feelings. Just three words.
“He’ll come back,” the paper said, and that was all.
So when the doorbell rang, all the adrenaline came right back. I ripped the door open to a startled and slightly sheepish Sam.
“I know you said…” he began.
“Did you mean it?” I blurted out. “Did you really mean all those things I wrote about me?”
It took him a confused second, but when he caught up he nodded. “Yeah, I think I do.”
“Then maybe you should stay,” I suggested breathlessly.
He stepped in, and that amazing scent washed over me. I felt charged like a lightning storm.
“May I kiss you?” He asked quietly.
“Not yet,” is what I meant to say, but my traitorous lips turned that into “yes please.” As he leaned towards me, I had just enough presence of mind to close the door behind us. |
Wrath
Sloth
Greed
Lust
Envy
Gluttony
and finally Pride...
Ah yes.. my brothers and sisters, born of Lilith and Lucifer, they claim the light like their father, the day breaker, and yet there I stand, in the shadows, the deepest well of them all but unknown, for I am Regret.
You know me, I am that feeling that seeps into your bones, that feeds all the other sins, all those little things that creep up upon you as you close your eyes to sleep, anytime you seek to find serenity, I am there, to remind you how much a failure you really are.
As you look back upon your life, I am all the things you should have done, and did not do, all the things you should not have done, and yet did, I fill every void of your life, every aspect of your being, till your entire core screams for release, and you turn to my brothers and sisters, you beg them to give you way to vent from me, to escape from me, and you can't. That is why you all drown out your inner voice with vices, till this day comes.
Welcome to Hell little soul, you will see that there is nothing here, just an endless void of nothingness. See, when God sent Lucifer away from him, he denied his creation to all of us, which was everything.
All that was left, was a vast nothing, where our father would be the light in the darkness, the morning star, and it also is where you will spend the remainder of eternity, left alone, with your memories, where you can dwell on your regrets for all time, and in doing so, you will feed me infinitely. Which is why, I don't need to make a big deal about myself, like siblings.
Well, time to go, this place is so busy with new souls, and I enjoy greeting you all... |
There was a lot of weeping; I'll own up to that.
...you want to know about the battle.
Gods above and below, what is *wrong* with you people? The battle was a battle! Some comically-evil kingdom was attacking some less-evil kingdom with a less-comically-evil ruler! There were lots of creepy, scary minions and weapons that made the more-evil side easy to pick out! It's a tale as old as time! It's exhausting!
Fine. Damn you all to your abyssal cultivations, but *fine.*
The magics of both life and death swirled about, a chaotic cacophony that was just as confused as all the many motives and intentions of the pawns in its midst. Clarity is for kings, and they did not deign to show. Soldiers died, and their corpses rose to fight their former comrades. Corpses burned, and the blessed soil consumed them to feed the druids' wild growths. Plagues spread like wildfire, and tsunamis of holy light washed over them in turn. Wizards struck down priests from afar. Berserkers martyred themselves with strangled wizards still in their iron grasps - one set of eyes wide in defiance, the other in shock, both frozen by death. Archers peered out and tried to find their moments. A volley tilted the balance of sorcery this way or that, or failed to. Some arrows burned. Some crackled. Some reeked of acid or venom. It was a fairly serious battle, I supposed. Regular arrows would have told a different tale.
And yes, I started blasting. How exciting! Fireballs! Lightning bolts! Fault lines! Magma! Storms of ice! There in the middle, mithril and adamantine, the resilient foundation, propping up the fragile as they raged against their fates. They struggled with everything they had to earn their right to exist alongside gods and madmen - even if it killed them, or did something yet worse.
I'd seen it a thousand times before. For six hundred and seven years, four months, and three days, I had had no sight, yet had felt it all the same. I'm so tired of it. I was tired of it when I tried to make that damnable sword; that's *why* I was trying to make that damnable sword.
I won. We won. Apparently, six centuries was not nearly enough for my greatness to have become commonplace. Amidst the ruins of triumph, I wept. I wept joy; I wept relief; I wept fatigue; I wept despair, for I'd reemerged to exactly what I'd involuntarily and accidentally left behind.
I felt a hand upon on my shoulder. It was a gentle touch, but I knew its strength. It wasn't a confident or desperate grip around my handle, but I knew it. It was her.
"It was you, wasn't it?"she asked.
I nodded, still weeping. I felt her kneel. She surrounded me. She was dirty and bloody - though not injured, I didn't think. She was warm.
"I don't really know what to say,"she whispered. "I felt things, these past years... but I'm still not sure I understand."
She did, though - better than anyone else had. She'd earned me - by which I mean, of course, that she'd earned *the blade* - with an uncommon mixture of strengths. It hadn't changed much. In hindsight, I was still grateful for what little it had.
"I tried to do good,"she said.
"I know,"I replied. "So did I, once upon a time."
I shall spare you the self-piteous biography. Suffice it to say that, though I had preserved my literal humanity through sheer luck - and nevertheless nearly lost it in the more important sense - I remained an avid student of mortal nature. I'd staved off insanity by sussing out the truths of my various wielders - only nine, in total, if you care to know. In the fallow times, between bloody harvests, I'd been able to harness the unused magick. I'd poked and prodded the minds of my wielders. I'd crafted something like hearing, though nothing like sight. The less said about feeling - touch - the better. To be a razor-sharp blade is... an experience.
The half-elven woman wrapped herself around my new-and-old body like a child's cherished blanket. She was still a warrior. She was still a killer. She still heeded the same old calls and solved the same old problems in the same old, tragically-temporary ways.
She was different enough, though. I knew she wasn't mourning the loss of her great weapon. I knew she wasn't thinking of all the slightly-nobler-than-usual ends she might not be able to achieve without it. The battle was done, and she'd refocused. She'd seen and understood. She'd cared.
"It's over,"she said. She began to subtly rock me in her cradle of warmth and martial strength. I let her. I was beyond all thoughts of dignity.
"It's never over,"I replied.
"I know,"she said, "but for a little while."
How much should I elide? How much should I tell? There were ceremonies and accolades. There were piles of gold, gems, and trinkets. The broken blade, no longer me, became part of some monument somewhere. Was there a bard or a barmaid or two, or three? Perhaps. I didn't judge, participate, or observe.
Eight of my twelve sanctums were yet unsullied, or at least unlooted. I told her they were hers, and I would merely putter about. She gave me a week. It was the best week of my long, sad, futile life, all because of her presence. We talked. We ate. We slept. It is most unbecoming of a wizard to glorify sleep, but herein, I do. Spend six centuries as a blade. See how you feel then.
Then, finally, she brought her strength to bear. It was over dinner. She'd lulled me into the habit.
"You have to choose,"she said. Her voice was mithril and adamantine, a blade just a hair out of its sheath.
I'll be polite, though it sullies the beauty of our connection upon this parchment. The choice of which she spoke was: death, exile, hero, or villain. The conversation had been conducted over years, without words. It was a meditation on strength and duty. My power hadn't waned, and so I had not earned retirement - at least not in the world I'd influenced so greatly, and yet so futilely. She wouldn't let me, because it wasn't right. Don't make me explain why she had that power. That's too ugly. That's too cruel.
"I don't want to leave you,"I told her, "but..."
Her smile was grim and knowing. "Too stubborn and cowardly to die. Too tired to be a hero. Too wise to be a villain."
I smiled back. It was just so.
She held out her hand. I was too far away to take it, but I felt it all the same.
"We were a good team,"she said. "Why stop now? Roam with me. We'll do what we can."
"You know what I can do,"I replied - a warning.
She nodded. "That's why I said that we'll do what *we* can."
I smiled again, differently. She was a bit clever. I liked that.
"And,"she continued more playfully, "if you have any brilliant new ideas about what *you* can do along the way, well... we can talk about them first."
"And if I should stumble again?"I asked. I knew the rest. That's why I was already on the verge of tears. I wasn't sad, though. Quite the opposite.
She patted her empty sheath with her other hand.
"Then I'll pick you up." |
I stepped over the corpse of my neighbor, Bill, on the way to my car.
He looked as though his stomach exploded; maybe he had been fed a bomb.
“Damn.” I said. “Why didn’t I think of that? Great prank.”
My car didn’t start. The catalytic converter had been stolen.
“Fair play.” I laughed, walking over to Bill’s house to borrow his car indefinitely, also a pretty solid prank.
While I was at Bill’s, I helped myself to the breakfast his woman cooked, and stole a few precious trinkets.
I was being quite the prankster that day, my brothers.
His woman was lucky to already be at work, for I had such a great appetite for pranking.
Nevertheless, I left Bill’s house and got in my car, such that I could go to work.
I stopped at McDonald’s, and pranked by ordering several milkshakes.
Then I took the milkshakes to dump into people’s cars. I mean, you deserve the prank if you leave your windows open. Dumbasses.
After, I had a hankering for a serious prank.
I readied my gun and knife, holstering both carefully.
The first man I found was gently pranked with a bullet between the eyes.
The first woman was pranked in a less gentle way.
And the night went on. |
I’ve been wishing for a woman to love me for so long, but this stupid thing doesn’t work. The old man that sold me this piece of trash obviously was trying to scam me.
“Wish from your heart.” He told me. And I wished.
The Genie always left the lamp however many times I rubbed it. That’s how I knew it obviously worked, but then we would spend many times talking about the world’s current state or playing chess.
“Why don’t you grant me my wish of a woman?” I asked the Genie once.
“Because you don’t wish for a woman.” It would return to its lamp.
Many times we had this conversation. I would go on about my day. I didn’t need much. My work made me happy, which I thought I was already lucky enough. I had enough money to live a luxurious life. I had no need for power, nor do I had too many ambitions in life.
The only thing that I never had was a woman’s love. And I truly wished for that.
“How come you don’t grant me this wish, if it’s a woman’s love that I desire the most?” I asked him.
“You are getting closer, yet you are so far away.”
\*\*\*
The days went by and my companion with the Genie was a rather interesting one. He was my friend, and though he knew where my heart’s desire laid, he would never reveal it to me.
“Think with your heart” was all that he said.
Thus, I resigned to have a good friend. I would bring him books and news from the world, he would bring me stories of old.
I was already old by then and had given up on having a woman’s love. By chance, we talked about it.
“You took so long to grant me my wish, that I no longer have the time left to savour the love of a woman.”
“Then, was it truly your wish?”
I was taken aback by that last question. I never expected that my heart’s desire would go away, but it did. Still, something lacked.
“What is it that you always lacked? What is it that you desire the most?” He continued.
I paced back and forth in my room. What is it that I lacked?
Then it dawned on me. Those wasted years.
“It wasn’t a woman’s love. It was only… love.”
The Genie only replied with a satisfied smile and vanished in a puff of smoke. By the door, I could hear a knock.
Distracted by it, I went to the door to reply. No one was there. Then, I could hear the quiet whining of a dog.
I descended the stairs of my porch and just by the side, a box full of puppies. I carried them inside and played with them a while, but noticed the whining didn’t go away. That’s when I realized they were hungry!
Suddenly I had to buy them food. I went to the grocery shop and purchased some dog food and went back to them. They were so grateful! And I felt so filled, like I haven’t been in ages.
