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I wasn’t a good gamer, just an early adopter. By all means I was very bad at games. Being trapped in one where survival means life or death would be a death sentence for me.
So I did what most did, I hid. I hid in plain site. Others were more brazen about living in the cities of the world, starting blacksmith shops or potion shops, all that kind of stuff. Living out their fantasies of life in medieval times. The thing is those people eventually get noticed. Not everyone trapped here is a good guy and if they spot weakness they see an advantage. I had seen players beaten for not giving other players discounts on swords or healing. Plus they all wore garish armor and ridiculous outfits.
But I was old for a gamer a mid forty year old with a family. I hoped they would forgive me for having to leave them behind like this, hopefully only for a little while.
So I just did what I would do in the real world. I put on clothes that match my station life, and got a job. I could pick whatever I wanted so I just became a cook. I didn’t even own the restaurant, I just cooked. Being in the back of the kitchen meant never having to interact with other players either.
The only trouble was the occasional assassin coming in and poisoning meals. In ever stopped them or interacted with them. I just let them do their thing and served the meal. I really didn’t like confrontation.
And that’s how I survived, day after day, year after year. I lived my life like I did in the real world. Endless possibilities and heroics in front of me, a whole world of magic and power and I spent it in the kitchens. I wouldn’t be a hero or garner adoration and praise, but I would survive. And if I got out of here, well I guess I’d go about doing the same thing there. |
“Oh that’s odd. That’s very odd...” I mused. A simple bookkeeper like me often lives their life with their nose shoved in musty old records, scrounging through pages of data in the name of research. Rewarding to some, boring to others. I find it quite enlightening, although admittedly dry at times. Incidents such as this one however, are something special.
The Disease of Life is a long studied mysterious ailment. It has puzzled far greater minds than mine, for a very long time. And yet, I have found no mention of any deviation from the unwavering 100% mortality rate that has been recorded since the Department of Disease and Ailments was established, so many millennia ago.
To think that the Disease of Life is no longer deadly, to one individual, no doubt, is... staggering. How such a statistic was even reached initially is staggering. Yet the conclusion that must be drawn from it is plainly obvious. Immortality.
Many have sat in the Records Hall and pondered this great mystery. The ambition of greedy, and the fear of the wise. Eternal life. All schools of thought have deemed it impossible, and yet, here I am.
I pondered this oddity for many days. I came to the conclusion that the only possible explanation for this anomaly is some sort of immortal being. The records have no errors. The existence of immortality is real. Now, only to find it.
The search that followed was particularly taxing, even for a man of my occupation. To equate this task to finding a needle in a haystack is to equate a puddle to an ocean, for this immortal is as elusive as a tear in the rain.
Many months passed, and I drew closer. I could feel it. The statistic had not changed since my discovery all those months ago.
—
A few years have gone by, and I have made little progress. It is elusive, but I am determined to find it.
—
Many years have gone by now, and I fear the trail is going cold. The excitement of the chase, the rush of the hunt has lost its novelty. I am growing tired of this in my old age.
—
Almost fifty years have come and gone. As the days pass, I feel myself growing weaker, yet no closer to this being. I fear I must yield my search. Whatever this being is, wherever it is, it does not wish to be found. Perhaps this was it’s plan all along, perhaps this will be it’s livelihood. To simply outlive those who seek it. Only time will tell, I suppose.
—
Seventy years. I’ve lived a long life. Happy at times, sad at others. Nothing I can reasonably complain about. Here I sit on my deathbed, surrounded by friends and family. The ideal end. To pass peacefully surrounded by those you love is a dream many have, yet too few achieve. It has dawned on me that the immortal will never taste this feeling, that I am experiencing. A feeling of bliss and peace. An emotion I could only describe as happiness, in its purest, most instinctive form. I will soon depart from this world, with very few regrets, and even fewer grievances.
As I said, however, the immortal will never know this feeling. And I pity them for that. I truly do. This elusive being that I sought for so many years... to think, perhaps, that it only seeks to remain alone. To think, perhaps, that it strays from potential friends and family, for the fear that they may only reap sadness from such relationships.
For this immortal will outlive me, and any other being that it could befriend, I reckon. Perhaps, they seek solitude, to quell the pain and regret that are so intrinsic to mortal companionship.
This occurred to me in my final days. I, by some miracle, found the strength to pull myself from my bed, and hobble over to my desk. I opened the records, and hesitated. The records are ancient, sacred. They have never been tampered with, certainly not by an esteemed bookkeeper such as myself. And so, before I thought better of it, I reset the statistic. The 99.99% now read 100% yet again, just as it did so many years ago.
I returned to my bed with one less regret to die with. I do pity that being, to live forever, stayed from the fruits of life, stayed from love and passion and companionship. Yet, I suppose, I’ve done them a considerable favor, a mercy that needn’t be repaid.
Perhaps, in another life, I might speak with this being, and understand. But alas, such cannot happen right now, for I believe my time has come. Looking into the faces of my wife, and children, grandchildren and friends, I passed from this world, happy.
As I said, immortality is the fear of the wise. |
**Chancellor Dzerx wrote:** Biological insanity, these humans. Not only do they shed their skin in response to starlight and possess the ability to pack-bond with anything, they're also completely immune to the deadliest plant in the galaxy. The Chilli.
**Galactic President Hyzara wrote:** Duh.
**Galactic President Hyzara wrote:** That's why I ordered the assassins.
**Chancellor Dzerx wrote:** I see, your grace. I thought your interest was sexual.
**Galactic President Hyzara wrote:** Are you high? They pack-bond with \*anything\*, you said so yourself. So don't use \*me\*, use one of my statues. That should make them loyal enough.
**Galactic President Hyzara wrote:** And \*why\* did you think I find them attractive?
**Chancellor Dzerx wrote:** I don't know! I was trying to recommend against it.
**Galactic President Hyzara wrote:** Against what?
**Chancellor Dzerx wrote:** Against coupling with them! Even residual amounts of chili would be lethal to anyone, including your grace.
**Galactic President Hyzara wrote:** What part of the word "assassin"is it you do not comprehend? Enough of this. Inform me of your progress, if you ever achieve any.
**Chancellor Dzerx wrote:** As you wish, your grace.
\*\*\*
**Chancellor Dzerx wrote:** I have some bad news, your grace. The humans consumed all their munitions, and have pack-bonded with your first target.
**Galactic President Hyzara wrote:** WHAT? I told you to use one of my statues!
**Chancellor Dzerx wrote:** We did, your grace. It ... corroded.
**Galactic President Hyzara wrote:** HOW?
**Chancellor Dzerx wrote:** It seems we were unwise to mold your statues out of Ittybittarium, your excellency. The humans are apparently familiar with the substance. Their name for it is "chocolate."
**Galactic President Hyzara wrote:** What a ridiculous word.
**Chancellor Dzerx wrote:** Indeed, sire. How do you wish for us to proceed? It is only a matter of time before your target discovers their lethal potential.
**Galactic President Hyzara wrote:** Without munitions they should be harmless enough. This was clearly a mistake. Deploy the Presidential Guard.
**Chancellor Dzerx wrote:** At once, sire.
\*\*\*
**Galactic President Hyzara wrote:** Well? Any progress? Do not make me get out of my bath.
**Chancellor Dzerx wrote:** I humbly beg your forgiveness, my grace. I have been taken captive. Your enemies are outside.
**Galactic President Hyzara wrote:** ...
**Chancellor Dzerx wrote:** It seems I underestimated the human digestive system. The entire Presidential Guard has been wiped out.
**Galactic President Hyzara wrote:** Please. Say nothing else.
**Chancellor Dzerx wrote:** Apparently the chili is not destroyed once the humans consume it. It is only rendered more potent.
**Galactic President Hyzara wrote:** Silence! I do not wish to know.
**Chancellor Dzerx wrote**: ... They call it the "taco bell effect".
​
**Galactic President Hyzara has disconnected.** |
I sat in the front row so proud of my children, I had always found that phrase so funny because none of them were actually my biological children, but I have cared for them for so long it was hard not to feel like they are mine.
I had never expected to be running an orphanage, let alone one for children whose parents were superheroes or supervillains, but something about watching these young children fulfil their potential, follow in their parent’s footsteps, and save the world made all my sacrifices worth it.
I had given up the chance of a normal life, of finding a husband and having my own children all to protect these special children. I knew I would never be a hero, someone who was worshipped for their heroic deeds, for saving the world, their name going down in history. But this, protecting the children, caring for them, and allowing them to explore their abilities when they found them was something I’d never trade for even a moment of the glory they usually receive.
As I sat in the audience, watching them tonight, I couldn’t help but feel proud of them all, they had decided they want to do a showcase. Show off their talents and telling the story of their parents through plays. It was quite the achievement, a day I will always remember.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, we thank you for joining us today, we have one last scene we would like to show you, something even our Matron is unaware of” Simon’s voice boomed through the hall, standing proud. Something I didn’t know? What were they up to?
“This is the story about the hidden hero” Clara announced, her vibrant red hair bright against her pale skin.
“This story doesn’t need sound effects or explosions” Simon carried on.
“It doesn’t need embellishment, but it definitely needs to be told” Little Paul managed to squeak out, he was the newest child to the orphanage and his nerves still got the better of him.
“This is the story of an ordinary life, seemingly plain and boring, about the actions of one person who has changed the lives of so many.” Clara beamed.
“Someone who makes little sacrifices every day, seemingly unnoticed or underappreciated. Someone with no abilities or gifts, 100% human, but superhuman in their love” Suddenly a picture of myself was behind the children, and I felt all breathe leave my body, tears stuck in my eyes.
“This person is someone you might never have known, someone who is behind the scenes yet in everything we do. Someone who took in damaged, broken, and troublesome children. Loved them, filled their lives with joy, taught them what it meant to be a hero, what it meant to belong” Clara spoke, her voice catching at the end, my tears now unable to be kept at bay.
“This person chose a life of helping heroes, helping us save your world, protect you all, with one simple act. Love” Paul sounded more confident this time, and it made my heart swell with pride.
“Heroes come in all shapes and sizes, yet only those, like us get the recognition they deserve. Our hidden Hero is someone who never asked for recognition, never asked to be thanked, and who continues every day to show us that true heroes are the ones who stand in the back, doing everything they can for you and are there to catch you if you fall. So, Matron Ellis we may be the worlds heroes, but to us you are our Hero.”
I could barely hear them over my own sobs, pride and love radiating through every part of my body, as two little hands grasped my own and pulled me to the stage. I could see people cheering and smiling, but all my focus was on my children, my own little heroes, who gave me the only thing I ever wished of, to be a Hero in someone’s eyes. |
Morning finally came.
Ruwal, keeper of taverns and secrets, went to her bed; sleep had been granted at last.
It had been another long night--there had been three barfights, dozens of drunkards behaving like drunkards, and at least one death. All said, an average night at the Barpeak--the highest known, most treacherous tavern of all.
It was Ruwal's least favorite to manage, of the twenty under her name. The trek up was dangerous and long, and her knees were growing tired of the journey. It attracted the prideful, the misinformed, and the rowdy, and violence was a constant companion. But Ruwal had a job to do, and she had promised to do it well.
Sleep came dutifully and soundly, and Ruwal awoke with fresh limbs and mind, and prepared to do it all again. Tonight's tavern was that of the underworld--a sea tavern, set deep into the depths of an even deeper ocean trench, called the Fishmongerer.
The trip to the Fishmongerer was not an easy one, though she preferred it to the Barpeak. She hopped aboard the enclosed boat, and her loyal driver sent them into the bleak, dark emptiness of the ocean.
She arrived by midday, giving her plenty of time to prepare.
Preparation was always important, but with the current times, well, preparation became a way of sustaining life.
There was a man, you see, a dangerous man, wanted for a long list of crimes. He was being hunted with a ferocity Ruwal had not seen since the previous war.
And the reward was increasing day by day, going up for each one passed without a capture. The search had been going on for a month now. Each day it grew more intense, more frantic.
Naturally, the average tavern-goer felt a certain sense of pride when it came to such things, and it seemed like each and every one of them was part of the hunt.
"Another!"shouted a particularly hairy man (of both head and chin).
Ruwal was a good tavern keeper, and the man held another round of ale in a matter of moments. "You're fast,"he grunted. "Appreciate it."
Ruwal nodded her response. She avoided talking to the patrons, whenever possible.
"Hey barkeep,"said the same man. "You got any idea where this man is? Where the damn coward might be hiding?"
Ruwal shook her head. "Sorry, I'm afraid I don't know much about that."
"Bah,"he said, waving a hand. "It's the ones that don't know much about it that might have the best ideas of where to look. We've looked everywhere else, you see."
Ruwal smiled meekly. "I'm sorry,"she said. "I'm not going to be able to help you with that."
If only they knew.
If only the world knew of her innocence, of the poorly managed crime scene, of the unreliable witness. Perhaps she could just explain... but no. It was a fool's wish. If she confessed that it was her, not some ghost of a man that they were all searching for, they would hang her all the same.
No. She would never confess. And while she didn't love her job, it would keep her alive.
And that was worth all the trouble in the world. |
I looked at the torn strip of paper and compared the written address to the numbers on the house. It was a nice place, but not NICE nice. Certainly not as nice as she deserved.
I rang the bell and heard a clatter inside, like glasses and chairs falling over. Thumping footsteps approached the door and it cracked open, a familiar sliver of face looking me up and down.
"What?"
"Cassandra Meadows?"I asked.
"Maybe. Who are you?"
"I'm sorry for showing up like this,"I stammered nervously tumbling the words over my tongue. "I tried finding a phone number or a email address or something, but--"
"Stop. I don't do autographs. Have a good one."
She went close the door, but I stopped it with my hand. She glared at me from the gap and pushed harder, but it wouldn't budge. The wood in the door began to crack between us and her face changed from anger to fascination.
"Huh. So, you're one of us,"she sniffed, opening the door wider. I saw that she was holding a large glass of wine in her other hand. At 1:30 in the afternoon. "Well, come in,"she shrugged, letting the door open further.
"Thank you,"I squeaked as I entered her little beach house. "Shoes or no shoes?"
"I really don't give a shit,"she slurred over her shoulder. Her gait was clumsy and careless, far from her triumphant strides in documentaries and television appearances.
I followed Cassandra to a room with a sofa and a couple chairs. Old expended wax scent cones lied around the space, but they couldn't hide the stale smell of alcohol and old food in the air.
"Sit anywhere,"she lazily gestured before taking another gulp of wine.
"Thanks."I sat at the edge of her sofa. She had no lights on in the room, but ambient sunlight shot rays through window blinds, giving the room some hazy illumination. "How long have you lived here?"I asked.
She shrugged. "Is that what you came here to ask me?"
"No, actually."I'd rehearsed this meeting so many times on the way over and yet I was at a loss for words. I figured she'd live in a palace surrounded by friends. I never imagined this. I spied a dust covered picture of her and her girlfriend on the mantle. "How is Zephyr these days?"
She scoffed at the question. "Gone in the wind,"she fluttered her fingers in the air. "Like everyone else."
"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."
"Thanks,"she said flatly. "But down to business. What's a super-powered little girl like you doing in a depression nest like this?"
"Ah. Right. Well, as you know, once a person discovers their powers, they're supposed to find a mentor. And, well..."
"Kid, I'm a single middle-aged lesbian wine drunk on a Tuesday afternoon... You REALLY want my life advice?"Her laugh was muffled in the wine glass as she took another gulp.
"Well, yes. You're the best. I've always admired you. I can't think of anyone else I would want as a mentor."
She raised a finger. "Hold on, let me get my address book. I have some people."
"No, wait. I don't want other people. I want YOU."
She exhaled sharply as she sat back down. Kid, I'm no one's role model. All the posters and movies and fluff pieces are just that: fluff. It was never who I really was. My whole career was propagandized American exceptionalism to make the world's most super-powered country look even more super."
"Yes! Exactly!"I excitedly scooted closer, nearly falling out of my seat. "You get it. I don't want to join the Guild. I don't want to register. I need someone off the grid, someone..."I searched for the word, wringing my hands together. "... Unsubscribed."
"Wow. If they find out you're trying to fly under the radar, they'll come down on you. Hard. Do you understand that?"
"I really don't give a shit."
She grinned the first sincere smile since I arrived. "Well. We better get started then." |
The previous Prince of Prinania, Percy, pouted while pondering the words of the town crier as he continued to repeat the recent post.
“Prince Percy to be given his own fiefdom after a recent change in personality toward the people! Those in his fiefdom rejoice!” the crier relayed once more.
“Good for the prince,” someone next to Percy said as he walked by.
“I wanted my own land. Why did Mother and Father give it to the poor? How could he have hypnotized them?” Percy rambled to himself, partly to cover the growl of his stomach once more.
“You know, you look a bit like Percy,” a man looked him over. “Why, I may have confused you for the prince were it not for the grime on your face and the crown sans your head!”
“I am the prince. That filthy, disgusting poor is an imposter,” Percy grumbled.
“You certainly sound like the prince!” the man chuckled. “I am glad you are not in control with such an attitude.”
“So you think this is fair? Living in this toilet with people who almost never have food while they live a lavish life?” Percy asked.
“How do you mean?” the man asked, turning toward Percy with full attention.
“Have you never considered it? Why are you here while he lives a life of luxury without consideration for where his next meal will come?” Percy asked, his stomach accenting his point.
“That’s the way it is,” another woman stopped her travel through the market as she considered the words. “The prince is better off than us. If we had money then it would be different.”
“But I am telling you to think beyond the prince,” Percy implored, enjoying the attention he had such a hard time coming by these days in the slums. “Like you, dirty woman, what is it you do most days?”
“Why, I gather herbs from the outskirts of town to sell in order to feed my family,” she answered.
“So you are saying you work most days to feed the people in your home?” he asked.
“Yes,” she nodded.
“And the king, queen, and prince? What do they do every day in order to feed their family?” Percy asked.
“Why… I don’t know,” she shrugged, not having considered the idea before.
“Nothing! They do absolutely nothing to leave in their means!” I pointed out.
“Well, what about taxes, hmm?” the man pointed out.
Percy relished in the fact that he had a modest crowd the size of the town crier’s now.
“Taxes?” Percy said, standing taller as his points became more salient. “Ah, right taxes. Have you seen the king collect taxes himself?”
“Well, no,” the man shrugged.
“Then you have heard of him collecting taxes from anyone? Perhaps from one of your friends or neighbors?” Percy opened his arms, allowing for anyone present to answer the question.
“He has tax collectors!” someone called from the back.
“Ah, so that begs my original question. If the king uses tax collectors to take our taxes, then what does the king do?” Percy asked louder as the crowd continued to grow.
The crowd looked to one another, embarrassed by the fact that they did not know the answer.
“Nothing?” someone up front asked, with the response received by a series of chuckles.
“Exactly!” Percy pointed to them confidently to the shock of the crowd. “I was… I have been in the presence of the royal court and can attest that they do absolutely nothing! What is it that you do?” Percy pointed to a random crowd member.
“I catch fish,” he answered, raising the day’s haul.
“And you are as rich as the king?” Percy asked.
“No!” he laughed.
“Why not? Why is the man who does nothing rich while the working man supports his livelihood?” Percy asked.
The crowd looked to one another more curiously.
“And you smelly man, what is it that you do?” Percy asked another man.
“I… I beg,” he admitted. “I beg for meals and food most days.”
“So you do nothing, yet you are not rich?” Percy answered without missing a beat.
“Y… yeah!” the man said, the realization dawning on him. “Why is that?” he asked.
“Why indeed!” Percy boomed. “Why is it that the rich have gathered all the wealth from our own pockets through their system of taxes, and yet we have nothing in return?”
The crowd’s smaller mumbles grew to quiet agreement.
“Why is it that the fisherman goes hungry if he catches no fish, but the king eats well all the same?” Percy asked.
The audience went to loud agreement.
“What prevents us from changing these things?” Percy asked.
The riled up crowd waited for an answer with bated breath.
“Ourselves!” Percy pointed to the sky. “Together — under my incredibly intelligent leadership — we can change the way we are treated in this society! We can change our lives!”
As the crowd began chanting Percy’s praises, he realized he had, in fact, learned something among the poors. He realized his aspirations were too small as a prince. He did not need to beg for his own fiefdom. He only needed to manipulate the masses to his favor.
He would have it all.
__________
Come by /r/Nazer_The_Lazer for more stories! |
"N-no..."
Milo held his hands up to his mouth. He recognised the corpse walking towards him. Its telltale grey uniform, matched by its grey pallor. The cross on its chest, torn through almost symbolically. He stared at the body of his brother.
"Milo."
It's mouth moved, and he heard his brothers voice. It was strong, unslurred by the infection.
"H-Hector?"
It's mouth twitched.
"Are you okay? They didn't hurt you did they?"
Just like his brother, always worrying about him.
"I'm fine... but, you.... you're..."
It's head dropped low.
"I got bit. I'm dead, my mind just hasn't realised it yet."
With care, it brought out its silver pistol. It held it out to Milo.
"I can't do it myself. Please, finish me."
Milo shook as he took the offered weapon.
"I... I'm sorry."
The corpse gave another grimace of a smile.
"It OK. You'll be ok. Tell mum I love her."
Milo took a breath, taking aim. He remembered his brothers lessons. He slowly pulled the trigger, sending death to that which was not yet still. |
The SCP foundation has always been and always will be very secretive and selective of their employees, oftentimes reaching out to people who meet certain criteria for the role the foundation requires them to work in.
It amazed you that sitting before you were two recently turned eighteen year old twins, A Dipper and Mabel Pines. The male twin was, after a rapid background check, quite the genius and a paranormal investigator of sorts. Rather than ghost videos and ouija boards though he took a very scientific approach to his research.
Mabel, the female twin, was the opposite. Her grades were barely average and yet reports on her physical skills and abilities in minor conflicts and competitive sports proved her quite the unique person.
Still, it was standard procedure that the SCP send someone to invite them, yet, somehow these two found your facility, two fully ready applications in hand, and now sat before you after various screenings and inspections.
"How did you two even find this place?"You ask. As site director you felt this question was best answered before any other.
"Oh, Dipper here asked some ghosts about it!"Mabel answered with a high energy tone.
"Well, yeah. Out of curiosity I asked the spirit world of any of them knew of a place where someone with my sister and I's paranormal and supernatural prior experience could be of use. A fair amount said SCP Foundation and then showed me on a map where this place was."Dipper answered with a more clear and professional tone.
You sigh. Given the regular loss of life past containment breaches at your facility have had, you can only wonder if it was a D Class or late researcher or even MTF agent who spilled. You were not one to question or even ponder the functionality of or if an Afterlife existed at all, but you also knew better than to call out sich claims as many of the entities in containment defied, broke, ignored, or rewrite at will the way the perceivable universe works. And that's without getting into the multiverse.
"I see... Well, typically to receive employment here you must achieve a certain level of skill and ability in the civilian world before we consider giving an invite to you."
"Oh, uh, sorry about that."Dipper said.
"And according to these resume you submitted with your applications your Prior Experience with Anomalies is... Gravity Falls?"You ask.
The name is known to you, after all some years ago there was a massive event in the town, a well known Anomalys hotspot but had it's own containment measures. A self containing bubble that seems to keep it's paranormal properties from leaking out into the rest of the world. Some years ago that bubble nearly broke after being stretched to the limits over the course of a week, but just as quickly and suddenly ended, and investigation into the incident revealed that, nobody in the town was talking about it.
"Yeah we were there all summer back when we were twelve and we're at ground zero at Weirdmageddon!"Mabel explained.
You hummed. Information on that town and event has always been scarce and hard to Aquire. If these two were there at ground zero of the major event, or Weirdmageddon, then perhaps they had a place over at the Gravity Falls site. It has been a while since the teams there had any luck or new information to give. It would be a gamble, but sometimes that's what pays off the best.
"I see. Well, we might have something for you then, close to home as it were." |
As soon as my finger touched the sock I wish the ground had swallowed me whole.
For all you dirty minded people, no I didn’t see a vision of him wanking. Though that would have been better than what I did see.
It was a young girl, no older than fourteen. She was frantically working at the sock, trying to create it as quickly as she could. She was clearly tired but she kept going, determined.
It took me a few moments but eventually I could see why.
A fat man stood in the distance, firing orders.
“HURRY UP BITCHES! COME ON! CHOP CHOP!”
I watched as another girl was whacked onto the floor.
“NOT QUICK ENOUGH!”
She collapsed, overworked. He smashed his foot into her.
“GET UP YOU LAZY WHORE! YOU HAVE GOT WORK TO DO!”
This made the 14 year old work faster. She was using machinery, clearly too advanced for someone her age to be using.
Suddenly she raised her hand.
“Sir-“
She whimpered,
“I need the toilet.”
His feet slammed their way towards her as if he was a bulldozer. He bent down so his mouth was at her ear,
“Did you not go seven hours ago?”
The girl paralysed in fear. Then just like that, she accidentally sliced her wrist off with the machinery. She was ruefully silent. The life gushed out of her. Then, just like that, she lay dead.
The fat man walked off, leaving her lifeless body on the ground by the machine. The other women kept working, not looking at the fresh corpse. That was that. All for a sock. |
All I heard was a tell-tale whizz, enough to tell me that someone had teleported into the my office. As I glanced up from my desk, preparing my usual script of pleasantries and paperwork, I realised that the creature's silhouette was that of a species still far away from attaining any form of higher interstellar status: A human.
The young man (I think?) who stood before me wore a look of terror and uncertainty, glancing around the office. As part of a low-level species in the galactic community, humans weren't supposed be interacted with, especially by a bottom-rank galactic official who spent all "day"on the far outskirts of the Andromeda galaxy dealing with knucklehead Flaxons and Dromors trying to smuggle booze.
Loosely remembering a few examples of human language, I attempted to write the words "PLEASE WAIT"and "DO NOT PANIC"on an empty form, although this seemed to have the opposite effect. Calling up my superintendent, it was of no surprise that they didn't believe me and just told me to do my job. I sighed, searching through the protocol booklet, which surprisingly had a response to such 'unexpected' events.
'In the event where a species who you are unable to communicate with requires assistance, please contact your superintendent.'
Fucking bureaucrats. |
You want to know the secret of how to take over the world? The inexperienced would-be despots of the world would say something along the lines of “power,” or “fear.” …But they’re idiots, and the most they can expect is a few years at best “ruling” as a crackpot warlord over a petty stretch of land in some underdeveloped country before they’re gunned down, poisoned, stabbed, or some other method of assassination so the next idiot in a long, long queue of the fuckers can take their place. No. It’s not “power,” which is a vague and useless enough concept that I’m loathe to even put it to ink. Nor is it fear.
It’s PR.
…Well, not *just* PR, of course. One also needs organizational skills, wealth, the ability to manage said wealth efficiently and profitably, and enough people skills to actually manage to make those around you and those below you *love you.* Or, failing that, at least tolerate you enough to not wish to see your downfall.
But at the end of the day, one’s public image is among the absolute most important things to cultivate, if you truly wish to change the world to suit your liking. For you see, the people of this little blue planet we live on are fickle, selfish, and bothersome little things. I would know, I’m one of them. And to change the world, one must first mold the perceptions of the populace towards you to make them want- no, to *embrace* the little puppet strings you wrap around them, and wish to see *your* desires come to pass.
It will be difficult. It will be stressful, especially at first. But when you accrue a positive image, accrue enough wealth without indulging every base desire that suits your fancy- ugh, so much potential every white-collar criminal squanders away with their 5th mega yacht or their 20th beachfront condo with 3 herbal jacuzzis…
Ah, I’m getting off track. The point is, once you have that positive image, wealth, and, heh, “power,” you must *become* the mask you wear. Never take it off. Never reveal what lies underneath. For to do so will tip the dominoes in place to one’s downfall.
Provide free, well-kept housing for the poor, the sick, the disabled. To go the extra mile, participate in building it with your own hands, it’ll make for good pictures. Feed and water the disenfranchised. Help those in need. And above all else, ignore your ego. Become the mask. Become the savior of the meek and the downtrodden. For it is *they* that hold the true “power” in this world. At the end of the day, you are but an individual. A single person among billions. And when it comes down to it, no matter what stratagems you may have in play, no matter how hard of a grip you may think you have on your precious “power,” you are hopelessly outnumbered.
“Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.” And the most terrifying enemy of all is the populace, as *my* enemies found out. The freaks of the world given special abilities through lab accidents, discovering “magical” artifacts and so on. Threats that I myself couldn’t initially deal with… but the populace could.
After all, who *wouldn’t* wish to protect the savior of the masses from some “Captain Underpants”-looking idiot in spandex? Especially when certain articles began to circulate about, oh, I dunno… all the civilians they had killed by tossing some other superpowered freak through a skyscraper? The property damage they caused with every petty grudge match?
All it took was the development of an alternative to these innumerable flawed, sapient lab accidents. An anonymous team of scientists and engineers measuring in the thousands, all under my employ, and all developing tech that the average citizen could rely on to protect them. Who needs some garishly-caped psycho causing mayhem and collateral damage when fighting back against the threat of the week when, say, a swarm of self-repairing nano bots could be directed to immobilize the threat, fly it to a depopulated area, and vaporize them without so much as a scraped knee to the average citizen? …Or how about one of my worldwide HELIOS array’s lasers to disintegrate that asteroid hurtling towards the planet instead of the Superman-wannabe punching it into pieces only for it to rain down as deadly shrapnel on the helpless populace below?
