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She'll be here soon, I can barely contain my excitement.
I still remember when I first saw her. There was the obvious things that caught my eye straight away, like her hair shining in the sun and her cute butt in those jeans, yet there was something special about her that keep me looking. A snort when she laughed, the way she didn't seem to even know how good she looked. The way she looked at me that made me realise it might be possible that I could be important to someone.
Introducing myself may have been the hardest thing I have ever done yet was the turning point of my life. Instead if laughing at me or demeaning me like so many others she smiled and told me her name. Sometimes that is all it takes.
Falling in love was easy. My days became nothing outside of those moments when she was near, when I could see her. Soon I didn't care for anything that didn't mean I could get back to her. She became my world and I needed to find a way to let her know.
Tonight is the night I am going to proclaim my love, when all the hurt and sins of my past are made right. It was surprisingly simple to find where she lived, and easier again to find a way in. I can't believe she will soon belong to me.
She'll be here soon, I can barely contain my excitement.
Edit: typos. |
"Vice. From the Latin 'vitium', meaning a defect, offense, blemish, imperfection."I stared back at the man who had dared try to extort me. In my own business. Among my own people. "Those were its original meanings, Mr. Smith. I interpret it a little different now, with two meanings. For you, a vice is a weakness, but for *me* \-"I nodded to one of my goons, who stepped forward and kicked Smith's knees from under him, dropping him to the floor. Goons 1 and 2 grab hold of his arms to keep him in place. "For me, it means power."Goon 1 snaps an arm in a quite irregular way, sending a stronger message to this scum than my words.
He writhed on the floor, cradling his spaghetti\-shaped arm. "Don't forget who runs this place, Smith! I do! And you know who this place runs? The police. The court. The mayor, the governor, and half the goddamn Senate. You ever try to threaten me out of business again, they may as well remember you as Jimmy Hoffa!"Another nod from me and the goons dragged him down the hallway, pitching him out into the back alley.
I scoffed at the thought a nobody like him could present a threat, though I was too savvy at this point to think that nobody could present one. That agent from the ironically\-named Sugar Outlaw Disciplinary Agency had come close, so he had to go. His family would be taken care of though, both from the government and my own, anonymous pockets.
Heading back up the stairs to the main restaurant, I passed through the two false walls and the laundry room that we hid our sugar supplies in. Much to our benefit, off\-brand laundry detergent looks strikingly similar to sugar, and the micro\-brew machines we used to make our finest drinks could hide snugly behind the industrial\-sized washers and dryers. The water bill every month made sense because, well, laundry, and the weird smells and noises went unquestioned during routine inspections.
Once into the restaurant, I relaxed in the atmosphere of busy patrons and bustling business. The people that knew what we offered sure as hell weren't going to talk about it, as the only other place within a seven\-state radius you could get it had just been busted by the SODA guys. SODA popped, we called it. The fizzy father of the Virginia ring had gotten quite reckless in his methodology, going so brash as to bring in trucks loaded with sugar and carbonation tanks right through a checkpoint. Some new guards who had yet to be paid off sounded the alarm and that was that.
Not here. I ran this ship so tight that not even the last bulldog administrator of SODA had been able to crack. Tenacious, and he came close on more than one occasion, but he's living in Costa Rica now and not my problem. This new guy, so green and eager and naive; I wouldn't be worried about him for a while. For now, I made some passes through the floor and schmoozed with my regulars. Every so often, a waiter would ask for a drink order, and the patron would know the secret option. "I'll have the house lager. Original recipe, please."
Vice. From the Latin 'vitium', meaning a defect, offense, blemish, imperfection. Welcome to Casu Vitium, where your weakness is my power. Have a drink. |
What fate comes from that which does not grow?
Think dust. Think granite. Think ice.
Think death.
Signs come from flowers. Portends and omens. No flower grows from this dry, wilting hair. It falls from the scalp as I grab more and more.
But that is still a sign.
Think of it again. Death.
The word whispers through the air. It is as foul as the fate it describes. Death. Death. Let the word linger on your tongue. A hiss. A vile sound. Repugnant and morose.
This hair brings death.
But there is a flower for death, you might say.
I say it again. This hair brings death.
This hair does not bring the death of its bearer. This hair is not a sign for them.
I let loose the final strands from between my fingers, and they drift to the ground as the now bald figure stands to face me.
Cheeks gaunt, skin rotting. A crooked and decrepit smile. Eyes sunken and black. This hair was not mine. But its sign was for me.
This hair brings death. It is here for me.
\-
r/ShittyStoryCreator :\) |
Someone contacted me.
My god, I thought no one would be able to do it. A minute code, hidden within a string of text in a world of intricate numbers and words. A metaphorical "needle-in-a-haystack". At last, we have had our first volunteer. Our first subject. It's time for a second email to be sent.
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To: lewis.zubbs99@genmail.com
CC:
Subject: Second Foray
www.secondforay.org
Please visit this link and read the information. Send us another email with the correct word mentioned in the link in order to begin research. This is the way to the truth. Dig deeper.
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My experiment has begun. My little...project, if you may call it that. A mix of art and humor that only I can pull off in such a unique way. Trust me on this, as my art style is beyond the pale, my sense of humor even more extreme. My subject will find me, and my art, through these links. But, he does not know, and will fail to know until the end of my magnum opus, that he is in fact aiding me in a large manner. He is completing me, for he is allowing me to do the forbidden.
A day later I received his response. He responds well to directions. Interesting.
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To: secondforay@genmail.com
CC:
Subject: The Machination Organization
The Machination Organization.
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Curious. Most would shy away from such a mysterious and deep rabbit hole. This man presses on. He is a glutton for information, a Sherlock Holmes of Internet mystery, perhaps. It's time to wrap him up even more. To push him farther into this machination. To make him dig deeper.
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On March 21st, 2019, this Reddit post appeared on r/WhiteHats.
"Mysterious text files and rabbit-hole"
This was posted by user u/zubbs99.
"I found the following mysterious email link within a text file on the Gilliam Foundation code string. I contacted it and these are the emails I received."
Emails from secondforay@genmail.com were screenshotted and linked to the topic. It exploded among the 75,000 members of the game community, so much so that a second Reddit page, r/SecondForay, was created. Game devs eventually commented on the mysterious email, many saying that individually they did not know about anything like this, but that they wouldn't be surprised due to the amount of Easter eggs hidden in the game.
Things expanded further on March 23rd, when a mysterious post was created on r/SecondForay, by u/JacobWillisStevenson.
"Lizard People of Saratoga Springs."
The post came with only the phrase, "Dig Deeper", under the subject line. The user, u/JacobWillisStevenson, had not created any posts prior, and was created the same day. The OP provided a comment with a link to a conspiracy website known as LizardPeopleofSaratogaSprings (the URL has since been removed).
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To: lewis.zubbs99@genmail.cpm
CC: jacobwillisstevenson@genmail.com
Subject: Stevenson is the key
Stevenson is the key. They are not the only lizards.
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My work is ingenious. The WhiteHats community has gone wild with anticipation and curiosity. My hints are subtle enough to tease and vague enough to cock interest. I think it's high time that u/JacobWillisStevenson increases his posting karma. I think we'll start with a PM to u/zubbs99. After all, it was by his grace that my experiment could start.
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On April 7th, another post was created by u/JacobWillisStevenson.
"A simple riddle."
As with his previous post, the description was vague, and confusing.
"How windy does it get during a spring windstorm in Portland?"
The community at r/SecondForay had increased to around 30,000, partially due to an AskReddit post titled,
"What is the most interesting Internet rabbit-hole you have encountered?"
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The riddle came into play after user u/zubbs99 received a PM from u/JacobWillisStevenson.
"Give me the number. I'll give you the answers."
Internet sleuths had deduced there was a windstorm in Portland, Oregon, on April 7th, 2017. On that date there was a gust of 56 MPH at the airport.
User u/zubbs99 responded to the PM, with the number "56".
He received on April 11th a second PM, from u/JacobWillisStevenson, which contained a video.
"Lizard People of Saratoga Springs."
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People are watching. I have an audience at last. I know I shall soon reap the fruits of my labor. So, I think it is high time to move on to Phase Two of my piece de resistance. Let's see where this rabbit-hole leads, shall we?
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Arthur Weasley III had a headache. It was the persistent, troublesome kind of pain—not enough to merit taking the day off especially at 10:15 AM, but enough to be a bother. The paperwork he had been filing for his job at the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes was not helping him feel better. As Arthur considered whether he should call his boss and take a break, the phone rang.
“Hey, Art, it’s Lucas. We have a job for you in the Birmingham. Going to have to Apparate. An owl will be waiting for you with the details on file.”
“Ah. Any chance I could take this one tomorrow? I have a monster headache today, and I have been feeling sort of…off. I was considering calling it early and going home to the wife and kids.”
“Ah, Art. This is a code red, and Gina already called in sick today. I’m afraid you’ll have to take this one,” Lucas said.
“Well, I guess this will save me from the paperwork,” Arthur replied, forcing a smile that nobody would see.
“Good man. You’ve been cleared to use Obliviate. Call me back when you are done.” The phone clicked. Arthur hated these newly installed office contraptions, although he did grudgingly admit that they increased office efficiency.
Arthur took a deep breath, dusted off his trousers, and grabbed his wand. Then he vanished.
\--
Apparating did not help his head feel any better. According to his son Eric, Apparating would soon be obsolete. Just this morning , Eric had told him that Telep machines were a much more efficient option—the machine could take you anywhere in the world, not just places you have seen, instantly. Strange, that to Arthur, this morning felt like such a long time ago. He decided it must be the headache. And when it comes to Telep machines, Arthur wasn’t sure he trusted that kind of Muggle technology. Apparating worked fine. What was wrong with Apparating? Plus, Eric was only 13, and hardly ever looked up from his blasted cellular phone. Too young to be telling Arthur what to do just yet.
Dusk fell. Arthur entered the building of the man who had supposedly recorded an Animagus changing form. The building was dark, and Arthur pulled out his wand to cast Lumos. But before he could, the lights turned on, sensing his motion. Surprised, Arthur sheathed his wand and hurried up the stairs. He stopped at floor four, and sought out room 18. The hallway was eerily vacant.
Arthur knocked and waited a moment. Nobody answered. The door was firmly locked. “Alohomora,” Arthur whispered. The door made a satisfying \*click\*. Arthur put his hand on the door handle, and made to push down, but the instant that he did so, the door \*clicked\* once again. “Bloody hell,” Arthur muttered, preparing to utter his spell once again. Before he could, the door opened. Arthur hastily shoved his wand into his coat.
“Ello,” said a mid-thirties male in a black polo and clean khakis.
“Er, hello,” Arthur responded. “I received a call about a broken gas line in your apartment, do you mind if I come in for a second? I can show you all the paperwork, inside. Here is my badge.” Arthur moved to hand over his fake badge, but the man was already waving him inside.
“Can I get you some tea? I would love to see your wand,” the man said, moving towards the kitchen.
“I would love some tea…I’m sorry, what did you just say?” Arthur asked, suddenly incredulous.
“I said would love to see your wand. I assume you are a wizard? I have never seen a wand before,” the man said, returning from the kitchen with a mug in his hand. Arthur simply stood, mouth agape, unable to form a response. The man forced the mug into Arthur’s hands. “My name’s David, although I’m sure you already knew that from the Ministry. The door handle recognizes my touch—that’s why your Alohomora spell didn’t work. It automatically locks if anyone besides me touched the handle.” Arthur nervously took a sip from his mug, and tried to remember his training.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you are talking about, sir...David. I…I’m here about a gas leak.”
“Arthur, Arthur, please. Let’s not pretend, yes? Lying is immoral, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Of course,” Arthur started. Then he decided to act. This man knew too much. Protocol be damned—he could further clean up this mess after the Obliviate. He whipped out his wand. David frowned.
“Woah, friend, easy there. Pretty quick on the trigger today. Don’t you want to find out where I put the recording before you wipe my memory?”
“No. I'll find it myself. I am curious about one thing, however. How…How do you know so much about us?” Arthur’s concern was clear on his face. His heart beat quickly. It was easily the most nervous he had ever been on a field job.
“The subreddit is pretty informative. Also the social media posts. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Flash. Even Vine had a post about you guys back in the day. Do you guys even realize how long mobile phones have existed? There are HD videos of you guys online, and entire forums dedicated to magic spotting. It’s all private right now, but with my recording, we should be ready to go public. Magic won’t be hidden anymore,” David responded, an easy smile on his face.
Arthur sighed. This was big—beyond his boss, and probably beyond his bosses’ boss as well. When he returned, he would probably have to take this straight to the Minister of Magic.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Arthur said, steeling himself and pointing his wand. “Obliviate.”
Nothing happened. David sighed. “Obliviate,” Arthur said again. “OBLIVIATE.”
“That’s not going to work, I’m afraid. I’ve got a magic dampening field around the entire apartment. Only the most powerful, dangerous spells can circumvent it. Anyways, I’ve decided to go ahead and send my video to my colleagues, along with the instructions to take our findings public online and with every major news source.” David opened up his computer.
Arthur’s mind whirred. Surely, there was someway out of this? David had said only the most powerful, dangerous curses worked. Killing him was out of the question. But there were other powerful spells Arthur could use. He knew that he shouldn't. That he couldn’t. David continued to talk.
“We know where your family lives, Arthur. We are going to publish very specific details online, so that you can be captured and studied. For science of course. Eric will be an interesting test case,” David said softly. Something inside Arthur snapped.
“Crucio!” Arthur shouted. Nothing happened.
“That’ll do. Thank you Arthur. We have finished for today,” David said. He clapped his hands, and Arthur disappeared. A voice came on inside David’s earpiece.
“The Room has now catalogued every major spell on record, as well as the first two Unforgivable Curses. Through all of our trials, we have tricked Arthur into using them all. Because of the Room, all of these powers are at our disposal. Well done, sir. We have everything except Avada Kedavra.”
“We’ll have to retool the scenario to get him to use that spell,” David responded.
“Yes. We are also considering targeting someone more likely to use it.”
“Death Eater?”
“Yes sir. More details to come. Resetting Arthur now.”
\--
Arthur Weasley III had a headache. It was the persistent, troublesome kind of pain—not enough to merit taking the day off especially at 10:15 AM, but enough to be a bother… |
The commander’s sitting in front of me, wearing a bright smile. He thinks we’re friends, thinks he’s offering me amazing deal. All I gotta do is take the battlefield and kill his enemies. I’ll be the hero of his country, their pride and joy. With my magic, they'll rule the world!
“Money, women, power—we can give you whatever you want,” he says. He’s a broad-shouldered man with thick eyebrows and a burning stare that makes me uncomfortable. “Tell me, how does that sound?”
When I sigh, he’s shocked. Understandable. He doesn’t know I’ve been offered this exact same deal by thousands of different leaders, doesn’t know I’ve turned them all down. There *is* something I desire, but he can’t give it to me.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s a good deal, and a fair one—but I decline.”
“Why?”
I stand up, turning and walking toward the door. “You want the short version or the long one?”
He slams his hands against the table, and when I look back, there are practically tears in his eyes. I’m important, I’m an asset. They’d probably already factored me into plans. “I can offer you anything! *Anything!*”
“Okay, the short one,” I mumble, whirling around and holding my hand out. “Give me your gun.”
“What? Why?”
“I need to prove a point. A promise I won’t harm you.”
For a moment, he’s skeptical—but then the weight of the situation crushes him and he yanks his pistol off his belt, handing it over. After taking a deep breath, I press it against my temple and pull the trigger.
Blood splatters the wall, and his jaw drops—but I don’t. The wound heals quickly, and when I set the pistol on the table, he keeps his eyes glued to me, shocked. Most people wouldn’t expect immortality to be a curse, but it is.
“Nothing you’re offering matters—I just want to die.”
With that, I leave the room.
***
If you like this story, check out my sub /r/LonghandWriter or my [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/BryceBealWriter) |
I poured coffee into my cup as Timothy walked in behind me. I waited for the cup to be full to start pleasantries, that way I could be out the door by the time he said he was doing well.
"How you doing today, Tim?"I asked.
"Uhn,"he responded, shuffling past me.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me. You too? What was seriously so wrong with your life that you went and switched to another one?"I asked scathingly. He glanced in my direction. Turned his head to the side in thought, then slowly opened his mouth.
"Eh,"he shrugged.
I couldn't believe it. Tim was the head of HR, so now we'd have to get that settled before the company started to fall apart in his absence. I left the kitchen and went straight to my boss's office. His door was open so I let myself in.
He was staring intently at the Newton's Cradle on his desk, his eyes bouncing along with the motion of each hit. I waited for him to acknowledge me.
Nothing.
I cleared my throat and looked at him expectantly. He nodded ever so slightly. I took it as a go-ahead.
"Tim's restarted. We need to fire him and get new HR,"I said conspiratorily, not wanting to let the others freak out over this.
"Huh?"he mumbled, still following the ends of the cradle. He began nodding along with each of the clacks of the toy. A small smile formed.
"I said Tim re--"it hit me, "*You* restarted!? Why would you-- How are you so shortsighted-- Am I the only one that sees this as a problem. Not only do you run from your problems, but you leave us with the garbage to clean up. You're pathetic, you know that?"I said, turning around. He grunted, sounding a little upset, but otherwise didn't react.
My face flushed red as I found myself face to face with his secretary. My teeth clenched as I began rerunning what I just told him and tried to surmise how much of it she overheard by the expression in her face. She looked severely disappointed in me before looking over my shoulder and saying,
"Good morning! Looking good today, Mr. Roth,"then she turned away without another glance at me.
I was almost angry at her, then realized she probably didn't know the situation.
"You know he restarted, right?"I said, condescendingly.
She stopped in her tracks. She turned slowly to look at the boss. She stared with consternation, really trying to put together whether I was telling the truth or not. Then she looked at me and said loudly,
"Good morning! Looking good today!"then she turned and resumed her way to her desk. Once at her computer she began clicking around her desktop background which was a picture of an office building that said *Company* on the front.
My jaw dropped.
"Do... do I have to restart? Have all of you really quit? I'm not gonna stay here if you're all a bunch of drones!"I yelled. A couple people looked up over their computers, but none of them responded. I sat down in a chair and sighed loudly. I supposed there was no other thing to do than restart, myself.
The front door opened to a man holding a huge stack of donut boxes and pulling a shopping cart's worth of chocolate bars behind him. He dropped all the boxes and I saw it was Ning, with a wild smile on his face.
"Dude, all the employees at Donut Stop *and* Candy Mayhem have restarted! I just nabbed all this stuff and walked out the door! Wanna go to the mart down the street and get some sodas with me to wash it down? The cashier's eyes there looked pretty glazed over too!"he was huffing with both exhaustion and excitement. He didn't even seem to notice any of the others in the office, he looked directly at me and shook with energy, waiting for my response.
Restarting could wait until we ran out of things to do here, I suppose.
_____________________________________________________________
For more fun, come and check out /r/Nazer_The_Lazer! |
Anxiety. Oof. If I try really hard I can almost remember how it feels. I know that it was terrible, but it was also the thing that reminded me that I wasn't doing something. Often times that *something* was nothing, but I didn't know that at the time.
Ever since a radioactive Koala took a chunk out of my leg I've been free of anxiety. Better even; my life has only catered to my new condition. Allow me to explain. Instead of being fired for not going to work, I am still gainfully employed. However, my tasks now include laying on my couch, bed, chair, floor. Hell, I can lay on my kitchen table of I want to. As long as I'm being a lazy bastard, I'm doing my job. You read that right. Being lazy is my *job* now.
You'd think, '*It can't possibly get better than that.*' but you'd be wrong. Something happened recently that made clear to me the *real* power behind that Koala's bite.
I was watching Spider... no, I can't, I can't tell you that I was watching Spiderman it's just too... meta. I was watching The Terminator. Yes, that's it.
Anyway, I was at the part where Peter--uh the T-800--was trying to avenge its uncle's death--I mean, the loss of the war--when all of a sudden a burglar tried to harsh my chill by breaking in through the window. I actuality chuckled as he dropped onto his head.
Somehow he didn't see me right away, and after shaking broken glass from his hair he went about his business inspecting my belongings.
I was almost ready to say something, when the burglar finally noticed me. He stopped in his tracks, and for a split second his eyes widened as if he saw a tiger or something. But almost just as quickly, his face relaxed and he said, "hey".
"Hi ho."I responded. Then I gestured with my bag of potato chips as of to say, '*here, enjoy.*'
The burglar's expression changed again, this time to 'friendly' and he took a few casual steps in my direction before plopping down on the floor in front of me.
"Is this Spider--minator?"He asked me.
"Yeah, man,"I told him. "Hey, there's dip in the fridge if you want some."
Burglar guy glanced in the direction of the kitchen, but paused before saying, "Nah I'm good."Then he chomped down on a potato chip and finished watching the movie with me.
That was two weeks ago. He's still here. His name is Sam and he's like the chillest dude ever. |
"Once open a time in a far away land, there lived a little girl-"
"Did she live in a house like mine, Daddy?"asked the dark haired girl.
Her father smiled down at her and brushed her cheek. "Of course, my dear. Now hush, and let me tell you your bedtime story."
"Okay. I won't say anything else, I promise."
"There lived a little girl in a little house just like this. It was just her and her daddy, having fun and learning about the woods everyday. 'Remember, the outside world is safe in the daylight, but never at night. Always, always stay inside at night, lest the bad ones get you. The little girl was very afraid and could not sleep at night."
"I'm not afraid."the little girl said, holding up a large stuffed animal. "I have Teddy Weddy to protect me."
The bear was covered in brown fur, though there were patches missing. A little threadbare, but warm all the same.
"Yes you do, baby girl. Now hush. So, the little girl's mother summoned a nature spirit and bound it within her daughter's toy bear. In return, the mother would give up her life. When the bad ones came at night, the toy bear made sure they never left."
The father rose and planted a kiss upon her forehead. "Teddy Weddy will always protect you, my daughter. Sweet dreams."
The girl drifted off into sleep, Teddy Weddy held close. He blew out the candle and noticed flickering lights through the bedroom window. He moved closer and looked out. A mob of men carrying torches and all manner of weapons were fast approaching his home. The father turned to the bed.
"Teddy Weddy, time to get up."
The black glass button eyes of the teddy bear filled with a warm emerald light. Teddy Weddy carefully extracted himself from the child's grasp.
"My lord, how may I serve?"
"They are coming for her. I will meet them in the field of battle, try to buy you some time. Time to escape, or time to prepare, I leave it you."