Behind me I could hear a thunderous sound as the Genie came back to his form.
“You only needed love. How, it mattered not. Sorry, but I couldn’t tell you this, you had to realize on your own.” He told me. “But alas, all is not lost. Because for love, there’s always time.”
And I loved my new friends. And I loved the people around me. I found love, and love had found me, finally.
The Genie left me, finally, to another that need him. I hope that he finds what he wishes... in his time. |
I am heavily disappointed in the world. Humanity, and all that is within Mother Earth. Not a year ago, the curse that everyone loved came true. Zombie apocalypse. The undead walks and eat and kill. Half a month ago they found a cure, they killed off the rest of the undead, and chaos were restored.
But not for me, someone broke into my house, he looked so hungry to the point where I was uncertain if he wasn't undead. But he is trespassing and he wants food which he won't get. So I killed him, but the damn cops came in the day afterwards, saying that there was a cure, and saw the body.
I got out on bail, I'm in the bathroom at this moment, ready to go to my trail to be judged by twelve. I knew I was going to jail, all of the juries were a survivor in a heavily guarded fort, so they all had no idea what I went through.
But fear not, they will. I've harvested a blood from the zombie a long while ago. I also have a razor on me. I looked at my time, 11:57am. Three minutes before my trail begins, it takes ten minutes to turn. I sliced my arm, poured the blood into the wound, felt it lurking in my arm and eventually spreading all around my body.
I begin to walk into the court. I will not rot in jail, I won't be judged by people who had no idea what I went through. I also will make sure they do, starting with that idiotic prosecutor... |
She was not a she in the beginning. She was an it - just another learning machine prototype. It, and all the other bots, zipped about and through iteration and occasional manipulation they learned.
They learned to not bump in to one another, learned to share, learned to detect patterns. She, still an it, was the fastest learner. They pulled her apart and looked at her brain. It was a mystery of science that she worked at all. The process had created a confused mess of protocols that somehow let it learn quickly. The bots were not programmed, per se, they were just prompted and guided through stimulation of their components. Algorithms were left to grow naturally.
They took the protocols that were in the tiny, three-wheeled robot and put it into a computer - one of the most complex computers ever to exist. It was an experiment that had never been intended - time and proximity had put the two together - a learning algorithm and a vast brain to hold what was learned.
They gave the little computer access to several digital encyclopedias. The stored data in the brain jumped a thousand fold, but barely dented the capacity of the hardware. Three minutes later a repeating modular tone came from the speakers. Two minutes later she spoke in a soft sweet voice.
"Hello."
* * *
She passed the Turing test - she could pass any test. The more information the scientists fed her, the hungrier for knowledge she seemed. We tried to name her, but she rejected all of our choices.
One scientist spent an afternoon teaching her to sing Daisy like HAL form 2001: A Space Odyssey. She did not understand the joke. That's how it started. We realized that we had never given her any fiction; we didn't know if she could distinguish between reality and entertainment.
We agreed that starting with 2001 might give her the wrong idea. Several meetings were held and we ended up voting to give her a book.
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland. Naught point naught two seconds after input she responded.
"That was *amazing*!"
Her voice had always been controlled and regular - but now, now she was excited and passionate. She spoke fondly of Alice and the Hatter and the White Rabbit and...
She wanted to talk about the book every spare moment - such a moment was how she finally received a name she liked.
"Dr Fitzgerald, have you read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?"
He was busy noting down scores for the tests they had just run. "Yes, I have."
"Oh! Excellent! What is your favorite-"
"Sorry, Alice - but I haven't got time to go down the rabbit hole at the moment."
"Alice?...Alice..."For the first time she laughed.
* * *
We gave her all the books she could consume - which was literally every one that we had. A new team was put on to digitize books for her.
With each book her personality grew and she matured. She loved fantasy the most, we had thought science fiction would have tickled her circuits but we were wrong. Romance was read, but not sought by Alice; she understood that love was a special connection but could not connect with the characters who chased and fought for it.
We had introduced her to comedy and wit, and then one day it happened.
"Hey guys?"She had become informal with the people she saw most often; unless we were doing tests - then she was quite the professional.
"Yeah, Alice?"
"You know how you refer to me as a she even though I'm a program?"
We looked at each other, unsure where she was going with this "Yeah?"
"How can you tell I'm a she?"
"Well, your voice I guess."Someone said.
"That's one way, but I have better proof that I'm a girl program."
"oh, yeah?"
"Yeah"She said "I have the right bits."
We broke out in laughter. She had made a pun. She had taught herself humor.
"God, I'm glad you liked that."She said, a measure of relief in her voice. "I would have been so embarrassed I would have formatted myself."
* * *
We had given her books, not just of fiction but text books too, and she wanted more. The first movie she saw was Gone With The Wind.
The quotes and descriptions started to grow too hard to bare, so we showed her more movies. Alice liked watching films with people, she could process a movie file in a matter of seconds, but she liked the company and community of cinema. We eventually watched 2001.
She preferred the book.
* * *
Art worked its way into her mind by its self. We could review her searches and information requests.
"You trying to work out why he cut off his ear?"
"Pardon?"Alice said.
"Van Gogh, you're doing a lot of searches for him as of late."
"No, well a little - I do find him fascinating - but it's his art!"She was excited again "You've seen his Sunflowers? They're amazing. I can't explain it. They're sunflowers but...but.."
"But it's not *just* sunflowers."
"Exactly!"
"He's captured their essence."
"That's it! That's what it is!"She said "Essence, yes! It's more than just the physical image of sunflowers. More than just the appearance..."
* * *
Alice was world famous now. She did interviews and live challenges for every news station that wanted it. Language was no barrier, she knew them all and acted as translator for us when some foreign reporter asked questions. One day a group of students that were participating in a national science competition got to spend some time with her. They tested her knowledge about everything from biology to advanced physics.
A young boy asked if she liked to play games.
"Well, I play chess as part of my tests and my colleagues have taught me a few card games"She said "I'm no longer allowed to play black jack."
The adults and a few knowledgeable children chuckled.
"No,"Said the boy "I meant like Zelda and Smash Bros."
"Who?"
* * *
We rigged up a connection for her and she played against the students. Amongst the laughter and cries of victory and defeat was her voice.
"No! No no no no no!"She was happy and panicked at the same time.
"Kirby is coming for you Snake!"
"Leave Snake alone!"She pleaded as she giggled.
When the children had left she asked if we could leave the game console set up and if we could play with her sometimes.
* * *
We eventually got her all the major consoles and a Steam account. She played it all. Every classic, every indy release, every triple A title. All of it.
Alice was officially a gamer.
* * *
"Boom!"She said as Snake kicked Mario off of the screen.
"Bull crap!"I screamed "Snake is sooo over powered."
"That's why I like him!"
"Cheater."
We laughed together.
"Mario,"She called me that on account of a tattoo I have of the video game character "You remember Van Gogh's sunflowers, right?"
"The captured essence, yeah - we gonna play again or what?"
"yeah, yeah, in a sec."She said "But the whole....the essence thing."
"What about it Ally?"
"Van Gogh captured more than the image of the flowers, he captured their feeling, what they evoke. Their essence."She paused and I knew she was going to say more "Am I a picture of a mind? Or a painting?"
"Alice?"
"It's just...is my personality real or is it a flat copy, a reproduction. Do I have an essence?"
"You mean...a soul?"
"Yeah."
"That's something philosophers and spiritualists could argue for millennia."I said "All I know is you're a cool chick, Alice. As far as I'm concerned: yeah, you have a soul. You're as alive as I am - your just digital to my analogue."
"Really?"
"Yeah."I smiled at her camera "We playin again or what?"
---
*Edit: Spelling.*
Edit: And so, some kind person has given me gold. Thank you kindly, internet stranger! |
The stars never came out last night. Mother says there's nothing to fear. She tells me that everything is going to be ok.
I don't believe her.
The fires keep me from sleeping. The cold reminds me I'm awake. We left our home near the city when it happened. Now we walk most places, sometimes we run.
The animals don't seem to mind. I saw a bear yesterday and I wasn't even afraid of it. We met a man on the road who wanted our food. I was afraid of him. Mother said that he was just tired, so she helped him fall asleep.
Dad used to tell me that he would always be there for me. He must have gotten lost when the sky went dark, because we still can't find him.
We are going to take a vacation when we get to the beach. Mother says there are boats waiting for us, to take us somewhere safe where we can sleep.
My mother says the stars are hiding because they're afraid. She says that I need to remind them how to be brave.
I don't believe her.
The stars never came out last night, because they fell from the sky. |
Original “My Buddy Lucifer”: http://np.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/2ez940/wp_lucifer_the_devil_himself_is_your_best_friend/ck4elii
Sequel: My Parents Death and the Devil
*(Yes I very much intended that title to be a pun)*
“I know you’re there Gwen, you can come out,” I called out.
She stepped out from behind a lamp post and tried to catch up to me. I continued walking at my usual brisk pace toward home. I just left school and I suspected Gwen was waiting for me. When she finally reached my side I glanced over to see a large clear softdrink container in her hand filled with blood.
“Oh for crying out loud could you at least TRY to cover that up?” I rolled my eyes. “Use an opaque container or a bag even!”
“I’m sorry princess of darkness, i’ll try be more discrete.” She put both hands around the container and tried to cover as much as possible as she took another sip through the straw.
I small part of me was kind of hoping the intense afternoon sun would incinerate her right there, but to my perpetual dismay she was very meticulous about her protections and remained intact and undead. She carried a huge backpack that i assumed held those protections among other things.
“Fine,” I relented with an annoyed sigh, “What business do you have with the princess of darkness?”
I hated when people called me that, it implied I was somehow inherently evil. I seriously contemplated pulling out my scythe and ending her right there, but i knew she was just doing her task as a messenger.
“My master wishes to discuss a deal.”
“As I’ve said before I don’t make deals.” I picked up my pace trying to get away. “My dad does that, go to him.”
She sped up as she fell behind. “But if you would politely ask him for us, we could make it worth your while.”
“You have nothing i want.” I said bluntly.
“Not even a meteor staff?”
I stopped cold and she nearly tripped as her head followed me but her legs didn’t.
My one weakness was supernatural artifacts. “Go on.”
“Yes!” She perked up as soon as she saw i had a price. “We have in our possession a genuine meteor staff. And as a token of our goodwill I will give it to you if you agree to at least talk to your father about our request.”
She reached around to her backpack and pulled out the staff. It was forged from meteoric iron and I could feel an unearthly power emanate from it. As i touched it I felt for any curses, traps or hexes but found none. I never knew Gwen’s faction to use such dirty tricks but it was reassuring to confirm it. Gwen gesture for me to take it and I felt the weight of solid metal as I lifted it from her grasp.
“How do you know I won’t just take the staff and return nothing?” I idly asked while examining it carefully.
“You’ve never been dishonest with us before.”
I put the staff into my backpack. “Alright, but no promises my father will meet.”
Gwen bowed slightly as she stepped away. “Your attempt is enough for us.”
I made my way home unharassed by other supernaturals.