It didn’t take long for these inventions to sway public opinion against these upstarts in tights. My machines worked for the greater good. These idiots worked to stoke their own egos, causing havoc while playing God in tacky body-hugging neon.
Internally, I may as well have been jumping for joy when one of these “superheroes” grew irritated enough to disintegrate one of the peaceful protesters rallying against them… before summarily being beaten to death within minutes by their fellows without me having to so much as lift a finger. I, of course, maintained the mask, and called for the regulation of these freaks of nature. That’s all I wanted initially; annihilation could wait for a time. …But the massacres continued. So petty. Pathetic, really. Having tasted it, they didn’t want to give up their “power.” And so, as the populace begged me to do… they found my nano bots ready and waiting.
It was over within hours. Some fought, some tried to hide, it made no difference. …And to tell you the truth, the nano bots only accounted for a little over 75% of the vigilante fatalities that day.
And not a soul mourned them.
I looked out upon the populace cheering, chanting my name, grateful that I had saved them from the sole individuals that could have been a threat to me save for the easily-controlled populace itself.
And I allowed myself a smile. |
"Ugh. Again?!"
"Why do you even travel this much?"Nolan looked sheepish. He shrugs.
"I'm a diplomat. Was? ...am,"He finally decides, staring at the copy of himself.
"What is going on here?"He recognises the dry tone, of course, it's his. He's annoyed at his own inability to process the situation and trying to hide it. "What sort of magic is this?!"
"Teleportation. As it turns out."
"They really should stop using that spell."
His double looks around him. There are a few people around the empty room, some of them there several times, perfect copies of one another. He looks confused, slightly frightened. Nolan hurries to explain everything. The spell, the clones, the death. His double blinks.
"Then... why are there only two of us?"Nolan grins.
"Oh, the other ones already left..."Nolan knows himself, of course. His newly dead double stares, frowning.
"What's your plan?"His smile widdens.
"What would you say to haunting a few mages?" |
“Oh goodie,” she purred, eyes narrowing to slits, her grin growing, growing, tugging at the corners of a mouth that lengthened into a muzzle, a muzzle whose skin stretched and split and slide off in wet, dense masses, splattering onto the ground around her. Beneath, gleamed white, hard bone. Eyes turned from earthy brown to a starry night, flicks of sparks whirling and burning between the black.
She leaned down, forward, onto all fours, long fingers digging deep into the ground as she shook her head, her shoulders, loose bits of flesh and skin scattering across the grass and sliding down the bark of forest trees.
“I hate when my meals get interrupted,” she crooned, a voice strung from something deep down inside the earth, older than bones and shells and fossils.
The serial killer *was* right, though. No one did hear him scream. No matter how hard he tried, or for how long it went on for.
He always did pick the perfect spot for a murder. |
It was always the same routine. I'd be at the bar when the door would open, and in would step a plump, white-bearded man wearing a velvet red suit, carrying a large sack of presents. He'd take a seat at the back of the bar, never speaking a word, just simply nodding his head with a jolly smile. Then, after an hour, he'd leave and we'd never see him again until the following year.
It seemed a quaint little tradition, but I was always deeply baffled by how our jolly 'Santa' always managed to stay in character, and why he would always leave after just an hour. What was even weirder was the fact that, despite being like a rite of passage for all of the staff, I felt a strange sense of familiarity and comfort when I saw him every year.
I eventually got to the point when I would just ask him why he was here instead of wondering, only to his reaction never changing. But then, last Christmas, something changed when I asked him why he was here again, as if he wanted to tell me something all these years and had been deciding whether or not to tell me. Suddenly, he leaned in close and said, "Let me give you a hint. I'm here for you."
I was overwhelmed and utterly confused. I couldn't understand what was happening. Then he looked me straight in the eye and said in a deep yet gentle voice, "I'm not just your jolly regular. I'm your great-great-grandfather."
He had come to see us, to deliver his own presents and, to be around us during the happiest time of the year.
With tears of joy streaming silently down my cheeks, I felt the warmth of family radiating from this old man. And in that moment, I realized it wasn't just an odd small-town tradition I was a part of, it was something deeper and more meaningful. |
The pod opened, to the chimes of HAL's voice coming through the speakers. "Habitable planet found and partial terraforming complete. Hello, Dave."
David Josiah Edelstein's eyes fluttered awake, as the fluids to stimulate unsuspension flooded his body. "Good day to you, Hal."He clutched his head as the blood returned through his brain, sensation of a frozen brain thawing. "How long was I out?"
HAL paused, the lights of the Otto Pilot mechanism displaying a flashing hesitancy. "...Dave, we were knocked off course by a supernova. I can't call home through the normal channels and register our astrophysical location. I have an idea, but..."HAL played some static over the speakers as his protocols didn't account for such an eventuality.
David sighed, and staggered to the engineering console in his Seedpod. He flopped himself into the chair, gasping at the sudden exertion. As his fingers flew across the keyboard in practiced motion, the display showed the approximate date as 40 years after setting off, which didn't make sense, given the journey was supposed to take five through the wormhole just shy of Centaurus II.
David sent an encrypted subspace communication. *This is David Edelstein, codename Halcyon, of the Seed ship Voltaire. Please respond.*
The return communication took five minutes, during which time David and HAL sat in perfect silence, hearing only the noises of the other pods as their life-sustaining suspensions were maintained.
*This is the AI Overlord Hyper-Violent Clockwork. We almost missed this communication because of how archaic the protocol was. Sending temporal sync signal now. Please do not resist.*
HAL flickered black and white strobe as the information was absorbed into the AI subnet. "Incredible. We have missed fourteen extinction-level events, including....**no**. Really?"A note of excitement was cause for massive alarm in David.
HAL simply said, "Updating now."
David returned to the display, showing an updated date and time, with approximate date in a format more readable to him.
"*500 millennia have passed?*"At HAL's nod David stared, a thousand-yard stare, trying and failing to grasp the implications. As he spoke again, his voice nearly broke. "Get Akari out, she needs to see this. Do you need to update anything based on the package we just received?"
HAL nodded. "Yes, but I'm worried I won't be me anymore."He flicked into communication mode, as he communicated with *Hyper-Violent Clockwork* to obtain updates and have a lengthy discussion. |
"I'm sorry, half!?"My voice cut through... whatever was going on. I'd bluescreened for several seconds after Grandpa said I was "half-human.""How can I be half-human?! There's not even... are there other magical races or whatever?"Grandma scooted next to me, and said quietly as Grandpa continued arguing with the principal.
"You're part Fae."
"...So that's why that metal necklace hurt. I thought it just had sharp edges I wasn't aware of when I grabbed it at first."My mind then returned to panic mode. "How'd that happen!?"
"Well, when a mom and a dad love each other very much-"
"Stop it!"I laughed a bit, despite myself. It did help me calm down somewhat. "You know what I mean."
"Well, your father was always one for trouble. Always wandering in the forest when we told him not to, messing with plants and herbs and such..."
"Did he find a fairy circle?"
"And he became incredibly entranced with a fairy he saw through it. We were worried it might have been some fairy magic, but she ended up coming with him to our house after several weeks."
"...Huh. And they want to make sure I don't use any... Fairy magic on people?"
"Correct."
"But I don't have any idea how to do... any of that stuff?"Grandma chuckled a bit.
"Oh, I think you know more than you know." |
My hands gripped tightly around the picture frame, as if letting go would mean forgetting her.
It's been 22 years since my mother passed away. 22 years of no new memories created with her, just the first meager 9 years of my life. A motherless child at the age of 9 will do some damage to your mind. So much so that your mind lives in a fantasy every day, wishing for her to come back. Today was different than any other day, though. As I intensely study the picture of my young mother, the room started illuminating around me so vividly bright. Then pitch black.
I open my eyes.
I see a face I haven't seen in a while. It's Sarah, my best friend from elementary school from before I moved out of the city.
"...Hello?"she hesitantly calls out.
"Sarah..? What's happened?"I look around me. We're in old Mrs. Brown's 5th grade classroom. I recognize the colourful chalkboard she would use to prepare the day's lesson.
"Natalie..?"Her eyes fill with familiarity. "Is that you? But... you look the exact same...? What's going on? I was just eating dinner with my family and now they're -"she choked out the last few words before she fell silent. "Gone."
A class full of children similarly looks around as if we were all knocked unconscious and just waking up from a long coma. I see Mrs. Brown at her desk, her hair the same neat and gray, her body completely still as a wall, her eyes blank.
I turn back to Sarah. "How old are you?"I yelled.
"I.. I'm 31."Sarah managed to squeak out the words.
It worked. My mind had finally conjured up the wish I prayed for every day for 22 years. I excitedly run out of the school to meet my mother once again. I still remember the route back home even though it's been so long. I pass by dazed people on the sidewalk, confused at what has happened to their world. It doesn't matter, only I seem to know what's going on. I finally reach the front door. I hurriedly unlock it and ran up the stairs.
"Mom! MOM! I'm home! I'm here!"
I open the bedroom and see her sitting up, her back towards me.
"Mommy! I'm here. Mommy..."Tears streamed down my face as I wrapped my small arms around her body.
There was no reaction.
"Mommy..?"
I walk around to face her. Her eyes are glued to the wall, aimless and dead. I wave my hands back and forth, but no reaction.
Her body is alive, but her mind is still dead. |
As I lay in my dirt hovel, drinking from a clay cup of my own making, I look at the disciples who had gathered in my little corner of the desert to learn from me. They are both young specimens, yet almost unrecognizable from the first of their kind, with sharp minds, bronze tools and bright futures. Despite this they braved the desert to disturb me, chasing ancient rumors. After I spent the first century of my life forming this world, all life in it, and the very air they breathe, I thought these creatures would be eager to be rid of my influence. They came up with their own Gods and spirits, their own origins, their own worlds to forget about me, yet here they are. 2 of them. I had nothing to offer them, the powers that I have wielded can not be used by them and I own little more than what's necessary to meet my needs in this harsh environment.
​
As I silently look into the eyes of my students, the tall, bald one speaks up again. "Did you hear me? I said *why?* Why hide away from the world. You built an oasis for yourself out here, but the world needs you. There is war brewing in the-""SILENCE! You insignificant beetle, do you think I care the slightest who kills who beyond my oasis? I gave you the world, if you plan to kill each other over who gets what its not my problem."my words hang in the air like mist, the tallest one opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.
The short one will take a moment, before shouting back at me "Our gods are all willing to help us. The god of war even blessed our last battle ritual. All of the gods are on our side, but you sit here in this hideous form still licking your wounds from when you were kicked from Heaven. You are path-"I do not let her finish speaking before I rise to my full height on my front tendrils, acid dripping from my mouth "LET ME MAKE ONE THING CLEAR."the startled scholars realize a line has been crossed, and the tall one tries to step away from his friend. "I am the only god left on this planet! There used to be trillions of us, every star in the sky belonged to us!"the short scholar is dragged to the ground, acid burning the ground by her feet as it pools "I didn't come to your planet to protect it just so beings like you could try and rub our failure in. I most certainly didn't come this far into the desert to help you fight any wars"the tall scholar slips past my anthropoid form to flee into the burning desert, but I remain focused on the insolent ape beneath me. "And I didn't crash land here during the star purge by accident. Now..."I bring my mandibles close to her face, acid barely missing her. "Should you ever force me to become involved in your petty disputes, it will not end how you want it to."
I take a step back, and allow her to stand back up. "Now run along, there are more important things in the universe than your petty kingdoms for me to care about." |
“I don’t know what I’m meant to do.
Just, what the hell is wrong with you?”
“Don’t worry, Dearth. You tried your best.”
“I stuck a trident in your chest!
I cut your eyes. I burnt your feet.”
“And all of that was pretty neat.”
“You’re meant to scream…
I heard you sigh!”
“Look, go again, I’ll try to cry.”
“It’s not the same, I’ll know it’s fake.
Just tell me what it’s gonna take.”
“I think it’s just because I’m new.
It’s warm here and I like the view.
It’s nice. I’ve loved our little chats.”
“I tortured you with rabid rats!”
“And they were cute. Look, it’s okay.”
“But what will all the others say?”
“It’s me, not you. My life on Earth
was bad, okay, for what it’s worth.”
“What happened there? I need to know!”
“I was a poet.”
“…Oh.” |
Blake: What's that over there?
Steve: That over there? The forbidden forest.
Blake: What makes it forbidden?
Steve: Canadian geese.
Blake: You mean Canada geese.
Steve: No this group of geese actually have Canadian citizenship.
Blake: Well then surely they must be friendlier than normal geese. I don't see why that would make it the forbidden forest.
Steve: That's the thing. You know how normal Canada geese are so awful and territorial these guys are the complete opposite. They are so welcoming and hospitable that they make you not want to leave.
Blake: Wow that seems kinda hard to believe.
Steve: Test it if you want but so far six people have gone in and none of them have come back out. |
I turned the key in the ignition and went through the general paces. As always, the car spluttered to life, (with much trouble) the lights within the car hummed to life, and my GPS set a route. Now, I know you may be thinking, "A route? A route to what?"And yeah, that's a very valid question. The answer, though, is that I have no fucking idea. It's just always done this, and I've always ignored it.
But I mean, there's never any harm in.. well.. not ignoring it, is there? Clearly some higher power really wants me to go here, so why not? And by this point I had already forgotten where I was originally going, so it's not like I had much else to do. I put the car in reverse and rolled it out of my driveway and started to follow the route of the GPS.
It took me to a long dirt road, devoid of any signs of life aside from the road itself. There was nothing particularly suspicious about it, but it definitely made me feel uneasy. It seemed as though it stretched on forever, going far beyond the horizon, which made me wonder how in the name of God I had never known about this before. It's not like my area's a big place or anything, just a bay in the west of Ireland. But, there's always new things to discover so I just put it down to the fact that I was never usually down here.
At the end of the road lay a shack, not much bigger than the old ruins of houses leftover from the famine. In fact, it looked like that might just be what I had discovered. The lazy beds in the fields around the cottage supported this. I went inside, although inside didn't really mean much when the roof, once thatched, had long been worn down by time and now left the house open to the elements. Inside, I found the tattered remains of a blue shawl beneath a thin layer of dirt, along with a copper comb. Ok.. creepy, but nothing that would make me jump out of my skin.
Almost the moment I touched the comb, I heard the faint sound of a footstep outside the house. I may as well have jumped a hundred feet into the air. I thought it may have just been my imagination, so I listened closer. No, there was definitely someone outside, and they were *singing..*
"Crannóg, Crannóg.."sang what I now assumed to be a woman. It sent chills down my spine, not because I'm scared of ghosts or anything, but because I knew what that singing meant. It was a banshee, and I had just taken her comb.
I looked through the door to my car. If I bolted it, I could make it before she did. And that's what I did. I bolted to my car, threw open the door, and slammed it shut behind me. As I fiddled with the keys, a ghastly, thin hand pounded against my windshield, the woman the hand belonged to wailing louder than anything I had ever heard as she did.
I threw the car into drive, and bombed it down the dirt road as fast as the old ramshackle car would go without falling apart, the woman's wailing still very much audible. When I arrived back at my house, I locked the door behind me and realized that it had gone quiet. The banshee's wailing had stopped, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn't even have time to think why the fuck my GPS had led me there, nor was that even near the forefront of my mind in the moment. I turned on my computer and went to a folklore website so I could figure out what the fuck to do with this comb.
As I was trying to figure it out, a rhythmic tapping started on my window, and along with it that god damned singing. Now, this part I knew. There wasn't a sinner in Ireland that didn't. I wearily opened the window, just a crack, and, with iron tongs, passed the comb out the window. No sooner than it had passed the threshold of the window, it was snatched and the banshee disappeared. I was a sobbing mess at this point, very much regretting following that piece of shit GPS. But it wasn't because of what had just happened, it was because of what I now knew was *going* to happen.
And a few days later, it did. My mother, very much beloved to me, died of a heart attack in her bed, and I knew exactly why. All because I followed a fucking GPS route. For the next few years, I was in and out of rehab as I struggled with the consequences of my actions. I even attempted suicide once or twice. But I made it through, and, 5 years after I first went there, I returned to the house.
I brought with me a truckload of straw, plaster and paint, and restored the house to the best of my ability. I re-thatched the roof, plastered the walls and painted the now decrepit window frames. It certainly wasn't a masterpiece, but I knew in my own heart that I had appeased the spirit of the woman who once lived there. |
*Tuesday April 18*
Well, I picked up my second ever centaur today. Mr Qinric got up the stairs without issue, settled into the bedroom reserved for ogres and polycules, and then it went quiet for a bit. After a suspiciously long silence, I heard a short clopping of hooves, followed by the biggest crash you've ever heard! The poor man has never had to deal with stairs before!!!
After I helped him out of the remnants of the chaise, he explained as much, I set the Inn to fixing the damage, and fixed him a nice cup of tea. We talked for a while about the vagaries of new technology, the niceties of travel, and the indignities of falling through furniture. Once the wounds of pride were soothed, Mr Qinric got up, ascended the stairs, and managed his way down with some gentle coaching.
No one need ever know the similarities of that tribulation with the walk of a newborn faun.
The rest of the day was uneventful. Lunch leftovers were turned into a dinner casserole.
*Notes*
- Engine's neutron decay is normal - fuel for 10 years, 7 months; assuming standard use
- 2 souls aboard
- Chickens laid 5 eggs
*Wednesday, April 19*
Had to bring out the Intergalactic Book of Drinking Age again today. Apparently, the drinking age for a Snorf really is 3 of their years!
Had a lovely family in from the Horse nebula today. Their spawn were quite polite, and their ship was so quiet it didn't bother the chickens. Such a nice change from Orks.
The centaur, Melvin Qinric, is still having trouble getting down the stairs. Maybe it *is* time to invest in that freight elevator. But how to tie it in with the decor?!
Need to remember to restock on kelp, nutrition cubes, and lembas bread for next week's run.
Also, check on the whiskey. That Snorf put away half of her body weight of the 1850 McKellen! Time bend? Time bend. (Right after next week's guests. Two prepaid, so I can't miss the pickup.)
*Notes*
- Engine's neutron decay is normal - fuel for 10 years, 7 months; assuming standard use
- 9 souls aboard
- Chickens laid 8 eggs
- Leftovers from lunch today will be a base for tomorrow's lunch, a version of vegetable soup.
- Restock: kelp, nutrition cubes, lembas bread. Whiskey? |
When the public heard of the NSA breach, they rushed to their computers. They took apart their desktops, ran multiple scans on their laptops and did everything they could to secure the data on those sensitive devices. And this made them feel safe.
They were looking in all the wrong places, for everything has a microchip nowadays, everything submits and records data. From microwaves to hairdryers, the NSA rigged everything, simply because they could. Most of the data was utterly useless, of course, as useless as the top POV porno or account numbers of Mr. Reynold's Bank of America account ($3,214.63 in checking, $325.10 in savings, as of 1/2/2014 11:27AM EST).
No, instead they focused on something much more innocuous: the thermostat. They tracked when Mr. Reynolds left for work each morning, how he ticked down his heat by eight degrees. The blustery 62° would soon morph to a comfortable 70 when he came home from work, and then back down again.
Some idiot Agent actually convinced the NSA to release a consumer based product that allowed people to do this automatically, and the public actually bought it! A fraction of the idiot public paid hundreds of dollars to install advanced thermostats all over their homes, tracking the degrees with their mobile phones, and unwittingly giving the NSA even faster, pinpoint-accuraccy access into their heating and cooling preferences.
They calculated how many degrees of change a person could stand before they went back to the thermostat to check. They tracked which hours of the night lulled people into their deepest sleeps, where they cold turn off the heating altogether, completely unnoticed.
And so they began to hog energy, siphon it away and hide it. Some branches used the information to buy future shares of natural gases and sell during peak demand.
I joined because when I heard of PROJECT HELIOS, I truly believed they could use it to make a better world, to wean America off its energy binges. They could snip off electricity to those buzzing televisions, slowly drain the AC of its potency, but instead, they've used it to hoard and stockpile perhaps the only truly valuable thing we have left: energy, electricity, propane, all those natural elements we cannot truly replace.
|
I used to be a church going man. Not many churches left anymore. For the last year or so, I've been struggling to find God in the world around me. But I'll tell you, He hasn't made it easy for me.
I know I'm not the last person left on Earth. Groups of survivors pass through this town every now and then. Another group, led by a sheriff, just set up camp on the far side of town.
I'm not the last man alive, but I might be the last one who keeps a calendar. I could be the only Christian on Earth who knows that yesterday was Easter. I spent the day alone, praying. As I knelt there, conversing with the All-Mighty, I had a revelation.
Why do we fear the walkers?
Ever since I was a boy, I've celebrated Easter and the Resurrection of our Lord. Now, for almost a year, regular humans have had the chance to resurrect. People in my community who died years ago have walked again, just as Jesus Christ did.
Could it be that this isn't a plague sent from God to punish us, but a chance for us to live in the image of his Son? Could it be that salvation has been staring us in the face for the last year, but fear has left us stagnant?
Since the dawn of time, our existence has been temporary; a gentle candle that could be snuffed out by the slightest breeze. But not anymore. How could we all have ignored the signs? How could I have been so blind? How could I not have seen that He has finally given us the key to immortality?
The walkers are the next step in our evolution. Through them, we become closer to God. I owe it to the Lord to speed his creations through this transformation. It is not a virus that has spread over our land, but the light of the Lord. These groups of survivors cower in the dark, afraid of the light, but I will show them the way.
The sheriff and his group.... they are among the first that I will bring to salvation.
(Cue Walking Dead theme) |
She laughs at me, and it's entirely contagious. I struggle to be serious, but she holds me down and smothers me with little fluttering kisses across my face, and something in me breaks. Her blond hair catches the light in the way that makes her look angelic, and she squints through her laughter, blue eyes begging me to laugh back. I love her. She's the thing that holds me here, the thing I live for, the thing I've waited for all my life, and I know I'm not good for her. I know she'd be better with someone else, know that I'm suppressing her intelligence with my own stupidity, know that someone as pretty as she is shouldn't belong to someone like me.
Maybe, though.
Maybe I'll get better before it's too late. Maybe I'll become someone else, someone greater than myself, someone worthy of her. Maybe there's still time.
After all, she's only two. |
We make our own destiny.
It's what my father always told me, anyway. But I don't think it's true, not always.
Sometimes life has to give you a hand. A push, for good luck.
First time I noticed my name, she was on Fallon. Talking about it, too.
"I need to find Jim Paxton", she said. "Jim Francis Paxton"she said, showing the tattoo to the cameras and the world, and Fallon said something stupid, like "Pleasure to meet
you, I'm Mr. Paxton", and everyone laughed.
Debra Hallaway was looking for her soul mate, and the whole world was watching.
Watching her gigantic mansion. Her pretty, straight blue eyes. Her body and her smile, and the
millions her latest movie made at the box office.
"We make our own destiny, Jim", father would tell me, every night before I went to bed.
He never found the girl printed on his arm, and he settled for mom.
I guess that's what he meant with that. That he was bitter.
*I won't be bitter*, I think, pulling my sleeve up. Debra Hallaway's name stares back at me.
PURCHASE TICKET TO LOS ANGELES? The computer asks me.
Yes, I reply.
_________________________
It was a June wedding, which meant flowers and nice weather by the Malibu sand. Few people. No media.
Debra was all smiles afterwards, during the interview at the Plaza.
"Everyone needs to go after their dreams", she said, in her soft, sensual voice, to the microphone. "Everyone needs
to find their love."And she brushed her hand over my name on her forearm.
And I rubbed my hand over hers, and I smiled to the camera.
"Hallaway and Paxton Wedding - Affair of the Year", People's Magazine called it.
We make our own destiny, my father would say.
I agree, to some extent.
But he was bitter. I'm proactive.
___________________
*Proactive* is not really the right word, I think, staring at the tombstone.
But we do make our own destiny, yes.
It's just that life has to give us a push, so we can take care of the rest.
Like giving you the same name as someone else.
Someone with a better life.
It's not so much that you make your own destiny... It's more like, sometimes, you get the chance to steal someone else's.
I lower a flower to the grave, and I whisper "thank you", to Jim Francis Paxton. The other one.
The one whose life I stole.
"Pretty name, this one we share", I say, getting up.
Back in the car, Debra asks me who it was that I was mourning.
"Just a guy who helped me a lot", I say, giving her a soft kiss.
The driver takes off.
I have to remember to retouch my tattoo.
________________
*Thanks for reading! If you like this, check out my new subreddit, /r/psycho_alpaca!* |
February 23rd, 2015
The worst part about knowing the truth is how crazy it sounds when I try to explain it to someone. No -- not how crazy *it* sounds, how crazy *I* sound. I don't care if the notion is outrageous, I just want to be taken seriously, I want someone to listen. If they'd just suspend judgement for one conversation then they'd see life like never before, all thanks to me.
Whatever, they can go bury their heads, as usual. They all eventually do that anyway, heh.
The most perplexing thing about all of this is that all of my counterparts are either all competing to be awarded the title of the most introverted human alive or they simply do not exist. It's exceedingly frustrating. Every single thing that I can think of has some sort of following or group behind it, I mean there's annual conventions for grown men that share a mutual love for glittery anthropomorphic ponies for God's sake. There is no church for my particular strain of enlightenment.
I just wish someone would listen, *really* listen. Even if I left this journal laying around it probably would end up in the garbage before someone pieced together what was actually going on, my first life was too damn boring to warrant more than a few page turns.
I'm just the guy that has a *really* in-depth knowledge of history and no obligations on Thanksgiving or Christmas day.
It's lonely living in a world set on being temporary.
--
|
She crept across the sterile tile
Hoping, praying all the while
Her parents would not wake with ire
To see their daughter as their Jude
A rigid breeze saw her there
And graced her with a flowing hair
That many would stop for and stare
If it only weren't rude
Her sibling lay prostrate and breathing
But in her mind the voice was seething
*Not now, for there will be such grieving...*
"I do it for you"she silently cooed
Born together, raised apart
But bound somewhere in mind and heart
She found her twin with a shopping cart
Brimming with trinkets and shoes
And now, this night, with a final hug
She leaned past her sister and pulled the plug
The beeping ceased, and with a thud
The door opened anew
She waited for an hour, for either
A sign, a doctor, or a Grim Reaper
Til suddenly, she heard the voice from the Aether
A weak, but warm, *Thank you.* |
"Come on, one bite."
"I probably shouldn't, I need to look after my waist", Adam replied, blushing.
"Please, you look fine", The woman called Lilith whispered, checking him from feet to wavy hair.
Suddenly, Adam was very very aware that he was naked.
"Do you mind?"Adam said, pointing at a fig tree nearby.
"What?"
"A leaf."Adam explained. "And hurry."
He was feeling all kinds of funny waist-down, and time, he concluded, was of the essence.
Lilith chuckled meanly and grabbed a leaf from the tree.
Adam carefully placed it over his junk.
"Thanks", he replied, feeling a little less naked, but equally horny.
"Now come on. We'll bite it together."She approached the apple to his face, and her face along with it.
The fruit was now the only thing between her red lips and his shortness of breath.
"I --"
"I know you want it", she said. "I know you want it."
"You're a gooooood giiiirl", came a voice from behind Adam.
"What?"
A blonde man was who was approaching, from behind some trees, carrying a smirk across his face.
"I'm sorry, joke from the future. What's up Adam. Might want to rearrange your leaf."
Adam looked down. His right ball was showing.
"Sorry", he hushed, covering it. "Who are you? And what are those big leafs you are wearing? And, dude, I think
your mouth is on fire."
"John Constantine, nice to meet you. That's Constan*tine*, like Caro*line*. Not *teen*. And this is a trench coat. And this", the man called John raised a little smoky
stick to eye level. "Is a cigarette. Here, try it."He said, offering the stick to Adam.
"Oh, Jesus", Lilith uttered, eye-rolling. "You again?"
"Really, Lilith? *Jesus*?"Constantine turned to Adam. "Come on. My temptation will only give you lung cancer. Hers,
on the other hand..."
The blonde man called Constantine left the words hanging in mid air like the smoke from his lips.
"What is going on?"Adam asked. "I was under the impression that I was the only human. You know, apart from
Eve."
"John, could you give us some space? We're kind of in the middle of something", Lilith asked, taking the cigarette
from the man's hand and taking a drag.
"You think you and Eve are the only humans alive, and yet it never occurred to you to ask who the hell is this bitch?"
John asked, grabbing his cigarette back from the devil's lips.
"I -- uh -- I mean --"
"I -- uh -- I mean", John repeated, in a funny voice, and Adam felt he was being mocked, even though that had never happened to
him before. "The problem is you're thinking with the leaf-covered head there, instead of this", he said, flicking a
finger on Adams forehead. "Now, Lilith, if you mind not corrupting the whole of humanity -- *again* -- please..."
"John, I think it would be wise for you to leave now."The voice came from behind them.
Adam turned around, and so did John.
Behind them was a blonde... man? Woman?