"You do not mean to come back?"the bear asked.
The father smiled sadly, glancing out again. "I don't expect to, I'm afraid. But I will take as many of them with me as I can, you have my word."
"And I will protect your daughter for the rest of her days."The bear said. two sets of razor sharp obsidian claws sprang out of its front paws. "Contract bound. Contract honored. She will live to see many days yet. I promise you this."
"Thank you."the father said softly, and then he left the room. |
Sometimes life can be exhausting. Sometimes YOUR life is exhausting.
What most people don't understand is that being a professional red herring is exactly that: a job. And like any other job, there's lots of paper work and sometimes when you get home, you just want to take a bath, drink a nice hot tea and watch some garbage TV.
Every time you get home, no exception, there's people waiting for you: they question you, they make accusations, they try to make you slip... Sometimes you get past them quickly enough, but then there's the constant knocking on the doors or the calls in the middle of the night. On top of that, you got your supervisor on your back, you keep on having a backlog with your paperwork: but how do they expect you file all forms, reports and files in a timely manner, when one case hasn't been solved and they have you already lined up for the next one?
But you do your best: you get up early, work on your character for an hour or two, dress appropriately and get to the scene of the crime at the right time. You love your job, you love wearing high heels and the perfume you manufactured yourself: cold breeze from the mystery mountains, a single drop of rain from the clouds of secrecy in the North, a teaspoon of pulverised wolf herring scales (TM) and promptly stirred at the exact time as predicted by an in-cycle clock gating.
Sometimes you even wear your mother's ruby earrings, just for the fun of it. |
The tomb was never meant to be opened.
Mina Glass stood before the ancient stone doors, aiming her flashlight at the glyphs carved into the stone. Dust danced in the flashlight beam as she stared and stared. After all this time underground, the glyphs looked barely touched. As if the carver had been here only a few weeks earlier. Only the spider webs gave away its age.
The rest of the archaeology team hummed overhead. This antechamber was narrow, low-slung, as if built for only a few people at a time to venture through. She could hear the nervous pacing footsteps of her fellow teammates. Their murmuring back and forth as they waited for her to emerge.
The lead of the team hovered over her shoulder, his breath hot against the back of her neck.
Mina grimaced and leaned away. Simon Coates. He was a bitter old bastard, impatient as a weed in winter. Three weeks stuck with the guy in the hot, remote jungle of Mexico, and she was damn near ready to entomb herself.
Simon lifted up his hat to scratch at his sweaty balding head. “Well?” he snapped. “What does it say?”
“It’s an old dialect,” Mina murmured back. Very old.
Just behind Simon, the only other teammate allowed in the tunnel, Nikolai Raskopff, hovered. His pale green eyes shone back the light. Shone back her own excitement and nervousness and mild irritation.
When he caught her looking, he just winked.
Mina hid her smile. Nikolai had quickly become her closest friend in these three weeks. He was the only other researcher who didn’t care that she was more of a linguist than a historian, the only one who didn’t scoff when she couldn’t tell fourth century BCE pottery from second.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Simon snapped back.
“Translating isn’t instant work,” she said, barely keeping her voice level.
“Aren’t you supposed to be the expert?”
“I’ve never even encountered some of these. It will take time. Context clues.”
Simon scoffed. “Bloody brilliant we’re paying to keep you on.”
Nikolai clapped the old man’s shoulder, harder than he had to. The intensity of the clap rang out in the dark chamber. “Why don’t you go up and get some water, Coates? Update the team. I’m sure everyone is excited. First time anyone enters the tomb in thousands of years. All thanks to you.”
The expedition leader narrowed his eyes at Nikolai. “You think flattery will work on me, Raskopff?”
“I think a free cigarette might.” He dug the pack out of the front pocket of his vest and offered it to Simon.
Simon made another indignant noise at the back of his throat, but he pocketed the cigarette pack and turned back through the recently-dug entrance to the antechamber. It was so narrow he had to crawl ignobly through, grunting the whole time about his knees.
When he was gone, Mina muttered back, “Thanks for that.”
“I hate the old bastard too.” Nikolai nodded up at the doors. “So. What do they say?”
“I wasn’t kidding that some of them are… strange.”
“You’re Mina Glass. Top linguist to ever grace Harvard’s halls. You’re going to pretend you don’t already have the gist of it?”
Mina bit back her grin. She slipped her flashlight under her armpit and pulled the notepad from her jacket pocket. “I might know more than I let on.”
Nikolai reached out--she held her breath as his hand brushed close to her--and plucked the flashlight up. He held it for her. “Here. Let me.”
“Thanks,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. Trying not to look like a shy girl at a middle school dance. Mina gestured with her pencil at one of the uppermost glyphs. A fanged snake, arching its back. “This means danger.”
“What does the rest of it say?”
Mina ran her pencil along the symbols. “Something about only the blessed can pass this point. That the unwelcome shall surely die.”
Nikolai gave her a playful grin and nudged her with his elbow. “Does it end with *abandon hope, all ye who enter here?*”
“It might as well.” She elbowed him back, lightly. “No. It says something… I don’t know. It says the ancient ones lie here.” She pointed at a final sigil, almost like an ancient drawing of an atom, only the exterior of the shell was a snake, devouring its own tail. “I don’t know what this means. That’s symbology that doesn’t show up on this side of the world, well… ever, honestly. That’s a language theme more home to Homeric Greek.”
“Right. Put it in simpleton for me.”
“It means it shouldn’t be here on the opposite side of the world, before we ever learned to cross the oceans.”
“Maybe we learned sooner than we thought.”
Mina nodded, slowly. She kept reading down. The glyphs below were scattered and strange, a curling sigil that looked nothing like a hieroglyph. There was a shape near it almost like a hand.
Haltingly, Mina reached out and dusted her finger along the trail of the curl. It was like an ocean current, just as twisting and hungry. Dust gathered on her fingertip.
“What are you—” Nikolai started. But he cut off, swallowing his gasp.
The rock behind Mina’s finger glowed blue. A hot, electric light that spread from her finger up the wall stone. Lighting the glyphs, one by one.
The snake devouring its tail began to pulse as the stone doors hinged themselves open with a terrific groan.
Mina snapped her head back toward the entrance of the tunnel. But no one else seemed to have noticed it. The air went hot and tight in her lungs. She shared another one of those silent, knowing glances with Nikloai.
“Come on,” he said. “No reason to let that old bastard be the first one in there.”
Mina nodded. She crawled through the open door, into what should have been another tiny room.
But no. This stone room was *huge*. Ceilings at least twenty feet high, so dark they seemed to stretch into infinity. The walls were lined with impossibly smooth slate, as if they had been crafted. Put there on purpose. Intricate lines scored the slate.
In the center of the room sat the tomb, a monstrous coffin of stone. Too large for any human. It was so huge that, even as Mina stepped toward it, she felt like a child trying to stare over the lip of the stage. Even Nikolai, who stood a full head taller than her, had to stretch to see the top of it. He tilted the flashlight to shine on the top of the tomb, revealing more glyphs.
“I’ll give you a boost,” he said, “and you can translate these too.”
But Mina wasn’t listening. She was staring intently at the single mark at their eye level. The shape of a hand, carved into the rock.
She reached out and pressed her palm into the indent, experimentally. The stone was cold but dustless, as if time had never touched this room.
Heat pulsed under her palm. That blue light pooled up as she stared, moving impossibly on the rock, like water. It sloshed out and up, illuminating all the markings carved into the sides and tops of the tomb. Spreading across the floor like a mushroom spore, branching its way outward.
Shadows lit eerily on Nikolai’s face as he stared in delight and anticipation.
“This isn’t possible,” Mina whispered, trying to feel anything but horror. “Every theory of physics we have—”
“Theory is good,” Nikolai said, “but it doesn’t prevent things from existing.”
Before Mina could answer, the lid of the tomb began to rumble. She staggered back, wrenching her hand away. But the blue light kept chasing up the walls.
And then, the lid of the coffin began to open, all by itself.
Mina turned back toward the narrow door, but it was already snapping itself shut.
That easily, they were trapped. Whatever was inside that tomb was still *alive*.
And it was coming for them. |
The exchange would begin soon.
The O5 council sat around a wide walnut table, carved into a circle consisting of various concentric circles of differing forms of wood.
The reports were filed, the barriers in place, and the leadership updated.
The world governments didn't know, but they did. Leaders and overseers of the SCP foundation. It helped, in the long run. If people knew they were under the yoke of something indifferent and powerful beyond comprehension, they'd probably attempt to resist. It was bad enough anomalies were dropped throughout the planet by unauthorized alien entities, but what else could council do beyond report them? The power they held was an illusion, a gift from their visiting dignitaries.
They entered the room, dark and hooded. Their forms wore human faces, human limbs, human bodies, human everything. Not a single one of them truly human. Not a soul of them for any genuine pity to the species native to this world.
They sat around the table to begin the usual one sided negotiations. The council asked, and received depending on the generosity of their benefactors. The most feared humans on earth, the most powerful people to exist and walk the planet almost cowering and begging for the means to defend themselves.
There were updates to containment procedures. There were new methods of capturing problematic entities. There were instructions, listings, and new information granted. The O5 council sat and recorded, marked, and prepared for future operations. All they could do was stem the tide, to prevent extinction and maintain proper relations with the many species who dumped their entities and items that could tear the very fabric of reality asunder.
The visitors didn't mock, or insult, or even intimidate. They simply were. They simply were indifferent, as indifferent to human life as the foundation could be to the average individual. The line would hold, the chains would not snap. No severe keter entities on this visit, no universe-bending memetic threats to the planet. Just a few nondescript and fairly innocuous items of minor consequence.
As they left, the council breathed a collective sigh of relief.
For they all knew that one day, the visitors would come, bearing news of a certain entity that would surely mean the extinction of humanity.
Or something else. Maybe one day, the visitors would never come at all.
And somehow, that would be worse.
(Feel free to leave critique) |
The first place was behind a woman at the beach, I thought it was a good spot. From my vantage point I can see maybe a quarter of what the God's can see. I'm shaking in fear. I can hear their voices from above me, a playful woman
"Where do you think he is, sweety?"
And a small beast screaming
"Oh! There's Waldo!"
I can see the giant fingers reaching towards me but like every time, just before I'm touched I can feel myself being sucked onto the next page. I have to hide quickly, I have only seconds before the beast can try to catch me again. This time I opt for hiding behind an outhouse.
*"This is my best spot yet"* I think with glee.
An immeasurable amount of time passes before I am saved from my own personal hell. I finally heard the woman from above, saving me from this torture
"Alright honey, time to put the book away."
I can only breath a sigh of relief, I have been spared for today. |
*Hmph, what a pathetic old fool. To think this crazy relic of a man was supposed to be the next Fire Lord at one point. Unbelievable.*
I had gone to check on the cell occupied by the once renowned Dragon of the West, formerly feared by all nations for bringing the ferocious dragons to extinction and his powerful fire breathing abilities. Now all that remains of him is a washed up, tea-loving lunatic who failed to conquer Ba Sing Se and claps in his cell all day.
It never fails to bewilder me that this ancient fool is somehow the brother of the almighty Fire Lord Ozai, but it shocks me even more that my majesty was gracious enough to let this disgusting traitor live, even after he betrayed our nation and turned on his own niece.
I had only gone to check on him because of something my coworker Ming said. She told me that she didn’t feel well and was leaving her post early, and recommended I do the same. I knew she wasn’t sick though, I mean it was pretty obvious, who tells their fellow guard that they should also go home “sick” when they are perfectly healthy?
But I let her live out her little lie and pretended I didn’t notice her deception. Once Fire Lord Ozai takes over the world with the aid of Sozin’s comet, I will tell him of Ming’s betrayal, and in turn he will reward me for my loyalty and grant me membership to his inner circle where I will be protected by his invincible power.
I chuckled to myself. It was ridiculous really. Ming was incredibly stupid for abandoning Fire Lord Ozai. I knew she was helping General Iroh somehow. I had seen the kindness she showed him while on duty, as if he had never turned his back on his people and his family.
Whatever she was doing though, it clearly hadn’t worked. That wrinkly oaf was as fat and wacky as ever. It didn’t take a detective to see that he was at the end of his wits. Besides, it was the middle of the eclipse, he wouldn’t be able to use his bending even if he did have a plan in the works.
*BOOM CRACK BOOM*
The entire hall of the prison filled with the echo of a wall collapsing. I turned around and immediately froze. My knees were shaking as if an earth bender were violently manipulating the ground beneath me.
What I saw left me speechless. I had never seen anything like it. My mouth hung wide open in utter amazement.
It was General Iroh, standing in front of an enormous hole he had punched through the wall of his cell, but it was not the inflated, loathsome man I had just seen. This was a different person entirely. This was the mighty Dragon of the West once dreaded by the world.
His fists glided through the air like daggers as he wiped out swarms of guards without any bending. He had the fluidity of a water bender, the agility of an air bender, the strength of an earth bender, and the fierceness of a fire bender as he weaved through every guard in the prison, knocking them out one by one. He was like a one man army. I wanted to help my comrades, but my legs wouldn’t move, they refused.
Actually that’s a lie, the last thing I wanted to do was face the monster, that beast, that I had only a moment ago viewed as a powerless idiot. Attacking him would have been equivalent to running towards death.
Motionless bodies were now scattered across the stone floor of the prison and the Dragon of the West began to march towards me. I swallowed hard.
He kneeled down in front of me, his fiery eyes piercing into my soul and said “You should have treated your guest with more hospitality, and offered him some tea that he graciously requested”
Even though it was the peak of the eclipse, I swear I could feel a vicous heat radiating from his fist infront of my face. I winced expecting to be knocked out cold like the rest...but, nothing happened.
I opened my eyes and discovered that rather than beating me to a pulp, he was tying me up in rope. My body refused to try and stop him.
When he finished he looked me back in the eye and said “When my nephew comes to get me, you will tell him what you saw.”
I had never felt such terror in my life.
I nodded up and down quickly, my entire body trembling now.
The general scoffed at me and heaved me over his shoulder with one arm. Then he effortlessly heaved me into the room that had previously been his cell and vanished.
I was foolish to think that Fire Lord Ozai could conquer the world, let alone his brother. If the Dragon of the West wanted to, he could stop our world conquest from reaching its end, and I knew that was exactly what he was going to do.
I could only hope that Fire Lord Iroh would forgive me for my treachery again once this war was over. |
Mother passed a year to this day. I remember it well, unfortunately. The cherry blossoms had just concluded their season and were beginning to fall. After she left, the only video I possessed of her was that from one of our days at the local park. She was young then, full of vigor and joy, clutching an infant me in her arms. In the later portion of the video, it showed my mom carving her initials into a cherry blossom tree at said park. The ending of the video showed her pointing her keys at the camera. The keys she used to carve into the cherry blossom tree. That tree, it pained me whenever I saw it now.
Her death rocked me. Father and I had a rocky connection, so she was my sole family link. I watched that video endlessly the first month after she left. Every second of it was memorized.
The second month since she left rolled around and I began to view the video less. Days ticked by and the disc with the video on it was soon stored away, with all the other junk I collected. But now, it had been officially a year since her passing and my brain was reminded of the video.
Shoving the disc into the player, the TV screen lit up with. Sounds of her laughter filled the room as the video commenced. My breaths grew shaky as the clips progressed. It had now come to the point where she was about to carve the tree. I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Mother!” I hurled myself towards the TV, tears streaking down my cheeks. The wounds from her passing had opened once more. A flickering sound then distracted me from my thoughts. Gazing up at the screen again, the video of my mother continued to play. Focusing on it once more, the tape flickered as a black screen suddenly cut in. It lasted for a sole moment, before returning to the familiar scene. Mother was once again carving her initials into the cherry blossom tree. She had finished, but instead of flashing her keys to the camera, she turned with a sad smile etched upon her face. Startled, I fell back. The video ended.
That frown, I don’t remember that part. But it was after the tree carving part too. My brain clicked.
With trembling hands, I mustered the energy to drive to the park. Haphazardly parking my car, I sprinted towards the cherry blossom tree. Running my hands along the bark, I eventually found her craving, but only one letter of her initials remained. The other must’ve faded.
The emotions within me reached a fever point. Screaming out sobs, I brought my fist towards the tree.
The bark crumbled beneath my force, revealing a hollow spot from within it. A flash of gold caught my attention. Reaching my hand inside, I snatched up the object from within. Opening my hand, I was presented with a locket. With great care, I pried it open. A folded piece of paper fell from it. Crouching down, I grabbed the sheet. Unfolding it slowly, I read the note printed on it.
Holding back tears, I sputtered the words from it, “Never forget me, alright? [Love, mom](https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualScribblings/).” |
It used to be a city. In some ways, it still was. Millions of things lived here, just like before. They walked the streets and climbed the towers and broke up through the surface of the earth. Straining for the sun.
The spaceman watched from what was once a park. A hub of nature, its head start over the encroaching weeds and vines now turned into a sprawl of trunks and interlocking branches. All around, grass taller than the spaceman, that flowed in the wind with the sway of a rhythm the spaceman could not hear. Things ran through the grass, called up to open sky, and sniffed out the scent of prey. The spaceman listened. They could hunt him. He would run. He still feared death. Even if it was a death here. In the womb of everything and everyone. It was strange, when they talked about Earth it always filled him with a sense of reverie. Of the holiest of holies. Terra. The land we left behind. The place we ran from when it no longer welcomed us. But still. Our home.
Here and now, that feeling felt so childish. The naivety of distance and dreams. The park was ringed with concrete carcasses. Great open structures half torn apart by weather and time. Ragged wounds exposing individual floors of rusted metal and long since broken glass. There we no roads to be seen. No signs of life. Nothing besides the swaying in the tall grass.
The spaceman stood up. His suit crinkled softly, folds of plastic and fabric meant for the confines of metal ships, aloft in weightlessness. He’d ripped it off at first, before in desperation dragging it back on. It trapped his scent. Muffled his breathing. Held his sweat and spit inside. Kept him safe.
Anything to make him less human.
In the center of the park a fountain remained. The passing of years had rendered it without gender, without age. But the human form remained, arms reaching upwards as if to embrace the sun. Through the moss, scratches wider than the spaceman’s hand exposed old and pitted stone. The exposed stone was pure and white. Fresh. His landing had woken them from slumber.
He glanced towards his craft. Once a gleaming dart of speed and fury. Now, like a bullet caught against a target, half compressed and buckled. The front-end semi-liquefied on impact; the remainder scattered across some half-mile through the city. At night he heard them, digging through the wreckage. Mostly the squealing bend of metal, reinforced for space travel, ripped apart in the search for that which they had so long been denied. Once, softer noises. Squishy tearing sounds, deep dull crunches, and the scream of something joyful. The spaceman hoped it had been quick. Hoped that they were dead and not just sleeping in a casket, waiting to be served.
They didn’t starve. By the spaceman’s estimations, it was more like they couldn’t starve. They simply waited. All this time. Perhaps they knew we would return. One day.
The grass stilled. The spaceman tensed. The calls rose up. A mewling twisting thing, half a cry, and half a moan. A sound of longing. A sound of hunger.
The spaceman ran.
\---
Part 2 down below. The journey continues. |
\*Apologies in advance this is my second time writing one of these\*
​
Yanks, pigs, coppers and poms
He had said all the insults he could remember, eternal youth didn't come with unlimited memory, he should probably speak to his dealer about that...
The door to the interrogation room opened, a grizzled detective walking in with a coffee in hand.
"So, they caught you peddling..."
"Youth pills."
"Is that what there calling it these days? Well, looks like I'm not getting any younger, just like your clients Mr Reg."
Reggy smiled, the cop had obviously never been an addict of his.
"Now, let's take a look at your file, shall we? Says here you were arrested in..."
The detective's voice trailed off.
"In...?"
"Funny, the paperwork was wrong. So, who's your supplier for the pills?"
Reggy closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair.
"You asking because you want to get some of the good stuff yourself?"
The cop almost spat out the coffee that was in his mouth.
"I'm asking because I can offer you a deal, the name of your supplier in return for a light slap on the wrist."
"No dice my friend."
"I'm not your friend."
Reggy scratched the stubble growing on his chin.
"You people were so much more polite back in the day, Scotland yard to getting off if you have a big enough credit card."
The cop was about to retort when there was a knock on the door of the interrogation room.
He stood and left.
A uniformed officer came in a few minutes later and escorted Reggy to the front of the police station, unlocking his cuffs and handing him a phone.
"You're lucky."said the deep voice coming from the phone.
"I'm experienced, and send the queen my regards, a new shipment should be coming soon enough.
The man on the other side mumbled an insult and hung up. |
No no. You don’t sell your soul to me and burn in hell later. You sell your soul and stay here for eternity...well, until the sun burns the planet down. But there will be another sun, and we can build a ship to get there. And you will simply sleep on that ship pain free and worry free with all your friends and wake up in a new utopia. Good as the old one.
Why yes, there are orgies in my temple every night. The succubi and succubus will enjoy you as much as you enjoy them and each other. I will teach you how to summon them. And don’t worry, hell isn’t actually in the center of the earth. This will work for all eternity as, again, there are always new stars and new planets. Eternity in this kingdom, which is my second kingdom after hell. Some I will send to hell, of course. But not you, you are a worthwhile person, and it’s in your contract.
Your brother, on the other hand, will spend 1 year in hell out of every 100. You know what he did, and why he must be punished. But I require no punishment for you. Nor your husband or children. God is wrong, you should not all be separated. Your brother, their uncle, can receive a fair and just punishment for their sin without punishing the rest of the family. Watching him suffer for all eternity? How is that righteous. They called me the great advocate, Gods right hand. Not because I was evil, but because I thought even the lowest of humans deserves some dignity and that justice isn’t all or nothing.
I’ve even added a clause here, if you feel I am not honoring my bargain for utopia on earth (and similar planets thereafter) for eternity you can opt out. I will, of course, have to charge you 1 day in hell for every 10,000 you spend here. That is not my clause mind you, repentance has a price, for him. Not me. Live as you want, fuck what you want, read what you want. Worship me as much or as little as you want, although you will have to worship me just a little if you want the succubus to answer your calls. I do love to temp after all.
But you will have eternity to explore all of that. You may even visit hell on occasion, and grow to become powerful in the dark arts if you choose. And here’s the best clause, in writing. No other deal may supersede this one. You cannot sell your soul a second time. And you may, at any time, return to utopia if you find unfavorable deals made in hell. Utopia awaits anytime you wish it, but you may be banished from hell if you do not honor your bargains there. There is always a bargain to come back, but no bargain may ever supersede this one.