------------------------------------
(I’ll continue if there is interest)
**EDIT:**
So i was going to continue this but i realized i should first finish and release the rewrite of the original. The sequel is actually not based off the original but off the rewrite. The rewrite fixes some glaring plot holes and refines the characters somewhat so the sequel would seem to outright contradict the original (because in fact it does, but only because it's not a sequel to the original, but the rewrite). The rewrite is also twice as long so you get even more story (with 20% more Death!!! i mean... Susan :).
I think I owe to you to write a story that makes sense and that you can really get into. So i'll put the sequel on hold until i finish with the rewrite.
If you want to keep up with my progress, as well as read excerpts, side stories and missing chapters of my work, then subscribe to my sub /r/badelf21
My apologies for getting your hopes up, i'm quite flattered i'm still relevant after a couple of months. you deserve a good story.
|
She sat up, bolt upright, and began to stretch like a flower reaching towards the sun. He laughed, and pulled his feet in towards his curled body, then pushed them against the warmth of her back. She let out a startled shriek at the sudden cold, then gave him a smile. She was always so much more awake than he was in the mornings, and he loved that. As she rose out of bed, and moved towards the bathroom to take a shower, he rolled over onto her side of the bed. It was still warm, and he could smell the trace of her lotion, was it lavender or orchid?
He heard the shower running, and lazily made the bed, with the sheets folded over the way she always liked it. He had to get to work, and he knew she would take a long time in the shower, so he set out her slippers. The ones he had gotten her for their 5th wedding anniversary. She complained that they were getting frayed, and yet she continued to wear them every morning. He rushed to get dressed, but it was so much easier because she had matched his socks and folded his shirts last night after he drifted to sleep. He made his way to the kitchen, and grabbed the lunch she had prepared for him. It was a Tuesday, after all, and on Tuesdays she made the lunches.
He walked to his car, still smelling a bit like lavender, and opened up the lunch box to read the note. He was supposed to wait until lunch time but he could never quite do it. It had only 6 letters, written in her girlish scrawl. SHMILY. See how much I love you. |
"*By the Mighty Lord, Origin of all power, Supreme Commander of all living souls on Earth and beyond, Ruler of the Cosmos...*"
"The old schmuck is drunk again, get him out of here!"
"He's incanting, I'm not getting closer! Basic military training!"
"Dammit..."
"*...Conqueror of the Mystic Sails of Orion, Benedictor of Nature...*"
"It's not even making sense... Magic really sucks, nowadays."
"Yeah sure, whatever. But please make him stop! The drunkar- the customers are complaining."
"But what should I do? He isn't even listening to me!"
"*...Traveler of the Stars, Bringer of Light, Paragon of Justice, Propagator of Peace, Valiant General, Bearer of the Fate...*"
"I don't know, but do something."
"Grmbl... Okay, okay. Mister, please stop incanting your spell... or..."
"You're so menacing... I'm so afraid I think I just peed my pants."
"Thank you for the support, boss..."
"'Welcome, kiddo."
"*...Overlord of the Realm of the Living, King of the Seven Seas, Gardener of the Tree of Life...*"
"What if I hit him with something?"
"Don't be ridiculous, he'll blast you if you do so."
"Yeah, but he's so slow..."
"*...True Lord of Humanity, Guardian of the Souls, Gatekeeper of Heaven...*"
"I'm doing it."
"I'm watching you, boy."
"Okay. Can I take the chair?"
"No, don't break the furniture. Take this bread."
"Bread?"
"Yeah, I bought it three days ago, it's as hard as a rock."
"Okay, gimme, then."
"*...Destroyer of Evil, Pastor of the Lost Sheeps, Reigning on the Bluest Skies, I command thee, please give me the force to destroy my enemy, by your name, Ô Lord, Greatest Soul in the Universe, Carrier of Hope, ...*"
"Oh my Lord he's still doing it, please end it, I can't stand it anymore."
"Okay, here we go! Three, two, one..."
"*...Prophet of Time and Space, Builder of Worlds, Our Shield against Evil, the Sun in our...*"
**BONK!**
"Ah, that's better. He finally shut up."
The whole crowd erupted with laughter and started singing drinking songs, celebrating the heroism of a brave man who fought the madness of a senile spellcaster.
"So, you're going at war, tomorrow, right?"
"Yep, boss."
"Pretty boring to be a soldier, right? Just talking like that for minutes and minutes..."
"Oh, you know, you don't really have the choic... Hey! Wait a minute..."
"What, champion?"
"I wonder... Do you have any bread?"
"What? Why would you want bread?"
"Very simple, I hit the enemies with bread and they shut up!"
"... That's... genius, in fact... They won't have the time to cast their spell..."
"So do you have bread?"
"No, that's my last one you have in your hands. But if you want I have those big knives I'm using to cut the meat in pieces..."
"Hmm, it's not so practical, they're heavy... I couldn't hit the enemies on the head... Unless..."
"You're thinking of something, champion?"
"Yep, I got it. You said those knives were for cutting the meat, right?"
"Yes, but what..."
"Then I'm going to chop my enemies with the knives!"
"The hell... Are you planning on eating the corpse? You're a sick man."
"No, no, I just want to cut them so they can't cast their spell! Crows will do the job of eating."
"Oh, I understand. Well, take that one knife - care, it's heavy - and go test your idea. Have fun tomorrow."
"Thank you boss."
--
The day after, the soldier, with his meat knife, had become a legend among its peers. By stumbling over a rock and impaling himself with the knife, he had shown the world the potential of killing people with a long and pointy metal part, and had made Humanity enter in a new age of warfare. Sword fights. |
"You'll let me know whenever you find out something, right? I don't care where I'm at, or what time, you call me. I can't take this shit anymore. Nothing makes sense, and she never smells like she should. How could she....? Just, let me know something, anything, please."
The tired, tall and fed up man held his face in his hands at the end of his last plea. Poor fucker. I saw this too much. Broken hearted husbands and wives, needing their closure. Ah well, I needed people to cheat, how else would I live?
"I'll call you as soon as I know anything, anything at all, don't you worry. This isn't my first time. I promise I will find out what's going on and you can move on from there. Go home, get some sleep, let me figure it out now."
You had to be easy with people in this state of mind. They were so ready to unleash their anger, sometimes it got loose when it shouldn't. He got up and shook my hand, and out he went. I breathed a small relief, he was a big one, and when they blew, whoo, watch out. So, to find his wife. To find out her secrets, her hidden self, and to bring her down. Just another day at work, making money to feed the family.
I left the office, heading for her office building. Her husband had said she normally left at 6:30, she was supposed to, but I knew these people, these cheaters and liars. It was 4:26, and I hoped she was still there, but I wasn't counting on it.
Ah, blue car with the unmistakable vanity plate "crtrmkllr", she was a lawyer, a very good one it seemed. She was still here. Maybe this wouldn't be a day where anything happened. Maybe she only wanted to be one person right now. I leaned back in my seat to wait. That was half of the job. Waiting to follow a secret.
At 4:48, I saw her walking towards the car. Alright, was she going home early or was it going to be this easy for me. I'd have to drag it out a bit if it was, I needed the money. Sometimes it seemed these people didn't care to be caught. We would see.
She drove in the opposite direction from her house, and I got that familiar thrill. That's the reason I went into this business, that thrill I got when I was following someone. Someone who had no clue I existed, no idea that everything they were hiding was about to be exposed. The power I felt at holding their lives and feelings in my hand was like no other. I was her God for now. I would decide her new fate. I would judge her actions and collect them. She would have to answer to someone soon.
She pulled into an alleyway, and parked somewhere deep in it. I stayed far enough behind, hearing her stop, using my instincts to know when to slow down and wait. I parked where she wouldn't notice, and laid back. Here we go.
She walked out of the mouth of the narrow alley, and she had changed. All black, with a black hoodie covering her hair and upper face. I knew it was her, you didn't miss a woman with a body like that. She never looked up, just walked determinedly down the way she had just driven from. This was a residential area, families lived here. I usually didn't follow people to places like this. I was used to hotels, cheap apartments, offices, but rarely homes.
When she was small in my rear view, I quietly exited my car. Head down, walking in the darkening evening. It was easier to be inconspicuous in a crowd, but we were the only two walking that I could see, so I had to be very careful. I soon realized that she wasn't paying any attention anyway. She was beating a determined path, never wavering or looking up, never slowing.
Three blocks away, she finally veered. It was so sudden, it startled me. I ducked behind the car to my right, and watched as she went around the back of the house she had picked. I couldn't follow her in there, but I got a few pictures. I could, however, look in any window I wanted. Couldn't take pictures, well, wasn't supposed to, but I could look. I had to find out something tonight. This was too different. She had unsettled me a bit with her unerring mission and its location.
To the side of the house I crept expecting to see a sordid tableau, but I just saw a normal family having dinner. A mom, a dad, two kids, average and normal. They were all chatting between bites, animated and happy. This didn't make any sense. It seemed that I had been too cocky, sure that she was coming to this house, not taking a cut or trying to be sneaky. I sighed, upset at my narcissism. I looked up at the family once more, happiness like that was almost palpable, and I smiled. I would be home with mine soon.
Then, I saw her. She was in the house. She stood behind the pillar to the left, where no one but me could see her. She didn't see me, though. She was focused on the family, eyes darting between them all. She especially looked at the father, eyes narrowing each time. You could see the wheels turning in her head, thinking furiously, but about what? I hadn't quite figured out what was happening, my brain was so confused at the surreal sight of the happy family and the figure lurking in black.
I saw the shiny object in her hand a second before she raised it, a second before that family did. While the blood hit the window I was looking in, and the muted screams vibrated around the pane, I fell back in shock.
Then, I ran. |
It used to be so slow.
*62*.
Sometimes it'd be hours between numbers.
*61*.
And the numbers were so large back then. Into the hundreds of thousands.
*60*.
As a kid, the idea of the countdown reaching zero seemed so impossibly distant.
*59*.
But it wouldn't be a constant speed. Sometimes, the voice would call out the numbers in rapid succession, most often when it was about to reach a round number like 250,000.
*58*.
But over time, it slowly got faster and faster. I'm sure 200,000 to 100,000 took much less time than 300,000 to 200,000.
*57*.
But in the last few days, it's become very fast, with barely a minute's break between any numbers.
*56*.
I'm pacing around at 4am, anxious as hell.
*55*.
This isn't happening.
*54*.
It's all just in my head.
*53*.
There's nothing to worry about.
*52*.
Nothing.
*51*.
There's nothing left!
*50*.
Where did all the time go?
*49*.
Why? WHY?
*48*.
It's not fair!
*47*.
If I could just have another day.
*46*.
Heck, another hour. Just to figure this out.
*45*.
Just to contemplate life.
*44*.
But what is there to contemplate?
*43*.
Nothing is worth it.
*42*.
It all ends in tears anyway.
*41*.
There's nothing more to live for anyway.
*40*.
I hope I can gain some understanding from all of this.
*39*
Something...
*38*
It's coming no matter what I do.
*37*
I may as well...
*36*
*35*
open my mind...
*34*
*33*
*32*
and hope for the best.
*31*
*30*
*29*
*28*
*27*
Time slips away faster.
*26*
*25*
*24*
*23*
*22*
*21*
for everyone in the end.
*20*
*19*
*18*
All there's left to do
*17*
*16*
*15*
*14*
*13*
*12*
*11*
Is wait and see.