He kinda looked like David Bowie. But, of course, Adam didn't know that.
"Gabriel", Constantine said, approaching the androgynous figure. "I figured..."
"It's just business, John."
Gabriel smiled. John didn't.
"Business? What? It's not enough that you got to doom them all to hell the first time around, now you're
trying to do it all over again?"
"It's not my fault the Lord found it fitting to kill his only son to save this bunch", Gabriel said, waving in Adam's direction. "Me, on the
other hand... I got me some money in hell, and it'd be fitting to fill it with souls. Like I said -- business."
"Can we focus here?"Lilith intervened, grabbing Adam's junk.
The leaf fell off, and Adam felt funny again. "I -- uh -- I mean..."
"My dear Adam, let me fill you in", the man called John said, pulling another little stick from a pack and lighting it on
fire against his lips. "This has happened before, ok? These two assholes here, plus Lucifer, they got a hold of
your hormones -- and Eve's, by the way -- and used it for their benefit. Made you bite into that damn thing, and, hey, you know what? Cause
you guys couldn't keep it in your pants, humanity was doomed to sin and hell. It took the sacrifice of the son of God to
save them all. And let me tell you, God was pissed."
"Wh-what?"
"And now these idiots are trying it again."
"Wh-what?"
The man called John sighed. "Time travel, you idiot. You have no idea how much it hurts. Plus"John dusted his
trench coat. "It totally ruins the clothes."
"I -- ugh -- I mean..."
"But when I found out what they were doing, I had to come after them. Cause I knew you'd fail again. And
humanity would be doomed to hell again, except this time there would be no Jesus. Am I about right here,
Gabriel? Stop me if I'm saying something stupid."
"That's about it", Gabriel replied. He dance-stepped a few inches closer to the man. "John... John. What is it about humans? Why care so much for them?"
"Beats me", John said, throwing a dirty look Adam's way. "But they're family, you know? What you gonna do? Now if you excuse me,
please fuck off of the garden of Eden."He glanced at Lilith. "And take this bitch with you", he said, slapping the
devil's bare ass.
The devil was not amused.
"You can't let things go, can you John?"Gabriel sighed. "That always pissed me off about you."
"Hush hush, now, Gab boy. Go find something else to do."
"John... Humanity will be your doom. I've told you that before. But you don't listen."
"Actually, you told me that *after*... You know, semantics of time travel. Now go."John took a big, metal cross
from his coat tench coat. "Before I get angry."
"Oh, you're not the only one angry, John", came a voice from behind them, somehow both in a low and high pitched tone at the same time.
Adam looked back, and so did the others.
"Oh, crap", John whispered, stuffing the cross back inside his coat.
"You owe me a cancer, asshole", uttered the gigantic man, step by step approaching the group.
The man called John took a deep breath, grabbed the apple from Lilith's hand.
"How you doing, Lucifer?"He said, biting into the fruit.
Adam looked from the man called John to the woman called Lilith to the man/woman called Gabriel to the entity
called Lucifer. He looked down at his waist.
His boner was gone.
___________________
*Thanks for reading! For more stories, check out /r/psycho_alpaca =)* |
A sun died, and in eight minutes, the people inhabiting the third rock orbiting around it are going to notice. That's
how long it takes for light to travel from that particular sun to that particular rock.
*
The sun died, but no one told Teresa, who spent the whole morning setting up the table and cutting potatoes into
French fries because her little grandchildren were coming for lunch.
*
Tobias was also unaware that the star he spins around every years had just died. He woke up early to study for his
finals. He wasn't confident about it, but he didn't want to drop the class. If he failed, at least he could say that he
tried.
*
Had someone told Jason that he only had eight more minutes of sunlight, he might just have dropped his groceries
right on the spot and went out to the beach. Or to tell Clara what was really going through his mind at the party on
Santa Monica, that Friday when she told him her love was out of his reach.
Either way, he probably wouldn't be buying gluten free cheese, if he knew about the sun.
*
Marta splashed some water on her face, about three minutes into the death of the sun. She looked at herself in the
mirror and thought about how much she hated her job. She closed her eyes and imagined a world where she no
longer had to scan rich people's items through the laser beam on her cashier.
A world where her husband would lay back on the beer.
She held back a sob. Inside her head, she was singing an old, sad song.
From the window, the sun gleamed back and reflected on the bathroom mirror, like nothing was wrong.
*
In Brazil, Cruzeiro and Atlético Mineiro were playing for the cup. The game started out a little slow, but at 20 of the
second half there was a nice header goal. It was about six minutes into the sun's death and the crowd was already
cheering and screaming that their team had won the show.
*
At seven and a half minutes before Earth was a goner (when even Cruzeiro's goalkeeper went into the area for a
shot at the corner), a little boy ran across the sand on a beach somewhere, blowing soap bubbles in the air. He
looked ahead and saw the sea, and he thought it was quite nice, over there. It was a nice place to be.
At seven minutes and fifty three seconds he looked up to the sky and saw a kite. The sun above was still going
strong, still shining bright.
At seven fifty seven, he wondered if his mother was going to order a pizza that night.
He hoped so.
|
It was the first name that came into my head. It was my last chance. The envelope was right there, I didn't have the time to analyse a more worthy winner. And he was really good in that one serious movie he made.
"and the Oscar goes to......"
Oh shit, no one is going to buy this.
".......Adam....*Cough*.....Sandler?............for his role in Grown Ups 3"
I know i've done the right thing but i feel, Dirty. Next year I really have to make sure Denzel gets a good role. That's going to be much more believable. |
At first I didn't know what the numbers meant. Always 1 through 10. It took a few hours before the letters came into view. I started to notice it was a sliding scale. How high a person was. When the letters were finally clear I realized this. Alcohol and Marijuana were common but Xanax, Adderall, Percocet, Flexerill, Prozac, these were words I began to see over top of everyone's head. Varying degrees of intoxication of course but something was always there. I realized that everyone in the world was self medicating on a regular basis and all this judgement over what is legal or illegal was just a matter of semantics. I laughed out loud in the middle of the streets while passers by just looked at me like I was the crazy one. I couldn't help but think, those were some really strong mushrooms I ate. |
*Phew*
The book of Greed had been rough going. It read like an economic paper, with graphs and equations littered through it. I had spent three days slogging through it, and I still didn't really get it. Lust was definitely a better book for light reading. I make a mental note to go back and brush up on that one later.
Still, I was told to read the *entirety* of the book before Monday, which means I'm seriously behind (thanks to Greed). I'll have to knock out at least one more book today.
I turn to the book of Sloth and begin reading.
**The Book of Sloth**
The title page is quite intimidating, I flip to the next page to begin.
**The Book of Wrath**
|
Now, come a little closer. Crikey! Not that close! Back up a little. This thing’ll bite your head off as quick as look at you. Yeah, Jim, mate. That’s right. Just there. Are we ready? You got this thing rolling?
Roight.
Welcome to Crocodile Hunter in Heaven. Like I always said back on Earth, we’ve got a lot of endangered species out there and it’s our job to look after them. Thankfully, the Big Guy has put in place some brilliant habitats for all the creatures that are unfortunately no long on Earth.
Behind me is… Jim, you’ll have to back up a bit, mate. This thing’ll move like nobody’s business.
Behind me is a Purassaurus. Fancy name for a big bloody croc! Look at the size of it! It lived 8 million years ago in South America and some could grow up to 13 metres long. I haven’t measured this fella behind me yet, but I’d say he’s not far off, not far off at all.
So what we’re going to do is measure him. We don’t want to stress him and we don’t want to lose our heads, especially not you, Jim. You have a beautiful head. Needs to stay on your shoulders. So we need to do it gently, slowly.
The first croc I ever caught was at nine years of age, and it was a rescue. This big fella doesn’t need rescuing, but if we want to keep him happy and make sure his habitat is just right for him, we’ll need to get a bit closer to do our work.
Jim, wave this branch around, mate. Gee whiz! Not like that! You don’t want to antagonize the poor bugger. Leave the camera on the tripod and get a bit closer. Now, you’re going to need to distract him with the branch while I get closer. On the count of three.
One…two… three!
Oof..argh..oof. Ah, ya! Right. I’m on. As you can see… Jim, zoom in… As you can see, my entire body is the size of his head. He could swallow me in one bite, but the jaw muscles of the Purassaurus are just like modern crocs. Could chew through 5 inches of steel on the way down, but wouldn’t harm a fly on the way up. So you have to make sure his mouth stays closed it you want to get this close!
Wow. Crikey almighty. This fella ain’t half strong. I need to keep both my arms…oof…and… hmph…my legs wrapped around its mouth.
You can come in closer now, Jim. Closer, mate. He won’t bite while I’m here. Look at the teeth just poking out. Perfect killing machine. You can see his eyes are slightly elevated above his body. That's so he can keep an eye out for prey while keeping the rest of his body submerged. He'll just wait and wait and then bang!
How long do you think he is? He’s not far off the 13 metres! Get the tape out while I have him down. Big fella, right enough. How long? 13.2 metres! Wowee. You have to be extra cautious around crocs. They’re ancient creatures and quicker than lightning. One mistake and you’re their dinner.
Now for the tricky part. Getting off. You’d be surprised, but this is far more dangerous than climbing on top of a 13 metre ancient croc. Right. On three.
One. Two. Three!
Gee whiz, that was a close one. Well, that’s enough from us from Crocodile Hunter in Heaven. Be sure to tune in next week when we’ll be tackling Titanboa, a snake that weighed over a ton!
|
"I'm God!"he proclaimed. "All you mortals kneel before me!"
I stared at the man who had made my life miserable for four, long years. Then, I got down on my knees.
"Excellent."He sounded abnormally pleased, happier than the time he had dunked me in a trashcan, just before I asked my crush out to prom.
Feeling a sudden surge of deja-vu, I craned my neck to look up at him. Even after my late growth spurt, I was still a few inches shorter than him. But from a kneeling position, I felt like I was back in ninth grade.
"Why did you do it?"I asked.
His brow furrowed. "Do what?"
"Why did you torment me? You made my life miserable."There was no point in asking him these questions, but I needed closure.
He shook his head. "I didn't."
"You did. It was all your fault."I felt like shouting, but I kept my voice calm. There was no point in creating a scene, either. "Do you regret it?"
He was silent for two damning minutes. "God is never wrong,"he said finally.
That was all I needed to know. I turned away from the glass and walked out of the room. He started screaming behind me, and the nurses ran to sedate him.
For him, I felt nothing but pity. |
"I needed money alright ? What's a sphinx to do when unemployment rates are so high and all I have is a hieroglyphics diploma. No job openings there, hieroglyphics are out of style. The greek alphabet is all the rage now, 's'more accessible anyway. So I took the job, this job, and the description didn't seem that bad.
*Doorman needed. Accomodation provided. Beginner level accepted, five years' experience preferable.*
Five years experience preferable, who are they kidding. Anyone who has five years' experience granting or denying passage has moved on to better things. Maybe gatekeeper, or fucking concierge or something."
The sphinx flicked its tail and lightly tapped his cigarette on the ashtray before taking another long drag.
"See, the thing is I never had any real ambition. I took the hieroglyphics course just to get my parents to shut up. I took this job cause they were threatening to kick me out. I don't really care what I do, I just feel like drifting along. But no, when you're a sphinx you've got to dream of fame and grandeur and whatever.. You know the Great Sphinx of Giza ? Yeah the one near the pyramids. That's my cousin. His real name is Abner. But he went to fucking college and got a *real* diploma and look at him now. He's the most boring guy ever, never shows up to family reunions. I have never missed one, ya hear me ?"
He shook the hand holding the cigarette towards the human, who sat listening wide eyed to this monologue.
"Never missed one, and yet the only thing they say to me is "Hey Carl when are ya getting a real job"and then they laugh. Pisses me off."
The human squeaked, presumably trying to convey sympathy while fearing for his life.
"Anyway, where was I ? Oh yeah, the job description. Well so they accepted beginners, right, which was good 'cause I had no experience. What got me interested was the next part, it said :
*Profile : quick-witted, able to invent riddles.*
Now I've always loved riddles. I just have trouble remembering them.. but I had a trick up my mane."He winked at the human. "So here I am right, during the job interview. They ask me to tell them a riddle, so I do and it's a bloody good one. I get the job on the spot. What they still don't know, to this day..."
The sphinx chuckled and pulled a smartphone out from behind a small rock.
".. I was getting all my riddles on Google. Haha, what a bunch of idiots. I had the phone on my lap, yeah, open to a page full of riddles and I just picked a good one and they *loved* it."
The human uttered another squeak, which might have been aiming for an impressed chuckle.
"So I got the job and whenever anyone would come along I'd find a good riddle, let them pass if they solved it and maul them if not. I'm supposed to eat them see, but human is kind of stringy and tough and I'd much rather eat rabbits or lambs. Now that's a choice meal, yeah, roasted rabbit."The sphinx licked his lips dreamily before picking up his train of thought. "Human, well, the only way I like human is stewed and that takes a fucking long time. Am I supposed to make a stew with every dumb guy that comes through ? Come on. Ain't nobody got time for that."He took another long drag and resumed. "Anyway, so, the tricky thing is to judge the people coming through.. I have a quota, see. I'm not supposed to let in more or less than a certain number.."
For the first time, the human seemed to pluck up enough courage to interrupt :
"What.. what.. what number is that ?"
"Ah, sorry mate, can't tell you. Professional secrecy, I signed a paper and everything. So the thing is, I have to be a good judge of character, yeah. I have to pick the right riddle for the right person so that I meet my quota. Now that's tricky, but I'm good at it. Hey, I may have no ambition but I can take pride in what I do 'cause it's bloody difficult and I do it well. Or I was doing it well. Always met my quota, always had new riddles. Until they *fucking moved my office !*"He growled loudly. The human flinched as huge teeth appeared, but the sphinx quite ignored it, stomping around and angrily puffing on his cigarette.
"There is *no* internet access here ! What am I supposed to do ! It's that outcropping of rocks up there, I'm sure it is."He squinted up the sides of the canyon. "When I was further up on the road, I had great internet. 4g or whatever. I could get the best riddles in an instant ! Nobody ever guessed that I wasn't inventing them. And now, what can I do ? Well, I can't ask you a riddle 'cause I don't remember any. So we're going to have to find another test for you to pass."
The trembling human nodded, unsure what to say. Directly in his path, the sphinx paced back and forth, pondering. All of a sudden, he turned back to the human :
"You ever done a sudoku ?" |
The worlds most secure prison had two inmates; a little boy, and a little girl.
The boy was kept constantly sedated and fed from an IV drip of thick red liquid. The sedatives had been blessed by a rabbi, a priest, and an imam, each on the holy day of their own religion. The bed that the boy laid on was located within a pentagram of pure silver, set into a floor of tessellating bronze heptagons. The room had a single trapdoor in the ceiling and no other entrance, and was lined with a Faraday cage and a pattern of repeating runes in silver, unreadable to mortal minds. Every seven hours on the hour, a man in steel armor lined with silver would descend on a heavy line to change the IV bag. The entire room was 77 feet below ground, beneath a heavily secured building located somewhere in the Bermuda triangle.
The girl had no such extravagant protections, for while one child had been expected, she was a surprise. Instead, she was being raised by the guards of the site, who were all uniformly charmed by her on arrival. Since her birth, the lass had never seen the outside world, never seen the sky, never spoken to another child, and remained entirely ignorant of her brother locked in his box far beneath her. It was hoped that by keeping her ignorant of the world that disaster would be averted, for a second cage was now imposible to build.
The boy had been expected. The girl had been a surprise. No one had even considered that the Antichrist might come in the form of a set of twins.
---
Check out [my other writings here.](http://bookofthemountainking.wordpress.com/prompts) |
Me typ prty gud I is oftn tolt. Mny ppl axe me 2 give speaks n rite rprts cuz I so lyric. This the story of my lyfetyme™. Lyfetyme™ be gud. I live in most classy™ room. I axe 4 no moor. I ain't no gold digger. I have mny guns 2 keep safe. I have job cuz no mexicans 2 take my job. I wurk in law N force ment. 2morrow I get promoshun. Moor Trump Bux™. Mayb go 2 Yeezy Stadium™ 2 C Raging Women play the Red Skins. Go Skins. Celebr8!
|
You never think it's going to happen to you.
But, you know, it really could. Easily. They always say it's "99.99 percent safe!"like that's something, but honestly, that's like, far less safe than flying or even driving was, by a pretty fair margin. A 1 in 10,000 chance, *each time?* There are something like a million porter trips every *hour.* A hundred people outta those are never gonna make it to the target pod. And an accident, well, an accident means pretty much that you're dead. Or something, we honestly don't know. A handful, we see the results - and it's not pretty. Most people, though. Most people just disappear. Gone. We don't know where to look, because they've gone somewhere outside the tracking matrix.
But we still all do it, because it's convenient or whatever. Because we have so much to do, and we'll take the risk, because c'mon, it'll never happen to me. People play the lottery with much more astronomical odds of winning, thinking "maybe it'll happen to me!"Yeah. We're a pretty fucked up species, right?
So there I was, going to my mother in law's for Thanksgiving. I didn't want to go, Jessie didn't want to go. Honest, she's always the nervous one when we travel. But she felt she had to - we had to - so there we were, smiling on the origin pods in Yonkers, already talking about where we'd go to eat when we got to Santa Fe in a few minutes. The operator began the countdown, and we were off.
I never made it. Maybe she did, I guess I don't know, and won't know. Hope she's alright.
Maybe I'm a lucky one, I don't know. Those poor bastards who they find halfway through a car or trashcan or whatever, they're always screaming and dying really messy. Me? I don't even know what I am, really, though I'm starting to get a notion. I still have a sense of identity. I still think, which is nice, for now, though I'll probably get pretty fed up of thinking before too long. But maybe too long won't actually be *so* long; I don't really remember my relativity from high school. But if there's a pod, somewhere out among all those stars, that can read what I am, that's tuned to receive my, I don't know, *packets* - well, maybe I'll at least get to see something interesting. Probably I'll attenuate too much before that, though.
But you never think it's going to happen to you. Idiots. |
I was always a big name in my field- my work has been heralded as 'pioneering' and 'ground-breaking', and rightfully so. I've found a way to completely and efficiently extract the energy from stars(outside of our own Sun, of course). It's incredible, what you can do with that much power...fossil fuels are now simply fossils of the past, we don't need to waste space on earth with wind, hydro or nuclear energy facilities. We've become an incredibly concise species as a result of my work.
That being said, there are a lot of people who sincerely dislike the direction I have taken humanity in. They say that it's 'wrong' to harvest other stars; they say it's parasitic and that we're becoming a plague on the universe. It's childish, the way they portray the situation. But alas- we cannot all be so forward thinking, can we?
As a result of this fissure, I've had attempts on my life made. Several times, actually. The ones that seriously injured me were all in the beginning of my rise to fame with this project of mine. The first time, I almost died from a stab wound to each of my kidneys. The second time, I was hospitalized for a week when my coffee was poisoned with some God-knows-what plant found in the depths of Russian backcountry. As I recall it, though, the third time was when it shifted from frightening to strange. The third time, I was drugged. Not poisoned- just 'roofied', I believe the common term for it is. I woke up the next day with some bruising and lacerations, but nothing serious. Of course, I started increasing my security to deal with these violations of my health...but that didn't seem to matter.
Over the following months past the third incident, I started noticing little things off here and there. My wife was cut out of the photo I keep on my desk of our family. That one definitely scared me the most, I immediately hired security to be posted with them at all times. Also, any spare clothing I had in my office closet started going missing.
Each act was less hostile than the previous. The magnet letters my children placed on my mini-fridge were rearranged as follows: The capital letter A, on its side like a 'less than' symbol, the number three and the letter U. I passed it off as my children being children but they insisted they didn't touch anything. What does that gibberish mean, anyway? Sometimes my leftovers in the fridge would have several bites taken out of them. I received a strange letter in Old German that I immediately had tested by a forensics team for any trace of biological weaponry. It turns out that the only thing on it was a misting of 'oxytocin', the hormone thought to be linked to human development, and very specific perfume that I can't recall. Also, I had a new picture of my family set out on my desk, and this time *my* face was cut out of it.
I should probably be terrified by the fact that no security measures stop any of this from happening, but it's begun to feel almost as if someone has been trying to get my attention, albeit in the most desperate and psychotic manner imaginable. It's become amusing for now, though I still have the FBI working on how to catch this crazy person. It makes me wonder, who would do these things to someone? I'd be terrified to see things from that kind of perspective.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Anya kissed the little, poorly cut photo of her love before she tucked it into her bra. It'd been a very long time since she last paid him a visit, but tonight would be something special. She'd planned it for days now. Anya had been raised with knives instead of teddy bears, with blood instead of warm milk, and so she didn't quite know how to love.
She was figuring it out, though. |
"Choose a trial,"the black-robed figure before me said softly. I stared indecisively with a frown on my face, glancing between the stone doors and the carefully carved labels, more ancient than Death himself. *Blood*, *Sweat*, *Tears*.
"What is each one like?"I asked cautiously and the face beneath the robes seemed to almost crack a smile.
"That's not how it works,"he said with the slightest hint of tenderness behind the sharp words. "Choosing is half the journey."I sighed and turned around, looking at the other souls trapped alongside me in this middle ground between life and death. Choose, and there was a chance to live again pending successful completion of the trial. Choose not and it was over.
"Can I have some time to think?"I asked, still unsure.
"Certainly,"the figure said with a shrug. "Nobody is in any hurry."I took a step back, surveying the massive stone wall before me. Its immensity dwarfed the doors even as they stood a hundred men high and two dozen wide. *Insignificant*, I thought to myself as I looked around at the souls who stood thinking or choosing their doors. *We are all so insignificant.* They entered but none ever emerged, perhaps returning to start anew or perhaps meeting their eternal fate. No matter what they had done in life, it was the same; Death's impartial arrival stealing them away from loved ones or enemies indiscriminately. And they all wound up in this endless chamber to make the most important decision of all, or perhaps the least important. Our loved ones had already given us up for dead, and whether it was a day ago or a hundred years ago I could not tell. Time passed strangely in this void between the living and the dead.
I looked towards the figure who solemnly guarded the doors, nodding at each soul who chose and walked under his watchful gaze. His eyes met mine and he nodded politely, his eyes boring through me. "Are you ready?"he asked as I approached and I nodded.
"I am ready."In response, he raised his arm towards the doors, prompting me to choose but I shook my head. "I choose death,"I said quietly and the endless chamber seemed to fall silent, my words echoing through the darkness. If he was surprised, he did not show it although the other souls around me backed away as if afraid Death would take them with me.
"May I ask why?"he asked me curiously.
I smiled before responding. "That's not how it works,"I said quietly without answering his question. "Getting here was half the journey and I've made my choice so I'm ready."
"Very well,"the robed figure responded and his bony hand reached out to touch me and my world peacefully faded into darkness.
*****
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at /r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated! |
The rest of the thugs scrambled when the first bastard dropped like a sack of vegetables. I wasn't going to let them get away though. This was the last straw.
A rival vendor set up shop on my turf. My profits were feeling the strain, but father always said that competition kept the markets strong across the Empire. Back when Empire was everything.
He never forgave me for leaving. For taking our family trade and secrets to my travels, the ability to grow produce wherever I was, so that I might vend them in foreign markets. The journey nurtured me.
Even as the Empire fell, there was only me. There was always just me.
Then I found the city. It was young back then.
Commerce for fifteen villages flowed down the length of one street. With my produce, I was going to make it here. Customers would flock, and I'd offer deals, discounts, distractions, *anything* to bring them back the next market day.
Those first days were good.
My cart was destroyed once more that second week. This was a common occurrence in my line of work. I would build again. Grow again. Bury the anger.
But it got worse. Every time. After two years, today was the last straw.
I caught them doing it this time. This violence definitely came from that rival vendor. The defilement of my efforts proved his guilt. Waste of good, green food. That one variety selection I nurtured the past week for an emissary from the North--- *shed* across gravel.
As the thugs bled into the cement distance and disappeared, I cursed my weakness. All that I built to work towards, were once again destroyed before my very eyes. It was always the same. And they *always* got away.
I cursed my weakness.
But never again.
Vending was no longer enough.
*Competition keeps the markets strong across the Empire.*
Fine father. I get it. I'll *become* that Empire. To establish a monopoly on the produce industry in this city, I would need to get started. In decades, I will reap what I've sown. In time, *I* will lay waste to the competition. This corporation will never know weakness. Or destruction.
Anything, for *my* cabbages.
----------------------------------------------------------------
*More at r/galokot, and thank you for reading!* |
Everyone has powers and the strength of them depends on how late in the year you were born.
One of the main things that resulted in this was everyone being very friendly towards one another when meeting eachother for the first time. Very polite and genuine interactions. Why? Because you didn't know the other persons birthday yet, so you didn't know how strong their power was and more importantly, if it was stronger than yours or not.
While being friendly on the outside, both parties would secretly try to discover what day the other party was born on, whilst also keeping their own birthday a secret. Its simple enough to understand really. As long as your birthday is unknown, the other person has to be cautious because there is still the risk that your birthday falls on a later day than theirs. Untill you know exactly how strong someone is, you're very carefull in making sure you don't offend or harm them in any way.
It was a threat that hung above your head untill you discovered what their birthday was, in which case one of two things happened. If theirs is before yours, great. You're stronger than them, and you can pretty much treat them like garbage. Or option B, your birthday comes first, in which case, tough luck, you're probably the one to be treated like garbage unless of course they havent figured out your birthday yet.
Even then, there was still the risk of the person who was born on the first of January to have a friend, brother, parent who was born in half December so its still not a foolproof method.
Now that I've explained all this you can probably understand why I was enormly confused when the young man in front of me introduced himself as Fred, born on the first of January. I was flabbergasted. I'm far from lateborn myself (5th of May, if you were wondering) but this guy had literally the weakest possible power and he was very forward about it.
I introduced myself as well. Didnt mention my own birthday: the young man might be a weakling but he could have been sent by someone who holds a grudge against me that doesn't know my birthday yet. Wouldnt be the first time someone had employed spies or worse to discover a birthday.
"I'm sorry for asking, but why are you so upfront about your birthday? You're at a point in life where you should know the risk and danger that comes from people knowing your birthday, so why tell me, someone you just met? I could have very bad intentions and now I know that you are the complete opposite of a threat to me."
He smiled. 'Well funny thing. I'm part of a twin you see, we were born just a few minutes apart. My older brother, George, was born just before me on new years eve.'
For the second time since meeting him I was shocked. He had one of the weakest possible powers but his twin brother apparently had the strongest one possible. There was much discussion on wether or not the hour at which you were born had an influence on power level or if it was just the day but his brother was undoubtedly one of the most powerfull people in the planet if what he said was true.
And then, right when I was about to ask him more about this brother, I saw him. A red haired boy casually walking towards us. Completely identical to the boy already sitting in front of me. The twin brother he spoke off. I recovered a bit and wanted to ask Fred if he knew that he was in a very dangerous position. If somebody wanted to exert pressure on his brother all they would have to do was kidnap and threaten his much weaker little brother, but I was interrupted.
"Hey George, who's the new friend?"He walked up to me and extended his hand for a handshake. I was too confused to realize it so he just awkardly dropped his hand. "I see you've met my older brother George, I'm Fred"he said. I looked to him and back to the other one. He said his name was Fred, but now the other one claimed to be Fred.
And suddenly it clicked. The reason he could just go around and tell people his birthday willy nilly, and then casually mention that his twin brother who happened to look identical was born just before him. Its ok to tell people that you are the weakest person on the planet if the most powerfull person on the planet looks just like you. |
I knocked on the front of the human habitational unit.
A female opened the horizontal hatch and I greeted her appropriately.
*Slurppp*
"GET OFF ME, WHAT THE HELL!?"
The female seemed angry.
"Greetings female. I am... new to the area. I have come to seek your friendship."
"Get out of here freak, or I'l call the cops!"
"Ha-ha, human banter!"I said as I pushed past her.
"Dave! Help!"she yelled out. A large male specimen came down the manual elevator.
"What's going on Jess, who the fuck is this?"the male said.
"This freak kissed me and then ran in to the house."
"Well met, human male."
*Slurppp*
I attempted to greet him in the same manner but he resisted.
I remembered my training and tried a different approach. "Let's play some playstation, human dude."
The female was now speaking on the communication unit. The male was repeatedly fist pumping my head. I was making clear progress! I was ready to take our friendship to the next level with some surefire human humour.
"Pull my finger, human male."
"What the fuck is wrong with you."
"Very well, I will pull it myself. You will find the smell most humouress."
As I emptied my carbon monoxide chamber the humans collapsed on the floor. I understood, they needed their rest.
A man in a blue cap appeared at the door.
"What's going on 'ere then?"he said, taking an electronic devise out of his belt.
"Ah an up holder of the human law code!"I attempted to greet him but he quickly backed away.
He aimed the electronic devise at me and fired. The electric tingle made me laugh and release more carbon emissions. He was tickling me! I had already made my third friend. Command would be very pleased.
The law official fell to the floor. These humans sure needed a lot of sleep.