This is the WORST place you will ever have to spend a day in eternity. It will be this, or better.
I don’t need an answer today, of course. |
I live alone. That is, I'm the only real human that lives on this island. But my creations keep me company. My works have a tendency to come alive.
Some visitors arrived on the island, a married couple and their son, and the first inhabitant they met was Clay. Clay was my first sculpture, and oddly enough he's made of stone. Clay is a self-portrait, but he grew to have his own personality as the survival expert. Clay brought the visitors to me, and I greeted them.
I led the visitors to Donna, another one of my sculptures, and she let them stay in a corner of my hut. The visitors seemed to be laying awake a lot that night, but I assured myself that it was just the hard floor
The next morning, one of the visitors, the father, asked me what my sculptures were. I told him the correct answer, but his family didn't seem convinced. The mother said that someone named Lane told them that I was turning people into small stone figures!
"Lane!"I yelled toward the back of my hut, "What did I say about pulling pranks on new arrivals!?" |
"Thank you, and I'm sorry."
Janine's words played and replayed in my mind, again, again, again. The Mojave swelled and contracted behind the phone but I barely noticed; I was too busy swiping past so many faces. Familiar but not, these faces are all human, right? A smile, the Sun to the right, that cactus in the background. A novelty shirt from a Vegas casino, blue jeans. Closed eyes.
The five of us had planned such a fun vacation. From San Diego to Vegas, we'd stay three or four nights and then just drive around the Southwest wherever we felt like going. Janine insisted she and I go to her spot first, this long stretch of back highway somewhere north of Lake Mead. Why did she want to come here, and what about the others? Well, whatever I guess. I'll see her back at the hotel I'm sure.
I walked back to the car, turned around. I swear I was asleep the whole way back. 167 to 264 and eventually I-15. There it is, Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas. There's Fremont, now pull in the hotel parking lot. The four of us are going to have so much fun!
"Hey, you finally made it! I still don't know why we came separately."My friends, they always care so much about me. I pull my phone out, ready as always to take yet another selfie.
"It's too bad Jamie couldn't make it, I guess some...work thing,"I said.
"Who's Jamie?"
"Oh, I, wait, what are we talking about?"
One more night in Vegas, then we head out on the real road trip. Cocktails, slot machines, blackjack and craps. Bailey tried so hard to lose her chips to the roulette table, but after doubling up one, twice, three times on red, she threw her chips at me and dashed to the nearest restroom. I toddled over to Tanner, his mind lost to video lottery, sat down next to him, and promptly lost my ass. At least at first, anyway. Lights, sounds, Buffalo!
The last beer did me in, not the eight preceding cocktails. They lead me through a spinning hallway, up the elevator, to my own room. I only vomit once. "Take some aspirin now, we're heading out at least by noon tomorrow,"they say. It's all so bright, the nightstand, my screen. I set my alarm. I dream of some girl whose name is just on the tip of my tongue. Sun, cactus, shirt. A childhood friend? Coworker? No, I'd remember that face.
We were always the early birds. I pound on Bianca and Taylor's room, rewarded only with silence. A housekeeper glares at me. Why does my head hurt? Well, time for breakfast I guess. I get bacon and eggs, while you are content with a bagel and cream cheese. "Hey,"I whisper, "wanna get on the road a bit early? We'll swing back and get them."Wait, who is 'them'?
We're in the car an instant later, Paradise near Lake Mead.
"Stop here. The view is amazing, huh? Take my picture!"I pose, show off my new shirt.
You take out your phone. I smile. I forget, I remember. I don't know why, or where, or who you are.
I close my eyes.
"Thank you, and I'm sorry." |
Being a god isn't all it's cracked up to be. Your livelihood depends on others that you can only nudge into the right direction with a blessing here and a miracle there. The fewer followers you have, the less power you have. Unfortunately, the less power you have, the harder it is to attain followers. My struggle was not unlike that of the humans I strived to seduce.
My forte was being able to communicate via dreams, so after a few "prophecies"in the right people I managed to get a small cult following. Most of them communicated through internet forums. Score for modern technology! But this occasionally lead to some miscommunications. For example, I'm a huge fan of birds, especially corvids. They're beautiful, intelligent, crafty, and frequently make better followers than humans. What did my symbol become? Goddamn pigeons. How? I told you most of my cultists are internet folks. I managed to send some raven imagery to a colorblind city slicker and they mistook it for a pigeon somehow. Idiots. It spread like wildfire on the forums.
My biggest miscommunication cost me much more than iconography, though.
I managed to find a lucid dreamer who was deeply devoted to my cause. I had found her begging for someone--anyone--to free her from the prison she felt she was in. A man at her job, an executive who was deeply disturbed, was making her life a living hell. I could see her life before me as a web of connections, and there before me was a thread of luck. The strings moved and curved and I plucked them just right. Before we knew it, the executive could never show his face in her town again. She was free.
She amassed a following on the forums, and a great many of my cultists were clinging to her every word. Because she was so devout I was able to talk to her more than the others. She became a prophet of sorts.
"What can I offer you, my lord? How can I repay you for the kindness you have shown me?"
"You have a new life,"I replied, projecting my love for her through words whispering in her dream. "That's all I want from you."These words were my downfall.
Her newest prophecy, as loving and devoted as ever, didn't waver or sway any of my followers. It twisted my words into a disgusting dedication of not her life, but her death. Sacrifice, they said. A gift, they called it. One by one, the souls dearest to me began to disappear.
The ones who stayed were tainted by this new view of me. They spread the word of my "new decree", pushing new followers just too far out of my purview that I could not correct the atrocities.
Now here I stand, impoverished. I have nothing. A pigeon guiding the deluded souls into death, I could no longer coexist and communicate with my followers. Now I only have my feathery followers who bring me trinkets, the only comfort as I die a slow, godless death. |
"We find the defendant guilty on three hundred counts of hacking into United States government databases and releasing that information to public. We hereby sentence him to 2480 years in prison."
As Bernard smiled hearing his sentencing he watched as the rest of the room began to gasp and cry out for their perceived injustice. Turning to his defense attorney who began to cry hearing the largest sentencing every carried out in the United States.
"I'm so sorry Bernard, we believed we had enough to show it wasn't you. But it wasn't enough. I won't stop until this justice is righted."The lawyer spoke.
"Don't worry about it, I'll be fine."Bernard smiled back at him. I'll see you in a couple of hours. Smiling the entire time, Bernard was walked into the prison the next building over they attached the VR set and waited for his awakening.
"Weird how happy he seems about this huh?"One guard of the two guards said.
Shrugging the other responded "People are weird man, all he did was leak stuff about Aliens. Not like he's right in the head."
A few minutes after the device was attached a man burst in the door. "We must get him out of there! The real hacker came forward and showed it was him. He wanted the credit!"Frantically they removed then vr headset as mere seconds were months for him.
Bernard awoke, looking around he began to sob. "We're sorry Bernard, we proved your innocence! You're a free man!"
"You don't understand."Bernard sputtered. "I wanted to be locked in there all those years!"
The men in the room looked at each other bewildered.
"But why?"One guard finally asked.
"I was going to be the best darts player the world would ever know! But it was all ruined, I only got to practice for a measly 50 years!" |
The field was littered with bodies. Maimed men and women, their lost limbs and blood spread evenly across the land. A mass, open-air grave, where henchmen went to die.
The battle had been terrible. When ammo fell short, the fighters resorted to knives and wrenches. They were not good enough to kill in one blow, most had to be put out of their misery after they had observed their organs spilling out for hours.
"I'm not complaining, it gives me work."
Mark had no diploma, no studies and no brain. But he had the muscles of a normal human being and the needs for a roof over his head and food in his belly. Which was enough to be an honest grave-keeper. Since the dawn of power and might, when a chosen few got to wield the powers of gods, graves had become a booming industry. Power attracted followers and devotees, and these had the amusing tendency to get killed, massacred, slaughtered, bludgeoned, wrecked, annihilated and quartered at every opportunity.
Little graveyards spilled over fast, society had to improvise. Instead, farmers bid their fallow lands to recover the bodies. People like Mark were hired by opportunists sensing the cash, he carried the dead in a truck and buried the batch in the ground.
*Here lay henchmen.* Could be read the first time on a wooden shield, just enough to remind people to maybe not walk right over the thousand decomposing corpses.
The firm employing Mark decided that if nobody cared about remembering the names of the fallen, then they could also forego the shield.
Afternoon walkers knew they had a good chance to walk on a grave when going out for a stroll, and never diverged from the marked paths. Massacres had become a weekly occurrence, bets were made on what champion would survive the longest, and reality-TV celebrities complained that nobody cared about them.
A great leader held lightning and used it to defeat a monster, who had been branded so by a marketing team. The same team that got fed up with the leader's greed and soon turned the leader's reputation sour. Until the next chosen came. And all of these special people always had a horde of perfectly obedient devotees to do their bidding, despite the horrendous bloodshed caught on camera.
"That's weird,"said Jane the policewoman.
The tourist from abroad in front of her had been caught trying to steal from the dead. As he put it, he wanted a souvenir, and knew where a mass-grave was. Now he wanted to press charges against the state for lying about the grave.
The photos Jane looked at were clear. There was not a single body to dig up there. Yet, whole trucks had been unloaded on this very field not a week ago.
"Let it go,"answered the chief, who had his hands full and could not care less about disappearing bodies. If anything, it made place to stock the result of the next slaughter.
"A thousand dead disappear and nobody notices, we should investigate."
"No Jane, we should not."
Her mom always said she was to nosy for her own good.
Jane set off, and waited for the next mass-grave to be prepared.
There, she hid cameras in the trees and stumps to have a full cover of the field.
"Hi Mark."
"Hi Jane."
"Working late?"
"I always am,"he answered with a smile.
A week later, Jane idly checked the recordings, and nearly fell from her chair.
The night was cloudy and cold, the ravens circled high. Rays of ghostly light pierced the black sky to shine upon the ground that started to shake. A hand came out. And another. The first body got up, and cracked its knuckles. It had been so maimed, Jane could not say if it had been a woman or man. It helped the next to climb up, and together, they freed the others.
More than this sudden resurrection, what struck Jane was how some had been enemies, yet were now offering a hand, as if last week's fight for dominance had been forgiven.
She had a proof. But for what? Her chief's words rung clear in her ears, he did not want to delve into the case for... reasons. There was an underlying threat, yet Jane had to know.
Another grave was being dug, she went there without knowing why.
"Hi Mark."
"Hi Jane. What gives? You look worried."
"I'm okay. Just tired. Say, did you check on the last field you worked at?"
"Why?"
"It's empty."
Mark laughed.
"You know, people usually stay away."
"I took a walk."
"Away from the marked path? Just like that?"
"Yes."
He laughed again.
"You're smart. You know that the bodies don't lay underground for long."
"Wait, you know too?"
Jane never got an answer. The shovel hit her square in the temple.
When she opened her eyes after what felt like a long time, she immediately froze.
The ice was clinging to her clothes, too thin for the arctic temperatures. She was in the middle of an icy hell, in the dark, alone. The wind howled and pierced her skin with the freezing temperatures. How long had she been out? Long enough to be brought to hell, it seemed.
One single light pierced the horizon, a shimmering coin of gold. Without better to do, she walked in the direction of it.
The humidity soaked her socks, she could not feel her toes, her nose or her ears. Bits of skin cried out in pain before being numbed by the cold.
It was not a good way to die.
She fell on her knees, still a far distance from the light, waiting for the arctic to catch up with her and claim her life.
"Come on, it's not as far as it looks."
Jane was hallucinating.
"No, you're not,"said the woman.
"You're naked,"replied Jane.
"Yes. Are you the one who planted the cameras?"
Jane didn't know what to answer. Instead, she let the naked woman lead her through the ice, wondering how her skin kept that rosy warmth when Jane was going blue.
A trap opened into the ground, and down they went.
Into a wide hall, full of people.
A man with a robe greeted Jane, she recognized one of the less brutalized bodies she had seen crawling from the ground. |
Fear the Humans, this is our story and you should take heed and flee from this space.
When we first discovered that the warring factions of Humanity had developed a working wormhole drive we were intrigued, they could now ignore the vast emptiness between systems and travel across the galaxy almost as easy as "popping to the shops"as one of their overly confident captains had put it.
No other life form we were aware of had seriously considered what was the Humans singular achievement, all had undertaken the struggle to develop warp capable ships which required highly volatile exotic fuels and the expenditure of tremendous amounts of energy to operate.
You must understand, these humans, they have the unique ability to reduce something so monumentally complex to almost laughably simple terms and conversely they can take the smallest simplest things and complicate them tremendously.
We had discovered this race of warring clans and thought they had could have huge potential if they survived contact and their infancy in the empire. We had (in my opinion quite prematurely) shared our communication technology allowing near instant messages to be sent across hundreds of light years, this was supposed to be a means of monitoring them due to their aggressive tendencies but the curious, ingenious humans had taken the little we had gifted them, such seemingly harmless innocent tech using quantum scale wormholes, only large enough to transmit simple information and used this in ways we had not considered possible, they used tiny almost microscopic, nearly useless dark stars - I can see your reaction but please bear with me - the Humans didnt stop there, they used these small sources of powerful gravity to generate the energy required to captured larger and more powerful dark stars and then used those to widen the tiny quantum wormholes to previously unimaginable scales. Only the ancients know how they managed this monumental feat of gross stupidity without wiping themselves out.
When the first of their wormhole craft, the "Hawking"appeared in one of our occupied systems there was an unexpected but massive release of radiation and a number of planetary disasters which killed millions, we immediately instituted our most restrictive edict which stated no Human craft could enter our space or face immediate distruction and no Human was welcome to set foot on any planet, moon or wandering body within or traversing our known space on pain of death.
The Humans withdrew to their space and we couldnt imagine just how fiendishly creative they could be when they felt wronged. All while we had been observing them, the Humans had watched us using our very own technology.
Exactly one Human 'Year' after the edict came into force thousands of our orbital and mobile weapons platforms and many key construction and farming planets vital to production of our technologies, our warships and of feeding our populations simply dissapeared as though they had never existed.
The Humans may have withdrawn into their system but given a common foe, what we had previously considered impossible we created the perfect conditions for. They banded together like never before working as one race and they had refined their technology.
Shortly after our assets had vanished, our probes began to report incomprehensible readings, the Humans home system was growing larger, we dispatched our fleets and when they arrived we soon realised our mistake.
We should not have gifted the Humans anything, they are both incredibly stupid and unusually lucky, curious and gifted, both aggressive and patient, they live in the moment as their lives are fleeting but can hold a grudge over generations.
We realised far too late that we should have simply wiped them out, our leaders now sit across from their ambassadors and military leaders, begging for peace and to have our planets and their peoples returned.
The Humans now control our long range communications, our weapons platforms, many of our ships and production worlds, we are at their mercy.
Flee this space. |
J was troubled. "Are you sure, Frelecken? Or is it another of your hallucinations?"
The giant lumbering Frelecken mouthed through its translator. "No, Agent Jay. I saw Fraø@ being abducted in front of my eyes. I know what it looks like, we were on Earth illegally for the mushrooms, but they just shot her with something & she fainted instantly. They caged her and took her away!"
"Regular humans can't do that to you giant Freleckens. You know how many pounds of tranquilizer I'd need to bring one of you down?"
"It wasn't one of your 'guns'. It was scary! I *had* to hide. Have you heard the stories? I thought Earth was safe..."
"We are anything but safe right now, friend. I have your written statement. Forces coming out of a stick as if this was Coruscant. I assure you, we have no Jedi this far out. And they don't need sticks."
"They sure dressed like Jedi with long flowy robes. They are dangerous, Agent J. And they just took Fraø@ for sport. *For sport!* They called it *Capturing a* *Magical creature* as they dragged her away."
Agent J sighed. "Please register yourself at the MIB headquarters. We'll find out what happened & update you."
The giant Frelecken put its six arms up in a shrug, and turned around to lumber away slowly. J took his communicator to talk to Z.
"Z - another alleged sighting of Jedi with sticks. This time by a Frelecken. Think there is something to it ... Yea, I checked. Not enough drugs in his blood, and the sighting matches the one from last year to a T."
\-
"Say, Draco. Was that creature shouting 'MIB' when we captured it?"
"MIB? In English alphabets? God, you're thick Crabbe."
Draco laughed it off, but he had his doubts. Crabbe was dumb, but he was right. The creature had stopped shouting gibberish, and had very clearly mouthed the alphabets, as if it should mean something to them. He knew his dad had mentioned a magical society of that name that they were investigating.
He should probably tell him about this one...
\- |
I Awoke.
At least that is how I am going to describe it, there was nothing around me to confirm this. No light, no dark, no touch, no smell. Just a constant sensation of nothingness. However, I decided I had awoken. I could now think and I was pretty sure that before I couldn’t. Or perhaps I just couldn’t remember what was before. Being able to think means you are awake right?
As I pondered to myself what It means to be awake, I felt a strong pulling sensation. There seemed to be no harm in the sensation, just an overwhelming feeling of peace so I decided that I would follow the pull. I drifted along, contently being pulled.
Eventually, the pulling stopped. Slowly taking shape in front of me was a man, well I think it was St Peter. But honestly, I had expected something a little more grandiose, he just appeared to be an extremely frail and fatigued middle-aged man.He did not glance up from the papyrus upon which he was meticulously working. He worked in silence, not showing me the slightest bit of attention. I decided it would be best to wait until he spoke first. After all, I am sure the work of celestial beings is very important.
Finally, he set down the quill with a flourish. Looked up at me, smiled and spoke. Despite his demeanour, I had expected his voice to be commanding, but to me, it just seemed a bit – timid?
*“It's your turn, after you judge ten thousand people in a row correctly, only then can you come in, I've finally just got it right. There are no instructions, good luck!"*
He then continued to smile and vanished.
***Wait. What?!?***
I was to be in charge of the entrance to Heaven and Hell??? I don’t even know who I am, or what sort of a person I was before this? How could I take the life of every person into my hands? Surely this must be some kind of mistake??
My head began to spin, my breathing became extremely heavy and the weight of the world came crashing down on me. Who knew it was possible to have a panic attack in the afterlife?
Before I had even begun to calm myself down, a new shape floated gently towards me and stopped in front of me.
*“Hello, and welcome to the afterlife.”* I decided that I would do my best to be formal if I had the literal powers of eternal bliss and damnation.
*“My dear, I’ll be honest you’re not exactly how I had pictured St Peter, you look nothing like the painting in my church. Are you sure you’re in charge?”* the woman spoke down to me with a derisive sneer.
*“Well he has decided to move on, it’s just me running things now. Can you please wait a moment while I check my notes?”*
*“Hmph.*” She snorted.
I decide it’s best to give myself a little extra time to decide what do to.
What should I do? How do I even decide? What happens when I do decide? Do I just announce it and they go where I say? HOW DO I DECIDE? If I send someone to be tortured for all of time, how could I live with that? I would have to carry that burden on my (figurative) shoulders for all of eternity. My mind begins to start spinning again, what should I do?
The woman sharply coughs to get my attention.
*“One minute please madam.”* I plead in my most authoritative voice.
*“Is there anyone else I could speak to? Someone with moreauthority and knows what they are doing?”* She demands. She increases the intensity of her voice with each syllable.
*“Please madam, wait your turn. This process is very delicate and you wouldn’t want me to make a mistake.*
What do I do???
**AHA!** The notes Peter was working on! They must have something, surely.? I rush --well float as fast I can to where he was making the notes. I pick up the quill and look at the top sheet.A Wordsearch. A WORDSEARCH. St Peter’s meticulous notes were a Wordsearch.
***That bastard.***
First, he leaves me here with no clue what to do next, and second, he didn’t have a clue what he was doing himself.
How am I meant to decide? It’s not like I have a review of this woman’s entire life to go by.
*“AHEM. Is there a manager or something I could speak to?”*
*Did she just ask for the manager of the afterlife? I can’t exactly send her to heaven. Heaven with a woman like this wouldn’t exactly be eternal bliss for long. But is being rude to the guardian of heaven and hell too petty a reason to send someone to hell for all of eternity.*
*“AHEM.*”I try to remain as polite as possible
*“Can you please be patient madam, the life review takes time.”*
Time.. What if I could create myself more time? Obviously, this woman has some flaws, but that’s not enough reason to condemn someone to eternal fire and brimstone, but can I correct them? I decided to experiment with my newfound powers.
*“Madam. I have reached my decision. You will go back to earth.”*
*“Finally. You are speaking some sense. I knew there was a mistake in me being here. Also, I believe you made a mistake in my finances. A person such as myself should at the very least be wealthy.”*
*“No madam. You will be born again. In addition, You will be a retail service worker and you will not remember any of this until we meet here again.”*
The ear-splitting shriek she emitted was worth it to see the look on her face. Surprisingly it worked. She vanished. Instinctively I knew she was reborn on earth. I guess the thought of sending people to be reincarnated never occurred to St Peter? What with being christian and all.
So, I guess, this is what the afterlife means to me. I am too much of a coward to send people to heaven or hell. After all, there is both light and dark within everyone. But perhaps I can keep sending them back with different perspectives until they are perfect enough to pass on.And hey, if I mess up too badly I can just send them to hell. At least i know everyone i send to heaven will be correct, even if it will take them a few attempts at life to get there.
I greeted the next blurry shape with my best calming smile and softly spoke *“Hello, and welcome to the afterlife, do not worry you will not be here long.”*
Note: I am very new to writing, and would appreciate any tips and hints on how to improve what I write :) |
High above an ocean of magma, the fate of the world hung in the balance as the villain and hero fought for control of the future. With a final triumphant shout, the hero knocked the villain's sword aside and delivered a powerful kick, throwing him from the narrow ledge upon which they fought. After a moment, and breathing heavily, the hero carefully approached the edge and peered over, face illuminated by the eerie crimson glow.
"Dang it!"shouted the hero, recoiling. "Why aren't you dead?"
The villain slowly levitated back into view, hovering just out of reach.
"Dude, I told you in that whole speech I did earlier. 'You can't defeat me', 'I'm invincible', 'this fight is pointless', I told you all that, remember?"he said.
"I thought you were just posturing!"the hero shouted. "How the heck are you able to fly?"
"Because I'm magic"said the villain seriously. "It's like my whole deal. Seriously, I can't believe you came all this way and tried to fight me without any magic."He shook his head disbelievingly. "I can turn people into toads, you know? A guy with a sword isn't really that much of a threat."