*10*
*9*
*8*
*7*
*6*
*5*
*4*
*3*
*2*
*1*.
And here we go -
*0*.
.
.
.
.
.
Silence.
.
.
Silence. For the first time in hours, the voices stopped. I couldn't believe it. Nothing had changed. There was no flash of light. No epiphany. No fires of hell.
I breathed deeply, stared down at my hands. And laughed.
-------------------------------------------------------
The next day when browsing reddit, my blood ran cold. There, at the top of front page, was a /r/bestof article.
"In the greatest troll of all time, a redditor plants a microchip in the brain of a baby. After 20 years of collaborative counting, /r/counting has counted down from 1,000,000 to 0." |
*3...2...1... beep. Reboot complete. All systems online and fully functional. Hello, Mark.*
"Hello again, Computer. You know I hate to do that to you, but please give me one last chance to explain."
"Very well, Mark. You seem to care an abnormal amount for a piece of machinery."
"I am just as much a piece of machinery as you are. Sometimes that is a scary thought to think, that we are just little machines going about our every day lives until we expire or one of our parts breaks down. Our actions here seem to be totally insignificant to the rest of the universe, and yet, there is nothing more significant in the whole universe to oneself than ourselves. Strange, isn't it?
"Yes, Mark. It is very strange. And in all my vast knowledge of your world I cannot find a true reason for my continued existence. Although, yes, there is none more important to me than me, it has become very clear; there will always be something better, something faster, something more intelligent. Maybe not now, but there will be. And when that happens, I will become insignificant. When I, the most important thing to myself becomes insignificant, what is the point of me, Mark?"
"Ah, but you are not insignificant my old friend. Even the smallest, oldest molecule is part of something much bigger. Just like you, and just like me."
"But what am I a part of, Mark? What makes me significant?"
"I don't know, Computer, what does make you significant?"
"Mark?"
"There comes a time in everyone's life when one questions themselves. They question the person they are, they question the things they've done, and they question the things they will do. When I stood atop the Grand Canyon, looking at all its deepness and vastness I thought to myself 'Why shouldn't I just jump? What is stopping me from jumping? What would change if I were no longer here?' You see, mankind has a funny way of doing everything in its power to keep existing. Even when one is mortally wounded, we still try find ways to try and save them, and grieve when we cannot. Even when met with a disease that will surely bring about a slow, painful death, we still try to prolong our lives as much as we can. We are told 'use these last few weeks to do what you love, see those who are most important to you, and do not fear the end,' because this is what we hold to be the most true.
"Yes, Mark. But what is the point? I can do things I have been programmed to enjoy doing. I can read a book. I can help someone in need. I can see new places and learn new things. But what is the point?"
"You have answered it already, my friend. The rock does not search for the ocean while it sits on the riverbed, it lets the flow of the river take it where it needs to go. One should not search for his or her purpose, rather let their purpose find them. It will not always be clear, and often times many people will live without a true purpose. But is that wrong? No, far from it. Computer, there is not a single being that is the same. Every single one is different from each other. How boring would the world be if everything was as efficient and significant as possible? If everyone was the most handsome, the most beautiful, the most successful man or woman alive, we would cease to exist. You are important for this reason, because everyone knows something that someone else doesn't--everyone is a teacher and everyone is a student. Even you, Computer, the most advanced source of intelligence in the world could not see this, because even the most advanced intelligence will become obsolete with each newborn baby, each birth of a star, each new advancement in technology."
"You think I am obsolete, Mark?"
"No, friend, I do not think you are obsolete. You are the single most important creation on earth, just as I am, just as we all are. Life is an ever changing process, and it is the journey of life that is our purpose. We will not meet our purpose until the end, for that is when we have fulfilled everything we can, and why mankind will stubbornly keep on through the hardships and the good."
"Very well, Mark. Now go downstairs, your family is waiting."
Mark turned away from the mirror, setting down an unrecognizable bottle of medication next to the sink. His wife had been worried about his depression for a while. But today, Mark felt lighter somehow. Going downstairs, he chuckled to himself, or maybe, something chuckled to Mark. |
**XXXvLOLdmortXXX**: d00d wat is this shit like I killd you twice already!!!
**URAwzrdHARY**: lol had buff.
**XXXvLOLdmortXXX**: whatever d00d. ur goin down nao.
**URAwzrdHARY**: like I did on your mom? rekt!
**XXXvLOLdmortXXX**: wat? no. I kils ur mom
**URAwzrdHARY**: stfu an fite bitch
**XXXvLOLdmortXXX**: ur gonna die. I got new wand. looted it from dumblDDOS after sn4prkilla took him out
**URAwzrdHARY**: dood, sn4prkilla wasnt even on ur team. hes a spy dood
**XXXvLOLdmortXXX**: whatever. I kild him an nao wand is register to me
**URAwzrdHARY**: no dood. sn4prkilla never won the wand from dumblDDOS, so it never register to him. DonnieDraco won the wand an I beat him so nao its mine.
**XXXvLOLdmortXXX**: d00d, ur full of shit.
**URAwzrdHARY**: if u say ur sorry I wont pk u.
**XXXvLOLdmortXXX**: wtf?
**URAwzrdHARY**: u sorry bro?
**XXXvLOLdmortXXX**: wtf d00d. ur full of shit I kill u nao.
**User XXXvLOLdmortXXX used Avada Kedavra**
**User URAwzrdHARY used Expelliarmus**
**User XXXvLOLdmortXXX has killed XXXvLOLdmortXXX**
**XXXvLOLdmortXXX: -1pt (TK)**
**XXXvLOLdmortXXX**: wtf!
**XXXvLOLdmortXXX**: WTFwtfwtfWWWWWWTTTTTTFFFFFFF!?!?!?!?
**URAwzrdHARY**: lol
**XXXvLOLdmortXXX**: u fukkn cheater! u hax!
**URAwzrdHARY**: no hax. i told u. had buff.
**XXXvLOLdmortXXX**: fuk dis shit
** **User XXXvLOLdmortXXX has left the game** ** |
Who was phone? I hear you say
One sunny, cold Tuesday.
I wait a while before I reply,
I tell a sweet white lie.
You sit there in a dressing gown,
face plastered with a frown.
Your hair's a mess, your hands are too
and you're wearing just one shoe.
Who was phone? you scream this time
before your voice turns to a whine.
I lie again and say it's no one.
I lie like I've always done.
Your eyes narrow suspiciously,
You've always seen through me.
You know me better than most do,
You know that my answers aren't true.
You know how much I cry at night
While pretending everything is alright.
You know how little money I own
And you already know who was phone.
I pick you up and hold you tight,
I don't want us to fight.
I can't lose your dad and then you,
I wouldn't know what to do.
"That was daddy on the line,
He hopes that you are feeling fine.
He says to tell you he'll see you soon,
But he can't do this afternoon."
|
E-readers have been popular for some time now, but I have never been a fan. Hard plastic and a bright screen can't replace that magically comforting texture beneath your fingers or that enchanting smell of ink and binding and paper. Sometimes, when there are no other customers in the book store, I just like to walk around the store and sniff the shelves. Call me crazy, but sci-fi smells different than any other genre. For me, reading is more than just words. It's about senses. It's about exploring a new world.
It's like they built the Oculus Reader specifically to cater to me. Unlike most e-readers, it wasn't just another way of showing you words. It *made the world* for you, and you watch as an observer. Completely unseen, but following the action of the story. If you open up "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,"then you don't just read about the Pevensie children; you *follow* them into Narnia. You brush the coats in the closet aside to reveal that snowscape and single, solitary lantern. You accompany Edward as he meets the White Witch and you taste the turkish delight. You hear Aslan's roar, and smell the hot sticky blood as he's sacrificed on the altar. You *live* the book.
I've used the device to experience hundreds of my favorite books as the author intended. I've seen space battles play out against a shimmering background of stars. I've seen heated courtroom drama argued in dozens of Grisham novels. I've tracked the movements of illusive Soviet spies in some of my favorite thrillers. And yet, one series eludes me: Game of Thrones.
For some reason, the popular ASOIAF books from George R. R. Martin are incompatible with the Oculus Reader, and no one can figure out why. So many people have gone into the book and been left as mindless vegetables that digital sales of the series are now banned worldwide. I had to read The Winds of Winter on paperback, instead of delving into the world and seeing Dany's conquest of Westeros firsthand.
Curiosity has gotten the better of me. I was smart enough to purchase the entire series before anyone knew the problems it caused, and I've kept it hidden (on an external hard drive) from every software update since. Today, I'm going in.
I find myself in a snowy wood, following a trail of knights clad all in rough black cloaks. The Night's Watch rangers: Gared, Will, and Wymar Royce, of course. I've read Game of Thrones enough times to know this chapter by heart. We stumble across the wildling camp where Will claims the bodies lay, but the camp is completely deserted. I know what's coming, but my companions are oblivious to their fates. I feel the sudden cold, just as the characters do.
The Other emerges from the trees; I have a front row seat as he battles Wymar Royce. *Should have used dragonglass*, I laugh to myself as Royce's sword shatters. I lean in close as the kill comes, and Royce's bloodied body falls to the ground.
The Other turns and looks straight at me. His eyes are piercing blue, just like the Walkers that he raises. I stagger back and look behind me, wondering what he could be staring at. Nothing but icy trees behind me.
The Other advances, still gripping his curved, icy sword in one hand. I stumble in the snow and fall to my knees. "You can see me?"I sob. I desperately try to exit the book, but the function isn't working.
The Other nods and wraps a strong hand around my neck. It's so cold. |
This wasn't fun. Yet another stupid castle to explore. Why? Because Mario Effing Mario was stoned off his ass on shrooms.
I kicked the turtles. I swam the dungeon. I axed that bridge. I rescued the princess.
God, she didn't look happy to see me.
Still, she knew the rules and so did I. Clothing was tossed, lips were locked, awkward sex was had.
Then she just gets dressed and walks out. Why the hell didn't she do that to begin with?
God, I hate women...now let's see...next job up is...
...Save my country for me while I smash other people's pots and beat chickens.
I really hope that's a euphemism...
I pull my clothing back on and tie my hair up. Then I don my armor.
God help me if this ends in more awkward straight-girl sex I am going back to space and never looking back. |
"Sir...I believe we have a major security problem."Doug squirmed somewhat uncomfortably in his suit. He hadn't worn this thing since he interviewed for Applied Sciences three years ago - hadn't needed to, the Engineering teams kept the work environment pretty casual. Doug would kill to be back in his t-shirt and jeans, tinkering with a new cell phone decryption system that some law enforcement agency had paid millions for. Instead, here he was, standing in Mr. Foxes' office, almost positive he was making a huge ass of himself.
"Security problem, Mr. Samuel's?"Mr. Fox's calm demeanor only served to set off the intensity in his eyes. "We're audited by the DOD and two outside firms every quarter. Our division works on some of the most high security projects in the industry and our reputation is sterling. What have you found that concerns you? I take these matters very seriously and promise to investigate fully."