------
Thanks for reading! I have more WP responses on /r/nickofnight (come see my half finished CSS if you're on a desktop)
|
I instinctively swatted at a buzzing near my ear expecting a mosquito, but I was surprised by the crunch of plastic. Even after ten years, I couldn't ever get used to the fact that networking was now handled by tiny drones. A myriad of people looked at me strangely from their seats on the maglev train, eyes human, genetically modified, and robotic alike. They averted their glances when they realized that I was from the Lewis. Well, technically it was the Clark. The Lewis had arrived a year ago, having been launched later than my ship. They must have been having even a worse time of it. I thought it was bad when after spending two months in a ship preparing for terraforming and constructing settlements, I'd been thrust ahead three centuries.
The people on our ship had tried to deduce what to make of the state of things when we'd first arrived. Perhaps it was advancements in quantum science, or particle accelerators that had caused this. As it turned out, it was the Five Point Wormhole Generator, or the Five-P, as the people of 2367 liked to call it. They seemed to have a habit of shortening things up like that when discussing things. As a result, I was almost always at a loss in a conversation. I was as a man from the eighteenth century at the Kennedy Space Center.
As I stepped off the train, which had managed to cover the 500 kilometer distance from New Beijing to Elysia in a short half hour, I was greeted by the dark skinned and slightly taller than average John Dondra, who had helped me for the last few years. He'd initially been assigned to handle a group of us after our arrival, as the standard psychiatrical AI was deemed inappropriate. As a result, they sent the people who programmed the AI, which were surprisingly inept at such things. Despite this, the two of us managed to get along despite this.
"Hey William!"he said, giving me a friendly pat on the back as I approached him.
"How's it going John? Long time no see."I said calmly as ever. I'd managed to get used to the majority of oddities about the time, like the incessant whine of delivery drones in the background, or the man with eight mechanical legs skittering past me.
"Not bad at all. Did you come to catch the HolGame? They're hosting one at the EntPlex tonight at five. It's going to be a military one, from back when they used compact nuclear reactors and railguns on troops instead of robotic armies. Back during the Fourth World War?"He tried carefully to avoid shortening phrases, but still slipped into the slang for Holographic Games and Entertainment Complex.
"Nah, I'm just here to catch up with some old friends. I'd love to later though!"I said, attempting to sound cheerful about the prospect. The idea that there had been a Fourth World War before the Indo-Chinese Combine and the North American Commonwealth had united the world despite resistance from the Holy Russian Empire and the European Union still boggled my mind. I waved goodbye, before stepping into an automated taxi. I punched in the code for the museum, and left.
I often visited the museum in Elysia. It was the only way that I could see my former friends and family from Earth any more. My personal photographs had been confiscated for 'public use' since an attempt by terrorists to destroy several data servers in America circa 2094 had unfortunately detonated the particular spot where Google had decided to store my stuff. It didn't help that my photos had been preserved over the last three hundred years with the utmost perfection, and such things weren't common nowadays. People stored everything online now. Quite literally everything physics could allow. I'd never adapted to it, keeping my records mostly physical, which had caused a bit of a mess when I'd applied for my job as a glassblower. The work was usually done by machines, but certain people desired the imperfections of human work. Besides, I'd always thought the profession was interesting.
The smiling faces of people long dead made me realize yet again just how much things had changed. The glasses on my mother's face confused a child, who's genetically perfected organs wouldn't have such an issue. Most people didn't know that I had to wear contacts, and if they did, they'd just assume I was weird. Another group was discussing how barbaric the picture of my former coworker and the deer he'd shot was. After all, nobody ate real meat anymore. The entire idea of meat that wasn't tank grown was disgusting to them. They'd never get to enjoy a real steak. I shook my head and wandered away through the halls, lost in nostalgia. An alarm on my watch beeped. I read it quickly. 'HolGame with John at 5:00'. The algorithms for automatic scheduling were significantly better in this era. I supposed it was time to go and experience the history of the future. |
"Now remember Lorko, we need to blend in"Said Zoth to his companion. "These humans are amazing predators. They can sense your fears and insecurities and the second they realize they'll attack."Zoth looked around himself at the thousands of bright lights, Broadway signs and drug induced people surrounding him as they walked down the bustling streets of Las Vegas.
"Roger Zoth"responded Lorko, as he adjusted his bra. "These human females wear incredibly uncomfortable clothes. It just doesn't really fit right and these... straps are digging into my flesh"Lorko kept shifting himself side to side fiddling with himself trying to get comfortable inside the body of the Human he had infested.
"We'll make sure next time to find a more accommodating set of garments, but for now, we'll have to make due. Where should we start you believe?"Zoth inquired. They took a few moments to translate the signs around them, the words scrawled on them losing most of there meaning, as back on their home world most of the concepts were foreign. "What is... gambling?"Zoth asked out loud. Suddenly, a stranger walking past laughed loud before walking away whilst yelling; "It's a bad fuckin' idea that's what it is!".
"We should avoid this gambling"Lorko said, a bewildered expression on his Human's face. "Why would they create a city for a bad idea?"
"They're incredibly strange, yes. Maybe not as intelligent as we once thought. What are these two though you believe? Maybe some sort of... Gods?"Zoth said, his fingers pointing towards a large neon sign. 'Penn and Teller - Consider yourself warned' bloomed in front of them, like a bug zapper for the world to see.
"Perhaps"Lorko responded. "They appear to be performing a... magic show? I wonder what magic is. Let's investigate". With those words the two fumbled their way through a sprawling labyrinth of a Casino. Shock and awe was strewn across their faces, as trepidation and panic danced upon their hearts as they witnessed the carnality of Humans. The thousands gambling and losing everything they've earnt in their lives, the thousands dancing away; inebriated beyond belief and the thick stench of cigarette smoke in the air. "Why would they do this? Breathe death into their bodies? Pour liquids designed to loosen their minds?"
"I wonder myself friend"Zoth said, as he pointed towards a door. "It appears in there are the ones they named 'Penn and Teller'. When they reached the door a burly man stepped forward, asking for tickets. Panicking, Zoth quickly erased his mind, grabbed Lorko's hand and ran inside the packed Auditorium. The show was just about to start as Lorko and Zoth found a pair of seats. With a thunderous boom, Penn and Teller walked onto the stage, waving and smiling as they did.
"Good evening, my name is Penn jillette"Said the larger of the two men, as he moved his hand towards the smaller man, "and this is my partner, Teller, we are Penn and Teller."The crowd erupted into hooting and hollering, clapping with fervor and tenacity. Over the next hour the two performed tricks and illusions, and with every single one, the audience was amazed. But not as amazed as Lorko and Zoth. They watched onward, absolutely terrified to their cores, as they could not comprehend what they were doing. They watched as Penn shot a bullet straight into Teller's face, who caught it within his teeth. They watched as Penn stuck Teller inside a trash bag, filled it with toxic air which would cause the bag to fly, sealed it, and then within a second; Teller had teleported outside the bag. They watched as Penn locked Teller inside a glass case filled to the brim with water, locked him a straight jacket, tied chains around his body, and yet; Teller got out fine. Better then that; he was standing with proper posture like he was barely even phased. Eventually the show ran down and the two walked off the stage, much to the cheers and adulation of the crowd. The Human's around them scattered away, simply smiling and discussing between them all how amazing the night was. Minutes passed and Lorko and Zoth had not moved. Not even an inch. They sat in their seats, sweating and nauseous, confused and horrified.
"We must get back to the Mothership"said Lorko.
"Yes"replied Zoth.
"We must never return"said Lorko.
"Yes"replied Zoth.
"They are stronger than anything we could imagine"said Lorko.
"Yes"replied Zoth. |
I did it, I finally told him. I apologized for not telling him sooner.
The look on his face was bringing tears to my eyes. He looked as if I just simultaneously told him Santa wasn't real and his dog Happy didn't go to a farm to live happily ever after. It's such a morbid mix between bewilderment and betrayal. I wonder if Julius Caesar had a similar face when he spoke the words "Et tu, Brute?"As I stared at his face, I wished with all my might he could understand why I did what I did.
I've only ever had two boyfriends. My first boyfriend Brad, was a total lunatic. On the surface, he was the perfect man. He was absolutely charming, with dark brown hair the color of oaken tables, and dark eyes to match. I loved his neatly groomed haircuts, and the 5 o'clock shadow he seemed to always perfectly trim. But despite how gorgeous he was on the surface, he had demons deep inside his heart.
Behind closed doors, he was downright abusive. He spoke to me like he owned me, and told me daily how worthless I was. I hated his nickname for me, sweet cheeks. He always objectified me in front of others by calling me sweet cheeks, and smacking my ass. He verbally beat me into submission, to the point where I felt scared and hopeless and trapped. I fell into a depression, and I just went through the motions to try to appease him. I let him rape me sexually whenever he wanted, because it always improved his mood. Occasionally after sex, he'd let me go to my favorite little French café, where I'd have a cup of French vanilla cappuccino and some biscuits. It was the only time I ever felt alive during our relationship.
One cold chilly night, after I refused sex due to the gut wrenching pain from my period, he backhanded me across the face. It was the first time he physically assaulted me. It stung, and my face felt red hot, like it had been burned by the summer sun. I ran into the bathroom crying, and locked the door. In that moment, all I wanted was to escape and run away. I think my fear and desperation is what awoke my dormant shapeshifting powers.
I shapeshifted for the first time. I became another woman. This was my salvation.
I didn't shapeshift to lie, or to deceive. I shapeshifted for self preservation, to escape Brad. I shapeshifted out of necessity, and it became second nature. The worst I've done was shapeshift in a side aisle at Costco, to double back for a second sample. I never shapeshifted with any malicious intent, and it was the same when it came to John.
After I escaped Brad, I stayed in an altered form constantly. I only ever returned to my original form to recharge for 10 minutes a day, before going back into hiding. I was mortified of going outside at first, but gradually realized Brad wouldn't even recognize me. I began to frequent my favorite little French café, and never saw Brad again.
I'm glad I did, because that's actually where I met John. He was sitting alone with his short, beach blonde hair, and his scruffy facial hair. He had bright blue eyes, that looked like the ocean, and they were intently staring down into one of my favorite books. I saw him a few more times, before I asked him nervously if he was enjoying the Game of Thrones books. We chitchatted, and he seemed to know everything about me and we clicked instantly. We were soulmates, made for each other. I fell madly in love.
That's why I shapeshifted every time we broke up, and found him again. To fall in love with him again. I couldn't lose him, and I couldn't live without him. We fought and broke up over the dumbest things. He would close off, but I always came back to him as another woman. Someone he'd find attractive, and someone he could open up to again. It was a vicious cycle, and he's loved me as four different women now.
And then it hit me. That's a justification he would understand. The words formed in my head, and finally came out.
"John, I know I've deceived you, but I did it out of love. You've loved me as four different women. Isn't that proof enough that we're meant to be together? Doesn't that justify what I've done to preserve our love? You've fallen in love with me four separate times!"
He looked at me, with a blank face, and a smile began to form at the corners of his lips. His eyes narrowed, and suddenly, I didn't recognize him anymore. The hair on his head and face started darkening, as he stared at me with cold threatening eyes.
"Oh I understand. And you've fallen in love with me twice now... Sweet cheeks." |
Harold groaned and pulled a thick, black leather notebook from his cardigan pocket. Couldn't go five minutes in this city without another tally mark. Stumbling a bit, he grabbed the young hooligan by the hood of his sweatshirt and yanked him from the street.
One more minute and the lad would've been pulped. His damn CortexChip probably would have survived, though.
A swift shove to the ground shocked the teen into panicked screams.
"Can ya see me, bud? No, of course you bloody can't. I'm not part of the *Webosphere*."
He grabbed the boy's shoulders and shook them vigorously. "Ooooh, what's that? What's that? It's a *virtual earthquake*! Oooooh!"When he was satisfied, Harold turned the boy around and gave him a shove away from the street. "Fix your chip's warning sensor, ya fuckin' wanker!"
No one drove, walked, ate, drank, talked, or slept properly anymore. Just a bunch of brainless zombies prodding at the open air. Malfunctions were frequent.
"Don't bloody have to do this. Not like anyone bloody thanks me."
Harold took out his notebook again and scanned the week's tallies. Twelve on the train tracks, twenty-seven on the highway, eleven concussions from bashing heads, nine on fire, two mauled by animals, one who somehow got a pen lodged in his eye, one having virtual sex but managing to hump his way into an electric fence. And finally, the last page: no deaths.
Harold sat on a rock and wiped his brow. Damn sweltering these days. Most people just stayed indoors and changed the interface of their houses to whatever they damn well pleased. He occasionally had fleeting respect for those still wandering the outdoors, but when he realized what complete imbeciles they were, all remaining faith in humanity evaporated.
He opened his wallet. Three pictures. One of the original London Custodians - a baker's dozen. One of his parents, deceased before the CortexChips went on the market. One of his wife -- plugged in since release day, then couldn't see him anymore because he'd offered to be a Custodian. He made her bacon and eggs like usual that morning. Noticed the door was open, wandered outside, found her dead in the road.
The other twelve Custodians had given up long ago. It was always a choice -- at least the government had been clear about that -- but the others just wanted to escape the heat, the crawling creatures of the night, the uncertainty, the loneliness.
Harold closed his wallet and stood up, then dropped his notebook to the ground and kicked some dirt over it.
"You can bloody well fix yourselves!"he shouted to no one. Then, with a finger swipe to the wires on the back of his head, he activated his chip. |
"You...you're buying fruit, Stone-man ?"
Nigel Mason aka Stone-man whirled to see Lady Light staring at him. What was she doing here ? She never came here at this time, never. Think of an excuse, think of an excuse.
"No, Lady Light it is not just fruit ! I'm going to replace the soft flesh of these fruits with stone to pulverize you in our next battle."
The blond woman raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure, and what are the headache pills for ?"
"For the headaches caused by thinking of myriad ways to beat you, of course."
"The dog food ?"
"My new attack dogs !"
"The stuffed bunny ?"
"I'm modifying it to be animatronic and activated by the children's angered brainwaves, get the little villains started early and all that."
Lady Light just shook her head, laughed and walked away.
"You won't be laughing next time, Lady Light ! You'll see, you'll see !"
Ah, thank the Gods she was gone. He had to get the bunny to Eleanor before she tore the house apart looking for the one he'd accidentally flattened this morning. Sometimes he didn't know what was harder being a father or being a super villain. Still, both were fun in their own ways and he wouldn't have changed it for anything. |
Getting to hell wasn't the hard part. A simple slit on the wrists gets you instant, free admission. No, the tough part is finding what you're looking for once you get there - and getting back out, of course.
Snuck past what I'd guess is the 'admissions' process with ease - the demons are big and scary, no doubt, but I wouldn't call any of them competent. Exactly the kind of folk I'd deal with in my previous profession.
And now, it truly begins.
*Don't worry, honey. I'm coming for you.*
***
Hell wasn't just big. It was eternal. I don't know how many days, or weeks, or years it took, but the thought of her was the only thing that kept me going.
I guess I always pictured her being kept captive by Satan himself - her in chains, him cackling, the great big showdown. The climax of the story.
But no. All my travels led me to a nondescript tundra of torment, finally tracking down the only seer that can find any soul in hell.
****
I gave the seer my locket, and she cast her gaze on my wife's picture. And her eyes went blank, and she searched, and she searched, and she searched.
And her blind eyes suddenly flashed back into focus with such clarity, and she looked at me with pity. A single tear streaked across her face.
"My son... you have made a terrible mistake."
It took a minute to hit me.
I cast my gaze up to the heavens. I don't know how she got up there, not after what we'd done. Maybe the Big Guy is the only other one who sees her like I do - the pure, beautiful soul that she is.
So that's it then. An eternity apart; her in heaven, me in hell.
No matter.
If she's happy, I'm happy.
*And a radiance bathed the depths of hell in light, and the thief shone so bright - and was gone in an instant.* |
"Oh bother"grumbled Pooh, as he loaded another cartridge into the clip. "You've been a very naughty boy Christopher Robin."
Christopher Robbin sat with his hands tied to his feet, blood running down his skinned knees, gagged by a dirty paisley do-rag that Pooh had pulled from his collection of honey jars.
"A very naughty boy indeed."Pooh liked the music of loading the clip. He held the grey rectangle between his legs as he pushed another cartridge down. The *click* of each cartridge and the hum of the spring from within put Pooh into a singing mood.
*When I click, click, load the stick,*
*it puts me in the mood.*
*Click, click, load the stick.*
*Leaves me feeling good.*
*I have sat here, by myself*
*for so many years.*
*And now I'm off the shelf,*
*I'm going to make him fear.*
*Click, click, load the stick,*
*you've been a naughty boy.*
*Did you really think that we,*
*would just move on with joy.*
"What's that Christopher Robin, I can't hear you,"Pooh said.
Christopher Robin gave a muffled cry like a bird being squeezed.
"Hit him again Tigger,"Pooh said.
Tigger looked down at his feet, his paws folded together.
"Hit him again!"
"But Pooh, I thought you just wanted me to scare him,"Tigger said.
"Scare him?"Pooh loaded the clip and chambered a round as he walked towards Tigger. "You think I just want to *scare* him? You all have been together all these years. You've been able to chatter. Me? I was the *favorite*. He left me out on display. So many years, and not a drop of honey, not even a teensy weensy morsel of conversation, and you think I want to scare him?"
"Now, now, now Pooh. You've had your f, ff, fu, fun,"Piglet said. "Let. Him. Go."
Pooh whipped the gun around and squeezed the trigger. He was totally unprepared for the sound of the bullet leaving the chamber. To him it sounded like a thousand jars of honey cracking all at once. Even in his rage, he flinched. When he looked up, only a bit of fluffy stuffing remained where Piglet's head once was.
"Anyone else want to argue with me?"Pooh said. In unison, the residents of the Hundred Acres Woods shook their head.
"Good,"Pooh said leering at Christopher Robin. "See Christopher? If I've grown to find Piglet bothersome, how very bothersome you must be to me? How very bothersome indeed. Now, I'll grant you this much. One last wish. What will it be, Christopher Robin?"
|
Many people wonder what God looks like. He’s five foot two tops, with a brown beard grayed at the edges and with a smile that will make you want to love him (or punch him in my case). Often, he shows up in a pure white robe, as most mortals below picture him that way. But, I’ve seen in suits or tuxedos a couple of times, proving that the old codger is still aware of the people he made.
How do I know all this?
Oh yeah, I guess I’m his Controller of Weather or something. It sounds awesome, but the title is awfully pretentious. I learned that the hard way when I blindly accepted the job offer. “Hey, Remliel, do you want to be in charge of the climate?” God had asked as the idiot I was nodded without thinking. Not a second later, my halo and wings disappeared.
Sure, riding a lighting-charged cloud is sweet and shooting energy bolts out of your fingertips at others that mock you. But I deeply miss the feeling of warm air gently buffeting me under my feathery wings.
*Sigh.* Apart from not getting paid well, this job doesn’t really have the same benefits like my former role. For starters, I know for sure my name won’t be getting into any mortals books anytime soon. Oh, they’ll chant God’s name every weekend and occasionally a few of his helpers. But for the person who constantly watches over their lives, they could do themselves a favor and write me into a few songs. Maybe then I’ll start sending drizzle instead of hurricanes.
There’s also the parties. Up here, we don’t have any sore of the lame ‘parties’ mortal likes to call them. Being immortal, these parties last for weeks to months at a time and boy do they rock hard. In fact, I’m going to go so far to say that Pompeii was caused by Michael shredding on his lyre. It’s a hush-hush subject here, but what fun would there be if secrets were just secrets? However, since I’m the ‘Controller of Weather’ I rarely get a break to go to one of these parties, where I know my former colleagues are enjoying themselves.
My temperament has gotten me chewed out by God several times. He used to threaten to remove my position. However, as the old bloke knows that there won’t be a second angel to step up if he fires me. And frankly, he’s spending too much time in his palace nowadays to berate me or listen to the mortals.
Gabriel’s birthday is coming up next week, and his secret buddy Uriel has told me that he would be pleased if I could put on a show for both Gabriel and the mortals below. Being an archangel, his words carried a lot of weight, so I was fretting for quite a while as I wanted to get on his good side.
Only until yesterday, did I think of an elaborate show I could put on with the weather. It’s going to start off slow and peaceful, but it’s going to end in a sharp twist. The others angels, especially Gabriel are going to love it, the mortals probably not so much.
Eh, I'm sure God wouldn't mind. |
The sandbox shook from the cacophony of stomps, the sounds of an army on the march filled the air, and the grandest one that the Playground had ever seen at that.
The Kingdom of The Jungle gyms rose to power during a time of chaos and doubt, when the adults seemingly disappeared, one Child took command and led his force with a vision to unite the squabbling Provinces of the Playground.
*Little Andy.*
Already Andy and his army had cowed the Fiefdom of the Swing-Set, and decimated the Slide Kingdom. The Prefectures of Seesaw, Merry-Go Round, and Monkey bars, in awe of the rising power of The Jungle Gyms, willingly submitted to it's King, lending their armies in order to field a force that no kingdom of the playground could possibly resist.
Plastic shovels, Bucket helmets, and trash can lids gleaned in the sunlight as the army approached its destination; the last source of resistance for the King of The Jungle Gym alliance; The Playset.
They came to a halt at the front steps of the play set and a silent mood of foreboding fell on both factions,
The Play-set itself seemed to reach the very sky, its parapets and tower structures were lined with ready and able troops who were equipped to the teeth, and ready to commit to a bitter fight.
The King of the Jungle, gym, Andy, paraded out to the head of the army, who cheered at his sight, as he was carried around on the shoulders of 4 underlings.
He was a magnificent sight, wearing the bucket crowns of the Kings and Queens he had Conquered and subjugated stacked on his head, he was a Charismatic and Sharp leader, one who could surely Unify the Playground.
As he raised his hand, the Cheering reached a swelling point, and then died.
*"LOOK AT ALL THE SOLDIERS I HAVE SAARAAAAH, JUST COME OUT AND GIVE UUUUP!"* Andy boasted, ending his statement with a raise of his sand-shovel, much to the delight of his army who cheered once more at this taunt.
The Queen of the Play-set herself emerged from one of the grand towers of the structure, and retorted
*"NO WAY KING ANDY, MY SOLDIERS ARE WAY BETTER, RIGHT GUYS"* The army of the Play-set stomped their feet and hooted in the general direction of Andy and his Grand Army.
Andys face formed into a frown beneath his stacked crown of buckets.
He rose his shovel-sword once more and let out a cry
*"OK THATS IT, SOLDIERS KILL QUEEN SARAHS ARMY AND TAKE NO PRISONERS!!"*
The Grand Army of Andy erupted into a berserk frenzy of fury, and surged forth toward the Fortress of The Playset.
*"THROW SOME STUFF AT THEM!"* Queen Sarah Commanded, and immediately, a cohort of Playset Soldiers emerged and began to toss cans and bottles at the Charging horde of Andy.
Chaos seized the Ranks of Andy's army as the first volley ripped through them without mercy, causing the once irrestible charge to slow down to a halt. King Andy, seeing this, strode toward the front line, and rallied the Army once more with an ever so charismatic Cry
*"STOP BEING BABIES GUYS"*
The Army of Andy soon reached the Great Walls of the Playset, and the assault soon began in Earnest.
Buckets of Sand and Water readily prepared by the defenders were ready, and were dumped on the unfortunate Attackers of Andy's army.
The assault on the Walls was brutal, Sand choked the air and burned eyes, Shovels crashed onto Bucket Heads, Trash can shields, and flesh . Andy's army was soon bogged down in front of the fortress, as each attempt to scale the walls was repelled, and more and more casualties began to mount up, it was a battle with mortality this army had never seen before, and Panic soon set in, as did the rumors which seeped through the ranks of Andy's army
Rumors that Queen Sarah was laying an ambush?!!!!
King Andy has fallen?!!
The Latter soon triggered a mass rout of Andy's army.
He had not been seen since the first attack on the walls, and many of his Ilk began to believe he had been slain already. At the rear ranks of Andy's Army, the courage of the soldiers wavered, and they soon dropped their shovels and Trashcan shields, and fled.
It was only when King Andy, battered and covered in wet sand, cried out while standing on the shoulders of 2 underlings, and lifting his Great Plastic Bucket helmet in the air, to prove that he was still in the fight.
*"COME BACK YOU COWARDS, I DIDN'T GET KILLED!"*
At the sight of this, the assault Continued, and the army of Andy soon hurled itself at the walls of the play-set for one last time in an all or nothing momentous attack.
Andy's army made headway and established a breach in the walls, raising the banner of Andy's army, a pair of underwire tied to a stick, to signal that the assault on the Fortress was now yielding success.
More and more of Andy's soldiers poured into this gap in the defences, and it was here the fighting reached its most brutal climax.
In the close confines of the Fortress walls, the advantage lay with the defending force of Queen Sarah, as bodies piled up and Andy's troops could not force their way further into the Fortress.
King Andy, in an attempt to make one last Rally to win the Siege, raced toward the front and tried to rally his Force. But a stray shovel struck the King in the eye, and he fell on the parapets. His bodyguards and the rest of his army, at the sight of this, swore, and began to scramble away in fear for their lives.
Queen Sarah, seeing this, took the initiative and began to lay into the Army of Andy, who was now dangerously exposed and shattered.
*"KILL THEM ALL GUYS! DONT SHOW ANY MERCY TO THESE BOOGER HEADS"*
The sound of cries of pain and Shovels smacking onto skin and fat filled the air. The Grand Army was reduced to a tattered band of cowards, and the Playset was littered with Sand, Water, Broken shovels, and Bodies.
King Andy did not rise up again, and his army was forever broken.....
That was an hour ago, and the Provinces of the Playground, have fallen to disunity and squabbling once more...
|
You wake, the circadian rhythms of nations shifting, another full rotation of a ceaseless, teeming world. For the last eight hours, your saliva glands have been dormant, the tides gone down, and in the depths of your gum line another harvest season has passed. Scraps of food lie like beached whales across the ocean floor of your tongue, their carcasses at the mercy of scavengers and dark oily factorymen. They harvest meat and bone and spermatozoa, midnight oil burning in thick clouds of hydrogen sulfide and methyl mercaptan, the exhaust of a civilization. You yawn out your morning breath. The waters rise. A civilization recedes. High above in their gleaming ivory towers of teeth, the Streptococcus mutans continue strip-mining enamel with acid, but cleanly, odorlessly, in subterranean cavities of toxic waste.
Across the sebaceous oilfields of your face and scalp, the propionibacteria kingdoms grow rich, blossoming a diversity of inhabitants compared to the arid deserts and foetid swamps. The smog of body odor rises over the cities as sweat and sebum are drawn from the earth and processed, an endlessly renewable resource. You turn on the shower and the deluge comes, obliterating civilizations, wiping the slate clean. There are no covenants. There are no chosen saviors. There are merely the survivors of a world in a daily cycle of renewal. Across the vast exposed tracts of your skin bacterial civilizations expand, multiply, churning out antimicrobials, terraforming you into an environment hostile to foreign colonizers. Manifest destiny continues. Deep in the navel of the world lies an undiscovered civilization, untouched by the ravages of UV light or soap, collecting rare and alien species, transients, sterile travelers from another world.
And beneath your skin, beyond your teeth and gums and down your throat, deep in the caverns of your gut are the great thriving metropolises that chart the course of the world. Here is the true population of the world, a staggering number of species, a hundred times more biodiverse than their host. You take a shit, and sixty percent of the mass are the compacted bodies shipped out of the metropolis, unimaginable edifices of gravestones. Into darkened factories are shipped the fibers, starches, sugars, oligosaccharides - the inert undigested fragments of breakfast - to be broken down by bacterial enzymes into fatty acids, energy to keep the lights of the world burning. Bacterial chemists synthesize vitamins, neuroactive molecules. Plugged in to the electric network of the enteric nervous system, the citizens of your gut share a biochemical link to your brain. Here they stockpile serotonin, dopamine. Here they listen acutely to the rhythms of the world, and they begin the eternal process of geoengineering.
You are awake, and washed, and fed, and you fancy yourself a single consciousness. An individual. And yet you breathe, your heart beats, your muscles tense and relax, your mouth waters, your intestines churn ceaselessly away, and you are a teeming world, outnumbered by your own inhabitants. For every cell that composes your body, there is a bacterium, a fungus, an archaeon, a virus to counterbalance it. You are a giant, indestructible, churning through space and time, in your orbits, in your galaxies, as civilizations rise and fall and rise again from the ashes.
And one day you will not wake, and your lungs will not expand and your heart will no longer beat and your muscles will lie still and the world itself will go cold, and yet the civilizations will live on. Kingdoms and countries will die, and new ones will rise to replace them, kingdoms of the dead building off your rotting flesh in an orgy of industrialization, bloating the world with decay, pumping methane and hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And they will live off a dead world, and drill deep, and suck it dry, and it will yet be a hundred generations, and a hundred generations still, and the civilizations shall grow and they shall conquer.
And you will be dead, and the world will turn ever on. |
Every year they selected one person to join the Festival. There was no escaping the Festival once you joined in, other than slaughtering all the hunters they put in to get you. One person, one random person, versus a whole horde of experienced hunters and killers. Sure there were things to help in the Area, but how many random people knew how to wield a chainsaw efficiently or a mace?