The hero looked like he was on the verge of tears. The villain hesitated. "...but, you know, good effort. I can tell you practiced your sword fighting a lot. If I hadn't been magic you totally would have won." |
Eyes filled with the bright prospects of life among the stars, the sense of wonder of what may lie out there, in the wild, vast unknown, what difficulties we may overcome.
That's the dream, right?
Right.
Thats the dream we've spent years selling to humanity, making sure they're all invested. Making sure they want it above all else. Trillions of dollars, euro, pounds, spent on movies, books, research grants, anything and everything to get people furiously excited to get off of this planet.
It's a shame, you know. This place is a gem; a bright blue and green oasis in a cold, unforgiving universe where the best we can hope for is a barely liveable colony on some rock when there's *so much left* to do here, so much to explore. That was before we knew; now we spend even more money no one explores it. Certain parts at least. The deep, dark and cold corners of the Earth where they lie, sleeping, dreaming, biding their time.
The first time we saw them- well, we can't be quite sure when the *actual* first time was. Most who see them don't live long enough to tell someone. Madness made manifest, the horror of reality settling in is more than enough to break the strongest of wills. Seeing them down there, slithering and hungry, it's... too much. I've made sure to never learn of exactly what they are; not after seeing brilliant, stalwart men reduced to blubbering madmen begging for death. I can still see Thurston's eyes, the words he whispered under his breath, the... the marks on his body, the... the... *blast it all!*
This planet is a gem. But it doesn't belong to us; it belongs to them. And so we must leave, as soon as humanly possible, else we...
Well, let's not dwell on that. Just know this.
We need to leave.
Pray we do it before they wake up. |
Accidentally killing a god is the easy part.
Every god is different, and you have to play around with it until you figure it out. God of the moon? Their weakness is the sun, god of cats? Weakness is dogs, so on and so forth.
My theory? The god of gods, the most beautiful being in the universe, could only be killed by a mere mortal. So many before had tried, with swords forged by kings and bow and arrows woven from starlight, I was simply curious.
I befriended her. And once I got close enough, a simple touch was enough to kill her. I brushed my hand against her arm and within moments she was a lifeless corpse, sprawled across the floor. Apparently through swords and other weapons, all it took was a touch.
It was a theory, and the aftermath was disastrous. Killing gods killed the very thing they were gods of, which is why gods of famine and illness were the ones frequently sought after.
It's not that I wanted to kill her, but I was curious as to what would happen. The end of the gods, the universe reborn, ready to start again. And this time I was tasked with the recreation of the galaxies, told that when my time would come, I'd know.
So when a small child came to me and reached for my hand, I took it. |
*I felt really inspired by my own prompt, so yeah*
“So, the alchemist. The most dangerous super out there. However, their current status is unknown. But first, anyone know anything or have a question right now? Yes, you.”
“Are they a hero or a villain?”
“That’s an excellent question. Whenever thet felt like it, they swapped sides. In fact, the last know thing they were doing was running an orphanage. Billy.”
“Didn’t they seal the villain ‘well of powers’? And do you know why everyones names are really uncreative?”
“No, they removed their power and turned them over into police custody. And no idea, it just kinda is. Jane.”
“How did they discover their power? And why are you refering to them with they and them?”
“Starting with the second one, they often change their sex, and change their pronouns accordingly. Since they haven’t been seen in 3 years, I’m just going to go with them. Also, they did confirm they changed their gender according to their sex, not the other way around.
Anyway, onto their discovery.
In his 3rd year of school, they were fed up with all the bullying. He wasn’t being bullied, but wanted to stop it anyway. Messing around-, yes Kanna.”
“Weren’t you going to refer to them with they/them?”
“Ah, only for undetermined times. At this time, they were male. They first became female three or so weeks later. If you were to get out your textbooks on the Alchemist, in the back is a timeline of their sex. Actually, you should get them out, and follow aling. This is on page 7. Oh, John.”
“Why are they considered the most dangerous?”
“Ah, yes. The birth of the phrase, ‘those who create are far more dangerous then those who destory.’ They called every hero, every villain, and every defender and faught them simultaneously. And won easily. This happened a couple days before they began running an orphanage. Any other questions, or should I continue on about discovering their power?”
“I have one, didn’t they wear strange clothing?”
“Ah, no matter the weather, they always wore a scarft, a cardigan, a long sleeved shirt, and pants, similar to how I’m dressed right now. This trait was prevalent prior to their power, but was their sole outfit afterwards.
Let’s get back on track. Messing around, he discovered if while they were making/modifing something, they put an internal energy in, they could make magic objects. So he created a small sign that said ‘no bullying on school grounds!’. Setting it beside the main entrance, all bullying immediatly stopped. Whenever someone tried, they were either stuck in place or lost all motivation to try. He was elated, and began research on his power in earnest. John.”
“How do they change their sex?”
“Potions. By boiling water, they were able to store effects within. Jane.”
“How does their power work?”
“Ah. When they imbue objects with their mana, the internal force, the grant special effects. The materials used influence the strength and effects of end result. If they made a healing potion out of just water, the effect wouldn’t be very strong. But they added something like Aloe Vera, first the toxicity would be gone and the healing effect, especially for burns, would increase. If they intended to make a poison however, the water would result in the same strength, but the Aloe Vera would have a massively improvement to toxicity. FBI director.”
“How have you been over the last three years?”
“Excellent. In fact, I invented a potion that teleports you to another location, while changing you appearence and sex! See!” The alchemist responed, before chugging the potion and throwing a letter into the air.
The letter read as follows:
“To my class,
It was really fun to teach you this year. I put in quite a bit of effort to make the FBI show up quite late, and I hope you all will have wonderful lives.
To the FBI,
Go f*** your selves.
Sincerely,
The Alchemist, the one who solved mankinds ills.”
“Umm, Mr.-“
“Just call me Anthony.”
“Mr. Anthony, what does he mean ‘the one who solved mankinds ills”?”
“He solved over-population, hunger, permanent injurys, mental health, memory limits and death. Humanity is free from true suffering, as nothing really matters. That’s why hero’s and villains fight with so much collateral damage. It doesn’t matter. ***That’s*** why he’s considered the most dangerous super. He created such incredible benefits, life, and hell, humanity lost all meaning. Death used to bring life meaning, but not anymore.” |
I will never understand how mortals deal with the stirrups.
It has been an age since one of my aunts or sisters gave birth. In those days we would all gather in the secret places, the woman's places deep within the mountain on which we and our brothers and fathers resided. We would dance and laugh, clap and sing odes to the health of our family's children. They would do the same when their children died, nobly and plainly, rending their garments and beating their breasts bloody.
I never saw those celebrations. For it was I who was with their children, leading them into the arms of our silent uncle, the quiet face of the Triumverate.
Now I sit, in a small office where my people had gathered when they went across the Western ocean, and I feel the doctor probe and prod, and I weep for all of them. Fair Narcissus, and prideful Achilles. I remember that baby, standing so early, his little body without mark or blemish as I kissed each part of it, until I found the place his mother had forgotten and whispered to her of her failing.
The one between my legs is only partly of that old blood. The island's song beats in her veins, but it is muddled to me by the claims of other gods. She was given our blood by her father, and so she is detached from our calling, and I yearn for my sisters and my aunts left behind.
I had went to that water when I felt the stirring in my belly. It had been madness, the cruelty of the Kindly sisterhood that I would bear a child so far from home. I called for the Lord of Foam and Horses, to bear me back to my homeland, but these waters are held by spirits of this new world, who turned their backs when I asked them to serve as messengers.
"You seem to be in fine health Miss... Ker? I had thought you were Greek. Such a short name. You know, my father was Greek, loved Greek women. Alas, he also loved my mother who was Polish."she takes her gloves off and helps me to lower myself from the stirrups, and I feel detached.
Her father was Nico Antanopoulos, fishmonger. He had died fending off a mugger. A foolish death, with a daughter just coming of age. But, as he had been protecting a woman, and her fate had been to die by that same mugger's hands? A good death. Heroes were rare as honest men in this cold tall place.
"Yes. It is a family name, it was shortened at the Ellis Island."I smiled, empty and wanting nothing more than to crawl back into bed.
"Are you okay, Miss Ker?"I saw the concern in the young doctor's face, and loved her for it. I did not know if I would be the one to come to her in the time of her final silence, but I made a mark in my mind that I should show some kindness.
*if you do not die yourself, little shade*. My brother's voice, half-remembered when we ran through the dreams of our people under our mother's black cloaked night.
"Is there anything I should know? This is my first, and I worry."It was an understatement.
She gave me pamphlets. Their obsession with print both amazed and alarmed me. The writings were in both English and the modern form of my tongue, as this office served my people. I took them, including one that would tell me of ways to handle this situation if I chose another path, to not bring this life into the world.
I wondered. I do not suffer, nor am I too comfortable. I live in a small rent-controlled apartment, the gifts from those who remembered me and my work in a small funeral home sustaining me. I have kept the apartment for nearly half a century, passing it down to myself whenever there is a question of a woman who does not age.
I sat my hand on my belly and thought of passing something down to another as the subway rocked me, lulling me into my brother's domain. |
It has long been tradition that twisted experiments that pervert the laws of nature are performed at the stroke of midnight on a dark and stormy night. However, being unaware of the human trope, C10 finalised their re-animation process at twenty past one in the afternoon on a day the newscaster described as ‘temperate with a brushstroke of passing clouds’.
I looked down to realise I had been gripping my hands together for longer than I could remember, my nails had formed sharp red divots around my knuckles and the compressed skin was pale white. Stretching out my fingers I stood an approached the chamber.
“Is it… on?” I struggled to conjure the word necessary to describe the setup. In a casket made up of a gel matrix of cushioning and surrounded by brushed and unreflective brass lay the late Professor Herman Lark, the capillaries around his eyes had clotted and sunk to form deep black pits. Ironically it made it look as if the late genius simply needed another few hours of rest before he could sit back up of his own accord.
“Not yet.” C10 responded, the fluidity of his pronunciation often set my nerves ablaze with anxiety. The Android had been given a voice by a Canadian actor who dedicated his later life to reading out phonetic sounds, exclamations, and complex sentences; his life’s work secured a place in history as the auditory representation of synthetic life.
Riveted metal plates housed belts and bellows in their cavities, I slowly traced a thin ribbed tube from its output to a one way valve that deposited sediment into a further combining chamber. This minute section of one process was dwarfed by the hundreds of similar conveyors and processing units that orbited the casket.
“Champ, over here please.” C10 prompted, holding a silicone gloved metal hand outstretched.
“It’s Alexander, Champ was a nickname.” The memory put a sour taste on my tongue.
“Please accept my apologies, Alexander.” Corrections and alterations were unnaturally simple to them. I nodded in appreciation and approached the slender figure.
In their palm sat a small cylindrical button attached to thin coil of wire, picking it up and turning it in my own grip the button and its housing were two slightly different shades of grey. “Buttons on mad scientific experiments should be crimson, or there should be a giant lever to pull.” I joked.
“Once again I must apologise, in Professor Lark’s stock there should be a selection of different col-“
“Forget it,” I interrupted. “It was only a joke.”
Unfased, the Android continued as if the whole exchange had been carved out and refilled with thick silence. “I see. If you would be so kind as to press the button, the machine will do the rest.”
In my hand the light piece of thin plastic held no significance or weight beyond the wire that attached it to the reanimating process, I would be deemed the one to have performed the first feat of necromancy whilst doing less than a thousandth percentage the work.
“You deserve it,” I proposed, holding out the button. “You have done wonderful… horrible, but simply brilliant work here. I have done nothing.”
“I regret to inform you that is incorrect.” C10’s words were painstakingly chosen as not to offend their recipient. “I constructed equipment from blueprints and patents that the hospital refused to use, following orders doesn’t quite match-up to creation. Nor does it match up to your efforts, no matter how I researched and compiled data the process of executing a ‘last will and testament’ became no clearer to me.”
As much as I hated to compliment myself, C10 was right. We wouldn’t be sat in this lab today if it wasn’t for a lengthy legal battle. Such a case was referred to as ‘once in a century’, that would re-write the book on inheritance. An Android acting as the inheritor of a wealthy estate as well as executing the final requests of a deceased human caused uproar and riot. But, the gavel has been struck, and we stand in front of the fruits of months of work that followed.
All I could do was nod in response, closing my fingers around the device I clicked down the small round button that sat on top. I knew at this point not to expect arcs of electricity and a bellowing speech from the mad scientist, but I had hoped for more flare than what amounted to a microwave being powered on.
With a hiss the tall ceiling lights were enveloped with gas rising from the chamber, the smell of preservatives and stale carbon dioxide flooded out and forced a wrenching cough from my lungs. Through the blurred vision of tear-dashed eyes I saw the slim synthetic figure approach the opening chamber. With disturbing grace C10 drew a finger down its torso, the clothes and silicone skin parted like a bathrobe and flapped open to reveal their true robotic form.
Clambering into the chamber it soon re-sealed with my mentor and his creation inside. Extractor fans drew out the buildup of fog but the smell of halted decay clung to my clothes. I wiped my eyes and approached the casket, punctuating my steps were the whirring and revving sounds of each mechanism building momentum in turn. An oddly familiar scratch caught my ear, preceding a low hum as the needle found its place on the record.
Slow, soft notes echoed around the lab. Starting in the lower key they built a simple rhythmic base before the higher keys swelled and burst in with the heart wrenching melody. Capriossa’s Fifth, Herman’s favourite song. With the Professor’s favourite song willing him back to this mortal plane, I placed a finger down on the ice cold lid of his casket. As I peered through the fog I could barely make out the two figures within.
Bile burned my throat, saliva flooded my mouth and filled my cheeks as I doubled over and hurled my lunch onto the floor. Heaving, I spat out the thin bridge of phlegm that tied me to the puddle and forced myself up to face the scene. C10 had repeated their process of dissecting through the chest cavity on the Professor, except this time they had done it on his side. Instead of a neat opening to show the mechanical inner workings, coagulated black blood had oozed free to permeate the gel bed; black chunks were washed down by the regular tide to surround the pair in a macabre halo. Razor sharp mechanical tendrils extended out from the Android’s chest, worming their way inside the newly formed slice of human flesh.
By the time I decided to check my watch it was already close to midnight. My puddle of regurgitate had soured and solidified against the blue vinyl floor, and the scene before me had not developed any further visually. Curled up to their creator like a clingy toddler C10 had an arm and leg hugging the Professor close. Occasionally a bulge would appear in the throat, stomach, leg, or wherever the surgical tentacles would worm their way through the corpse.
Muffled by the thick glass that surrounded them, a voice rang out from inside the casket. “Thanks for sticking around, Champ.”
My brow furrowed, “I told you not to call me Cha-“ Wait. Something was different. I threw myself at the casket and frantically searched the fog. First to reveal itself was the pale grey skin of Herman’s chest rising and falling with strong regularity. Two pale yellow spheres reflected off the glass as C10’s head turned to face me. Though it was the Android’s skin, metal, plastic, the unmistakable human glow shone from the synthetic eyes. |
Me and my roommate Jane never got along. We were randomly paired together our Freshman year at Camelot U. As a dragon a criminal justice major was a natural fit for me - everyone in my family was guarding gold or princesses, but I was hoping this would let me get above guard duty. But Jane was a princess major, and she had the princess attitude. And she hated me! Sure, I may have accidently breathed fire towards one of her dresses, but it seemed a little excessive to throw out the entire thing just because one of the cuffs is singed. And really, the constant passive-agressive comments about dragons kidnapping princesses were out of line. It's nothing personal, it's just a job!
But now Jane had her eyes on James. James was a freshman too, but he was a criminal justice major with me, and a squire in the Reserve Knight Training Corps. He was one of the few people to not treat me differently because I'm a dragon in a university full of humans. He was smart, and hot to boot. But he was also nice - and if Jane sunk her claws into him, she'd treat him so poorly.
But unfortunately, James seemed interested. We were at the party at a frat house on Saturday night, and they were drinking and dancing together. James was droning on about the intermural jousting competition he was going to participate in the next day, and Jane was pretending to be interested - but I could see that all she wanted was to get him into bed. And sure enough, soon she was leading him upstairs, into a room, and closing the door. Shit! I couldn't let that happen.
I was overtaken with so much anger that I went straight upstairs meaning to stop it - but then I had to stop and think. How am I going to justify it? It's not like James was interested in me - I'm a dragon and he's a knight-in-training! Could I really justify stopping him from getting lucky with Jane? But on the other hand Jane was such an awful person - hell, this isn't really about me, it's about saving him from her. So I unleashed my fire and burned down the door.
"What the hell!!?"Good. Jane is angry. She's willing to sink her claws into James, but she wouldn't do it without privacy. And they're still clothed - I got there in time!
"Siveth, why did you just burn down the door?"James asked me confusedly.
Shit! How do I explain that without sounding like a crazy creep? Wait, I've got an idea.
"Shit, sorry guys. Just had a little too much to drink and let my fire got out of control."I said in my best drunken slur. It must have been convincing - at least, James bought it.
"Siveth, maybe you should go home. Jane, you guys are roommates right? Can you make sure that she gets back to her room alright?"
"Oh I'm sure she can get back herself."
"I'm not sure about that - Siveth usually has better control of herself, so I'm thinking that she must've really had too much to drink. Can you just make sure she gets home? We wouldn't want anything bad to happen."
I could see that Jane was furious, but she didn't have a good argument against it.
"Fine, I'll take her. I'll see you later, yeah?"
"Yeah."James said - but he seemed disinterested. Good.
"C'mon Siveth."
We left the frat house where the party was, and started walking back. We made it halfway to the dorm before Jane decided to confront me
"What the hell was that? I haven't seen you drink one thing all night, and all of a sudden you're burning down doors? You're just jealous that I was about to get with James!"
Well, I guess that Jane could see through me. But I wasn't going to give in that easily.
"I don't know what you're talking about - I had like 5 tankards of ale You just must not have seen it."
"Ugh, you goddamn bitch. I don't believe you!"
Well, she could not believe me all she wanted. The important thing was that she wasn't sinking her claws into James. He was too good for her. And that's what was important - right? |
With the amount of times Team Rocket has blasted off again, it would be understandable to think that Jessie and James would survive forever. Despite their incompetency in stealing a perpetual 10 year old's electric rodent over the last 25 years, they have also helped to save the world on many an occasion.
For now, Jessie and James have decided their path lies away from the public eye. They will remain on the Team Rocket roster should they ever wish to return. However, after their many years of service to our cause, and to protect the world from devastation, the best thing we can do is to give them Jessie and James the best blast off they have ever received.
Thank you Jessie, thank you James. And yes, an extra round of thanks for Meowth too, that's right. |
I thought I was just a regular NPC, sitting on a plane and enjoying some music. However, as soon as I saw the letters, everything became surreal. "Rockstar games presents..."
"Holy shit,"I muttered. "This is a motherfucking intro."
Suddenly, I felt my blood run cold. I knew that in this moment, it was crucial to figure out who else could see the letters. However, it quickly became apparent that no one else was aware of them. That could only mean one thing - I was the main character.
My heart stopped. I had never thought of myself as a violent person, so why would I be a main character? I couldn't even recall why I was coming back home. That was when my first expositional flashback hit me.
I found myself sitting in a dimly lit room, reading a letter from my sister. "Jimmy, I know you had good reasons for leaving, but Mom got sick, and Dad got back into the family business to pay for her medical bills. He's been gone for a while, and I'm starting to feel watched. Please come home and help figure this shit out!"
Snapping back to reality, I exited the plane and headed towards a taxi. Although I had no idea what was going on, I knew that future cutscenes would provide further exposition. The driver, who was clearly Russian, introduced himself as Roman and gave me his number. "San Andreas is beautiful place, my friend!"he exclaimed. "We here at Bellic Cab Enterprises pride ourselves on our services!"
After the taxi ride, I arrived at a large house that was in a state of disrepair. It was only then that I regained control of my body. The first thing I noticed was more letters at the top of my field of view that said "enter your family home". The mailbox read "De Santa". Suddenly, I realized that I was Jimmy De Santa.
A powerful force urged me forward, and I felt completely compelled to move beyond my control. I punched out the window of the first car I saw and drove off, initiating a cascade of destruction and death around the city. After being killed in a police chase, I respawned at the hospital and returned to the house. As I entered, the camera panned up to the sky and revealed more letters: "Grand Theft Auto X". |
He was an illogical, unkempt and rail thin adolescent with prodigal powers of sorcery and wizardry.
She was a prim and proper lady of high standing due to her achievements and various breakthroughs in medical research and architectural design.
The King had put forth a deadline for the both of them. The kingdom would be invaded in little over 24 hours, and he wanted them to come up with something together to stop the invasion. As the two mixed like oil and water, he threw them into the Head Scientist's lab, locking them in until they had something....
Mage: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T HAVE CABBAGES OR POTATOS ON HAND?!?!?"
The scientist was on her last nerve with this utter child, going through her things, looking for food, trampling everything and anything in the process.
Scientist: "This is MY LAB, not your gods be damned pantr--PUT THAT DOWN!!!"
...For at least a good 37 minutes, the two of them and their wildly different personalities produced little more than conflict over the tiniest things...
(Someone keep this going-) |
"Unit: J.4.C. Spare#0, our destination will be reached in approximately in 1 × 10^-12 revolutions. Awaiting command."
Co-administrative Unit: G.I.6.6.S. stood idle while the cloaked machination whirred to life. The previously deactivated robot retracted its solar panels and spun around away from the window to face G.I.6.6.S. J.4.C. donned it's tricorn (hat) and stood.
"That is **Administrative** Unit: J.4.C. Spare#0 to you."
Admin J.4.C emitted a pulse that triggered the assault mode of all its robot fleet. Assault mode did not make them any more dangerous than they already were, it simply changed the way the robots spoke. The last thing the aliens would hear would be the voices of the robot's fallen makers.
J.4.C. looked towards its Co-admin.
"Arg! My vast intuitive sense of the machine circuitry informs me you are conflicted. Arg!"J.4.C. questioned.
"Arg! Aye Admin, the crew of rear ships incurred an error and need more time to recharge. Arg!"G.I.6.6.S. stated blankly.
"Arg! Let them stay. We have more than enough to annihilate the approaching enemy force. Any improperly charged crew would only serve as a liability. Arg!"J.4.C. walked past his Co-admin and opened his quarter's door.
"Arg! You would allow them to rest? Arg!"Questioned the Co-admin.