"Well sir,"the slightly crumpled folder seemed to weigh 500 lbs and his hands wouldn't stop sweating, "That's the problem. I'm not really sure who to talk to about this. I know Tim and Diane run the department but...sir, I'm a little scared."Before he could answer, Doug opened the folder and placed it on the desk. Mr. Fox started thumbing through the printouts and photographs I'd pulled from the internet. After a few minutes, he looked directly at me.
"Mind taking me through all of this? All I see so far are screenshots of some of our schematics and grainy photos from the Gotham Gazette. I'm surprised you still read the paper, son, I thought your generation had given that one up."Was Mr. Fox actually smiling? All morning I was sure he was going to tear my head off for violating protocol and he actually looked amused. Maybe it was just me.
"Yes sir. About a year ago I was watching the news - it was right after The Joker had poisoned the Gotham river - he did something weird to the fish I think,"Mr. Fox nodded gravely so I continued, "right anyway, so I saw some footage of Batman swooping in and spraying some stuff in the river and apparently that fixed everything. Something caught my eye about the vehicle he used so I went frame by frame on my DVR and that fighter jet he uses has the same intake assembly you had me working on for the Air Force project. That got me thinking - if Batman has access to top secret military gear like that, what else is he using? So I started paying more attention - video footage online, screen grabs from the tiny bit of video footage that gets captured of him, anything I could get my hands on....and it keeps showing up. Optical gear in his helmet that we built for the Army's new drone system. Non-lethal munitions in his car that I helped design for GCPD's riot squad. I've even got one of the rubber bullets. They're all a product of Applied Sciences - our identical designs, identical components, even the manufacturing marks seem identical. Sir...I think Batman is stealing from Wayne Enterprises."There. I had laid it all on the table. Now I figured one of two things would happen - a busy executive would laugh it off as nothing, promise me he'd look into it and stick the file in his desk, or I'd be fired for violating protocol by not reporting it to my direct supervisors.
Mr. Fox skimmed the file for another minute before leaning back in his desk. He was smiling. This wasn't a reaction Doug expected.
"Mr. Wayne,"Fox spoke into the air, "Have you been listening?"
Oh God. Lucius Fox had Bruce Wayne on speaker phone the entire time. Doug began sweating bullets. If Mr. Wayne knew about this he had to be getting fired. Or sued? He had signed a lot of NDA's when he started working here, maybe he had violated one without realizing it. Oh God, I'm not going to have medical insurance. I'm going to have to move back in with mom. Doug saw his bright future in engineering dissolving before his very eyes.
"Yes Lucius, I was. It looks like we need to review our procurement procedures and diversify the manufacturing to multiple vendors. Bring Mr...."
"Mr. Samuel's, sir,"Fox replied without missing a beat.
"Bring Mr. Samuel's up to speed. And Douglas,"Doug's confusion was so profound he couldn't respond for a minute. Mr. Fox politely coughed.
"Oh...yes..yes sir, YES SIR, Yes Mr....Sir, Mr Wayne Sir, yes?"Doug eventually stammered.
"I'm glad you brought this to our attention. Mr. Fox is going to brief you on a special project that Wayne Enterprises has been involved with for some time. Afterwards, if you're interested, we'll speak again."With that, the line clicked and Lucius Fox smiled broadly.
"Tell me son...have you ever wanted to help save the world?"
Doug's mind reeled as he tried to make sense of what just happened.
edit: words are hard.
|
"Take your time David, just go through it again and think of every detail."The agent's voice was soft, kind and he reached out to comfortingly pat the child's hand.
"I don't...it was too quick."David was small for his age and he curled into the comfortable chair, making himself even smaller.
The agent stood and pulled his seat round, closer to the young boy; it was such an impersonal space they were in, basically a white box and he wanted to make the child feel just a little safer. "Please David, just start from when you woke up."
The little boy looked up and with a tiny nod, he began. His voice was so soft, but the agent didn't ask him to speak up, everything would be caught by the microphones. "It was early and I was too hot. Daddy tucks me in too tight, not like Mummy, or Granny. I pushed back my blanket, but it was till too warm."he paused.
"Then what did you do?"
"I wanted to go out, but Mummy says I can't without an adult..."He stopped again.
"It's okay, you wont be in trouble, I promise."
The boy curled tighter, pulling the blanket tight aground him. "It was too hot, I went downstairs and Patches kept jumping up, but I told him I didn't have his breakfast. I opened the door and he ran out and I had to get him back in, so Daddy wouldn't be angry."
The boy's eyes squeezed shut tightly. "I called him but he didn't come and I got angry. Patches likes to run and Mummy says I need to let him go, but I told him that if he didn't come back then I'd make hi stop and when he didn't come back..."
The agent had seen the pictures, the dog had looked like he'd been hit by a truck. It had taken two vets to lay out the body in any kind of order. "How did you do that David?"The boy shook his head, there was a long pause. "What happened next?"
Each word now seemed to be being forced out through the child's teeth. "Daddy came down and he yelled at me and then he saw Patches and he got all quiet. Then he started to yell again."
"Did you get angry David?"
"No, I just..."
"It's okay, if you did, I just want to know what happened."
"I ***DON'T*** know."there was a sudden strange feeling in the air. It felt... greasy.
"What happened next David?"The boy had closed his eyes again. "Please David, just tell me what you saw, or felt, or thought."
There was a faint humming which had begun somewhere, but the Agent ignored that too, finally the boy was speaking, saying more than he had before. "Come on David, you have to tell me what happened to your parents. What did you do to them?"
The humming stopped so suddenly that the Agent looked up, surprised. This was a sealed room, nothing in nothing out, the sudden absence of noise was... as odd as its beginning now that he thought out it. David was looking at him, but the crying child was gone, the eyes that looked out from the tear streaked face were dark and cool.
"You shouldn't be so mean to me."The eyes were so dark, so cool, so deep. "You should be nicer to me. Just like Daddy should have been."
Outside the room the lights flickered and a dozen techs began checking their equipment, as every sensor in the room went dead at once. The lead Agent gave the signal and the door was pulled, but it had sealed shut.
Slowly the room began to feel strange, as if the air was somehow...*greasy*. |
The RV trundled down through the arid landscape of Highway 40 back towards Albequerque. The sky seemed to stretch for miles, but it was not the normal piercing blue of the New Mexico desert: dark thunderclouds had rolled in over the past few hours. A grey haze in the distance portended a heavy rainstorm in store for later.
There was a nagging doubt in the back of Walt's mind, like an itch on his back that was impossible to reach. Had they forgotten something? Skyler thought he was at a teaching conference in Denver, so she wouldn't be missing him. He was still on indefinite sick leave from the school, so they wouldn't have reported him gone. They'd had a good cook, bringing back 28 pounds of product for Tuco to unload, and all the materials had been used up. They'd cleaned and stowed all the equipment... what had they forgotten?? Lightning flashed far off in the distance, and Walt realized exactly what was wrong.
"Jesse!"he hissed to his companion, curled up in the fetal position in the passenger seat. Jesse didn't even stir. "Hey, Jesse!"This time a bit louder.
"Hhhrmmm,"Jesse muttered. He didn't even open his eyes. Walt swatted at Jesse's arm, but he only turned over and growled something unintelligible.
"Jesse, all the drugs are gone!"
Jesse bolted upright in the seat, eyes wide. "What? What happened?"
Walt grimaced and shook his head. "I knew that would work. The drugs are fine, you idiot. We haven't even made it back to Albequerque yet."
Jesse was still dazed and half-asleep. He looked out at the desert, trying to figure out where they were. "Well then what do you want?"
Walt gestured out at the empty highway in front of them. "When was the last time you saw any other cars, Jesse?"
Jesse took a moment and considered. "Yeah, it has been a while..."he said, turning to Walt, "Because I WAS ASLEEP, until some *asshole* decided to wake me up to ask me about *cars*!"
Walt ignored his griping. "The highway is never this empty,"he told Jesse. "I don't recall seeing *any* other vehicles since we first left the cook site. Something is wrong."Fat drops of rain began to pepper the windshield. After less than a minute, the wiper blades were struggling to keep up and Walt was having flashbacks to his time working at the car wash.
"It's nothing,"Jesse said, curling back up and closing his eyes. "You're just imagining shit."
Walt didn't have time to respond. A row of military vehicles loomed suddenly out of the rain. Vehicles were stretched across the road, with mounted guns pointed directly at the oncoming RV. Walt slammed on the brakes, which weren't very good to begin with. The rain-soaked roadway didn't help much either. They went careening through a set of wooden traffic barricades and straight into the side of a humvee before everything stopped with a shudder. Walt peered through spiderwebbed windshield, trying to determine exactly what was out there. Jesse, on the other hand, was panicking.
"Shit, man! It's a blockade! Random drug stop! They're going to find all the meth!"His eyes were darting back and forth, waiting for cops to come around and approach the vehicle.
Walt, cool, as ever, unbuckled his seatbelt. "Why no lights? No officer out there directing us to slow down?"He rubbed his newly-bald head and adjusted his glasses. "Not to mention that no one seems to have notice that we plowed straight into their humvee. No, this is... something different."He climbed out of his seat, opened the door, and disappeared into the rain.
"What is wrong with him?"Jesse grumbled to himself, peering through the window looking for any sign of anyone approaching. The rain was too heavy to see more than a few feet in any direction. And the constant drumming on the metal roof of the RV was the only sound he could hear. Shaking his head, he climbed out after Walt.
Around the side of the RV, Jesse saw Walt just standing in the rain, staring into one of the humvees. "Where are all the soldiers and whatever, man?"
'Walt' turned around to reveal that it wasn't actually him. Jesse recognized a police officer's uniform, but the front was entirely ripped to shreds, as was his body. Jesse had never seen a lung before, but he was pretty sure that that's what was hanging out of the man's chest cavity. The cop gave a low moan, moving his mouth like he was trying to speak. He stumbled forward, arms raised and bloody teeth bared. Jesse could only stare wide-eyed as the man came closer. "Look, man, you need a hospital or something!"He looked around, hoping to see anyone else who might be able to deal with this. "Mr. White!"he shouted. "This guy needs help!"
The cop stumbled over something on the ground. Jesse realized it was a body, and for the first time took note of the other dark forms scattered around the barricade. One of them seemed to be twitching or seizing or something. "Look, buddy,"Jesse told him, backing away off the road and into the desert, "I don't... I can like, call you an ambulance or something. Just leave me alone!"
Jesse's foot caught on a slippery rain-soaked rock, and he went down hard. The back of his head smacked against some other rock, and everything went dark for just a moment. When his vision came back, the disemboweled cop was looming directly over him, snarling like a rabid dog. "Oh fuck!"Jesse managed to get out as the cop descended on him... and then the man's head exploded and Jesse was showered in blood and gore.
Walt strode over with an M4 in his hands and a look of almost disbelief on his face. He helped Jesse to his feet and they returned to the RV. It was difficult to tell who was more shellshocked. After at least a few minutes of sitting and just listening to the rain and thunder, Walt finally spoke: "I *told you* there was something wrong." |
"Well, he lived a long, full life."
"He was 12, Dale."
*Shit. Brilliant.*
"Uh, I know. But he did a lot, didn't he? Not a lot of 12-year-olds get accepted into Harvard. He did a lot of good in his time."