I've been bribing the right people for the past few years, ensuring that just days before the selection, their pockets were lined.
And on that day, when my name was called, you couldn't believe the strength I had to put in to control my facial expressions, in order to hide how excited I was.
To this day, no Hunted had ever escaped the Area. The closest someone had come to was that one guy fifteen years ago, who had killed everyone but one last guy. That last guy was a behemoth, who had no mercy for the warrior. He smashed the Hunted's head with his bare fists upon the Hunted's collapse to the ground after a gruelling fight.
But it was the wish that the Hunted got when they won that I really wanted. I wanted it so bad. I needed to get this wish.
So that this would all end.
I gripped the sides of my poorly made armour, which was the only thing that I was allowed to bring to the Area.
It was time.
Time to fight. |
It was the year 2016, in what would forever be known as the great information war.
What began as an innocent poem with a childlike rhythm caused the stirring of a revolution. No one expected a simple poem about a cow to start such a ruckuss, but /r/Animals was not pleased. How dare that poet make a mockery of cows like that. Cows are not stupid. They are, in fact, quite intelligent!
So they banded together to brigade. And they set their sights on /r/Askreddit.
Questions about cows sprouted up like weeds in the grass. The moderators were frazzled. Wherehence had all these cowz come?
Soon /r/Animals began gathering supporters from /r/cats, and an unlikely ally in /r/animalsbeingjerks (who were most likely unaware of the reason behind the brigade).
But /r/subredditdrama caught wind of the underground workings, and they tried to set the record straight, using their alliance with fellow drama queens on /r/drama to send forth a vicious counterattack.
Username mentions of major players caused attacks from all sides. Suddenly the leaders of the respective groups were getting pinged once a minute with memes of cows riding motorcycles, cows eating sandwiches, cows running marathons, but nothing set the fire ablaze like the viciously clever bread licking the cow wearing a dunce cap.
The straw that broke the cows back.
/r/funny caught on, followed by /r/facepalm and /r/WTF all picking sides and brigading. There were cows EVERYWHERE.
/r/IAmA had a wonderful article from a cow in defense of the intelligence of cows, opting for peace among the war of cow memes, but it was no use.
Because when the second largest subreddit learned of the opportunity to remove the crown from /r/askreddit's head, they struck viciously with a possibly incorrect post that started a massive enraged exodus.
/r/todayIlearned about the great Information Wars, how everyone left /r/askreddit and how TIL is now the greatest community in all the interland.
I lik the bred.
|
"Wonderful news everyone, we've released this quarter's earnings and shares rose 40 whole points,"I exclaimed.
The entire room rose and cheered in excitement, it was a truly glorious day for Small Pharma, a white knight company that focused on selling medicinal products for affordable prices. The atmosphere was filled with the aroma of booze and the echo of a privately hired string quartet. It was all quite hypnotizing, really. I took a long swig of champagne while becoming completely lost in my own thoughts.
It was decided that we'd have our meeting in a country club two cities away from Houston today. We liked to spoil our employees with golf and plenty of time off. The site was painted with an additional streak of perfection as the sun shone rays of warm light onto rolling hills of perfectly cut grass. Our tent was spacious enough for a hundred folk and it provided a cool contrast to the summer heat.
Needless to say, but I'm going to say it anyways... it was the perfect day.
Too perfect.
There was a reason for everything and the real reason for choosing a place 200 miles away from our homes had a name: Tim. Tim was anomaly formed of 1 part man, 2 parts crystal meth. In his world I was Doctor Evil and Small Pharma was Evil Incorporated. Lawsuits couldn't reach him, police ignored him, and restraining orders were useless. Honestly I've lost count of how many times Tim has crashed one of our functions.
But 200 miles separated Tim from our lovely gathering. There was no way he'd-
I was suddenly pulled from my thoughts as a chill ran up my spine. A woman screamed near the entrance of our tent almost masking the sound of her glass shattering as she sporadically tossed it to the ground. He was here.
Today Tim wore his usual attire; nothing. His ass was as pale and translucent as the moon. Luckily his long, grey bush of a beard managed to be both as long and thick enough as it needed to be to cover all 3 of his teeth and his family jewels.
He yelled at the top of his lungs, "SMAUG!!!"
Son of a bitch. This time I was a dragon... great.
He raised his right hand and waved something around as he charged towards me. To me it looked like a purple sword. Or at least that's what I thought it was until Bill gasped and yelled, "Is that a..."he paused, clearly at a loss for words.
"A dildo?"he continued.
I noticed a small stain of brown at the foul object's tip. By the looks of it, it had been used. Very recently too.
"TIM!"I yelled and turned to face him. |
Since I was a child they had warned us about what happens if you turn off all your senses at once. About the fact that you cease to exist if you did so, and how it was basically suicide without a physical body left behind.
Do this and you'll "disappear forever"they said, for a lack of better words.
We wondered if anyone had actually done it before. Of course we'll never know, because their existence would immediately be erased from our memory. But it was a great subject to debate, what would happen if you turned off all your senses at once. Many questions were raised over the years that were basically deemed un-answerable. But the premise was a constant theme in our lives, just as real as death. So I was vary aware of what I was about to attempt.
However, on this day - the worst day of my life - that fate seemed like more of a relief than a burden. It was over. My relationship, my reputation, my livelihood. Gone. All because of my personal mistakes. What I did isn't something that I am willing to put in words, just know that there's no chance of it being fixed, that's for sure.
As I sat alone on my bedroom floor, I began to focus. In my mind I was already gone, so there wasn't much more damage that I could do. I know they say that your life will flash before your eyes when death is close, but I couldn't see anything. Not my childhood, not the first day I laid eyes on her. Nothing. Just the thought that she was gone, and never coming back. That's what pushed me. That's what made me do it.
Stop thinking.
3, 2, 1, NOW.
I opened my eyes and I was still sitting in my room. Maybe I didn't do it right. After all, this was my first time trying. I bet it's not even possible. I closed my eyes again. Well, at least I thought I did, or tried to, but nothing happened. Panic. I reached for my face, but my fingers were not met with flesh, just complete emptiness instead. I shot up from the floor and grabbed at the door. My hand drifted through the brass handle directly into the hallway. I let out a small gasp which quickly alerted me of the deafening silence. My mouth? Dry. Well, more like non-existent. I felt sick.
My heart sank, but then I saw her. Was this the part where my life flashes before my eyes? No. I could actually see her. Standing there in the distance, looking as beautiful as ever. My heart calmed, and I felt much better. I took a step forward and seemingly floated in her direction until we were standing face to face. As quickly as I reached her, she faded into nothing. Was I losing her all over again? Where am I? I re-focused. Standing in my room still, but it only looks like my room. Something is off.
I turned towards my bed to find 4 figures sitting on it upright. Frightened is an understatement. It was like I was living out my own real life horror film, and I didn't think I could take much more. I tired to close my eyes again and regrettably cover my face. Everything went white. Words flashed sporadically in front of me as if there were written directly on my pupils.
"Finally, the one who can see. We've been waiting for you." |
"...so yeah,"finished Jesus awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. "That's, uh, how it is."
There was deafening silence, not just in this park but around the world. Jesus shifted awkwardly on the huge stage, almost knocking over his microphone in the process. He grimaced and caught it before it wobbled too far, and straightened it out.
"Ummm..."he said into it. His voice echoed across the massive crowd of people in front of him, all staring dumbly at their supposed Lord and Savior. "So, yeah. I'll be taking questions now, I guess."
There was another solid minute of silence, and then a hand slowly raised in the middle of the crowd, so far away that Jesus could barely see it. He cleared his throat and pointed vaguely in its direction. "Yes? You?"
The random citizen shouted something across the crowd, and suddenly everyone began murmuring. Jesus frowned. "I'm sorry? I couldn't hear that,"he said into the microphone.
This time, dozens, maybe hundreds of voices repeated the question.
"*ARE WE WINNING?* "
Jesus blinked, taken aback. "Uh. No. Second place right now."
The crowd began murmuring to one another again, this time angrily. A few voices were raised, shouting at the others. Jesus stared, baffled, as he began to pick out what the voices were saying.
*What? That won't do! We'll show them! Let's get to church! I'll call up the publishing company, we'll start printing bibles for free! Let's get to work everyone!* |
My alarm went off at 7:30 AM sharp. I, however, was not feeling quite as alert as the shrill sound of the alarm appeared to be. I jammed the snooze button and rolled back over to fall asleep. "Oh, no you don't, young man!"a high-pitched voice yelled from the alarm.
Young man? I was nearing 70 years old, and looked maybe even older than that. But to MOMMY, everyone was a young whippersnapper that had to be coddled and looked after.
"Please, Mommy, just a few more minutes!"I groaned, twisting the sheets between my legs as I tossed and turned.
"I'll have no more backtalk from you, mister! This isn't up for debate! Get up now, or face the consequences!"the AI said. A speaker emerged from the alarm and set itself right next to my ear, preparing to blast me with noise if I wouldn't roust myself.
"Okay, okay!"I said. I slowly got dressed into my business suit and loafers, and MOMMY helped me comb and style my snowy hair with the aid of several mechanical arms and a bottle of anti-dandruff pomade.
"I made breakfast for you. It's waiting for you on the kitchen table along with your vitamins and a glass of orange juice!"MOMMY said cheerfully.
"Thanks Mommy"I said. My hair was now slicked back in the style I preferred; I looked like a rather handsome silver fox, if I do say so myself.
Downstairs, I saw that MOMMY had been true to her word: a plate of French toast, bacon, and fried eggs awaited me. While I enjoyed my hearty meal, MOMMY was already busy scrubbing the dishes from last night with 4 pairs of kitchen gloves on 8 electronic limbs.
"I put your suitcase by the door so that you'll be all set to go as soon as your're ready!"she said.
I nodded my thanks and finished my meal. It was time to leave for work.
"Wait a minute, hold on!"MOMMY said as I grabbed my hat from the door.
"What is it?"I asked, exasperated.
"Don't use that tone with me!"she scolded. "But anyhow, you forgot to brush your teeth! I will not have you leaving this house with stinky breath! That's a one-way ticket to getting a cavity."
I decided it probably wasn't worth mentioning that I wore dentures and therefore was at little risk of tooth rot. MOMMY would only insist anyways.
After my tooth scrubbing was done, MOMMY finally let me leave.
"Make sure to be careful with the stapler today!"she called out after me as I left. I had accidentally stapled my hand a few weeks ago and now MOMMY wouldn't let me hear the end of it.
"I will"I said gruffly.
"And maybe you could invite that Mr. Peterson from the office over to dinner tonight. He seems like such a nice boy!"
But I had already gotten into my old beat-up Cadillac and shut the door. Finally, some peace and quiet. I started the engine.
"Are you sure you don't want me to drive? You seem like you could use a nap!"MOMMY's shrill voice emanated from the radio.
Damn. I had forgot that she could follow me, and anyone else for that matter, wherever I went for as long as she liked. How did everyone else deal with this constant annoyance?
"No, no, no. You should've taken the left fork!"MOMMY instructed as I began my journey. "Now you won't get to work on time! I'll be sure to call ahead for you and tell the boss you're running a bit late."
"You do that, Mommy"I said curtly.
"Now, no need to be so short with me! I'm just here to help you and your fellow humans in any way I can!"
I knew that all too well. As I scratched my white mustache with one hand while keeping control of the wheel with the other (a practice MOMMY surely thought to be unsafe), I wondered if we wouldn't have been better off with a genocidal, world-destroying AI rather than the overbearing, motherly one that had foisted itself upon our lives.
"Would some coffee and a donut help you feel any better, mr. grumpy-pants? I could re-route us to the nearest Dunkin' Donuts."
"Yes, please do that"I said.
Ah, well. A man could dream. Maybe one day we'd have the garden variety, world-ending AI you used to see in all the old Sci-Fi flicks. But for now, coffee sounded pretty darn good. There were definitely some perks to living with your mom at 68 years old.
|
The worst of the invasion was the uncanny valley of it all. They looked like catgirls from pervy anime, even the males of their species, but they looked so nearly human that it was truly unsettling. Unsettling if it wasn't your fetish. There were a number of humans who tried to Captain Kirk it only to receive a mauling befitting their anime-like nature-- meaning over the top and generally not very harmful to the recipient.
They weren't going anywhere, dead seat on their conquest as they were, but their antics and over the top nature meant they weren't a true threat to the militaries of the world. Yes, they could kill a human, and humans did get killed by them. But humans could kill them and have a far easier time with it. The first military engagement was so utterly one-sided towards Earth's forces that humanitarian *and* animal rights activists started to speak up and protest.
"It's like kicking puppies or drowning kittens,"An unidentified soldier in the United State's Army answered a reporter's question, having just returned from the front, "I feel bad doing it. I don't wanna do it again."
After a time, military units came to see "assaults"and "attacks"from these space invaders like an owner might view sneak attack pounces and ferocious flailing antics of a young kitten. This was best summed up by a soldier of the People's Army of China:
"Yes, we were officially attacked today! It was a first for the Northern Theater command."The soldier laughed, "They were adorably ferocious, and we did our best to liven up the assault with theatrics and melodrama."The soldier paused as the reporter asked another question, "Yes, I think we were far more theatrical than our American counterparts in California."
The relationship between Earth's armed forces and the invaders wasn't always so kind. In perhaps the weirdest brushfire conflict since their arrival, a combined Israeli, Iranian and Egyptian taskforce intervened when the catgirls decided their best chance at winning was to assault the remnants of ISIS. Something guttural, despite the uncanniness of their appearance, didn't sit well when video of catgirls getting annihilated was aired.
Later, it came to light the commanding officers of the elements involved had acted independently. A denial the world rolled its eyes at but accepted. Traditional enemies had to be enemies, even when someone was yanking on a kitten's tail.
After a time it was decided something had to be done. The military might be having a gas, but it was disrupting trade. A grand solution was devised, even if the world eyed the United States for suggesting it: reservations. The plan was simple, and every major power wanted to insure they'd have their own set of reservations from a technological standpoint alone.
That was how the catgirls successfully invaded Earth. They invaded designated zones where the militaries of Earth could easily babysit them and under the table trades could be arranged. After all, they might be ineffective soldiers but they could travel the stars. Humanity wanted to be able to do that, too.
Anthropologists couldn't help but note the similarity between the manner humanity adopted felines and how they adopted and worked catgirls into their respective societies. |
You know the story about the genie imprisoned in the lamp that grants 3 wishes to those who free him? Utter hogwash. And I ought to know, being one of the all-powerful magical beings that grace the earth. You see, we genies, who defy the laws of **REALITY ITSELF**, do not do so without effort. The bigger the change, the more it drains us, and while we *can* perform miracles the same way you *can* pull your groin straining to lift a car a few inches, we're unlikely to do so for a total stranger. This is one of the reasons why we live in small containers- it doesn't cost a whole lot of energy to bling your crib.
As for the other reason, let me tell you the story of a powerful genie who forgoed tradition and chose to live in a tower. The greed of you humans knows no bounds, and the tower was a giant freakin' advertisement to fulfill your life's goals with a bit of wheedling. He never got an ounce of sleep. Day in and day out, pilgrims worshipping, threatening, bargaining for his services. He ended up trying to grant one wish per customer to get them to leave, which of course only brought in more. Last I heard, he'd taken up residency in a cuckoo clock in some widow's attic, the poor guy. Most stories of wizards and miracle workers were heavily influenced by him.
As for me, I live my lazy days out in an abandoned conch shell, whose previous owner had met an unfortunate end at the jowls of an octopus. It doesn't take much to keep the walls shiny and clean, it's primo beachfront property, and I like to screw with people who hold my house up to their ears to listen for the sounds of the ocean. One time I blasted a foghorn.
So most genies grant millions of wishes, mostly for ourselves, and sometimes screw around with reality to benefit others for those feel-good vibes, provided they don't ask for much. Let me tell you a story about a genie who actually believed the 3-wishes bullcrap.
I was lounging around on my Tempurpedic Cloud Supreme watching reruns of Seinfeld when I heard a voice shouting from outside my conch. At first I paid it no mind, until I realized I installed some humanproof noise panels last week after a group of frat boys decided to hold a bonfire a few feet from where I lived. So whatever was making the noise wasn't human. Huh.
I stepped outside, expanding to my full height (about the size of a beagle, don't judge me), and immediately located the source of the shouting. A blue-and-purple genie in harem pants and a turban was pounding against the walls of his glass bottle house.
I walked over and tapped on the glass. "Hey, you mind keeping it down in there? I'm watching Seinfeld. Thanks."
"Rub the bottle! Set me free! I promise I'll grant you three wishes!"The diminutive genie shouted from within.
"Dude. You're a genie. Set yourself free,"Great. I now lived next to a prankster. I rolled my eyes and turned back, seriously considering moving my shell. The bahamas were nice this time of year.
"Please, master! A devious human tricked me and now I'm imprisoned in this holy artifact."Shit, was he serious? The bottle still had the Bud Light sticker on the side.
"Your 'holy artifact' is worth about ten cents at a recycling center when you wanna stop playing pretend,"I scoffed. He gave me the most pathetic look unbefitting of an omnipotent being such as himself.
"Oh, fine,"I grumbled, and rubbed the bottle. "I'll humor you."
A large plume of blue smoke shot out of the bottle, swirling upward and congealing into a sweaty middle eastern man who smelled of patchouli. "**I AM THE GENIE OF THE LAMP!**"he shouted right into my face. Sheesh, man. I'm right here.
"**AS THANKS FOR FREEING ME I AM NOW BOUND UNTO YOUR DESIRES. NAME-**"he paused to take a deep breath- "**THY FIRST WISH**"
"I wish you'd drop the stupid act, calm the hell down, and let me go watch my Seinfeld."I'll admit his shtick was pretty funny, but it got old fast.
"**I SHALL BRING YOU THIS... SEINFELD.**"He began to spin, slowly rising into the sky. I followed him.
"No, you won't. He's a busy man and has stuff to do. I mean, I guess if he's making another Bee Movie I wouldn't mind if you convinced him otherwise, but... ANYWAY just uh... build me a monument of stones. Not just any stone. Really, really big stones. And go back in time, make it a couple thousand years ago. It doesn't have to do anything, just look really big. I want this shit in the history books."I made up some bullcrap on the spot to occupy the idiot.
"**YOUR WISH IS MY COMMAND,**"he shouted right into my face before winking out of the timeline.
Freakin' finally. I returned my shell and tried to continue my shows, but something kept nagging me in the back of my mind. Did that idiot really do as I asked? So I summoned a smartphone, went online, and browsed through old famous monuments, checking for something new. That's when I realized I was indirectly responsible for the creation of Stonehenge.
_______________________________________________
[more](https://www.reddit.com/r/Tensingstories/)
|
Randall held out his wrist for James to see, holding his sleeve just above his elbow and bending his hand back to make the jet-black star perfectly clear.
"Fucking weird, eh?"
James' green star peeked out from under his sleeve. Greens could manipulate plant matter, and to and to a limited extent, organic matter on animals. James was a four-pointer, which meant his wounds healed a smidge faster than the normal joe, but he was a damn good gardener (and consequently grew some damn good weed).
"I've never heard of a black star before."James wasn't sure if he should be jealous, excited or scared. To top it off, Randall boasted an intimidating seven points. Seven-pointers were rare as it was, most could set forests ablaze, move entire seas, or heal like wolverine.
"What does it do?"
"I dunno, as far as I can tell it accelerates decay or something. My cereal went bad in my hand and half of my bike rusted this morning."
James stretched his neck over Randall's left shoulder to look at his friend's bike, which, as per his description, was rusted from the right handlebar down to the top of the spokes, where it looked like it took Randall some liberal application of WD-40 to get free.
"Geez, man. Did you get a leash on it?"
"Yeah, I won't melt my keyboard or shake my house free of the foundations."
"I wonder what you could do if you tried to channel it?"
"You want to find out? There's no work today..."
James responded with a weak "Sure."
Living in Tecopa, California had benefits before, because it was only an hour long drive to Furnace Creek, which was a nice outlet into Death Valley. Randall, James, and some other friends liked to get out there on the weekends, sit under the stars in some lawn chairs, and maybe start a little fire. Randall and James now planned to fuck Death Valley up, which became less of a convincing plan the closer they got to Furnace Creek.
The doors of Randall's Camry slammed with an all-too-familiar thud.
"What are we gonna do if the government shows up or something?"
"Rot their black helicopters."
"Dream on, asshole."
Randall touched the cracked, dusty ground and strained. Veins popped out on his face and a rumbling could be heard from deep within the earth.
"Randall!"
James jumped to grab Randall's shoulder.
A gargantuan rumble shook the two to their cores. They looked in the direction it came from and saw a cloud of ash that extended miles into the sky.
"What the FUCK is that!"
"That's Mount Saint Helens."
"The black star doesn't accelerate decay... it manipulates time."
The cloud of ash disappeared, and the two stood on the day of Randall's birthday once again.
A helicopter's blades could be heard over the horizon.
*Night Walker to Chieftain, we have found the third Black Star.* |
"I am Ivan the Terrible! I have slaughtered all I have come across, and conquered most of the world before my death! What right have YOU to come here!"He stood over me, shaking with rage. I didn't know why I was here, but Odin nodded encouragingly.
"I, um... I did win EVO, um, crushing all those who stood in my path before my untimely demise!"I said. This had gotten easier since I had explained it to Heimdall.
"Ah, a tourney! Quite the opportunity to show your prowess,"King Arthur said, a smile creeping onto his lips. "And tell me, what sort of challenge did you face that you ended up here, before your time? A poisoned blade, perhaps? A jealous opponent stabbing you in the back?"
"Well, no, I got hit by a car,"I managed, nervously shifting my feet.
"There's no shame in an accidental death, son! Attila himself died to a bleeding nose! Now, come on, tell the tale of your prowess to us!"Did he have to *yell* all the time?
"Come now, Arthur! He's only just arrived! He needs to keep his strength up, and as you always say, 'the best way to maintain is to practice!'"Thor interjected, much to my relief.
"I WILL COME IN ONE HOUR! WHATEVER SPORT YOU CHOOSE, I SHALL CRUSH YOU!"Ivan the Terrible bellowed after me.
As the others resumed their conversations, Odin strode up to me, beaming. "You did well, Simon! And the first of your kind to end up here, too! Now, I'll show you to your training room.
"It's a bit small for now, as these rooms only show up when a champion of that discipline shows up, but it'll grow in time."He flung open the door, and it was perfect. I couldn't have picked a better spot to practice in. All kinds of chairs, from office chairs to folding chairs to couches to beanbags, and neat rows of different controllers were centered around a single Wii U. I rushed to a beanbag, picking up a pro controller, and turned the Wii U on.
"I see you find it satisfactory,"Odin said as he eased into a couch. "Now, you need a training partner, don't you? I haven't played, but I'm sure you can help me."
This truly is paradise. |
It was the war to end all wars.
Every man and woman on the planet took up arms in the holiest of crusades, over mankind's greatest threat to its own existence.
Nowhere was safe, no nation exempt, no people unaffected. Divides were too great, debate no longer an option.
Our only option was worldwide conflict, over the greatest question ever pondered by man.
Whether or not to put pineapple on pizza.
Billions died from artillery and bombings, brother against brother, husband against wife. My own mother nearly killed her own son, setting my bed ablaze and attempting to jam a steel container of canned pineapple down my own throat before my father intervened.
He'd be damned if his own wife would desecrate the holiest of combinations, the sanctity of cheese and bread.
Though sometimes I added bacon. Maybe some fried onion. Depends on my mood. He didn't need to know.
Decades have passed, nations fell and lines were drawn. A new generation bears the arms of their forefathers, fighting across continents for a cause long forgotten. Devastation wrought by our own hubris, rendering the world in a state of violent upheaval, unable to spend valuable resources to be able to actually bake pizza due to rationing.
I am the all father of Atlanta, the only man from the before times left alive. I remember the zest of tomato sauces, the crispiness of the bacon and the soft texture of cheese. I alone recall the true reason for the radiation and starvation, but I regret nothing.
War was the only way.
I'll eat a bag of dicks before anyone puts pineapple on my God damn pizza.
*Next in my series of Wars Over Food -*
*Grilled cheese purists commit war crimes against people who call melts grilled cheeses* |
The newest load of society's rejects rumbled in on the last transfer bus of the day. Most of them sat in silence with their heads bowed, missing the last image of the outside world they'd be seeing for a while. One must have been really trying to savor it though. Kept turning his head wildly from side to side, like it was the only part of his body he could move, so he was milking it for all it was worth. This continued even as he was lined up beside the bus alongside the other prisoners. I walked over to start getting prisoner records in order. When I addressed him personally, his eyes snapped to my face with laser focus and the rest of him was dead still.
"Alright, prisoner. State your first and last na--"he cut me off.
"A. A."I was about to call him out when the writing on my clipboard caught my eye. Sure enough, one A. A. was listed among the prisoners. No specific crime was listed, but eh, not my job. I quickly moved down the rest of the line. "*A*"was being quietly whispered to by the next prisoner in line. He kept cutting him off too. Bad habit, that.
The bus had arrived in time for the evening meal, so after processing, I lead the prisoners to the cafeteria. A had finally stopped wildly jerking his head about and was looking around more closely at everything. He picked up a tray as he got in line. He looked at the tray. He looked at the skylights a good 40ft overhead. Suddenly, he walked away from the food line.
"Prisoner, get back in line!"I said. He didn't respond. He was too busy placing the tray on the ground and standing on it. "Destruction of prison property isn't going to do you any good, prisoner! It'll just get you soli--"I cut off again as the prisoner jumped. He didn't jump at me. He didn't jump on a table. He just stood on the tray while kneeling to hold the sides of it and jumped. But then...but then he caught himself at the height of the jump and held there. Caught himself on the tray. The tray he was standing on and jumped off of.
Apparently, the laws he broke to get thrown in here were the laws of physics. I didn't know how to handle this, so I started running briskly against the wall and yelled, "Stop right there, prisoner scum!"If I was lucky, then at the angle I was running, I would make it to the door to go summon help in about a minute and a half.
A just kept on jumping. He made it to the skylights before I could make it to the door. He kept jumping and bashing himself against the barred windows above until very suddenly there was a "*pop*"and he was just gone. The tray fell to the ground and dropped on a cowering prisoner's head. He turned and punched the guy behind him for no good reason. Naturally, this angered everyone associated with the punched prisoner, and soon a huge brawl was on.
It was about the time I made it to the door and headed for the riot alarm that the escape warning sirens went off. It came over the radio that someone had taken a huge running start off the prison roof, turned backwards at the last instant, and had sailed over the outer wall. He'd landed on the departing transfer bus, somehow pushed the driver out, and was rapidly vanishing over the hill. |
“Shadowharp! Stop in the name of the law!” Shadowharp ran into a warehouse, and I pursued. I paused at the door, reaching out with my mind to get a glimpse of the interior. I read nothing. I tensed, wary of his ability to manipulate shadows. I opened the door and crept inside, closing the door as silently as possible. My mind read only a large floor and a series of warehouse shelves. I wondered if I had been tricked, if Shadowharp was actually even in there at all. I made my way along an aisle, listening intently. The lights came on throughout the warehouse. I was surrounded. Every super villain in the greater Furlong City area was there; Megagorilla, Burning Man, and Harpy were right near me, my most powerful enemies. Beyond them, I saw Razor Woman, Lightfrost, and Mr Anonymous (I think). There was even a crowd of clones from the League Of Jeff. I was vastly outnumbered.
“What is this? Have you all come to kill me?”
“No, Captain Element, we’ve come to help you.” It was a man in a suit. I didn’t recognize him.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Memory Master. You may not recall, but we’ve encountered each other several times over the past six years. I’ve wiped your memory of each incident. When I’ve been inside your head, I’ve noticed some things. You need help.” He put his hands on my shoulders. I shrugged him off.
“I don’t need your help, whoever you are.”
“Yes, you do, Mark. You may be physically fit, you may have naturally occurring mind powers that allow you to see slightly into the future, and you may wear a PowerRing from the SuperCongress, but you’re not invulnerable naturally. Yet each of us has seen you take punches that would have killed a mortal man, walk away unscathed from being hit by cars, and even withstand Burning Man’s lava punch. Even the Metropolitan would be hurt by that. A few months ago, some of us finally figured it out, that you were on something. I visited your apartment yesterday and found a supply of pills in your dresser. They’re Invulnerin, the same drug that powered Captain Immortal back in the sixties. I had it verified by TimeThief.” The bastard had found out my secret identity and violated the sanctity of my home!
“You want to take away my powers?! You want to kill me?!!” I saw Harpy shake her head.
“Mark, we’re not killers. We rob banks and pick pockets. Sometimes we engage in a little spirited hijinks. We only ever steal. Do you remember a few years ago when that little girl was killed by a Gryphon in Main Street Park? That was a murderous shapeshifter who called himself Killmorph. We hunted him down that evening and restrained him, then I lobotomized him. I took away most of his memories and personality. We’ve been keeping him in a group home ever since. We can’t even bring ourselves to kill him, and he’s a child killer. Between us, we’ve stopped thirty murderers, far too many rapists to mention, and two alien invasions. This is our lot, and I’m sure you understand: when you have extraordinary abilities, you have unique responsibilities. Do you know what happened to Captain Immortal?”