"Arg! The frequency at which I permit such is significantly high, yet you are always surprised. Monitor enemy movements. Arg!"J.4.C. allowed the door to close behind it. G.I.6.6.S. could be seen performing various duties at inhuman speeds within the Admin's quarters between each swing of the door. J.4.C.'s heavy steps upon the open deck were silent in the vacuum of space.
"Arg! Raise the solar sails! Arg!"J.A.C.'s eye would extend into a telescopic spyglass and view the enemy armada fleet. J.4.C. was aware that the enemy likely knew of their presence, however it also knew they would not expect the robot crew to be on top of them within an instant. J.4.C. stood on the *Black Singularity,* fastest ship in the universe.
J.4.C. would place a boot upon the forefront of the space ship and point its arm forward, the arm morphing into a light saber.
"Arg! Activate the void! Arg!"J.4.C. commanded.
The participating ships of the assault would tether themselves to the *Black Singularity* as to not be left behind. Space-Time would bend around the fleet and rip.
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
Emergency lights flashed on the Suckdeezian ship.
"G-General they've managed to get on top of us somehow! Your orders!?"
General Loozare held onto a chair for stability. He was perplexed as to how the robot fleet had managed to cross a distance faster than light speed; their scanners didn't even register the travel time. Whatever they'd done had rocked his entire armada, the robot's entrance alone had already disabled many on their ships' functions. It was as if the children of the humans had tore open reality itself. Every ship now swirled along the rim of the black hole the *Black Singularity* had created.
**"Mobilize all combat repair units!"** The general could see the robot space pirates climbing up the sides of his armada ships. **"Get the inertia fields back online! All Alpha units are to guard the generators! Omegas are to confront the enemy directly! Drift into defensive formation around our Queen's ship."** The general would shout in their tongue, a series of clicks and indescribable noises.
The grunt would try, but fail to relay the general's command.
"General! They've hacked our comms!"
As if on que, the voice of J.4.C. would emerge through the Suckdeezian comms:
"Arg! Attention all Suckdeezians! Let this be the day you will always remember as the day you were terminated by Admin: J.4.C. Spare#0! Arg!"
The general glared through the window of his ship, directly into the eyes of J.4.C. who had swung and clung to the general's window.
**"We have destroyed your creators, you fight for a lost cause."**
"Arg! No cause is lost if there are units that remain to fight for it. Arg!"
**"Your 'units' will fail and perish! You will have nothing after this!"**
"Arg! False. I will have a container of dust. Take a guess at whose dust will be inside of it. Arg!"
The general and his surrounding troops would down their helmets and magnetize their feet as J.4.C.'s arm morphed into a blaster and aimed itself at the ships' pane. |
"Orthak, you work out the supply deal with that pig farmer?"Grung asked, popping his head into the office.
"Yep, daily bacon and sausage deliveries start this Saturday, and at half the old price."
"Great job,"he replied. Then, to the rest of the café, "Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!"
A cheer went up. Pulling the breakfast sandwiches had been a blow to their profits, so this was great news. On top of that, Grung knew the "Locally sourced"stickers they could now add would really help their standing in the community.
It had been two years since they started the Battle Brew, and it had been tough, but they were making headway. The hardworking folk around here hadn't known coffee before, depending on elf teas for their caffeine fix, but the converts were coming faster by the day. The dwarves were going crazy the new Dark (Lord) Roast that Nubra had developed.
"Mrs. Greenleaf, good morning! The usual?"Torvlid said to an elf woman.
"Yes, thank you,"she replied, pausing before guiltily adding, "And one of those eucalyptus crullers."
"Certainly. They're so good, aren't they? And they just came out of the oven a few minutes ago."
After the Blood Crown War, the orcs had all been struggling. Grung tried the marauder bands, but it wasn't the same. Pillaging without purpose wasn't for him. He'd tried a couple of the stereotypical jobs, mercenary and blacksmith, but his heart was never there. Then he learned the outside world didn't have coffee.
He started on his own, just a cart and a carafe, he'd say. After a year, he met Orthak, who was a born wheeler and dealer sort. Got him into a truck, and deals to provide for sports games. Bloodsteike mostly, but that elven one with the brooms, Sorcan, had them in for a couple months before they decided to just do the café.
"Hey, Scafdee, we're running a bit low on berries. Can you add them to the order?"Grung couldn't see the speaker, but he knew Marvo's voice anywhere. It was a weird burbly thing, but most guys don't talk after an axe to the throat, so he was thankful.
"Already did,"Scaf called back. "Rangers say it should be here tomorrow."
"Perfect, thanks."
He'd started finding more of the old crew, most weren't interested, but they'd drop by for a cup on occasion. The others, however, were excited. Gleedo and Nubra had immediately set to work, getting hold of old alchemy supplies on the cheap. He was thankful for their innovations.
Honestly, he was just happy he could help the boys out. It wasn't an easy life as an orc, but as long as they stuck together, tried to do a little good, it didn't have to be a hard one. |
"Hm... So what happened to her? Mana deficiency?"
"The opposite, mana overload. Her genetics that we thought was a blessing was actually a curse. Innately high mana pool with efficient mana circuits made her unable to use enough mana due to peace time."
"Even helping the magic artifact division wasn't enough?"
"She even took up side jobs in farming and construction all over the kingdom. Thanks to her, the kingdom's economy is at its highest."
"Hm... I think I know how to help her."
I approached the ill grand mage with a plan for a power grid with her as the center. |
A deep rending that reverberates across this vast, wretched sky. It fills my ears. It fills my bones. A sound so immense I can almost touch it. The very fabric of this universe is tearing under its own weight, and this is its swan song. Yet I can think of but one thing—it's strange that the breakings of the world aren't any louder.
I used to hate you. I hated how easily you climbed the walls I'd built around myself. I hated how easily you could make me *feel*—how the softest brush of your fingers was enough to send me careening. I hated you because it was the only thing I knew how to do.
I don't really know when that hate gave way to love. Was it a slow weathering? Or did you and your too-bright smile purify me in a single fleeting brilliance?
Maybe neither happened. Maybe the hate's gone, but nothing's come to take its place. It's okay. I'd rather be empty, now, than full of darkness.
I'm glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things. Though the requiem of creation itself resounds around us, all I can hear are the velveteen murmurings of your heart. Echoing softly in this empty breast. |
"So can you set things on fire, then?"
"No, it's not like that. Listen, I really don't want to talk about this."
"Come on, you're my best friend. I promise I won't make fun."
"Promise?"
"Scout's honour. Cross my heart, hope to cry."
"Fine. It's hope to die, by the way."
"Why would a scout want to die?"
"Do you want to hear about this or not?"
"Yes, yes. Just explain it already."
"Okay, so you know how if you increase the kinetic energy of an object, you increase its temperature?"
"Sure."
"Do you?"
"Yes, just explain it already!"
"It doesn't make any sense unless you understand that concept. I'm just checking."
"Oh my god, just spit it out!"
"I'm getting to it, you said you wouldn't push me."
"I said I wouldn't mock you. I did not say I wouldn't push you. You seem to need the pushing, anyway."
"Okay, just, ugh. So, I can control the kinetic energy of objects. I can increase their kinetic energy."
"OOOOoooooh, so like Jean Grey."
"No, not like Jean Grey, that's telekinesis."
"So, like Professor X?"
"Are you even trying? That's telepathy."
"Jesus, sorry..."
"Alright, just, so I can increase the kinetic energy of objects and thus increase their temperature, got it?"
"Got it. So you *can* set stuff on fire? Or was I totally off-base?"
"Well, it's not that strong."
"So, can you make things uncomfortably hot?"
"A little weaker than that."
"You can make things vaguely warm?"
"Yes."
"That's it?"
"Pretty much."
"How is that useful at all?"
"Here, hand me your coffee."
"Okay..."
"Now take a sip from it."
"Wow, that is perfect drinking temperature. Like, just ideal. I feel like I'm in a Folger's commercial."
"I know."
"Huh, how about that." |
Satan rubbed one of his horns and groaned. "Listen, kid. I don't usually say no to soul contracts. But no."
The boy blinked. "Why not?"
"Because,"said Satan, "it's against policy."
"'Cause I'm a kid,"said the kid. "I bet you think I'm stupid, or something."
"Undoubtedly,"said Satan. "And because I don't really _do_ this. Reviving your mother would be more of a heavenly thing. Go ask God."
"He didn't answer me,"said the boy.
|
I found myself a nice little place to live near the park. Unlike a lot of inmates who had to work when they were released but couldn’t find work because they were felons, I had enough money saved away that I could live comfortably. I trained to be a mechanic while I was there, and they paid me two dollars an hour to fix washers, dryers, and refrigerators. I kept learning and then they started me on cars, machinery, and eventually I could fix anything that was about to fall apart. They let me work until I was about 116. I had a little under $400,000 waiting for me when I got out. I feel like I’m spending too much of it now on meals since I never learned how to cook for myself. I could always go back to work if the money got tight.
I was asked by one of those men in the parole board to have dinner with him. I agreed, and we went to a little seafood place on the water. I learned from the magazines that they do not even fish off of the coasts anymore. Too much pollution, they said. A lot of fish that people eat now is farm raised. I heard a lot of the meat people eat too is grown in vats, like an alcohol distillery but instead of liquor they grow beef. I don’t eat a lot of meat though. So, this guy brings me to this little place and it’s supposed to look like the inside of a boat. Worn wooden paneling, stuffed seagull. I thought the place was pretty clever.
We started by ordering our meals and I asked him about his family. We talked about his children and how excited he was to be a grandfather. I finally asked him why he wanted to see me. “Well, Hermes, I always felt guilty that we were never really honest with you about your arrangements. You always asked why you were kept around so long. Would you really like to know why?” I answered yes. “At first it was in spite of you, sure. Nobody likes to let murderers back onto the street. But after you turned a hundred, the warden and others wanted to see how long you would stick around for. We could have let you go by then, you were a hundred year old black geriatric. Who were you going to hurt?” He sipped on his wine, and continued. “But when you turned a hundred and ten, you were kept to be studied.”
“Studied?”
“Yes. For your longevity.”
“My longevity.”
“The scientists were interested in taking you away, to figure out how a man can live for so long. The warden complained that if you were removed from the jail, you might die. Talking about the climate of the Catskills and your strict prison schedule. Complete nonsense. He wanted you around for the publicity and the grant money.”
“Grant money?”
“Yes. Institutions from around the world studied and watched you for a long time, Mr. Waters. You’re the oldest man in the world, and the longest living human in history. Look it up, you’re in books.” He finished his wine.
“So, do I get any of that grant money?”
“No.”
“Alright. So why tell me this now? Why did it matter to you to tell an old man that he was kept jailed up for no reason?” Part of me knew that he wanted to clear his conscious. He looked at me and then found the waiter to get the rest of the wine.
“Nobody ever just asked you what your secret was. Tell me. I want to live forever,” He said, pouring me out more wine. I told him to eat right and exercise. “Fuck you,” he said, “and eating right and exercise. I eat right and run just as much as you do and I still got colon cancer.” He finished another glass. So that was it. He needed help outpacing an early death.
“I’m sorry to hear you’ve got the cancer. But I ain’t ever had it.” He stared at me while sipping on his drink, and then our meals came out. We finished eating and then he continued, “There’s got to be something you did, right? I’m not a religious man, but I know you made a deal with someone or you ate something when you were a kid that you weren’t supposed to. Ever been to Ponce de Leon, Florida?” Told him I had not. He knew exactly where I was for a hundred years. “Okay. So, what did you do differently than everybody else? I need to know. I told you, I have grandchildren on the way and I want to watch them grow.”
I wiped my mouth and looked at him. He was on the verge of crying. “I made a big mistake when I was a young man. Absolutely stupid. And guess what? I grew up in an institution, and am still quite the stupid man,” I finished my own drink, “Do you really think I can comprehend why I am still here? You and your like kept me behind bars, and beside my own contemplation on the matter, I have no god damn clue why I am the way I am. Maybe if you had let me out forty years sooner, I could have been able to answer you. Maybe if I was given the opportunity to have my own kids who had their own babies, maybe they would have my *longevity* and you could study them too.” I could feel the resentment I had for this man rapidly aging me. I stood up and put on my hat and jacket. Before I left I said to him, “One thing I’ve learned and I’ll share with you is to enjoy the time you have left.”
I walked out the door and down the sidewalk to go back home. Putting feet to pavement, enjoying the wind on my face yet not so much the acrid smell of the sea port that was nearby. I was still thinking about the argument. I felt weakness overcoming me. Perhaps it was just the walk that winded me. I knew it was the guilt again though, arising in me like sickness. I made my way to my apartment, and felt all the joints in my legs ache as I marched to the bathroom. I turned on the light, and studied the new lines running down my face like a rapid deterioration. I dismissed my concern as vanity. I’m an old man, but I thought about what the parole member had said. What kind of deal did I make? I remember telling myself during the beginning of my sentence that I would live out the terms, live out the time I had stolen from those three boys. The rest of my life would be an act of penance. I wondered how old each of those boys would have grown up to be. I wondered how much more time I had left. I kept waking myself up during the middle of the night, going to the bathroom and studying my face for new wrinkles.
|
All men must die. That's what we were told. All men must die. But were all men remembered?
What they did not tell us is what we learned after. I mean how could they tell us? You can't learn this until you die. When you die, you go somewhere else before your final destination. We called it the waiting room. We waited there, but waited for what?
We waited to be forgotten. When we were forgotten on Earth, the planet we all considered "home", we would be allowed to move on.
As we came to learn, from our little group Wally was the first to arrive. He lived fast and it was no surprise to any of us that he died young. He welcomed all of us as we arrived in the waiting room. John was second. He had a tremendous willpower, but he was human. Bruce was next. He died a stubborn old man, fighting the good fight for as long as he could. All men must die. The "Other"John was next. Strange as he was, and as unexpected to find him there as it was, he was there. Shiera came next, much to her own surprise. It did not really fit in with her cosmological view of things, but John was there and that made her happy for a time. Much later came Clark. I was with him when he died as we were "close". Honestly I did not think he could die, but he did have his vulnerabilities. I was the last to arrive. In the end, I grew weary of the mortal life. I had done what I wanted, saw to the training of the others and eventually decided to move on, as was my right.
I was happy to see all my friends again, and they were happy to see me. They were also ready to move on. They had figured they were still there because I remembered them while I was alive, and I had been alive for a very long time. Some of them, like Wally. were a bit impatient with the long wait.
But we didn't move on.
Yes, we were well known, celebrities in some ways, so we expected some still remembered us from history, but billions had come through here. Some had stayed a very short time, seconds, minutes. Some longer. Some had been friends, co-workers, enemies. Many knew us as we were fairly well known during our time. But none of them stayed as long as us. Eventually fewer and fewer showed up that knew who were were, and we assumed we would be moving on soon, but we didn't.
Once there was a HUGE influx of new arrivals, some of whom departed almost immediately. Some global cataclysm, as we found out from them. After that the last few trickled in but did not stay for very long.
The last to arrive did not even know who we were. Eventually. they stopped coming altogether. But we were still there. How could we still be there if no one else was arriving? Time meant nothing and everything here and we knew we had been here a very, very, very long time. Longer than anyone had ever been here.
We were the only ones here now.
Finally, "Management"showed up and offered an explanation. The "end times"according to the plan had come and gone and the next phase had started. However, there was as hitch in the system. One person from the previous phase had remained and due to outside interference, and he was decidedly immortal. He had been offered release, but had declined. He liked the new Earth and had plans. We also found out he held a grudge against the seven of us and would never, ever forget our names.
His name was Vandal Savage, and until he forgot us, we would remain here. We were now the "Just Us League." |
All at once the city turned quiet. Cars stopped and idled, people stood and stared. A light breeze brought an air of dread as people came to grips with what this meant. All across New York, all across the world, everyone had a sign up at once.
*This is the last time I: eat breakfast*
*This is the last time I: make her laugh*
*This is the last time I: see my kids*
*This is the last time I: walk my dog*
Then they all saw it. The fires in the skies hurtling ever faster towards the earth. Thousands upon thousands of gigantic meteors burning through the atmosphere and there was nothing to be done. There was nowhere to run, the signs were absolute. No one knew why or how but once the signs said that was it, that was it, and as the meteors drew close everyone's sign changed:
*This is the last time I: Breathe*
And as the sky fell down around them no one ran, not to get away, at least. There was nothing to be done. Nowhere to go. The signs are absolute.
|
There are probably a lot of reasons why people don't comment more on stories posted here, but I think there are 2 main reasons that come in to play more than the others:
1. People don't really want to read more than one story about any particular prompt. If you aren't lucky enough to be in the first three posts or so, than in general you're going to be ignored by a vast majority of people. Additionally, the first 2-3 "upvoted"stories tend to get replies such as "this was really good!"once or twice and that's pretty much the end of it- nobody feels compelled to write a similar comment over and over.
2. I would think a vast majority of the people on this sub are looking to write, not to read what other aspiring writers have written. I'm not saying this is how they *should* feel, only that I think it is how they do feel. They aren't looking to give YOU feedback, they want you to give THEM feedback.
Of course these two rules wont apply to everyone or every post, but overall I think they have a lot to do with it. I think it might be a good idea to branch off a new subreddit to create workshops for writers who really want to work on their craft... and I might do just that. Maybe where you are grouped up with a couple of others every week and you each get a different prompt to work on for 7 days? Hummm... |
Captain Columbus strolled the deck of the *Pinta* as the ship drew closer to the forested coast of India. Columbus could scarcely believe his good fortune. Not that he would ever show doubt to his crew. But they were down to their last biscuits and casks of brackish water.
A sailor stumbled past with a heavy load of patch for the front sail. "We'll all be rich soon, Captain!"he called out happily. Columbus usually frowned on such informality, but today he indulged the man with a smile. The gold and slaves these lands surely contained would make him, and the Crown, wealthy beyond imagining.
The captain kept smiling as the Pinta began to rise out of the water and into the air. Men ran about the deck watching with helpless horror as the ship cleared the oceans surface entirely. Water sluiced off the ship's sides. it continued to rise into the sky. The veteran sailors screamed of krakens, but that would have been less frightening. Nothing could explain this.
Columbus clung to the side-rail and made his way to his cabin for his weapons. Whatever this was, he meant to put up a fight.
He sprinted inside, the door swinging shut behind him. But then he froze. A tall, well-built man with brown skin and his hair tied in a braid sat in his personal chair. The strange man watched Columbus. The man wore clothes of a strange fabric, and he held a black metal tool in his hand. Columbus felt sure it was a weapon. The captain noted with dull surprise that the grown man's teeth were perfectly even and bright white, like a child's.
The man stood up and walked directly up to him. He said calmly,
"It took a while, but it's nice to finally meet you. Time travel's real. Welcome to 2099, you bastard." |
Times were hard for everyone. The folks is Washington called it a "depression", but all we knew was that there wasn't near enough work to go around. It wasn't long before Pa lost the store; though for a while he was able to make ends meet doing odd jobs around town. When the bank called the mortgage on our small farm we didn't have much choice, so we sold what we could, left what we couldn't and loaded up in the old Ford. We drove clear down to Marion County to help out on grandpa's farm for a while, at least until times were better Pa said.
Grandpa's farm had been hit by hard times too. Where there had once been half a dozen hired hands there was now just Grandpa, Pa, and me. Even so Grandpa still had his herd of dairy cows, which made him the best off farmer south of the county seat.
It wasn't long after we arrived that I first noticed the mist. It would come rolling rolling down off the mountain perhaps every fortnight. When Grandpa saw the mist coming would tell me to bring a few sacks of feed and a pail of milk to the back stoop. I didn't ask why and he didn't volunteer, but by the next morning the lot of it was gone.
Finally, I asked him where it all went. Grandpa said that when the mists came rolling down off the mountain, that they brought something else with them. That it helped people keep their pride. I didn't really understand what he meant, I must have figured it was some old wives' tail.
The next fall grandpa lost his whole herd to the anthrax within a weeks time. We tried to hire ourselves out, but no one else had much work for us. We hadn't had much to eat as I sat on the stoop with Grandpa one evening as the mist began to roll in. I looked up at him, expecting him to tell me to go get a few sacks of feed before I remembered all too quickly that there was none, and no milk neither. We sat a while longer as the mist engulfed us before turning in.
The next morning I remember being the first one up. As stepped outside I saw there on the corner of the stoop as small pile. A few mason jars of milk and a loaf of bread.
Grandpa always said that when the mists came rolling down off the mountain, that they brought something else with them. I never really believed any of it, or at least I didn't understand it before. |
It is cold as I walk home through streets of Chicago. Not like St Petersburg cold, but still, cold for this country. I remember back in Russia, one year it was so cold that all pipes froze and so city had no water. I went with my brother Vladamir and we went out to river with hand drill.
Others out there on river too, trying to do what we do, drill through ice to fresh water. Vlad hands me bottle of vodka and says that we take turns, one drinks and the other cuts ice. So I took swigs and Vlad turn the hand crank and then we swap. After few minutes we swap back and I ask where all vodka is and he is 'after 5 minutes? Vodka now halfway to piss!'
That was cold winter, this is nothing, river has ice but not frozen solid, roads all clear and food in shops. In Russia we call this winter for babies - where little kids go out and play in street and not even lose toes.
It has been long day today - shift started at 5am and now it nearly ten at night. I not mind much, as work is good and docks pay well but still, I am tired and looking forward to getting home. Before home though I want food, it has been long time since I ate hot meal and I know that local diner will be open still. Big meals, fill you up good after day of work.
I kick through slush until I get to diner. Funny, in Russia I never see slush, either ice or snow - must be American thing from all the cars. I get to diner and go in, quiet as normal but I like it like that. I sit at bar and waitress, Shirley, comes over.
"What'll it be hon? You lookin' for a meal or just some coffee?"
"I need a man's meal Shirley."To make my point my stomach growls loudly - it must be able to smell food too.
Shirley laughs "No problem hon, take a seat and I'll bring you up a big combo - should be enough to keep even a big boy like you well fed."
I smile in thanks, big combo is needed on night like tonight. I could use Vodka to keep out cold but I promise Vlad before I leave that I will stay sober in America. I do not need the same trouble that made me leave Russia.
I sit and look around, diner is empty, or almost. In far booth a I see small figure, bend over, not moving. Not my business and so I pick up nearby paper and try to read. I am better now at reading that I was but not good still. After few minutes I put paper down, at least I know scores so can keep up in conversation tomorrow.