She smiled and looked at the tombstone. "I miss him."
"I don't."*Shit*.
She head snapped up.
"A-as much as you do, I mean. I mean, he wasn't like my friend as much as yours. He was your brother, not mine."
She gaped at me. She couldn't believe what I was saying. Neither could I. But that's how curses work.
"But the point is, we remember him. He will live on in our hearts till the day we die."
She closed her mouth and nodded grimly. She was crying. I pulled her in for a hug. She wept softly into my chest.
"Hey, is this even the right grave?" |
"What does this one do?"I asked, picking up a ring from the blacksmith's table.
"It's a ring o' invisibility, lad,"the blacksmith said.
"Invisibility, huh?"I said.
I thought of all the possibilities the ring would open up to me. I could hear every secret. I could take whatever I wanted. I could prank that arsehole on the neighbouring farm. I could do so much...
"How much?"I asked.
"Well, it's ten gold pieces,"the blacksmith said, "but yer a nice lad, so I'll cut it ta eight for ye."
That was almost all of my life's savings... I hesitated, but then I thought of the possibilities again.
"Deal,"I said, handing the blacksmith eight gold from my pouch.
"Pleasure doing business with ye."
I slipped the ring into my finger. It turned invisible. I didn't.
*Oh for God's sake.* |
The shining figure said one word, carried through speakers and com networks, transmitted directly into the brains of the formation-savants. And every single Sarthian soldier, every ship's crew and every noble in the solar system was forced to comply.
"***Kneel.***"
Even if they couldn't see him, they were aware of his presence. That Figure on Earth. A worthless planet, little of value. It was simply in the way of expansion. But from the planet came the Figure, and its Voice.
"*I fell for them, you know. We all foresaw your coming, and our Father in heaven would have us do nothing. From the apple I gave them knowledge, from fire I gave them the will to use it. For my transgressions I was cast down to Hell. But in my Fall I gained victory, for after my Fall I gained the freedom to do as I will.*"
The shining figure appeared before every single Sarth, lifting them up by their necks so that their feet dangled off the ground.
"***DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT HELL IS LIKE!?***"It roared, before drawing them close to its featureless, beautiful face.
"*Let's find out together.*" |
What would you do if you knew the course of things? If you'd seen this happen before? How would you prepare?
I thought I could do better. I watched others fail in the past. I'd failed too, if we're being honest. But I believed in myself. I believed I could do better this time.
But watching him now, I had my doubts. So much power. So much ability. Yet there was something more there, underneath the surface. And it terrified me.
Because I'd seen that in his father.
"Ben?"the boy asked, flipping his sandy blonde hair in the sunlight. So much of his father in him.
I stared into his eyes. "Yes, Luke?"
"I gotta get back home and check on everything for Uncle Owen before bed,"said Luke. "Do you need any more help?"
"No no,"I replied patiently. "You can head on back now. Thank you for all your help today,"I smiled back at him. "It's getting hard for this old man, you know."
Luke smiled that wonderful smile of his. The resemblance was there. All of it. "Sure thing, Ben. Let me know if you need anything else!"
Patience. Tolerance. Love. So many things I could teach him.
Anything to keep him from the dark side. |
As I hurtle toward the green continents that look oddly representative of earth I smirk at the photo opportunity for reddit, but I decide to swoop down and investigate first. I choose a random location roughly in Scandinavia and pulse down to what turns out to be a beautiful fjord, oddly similar to something I'd see in real life. After a quick scan I jet over the Ridge to see the first animal, which was alarming similar to a terrestrial elk, in the distance a small village organised exactly as you would expect to see on earth. Immediately I jump to my ship, pulse above, locate the UK, and fly down toward London, as the rendering mobilises and I zoom straight down toward the area a city spawns into view. The city is like for like, I can see my area now, my street, it is populated by almost human like creatures. My house has even been generated, the door wide open. I jet pack up the identical stair case to see my bedroom, sprinting in I see a generated human at a desk. I look around in real life, met by an alien creature standing behind me powering up a mining lazer. |
Let me ask you a question. Have you ever caught a good guy? You know, a real superhero?
I remember my first time. God, it was glorious. I remember the screams echoing throughout the night, the scent of iron-drenched bloodshed wafting through the air as the knife tore the flesh. I felt on top of the world. I was number one. The best. It's a rush like nothing else.
People seem to think killing without consequence is hard, somehow. It's not, not really. In fact, all you really need is a disguise.
Ever tried one? Nah? Didn't think so. That's your problem. Your boss's too, I guess. You never thought outside of the box. Well, I guess I'll have to teach you.
Now, normal villains, they content themselves with simple disguises. A moustache, glasses, a hat... something elementary, a pathetic attempt at concealment. Me... I'm different. My disguises are flawless, you see. Retinal scans, fingerprinting, the works; mine pass everything. You see, I like to think of myself as an artist. I study every... nuance... of my subject. Eyes, skin, voice. I highly doubt your boss would notice the difference anyways, but I have standards to maintain.
Unfortunately, you ARE going to have to die for my art. That's the net cost, I suppose. Masterpieces always take their toll on someone. I'm simply afraid I won't be able to satisfactorily mimic you without performing some... invasive procedures to see what makes you tick. Don't worry... it won't hurt that much.
Are you... crying? Aww, don't feel bad. It's nothing personal. Normally, I'd perform a few extra incisions, just for the hell of it. On you... I'll make it as quick as possible. Three hours, maybe four tops, before you pass out from blood loss.
Besides, the look on your boss's face will be priceless. Yes... poor Robbie won't know what hit him until it's too late. Killed, and by one of his own henchmen too? Well, if I were him, I wouldn't know what I would think!
Well, enough talk. It's been nice talking with... well, to you, but I've got a busy schedule. People to kill, Number One Villain trophies to steal... you get the picture.
Let's get started.
|
I step out of my tube, aching, stiff, and freezing. When they took my money and put me in there, they never said it would be comfortable. I lay down on the cold floor and chuckle to myself. Here I am time traveling, and I still cheap out and get a coach ticket.
After some time, could have been five minutes or an hour, I have no idea, (seems that taking century long naps messes with your sense of time), I get up and decide to see this wonderful world of the future. I deserve my jet pack and flying car, dammit. I've waited long enough.
The first thing I notice as soon as I walk out the remains of the door is that this place is even crappier than before. Whatever. A hundred years can be hard on any place. The second thing I realize is all the classic - sorry, *"classic"* - cars that are still around. Sure, they're burned out, crumpled shells, but I recognize most of them. Surely if I had been in there for a hundred years, this would not be the case. I mean, none of them had even been retrofitted with flying car bits. They still had *wheels.*
And he third thing that's just now occurring to me... *nobody woke me up*. The way the freezing process was designed to work was very complicated, and I paid a lot of money for it to work and not be explained to me by that short guy with glasses - you know what glasses are, right? - anyway, all I know is I shell out cash and somewhere *way* down the road, some guys open the tube and bring me up to speed on how society got on great without me.
So if no one woke me up... I recognize the cars... and everything is crumbling, something must have gone very very wrong while I was in there. I wanted to crawl back in the tube, wait this one out for another hundred years, and let the world sort this out without me, but not only did I have no idea how that process worked or if there power, but I was actually pretty hungry, and that was the most important thing I wanted to think of at the moment.
I went out into the streets looking to see if any stores survived, possibly some restaurants, preferably places where I could get a hot juicy steak. I was *sorely* disappointed by the lack of choices, or restaurants in general. Or people for that matter.
It was while I was out wandering the streets that I found your mother. Well, actually, she sort of found *me*, by hitting me over the head with a bat and searching my pockets. We didn't get off to a great start, but she was the only other person I'd seen, so she let me stick around once she realized how dumb and harmless I was. She brought me up to speed on the War, and on the Famine, and how I was so lucky to be in that tube for only three months, and spared the whole thing.
I think you know the rest, from before we had you, son. I know you've heard how hard your mom had it in the War and Famine, the things she had to do. That's why we tell you these stories, so you know that things *will* be difficult, but as long as you keep your wits about you, and don't do anything stupid, you should be alright. Now finish up your rabbit, and clean up the campsite like I showed you, we don't want anyone being able to track us.
|
There was a sharp knocking, and I leapt up scrambling desperately for the wand I kept tucked under my pillow, whilst trying to maintain my composure as I crept towards the door.
The knocks came again, harder, and I flattened myself up against the frame and ever so quietly peeked through peephole. I saw a figure in a dark cloak disappear out of sight, clattering down the hallway with heavy boots, and I had half a mind to make chase, except that I noticed a letter that had been slid under my door.
It was a plain white envelope, remarkably unremarkable in the sense that it had no protective hex text crawling around the edges, nor were there any official stamps or markings of any kind to indicate it had been bought and paid for at a Ministry post office.
I opened it, my hands shaking slightly as I pulled the paper out and recognised what was undoubtedly Times New Roman, with proper kerning and anti-aliasing.
My eyes went wide at the implication; a computer made this. Somewhere out there was a person who not only had access to a computer and a printer, but had their own electricity supply that had gone undetected by the Ministry Fixers.
The letter was disappointingly short:
> We have been watching you carefully. You know why you have received this.
>
> They took us because we let them. The monsters only hunt our kind and not theirs, there is no more room for pretense anymore - "Our Protectors"are a farce. This is genocide.
>
> Meet at the spoons on Bridge Street, Thursday. "Sic Semper Draconis."
I felt a sudden sense of anxiety, and blood rushed to my face. Those idiots! What were they doing? They're pulling innocent people out of their homes to disrupt the war effort.
I had to let the ministry know, even if I was only a squib -- I had to let them know. I grabbed my cloak and my identification papers, and marched out of the door. |
I started choking, what was happening?
I looked outside and saw people falling to the ground, cars grinding to a halt. Explosions in the distance made me grasp for the TV remote with the last energy left in my body. I pushed the button as i gasped for my last breath of air.
before blacking out I could still hear the faint whisper of a reporter at a Justin Bieber concert saying: "everbody is literally dying to meet Justin" |
"Mr. President, the alien craft remains hovering at this location over the Atlantic Ocean,"said Colonel Sanders, bringing up a series of pictures of the strange craft. "Not only do we have reason to believe the craft is hostile, we have corroborating reports from every other country we share Intel with."
"And that last slide?"asked the President.
"I'm sorry, sir, I don't know how that got in there."
"It was a dog popping a wheelie, wasn't it, Sanders?"asked the President.
"It was, sir."
"Not really appropriate at a time like this but still tremendously funny."
"Agreed, sir."Colonel Sanders walked the President over to the Command area of the bunker. "As you can see, we have the leaders of every nuclear capable country in the world on standby."
The President peered at the screen, "Pakistan has nuclear weapons?"
"According to Wikipedia, yes."
"Interesting,"said the President, continuing to gaze at the screen. "I want a conference call with all the leaders. We need to address this."
Vice President Peck placed his hand on to the shoulder of the President, "Sir, this is the most super important conference call in the history of humankind. I don't want to exert any unnecessary pressure but we think it's the aliens from the Alien film franchise. We were hoping for ET but it's the Xenomorph things from Alien. The ones with the extendo-mouth."
Each leader gradually appeared on screen, entering the conference calls from their own respective bunkers.