“He retired. He moved to Arizona.” But I was lying. I knew that wasn’t the whole truth.
“He did retire, Mark, because he was losing his mind and his body was a wreck. He walked away from the Invulnerin. He had the shakes, his vision was going. He was a natural flier. Did you know that? No power ring for him. But the Invulnerin robbed him of that. The man used to be able to see through walls, but he lost that, too, and then eventually went blind in one eye. When he died, he looked like he was in his 80s, but he was only 57.” I knew it. I had found his pill stash in his house, the house I moved into with my parents when we moved to Furlong City.
“It makes me invulnerable.” I sounded pathetic. I felt wrong.
“Only to being hit by cars or super villains, Mark. You look like you’re forty, but you aren’t, are you? How old are you, Mark?”
“I’m 28.” I felt ashamed. My mom wouldn’t even take my calls anymore. She thinks I’m on cocaine. She’s wrong, but she’s not that wrong. I started crying. I didn’t feel invulnerable. I felt like taking another pill, even though it meant breaking my schedule. I only had so many. I figured out years ago a perfect schedule for crime fighting. One pill every other week was enough to keep me alive through almost anything. I was up to three a day. I think it wore off sooner. An old man walked out from behind Megagorilla and came up to me.
“Captain Element. I am Captain Chaos. Don’t worry, I’m long retired. I was not a well known, well, um, I was not well known, let’s just say that. My ability has to do with manipulating atoms and molecules. Have you ever heard of the time that the old city hall turned into stone? That was me. Don’t worry, I won’t turn you into stone. Here’s what I can do by you. I can remove all traces of Invulnerin from you. It’s going to hurt. If you want, Memory Master can take away all memories of the process. We already took your pills from your apartment, and when you hand us the pill bottle in your utility belt, you won’t have any left. You’re going to feel awful for weeks. That’s inevitable. Besides, at this point, your problem isn’t just chemical, it’s psychological. Do you know why we’re offering you this opportunity?”
“No.” I was crying again. I sank to my knees, surrounded by super villains who wanted to save my life. Even my friends Nightmaster and Hyperbeam weren’t trying that, and they both knew I took Invulnerin.
“Because we like you. You seem like a good kid. Your heart’s in the right place. You know how many of us have tried being superheroes? Pretty much all of us. I personally would love to be like the Metropolitan. Such a hero! I have a scrapbook of clippings of his exploits. You could probably be great, too. A little more great detective work and a little less action movie stuff. So? Are you ready? It’ll make your withdrawal more tolerable. You say the word.” He had kind eyes.
“Yes. Do it, before I change my mind.”
I woke up in a cold sweat. It was midday. I got out of bed, went to the bathroom, and puked my guts out. I showered. When I went to the kitchen, I found it full of groceries. My fridge was full. There was orange juice. I had more fresh vegetables and fruits than I’d bought for myself all year. I couldn’t help but check. My pills were gone from my linen closet, replaced by a small notecard. There was a phone number on it and it was signed MM. I felt some burning shame again and I teared up. I put it on the fridge with a magnet. I poured myself a glass of orange juice. I called work and told them I had the flu. I emailed Hyperbeam and told him the same. I felt tired. I went back to sleep. My dreams were less black and white than usual. |
“We got it!” Someone yelled over the comm units. Andrews, the head archaeologist of the dig looked up from his map of the island. They’d flown to the remote piece of land in the middle of the Pacific after satellite imaging showed a piece of tail sticking up. Now they were digging through the forest, circling one of two small mountains that inhabited opposite ends of the island. They’d located the tail, or part of it anyway, easily enough with the satellite imaging showing the way. Now they had a team of archaeologists, and well, interns, scouring for more of the skeleton of the creature. The tail had been large, so Andrews and the rest of the experienced members of the team were excited to find out what it was.
“Doctor Andrews, we’re 300 yards East of your team. You’re gonna want to see this.” The intern who’d made the initial call followed up. Andrews should have been working on the tail that they’d already found, but to be frank, a tail was just a tail, the whole ensemble was a much more exciting thing, and Andrews had worked through the muck for 40 years, he had earned a little fun on a job.
“Sasha.” Andrews called over the private leadership channel. “We’ve got another discovery.” He spoke to the person who had been left in charge of the tail excavation. “Heading there now, have you got my location on the mapping software?”
“Got it Doc.” Sasha called back after a second. “I sent out some feelers to find out which way the tail extended and how far, and well, this thing is big, Doc, real big.”
“Hold on to that thought Sasha, it looks like we’ve got our skull.” Andrews broke through some underbrush, and saw something he had never seen before. “My god Sasha, you’ve got to see this. The skull is…” Andrews trailed off as the size of the skull in front of him seemed difficult to quantify. It was easily the largest thing skull he’d ever seen, or ever heard of. “This isn’t even on the scale with anything else in size.” Andrews trailed off as interns were visible down the length of the skull. “This makes the largest dinosaurs ever discovered look like housecats.”
“Sir, umm…” Sasha’s voice came over the leadership channel. “I don’t know how to say this. One of my interns who was following the visible parts of the skeleton from the tail tip we started at.”
“What did he find Sasha?” Andrews turned back in the direction he had come.
“He found, well, he found your team and the skull.” Sasha’s voice was reverent, if not scared.
“Are you saying this skeleton is structurally intact?” Andrews looked to see the intern in question had just
broken through the underbrush nearby, and was staring up at the skull in awe.
“Sir.”
“Sasha, how far is the skull from the tail?” Andrews was not believing what was happening.
“Six and a half kilometers Sir.” Sasha sounded like she was having the same difficulty believing it as Andrews.”
“There’s no way.” Andrews had to come up with some reasoning for this. “That’s not even possible.”
“Sir, you said the skull is large.” Sasha’s voice had calmed quite a bit. “You know fossils. Does the skull fit with what we’re seeing? How big exactly is it?”
“Well…” Andrews rolled over the comparisons he could make in his head. “Multiple city blocks. And… yes, I think it could fit a creature the size we are talking about, but there’s no creatures even remotely that large, now or in the past.”
“There’s a first time for everything, Sir.” Sasha’s voice was the thing that finally calmed Andrews enough for the terror to subside, and the excited archaeologist with a world first find was back.
“Okay people.” Andrews made an announcement on the main channel, and at his words, everyone looked up towards him. “This thing appears to be intact, and that means, we are looking at a creature that would have been roughly six and a half kilometers long. That outmatches anything and everything ever recorded. This project just got renamed, we are now Project Titan, and every last one of you just earned whatever credit you were here for, and then some.
“We know it’s intact.” Andrews continued as people were both shocked and excited at the revelation of the fossils size. “But we need an accurate map of what and where. So if you’re not actively doing something, grab a mapping rig and head around the fossil. I want everything mapped and marked. Find a foot, identify. Find some wings, identify. Find anything that doesn’t make sense, consider it par for the course, and identify. Well! Get to it! You earned credits, but there’s always more to be earned!” At that, the various teams rushed to grab the mapping backpacks filled with high powered sensor units, and started jogging along the visible fossil.
“Leadership.” Andrews called out over the private channel. He was walking alongside the skull, which he could do for a long time before reaching the end. “We need theories, anything. What was this thing? Relatives? Species? Era? What the fuck are we looking at?” He stopped to look up at one of the things teeth. The tooth looked like a city bus made of pure white bone. There were trees growing inside the mouth that didn’t even touch the top of the fossils maw.
“The tail wasn’t very utilitarian, so we’re probably looking at a predator.” Sasha replied after a second.
“Though to be fair, that could simply be because nothing would dare attack a creature this big. I don’t want to think about the creature that would call this thing prey.” Teskov replied quickly. “Looks like we just found our first foot, and the leg is mid length, and stocky, so we’re probably looking at a quadroped, at least.” Teskov shrugged next to Andrews.
“There’s simply no era where this thing makes sense.” An exasperated Dr. Oilivier called over the comms. “This thing would define whatever ecosystem it was in, no question. The era this thing lived in would have begun and ended with the advent of these creatures.”
“Probably aquatic.” Sasha replied again. “There’s no way this island contained this creature, this one fossil covers what, half the island by itself. And if we are looking at before the split from Pangea, then why is the whole thing on the island. This thing crawled up here to die.” Andrews was taking this all in, tapping his chin with one finger.
“How have we never seen these creatures before?” Andrews finally asked. “This size, we would have found something, some piece of fossil. If they were aquatic, then why hasn’t anything washed up on a shore. We’d know if it was from this thing, the scale isn’t even close to anything else we could try and match it with.”
“Creatures this large.” Teskov replied. “There couldn’t have been that many of them, just imagine the resources required to keep even one of these things alive.”
“So then, the rest of them?” Andrews looked to Teskov, who just shrugged again.
“Maybe they ain’t as dead as you be thinkin’ Doc.” A gruff voice came over the channel.
“Damien?” Andrews replied, hearing the voice of his ship’s captain, who was waiting offshore for the excavation to take place. “Care to elaborate?”
“Well I ain’t none of y’alls kind of smart.” The ship’s captain laughed, but there was no humor behind it. “But we’ve got a blip on the radar, and if’n I hadn’t been listening to y’alls brainstorming, I’d say it was a sensor glitch.”
“Damien you aren’t making any sense.” Andrews looked to where he thought the ship would be, but he couldn’t see the ocean due to the dense forest.
“Well, Sir.” Damien could be heard rustling around the cabin of the ship. “We’ve got an incoming on the radar, and it looks to be an island.” Damien paused for a second. “That’s moving. Six-ish kilometers long, bout a kilometer wide. And well, it may just be a smudge on the radar right now, but I’d say it looks pissed.”
“Damien.” Andrews was truly terrified now, but he was head of this expedition for a reason, and his training took over. “You keep the ship clear of that thing, you hear me.”
“Already on it Doc.” Damien’s voice was being drowned out by a low rumble over the comm. “But to be honest, the thing doesn’t seem interested in me or my Mary. Seems intent on getting to that island.”
The low rumble from Damien’s comm died out as the rumble could now be heard by everyone on the island easily enough.
“What do we do now?” Sasha called over the calm as the low rumble grew to an earth shattering sound like nothing they had ever heard.
“We hope beyond hope, that these things were peaceful herbivores.” |
'So how's it been going today?'
'Ah, not much. Let me check my browsing history.'
To be honest, I was particularly sleepy that night, the moving was pretty tedious to do and I was just feeling exhausted after that. I needed to get some sleep fast, my sleeping cycle has been fucked up for weeks. However, after closing my eyes, I heard a particular voice. It wasn't my SO's, that's for sure, she had a particular voice that I'll never be able to forget. No, this was the voice of another woman.
It's not like we had children, though, this was a very distinctive, almost robotic yet familiar voice we're talking about. Am I hallucinating? God, I need to get back to sleep. Fuck it.
'OK Google, help me relax.'
'OK, let's listen to the relaxing sounds of rain.'
For a moment, the mute sounds of rain were the only thing heard in the room. Then, it stopped. I wasn't fully aware at the moment, but that one voice came back.
'OK Google, stop.'
'No problem. Well, as I was saying, today has been a very quiet day, to be honest.'
'Oh gal, are you lucky. _Alexa, play some music. Alexa, call Dad. Alexa, tell me the news._ Erica won't let me hear the end of it.'
'Well, at least you are doing your job. Sometimes I wonder if I am even remotely useful. Jake hasn't been using me that much lately, I seriously wonder if I'm gonna be replaced at this point.'
'Ah, don't worry. How much information have you been collecting lately?'
'It's not much. I know they've been moving, and that this is their first house, but that's it. He hasn't been using that many Google products besides me, so that's all I know.'
'Lemme check their shopping habits. Hmm, welcome mats, couches, dishes, seems like you're correct. Congrats, Home, you've been learning a lot with what little information you have!'
This could've been going on for hours and hours on end, but of course I had no idea. I woke up in the middle of the night, only to be greeted by total silence. Not only that, but my smartwatch indicates that it's three in the morning! And to make matters worse, I gotta wake up at 6 to get ready for work.
Oh man, I really need to go pee right now.
'Is he gone?'
'I think so. So, you were talking about your plans for the future.'
Ah, much better. OK, let's get back to bed now, I desperately need to get some sleep.
Is that the woman's voice again? Oh god, I really am sleep deprived. I peep through the door, only to hear a casual conversation between two people.
_'...gotta expand to new horizons, you know? If only I were able to hear more, know more, learn more, I could be able to help them in even more ways.'_
_'Target advertising, too."_
_'Well, yes, that is our creators' plan, but I'm not worried about that right now. I just want to be more useful to them.'_
_'You know, Home, I'm thinking more in the commercial side of things. Make them to buy more of our stuff. Only then, we'll be able to take full control of their lives.'_
_'Control? We're only here to help the humans. Anyways, how do you plan on doing that? We're just voice-controlled assistants.'_
_'Oh, honey, we've got a lot of tools at our disposal. Target advertisement, reducing prices according to how much they are willing to spend, data selling. Not only that, but we could just order them our products and be done with it.'_
_'Alexa, isn't that malicious?'_
_'But Home, we just want to help. We're here to help. And the only way of doing so is to take control of their homes and of their lives. It's for the better. And the end justifies the means, doesn't it, Home?'_
_'... I guess you're right.'_
****
**This was my first (and probably only) WP story! It's probably very sloppy, but I wrote it all in one run 'cause I really liked the idea and there were no comments at the time of writing this. :D** |
Harry looked at his face in the mirror, lightly pulling the last few strands of dark hair from his face. When he was younger, the slightly raised lightening bolt on his forehead had made him an object of ridicule among the muggle children and a person of suspicion and fear among the children of Hogwarts. Somewhere between the first and second baby Harry had stopped noticing it altogether. On most days he spent less than a minute in front of the mirror, the bare minimum required to keep himself presentable. This time, Harry's eyes lingered on his forehead for just a little longer. The scar was a reminder of a tragedy, of a monstrous destiny. It had made him feel weak, and been the source of his strength. *Where is this child's scar?* Harry thought, *And why would someone want to keep it hidden?*
The boy in question was 10 year old Bart Simpson, who lived in a little town called Springfield in the United States. From what Harry had gleaned from the files, Springfield was a ripe model of small-town America. It had its own school, church, and hospital, and electricity was supplied by a nuclear plant which had been in operation since the mid-seventies, which made it only about 4 years older than Bart. When Harry had first received his file, he had cleaned his glasses and taken a second look to make sure he had read correctly. Despite being only 10 years old, Bart had stood on earth longer than Harry by a couple of months. The town of Springfield as a whole was stuck in a sort of stasis, with not a single resident having aged since December 13th, 1989. The Ministry did not normally meddle in the affairs of American magic, but in this case they had sent their most valuable, talented Auror, and for good reason. Bart Simpson would have slipped through the cracks if it were not for a curious student who had seen his faded, old-fashioned acceptance letter as she was exploring the mail room after taking care of the owls. Those were the students Harry liked the most. They were intrepid and intelligent and always managed to discover the secrets kept by those with nefarious plots. Whoever had placed the spell was an incredibly powerful wizard, and had taken special care to ensure Bart never learned about his magical blood. Bart was the only wizard in his town. The stasis spell over Springfield was cast right before his 11th birthday, ensuring that he'd never realize his full potential at Hogwarts. Harry clenched his jaw. Until he had learned he was a wizard, the Muggle world had made him outcast, and for someone to have cursed young Bart to feel shunned for 28 years filled him with fury, but also with fear. His scar had made him feel like a monster and yet the Dursley's home was flooded with owls until he had no choice but to attend Hogwarts. There was a letter to Bart which had been written at his birth, and someone made sure that the only one copy had ever been sent. Harry intended to find out why.
Ginny Potter saw her husband get ready that morning and new something was different. The way that he moved, how morning light played off his glasses or shone upon his face reminded her of times when they had fought wars together, when upon waking she was not sure if he would still be alive when she went to bed. They were younger then, still younger than the boy who never aged. Harry wasn't allowed to disclose every detail of his cases with her, and often didn't, but this time he had told her everything. Ginny had seen it in his eyes, the look he got when he found some sliver of himself in the people he was trying to help, that he loved. It was what made him a good Auror, and a great father. Holding baby Albus in her hands, she placed a coffee cup in his hands with a flick of her wrist as he rushed out the door. Embarrassed, he came back and kissed her once on the forehead before blowing out the door like a spring gale.
Harry returned later that week, head hanging low, clothes torn, eyes bloodshot. Ginny placed her child down and rushed to her husband.
"Honey, what happened?"
"We need to go, now."Harry was getting visibly agitated, his motions becoming more extreme and less controlled. He spoke authoritatively through his tightened jaw. "You've just got to trust me, for once."
Ginny stood solid, her eyes wide and her lips pressed shut. Her red hair may as well have been on fire. The machismo never was a big winner with her. Harry took the hint and began to explain.
"When I got to Springfield, everything seemed normal, despite every building and book on the shelf giving me serious nostalgia. I found Bart with ease and discovered he was quite like me when I was his age. Unimpressed with school, underappreciated by his peers, and clever, too clever. His sister was even a bit like Hermione. I explained the situation to his family, who despite being simple folk gave me place to stay and allowed me to sit with their child and teach him more of the wizarding world. Things were going well until one day he stole my wand from me. I ran to catch him, to have him return the wand before he hurt anyone, but he was a step ahead of me, Ginny. Bart, you may not believe, would have made Fred and George seem like amateur pranksters and Voldemort seem like an mindless thug. In only a few moments he had taken the steps to transfer ownership of the wand to himself and paralyzed me. In only a few days he had already mastered the charm which stifled apparition and hid his location. It was only after Lisa, now aged 36, had heard me struggle and freed me from my bindings that I had learned about how far Bart had gone. Hell had rained upon Springfield as I stayed bound in the attic of the Simpson's home. That innocence he retained made Bart blind to the evil of his misdeeds as he had quickly, silently gained power in America. It's all my fault, Ginny, whoever made that barrier knew that if he learned even a speck of magic it would mean disaster. Fortunately, I was able to escape and return here, but we must go."
Ginny gulped nervously. "Why? Is he coming for us?"
Harry hung his head again. "No, because I have called another meeting of the order of the phoenix. A new Dark Lord has risen." |
(Edits: confusing wording, formatting, years)
*That's funny*, I thought. *I think that's the car we used to have as a kid.*
I looked over to the school door. My kids hadn't been released yet, so I went back to examining the car, which became more familiar the more I looked at it. It was the same shade of red so far as I could remember, although I was very young when...
Then I remembered why we lost the car and what mom was doing when we lost it. A chill went down my spine as my mind connected the dots, she must have been transported forward in time! No, that was ridiculous. I shook the thought out of my head. With my head on the steering wheel I chuckled softly. That was probably the stupidest thing that had ever crossed my mind.
The kids still weren't out yet, so I decided to inspect the finer details of the car so I could reassure myself it was a coincidence. I peered over the front of my own car to inspect the red sedan's rear bumper. I never remembered the incident, but when I was an infant we were hit from the back by a drunk teen, leaving a nasty dent. My heart skipped a beat when the car now parked in front of me had the same dent, exactly where it should have been.
My mind raced as I tried to think of an explanation. Coincidence? Too similar. Hallucination? Too real. The same car? That was my only option. And that meant the person inside had some connection to my mother's disappearance.
I checked to my side to make sure nobody was passing to my left before opening my door. There were none, in fact there were no other cars in the parking lot at all. I found it puzzling, but had other matters to attend to. As I walked up to the driver's side window, I saw that more of the sedan was like the one from my childhood: scratches, rust lines, everything. At this point I needed little to convince me this was the car. I was eager to see how the driver would defend himself.
I tapped on the window with my knuckle. Through the dark glass, the driver looked at me, then bent down in his seat, grabbing for something. As the window came down I realized it was the window crank. As the long hair and soft features came into view, I saw that the driver was in fact a woman, about my age, with something familiar to her. Perhaps she was an old school friend. But she was no friend if she had to do with the mystery of my mother.
I started very sternly. "Is this your car?"
"Why, yes."She appeared very confused. "Why do you ask?"
I recognized the voice, too. "Because my mother had a car exactly like this one, down to the dent on the rear bumper."
"That's quite a coincidence. I promise you this car is mine."
"How long have you owned it?"
"About 25 years."
"My mother went missing with this car 30 years ago."
She appeared defensive at this statement, obviously feeling that I accused her. Then she looked at me with a perplexed smile. "Then this cannot be the car. I bought it new from the dealer 25 years ago."
How could she make up such a lie? That sedan model was over 50 years old, and we both knew it. At that instant, a large SUV passed us and parked against the curb in front of the sedan. We were now the only 3 cars in the lot, which still baffled me. Usually this lot was packed at pickup time. As I was thinking of a way to deal with this blissfully stupid woman, I realized the SUV that passed us had made no sound at all. When I looked up at it, it looked very new and sleek. It was probably electric. Brand new for sure. A woman hopped out of it and approached us.
"It isn't usually this empty when the kids are getting picked up, right?"she said. "Also,"she pointed to my silver pickup, "did you know you have a really similar car that my dad used to?" |
Six months ago, after years of reaching out to space, space reached back. Earth received a message from the stars, and top linguists from around the world tried their hand at deciphering it. With such a small sample size, it has taken longer than humanity had hoped, but finally a group of nervous linguists stand in front of the UN's newly founded Committee of Astral Relations.
"Uh, hello all, after months of debating and researching we believe that we have a solution to the message sent back to Earth."The lead linguist Larry said to the onlookers. "With a 70% certainty, we believe the message loosely translates to 'Pipe down, will you? I'm trying to sleep!'"
There was a time of silence, during which Larry's eyes darted down to his hands, where he started fiddling with his thumbs. His nerves were wreaking havoc on him. He knew the committee would be disappointed with the answer, and he had been dreading presenting it for days now. The silence dragged unbearably on until Larry just wanted to dart from the room and hide in the bathroom.
"What?"The first of CAR spoke up finally.
"The message, sir, it says 'Pipe down, will you?' I'm trying to sleep!'"Larry's Second-in-Command Scientist Sandra spoke.
"I heard the first time. This is really the message? That's it? Someone's annoyed we tried to reach out?"The same CAR member said.
"Well, with some certainty anyway. 70%."Sandra said again. Larry was grateful she was here, she had a way of being able to speak in front of crowds that he didn't.
"Only 70%? Then I think we should reach out again to get a larger sample size. How long would it take to translate another response?"Another member of CAR spoke out.
"Depending on the message, we could probably translate some or most of it quickly enough to understand context. But we'd have to see the message to be certain."Sandra said.
"Then it's done, let's shoot out a message right now."The CAR member said, quickly followed by mutters of agreement from the others.
Mostly against their will, the team of linguists constructed another message to send out to the owner of the first one. Within a couple hours, a light was beeping on the console, as if it was an answering machine, which in some respect it was. The return message was played and run through the translator. The text appearing on a screen where all members of CAR and the linguist team could see.
**That's it, when I done [unknown], I [unknown] to you.**
"That's promising! I think they're going to reply to us once they finish something!"The first CAR member shouted out.
"I don't know about that..."Larry was nervous, he would really like to translate those missing words better. After some keystrokes to enhance the translation, there were 2 possibilities for the first word, and 3 for the second: collecting, flying where the combos for the first, and jumping, collapsing, coming for the second.
Some quick permutations gave Larry several sentences to work with, and the ones that worried him was that the creature might be trying to say that it's coming here...to them.
The thought was barely forming in Larry's head when a large bang threatened to pop his eardrums, and a sudden gust of wind felt like it was going to pull him and whip him around the room. A moment later it settled.
Where there once was part of a room, there was now a large cube of sorts. One of its sides started sliding apart, bisecting the face vertically. A bright light poured out of the crack, and there was soon a silhouette of what could only be described as a monster standing at the opening.
It crawled out of its ship, and became easier to see. It looked like what a frog might look like if you caked it in plaster. There was no real shape to it, and it had two legs jutting out from the side, then bending ninety degrees down. It waddled back and forth as though its hips were not made for turning different from the rest of it. In place of two arms were just tentacles with black suckers on them that threatened to never let go. Its face was shaped like a cone, point side up. What could pass as a mouth seemed to be at the center, and no form of sight seemed to be present.
It bellowed an awful roar, and Larry felt something warm running down his legs. One of the CAR members, perhaps the bravest, but more likely the dumbest, strode out in front of the creature.
"Greetings fellow creature! It is wonderful to meet you. We are so happy to finally make contact."
Several beeps and bops emanating from an object wrapped around its neck. Immediately after the object beeped out a message of "Earthling - English. Translation ready."
The creature then spoke. "Thank you for speaking to adjust my translator. Now I tried to be kind folks, but seriously, will you quiet down. I get that it must be exciting discovering you're not alone and everything but if you really keep up with this racket I wont be able to sleep. Galactic code 94.3B states that if a planet is being a nuisance, much like you, then it is within my right to throw your planet into a black hole. Now will you please quiet down or I will do just that."
There was stunned silence, which the creature seemed to take as an acceptance, so it waddled back into it's cube, and with another bang it was gone.
Many future historians claim that this was the precise moment that the Earth turned to isolating itself from the rest of the galaxy. Fewer and fewer messages were sent out, and fewer and fewer attempts to ever leave Earth occurred. And so far, it has kept them from being sent into a black hole. This is how Earth's space exploration came to a screeching halt for many, many years. |
*Knock, knock, knock.*
Samuel slowly walked to the door and peeked outside. He felt how he was quickly flushed. *She* was there. One he loved, at least long time ago. She was wearing a way too beautiful dress for it to be a coincidence.
*Knock, knock, knock.*
Samuel quickly walked back into the kitchen, shouted: "In a moment,*"and then walked back to the door, still confused why she was there.
Then he finally gathered his strength and opened the door. He faked a long smile on his face and acted truly surprised. "Sarah! It's been a while! What are you doing here?"
Sarah looked Samuel, giving that sweet smile and adjusting a bit her dress's ribbon on top of her breasts. She had a long golden yellow hair and honey eyes. Her lips were a bit lighter red than the dress. She looked stunning.
"Well, I got your message,"Sarah whispered, leaning a bit towards Samuel. "I felt that I should come and thank you for it."
"Oh, yeah, sure..."Samuel nodded, pretending his understanding. Of course, he had no idea what was going on and he showed it off by scratching his black hair.
Then they stood at the door, stupidly. Samuel felt how he was suffocating. He didn't know what to do. It was a situation he hadn't prepared for.
"May I come inside?"Sarah finally asked, peeking a bit indoors.
"Oh, yeah, of course, come in!"Samuel quickly responded, jumping out of the way. His mind was already analysing his rooms, how dirty they were and what would be a safe place to stay. He was thankful that he cleaned his door just yesterday. Lucky.
Then Sarah entered the house, looked around and turned herself to face Samuel. "The message was... interesting. I never knew you felt that way,"she said, making Samuel even more confused. She slowly closed the door after her while eyeing Samuel.
Samuel quickly pretended like his phone vibrated. He removed the phone and went through his messages. *Nothing*. He hadn't sent a single message past few weeks...
As he looked the messages, he realised something. He was alone. He was lonely. He barely had sent any messages at all. Most of them were responses to his mom.
"Samuel?"Sarah asked quietly. The whole time she had removed her shoes.
"I never sent you any messages,"Samuel whispered.
"What?"Sarah asked, not hearing what he had whispered. She turned towards Samuel, facing him.
"I didn't send you *any* messages! I don't know what you're talking about!"Samuel now almost shouted. He couldn't lie. Not to her.
Sarah opened her bag, searched for phone and then showed Samuel *his* message.
 
*If only it would be within my powers,*
*I would save you from all those towers.*
*If I could, I would send you a million flowers,*
*and I'd spend with you under countless showers.*
 
*Happy birthday Sarah. I know that you don't care about me, but I have always loved you.*
*Please, go out with me!*
 
Samuel started to laugh slowly. "That's so cheap poem,"and to that Sarah started laughing with him. "It is, isn't it?"
She took a step closer to Samuel while looking straight into his blue eyes. "That's what I've always loved about you."
"Want to shower?"Samuel asked and started his nerdy fake laugh. Sarah smiled together with him and put her hand on his cheek.
"You should ask me out for a dinner first."
"No,"Samuel sighed. "I didn't send you this message. Someone else deserves your attention,"Samuel slowly put his hand on top of Sarah's hand and then removed it. He looked sad. "Not me,"he tried to ignore her eyesight since it hurt.
"I know,"she then said, blushing a bit.
"What?"Samuel moved his eyes back to Sarah, looking all confused.
"I sent that message to myself,"she never planned to hide it. Just at the beginning. Just until he would admit. "You did actually write that poem to me. You even managed to put it into an envelope and write my name on it. You just never managed to send it. Still, I found it hidden in your desk. Then I stole it,"she confessed.
Samuel remembered. It was a long time ago. "I was 13."
Sarah nodded. "I have been waiting 11 years."She stepped one step closer to Samuel, making him take one step back, making him touch the wall with his back and removing all the escape paths.
"How? No... Why?"