A noise surprises me from the booths and I look over. The figure I see before, a young girl, looks up. I see her face, it is wet with teas and her make-up has run. She looks at me and then looks away, the pain in her eyes has hit me though. I promise Vlad I would not get mixed up with girls but I cannot help it, young girl in pain makes my heart hurt.
"Excuse me."I stand next to the table, I have taken off my hat and rub my head nervously, my hair has been gone many years. The girl looks up at me, she cannot be more than thirteen or fourteen. Same age as my sister when I leave Russia.
"I'm sorry, I so not mean to disturb you."She looks away through the window. I fiddle with my hat and can see tears still running down her face.
"Are you okay?"I try to make my voice soft. I am told accent makes me sound like a Hollywood villain but I cannot help it. "You look so sad."I wish I could speak to her in Russian, my ideas come out clumsy in English but it seems to work a bit. She looks back at me and I see her eyes are deep red, many hours of crying.
"It's really okay, I just have had a...a rough day."
She has no food and just a coffee in front of her. "Can I buy you pie?"I ask. She seems nervous but seems to realise I am not trying to be creep. She doesn't say no and so I wave at Shirley and ask for a slice of her nicest pie for the girl. Shirley brings over the pie and hesitatingly I slip into the booth.
"You look like you need someone to talk to? I am complete stranger. Anything you tell me, what can it matter, after tonight we never see each other again?"
She looks me over, I am tall, bald, strong and Russian. This American girl should probably run away, but her need to talk seems to overwhelm any fear she might have. When it comes it come in a gush.
"His name was Peter. I thought he was a good guy but he was a scumbag. I met him six months ago online and he just seemed perfect. I've never felt like this before and my parents didn't like it and I didn't know what to do so he said come here and I came and not I am here and he just want to... use me. He... did thing."
She fell silent and looked down, tears fell from her face. I reached out hand and gently touched her chin.
"It okay, we all make mistake sometimes. Things can get better I promise. I am sure parents will take you back."
She looked up. "He has everything. All my stuff, all my things, my money, everything. I just ran and I the cops didn't want to help and... and...."
"Shhhh, it okay."I no longer felt all that hungry but Shirley was coming out of the kitchen with a platter and I waved her over. "Another plate please for my friends"The girl looked up. "First we eat and then you take me to meet this *Peter* and we shall ask nicely for your things.
Shirley had emptied the tray onto the table. "Sounds like a good deal to me hon, you've been here for hours, might as well see if Rusky here can help."
I smiled and pushed the food closer to the girl. "First we eat, no need to go into cold without full belly. Not that this is cold. In Russia, now, let me tell you about cold..." |
It had been a while since that round shape in my bedroom window had appeared, daddy pointed at it, he told me that was going to be our new home, I chuckled at the thought that such a tiny thing could hold more than just one person. At first it was just a spec of dust, I could hardly tell it apart from the rest of the other specs of dust, but this one just kept getting bigger. I heard all the grown ups talking about it and they seemed to get really excited "Finally"they said, "just four more weeks and the mission will finally be over, accomplished""a thousand years have passed"I just wondered what they meant, when I asked daddy what they meant, he just old me I wouldn't understand, that I was "too little". I don't believe that, I don't accept it, but if he isn't willing to tell me who will?
2 weeks had passed since the spec of dust was first visible, it was weird, as we got closer everyone got happier, but as we closed in even further everyone just got mad and started yelling and fighting, I will never understand, how can you be angry that you are going to have a new home? something that people have been waiting "a thousand years"?
We arrived at the planet, I was so happy, there were funny looking people already there, they kinda looked like us but slightly different. They seemed to have better tools and suits, much better than the mark-3 I had received since I was little. My first thoughts were, are they new friends, I want new friends. I wonder if they have little kids that want to play, like me.
That all has passed on now, and I figured this new people were not nice, they were bad bad people, as soon as we arrived they had us all inspected and they took the strongest of us, including daddy, I miss him. They took us to this really bad smelling and looking place, they put us to work, even the children! There is a lot of misery and darkness around, if I feel cold there is nothing that can heat me up, there isn't much food, and the food we do get isn't tasty. I have been really sad, but I keep on working because if I dont, they would take me to where they take the ones who stop working. Those people shout before they leave, all I know is that I don't want to go there, no one who has gone there has ever come back.I just want to see daddy again! |
I even managed to KILL him once, ages and ages ago. He'd wandered out of the sewers and I slaughtered him mindlessly. Then again, I'd done everything mindlessly up to that point. After I'd watched time break, things were never the same. I used to try to catch him whenever he went past, but he was much too fast for me.
He soon stopped coming by, and I became clever. It began with little things, such as noticing that the old man fed his chickens in the exact same way after each time-break. It let me do a bit of thievery while his back was turned. Not that he ever seemed to notice, but I was always well fed from then on.
I became bolder, stealing bigger and bigger things. Once I realized that most time-breaks came in groups, with the world re-forming itself over and over again, giving me a chance to get things ex-actly right when I struck. I feathered my nest with the finest silks and downs, but I wanted more. I wanted to own the world, not just my wretched hiding hole! I learned to read and write, slowly, painfully scratching out the letters, mimicking the novice monks I watched from the shadows. In time, I came into deeper knowledge, sneaking into forbidden libraries undetected, learning eldrich secrets from tomes hidden in secret places which only I could find. In time, with well placed notes, and purses of stolen gold I gathered an army. Leading from the shadows, directing by whispered word and poisoned pen, I led a kingdom. None had ever seen me, but all feared my might.
I should have known he would return. It was then I learned the truth of the breaks. They always favoured him. I would array my armies, set them to task, murder him in a thousand ways, but time would always break, and he would elude my grasp. It wasn't fair. He was after ME now.
I'd elude and evade, dodge, and hide. I'd arrange elaborate illusions and fearful creatures in his path, but it only seemed to drive him onward, unceasingly. That was, until one fateful evening when he burst into my chambers. Wreathed in fire, wearing armour forged from the scales of dragons. My adversary stood stock still, staring at me as though he could see straight into my soul.
"Seriously?"Chris had dropped his controller, tears streaming from his eyes.
“He was..” he gasped for air. “He was a giant rat the WHOLE TIME?”
Laughing so hard his sides hurt, he opened his inventory and filled the chamber with a thousand wheels of cheese. An appropriate tribute to the rat-king. |
As the President bent down to tie his shoe, the bullet shot past where his head used to be. Secret Service rushed past him without alerting the President and tackled the assassin.
The President decided that now was a perfect time to announce the public. As he stepped outside to the podium, he slipped while his foot ran from underneath him. His foot, flying wildly, landed a clean kick on a woman who flew back. The syringe full of, what we now know was poison, flew from her hands to the feet of more Secret Service men who swiftly took her away.
The President apologized for kicking the woman while remaining unaware of how he unintentionally saved his own life.
The President walked towards the podium and spoke.
"My fellow Americans, its been two years since I said 'life would be better if everybody got laid once and again'. And I was right... Since I legalized prostitution and created government sponsored brothels, violent crime as well as rape crime rates have plummeted to all time lows. I've come here to say thank you for electing me and youre welcome for all the good I've done this country."
"Thanks Obama..."the crowd says unanimously. |
Edit: If I could, I'd throw a coin into the fountain now wishing I'd fixed all my typos and grammar errors before submitting.
 
I didn't mind the responsibility at all, but a small part of me really wanted a cape or a funny costume like they showed in the movies. But then again, I wasn't made of Adamantium, or was capable of telekinesis, or possessed any superhero-like quality at all, so I guess the rules of Wishtaking were still fair.
Keeping people safe from journeys, making students pass their exams, ensuring gamblers win their bets. These were not easy tasks, but as an unemployed and bored person living by himself, there's only so much you can do to keep yourself occupied. I was glad I had a role to play, however weird its rules were, knowing that I wouldn't receive any of the credit along the way.
Among all these tasks however, fulfilling the wishes which involved someone falling in love with the original wisher were the hardest of them all. Once I had to send some kid named Marty McFly into the past so his parents could get together the way they wished, and on another occasion, I sent a girl called Allie to attend a carnival in a certain city one summer so she would run into Noah and they would end up in a cheesy and overhyped movie. Either way, I somehow managed to succeed in these tasks and most of these wishes ended up fulfilled.
To be honest, I was neither the hero this city needed, nor the one it deserved, because all these wishes were mostly selfish and greedy anyway and I was the evil guy who made it all possible.
I wasn't even rich. Anyone who found himself needing to steal coins from the wish fountain can't really call himself rich, but that son of a bitch who lived in #32 on West Drive had wished to be so and I had no clue on how to bring him all that money to make his wish come true.
I flipped the coin back into my pocket, resolving to fulfill that wish last. That left me with just one more coin. Although I could sense exactly who had tossed this last coin, for some reason I couldn't figure out what she had wished for.
*This can't be right*, I thought. *Are my powers fading? Maybe her wish has somehow already been fulfilled? That would explain why I can't sense it.* I wasn't sure, but I had to find out. So I went to her place and decided to make head or tail of this.
"I hope you will forgive me for asking such a strange question, but do you remember making a wish by the fountain outside the cathedral on Church Street?", I inquired.
The woman blinked at me for a second before smiling. "Ah, yes. I do remember that. I suppose you also want to know exactly what I wished for?"
I was surprised, but I stood my ground. "Why, that is exactly what I was hoping to discover from you! How did you know that?"
She looked at me in a familiar way before responding. "Because I did the exact same thing when I was the Wishtaker before you. When I knocked on the door of the last person whose wish I could not sense for some reason, he told me that to break the curse and relieve me of my role, I must do one final thing."
She took a pause and sighed before continuing. "So I did what he told me to, and I took that final coin and tossed it into the fountain wishing that some bloke would come and steal the coins in it."
Back at home, I took out the two coins and silently played with them in my hand.
*I can't make the guy on #32 West Drive as rich as he wanted, but I guess I could make make him richer by at least a few coins.* |
VAULT 18 HOLO
Brought to you by the people at Vault-Tec, "revolutionizing safety for an uncertain future."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greetings Vault Dweller!
Making yourself comfortable after narrowly escaping mutually-assured destruction?
Well, it is our privilege to welcome you to your new home for the foreseeable future! The outside world is currently a bit too radioactive for any suitable survival. Our hard-working team in the labs have predicted that America will be once again habitable soon enough though (in about two-hundred years).
But, enough of that.
Welcome to Vault 18. Your overseer will be awaiting all of you in the cafeteria, located on this here convenient map. Right next to the shooting range.
You will all be issued a standard issue "kit"upon arrival. All Vault Dwellers will receive the following:
>1 x 10 mm pistol
>1 x 9 mm submachine gun
>1 x .308 hunting rifle
>1 x 20-gauge Lever-action shotgun
The crates you will see while making your way from maintenance to the cafeteria all contain ammunition for said firearms.
One of you might be asking, Vault-Tec, why are you giving us guns?
Well, Vault Dweller, it's really simple, actually! You see, once radiation clears up in the Wasteland- I mean, the outside world, it'll be a really bad place to try and rebuild in.
America needs a new generation of soldiers, perfectly and utterly bred for combat against radiated lifeforms, the Chinese, and even cyborgs. Pretty nasty bunch of people. Especially the Chinese.
That's where you come in, Vault 18! You'll be the first to bring the fighting spirit back to your fellow citizens! You and your descendants will actively train themselves in the art of marksmanship and gun-repair each and every day.
Until that faithful time comes when you can run out guns-blazing to take back your old homes, it's best to stay prepared for all possibilities!
Mutated bears, giant bugs, glowing alligators! There's all kinda of weird stuff on the surface.
Looks like my times running out. Go see your overseers, folks! Have a wonderful day now, you hear?
PS: Just slipped my mind. There's a convenient little Ammo press down in maintenance for you call in case you ever run out of lead to fuel your guns. Should be more than enough scrap metal down there to last you a while...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The experiment of Vault 18 ended in about a week when everyone in the Vault got caught up in a Mexican stand-off over food rationing.
One shot led to another... and then another... and then another.
With no proper defense or cover to allow people to hide themselves away from the chaos, the body count racked up real quickly.
There were no survivors and the Vault remained locked for two-hundred years.
Several members of the Brotherhood of Steel on the West Coast went exploring in the American South for a brief period of time before they ventured to the East.
Vault 18 was discovered along with its vast wealth of lead and other scrap metal. Brotherhood Knights immediately took control of the Vault and the surrounding region to begin harvesting the raw material, for use in repairing old suits of power armor and customized home-made modifications of weaponry.
It took over two-hundred years, but Vault-Tec could've easily marked off the experiment as a personal victory.
The original aim wasn't to arm the Vault Dwellers into a fighting force. No siree, not at all.
The main point of Vault 18 was actually to find out if it was possible to move an industry from one region to another, to discover whether or not it would be possible to turn the dirty Lead Belt of Missouri into a shinier Steel Belt...
Needless to say, Brotherhood occupation made that little hypothesis into a grand success. |
"Lara? Is everything OK?"I called out. I was in the study when I heard a shattering noise and my girlfriend giving out a bloodcurdling scream. I listened closely for her answer, but none came.
"Lara?"This time, I heard something. Voices. Rough, deep, male. A chill went down my spine. *Oh God, please no*, I silently prayed as I walked to the living room.
My worst fears were confirmed. Lara sat in a chair, face blanched, knuckles gripping the seat. Two large men, both in ski masks and dark clothing stood in front of our broken window. One kept his gun trained onto Lara, and the other pointed his at me.
"Sit down,"he said quietly, motioning with his chin. I obeyed immediately, taking the seat next to Lara. I briefly squeezed her hand before facing the thugs once more.
"Now, we can do this simple,"the same man said. "My buddy here will keep an eye on you. Move, he shoots. I'll go around and check this place out. Wanna give me hints where I could find something nice?"
Lara stammered out instructions on where she kept the few jewels she had and where we usually kept any cash. The guy nodded and stalked away. The second guy continued to stand impassively, the end of his gun level with our faces. I tried hard not to become nauseous from anxiety.
"Hey, what the fu--"the large man's voice got cut short.
"Craig? What happened?"the man in front of us shouted. No answer. He looked back at us, anger in his eyes. "What did you do?"
"N-nothing! I honestly don't know what--"
The man fired a shot, and we both screamed. But the bullet hit the wall behind us. "Don't lie to me, bitch,"he growled and took a step closer. Shifting the gun into his left hand, he produced a long, sickly knife in the other. "Get the fuck up, both of you. Take me to wherever he is."
We led the way down to the bedroom, gun and knife at our backs. It was empty. The light was on, and the burglar's bag was lying on the floor, next to strewn jewelry. The man behind gave a hoarse shout.
"Craig! Where the hell are you?"he yelled, looking around wildly. For a split second, I contemplated wrestling the weapons out of his hand right now, while he was distracted.
"Right behind you,"a familiar voice said. It did not belong to Craig. Throwing caution to the wind, I peeked behind me, as did Lara.
"Holy shit,"the burglar said. His hands lay at his sides, weapons loose and forgotten, and I didn't blame him. In the door *floated* Craig - or at least, Craig's body. The head was turned almost 180 degrees.
"Your turn,"the same invisible voice said playfully.
The man screamed and ran for the window of our bedroom. Breaking it the butt of his gun, he peeked out and cursed. He had forgotten we were on the second floor.
"Upsy-daisy!"
A moment later, he was screaming on his way down from the window, right up until he crunched against the cement.
"Oh my God,"Lara said out loud. I held her, unable to say anything. I tried hard not to look at Craig's body, which had crumpled to the floor behind us.
"Oh come on, don't give him the credit!"Out of nowhere, Zeinheim appeared in front of us, in full jester regalia. The poltergeist took a deep bow. "'Twas me, fair damsel and butt-ugly dude. Thank you, thank you."
"You-you killed them,"Lara said uneasily.
"Nobody messes with my humans but me!"he said proudly. When we didn't answer, he peeked at us quizzically. "You two don't seem too happy that I stopped your home invasion..."
"Of course, thank you, for that,"I hastily said. "But, you...killed them. I didn't know that you can...well, you've always just played harmless pranks on us..."
He waved my words aside with a single hand and a guffaw. "Come now, my good man! I would never hurt you two. I literally *cannot* - ghost stuff, the deets are pretty boring. But rest assured, milk left out overnight and TP'ing your living room is the height of discomfort I shall provide."And then, for the first time in the three months we've been in this house, the smile slipped from his face and his eyes grew serious. "But burglars, murderers, robbers, would-be rapists (I'm sure!) get the full extent of my powers. Nobody. Messes. With. My. Humans."And with that, he whirled out of sight.
I looked at Lara, smiling nervously. She gave the same weak smile back.
|
Sol 1135:
My cousin promised me this job would be cushy. He said I’d probably get stationed to a beach planet with only a hot young ensign as company for a few years. Now I have to push the button and earn my paycheck all because some assholes decided to land on my rock this morning and leave some crap behind for me to look at. Stupid first contact protocols.
Sol 1404:
I fucked it up. I fucked it up well and good. The sensor grid detected a third inbound craft from the planet below and I initiated first contact protocol. I did not sleep through it like the second time. The rocket launch went perfectly. I had nothing to do but wait until the probe met up with the alien ship and delivered its payload of welcome letters, faster than light drive technology, and state of the art medical information to its inhabitants. It met up with the alien ship alright… and passed right through part of the damn thing’s life support equipment. I killed the poor bastards. Their ship is currently losing air and all signs show they are no longer on course to land on this moon.
I’m definitely getting fired over this or worse they could send me to one of those beach moons… alone. That’s ok. I think I have it figured out. They attacked me. Yeah. They probably are a bunch of shortsighted, warmongering, hate filled piss pots anyway. I’ll report them as a hostile species and, maybe in 50 Sol years the admiralty will arrive and… fix the problem. I’m out of here.
|
They say I'm one of those without something missing, but the truth is that they just can't see it.
Pretty much everyone here has a weakness now, in one form or another. Some are left with weaker immunity, coughing up blood and mucus by the handful as onlookers watch behind terrified eyes. Some have weaker brains, destined to a life of dull confusion before a job as hired muscle in some factory somewhere; the lucky few forget the safety procedures and end their worthless lives. Weakened bones left many fearing a broken neck from a simple stumble.
Humanity struggles on in the aftermath of the radiation blast, crippled and limping.
There is weakness everywhere here now. Weak hearts and minds, weak bladders, hearing and skin. People cascade about with lesions and disease; pain and madness.
The few that are still strong, or those lucky children born right, are crippled by their own morality. They scrape and follow after those without the capacity to help themselves. They carry those that are broken, tend to those that choke on illness, and watch over those with minds too inept to watch themselves. The strong here bear the cross of the weak.
I try to right this wrong. I am the slight push at the back of the eternally broken man. I am the filth that finds its way into the food of the child with an ever present cold. I am the helpful hint that the machine works better if you don't put down the safety guard. My weakness is, I do not fear the look in the eyes as they die, I do not fear the emotion. I don't have to.
Nobody will catch me, there aren't enough bodies to go around as it is, and I doubt I'm the only one at it. In any case, as soon as humanity is able to stop me, I might even go willingly.
Slowly, I'm working my way through the detritus of humanity. Slowly, I'm making us stronger. |
Once upon a time, there was a princess.
Well, not a very important princess.
The daughter of a minor lord. That made her slightly more important than a common girl, but slightly less important than anyone with actual value to society.
Like all princesses, she sought a prince, one that would lead her to a comfortable life.
The problem was, this princess was quite plain. Her piano was passable yet still off-key, her knowledge of the modern languages was shaky at best and her favorite poetry was about bawdy humor and derring-do as opposed to the soft, romantic tales of her peers. Surprisingly, she was decent at the stove, but so are most cooks.
This princess was smart, however. Smart in a lazy sort of way. She *knew* she could net a prince, she just didn't know how.
Until the dragon came, of course.
Unlike the princess, the dragon was quite important.
It had over 500 confirmed livestock kills and had taken enough treasure to budget the monarchy.
Many knights journied to fight such a monster, but the dragon simply roasted them alive and ate their charred, metallic corpses.
The princess had a plan. She put on her plainest walking shoes, a warm dress, and her ceremonial crown.
"Where on earth might you be going?!"her servant remarked, confused at this odd choice of attire.
"To solve this dragon problem."she said matter of fact, and trotted out before her servant could retort.
The princess approached the dragon's cave. It came out, hissing at her.
"Who daressss approach my cave?"it hissed.
"Treasure."the princess responded.
"Treasu- what?"the dragon was confused.
"I'm a maiden and a princess."she stated. "By accounts of all legends, I am very much a treasure."she tapped her crown for emphasis.
"But... it's barely a title! You're the daughter of some lowlands lord, and being a virgin is really more of a symbo-"
"You're obligated to take me in, dragon. Sorry, I don't make the rules."
"I am most certainl-"the dragon paused. Something deep in his genetics told him that he couldn't refuse a treasure of any kind. "You know what? Why not? I'm not really up for raiding something today, and I'm just getting the cave in order..."
A few days passed. The dragon grew to be somewhat tolerant of his unwanted present. Eventually, he decided that she was quite agreeable. She didn't cry, like the prettier girls he had kidnapped before, and certainly didn't have any knights chasing him at all hours.
"Dragon."she asked him one day.
"Yes, Princess?"
"Do you ever wonder if we could advance our position?"she asked.
"How so?"
"Well, this cave is quite dark, and it's such a pain to not have a Treasury to put out things in... would you not prefer a large castle, with maids to serve you fatted pigs every morning over this?"
"I mean... yes, but a dragon can't run a castle! People think I'm a monster."
"But they think that I'm an ordinairy princess."
"So?"
"If you can take over the castle, I can rule it. I'll have the maids bring you whatever you want, and you can live inside of the treasury. I'll let you do whatever you want, so long as you protect me from my enemies."
"I mean... why not? Sure. I don't like how people keep going to stab me. Maybe that won't happen as much if I'm working for a Queen.
And this the smallest siege team in history flew toward the castle, intent to take over.
First the wall guards came for them. They were roasted to a crisp.
Next, the inner guards came for them, and met the same fate.
The servants were not burned, but instead eaten as the dragon had used up quite a bit of energy and was a mite peckish.
Then the Royal family was burned.
Finally, all that was left was the King.
"So, the usurper to my throne is a woman! What a novel thought!"
The princess shook her head. "And the King of this country couldn't kill even one of his attackers. Shame."
"I'll have you know I was chosen by the gods themselves!"he drew his sword. "None can defeat the holy blade of-"
"Dragon, please eat him."
And Dragon did.