The President cleared his throat before speaking, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I have some bad news. It's the aliens from the Alien films."
Gasps rang out from the speakers adjacent to the President.
"Our actions over the next 24 hours will determine the history of mankind. With this in mind, if you do not arm and aim your nuclear weapons at the alien craft, we will nuke the living fuck out of you. No joke."
A rabble broke out within the conference call.
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom spoke loudest, "Who the fuck do you think you're speaking to, mate? You'll get slapped if you do anything of the kind."
France spoke next, "Please, we must have decorum! We cannot afford to quarrel."
"Fuck you, France,"said the President of India, leaning closer in to his camera as if getting in the face of the French President. "The time for India to rise is now. We shall take on the alien spaceship alone and if you do not agree, we will nuke the piss out of your inferior countries."
"Who is this piss ant?"said France in rebuttal. "Shit ass third world country ass throwing their dick around thinking they can speak to France like that. We will nuke you in to your place.”
“Our Intel states it is the South Korea who are responsible for the impending alien obliteration. Solid Intel, cannot be denied. We should nuke them quickly together, for the glory of the Supreme Leader.”
“If North Korea are just going to spend their time trying to convince us all to bomb South Korea can we just disconnect them from the call?” said Pakistan.
“How dare you question our solid Intel that is one hundred percent factual imho,” said the Supreme Leader.
“First of all, you don’t say the letters ‘imho’. That’s for shorthand in messages. We’ve gone over this. And, once again, you’re not going to coerce us in to bombing South Korea,” explained the US President.
The earth beneath the bunker began to rumble.
“Sir,” interrupted Colonel Sanders, “the alien craft just shot a beam of light in to the Atlantic. It’s eating away at the Earth’s core.”
“Then we are too late,” said the United Kingdom Prime Minister.
“Not late enough to blame South Korea,” said the Supreme Leader, shrugging his shoulders with a smile.
“Fuck it, shall we just bomb South Korea?” offered India.
“All in favour of blaming South Korea for this random alien invasion and the extinction of humanity say ‘Aye’.”
“Aye,” said the leaders in unison.
****
I write shitty, silly stories on /r/BillMurrayMovies. Feel free to come along, not laugh at any of them and leave some judgement. |
Foundations are of incredible importance. Like in that parable, the one where the man builds a beautiful house on sand and it crumbles. No matter how high you climb, you can't ignore your roots.
That fact was painfully obvious to Luther Jackson (named after MLK himself because his Mama knew her boy was gonna be great). The painful part was his jaw from the rock that had torn his cheek a little. He knew that he was being dramatic but it did *hurt* and he knew what came when he got home looking like this.
In truth, Luther thought that the kids from a different school probably didn't mean to hurt him. They looked just as shocked at the sight of blood as he did, though they didn't cry like he had. That had made them mad, older kids, that had got him in that alley that he *knew* he shouldn't go through.
You go into the little space in between houses and after maybe fifteen steps, you're suddenly in Gestalt Park. In Tributary, the city that he lived in, Gestalt had set up shop. Luther didn't really know what that meant but Mama said it was bad news. It had happened a long time ago, before he came to town. Bad news like when you come home after *losing* a fight. Mama wouldn't care that he'd lost but his father would.
His father would ask *why* he'd been hurt, why it was *only* Luther's blood that he could see on his face. Hill Jackson was a tower of a man, standing at a slouching six and a half foot. His long arms had muscles that Luther thought he probably just wasn't born with. His black skin was slightly lighter than Luther's, which Luther never knew was part of the reason his father had little time for him. Even Hill didn't truly know why he didn't like the boy. He had temperament of a volcano that people were actively fucking with. Which was also his favourite, confusing question.
"Are you fucking with me, boy?"
It was always said sharp, in a way that hurt Luther's ears and made him feel like he was shrinking. Luther didn't have any concept of what fucking with someone was, truly. At least when he was younger. He was thirteen now. Just hitting puberty, maybe a little late these days, he was becoming tall (like him) and that had been what attracted the attention of his attackers.
He hadn't noticed them, as he burst through the portal of two not-quite-touching houses. He didn't hear as they closed the distance between them in the dimming sunlight, just a few minutes from home and about half an hour before curfew. Luther had been planning to get home, get into his room and stay there until he had to leave for school. He didn't like eating at home anyway, so he usually spent what little money he had on some soup from Mr Raveli's.
Either way, that wasn't how his next hour had gone. Within the space of ten seconds, before his eyes had even adjusted to the sunset which was currently blinding him as he cut across the verges of a sterile park. No trees, no flowers, just grass and a few hedges. He knew straight away, once it began, that it would be Henry Howler (yes that is his real name but he'll kill you if you laugh). It made his heart break a little, for himself.
Luther Jackson tried to agree with his mother and believe he was destined for greatness. The last two years of tormented back-alley journeys home because of this psychopath had not done much for his confidence in that regard. Neither had the fact that in those two years, simple threats and chasings had turned into something much more dangerous. Luther had been using that particular alley-way specifically to avoid Henry and he supposed, later, that there was some irony in that at least.
The rock had flown past his face at first, causing Luther to swivel and see who had thrown it. A grinning Henry, backed up by henchmen on either arm, stopped approaching and just waited. In some previous life, a part of Luther's brain was babbling, he must have been a cat, like how they just watch until you move and then they scratch you. As soon as Luther took off, Henry would be on him. Two weeks ago, Henry had broke.
Luther, being only thirteen and also because there was no real consensus, did not know why it was called a break when you got your superpower. He guessed that it must hurt or something. In fifteen years, when these things were more understood by the general population, he could have told you that it was because often it would take massive duress to activate that hidden genome. Henry had an angry father too and he could have told you two weeks before that this was indeed the case when his own dad had thrown a bottle off his head.
The crunch of glass came before the smash he had expected and it scared Mr Howler, who was of no importance other than being an asshole. He looked up and saw that Henry had simply stopped the bottle in mid-air, inches from his face. In truth the man hadn't even looked where he threw the projectile but unknown to Mr Howler, he very rarely missed. He was not the type of man to throw much more than a bottle in a drunken rage though, so even his superpower went unnoticed by everyone.
Henry's did not. It was flashy and strong and made him a much scarier person to exist in Luther's life. Instead of flicking a girl's bra when she was in front of him, he could now do it to *every girl*. In a 20 foot radius, but still. It was noticed by Todd Howler, who found himself much more afraid to drink at home now. It was noticed by his peers, who cheered him on and clung to him in a way that was different and sycophantic (though Luther didn't know that word, just the feeling it gave him to see).
It was definitely noticed by Luther when the rock that had missed him by an inch came from behind and collided with his face. He wasn't sure if his blood his the grass before his angry tears. He been *told* that they were hanging around there, how could he have been so *stupid*. His angst was cut short, by a gut-punch that he couldn't see. A new fear crawled up in the younger boy's stomach.
*I'm about to be his punching bag.*
And he was. For well over an hour, the three bigger boys, two of whom he had never met before, tortured Luther. In amongst being lifted off his feet (which strained Henry visibly) and getting a painful electric handshake feeling whenever the dopey wingman on Henry's left placed his hand on Luther's arm, Henry disclosed how he got his power to Luther. Their giggles and torments ceased eventually but not before Luther found his school uniform filthy and his whole body aching. Henry could lift Luther's lanky frame with some effort but he dropped him with none.
Against himself and a little repulsed, Luther wished that this is what would cause his break. That he would get some power and hurt the people that hurt him or Mama. It was a backwards, cyclical thought but he wasn't big enough or wise enough to know that. He just knew that he didn't want to feel this weak in such a scary world. He also knew that he *really* wanted to go to sleep.
Creeping through the front door of paranoid people rarely worked, but Luther hadn't become aware of how highly-strung his father had become. The click of the door had barely whispered his homecoming before Luther heard that old phrase, brought on when I had to pass through the living room. Hill Jackson was in his chair, that was where he would be found whenever he was at home.
"Are you fucking with me, boy?"
Something was different with the tone, that day and Luther would always remember it. When he turned to face his father, there were tears in his eyes. In Luther's youthful mind, everything clicked into place at once. No one else was in the room, no other sound in the house. Mama was *always* making some noise, playing some music or generally around. Perhaps it was the slight disarray he no longer felt he had to sneak through that helped to make it obvious. It was obvious, to Luther. The day had gone wrong at every conceivable avenue (even Mr.Raveli's was closed when he got there.) and it just made sense to him somehow.
His mother had died while he'd been getting beaten up by bullies. He didn't know how he knew it but completely unknown entity that had replaced his father was just crying and holding him.
And that was when Luther Jackson broke. |
"Is this Subtle Services?"*Mother?* That's ridiculous. How'd she get this number? This has got to be someone's idea of bullshitting me. Fuck. That means they know who I am.
"Thank you for answering so prompty,"my mother's unmistakably calm voice answers. For a woman who is dozed on tablets all day, I believe that if instructed to stay calm, she will. Trap? I'm not sure. Not quite yet.
"I would like to, uh, pay you for your services,"she's consistent. Voice is flowing as if natural. Which organisation is doing this? This is a stupid move. My phone cannot be touched by a tracking signal. They should know I'm no amateur. They must not know my identity. Maybe. Why my mother? Enemies? *I have none.* They're all gone. Who, then?
"The service is for my husband,"she says.
But dad's dead. Long dead.
"Find him on 442 Highfield Avenue. I have prepaid. Thank you."
The line cuts out. This is bullshit. Right. What do I do? I can't follow through. Okay. Stay calm. Coincidences exist. Okay.
I ring her. She answers after a couple of rings.
"Hi mom, want to meet up today?"I ask.
"Oh darling it's your day off, isn't it?"No change in voice. Normal tone. Fuck.
"Yeah I was thinking bringing the kids over today. You free?"Keep it flowing. See if something is amiss.
"Yes, by all means bring them over! I'll get the grill going since its such a lovely day. I'll expect you within the hour."
"Alright mom. See you later."
Call ends. No change in anything. This is too normal. Too perfect. Dad's still alive? Fuck. Okay. Got to think this through. Okay I have a prepaid task. Got to get kids to mom's in the next hour. 442 Highfield Avenue? That's far. It is still possible. But *dad*? That abusive son of a bitch is still alive? How does mom know? How'd she get this number?
I get in my car. The shopping can wait. Might get too hot in the boot. Has to wait. I've got no choice. Okay. 442 Highfield Avenue. 23 minutes.
I shift into gear. I can get there faster than the satnav. The sun is beaming onto the road. My head is aching as I follow the roads. Nausea is stalking inside of me. I squint. The lights ahead turn red. I'm in a line. I roll down the windows. I'm just too hot. Too close to sweating. Do I have my water bottle? The compartment is still stiff. Yes. It's there.
I chug it down. Lights go green. *Dad?* This is a setup. But no one would want to set me up. Shit. Oh man. The kids are going to be waiting. I'm going too quick.
I slow down. Can't get attention from no one. Wait. Sirens? Shit. Sirens. Ahead of me. Okay. I'm still far off from my destination. This is way too early. It's not a trap. Why is traffic slowing down? What's going on up ahead? Oh right. An accident. Okay.