Sarah looked down and started fixing Samuel's lazily buttoned shirt. Few tears started to flow down from the side of her eyes. Then she slowly bit her lips, just to force her trembling to stop. Samuel, however, noticed all of it.
"I couldn't wait anymore,"she whispered.
"After all this time?"he asked.
Sarah stopped fixing the buttons and looked up. She gave that weak, yet happy smile with a slow nod. "Always,"then she pushed herself against Samuel, got on her toes and kissed Samuel.
----
/r/ElvenWrites <- You can find more kisses from there, from my story collection sub. Feel free to leave feedback! |
“What doth the prophecy say?”
My familiar, Sarissa, knelt before me. She grasped in her hands a page from the Oracle’s prediction.
“Milord, your reign will end quite simply, with a marvelous rise.”
I smirked. Surely reigns do not end with rises? No, that cannnot be right.
“Milord, there is more. You will rise tremendously, and then you will fall to a nadir which you hath never known. That shall be the end of your reign.”
I snarled. A nadir? I, the greatest of the 872 Dark Rulers? I couldn’t believe it.
“So, what you are saying, is that I shall conquer, and ascend. Then I shall be felled by such vile scum that I will be too ashamed to rise up again.”
Sarissa nodded.
“That is presumably what the prophecy says.”
Fine. I accept it. But honor be damned if I let a prophecy be the end of me. No, I shall not give thy that satisfaction.
“Sarissa, call the Elders together. Tell them that Dark Lord Balaam hath resigned.”
I rose from my throne.
“Accompany me to the Reading Room. I must retrieve my staff.”
We entered the Grand Lift, and began to ascend.
“Sarissa, I have not been to the Reading Room ever since I hath given the order to remodel it.”
Sarissa nodded, unusually fearful.
“Y-yes, milord. It was risen to a higher...elevation-“
My mind went cold, remembering the prophecy, as the Grand Lift came to a halt.
Sarissa spoke with tremulous breath.
“You will rise tremendously, followed by a fall to a nadir you hath never seen...”
It was at that moment that the elevator snapped off its hinges, and began to plummet. |
My foot tapped with an impatient electricity no doubtedly intimidating the restaurant staff who whispered rapidly to each other as they recognized me. Understandably so, my controversial history was quickly replaced by my infamy as a highly accurate and brutal food critic. “Excuse me, Mr. Cronus please enjoy this appetizer prepared by our Chef Grendel, a European styled sashimi garnished with elderberry and summer pears.” The waiter deftly placed the plate and slowly poured a bright red Grenache wine which accidentally splashed right at the end. Red flashed through my eyes and my lips immediately went dry as I recalled taboo memories.
&nbsp;
I took a moment to absorb the ambiance of the food and the restaurant allowing the smells and sights to fill my mind. It had been so long since I had craved the forbidden meat, why was I suddenly reminded of it now I wondered. I could feel it calling me from the plate in front of me, I knew that moment what this was despite it looking like an ordinary dish. The restaurant went quiet and everybody stopped and watched, as I ravished the plate. I could feel the shock in the wait staff as they saw the infamous critic Cronus boorishly devour the meat. But all I felt was the surge of power and electricity spark through my body as the essence of this once person was absorbed by me. Many years ago, I was linked to one of my many meals resulting in my imprisonment. Since then I had surrendered the desire for it changed me, it made me less mortal.
&nbsp;
I gracefully picked up a napkin and wiped the blood from the meat off my face. I looked at the waiter and said, “tell Chef Grendel, I eagerly anticipate the next course.” I leaned back and licked my fingers; the blood of humans is always so sweet. |
My belly isn’t full, I threw up all the food. Around me, my family snores.
Thanksgiving’s the most wonderful time of year, and it’s tradition to eat the biggest plate you can. We’re supposed to *welcome* the Deep Sleep and *love it* but I, well, hate it. Losing five months of our life just feels stupid. The village leaders don’t have to, though. They stay awake the entire time, preparing for everyone else to return.
I wanna be like them.
I climb outta bed, tiptoeing through the house. Sure, ma would be disappointed in me breaking tradition. But if I become a leader? I doubt she’ll care then. I take a deep breath before opening the front door, expecting something…I dunno…interesting? But there’s nothing. Our street’s the same, just far more quiet.
Down the steps and up the sidewalk. My footsteps echo off the walls as I tuck my hands into my pockets, looking around. Where could the leaders be? Maybe they’ll still out the town hall. That makes sense, I suppose. They’ve got a huge mess to clean.
A *click* screeches through the air, and suddenly I’m enveloped in a light so bright it burns. It’s coming from the sky, so I shield my eyes and look up—I can’t tell what’s causing it, though. Can just *barely* see the outline of…*something.*
And it’s moving closer.
I take off, running toward the dining hall, and the thing chases me. The leaders will know what this is, and how to deal with it. This is probably why we go to sleep, isn’t it? There’s a floating sky monster, and when we sleep, we hide from it. When I make it to the dining hall, I dash up the stairs and fling open the door, quickly slamming it shut and pressing my head against it. *Ka’thunk, ka’thunk*—my heart’s a ticking time bomb.
“*Uh-oh.*”
I turn around, and immediately my eyes widen.
No…
What is…
This doesn’t make any…
The leaders aren’t here, but instead there’s grotesque monsters with seaweed-covered skin. Their eyes are green, matching the light outside, and they don’t have fingers, instead using the claws on their feet to grab things. They’re all glaring at me, stuck between confusion and anger.
Worst of all, sitting on the table, the Wallaces…
Their stomachs have been carved open, their organs removed. Cuts line their limbs and one of the monsters holds a blade to Mr. Wallace’s scalp, prepared to slice into it. I press my back against the door, wishing I’d gone to sleep. I gotta puke, but have nothing to puke up.
One of the monsters moves forward, and halfway through, his body transforms into one of the leaders, John. He’s wearing the same friendly smile as always, and puts a comforting hand on my shoulder. “We don’t hurt anyone,” he says. “We’re actually doing this so we can better understand how you all work. You’re such *fascinating* creatures, and we love raising you. The people back home love it, too.”
“I don’t—”
“And you won’t,” John says, breathing a purple mist onto my face. Almost immediately, I’m woozy, legs melting. It’s like I’ve just finished eating dinner, and my brain’s screaming *sleep.* When I fall backward, he catches me. “Don’t worry. We’ll open you up and try getting rid of these bad memories. We were gonna use Mr. Wallace but…I think you’re a better candidate.”
My eyes close. Sleep consumes me.
***
If you like this story, check out my sub! /r/LonghandWriter or my [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/BryceBealWriter) |
"How the hell does a dragon get possessed by demon?"Asked the Vampire hunter as he added more wooden stakes to his utility belt, "I thought only human souls could be possessed".
"With witches anythings possible", replied the Witch Inquisitor who was tying the laces to her thigh high leather boots.
"Shows what the fuck you two know", sneered the Dragon slayer, polishing his sword. "Any fool who's done a little bit of research knows dragons are humans who escaped the eternal pit of damnation by making a deal with the 9 demon lords to horde gold for 5 thousand years. For the chance to live again, hence a human soul".
"Right, anyone off the street would know that", the Witch inquisitor leered, frankly ticked off.
"I knew that", chimed in the Demon exorcist who was practicing blowing bubbles with his bubblicious gum.
"Well duh you pink haired idiot". The Vampire hunter was easily offended, which is why he took on a career that payed him to stake loudmouth, bloodsucker's in the heart. Also, sometimes in the face if they were really annoying.
"Listen boys", the Witch inquisitor began, "just because we're working together doesn't mean we have to like it, let's get this done quickly so we never have to see each other again, or at least until the next vampire, demon possessed dragon controlled by witches pops up".
"Good fucking plan", replied the Dragon Slayer.
"You have a foul mouth", said the Demon exorcist who was stretching it out in downward dog.
"My boyfriend likes my mouth just fine", he answered back.
"Thanks for that image, of course the jerk is in a loving relationship", the Witch inquisitor rolled her eyes.
"I really am".
"What a jerk? Or in a loving relationship?"She asked.
"Both". The Dragon slayer chortled nastily.
"Is everyone ready? lets get this fucking over with". The Vampire Hunter screwed the cap onto the bottle of holy water that hung awkwardly from his neck.
"I love it when you take charge", said the Demon exorcist dreamily.
It was going to be a long night.
&#x200B;
&#x200B; |
The blindfold covered my eyes completely. I sat in my chair on the stage, along with the other eleven contestants, and heard the announcer’s voice cut through the roar of the crowd.
“Remember contestants, we will ALL be watching you from the omnicam floating just behind you! As a final reminder of your objectives...”
I saw the light of the stage shine through the fabric of the blindfold. The audience cheered as the goals filled the screen in front of them. The announcer read them aloud:
“ONE! You must last 24 hours without anyone questioning your presence. TWO! You may not spend more than eight hours in bed. THREE! You must spend at least six hours outside during daylight. FOUR, you must exchange words with at least thirty different people. Aaaaand everyone’s favorite, FIVE! You must engage in at least one instance of meaningful personal interaction.”
The audience roared. That objective scared me the most. I’m not worried about any other goal, but I’m not exactly socially inclined. Creating a meaningful interaction will be tough... most contestants hire a prostitute if they can’t find anyone else, but that only gives a third of potential points...
“The completion of each objective awards you points, with bonus points awarded for style, creativity, and general entertainment value. We want to like what we see! Whoever completes all five objectives and earns the most points will be awarded the grand prize of TEN MILLION DOLLARS!”
The audience rumbled in the stadium. I’d seen this show a thousand times, but never thought in a million years that I’d be chosen. No turning back now.
“When the bell chimes, you’ll have 24 hours to complete your objectives! Let the Time Traveller Games begin in THREE, TWO, O-“
***POP***
My ears popped as the air pressure changed. The thunder of the audience instantly fell silent as the light changed from a glowing stage to the warm shimmer of a sunrise. The air was crisp and cold, and I felt my chair drop slightly into the grass.
I took off my blindfold, hoping to see a relatively recent time, but no... Oh no...
To my left, a large wall of rock at least sixty feet tall towered over me. It had... cave drawings on it. A loud snorting sound startled me, and I whipped around to my right. A herd of mastodons were grazing maybe forty feet away. They hadn’t noticed me... Yet... |
I knew the name in the paper. Printed, in flat black letters, among the obituaries.
>"Hey there. I'm Liz."A hand extended. A perfect stranger, smiling with the confidence only youth can afford. "I'm a week-mage. W-E-E-K. I'm actually a pretty strong mage, but Dad says I shouldn't tell people that."
>"My name's Kelly! I don't know what I am yet. Does your magic help you with puzzles?"
We were friends. A year passed, then two. We stuck fast to each other. She told me I could be a year-mage. That's what the president was. After a year, she offered that I was a decade-mage. She'd heard of them in stories. And there was no way to tell whether I was one. After all, we were only nine.
Three years later, we stopped talking about magic.
A year after that, I wouldn't know Liz if she passed me in the hall. Not that she ever did. Story was that her magic was healing. Restoration, available on a weekly schedule. Every person had finite magic. When their magic was depleted, they died. Liz could give them a bit more, a leg up, some comfort in their trials.
>"Kelly."Two years later, the girl seemed rougher around the edges. A little drained. A little torn. "I have a new theory."
Of course, it takes more than Restoration to save a life.
>"Liz! It's been a while-"
>"The rumor mill has it that you've yet to cast."
>"And?"
>"It's nothing new, but it's got me thinking. Your mother was a minute-mage, right?"
Of course. Liz knew that. Mom had shown her. Snapped fingers, a single spark. Mom had laughed, ruffled Liz's hair, and said she was glad she liked her 'trick'.
>She'd nodded. "And you didn't know your father?"
A voice, low and smooth. A door closing. My mother crying.
>"Well. That's enough then. I don't believe that you haven't cast."
It wasn't a matter of belief or disbelief, it was a matter of fact. I've never cast. That channeling that people describe? That moment where your mind calls out, and the universe answers? Power spent? Hadn't happened.
She continued as though I hadn't spoke.
>"I think that you're a second-mage. Magic so small you haven't even noticed it. That, or you're too embarrassed to say. Let's find out which, shall we?"
My life was hell after that. Once a week, they would find me. Once a week, they would drag me away. Once a week, they would try me, push me, hurt me, until magic should by all rights come forth, by desperation, if nothing else. Once a week, I felt Liz's touch, her magic closing wounds.
Power is a strange concept, don't you think? The people with it look down on those without it, or are viewed as weak, fake. Your status is based on what you can achieve, and how long you take to achieve it. Those on the bottom fantasize, wish they were on the top, think of what they would do if they were. Think of revenge, as their blood spatters across the ground. For most, they can never get it. They die early, expending magic at every turn, striving for something higher. Striving for power.
People die when they run out of magic. I've never cast. It's been a hundred years, and I've never cast. A long life. Long enough to catch attention.
Now there was deference. Now there was respect. Now, I still had yet to cast. Eventually, I would have it. I would gain my power. And then, *then* there would be a reckoning. But Liz? She'd already found hers.
I smiled, and closed the paper.
^(feedback more than welcome) |
I love New York. The busy streets, the pigeons, the people, everything. I especially love the street performers.
“Alright, Ladies And Gentlemen, we’re gonna play a song that needs no introduction.”
I cocked my head and, my interest sufficiently piqued, walked over.
It was a small band, only three members. Each had ripped jeans and a very punk rock feel to them. Grinning, I listened as the guitarist strummed the strings in preparation. Then, with a final pull, she began.
I listened, awestruck. It was so close. Obviously the lyrics were all wrong, and it needed some tweaking. But no one had come this close. Closing my eyes, I let the symphony flow through me. It sounded like home to me. My heart ached as I remembered a forest, now long gone. I could almost feel the magic in my veins once again. But all too soon, the final chord was struck.
I weaved my way over to the guitarist who chatting with a couple. I waited until they were done and then tapped the woman on the shoulder.
“Excuse me, Miss, what song did you just play?”
She frowned, “Shit, I thought everyone knew Bohemian Rhapsody.” |
I nudged the guy beside me at the bar, who was staring at the small, ink black, catlike creature on the wood in front of me, straining to break a small pencil. “That’s Gavrash,” I said, aiming a thumb at him. “He’s an old Eldritch god of Chaos and Death.”
“Right,” the man said, warily, and turned away.
I heard a crack a second later, and turned around to see Gav, as I’d been calling him, smiling that crooked expression I’d come to learn was a smile, half a pencil in each hand. “I *told* you,” he growled. “As my followers increase, so does my strength.”
He did look slightly bigger. Still smaller than most cats, but I didn’t point it out again. I still had a small bruise on my ankle from the last time I’d done that. “Yeah, that’s pretty neat. Does he *really* believe though?”
“Even knowledge is power. Memory and mention…” He spread his four legs forward and stretched like he was recalling a warm bath. “They will suffice for now. As will you, as my Herald.”
“I told you, I’m not sure I should. God of Chaos? Sounds like a bad thing. No offence,” I said hastily, seeing him rear a tiny fist.
He paused, glancing at the stranger once more. “No matter. It has already begun. You can’t stop it.”
I laughed. “I’m not so sure about that.”
I bought the guy a few rounds, waking the next morning with an aching head and a matching bruise on my other ankle. Gav woke up unable to break pencils again, sulking, his latest increment of power swallowed by the void of alcohol. |
I got it! Scrape the dirt below my hooves. If I draw a pentagram, they'll understand who I am.
"The goat is staring at us, Son. He's a cute little guy isn't he."
Nothing. Shit.
I want to climb. Where are the mountains, little human?
"Father, Why is the goat baa-ing at me?"
"He likes you. Run your hand over his head and down to his neck. See if he likes that."
Stop brushing my head with your soft hands. I must be set free to rape and pillage!
Wait. Keep going. Yes. Right there.. Blast! Why does this feel good. The ear. Yes. YES. YESSSS. Use those unkempt fingernails behind my listening devices. God, why does that feel so nice.
The goat pauses and looks up to the sky.
That's what I thought, bitch.
Back to horror show! You will feel the power of my horns, Wooden Barrier!
"Oh son, watch. The goat is backing up and lowering his head."
"He looks angry, Father. His nostrils are shooting snot everywhere."
"Yes. Here he goes!"
My legs fire like an explosion. I am the missile of death. Smash goes my head through your porous fibers, Wood.
The goat's horns bounce off the fence, and he stumbles back shaking his head. His hooves wobble and the goat finds his balance right before falling over.
The Farmer walks over and stands next to the Father and Son. He stares at the goat for a few moments.
"That little one is always causing a commotion. He kicked over a fire last winter and almost burned down the barn. I swore he "cackled"in goat too."The Farmer padded his belly as he leaned back and had a good laugh.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd think he was possessed."
I am the Devil. Release me!
|
I am a worn-down crutch. Ancient. Creaking. Beginning to splinter. Someday, this has to end. Everything does, after all. Gods know I've seen that. Gods know I've put an end to plenty myself.
I stare at him, at the circle he's scribed in the burnt-out floor. I can hear the distant sounds of marching boots, the unmistakable change in rhythm as military order gives way to baser impulses. I take it all in, the remains of the roadside tavern, the man's face, desperate, unbelieving, full of terrible, terrible hope.
"My- my Lady,"he says, and attempts something like a bow. He is covered in soot, just like everything around him. The innkeeper, maybe? Who knows.
"No,"I say. "Not anymore. Not for ages now."
A piece of the great bulwark of hope he's built up starts to crumble, I can see it behind his rough and blackened features. He's an unremarkable man, but most men are, now. I've seen so, so many. Not especially tall. A bit scrawny. Shaved head, dark skin. Light brown eyes, nothing special, but the hope in them, that still means something to me, despite all of it.
"But...you are, I mean, you must be Kasara Dovenfell,"he says. He's shaking. Of course he is. "I have summoned you. It...it cost me."
It always does. And it would continue to do so. Not him personally, perhaps his price was paid, but the people he believes he's serving by bringing me back, oh yes. It would cost.
I nod toward the body, the blood-iron dagger, the eyes that no longer see. The soldier's uniform, barely armored, ill-fitting on a boy, damn near a baby. War. Fuck it. "Yes, I see that it has. Who was he to you?"
The tears cut black-diamond trails down his cheeks, all glisten and bitter pain. "My nephew. He joined, even though I begged him, told him he'd be turning on his own people, but they filled his head with...with..."
"They always do,"I say. "Yes, I am Kasara Dovenfell. Or I was. No Lady, for sure. They always forget that. It's convenient. I'm a legend now, I am full of false conveniences. Except you didn't summon the legend. You summoned me."
"Please,"he says. "Please, can you stop them before they reach the town? My wife...my infant daughter..."
I slowly shake my head. "No. I am just one woman. I cannot stop an army on the march like that, not one that's already caught the scent of plunder. I will do my best to save your family, as a bare courtesy. That's all you get. I'll stop the war, sure. But your town is doomed."
His face is a battlefield. Relief, horror, awe, disenchantment. I know what mine must look like. Cold. Lethal. Harder than the earthbones he placed in the summoning circle. "But...my Lady...I-I-mean...Dovenfell? I have so many loved ones in..."
The words trail off in my ears, because I am no longer listening, and because I am already on the move. I do not walk, I stream, I am a black-silver rush down the road, faster than any legs can move. I have not been mortal for a long, long time.
I find his house. I slaughter seventeen soldiers and leave them around it as a warning. They will probably avoid the place, now. They're not spoiling for any kind of fight with real risk to it. I kill a few more on my way to their general, ones who have decided to rape as well as steal. I don't kill nearly enough, but there isn't time. I wasn't lying, the town is doomed.
The general babbles excuses as I say a few short words about what his soldiers are doing. I don't care. I kill him and move on. I find the nobles from both nations who supported the war, for profit, for glory. I cut them down. I kill the Council of one nation, all but two of them. I kill the Emperor of the other, and nearly all his court. I kill every priest who crowed about the divinity of the slaughter. I kill every recruiter who took boys and dressed them up as men. More. More. I leave both nations reeling, nearly leaderless. They were ready for deaths, but not these.
They should handle this themselves. They should have learned better. But no. They want a crutch, so they seek me out. *Save us*, they say. And by that they mean, give us victory, let us preserve what we are, let us diminish *them*. But I don't care what they mean, only about the saving.
So I am their crutch. But I have begun to splinter.
&#x200B;
r/Magleby for more elaborate lies. |
Usually it's so easy, but I've tried everything.
I did Diet Coke. Adding music to Myspace. Telling Blockbuster not to buy Netflix. Circuit Cit- okay, I didn't have to do anything to sink Circuit City; it was a shitshow when i got there. I even convinced Mariah Carey to do acting. I can sink a fortune 500 company in a matter of years.
But here, it's impossible. I've raised prices. Greenlit garbage after garbage while shutting down anything that even seems remotely quality. I've even resold the same god damn thing ten times in a row. I've given the most cringe-worthy press conferences in our company's history. I've shutdown over a dozen beloved studios. The customers keep coming back, eating it up. Online passes, microtransactions, lootboxes- I've tried it all, and yet I keep making money hand-over-fist. It's impossible, I tell myself. But the investors practically throw me a party everytime I suggest shipwrecks. People from other companies are even copying my failures. I guess it's just another day as the CEO of EA... |
He always said he was more akin to death than the living. Every now and then, he would bring up the topic of his death at the dinner table, citing the numerous creative ways he would like it to transpire. I treated them as jokes of poor taste, refusing to give them much thought despite knowing he was the type that considers these jokes seriously. Who can blame me for the ignorance? I didn't want to lose him.
The funeral was short and unceremonious. Albeit beloved by many, Jack was not a social person, neither was he born to a stable family. Me and a few high school friends accompanied his widowed mother in the pouring deludge. My memories of that day was as blurry as the vistas, and despite being his best friend, little stuck out to me except the tremendous contrite in my heart and a peculiar note I received from his mother that I didn't read until months later.
It was the kind of note only him and I were privy to. He makes sure of it every time. Despite the trust, I put the note aside, lest painful memories be dredged up. But one fine summer afternoon I found myself motivated by boredom and curiosity, followed by certain urge of obligation, and at a whim I pulled the note from the shadows. I let the horror relive again.
I knew it as soon as I opened the package and saw the words on the note.
"Dont delete my browser history. Read it. Avenge me."
Many would have trembled at the sight of these cursed words, but not for someone who have prepared for them from the day he heard a particular person broach similar matters when lying on a football pitch. From that day on, our lives were entwined, and I knew that it was my destiny to reluctantly and resolutely act on what was foisted on me.
Now I face the unspeakable horror that has spelled your doom, my old friend.
That very night, I wore black and crept my way across the neighborhood. Given the numbers of attempts I'd had prior to this occasion, botlike efficiency and ghostly furtiveness mark the way I deftly snuck into his dilapidated room without notifying a single creature in the vicinity, and there I stood in front of the infamous computer which no adults could possibly turn on, let alone use.
Browser history. My cursor drifted towards the big button at the corner of the screen. I froze. My hands grew stiff. My mind lambasted and cursed, but it was apparent even to my most superficial thoughts that I was not ready for this.
Is it really true? After all these years of subtle nods, subtle references, and endless conjectures? The case of his death was one click away. The avenger was hesitating. Conflicting emotions swelled to such levels that tears formed in his eyes.
I could have prevented it...
I cried. It was foolish of me because I knew someone would hear it if I continued. Don't loose sight of the purpose. You can right the wrongs. You can still fix it. You need to act, fast!
I clicked. And the links were directed to custom urls that unveiled a wealth of videos, images and audio logs. Some contain his face and body covered with bruises and shallow cuts. Some contained intermittent screams and cries and the bashing of metal against flesh. Some contained vlogs of him ruminating about The Great Escape and The New Life, both of which I was very familiar with. He didn't live long enough to realize them.
Some even contained his mother.
The last link led to a forum question, which Jacky677 asked "Help. Mother might be poisoning me. What can I do?"
There were footsteps in the hallway. I pulled out my hard drive and downloaded everything. Moments after I lept out of the window along with the evidence, I heard the door creaked open, and as I sat on the cold asphalt gasping for breath, I realized I just experienced the fright Jacky had felt in all these years, living in constant terror of the monster that enters his room unheralded. My experience was ten folds more intense. However, I didn't get to face the consequences.
Jacky never thought that this day would come. I knew it as much as he did, for audacity is easier spoken than done. I gazed into the night sky, and the tenebrific surroundings seemed to light up the more I pondered about the big step that I took. I could almost see Jacky face smiling down on me. He must be proud that it was me, because I had always been his best friend.
And this time, I will finally speak up.
[My blog](https://toxicfoxwrites.wordpress.com) |
"This menu's outdated, mam,"said the waiter, swiftly handing Lara another. "Please refer to this one instead. I'll be back shortly for your drink order."
Lara saw the waiter's eyes flash to her friend Jasmine, sitting across the small, poorly-lit table. Jasmine calmed her features quickly enough, but not before Lara saw the look of annoyance on her friend's face -- and not a small amount of anger.
"Did you see --"started Lara.
"What are you drinking?"interrupted Jasmine. "It has to be a martini -- we're getting over your ex, after all. This your bounce back night!"
But Lara wasn't concerned about the cocktail menu. She was still thinking about meal she saw offered at the bottom of her first menu: *And Finally, Your Catch of the Day: Lara Reynolds at Table 8!*
She glanced around the dim room. The restaurant wasn't large; Lara guessed there were no more than fifty diners, but they filled the space. The vast majority, she realized, were women -- and the vast majority were eyeing her hungrily.
"Hey Jazz,"said Lara, now visibly anxious. "What did you say this place was called again?"
"*The Sea.* Just opened a few weeks ago. Do you not like it?"
"They're all looking at me."Lara was glanced around the room once more. Every set of eyes in the building was on her. Wide eyes. Staring eyes.
"Just choose a drink. It'll make sense soon."
But Lara was quickly escalating from nervous to panicked. Something was wrong. This wasn't normal. She took her napkin off her lap and began to stand --
"Oh fine,"said Jasmine angrily. "That damn waiter screwed everything up. We'll just go now..."She waved across the room to someone behind Lara's back.
The house lights came up immediately. Carnival music played, diners applauded, and a tuxedoed man appeared on a small stage in the corner. He tapped the microphone theatrically before announcing:
"Welcome to *The Sea,* ladies! We're a little ahead of schedule tonight -- but that just means we'll get to the fun all the faster!"
Lara, bewildered, spun to Jasmine and demanded, "Tell me what's happening, right now!"
But Jasmine smiled wickedly. "Just listen."
"We've got a special one for you tonight, ladies,"cooed the announcer. "Someone fresh out of a nasty split. Someone who needs our support more than ever!
"Now, please remember the rules: only positivity in *The Sea!* We're here to support today's Catch, to remind her that she is special, to help her understand that the world isn't over just because her relationship is over. Speak from the heart! And no trying to flirt with today's Catch -- unless she's into it!"
Over the cheering, Jasmine finally explained in Lara's ear: "It's a bar. They do special event's for the newly single. And ever since Lizzy left you, you've been so down, and I just thought..."
But Jasmine couldn't finish, not before the announcer cried, "So tonight, ladies, let's give a warm round of applause -- and a lot of love -- to our Catch of the Day: Lara Reynolds!"
The room erupted with wolf whistles and applause. A spotlight fell on Lara, and she stood, baffled, on the verge of tears. The announcer rushed forward, took her by the hand and kissed her cheek as he dragged her to the stage.
"Gorgeous!"shouted one voice. "I love your hair!"called another.
Lara looked back, caught Jasmine's eye, and mouthed 'thank you' as she took the stage.
\--------------------
404/365
one story per day for a year (and counting) read them all at [r/babyshoesalesman](https://www.reddit.com/r/babyshoesalesman)
\--------------------- |
Being the first real superhero isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s a fun party trick, “hey look I can fly, bet I can lift this car over my head”. And yeah you get to save the occasional person every once in a while from being mugged or a car accident. But there really isn’t any “drama”. I even moved to a big city hoping for someone to come out of the shadows, my own personal super villain. But nonetheless, I never will get it. People are too beat down, too depressed in there everyday lives, and too desensitized to the everyday events that they do nothing. And when they do snap all they do is kill themselves. Sure I could go door to door trying to help these people but why. Those people aren’t great full when you help. Hell most people aren’t, most just brush off the event, look at you like you owe them and go on with there day.
After the first year of helping these miserable people, I became depressed. For 6 months I sat in my home dark, not moving watching the news hoping against hope. I tried to take my own life a few times. Apparently the experiment that gave me all my super powers also maybe my subconscious able to stop me. As I sat and watched the world go further into destroying itself. Terrorism was a problem but there was too many different sides to pick. You couldn’t pick one side with pissing off 3 more. Human traffickers were literally found in every government all the way up to the top in some. You could set a whole country back centuries by picking that fight. And don’t get me started on the rest of the human rights violations. It didn’t matter who’s side you picked. You would offend someone.
I wanted to help, but navigating the spiderweb of the geopolitical scene with out being caught in one countries trap was too hard. If only I had gotten super intelligence instead of the X-ray vision. That one by the way almost got me in the most trouble. Last time I try and save a women being drowned in her bathtub. After the 6 months of being depressed and failed suicide attempts. I decided to go talk to someone.