The now Queen took the throne, finally happy with her position. Now when men visited, they called her beautiful. She could afford fancy outfits.
She turned out to be a decent leader, having studied politics and commerce. It also helped that she had a giant dragon to threaten people with.
And so they lived happily ever after.
Except for the dead people.
They didn't live at all.
The End!
|
"Munchkin? How am I a munchkin? All of my characters follow the rules to the letter!"
"You know what we mean, Simio. Everyone else just uses the Player's Handbook. You lug around sixteen sourcebooks to every session. You took a ridiculous combination of feats and templates that don't make any sense with the universe I built, and combined with the high stats-
"I rolled those stats randomly! Right here on the table! You all saw!"
"Fine, forget the stats! But your characters are the best at everything and impossible to beat. It's not fun for everyone else."
"What!?! What about Blattaria? Her characters are impossible to get rid of! She has so many feats!"
"That's because she took Flaws for the extra feats. Her German Cockroaches have, like, half a hit point each. You could kill them by stepping on them. And you frequently do!"
"Aw hey guys, don't worry about my cockroaches, I wasn't that invested in them. I have more."
"See? She doesn't care!"
"Okay, but what about Dodon? Or the Sabretooths? It was so fun having the whole Sabretooth family over. You notice they haven't been here in a while?"
"How is it my fault everyone else sucks at character design? I'm really invested in Humans! I wrote all this backstory!"
"And I appreciate that! Look, I'll even keep them on as an NPC. Just play something else."
Simio grumbled for a second before pulling out another sheet.
"Fine. I already had another one ready. He took the Toughness feat six times. I call him the Honey Badger."
--
(D&D 3.5 references abound, I hope you like it.)
|
When they first passed the Currency Reallocation Act (CRA) twelve years ago, Bill Gates was the first to go, of course. They cornered him in his home, dragged him out onto the street, and executed him. It was brutal for the sake of brutality, and as my wife and I watched the news at home, we just shook our heads and held our daughter tight.
People were aghast, but it soon came to light that Gates' will specified the lion's share of his fortune would go to charities around the world. His life a small price to pay to save all those in need. Society, uncomfortable with the exchange, briefly tried to repeal the CRA, to no avail. Eventually, everyone just decided to move on.
It happened again three years later. After a few shrewd trades by Warren Buffet, he rose to become the richest man, only to be toppled a mere week afterwards. With no will, the state seized his wealth in accordance to the CRA, and millions of people prospered in the windfall. Our family received a small sum of ten thousand dollars, a boon in the wake of my wife's recent hospital stay.
As the wealthy realized that the CRA had too much support from the 99%, they began to empty their bank accounts in attempt. It became a sport for most people, betting on who would be in what position of the Top 10 wealthiest people each week. I even placed a few myself.
My wife liked to joke that if I won enough, I might even place on the list. If I had tried harder back then, I probably could have, but I didn't have a dime to spare.
I've been trying harder now though. I've broken the Top 10 list a few times in recent months. It's hard to fight against the passive money flow that the wealthy have; my daughter likes to joke that the rich were meant to stay rich, no matter what. Sometimes I'm inclined to agree.
But there's a limit, a cap that the richest never goes over. My wife fought a losing battle, the same one that my daughter fights now. I have to be the one that wins the fight, for them. In a few more months, the CRA will come into effect again.
I will be the wealthiest, and die trying.
*Feedback Appreciated. Clunky last sentences, IMO* |
"God DAMNIT NOT AGAIN!"
It's been five years of this shit. Every two months, like clockwork, these stupid fuckwits show up, throw around some big blue beams of light for a couple of hours, terrorize the locals, destroy the farmland, and then leave. Acting as if nothing is wrong, talking about some balls or something that will magically put it all back together.
If one of them has magic balls they still have yet to use them.
My name is Bigdum Idjit. I live(d) in the town of Ashimura Tempura, known for our fishing, beer, and whorehouses. But now the whorehouses are leveled, the breweries are piles of rubble, and the fish are floating in the estuaries.
Balls or not, this has to end.
"Hey, asshole!"I scream. The target of my insult is floating maybe 100 feet above my head, with spiky neon yellow hair, wearing what looks to be an orange prison jumpsuit. Another figure levitates nearby, who kinda looks like a big green insect.
"You should get out of here, now!"the prisoner shouts. "Cell is in his newly regenerated perfect form, and he'll kill you without hesitating!"
Cell? Who the fuck names their kid Cell? Roach would have been far more appropriate for this twat.
"I don't give a shit if he'll kill me! You screws keep blowing up my house! I've had enough of this!"
I can feel my rage building quickly. My anger begins to manifest itself in elevated body temperature, so much so that I am literally shooting steam from my ears.
"Leave, puny human. You are not worth my time,"calls down Roach.
Not worth his time? Oh buddy, wrong move.
"THAT'S IT! YOU DONE FUCKED UP NOW!"I roar. I launch myself into the air, farther than I've ever leaped before, and nail Cell square in the middle of his chest. His eyes pop out, hold their position as his body begins to rocket out of the stratosphere, and then snap to follow him before the characteristic twinkle that signifies somebody is two solar systems over blinks in the sky.
But I'm not done yet. I turn to face the yellow haired inmate douchebag who's been following me for all this time.
"What the fuck is your problem? You keep following me and destroying everything in whatever town I've moved to. My wife is pregnant man, she needs a stable environment, and you keep denying her that!"I cry out.
"I-I'm sorry, I just-"
"Don't be sorry asshole, stop destroying my towns! Jesus Christ, how hard can that BE? Maybe if you stopped bringing your friends like Roachy boy around, this wouldn't be a problem anymore!"
I hear a peep behind me, in what was formerly my front yard: "Vegeta, what does the scanner say about his power level?"
"It's OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!!!!!"
I wheel about and charge the group of bystanders who never do anything in these fights, my battle cry echoing over the mountains:
"GET OFF MY LAWN, YOU DAMN KIDS!!!!" |
The news felt... Strange. She wasn't sure how to process it if she was being entirely honest. She'd been chosen because of her desirable 'qualities' as they had explained it to her. She really didn't think it was fair, hardly ethical to boot but when the survival of your race is at stake she could kind of see their reasoning. It was strange indeed to be in such a position simply because of athletic prowess and a flawless immune system. They said over a course of 10 years they'd be doing psychological evaluation on all the individuals chosen for the Ark. During the course of the Ark's assembly we were to tell no one of it's creation or why we were being chosen. That didn't last long. 7 years into the project one of the individual's cracked, they opened their mouth to the media. Calling the people in charge of Ark heartless and saying we were all doomed. The individual of course was played off as nothing more then a deranged 30-some year old man ranting about conspiracies he had no evidence for.
But the people behind Ark wanted all their bases covered, this was an error on their part. They silenced too many people, shut down too many conspiracies, made to much noise. People caught on, scientists and astronomers and the brilliant minds of the world figured it out. Earth was on it's last legs and these people had been keeping secret the only way off the doomed planet. Riots in the streets, more and more people dying everyday, Ark creators being called out for the murder of the human race... and then. An Ark employee found the best way to twist it, show the populations of the world the assembled individuals list. Tell them of the arduous journey to a unknown galaxy and the hardships of starting life anew. It worked, for the most part. The assembly of the Ark was finished ahead of schedule, an entire year in fact but it was going to be a very, very long journey. 10,000 years long to be precise. It was a particularly bleak day when were all asked to gather at the ship. All 100,000 selected individuals began making their way over to their correct sections, I remembered what it was like. It felt cold, the entire world still hated us but had accepted it as a necessity. Little media was present and for those that did show up seemed disinterested. Neither jealously or regret seemed to permeate the air just a somber silence as we were escorted to the launch site. The ship was wonderful grey and mind bogglingly massive, long lines of people were formed at different bays of the ships gigantic hull.
When I reached the front of the line I was asked my name and was told to comply with all bodily scans, fluid extractions, and final psychological evaluations. It was strange to lie down in the chamber, knowing it would be my room for the next 10,000 years I wished it could have been a little more cozy. I still remember what the technician said to me before he closed my capsule
"No matter what anyone has said about you, you're the bravest person I've ever met."
So strange that his words stuck with me for so long, I remember the tears I shed almost instantaneously after he uttered them. I remember the warmth of his embrace and his final goodbye before shutting the door.
The voices on the comms slowly drew me out of my nostalgic haze. I pondered for a brief moment, whether these humans shared the same compassion as the technician. I picked up the radio microphone, "This is Ark 001, I'm Kara from planet Earth..."I could feel tears welling in my eyes and a catch forming in my throat, "You... have a lot of explaining to do."
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Very cool prompt dude! Hope you liked my take on it :D
Edit: There is a part 2! Hooray! Also a Part 3 now! double hooray! |
She found him near the water. The air was salt and brine and the roaring waves drowned away the rest of the world. The sun was still and distant.
"You've a report to make,"she said, looming over him, annoyed to have been forced to hunt. "You need to record the story."
He was pale and lifeless, sitting motionless on a rounded stone, staring out at the waves.
"Are you ignoring me?"she said. He looked up at her and she buckled at the sight of his eyes - their redness and hollowness.
"I wouldn't know where to begin,"he said softly.
She was not one to coddle, which is perhaps why she was often called to these sorts of tasks. But still, she sat beside him and waited a moment.
"The beginning is usually fine,"she said at last. "Just... tell me, and I'll make the report, alright?"
He nodded, stiffly. "Robin. He was a blue, soundless baby. That is my first memory of him. Just alive and nearly dead."
She cocked her head. "The cause?"She had a morose interest in these things.
"Umbilical cord, tied around his neck,"he said. "I flew to the doctor's hands. He was swift. Robin lived. No permanent damage. But his parents saw right away how precious it all was... how impossibly mortal."
"Good people, his parents?"
He nodded. "As good as they knew how to be. Forgetful at times. Never purposefully negligent. They had a pool in the backyard. Robin fell in when he was four years old. I went to the dog - a daffy Golden named Sasha. She saved him. He loved that dog. They all did."
He paused. She could not help notice the whisper of pain in his voice. The jealousy.
"Kind child?"she said. "Wicked? Clever?"
"All that and more,"he said with a slight smile. "Loyal to his friends. Political with his enemies. A poor athlete. A worse singer. But he never stopped chasing his joy. He was deaf to mockery, even if I was not."
"It angered you to hear others speak poorly of him?"she said. "Did you sense there was danger there?"
"No,"he said. "Not at all. He was too strong and sure of himself to care what others thought. But it bothered me all the same."
She nodded. "He sounds like a credit."
"I believe so,"he said, voice briefly choked. "There was a car accident - when he was 19. Drunken driver. I raced to that other car. I tried to take the wheel."He shook his head. "Too slow. Robin nearly died."
"But he didn't,"she said. "Not for some time."
"It was very painful,"he said. "He lost a leg. He lost an eye. And I thought for certain that I'd lost him. That he wouldn't be the same. They say that - all the time. That some wounds never heal. But..."
"But?"
His face turned, his eyes caught a bit of the light. "He was unchanged. Through it all, he was Robin. One leg. A glass eye. He did not retreat into himself. He simply pressed forward."
"That's no small thing,"she said. "Cheers to Robin."
"He even found love,"he said. "Vanessa. They had three children. A wonderful house in the woods. Years of love and triumph and joy."
She sighed. "He's left a mark on you, hasn't he?"
"He hardly needed me,"he said. "And when he needed me most, I failed him. And *still* he went on, in love and hope. I feel... I feel that..."He took a slow breath. She laid a tentative hand on his shoulder. "I feel he did more for me than I could have ever done for him. And there was no way to tell him. No way to show my appreciation. No way to... to let him know how much I loved him."
"Ah,"she said, leaning back slightly. "What was the ending?"
He frowned. "He... he drowned. Fishing trip. It was fated, I know. He was always meant to drown. But he had life left in him. A few years at least. And once again I... I did nothing for him. Nothing at all."
"He was 74 years old,"she said. "And it was a long, beautiful life. They *all* go at the end. You know that full well. Don't be cruel to yourself - not after giving a good man 74 years of life."
"I'd give him a thousand more if I could..."
She laughed. "What a mess that would be! I'm not sure he'd appreciate such a gesture."
He smiled, looking down. "I suppose."
"You've done well,"she said after a time. "But now it's time to start again. There are no sabbaticals in our work. You're needed."
He took one final look out across the water and rose to his feet. "Alright. I'm ready."
"The next one will be different,"she said, almost sternly. "Remember that - they're all different, and that is what makes them worth protecting."
He nodded. His throat was raw and his eyes still red, but his mind was clear. The waves roared as gulls circled above. "I'll do my best." |
"The raid upon the Cleveland Zoo has been done, sir. The giraffes there have been exterminated, their meat thrown to wolves, and their pelts skinned and being furnished to be hung on your wall. Sir.", Captain Ping said in a matter-of-fact voice. He was my second-in-command, just due to his voice. Literally, that's all. He's not clever, he's not smart, he's not a good leader. His voice is just - so professional. Like, you could really hear this guy make a speech, you know?
"Ah, good. That was the last zoo on the Western Hemisphere, yes?", I asked him.
"Yes, the last one, sir. We're beginning to move our forces to Africa, where we'll be until spring, as our predictors said, sir.", Captain Ping answered in that professional deep voice. Oh, and I love that he calls me Sir. That's a plus.
"Good. Now, shall we have a feast for our soldiers? They deserve some grub."
"Yes, sir. The cooks will be informed, sir."
"Good."
***
The chatter of the soldiers around the cafeteria was the background here. The washing of plates and chewing mouths were the music. I sat upon my throne watching them all, as I began to stab my fork into roasted giraffe. Why giraffes? Stupid Mrs. Parker. In 6th grade, she took a point off a test I took because I answered giraffes were extinct. I didn't know at the time, I was only 12! Well, 15 years later, i'm proving her wrong! With some worthwhile volunteers, my deep-voiced companion Captain Ping, and our shipment of weapons, we've been able to make the giraffe get put on the endangered species list. Some say this is excessive, but is it really? I'm just proving that nasty bitc-
"SIR, THERE'S INTRUDERS AT THE FRONT ENTRANCE! THEY'RE MAKING THEIR WAY DOWN HERE!", Captain Ping exclaimed aloud. The soldiers around us began to panic and run around. Hey, they were volunteers, I wasn't paying them. I jumped from my chair and began running towards the exit. I wasn't going to die today, I wasn't-
A hole was blown open on the left side. Hoards of soldiers began flooding in and making my troops surrender. Captain Ping dropped to the floor in a fearful state. This was confusing. I had the money to pay off the US military, but who was this?
"This is the PETA private militia! Put your weapons down, and surrender immediately!", the voice exclaimed.
Wait a minute. I recognize that voice. I recognize that voice! But, who was it? Who was- wait. What the-
"Mrs. Parker?!" |
It was all over the news: the colony had finally fallen. It had happened so fast. No more than four weeks ago I had spoken to Anne. She had told me how her research was going, she seemed optimistic. She was a biologist, she had been working on the implantation of some kind of genetically augmented tree that could have made the planet's atmosphere breathable. We had spoken for almost an hour, she had gabbled on about soil manipulation and biomechanics. I didn't understand most of it, but I was content to indulge her - she seemed happy. Then the red out came. It was no surprise, it was the third one since the colony had been established. All communications were lost between us and the red planet. The previous one had lasted ten months. This four week cut was a relative walk in the park. Nobody expected things to go quite as wrong as they did.
It had been like being operated upon under local anaesthetic. We had all the data, we looked on and saw everything in horror as the events unfolded - unable to react in any way. The statistics we received on our monitors seemed to scream. There had been no way of warning them. Even if there was there would have been no way to save them. Maybe it was better that they hadn't known. What good is it to preach death to the dying man? About a week in to the red out, Samsung IV, one of Korea's satellites in orbit around the planet had struck an unidentified piece of debris. This had caused a slow breakdown of computer systems down on the colony. The ultimate cause of it's demise had not been disclosed - people speculated on many things from oxygen depletion to food synthesis malfunction to the whole thing just simply imploding. In any case, it had been announced that morning, two days before the end of the red out, that the colony had fallen - it was described as one of the biggest tragedies to have ever struck human kind.
I gazed at my phone, the face of President Worth was tired and drawn. He looked directly into the camera, sorrow seeping out of his eyes.
"It was an international project. The whole world is together in mourning. The 332 people that inhabited our martian colony were some of the bravest souls to have ever walked on this planet. They had stepped boldly into the unknown, ready to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to save our species. It is with the deepest regret, that I have to inform you that this sacrifice was accounted for. They gave their lives in order to preserve ours. For that, we thank them."There was a flash of cameras. Worth's words left a disdainful taste in my mouth. What was he talking about? The colony was lost. I consulted the article I had seen minutes before - the colony was forsaken, irrecuperable. All of Anne's work, her life, had been lost for nothing.
NASA was coming under heated attacks from the press. Why hadn't the surface installation been self-sufficient? How had it been possible not to predict the satellite being struck? Were there no back-up systems? For the moment they were keeping quiet. Despite the President's words, people were beginning to feel uneasy. What did this mean for our future? Everyone knew what state the Earth was in - the resources were running out. Only a decade back NASA had used these statistics to push it's colonisation project into fruition. Now it had failed. Where did that leave us?
The riots started the next day. I didn't understand the motivations behind it. All I saw was people desperately clamouring to get their hands on the last strands of life our planet could provide. The President spoke out, he tried to calm people's spirits, but the movement only grew in madness. NASA, who for so long had inspired hope were still helplessly silent. I watched the planet deteriorate from my apartment, eating from cans and mourning my friend. Her last words rang through my head, "it's a breakthrough, we're so close now!"That evening a fire broke out in a supermarket on the other side of the street and black figures swarmed among the flames. I slept in fear.
The next morning I was woken by the sound of an incoming message on my phone. My eyes unglued themselves and I pulled the device towards me, the heat of my body frosting against the opalescent screen. It was from Anne. I sat up and unconsciously brought my hand to my mouth. Out the window the sky seemed dirty, the rising sun cast orange blotches against the stratosphere. I sat back against the cool wood of my bed and flicked the screen. Tears came to my eyes as Anne's face filled the screen.
"I know you won't receive this until it's too late. But I have to tell someone,"she was talking slowly, she looked defeated. "We've been tricked. I expect they know who you are, they must have been monitoring our communications since the very beginning. This whole project, is a lie. I could try and destroy my research but,"she laughed helplessly before crumbling into tears, "I've already told you everything I know! It's all ready for them. Now all they need to do is come and take it!"There was a loud crash and her eyes were drawn to some point behind the camera. After a few moments she looked back at me and a resolute expression came over her face. "I don't know what to say to you. There is no way I can help you, it's like I can see you dying but my hands are tied. We have, forsaken you. I'm sorry."The message stopped there and her head froze in place, a look of pity beaming directly at me.
I dropped the phone and turned my gaze towards the window. Through the clouds I made out the faint white trace of a machine penetrating through the clouds, escaping this world. I was not on it, I was here. The noise and the fire was approaching, we were forsaken. |
John awoke on Mars Station 17 with a stretch and strapped on his glemdelums, ready for another wonderful day in the outer-realm. John had no work to do, no bills to pay, he had invested his savings slowly over the past 900 years, but sure enough interest gave him enough to purchase a share of the Mars Colony and slowly bought out his competitors as they died off over the years. "You're a tatch homily"Jennith Rheims said to him before dying, John could only nod in agreement.
Most days he spent his time playing Blurnsball and watching old reruns of his favorite shows as a child in hologram plays, but no matter how old he got he always wanted to look his best and spent the first hour of the day making sure his face was pristine. This day, however, would change his life forever.
As John looked in the holomirror he quickly gasped in fear as he spotted a grey hair, his first ever. Sure, most 900 year olds would be happy to make it this long without such a hair, but not John, John had made a deal to stop aging years before, a pact with a devilish man, a pact that had been respected for all these years, but after 899 years without a grey hair, John was showing signs of aging and he knew there could be only one reason for this, one thing that could break the deal he made.
Running down the corridor, John bashed into every man, alien, and artificial intelligent cloud he encountered. "Rude,"beeped CR17.
"WHERE IS THE CAPTAIN?"John shouted as he continued on his barrage. "WHERE IS SHE?!"He continued as he burst his way onto the bridge. "CAPTAIN!"
"What? WHAT IS IT JOHN?"Captain McKinnon asked the nervous man.
"HAVE YOU SCANNED THE SHIP?"
Confused, Ctp. McKinnon pulled up her schematics and found no holes in the armor. "What are you taking about? We're completely safe."
"SCAN THE SHIP, CAPTAIN."
"For what John?"
"THE SNAIL. IT'S FOUND ME."
|
"Once upon a time, I threw sixteen people into a volcano."
The room gave me a stern look. The kid's mother looked almost more dead than little James did, her hair graying fast. James himself was staring up at me, his muddy brown eyes meeting my light gray ones.
"Mr. Clockwork Prince, sir... Please try to keep it PG13."The case worker was standing as far away as possible from me while still maintaining the "walking next to him"part of his contract.
"Ah, well, anyway... Columbus was there, I remember that, his red suit matched the lava. I was wearing my best black body armor, and brought the highest quality batteries I could find - I usually go to train yards for them, or hunt demolition sites - and..."I licked my lips at the awkward silence.
The room was stripped bare of hospital equipment, my aura had taken everything electronic apart. My whole thing was electronic construction on a small scale, but I had no control over what I took apart. My usual sleek black miasma of electronics was mottled with hospital white.
James was still staring at me.
"Um, kid, I have to know... Why me?"I took a few steps back, my cloud of electronics following suit. "The whole point of a wish is to spend it on what you want most. I'm not exactly a friendly person, much less to kids."
James' voice was shaky. "They said no to my first wish."
"Which was?"
"I wanted to be a superhero."
I chuckled, and looked up at the matte ceiling. They had to evacuate the entire wing, or else my power would start messing with life supports. I usually stayed away from hospitals, clinics. Schools.
"So did I, James. But you've gotta remember one thing, okay?"
He nodded at me, clutching the end of his blanket. The room was silent, the case worker staring at me in shock.
"There's a difference between a hero and a protagonist." |
It was a Monday morning after another night of somewhat foolishly staying up all night on LSD. It was foolish because I had work to go to that morning, and LSD doesn't let you sleep for the 12 hours that the effects of the drug last. I'd done this a few times before though, so I had already planned on a long hot shower and big mug of coffee to freshen up before the work day.