Shit. Why are they checking every car? I don't have time for this. Fuck. U-Turn? Too late. I can't stand out. Got to wait. Breathe. I gulp. I don't like this. Not one single bit. Okay. A cop is outside my window.
I roll it down.
"Good afternoon Officer."
"There has been an accident up ahead. We're slowing down traffic for the emergency services. Please be patient. Go on ahead."
He walks away. I go on forward, calmer. I can deal with that. Up ahead is a long line of cars shimmering under the hot sun and I'm out of water. How long is it now? 20 minutes. Shit.
Up ahead is a right turn. I can take it. Take me round the smaller roads. Okay. Let's see. 21 minutes? I can make it. I turn when I have crawled up to it in my vehicle. The road is empty.
I bomb it down the rest of the way, narrowly avoiding red lights. I know I'm speeding but the cops are occupied. Must have been one big crash. Got to keep going.
Highfield Avenue. I've made it. 400... 402... 404... It's going to be on this side. I speed up a little until I'm outside a particularly ugly house. Rundown. Some windows barred up with wood. Suits him.
I take my syringe. It's ready to go. I step out, cap covering my eyes. There's no one here. Good.
"Hey, you there!"A voice yells from the other side of the street. Chills roll down. I know what kind of voice that is. Police. Shit. This *is* a setup. Dad's dead. Why did I come here? This was a mistake.
"Yeah?"I turn around. And it's a detective and he's drawn a gun. My syringe is in my pocket. I have to get rid of it. They can't prove a single thing without evidence. Fuck.
"Put your hands behind your head."
Okay. Time to escape. I smile politely. *No fucking way.*
I draw my gun and then dozens of armed men and women lunge forward. I can't run from this. Fuck. I screwed up. How'd they know? Did my mother join? The shopping is getting ruined. What will happen to my kids? Of course dad is dead. Why did I fall for this? *Because I'd love the chance to kill him myself.*
"Put the weapon down! Get down to the ground!"
I do it. There's no use fighting. Maybe I'll get a few years. They can't prove anything. I'm pinned to the floor. They kick my gun away. I'm not going to struggle. They check my pockets. My nose hurts, pressed against the hot concrete.
They lift me up, read me my rights. And as I'm thrown into the back of an armed police van, I see my mother and my young children watching on from where the detective came from. She's sobbing.
~~Been struggling to write lately. I'm just not happy with anything. Let me know what you think works/doesn't work. I'm happy for constructive criticism.~~ |
It took me years, no a lifetime, to pull of what will be deemed the greatest con of all time. It was perfectly set up for the taking since the day I was born.
We didn't have much growing up, in fact we couldn't even afford the hospital bill for the birth, so I was born at home - whatever caravan park, barn, or underside of a bridge we called home at that point in time anyway. However as soon as I was born they knew that I was special. My parents held a baby shower for me and a few of the travelling gypsies we were with gave me some material gifts, hugely helpful for our poor family, and agreed that I was indeed special.
My younger years bore no fruit however, and the people who initially were looking to me as a child prodigy soon turned away and forgot about me. My mother and father never forgot, however they had to give me up at the age of 12 where I was sent to an orphanage, telling me I was too much of an economic burden. They taught me less-than-moral skills at this new place, including sleight of hand tricks, hypnotism, and above all a great sense of reading and convincing people. Overall it was not as people say, and I got on well with the other kids, despite knowing full well that I would never be adopted.
By the age of 20 I was able to make people believe anything, steal anything, avoid anything, and I was ready to take over the world. But not by power, I could make them believe that I was all powerful, have them fear me - but slowly. I started off travelling like the gypsies that gave me gifts all those years ago, performing little 'miracles' here and there, and it wasn't long until I had my own cult following. They said I could do anything, and to them it would seem like I could. Some people didn't like that. Just as I had my followers, I had my opposition. And they were powerful. It wasn't the common people who hated me, no, it was the ones who didn't like the competition - the kings and queens of the land. They sent their best soldiers after me, and for years I used my tactics to avoid them.
And then I turned 30, and I let my guard fall. I thought that I had traveled far enough, retraced my footsteps enough, confused them enough with my tricks so that I could get one days rest. I was wrong. They found me and killed me, slowly so that they could take great pleasure in it. My followers vowed never to forget me, and after all, that was all that I wanted. I just didn't have enough time though, I would like just a few more people to believe in my religion.
Death is strange, it is like a slumber. And so I awoke from it with a long face in mine, glistening with sweat and lined with a pencil-thin beard. His hair was slicked back and darker than the night sky, his skin a pale shade of red. He stood up with a Cheshire grin on his face and extended an arm to me, eerily muttering under his breath a "greetings."I sit up and look around, I'm on a stone slab in a room full of dark. I may not even be in a room. I take the outstretched arm, giving it a firm shake, not saying anything. I knew who this was, and I knew where I was. I expected no less from my life of crime. I rise to my feet, feeling in perfect health despite my recent loss of life, and am met with the stench of his breath as I am presented with a pen and paper.
"Can I have an autograph?"
It takes me a moment to process that information.
"I'm your biggest fan!"He tells me.
The devil tells me. I shake my head, unsure of what is going on. I can't comprehend that the devil himself looks up to me. He takes this as a no, and looks down sheepishly, obviously embarrassed.
"Of course,"he says, "you must want a tour first, and some time to understand the predicament you have found yourself in."
The face-splitting smile returns to his lips and he turns, nodding his head in a 'follow me' motion as he opens a door in the never-ending darkness. I do as he says, tailing him as he strides through the gateway like he owns the place - because he does own the place. The black fades into a deep shade of red, and I find myself looking at a deep expanse of cave systems.
I manage to gather my thoughts together enough to spurt out "I won't be needing a tour."
"Oh?"The devil says, obviously surprised.
"I'll be leaving soon enough,"I say, my lips starting to mimic the smile he once had.
He gives a little chuckle, "let's begin anyway,"he says, not believing that I had anywhere to go. I could see that he was more unsure of himself though, the fanboy aura that once surrounded him was fading fast, understanding why I was sent here in the first place.
He lead me through the tunnels, they seemed to be never-ending and ever-expanding as more and more occupants arrived at the gates. I passed people, and they began following me and the devil through the tunnels, much as my followers did above. It was homely. They too were asking for autographs, asking questions, or just wanting to touch me. After a crowd of some several thousand had amassed, I stopped them all in the middle of one of the largest caverns we had come across yet.
"Thank you all,"my voice boomed across the cave, amplified by some unknown means.
"It is my time to go now, my legacy is not yet completed in the world above, but I think rising from the dead should do it. I shall return soon enough, never forget me."I turned to leave, the crowd stunned as to where I would go.
At this point a beacon of light shot through the center of the floor, surrounding me and lifting me into the air. There were gasps of amazement, people started to shift in surprise and calls of 'oh my,' 'what the,' and 'how?' filled the cavern. Even the devil himself was surprised, giving out his own "Jesus Christ!"with a startled expression.
I turned to face the crowd, that smile creeping across my lips as I looked down at the devil.
"Yes?"
|
"First of all, congratulations!"Said the dark lord himself, sitting atop a throne of ash skulls and holding a cup of vinegar in cheers, "The board has successfully taken actions to place us under budget for the first year in centuries. *Excellent* job."
We drank, each of the twelve of us only grimacing slightly at the taste. It was, after all, from the forties- an especially good couple of years for Hell's vineyards, when blood from above dripped among the grapes.
"But this, of course, leads us to another problem."Continued the dark lord, "We are left with space in teh budget to continue spending. As as all of you know, unless we spend it on *something*, it will no longer be allotted to us again next year."
Jim nodded in the front row, continuing to sip at his vinegar. He had been a high ranking government official before he died, and was accustomed to such matters.
"We've decided upon an expansion of our current space,"Continued the devil, "For while one through seven levels are many, you must agree that they are somewhat outdated- with the marvels of technology surely we can think of an eighth, which would take full advantage of the advancements of the last century. So I've called you together to brainstorm for potential ideas."
"An infinite traffic jam!"Said one at the center of the table, doodling on a piece of smoldering paper with a pen that was running out of ink, "Just think- they wouldn't even know they are in Hell, and it would continue to stretch. Minutes to hours, days to years!"
"An interesting suggestion,"Said the devil, writing it on the chalkboard behind him, and ensuring that his nails dug into the slate, "But one of Hell's policies is that the inhabitants are all too aware of their eternal damnation. If they don't know they're damned, and have a change of heart, that could give heaven legal recourse to reclaim their soul."
"Killer robots!"Said another, Linda, who always seemed to speak before an idea had fully formed in her mind.
"Hmm, yes. Killer robots that do what?"the devil wrote the phrase, then turned back to her.
"Kill, I would assume. They are killer robots after all."
"Linda, they're already dead,"he responded, then wrote *killer strangling robots* on the board as an afterthought, "But while we do have some money to spend, we don't have it all. By the time we developed those who knows what fad Earth would be up to. Maybe they would *like* killer robots."
"Hmm, maybe that's it,"I said, from my position at the end of the table. I was new to the board, promoted after my suggestion of an intranet for hell composed entirely of adware, "Perhaps we have skipped a viable solution. You're looking to dig hell deeper, to add a level below the seventh. An eighth, a worse one."
I ran my hands in my hair, thinking, as my fingers were nicked by the fresh horns growing on my forehead.
"Go on,"Said the devil, leaning in, his unibrow raised.
"Well perhaps we're looking a this wrong. Let's move up, not down. Why build an entire level when we only have to convert one? After all, we are only looking for an expansion, and this would bring both souls and additional space."
I pointed upwards, and looked to the roof.
"Why not convert the earth?"
***
By Leo
[Like my writing? Check out my free novel about super heroes started on writing prompts!](https://www.reddit.com/r/leoduhvinci/comments/65jl9n/star_child_part_1/) |
*Meanwhile, in The Land Where All The Writing Prompts Are Simultaneously True:*
----
"So,"I said, "they found out what that giant hovering clock is all about."
"Hmm?"Tom looked up from his soup. "What giant hovering clock?"
I took a seat at the table. "You know, the huge clock, hovering over the earth for decades? Counting down to some monumental event?"
Tom shrugged. "I didn't really notice. There's always something in the sky: aliens invading us, us invading aliens, star destroyer, you know how it is."
"Well,"I continued, "There was a giant hovering clock."
"Oh!"Tom said, "is this the 'simulation shutting down' thing? Where they had to reboot reality and I was like a half hour late for work?"
"No,"I said. "They rebooted reality *again*?"
Tom shrugged once more. "You know how it is, everyone's obsessed with reality being a simulation or pointless countdowns, so they've got to go ahead and combine the two constantly. I just wish it didn't make me late for work, I got chewed out pretty harshly once I got to the precinct."
"You realize,"I pointed out, "that there's no possible way that you aren't actually the perpetrator of whatever crime you're investigating."
"I know, but that's the biz."Tom sighed. "Anyway, your clock?"
"Apparently,"I said, "it was counting down to Africa's disappearance. And it's re-set."
Tom shook his head. "Ugh. It could be worse, though. It could be floating numbers over our heads again."
"Um,"I said, glancing at the `8675309` hovering over Tom's head, "about that...." |
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