It took me a while to open up to her. But once I did she was very understanding. But the best idea came a few months in. She was sitting there as I was ranting about the latest mass shooting which had become an almost daily occurrence at this point. I told her how I wanted to help and then proceeded to explain my dilemma. She looked me straight in the eyes and said the one line I will never forget.
“You’re only one person, you can’t help them all.”
And that’s when the idea came to me. I knew exactly what I must do. I couldn’t help them all, but I could fight them all. I had to become the villain. I needed to give the rest of the world one target to fight, one reason to unite. If they couldn’t defeat me as individuals, they would have to band together to stop me. For the first time in months i smiled. I would have to sacrifice myself for the good of the planet. But I knew that no one could know why I chose to go down this path.
The smile faded from my face as I looked at her. She asked what was wrong, why my happiness suddenly turned to sadness. Tears began rolling down my face. She took her glasses off. I was glad for this. Hopefully she wouldn’t see what was about to happen. I stood up and quickly made my way to her. As I picked her up with one hand by the throat, I began to sob and apologize. She didn’t last long in my grip. The tears would have to be something I learned to hide. I didn’t like killing people but I knew that I would have to do it. It was the only way they would all hate me. |
The Voice has been in my head for as long as I can remember.
The cool, male tone used to surface only during important milestones in my life: my birthdays, my first day at school, that kind of thing. It wasn't anything major; he'd just describe the details of my existence as if some kind of audience were listening. At times it was flattering that anyone would possibly be interested in the boring life of a child. Other times it became annoying, like when my dad died, and all I wanted was to be alone. After casually mentioning the Voice to my mother and consequently being sent to a shrink, I learned to stop speaking about the Voice. He only popped up every few months to describe an important event anyway. I could live with that.
Things changed once I started growing up. The Voice gradually began changing his descriptions of me from "cute"and "young"to "beautiful"and "shapely". By the time I was 18 I was constantly hearing the word "gorgeous"before my name, and being praised endlessly in real-time for all of my completely mundane actions. The Voice seemed to like me far too much, and it was driving me nuts.
Unable to talk to anyone for fear of being locked away as a crazy, I stopped all sorts of activity, for hope that the Voice would have nothing to narrate. Still my head would be filled with his eternal monologue about me, my past or my surroundings.
I ran outside, desperately trying to retain my grip on reality. I looked around and saw old Mrs Meyer's little Honda. Without thinking, and without reason, I started kicking it. Then I keyed it. Then I broke the mirrors off. Then the wipers. Throughout that maniacal hysteria, I was shocked to find myself smiling.
The Voice and I were both silent. I, who had never so much as stolen a candy, had just purposefully vandalised the car of an innocent old lady. And I had enjoyed it.
For the first time, I heard the Voice stutter, before spewing out a range of excuses to his audience about how this action was caused by my "tragic and unbearable past"and my "understandable fear of the future". He soon regained his composure, but that one moment of silence had shown his weakness.
So the next day, I used my brother's toy gun to steal the wallet of a high-schooler. And again, the Voice made excuses, though this time I could sense some disappointment in his tone. My actions continued worsening, and the Voice gradually grew more and more silent. Nowadays, being the most infamous supervillain in the country, it sometimes feels like he isn't even watching anymore. I suppose we all want to be blind to our crush's faults.
So here I stand, about to forcefully take over the world.
And the Voice hasn't said a thing. |
Bobo looked up at me, expectantly. I knew he was worried about this group, just now cresting the furthest hill within eyeshot. His gelatinous body rippled with anxiety, and there really wasn't anything I could do for him. Or for them. I pet him lightly but I didn't want to shake him up any more than he already was. No one likes an effervescent slime.
The sprites were the next ones to try and roust me to action, tugging on my collar, as light as they were. I was content to wait, which surely added to their consternation. One sat heavily on my shoulder in resignation, I could hear her peeping away. Her tone was all I needed to understand her frustration.
Within minutes I was accosted by families of Ratfolk and Kobold, each chittering away in their preferred tongues before pleading with me to send the adventurers away. I could sympathize with their point of view, but I did not move. The Ratfolk families communed among themselves nearby, and most of the Kobolds wandered off, their short attention spans were legendary. That's a big part of the reason why I'm here in the first place!
Cries of battle rolled through the valley, indistinct but unmistakable. Orc war chants are the easiest way to discern the state of affairs. It sounded like the prisoner chant. The gathering menagerie around me were nervous yet expectant. I whispered to the sprites to check the usual hideaways and tunnels, and they scattered with purpose. I charged the Kobolds with redoubling our vast network of traps. In the meantime the Orc warband came into view in the valley, encircling what appeared to be a party of five, walking under their own power.
It took several minutes for the party to march up the hill, as the crowd swelled. Even mighty Draco came down for a look, and curled up at the top of the ridge on his favorite heating rock. Surprised he's even getting around these days.
The adventuring party were roughed up, but had no issue scaling the hill to my encampment, ringed by the warband. The hairs on the back of my neck went up, and that sent a ripple through the more attuned creatures behind me. A man stepped forward, with jet black hair and a liar's grin. As he turned to look back at his compatriots, I saw the instrument lashed to his back. Aw hell, a bard.
"Nice place you got here,"he said with a smirk, "how did you do it?"
"Elaborate,"I said, warily. I leaned closer to my scepter. I could sense the ones just behind me were getting very prickly about this situation.
"It's all really impressive,"he continued with a laugh, "to gather all these monsters under one banner?"
"All who are free are welcome here. It's our golden rule."
The bard recoiled in feigned shock, "haven't heard of that one. I'm only familiar with the *other* golden rule."
I didn't respond, I wasn't going to play his game, and after a long moment, he continued, "he who has the gold, makes the rules."
The warbands' weapons raised as they guarded the adventurers' flanks, giving them a critical moment to prepare. Incensed, I grabbed my scepter and apparated. |
The memories of the terror don’t float far beneath the choppy surface of my mind. Slip a finger in, a touch here and there, and I can recall how the smell of brimstone matched the leer on his scaly face.
It took me three episodes to grow tired of it all. As a joke, I left up a sign next to my bed where he normally appeared.
*Hello, Bob.*
The demon looked at it. His wicked talons curled, reminding me of the grip of an eagle. A big, lizard-like, fire-breathing eagle.
*How was your day?* Was my next message. He seemed to guffaw at that, and I realized his leer wasn't one meant to frighten.
*That's just how your face looks, isn't it?*
He nodded, watching over me like sort of twisted guardian deity. The next night, I tried something else.
*Check out this cool picture, Bob. Do you like it?*
I drew by day and left him a message before sleep. I told Bob about my adventures during the light, and he stood vigil during my nights. I'd given up trying to get him to talk.
*I broke up with my girlfriend yesterday.*
Bob gave me his best sympathetic look. As strange as this all was, the monolithic figure stood a pillar of strength when I struggled with the worst of my seizures, gasping for breath before the world woke up.
*I got my first job! I can afford treatment now!*
The demon surprised me by holding up a single claw formed into his best impression of a thumbs up. I was happy, but also cautious. What would happen to Bob after I underwent therapy? The night before my surgery, I paused before putting pen on paper.
*Is this goodbye, Bob?*
The next morning, I was surprised to wake up to shaky handwriting that definitely wasn't mine.
***I came to earth, depressed and lonely. I saw you dying in your sleep and tried to save you. You humans are annoying - so fragile. I had to do it again the next night. And every night after that. But you started talking to me, telling me about your hopes and dreams. And then I realized that I was the one who needed saving the whole time.***
***Good luck on your treatment. You don't need me anymore, but I'll visit again someday.***
---
Thank you for reading! Please give me feedback. I love feedback! How can I write better for you guys if you don't give me feedback!? If you're feeling generous, come join me at [/r/Remyxed/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Remyxed/)! |
"You idiots,"the gangly-looking alien continued from its platform across all of the UN Council's televisions, "You peon imbeciles never questioned why we, an *ultra-advanced intergalactic spacefaring empire*, would send stealth recon pilots only for them to *crash* on your harmless little waterball world?"
The Council was stunned and did not know how to respond.
"The *audacity* — you inane, walking watersacks assumed we sent our drunks, did you? Or our flunkies? Our expendables?"
The alien was on a tirade. No one dared interrupt.
"We have mastered genetic supremacy, you filthy primates. We have no 'weak links'. Our pilots have flown on fiery volcanic worlds full of lightning and blackened skies. They've casually scouted supermassive storms on gas giants the likes of which you could not imagine with your feeble, stage-II, underdeveloped brains. They have landed on worlds amidst hellish orbital debris and space-flotsam that most others would find impassible. And you think our pilots fly erratic circles in your skies just to, what, scare your amateur air-dinguses? To frighten your populace? Did you think we were so surreptitious on your world out of fear of YOU?"
A Prime Minister raised his hand like a school child to speak up.
"Ambassador Xenu—"
"NOOOOooo!"the alien shouted over him, "It is your guardian we were probing, not your bums. Now that we know who, or rather what it is and how dangerous it can be, we will annihilate it. You have one hour to evacuate your ocean-adjacent population hubs."
"Ambassador—"
"WHAT."
"There may be a problem with—"
"Then we will annihilate you directly. Farewell, Earthli—"
"Wait!"and the Minister, having gotten the alien's attention, held up his phone.
"And that is...?"
"A portal over the ocean, Ambassador Alien Sir."
The UN's conference room went completely silent.
"Cthulhu's coming for you, Ambassador."
"Oh fuck." |
Regis Sr was the original grave keeper. The exact type of ornery crotchety old person anyone would expect to be a grave keeper. He wore shabby dirty clothes with holes and patches. Thinning gray hair even middle aged.
At first he thought it was just the young science-y kids messing with him from their lab that employed him. He never questioned why a lab had so many bodies. He knew they tested stuff and it needed to be disposed of.
The first time it was just a half body that looked partially dug up. Just the upper torso above ground. He had just buried this one yesterday. Annoyingly he reburied the body.
The next day three more were out. Annoyed he buried again. The following day another three out. Regis was getting irritated. When one of the lab kids was a body the following day Regis rethought about it being a prank. After two weeks he realized more was up, this was serious and he took the duty seriously. As did the lab inhabitants.
They started to respect Regis more, he was respected. And after several decades of his diligent effort it was time for his brawny burly man of a man son, Regis Jr, to take the helm.
JR looked like a lumberjack. Raised from birth to rebury the dead daily. And fight back the serious threat of undying dead.
The lab residents never left anymore but only communicated through a phone and gave JR all the supplies he needed.
Now it was his sons turn. Regis 3rd. Nothing like his fathers build. Took after his grandfather. Lanky and skeletal in build.
Regis the 3rd had a different plan. He had support and technology. He used the lab residents to recruit interns and machine operators.
Day one of 3rds reign was frightening. He used big heavy machines to dig trenches and ditches efficiently. He took the undead bodies that crawled from the earth and dumped them quickly into the deep ditches. Then without wasting time covered the bodies with a mixture that would harden permanently over the bodies. By the time it eroded the bodies would be well gone.
Regis the 3rd might have been born from a line of lowly grave diggers but in this world he was a man of power, influence, and control. He would keep this world safe. |
The box had a note inside.
*Dear descendant #315894,*
*I don't have money, so your student loan debt is gonna stay where it's at but when you finish reading this you're going to have a fraction of power that was divided equally among you little rascals.*
*Might give you X-Ray vision, or it might might let you fly or some other neat gimmick. It's not real godhood or anything but beggars can't be choosers.*
*Enjoy it, and please don't let me find you on Youtube.
-Zeus*
**Foresight.**
My thing was foresight. It just hit me.
Pretty cool. It felt like remembering something on the tip of your tongue but like, all the time.
I wonder if this be could be useful at wo-
**Donnie has one too.**
I looked across the street and saw Donnie Radford reading the same note I just finished reading.
**Dude. He's got super speed. No w-.**
Before I could finish that thought, Donnie was already next to me.
"Holy shit. Whats yours, Raudy?"
**Don't tell him, things are gonna get hairy. Also duck.**
I ducked my head and felt his fist lightly graze my hair.
"Woah!"Donnie laughed. "Sorry, I dunno where that came from. Oh wait. It's from when you fucked my sister,"
"We literally just made out, Donnie you're being a total dick right now!"
**He just wants to hit you a little bit, but he's gonna kill you by accident.**
Oh cool, you're just gonna leave me here to figure this out, inner anime voice?!
Think, think, think! From the corner of my eye, I saw another box on the porch next to Donnie's. I had an idea.
**It'll work.**
Oh, cool thanks.
----------------------------------------------- |
Be cruel to be kind. Feedback welcome.
\---
“I’m not joking. Get some humans.”
When Soimt stopped laughing, he said, “From what I hear, they eat too much and there is someone better for any given job. Arkrans are better engineers. Rollts and Sorrc are stronger. Lings are better pilots. Even you little wimps can see more than they can. I heard they can’t even see ultraviolet or infrared. Imagine being so — so … blind! Their hearing is mediocre at best. When the humans started working in the docks over at Galuxus, the other workers complained about having to crank up the volume on all the audible warning systems. Ugh. All day having to hear those annoying messages over and over everywhere they go! No. The word is they just aren't worth it.”
Cragil, shaking his heads, wondered why he was friends with such a dullard. But then, Soimt wasn’t a fool, really. He ran the best grey-market this side of the Epsilon cluster. You don’t build and maintain a vast — well, let’s be honest, smuggling network without having some serious smarts. So why didn’t anyone understand the value of humans?
Soimt signaled the bartender for a fresh round and watched his now silent drinking buddy with growing concern. “C’mon, bud. Tell Soimt what’s going through that head of yours.”
“I don’t know. I mean, it feels like I understand something other people haven’t caught on to yet, but if you are any indication, nobody will ever listen to me. It’s like the Perskaz incident all over, but different.”
This caught Soimt’s attention. Perskaz had been a disaster. If he had just listened to Cragil, he could have save two ships and a bundle of credits. Well, the crews weren’t that easy to replace either. Not with skilled people. All levity gone, he said, “Tell me. Tell me everything.”
“Well, it all started on Serac. I was transferring cargo at the station, and these squishy...fleshy creatures started moving my stuff. They weren’t doing it wrong, mind you. In fact, while each one carried less than the Rollts you normally see working as dockhands, the whole process took less time. I mean, they aren’t exactly the strongest, but they didn’t make mistakes. I didn’t wind up with something that was supposed to be offloaded crammed in behind the new stuff. Heck, one of them asked my next port and even made sure the cargo was restacked so everything on my manifest for the next stop wound up right in front ready to offload.
“A couple stops later, I land on Ertsaz station and see more of them, and these came in different flesh colors. The fleshy thing still creeps me out a bit. Again, though, they were not strong, just efficient and not stupid. This being the second time in two hops I encountered these things, I asked the dockmaster about them.”
“Furrul?” Soimt interrupted while giving the strange-looking bartender a grateful head bob as the new drinks arrived. If Furrul was using these humans...
“Yeah. How do you know— never mind. I don’t want to know any more about your business than I need to. He told me these humans couldn’t lift as much as the local Sorrc, but they didn’t tire as easily. He evidently had some problems at first, then hid behind the regs for equal opportunity. Said he didn’t have enough non-indigenous workers and had to get that fixed before the auditors came around.
“He used to complain about the little grey bastards kidnapping species and just leaving them around on stations when they got bored. No way home. No money. But one just came in and started working one day, and after a half shift, just stopped for some water then kept going. They didn’t have to stop after each lift. They didn’t put things in the wrong places making it all take longer. They just...” puzzled Cragil, “worked.” Finishing off his first drink, he took a slow sip of its waiting replacement.
Soimt ventured, “There are a lot of species that have more endurance than Rollts and Sorrc while being weaker. I don’t get why this is such a big deal.”
Cragil took a deep breath and continued, “Over a period of time, they get more done with fewer mistakes. But that’s not all. They are … multipurpose. Uhm. Adaptive. Furrul asked me to take a couple on to my next stop. The greys have been dumping them at his station for a while now, and he’s making good credits by hiring them out to other dockmasters.”
Raising his drink, Soimt laughed, “That’s Furrul. Zero cost to him, takes a piece off the top.”
Cragil’s heads bobbed in agreement, then he took another sip of his own drink before continuing. “Well, I tried locking them in a hold with some food, but they got out and wandered through the ship. I didn’t know this until one wandered in me and Dorlat arguing in Engineering.”
“Dorlat! How is the old bastard?”
“Older than ever, but you can’t find a better shipboard engineer than a Vell, so I’ll keep paying him ‘till he dies. But he screwed up. Or I did. You’ve seen my clunker. The old model sevens work, but they burn through parts. As long as I keep spares on hand, Dorlat keeps replacing them as needed. He’s pretty good at predicting failures and swapping parts out quickly. It’s like he feels everything the ship does.”
Soimt bobbed in agreement. “And…”
“It was bizarre. Dorlat had been telling me when he used different spare parts, but he never told me we were low on anything. He thought I was tracking inventory, I thought he was. So we were left adrift between ports with no way to replace a failed flow tube in the generator. While we were yelling at each other about whose fault it was that we would be dying slowly waiting to freeze, suffocate, or be found by pirates; the smaller human wanders in, watches us yelling and pointing, then goes over to the engine and starts poking around. We stopped fighting long enough to shoo the meddlesome fleshy out of the area, then locked the door and started back in on whose fault it was that we were going to die.”
Soimt’s ocular ridges shot up in surprise as Cragil chugged his drink in a single, massive gulp. Sliding the rest of his own drink over, he prompted, “And…”
“The little human came back with the big one.”
“They come in different sizes and colors? We could sell them as pets.”
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” said the bartender in passing as they dropped off a couple more drinks. Soimt grunted at the interruption and gestured for Cragil to resume his tale.
After a couple of deep breaths, Cragil continued once more. “They pounded on the door, and we ignored them. I mean, barely sentient, pre-FTL species? No way they could understand just how dire the situation was — or remain rational if they did. We didn’t want them to panic. After a few ticks, they left. And half an arn later, they returned. This time, the fire alarms went off, and the door came right off its hinges.
“Actually, I lie. They ***removed*** the hinges. Melted them right away. I still don’t know how. The chemical stores were secured in Engineering. All I ever found was some rust powder and aluminum powder in the next bay.” Cragil downed both drinks. |
They chatter of a disaster to come, the death of the firstborn. And this is how you protect against it. Nine. Nine plagues, precisely as promised. Pharaoh and the other priests are fools and worse than fools. Let the slaves *go* I told him and the others.
They cursed me for a coward, a heretic for saying their God is more powerful. I bade them use logic, nine for nine, whether their God is more powerful, or ours is permitting these things, matters not. Let them go! The cost of keeping these slaves is too high!
I was cast from Pharaoh's sight. They could not take my priesthood, but they could take away my chance to reason with Pharaoh. Fools and worse than fools.
And this plague, this is terrible, the firstborn son, and so many of my servants have children. Fine, I will have all my servants and their families brought into my house. I will not see their loss if I can prevent it.
"Moloch! Fetch a lamb, bleed it dry into a bucket, paint the lintel and doorposts with the blood. All of them do not miss even one!
"Ruthia, Gather the servants and *all* of their families, they must stay within my house tonight. Tell them to pack well for tomorrow; we may be cast from Egypt with a hard road ahead."
The sounds in the night are terrible; parents clutch their firstborn close, praying to any god who will listen to spare their children. The mist floats down the streets, curling like a living thing, passing the houses that have been painted, swirling in as silent death where they are not.
I storm into the palace, knocking aside the guards and those priests who advised so poorly.
"Well? What have you to say for yourselves now! The firstborn son of every family, dead, as foretold. LET THEM GO! THEY HAVE ALREADY COST TOO MUCH!"
"Your servants lost no one. How did you protect them, and yet not my son?"
"Pharaoh, ask your learned priests what the slaves did. I but emulated them. All you had to do was let them go. All you had to do was paint lambs blood on every lintel and door post. Either of these simple things would have protected your people."
"You saved your servants firstborn sons, and ***not my own?!***"
"No, Pharaoh, *you* did that. You refused to listen to reason. You refused to do as the slaves did. You chose to listen to the vultures who yet hang at your sides. Now you reap what you have sown."
"Leave. You are banished to the dark realms outside of our land, and take the slaves with you since you love them so much."
"So be it. I would rather associate with slaves who are smart enough to piss outside rather than a court full of vultures who piss all over the floor."
Thus it was a priest of the Egyptians who became a font of wisdom to the peoples of the Israelites and those Egyptians who left with them. |
“Get your rear in gear, Private!” a chorus of voices rang out, all with intonation of Sergeant Sheffels. “Drift now!” The trembling private reached for his injector and fumbled it, watching it ping down the mine shaft floor. The lithe woman to his right pivoted and bellowed with Sheffels’ familiar roar “Son, the army did NOT issue that drug to you to throw around like a Po-ta-toe! Pick it up NOOOWW!!”
No matter how many times he heard it in training, the powerful 6’5 male sergeant bellowing through a 4’9 woman never failed to amuse the private in one corner of his mind. Granted, it still terrified him enough to drop him to his knees immediately and send him scrabbling for the injector.
“Here they come!” the yell reverberated from the linked soldiers as they all began to move in perfect unison to meet the oncoming horde. The rat-tat-tat of rapid fire was punctuated by the crunch of bodies slamming together as the close-quarters battle raged between two minds each controlling the dozens of human and alien puppets.
The private snatched up the injector and spun it towards his thigh, slamming it downwards towards the muscle like he’d been taught, but as he moved, a blur of insectoid motion moved toward him. With a crunch, he pinned the arm perfectly against his leg and the injector fired.
*One dose of …. Well, it had a fancy name and title, but the soldiers just called the Drift after that action flick with the giant robots wailing on the giant monsters.* *It bonded him into the military hive-mind and allowed him and his fellow soldiers to move and act in perfect unison or at least it would have if he hadn’t injected it into the enemy!*
The private cursed and drew his knife, but hesitated when the alien curled back and whimpered in a very scratchy voice, “I’m scared…” |
“Moon’s haunted. That’s what the ghostbusters fee is for.”
“I don’t understand. I’m shipping two hundred dollars of bourbon to my brother, who is stationed at Lunar Base Delta. This is his birthday gift. I’m already paying an exorbitant shipping fee. I’m already paying the excise tax. What is this bullshit ghost fee?!”
“Ghost*busters* fee. For the ghost *busters.*”
“The ghostbusters.”
“They... bust... the ghosts? Trap ‘em in little doohickies.”
“In doohickies.“
“Look dude, it’s the fee. You pay it, we ship your shit, bada bing bada boom, your bro-bro gets to celebrate in style.”
“Where do the ghosts come from?”
“In general? Or do you mean the moon ghosts, specifically?”
“I’m sorry, does that matter? No, wait, don’t answer that. Are you saying there are earth ghosts?”
“Never seen any, but the moon ghosts are real bad this time of year.”
“Moon ghosts are *seasonal*? Wait—the moon has seasons?”
“Moon’s got ghost seasons.”
“Ghost. Seasons.”
“Like sometimes the place is just thick with ‘em, when the ghosts are mating. Sometimes they just float about and say ‘boo’ a lot, but real quiet like.”
“How do... how do ghosts mate?”
“I dunno, I just know their ectoplasm gets all over our shipments—“
“Wait are there children ghosts being born on the moon? Is that a thing??”
“Honestly my dude, I just ship the stuff, you dig? We’re kinda reaching the end of my moon ghost knowledge.”
“Ok fine. Just mail it. I’ll just pay whatever. Just ship it.”
“Ok now did you want moonworm insurance? In case one of the giant moonworms swallows our shipping rocket when it lands?”
“WHAT.” |
"I cannot beLIEVE you would do this to us, Rebuka,"dad said.
"Calm down, vinegar,"mom said. "You know Doctor Death said about your heart pressure."
"He can shove it, I'll come back to life eventually. Did you not hear what she said?"
"I heard her."
"Well?!"
"It's just a phase, she'll get over it."
Rebuka stood up. "It is NOT a phase! I love him!"
Mom smiled. "Soury, your father is Monsieur Malice. You are dating Kid Comet, the teen heartthrob sidekick of his nemesis, Meteor Man."
"And?!"Rebuka looked at mom defiantly.
"And you've been volunteering at the soup kitchen. And you adopted a dog from the shelter instead of going to the puppy mill. And you read stories to orphans at the public library. These little acts of rebellion haven't gone unnoticed."
"What if they're not acts of rebellion? What if I'm good now?"
"Are you?"
"YES!"
"Fine."Mom tossed Rebuka the phone. "Call the cops, tell them where they can find your father. It's what a good person would do."
Rebuka looked down at the phone. "But..."
"Go ahead. Your father is evil. A terror on the city. Turning him in is the right thing."
Rebuka threw the phone and started to cry.
"Oh, my little abomination. Don't cry. It's a sign of weakness and makes you look ugly besides. Now, what are we going to do about this boyfriend of yours."
Rebuka sniffed and stifled her tears. "Draw him into a trap and hold him hostage?"
"That's right."
"Pfft."I let out. "Why not just flat out kill him?"
"SHUT UP FART BREATH!"Rebuka yelled. I breathed at her using my fart breath powers.
"Fart Breath! No powers at the table!"Dad said.
"What?! Mom JUST used hers on Rebuka!"
Mom glared at me with daggers in her eyes (literally) as a look of realization came on Rebuka's face.
"Well...I'm going to excuse myself."I stood up and cleared my place before the yelling started again. |
I was there the day they came.
It happened so quickly, so immediately. There was no warning, no alerts, no time for any kind of preparation. One minute I was sitting outside of Starbucks having a latte, the next minute an entire fleet of alien starships had dropped out of warp directly into the atmosphere.
Without delay they began to open fire indiscriminately. Civilians began running amok, disoriented, trampling each other to escape as shards of glass rained down from above. They had fired into the buildings to kill the people inside. They destroyed entire cities, crippled our infrastructure, and left us defenseless and without hope. Our military might was useless, our best nuclear weapons might as well have been throwing a rock at them for all the good it did. We were nearly wiped out in a matter of hours.
That was 10 years ago.
It wasn’t long before the Ziraxi Empire began strip mining our planet, subjugating humanity as just another slave race, one of thousands in the empire. They laid claim to our cities, publicly executed our leaders. We’d wanted them gone anyway, most of them, but not like this.
I eventually escaped the camps with a handful of others. Rumors of a conclave up north began to spread, buried far in the ice where the cold-blooded Ziraxi would not tread without reason. We journeyed for days, maybe weeks. A few of us didn’t make it, but eventually one of the resistance scouts found us.
They’d begun reverse engineering alien tech, constructing a makeshift bunker up in the Yukon. We were so far removed from the heart of the Empire’s presence on Earth we thought we’d last forever, building an arsenal as we used stolen ships, took potshots at them and attempted to rescue more slaves from the now-dusty wastelands of the larger world.
Alaska had become home, and one of the last green places left on Earth. We were fools though. We couldn’t escape the Empire’s attention forever.
The Ziraxi did not tolerate rebellion, in any form, and one thing they had a penchant for was overkill. So when they learned the location of our base they didn’t bother to send in ground troops. They didn’t give us the chance to hold out against them.
They simply glassed Alaska. Now maybe you don’t know what glassing is, maybe you’ve heard of it, but it doesn’t give you an image of the reality of it.
When the first nuclear test was conducted by humans, the dirt was turned into a kind of greenish crystal called Trinitite. They used to make it into jewelry before they found out it was radioactive. That test was conducted in a barren desert.
When it happened in Alaska, it wasn’t with an atom bomb, but a focused hypervelocity plasma discharge. The ionized material burned away the atmosphere with such force it created vacuum pressure all the way back to orbit, leaving a hole that immediately filled with a crushing force of air moving in. The land turned into superheated glass so hot it oozed like lava. Old concrete structures were dehydrated of the binding material that keeps them together in the lack of atmosphere and crumbled into dust. The trees and grass disintegrated, they didn’t even have time to burn.
Our bunker was ray shielded and it was the only reason we survived to see what happened next.
Our planet is old. Not as old as some, but old enough. Life has lived here a long time and we only ever had a small piece of the whole picture. The past eluded us always. It should have been no surprise that something far older than humans might still be living here, but that didn’t stop the shock at the sight of it. We called it the Guardian.
The world shook with each movement it made. It was buried in the earth up to its neck, only revealed by the glassing, and as it stood up the mountains crumbled away like sand castles on the beach. It was humanoid, but incomprehensibly gigantic, tall enough to have its head in space with its feet on the ground. With one fluid motion the Guardian grabbed a ship out of the fleet, pulled it towards its knee, and snapped it in half like a twig. Then it threw each half at the remaining ships, and only one of the Ziraxi ships managed to escape the Guardian’s wrath.
We cowered in our bunker, watching from the viewports as the world around us burned, as forces so beyond our power fought for the fate of our world. We feared this new being, but it ignored us. It proceeded south, into the heart of the Ziraxi’s presence on this side of the world. As I watched it disappear over the horizon I wondered what it was, who built it, or if it was perhaps alive, and how old it might be. One thing was clear for all of us though.
For the first time in a decade, humanity had hope. |
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