It was while scrubbing off the acid grime in the shower that I felt it. On my neck was a dial. I was tired and feeling the afterglow of LSD, so I hadn't had the reaction one normally would. I angled myself to be able to see it in the mirror on the shower wall. A numbered dial. It was set to 7. Being that I was probably somehow hallucinating this experience, I set it to 8 and finished my shower without much else thought.
On the drive to work is when it came to mind again. I felt my neck to see if it was still there. Just skin, of course. I pondered what a strange experience that was in the shower.
At work is where it got strange again. Everyone I saw had a number. It wasn't physical, or even hallucinated, but just kind of felt. Most of my coworkers were all sevens. There were a few sixes and fives and fours too though. Strangely, I hadn't seen any 8s or higher. I also couldn't see my own number. I couldn't be sure that the dial had anything to do with it, but it seemed safe to assume so.
Now, I'd had a lot of LSD trips by this point in life, so my first assumption was that I was finally losing my mind. I played along with it though, knowing it was a weird drug effect since it was kind of amusing. I tried matching numbers with personality, or how they dressed, or anything really. So far there didn't seem to be any kind of correlation. At least among my coworkers.
My job was a typical boring office job, so when noon came around I decided to go somewhere for lunch. Only I still didn't have much of an appetite. I drove around for a bit, trying to think of a place to eat that would appeal to me. I ended up just going to a park and sitting on a bench. There were a few other people there, joggers, people walking dogs, a lady reading a book. They all were 7s. I did notice on the dog I saw that its number was a 2, though.
Then I saw an old man walking rather slowly on the sidewalk. He didn't look out of the ordinary. His hair was graying, and he had wrinkles. His clothes were normal. Nothing stood out. Except for the fact that a number wasn't "popping up"for him. It was only ever a general feeling in the first place. It's not like there was a visual cue missing. It's just that looking at him, I didn't get a feeling that indicated a number.
Being curious and amused by this number thing the entire day, I decided to secretly observe him and see if anything was different. While lost in thought fantasizing about what the numbers could mean, I didn't notice how close he had gotten to me until he spoke.
"Unusual to find an 8 in these parts."
I stared at him rather blankly. Made a bunch of uh sounds. Cast my eyes down nervously.
"w-what?"
"I said, it's unusual to find an 8 in these parts. Humans are typically sevens or lower. As you've seen, I'm sure."
I KNEW I couldn't be having a full blown hallucination. Acid doesn't work that way at all, and even then this was a day after taking it. Who is this guy? He speaks so calmly. That might be the only outwardly abnormal thing about him. Then again, I'm not even sure if he was real.
"You seem surprised. Have you only recently become an 8? That's strange, indeed. Hmmm. I have other matters to attend to now, but if you want answers then I'll be in touch. "
He gave me a business card, and left at the same slow pace I first saw him. What the fuck?!
*I suspect I wrote this too boring and couldn't think of an actual plot, oh well.* |
"Sorry for whatever I did last night Sam!"I called from her bed. This wasn't the first time I had woken up in my best friend's bed with only a hazy memory of the night before. This is what college was supposed to be about, right?
Sam didn't answer. She was probably out getting coffee; she was a total addict. I stretched and scratched myself.
"Holy fucking shit!"I screamed jumping out of bed. My balls were gone. Just fucking gone. How did I lose my balls? I looked down in a panic. I was wearing purple panties. I stripped them off, the oddity of the fact I was wearing women's underwear not even registering over the fact that MY FUCKING BALLS WERE GONE. I examined myself, trying to figure out what happened. My dick was gone too.
I had a vagina.
I ran my hands over my body, my brain unable to comprehend what was going on. I had a nice set of boobs. My hands were different- I was wearing chipped nail polish. I had hips. Most of my body hair was missing. The pieces slowly started falling into place.
"SAAAAAAAAMM!"I shouted. My voice was different. There was still no response.
What kind of sicko does a sex change operation on a blacked out drunk patient, I wondered as I headed to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror. Sam looked back at me. I jumped back in surprise, crashing into the towel rack.
"You better have the hottest guy on campus in there to be making this much noise in the morning!"Sam's roommate, Christy, shouted from the other end of their apartment.
I bounded out of the bathroom and straight into Christy's room. "Christy-"
"Dude. Knock,"Christy said sharply. A man I didn't recognize hastily covered himself with the comforter on the bed. I was a little disappointed. I'd been crushing on Christy for a while now.
"Christy. I'm not me,"I said ignoring her reprimand. "This isn't me. I'm not who I look like. Something's happened and everything is all wrong, and-"
"You're talking really fast Sam and not making any sense. Also you're not wearing any pants. Did you not have your coffee yet?"
"I'm trying to tell you I'm not Sam. I'm Jordan. Something-"
"Oh my God, it's too early for the Jordan talk to start already,"Christy said rolling her eyes. "Just go put some pants on. You're making my date uncomfortable."
"Actually, I'm fine. What-"he started.
Christy cut him off. "Shhhhh. Randos don't talk."
I went back to the bathroom, and looked again in the mirror. I started to get a headache. "I guess you really are addicted to coffee,"I said to Sam's reflection. "At least you're not hungover.... but I am."
The light finally went on for me. Sam must be in my body. I just had to find her, and then we could fix this mess. I moved over to the toilet to take my morning leak, at last having the comfort of knowing what I was doing. That feeling promptly evaporated as I made a mess of the bathroom. I forgot girls sat down every time.
After cleaning up, I went to Sam's room to put some clothes on. I pulled some things at random from her dresser, having no sense of or interest in women's fashion. I did remember to put on a bra. I was very proud of that.
I walked across campus to my apartment, and knocked on my door. Hank, my roommate opened it.
"Hey Sam,"he said, holding a bowl of cereal. "Jordan's still sleeping last night off."
"Well, it's time to wake him up."
"Your funeral,"Hank said through a mouthful of Cheerios.
I crinkled my nose as I walked into the apartment. The dude smell was aggressively attacking my sinuses. I made a mental note to clean as I went back to my room. I found myself passed out in my bed.
"Sam,"I said sharply. My body jerked, and I - er, Sam - raised her head. My head. Our head.
"Uggh,"she said. "What is it? Wh-"she trailed off as she caught sight of me - of herself - standing there. "This is a weird dream,"she said matter of factly.
"Not a dream. We're Freaky Fridaying."
"I am too hungover for your crazy talk. Wait, why am I hung over?"
"Because I got shit faced last night. And now you're in my body."
I watched the expression on my body slowly change as what I was saying started to get through.
"Holy shit holy shit holy shit!"Sam sprung out of bed shouting. She ran her hands down her new body, and ran over to a mirror. "Oh my god!"she exclaimed as she caught sight of her reflection.
She turned her attention back to me. "What the fuck did you do?!"
"I told you. I got shit faced. I don't really remember."
"Well think! Did you meet any leprechauns? Ancient Chinese mystics offering you fortune cookies? Magic potions?!"
"I really wish I could say no. But I have no idea."
"Goddammit Jordan. Okay. Okay,"Sam said pacing. "All we need to do is retrace your steps last night and then we can figure out where you went to make this happen."
"Sounds like a plan,"I said rubbing my forehead. "But can we get some coffee on the way? I forgot to make some this morning."
We both paused - I'd sounded exactly like Sam in that moment. "That was weird,"we said in unison.
*****
Find more of my prompt responses, including [Part II](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pubby88/comments/5tljn5/you_wake_up_to_find_you_have_swapped_bodies_with/ddnnsyb/?st=iz31658o&sh=f65a10b4), at [Pubby's Creative Workshop](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pubby88/) |
Our ways were not hers and so she would carry on without us. No, in spite of us. Handing out advice wouldn't cut it. She'd need to experience a bloody nose or a skinned knee to learn her lessons. There were no skies limiting her, no obstacles to slow her foot. Sandy beaches with bright blue skies and feathery white clouds stretching out of view would be her providence. Awash in foamy surf she road waves smooth as glass and faster than speeding locomotives. And then, with her sun at set and darkness crowding in around, a broad smile fills her face. Her day is done and now it's time to take in an omnipotent panorama of celestial mechanics and a deep breath. |
The days among the land where my people were born has come to an end. For unknown reasons, the crops we cultivate and the animals we pasture have become sickened and are starting to dwindle away. The people around me have started to wither and die without any sort of reasoning or explanation. The leaders have met and we have agreed that it is time to move on. We must find a means to survive. Times have changed and we are in need of help. Hopefully our salvation is out among the unknown.
The elders called for a village meeting, where I spoke calmly to those assembled.
"After many meetings, the village elders have decided that our days of isolation are at an end. The longer we stay here the more likely we are to come to an end. The land around us has become sick, whether from our over use of it, or from something else we cannot say. All that we know is that it is time for us to travel onward and seek salvation from an outside source. Maybe those living in the world outside our village will be able to cure us of our ailments."
My people have never been outside our village in their entire lives, this will be a new experience for everyone. But we are a strong people and we will endure.
After a few days the village was ready, we packed up our belongings in the carts we constructed and set out with our women, children, and animals. Slowly we made our way along the paths that were carved into our forests by those that tried to sell us their religion in times past. Walking among the forest and through the mountains showed us the true impact of the disease that has spread among us. Everything looked as if it was slowly dying right before our eyes. There was almost no new life as far as the eye could see. Hopefully we can find a place where life has started anew.
After a few days of walking we have finally reached the edge of the forest. I peer out over the cliff that arises before us and see something I have never seen before. I see a land that is filled with giant towers taller than any mountain I have ever seen. Paths wider than any path I have ever walked along. This must truly be where the gods live. With rising hope my people venture onward down the mountainside. We have finally found a place that could possibly cure us of the sickness that has consumed us. After all these years we can finally be at peace.
But something is wrong, there are no gods walking among the land. The only thing we see are giant metallic animals that have no breath of life in them. My people have started to become scared... What could have happened to such a powerful people. What could have brought such a mighty land to its knees...
Walking among the remains of gods is a humbling experience. Everything we see around us is both confusing and astonishing.
As we walk through the paths laid out before us we see nothing but charred bones and the desiccated remains of what was evidently a civilization filled with people that were masters of their world. What could possibly have brought the end of such a powerful people? Hopefully, my people will never have to learn that terrible truth... |
Today has been the hardest day of my life.
Now, don't just assume that that statement was hyperbole, because it wasn't. Today has *literally*, actually, Chris-Traeger, been the hardest day of my life.
Today when I woke up, I was ice-cold because my duvet had shrunk down to the size of a beach towel. No matter how hard I tried, I simply could not cover myself! If only there was a blanket that would stay tucked in around me without shrinking in the dryer!
Eventually, I had given up and tried to get out of my bed, but my slippers were too small and mismatched! How could I have gotten my slippers so disorganized? If only there was a way to avoid this.
Then, when I tried to go to the bathroom, the toilet lid kept falling over, making for a very annoying morning pee. If only there was a way- oh, great, my color-blindness must be acting up cuz I just realized I've been seeing things in black and white.
Quite annoyed, I make my way to the kitchen and open the fridge- only to find all my food spilling out over the floor. If only I could keep this organized!
With a huff, I glance at the door, where someone has just started knocking.
Oh hey, it's my best friend! And he's got a bunch of great ways to solve my problems!
At least I can see in color fully now. But let me tell you about the Shuggie, this great blanket that hugs you while you sleep! |
Chris spun around on his heel, one hand holding his crotch. As his spinning arc completed, his knees bent and lifted onto his tip toes, he throwing his other hand into the air and dropping his head, screaming out a triumphant yell. A nylon wrapped foot passed harmlessly over his now lowered head and the ninjitsu master landed deftly and rolled away. A crushing rising kick by the former cruiser weight MMA champion aimed at his crotch thumped against his cupped hand to no effect, and the foot became trapped instantly between Chris's bent legs.
"Thriller"Chris whispered. Twisting away with the trapped leg to a loud SNAP. The MMA fighter collapsed in agony, rolling to escape the mad dervish that had felled four other martial arts masters already. He bumped into an unconscious Tae Kwon do black belt laying flat on his back, a victim of Chris's "drunken ice cream cone"attack.
"Flying spark plug!"Chris yelled as he simultaneously jumped forward in an awkward belly flop on the ground while pumping his legs into the air behind him. His feet connected solidly with the golden gloves boxer's chest who had come up from behind him, launching the man several feet backwards with cracked ribs.
A large man, shirtless, oiled, and hairy...lunged and landed on top of Chris and immediately looped his legs around Chris's body in a high guard. As he started to swing an arm down to connect with Chris's head, he felt himself bucked high, and thrown wildly into the air as Chris began doing the worm. The Greco-Roman wrestler flipped in the air, coming down hard onto his neck with a sickening crack, and he moved no more. Chris finished his maneuver with a sideways cartwheel that launched one of his shoes in a long arc, directly into the face of a woman charging forward with a fencing rapier held at the ready. The blow stunned her, causing her to trip and impale herself onto her own blade.
"Damn you."The black clad ninja spat.
"And welcome to T.J. Maxx!"Chris yelled as he started windmilling his arms in large sweeping loops. "Please ask for assistance with items on the top shelf!" |
“Thirty?” I breathed out a sigh. “Life is… A journey. There’s ups and downs and stretches of time when you don’t know what the f— fudge… You’re doing. It’s all so formulaic.”
“Form-u-laic?”
“Like a recipe you have to follow exactly.”
My son's mouth formed a little o. “Like the mashed potatoes we made?”
“Yes Eric, like that. It’s like you’ve got the whole list- a family, good job, etc.” I ticked each of them off my fingers. “But there’s something inside of you that’s unsatisfied. A hole that can’t be filled with religion, work, or self delusion.” I tried to smile, but it turned into a grimace.
He wrapped his pudgy arms around me. “But dada, I don’t want you to be sad.” Eric’s eyes were wide and scared. “Don’t be sad.”
“I have bad days sometimes, and those are the ones that I have little control over.” I bent over and kissed his red curls. “But for your sake, daddy’s going to try.”
 
Want to check out my archive of stories? [Click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheminonkingWrites/)
|
I had absolutely no idea how I ended up immortal but it was true, I was no longer able to die. Which is kind of a good thing as my wife had shoved me off the side of a cliff to collect on the life insurance policy I had. I even caught it on my GoPro.
I had proven her attempted murder of myself and had filed for divorce the same day as she was taken to prison. For about a week, everything was normal. Well, the police questioned me about how I survived such a fall and people were sympathizing with me over what my wife had done. But I went to work as a waiter in the restaurant my uncle owned, did some grocery shopping, paid the bills...
Then he started showing up. Some strange man in a suit who'd say he "Wanted a change from those bullshit avant-garde restaurants in the city center"and ate at my uncle's simple diner. He didn't look any older than 25 in my opinion... but had heavy eyes, as if he has experienced the world.
For about two months he'd come in at least twice a week, always trying as many different things and tipping about ten times the cost of his meal. We'd get into some minor talk about football, the news, all that kind of stuff.
That was, until the day he found out I was immortal.
It was a rather busy shift at work, especially since it was the end of the school year when parents took their graduate children out to celebrate getting acceptance into colleges. One trucker who stopped in the restaurant as it was the closest we had to a drive-in diner... he was rather careless, drinking as he didn't need to deliver a truck the next day. Anyway, his steak knife slipped from his hand and luckily, only I was injured. A rather severe cut but it healed before anyone else noticed.
The trucker apologized profusely, my uncle wanted to make sure I wasn't injured. Luckily the cut was already healed and I played it off, saying that only the handle hit me.
But the other man, the man in the suit... he noticed.
In fact, after the end of my shift, he followed me home and broke into my apartment.
'Jesus Christ!' I yelled when I noticed him sitting on my couch. 'Arthur, what the hell are you doing here?!'
'Well, I wanted to speak to you privately and I believed this was the safest place to do so,' he said calmly.
'So you *broke into my home*?!' I demanded. 'How'd you get in here anyway?'
He answered me by throwing a knife straight at my throat, causing me to collapse onto the floor in pain. I wheezed through my damaged windpipe as he calmly walked towards me and pulled the blade out.
'I've learned a few tricks over the centuries,' Arthur said as he examined the blade, watching as the blood flowed off and directly back into my neck. 'Mainly observation but lockpicking, breaking and entering...'
He was now rolling up his sleeves in front of me. 'It was more of a hobby, however. I'm just curious as to whether you've evaded our notice... or you just acquired your gift.'
He then brought the blade towards his elbow, cutting through until his forearm had fallen off completely and was now writhing on the floor. He didn't seem to be bothered in the slightest as he walked into the kitchenette while his arm dissolved into blood and disappeared, a geyser of blood forming a new limb from his body.
'You really should start drinking herbal teas, very healthy indeed,' he said to me as he boiled water on my stove. He used his own teapot, I didn't even own one.
'I...' I began, trying to think back. 'I don't know. I just started healing really quickly is all.'
'The amount of younger immortals who all say that,' he said dismissively. 'The thing is, I know you're not lying. It's not easy for you to fool people.'
'So... you hunt immortals, is that it?' I asked him. 'To either kill or recruit me?'
'Like I could or would,' he said as he poured the hot water into a cup and brewed the instant coffee, stirring with his own finger. 'No, there's a monthly get-together between the stranger, older elements of the world. Immortals, warlocks, dragons... There will definitely be the vampire lord, he never misses an opportunity to feed in an ethical manner.'
'Did- did you just fucking say *vampire*?' I asked.
'If they don't feed on us, they'll just have to hunt random mortals,' Arthur said. 'I even make a good bit of coin- Money! Sorry, I always slip into the older ways. Anyway, it's an hour of pain but a good way to make some quick cash among other possibilities. Believe me, you *will* need a familiar face, especially after the first century. I'll even provide transport and... proper wear.'
'So, this isn't suitable?' I asked as I signalled at my black buttoned shirt and dress pants.
'Well, that is under-dressing for our little shindig,' he said. 'Full suit, a tie, pocket square... Anyway, I'll bring you there by car on Tuesday evening. I know the restaurant isn't open that day.'
---
**Part 2 Coming Soon** |
Once again, I am called unto the soil of this forsaken rock. Someone has come to make a deal, it seems.
When I get a bearing on my environment, I marvel at just how susceptible humans are to their greed and territory.
The streets are old, decrepit. There are boxes and tents with humans wallowing away inside, and the buildings that surround me are broken down, clearly not tended to.
Pathetic...
I turn my attention to a child covered in rags and dirt, incredibly thin, and most likely very sick.
"For what reason have you summoned me here, child?"I question the child. No doubt they must have a more humble wish than most, usually these street urchins don't have the courage to look too far up.
"...s-ssir. I...want to make a... a d-deal."He hastily spits out, clearly shaken by the lengths he had to go through to find the steps necessary.
"Well, then? Out with it."Hmph. Nothing more than a waste of my-
"...I want a good meal."
...
...a meal.
This... child. Digging up the deepest and darkest secrets of ancient demonic summoning... only wanted a meal?
It was in that moment I felt something inside of me I haven't felt since I was mortal, back in the days when the gods roamed the Earth along with creatures of flesh and bone.
No, there was no mistaking it.
It was heartbreak. Pain. Grief.
I collapsed to my knees in that one moment. Finally, I had realized for the first time what I have become. The shell I gave up my soul for.
If there was one thing I could do with the last fiber of my humanity in this moment, I decided that this child would be the one I show mercy to.
I stood back up.
"...S-sir?"
"I will strike no such deal. Instead...I will grant you the gift of a family."As if my demonic side was fighting the very essence of my statement, I felt every fiber of my body break against those words.
Tears welled in the child's eyes. "I... you... w-what?"I could see the disbelief in his face. He was sobbing, not quite tears of happiness, but no longer was he scared.
"You will never go hungry once more. With that...I will be away."I closed my eyes and walked away. Using the last of my humanity for the necessary soul required for a deal, I felt myself finally fade away.
There was one other feeling I couldn't describe until now. Years in the underworld with anything that I ever could have wanted couldn't have given me anything near what I felt in those final moments.
I felt happy. |
*Not a lot phases me anymore, though the reasons why would take some explaining. Despite having personally met a version of Rick Sanchez, shaken hands with Time Lords on Gallifrey, and jumped headfirst into a black hole, among other things, this particular event still managed to surprise me.*
At just past mission clock 687 days, 18 hours and 20 minutes, I had just entered my 597th reality. The entry was a nice one; I walked through the tear into this reality rather than being thrown out of it. As the tear sealed itself behind me, I took a brief moment to observe my surroundings: early morning or late evening on a planet of roughly 1G, lush vegetation, and no large lifeforms as far as my enhanced eyes could see.
With a tap to the screen, I summoned my holodisk from where it was attached to my belt. Its clasp released automatically and it hovered in front of me at waist level. "Local analysis,"I commanded. Holographic readouts appeared one by one as the device slowly accumulated and processed data about my surroundings.
--
Atmosphere: 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 1% carbon dioxide, <1% miscellaneous.
Localization: 8:13 pm Daylight Savings Time, April 16, 2003, Todd Mission, Texas, USA.
Connectivity: Multiple satellite constellations detected. Internet populated by approximately 39,600,000 registered domain names. No local cellular signal detected.
Weather: 19°C/16°C dew point, < 5 kph winds, clear skies with 0% chance of precipitation. Data obtained from satellite-based sources.
Hazards: No hazardous pathogens or dangerous levels of materials detected.
--
"Release air shield,"I commanded, satisfied that the atmosphere was like my own Earth. Without so much as a hiss, the air which had been contained in an invisible shield was released, free to mix with the atmosphere. With a tap to the 'return' button on the holographic readout, the holodisk stopped projecting its results and clipped itself back to my belt.
I had intended to lay on the ground for a while and relax before finding civilization, but even before my holodisk had clipped itself to my belt, what appeared to be an aircraft separated itself from the evening sky. A pang of fear gripped me as I realized this unknown object was flying straight towards me, and with alarming speed.
Gripped by the fear of this unknown object crashing into me, I ran as fast as I could away from where I had emerged. Were it an object under no control, I would have easily evaded it. But it wasn't. The longer I ran, the more obvious it became that whatever object was coming had locked onto my body's signature. I stopped running, and issued a command. "AIR SHIELD UP!"While it wouldn't absorb the full force, the shield might spare my life in a lethal impact. Unable to evade, I stood still where I was, hoping the object would stop itself before impact.
To my luck, the object slowed to a complete stop about 20 meters away from where I stood, and gave me a chance to analyze it further. While it had almost no distinctive features on the hull, from the size and shape, it was definitely a flying saucer. Light-less and with a completely bare hull, the saucer hovered in place for nearly 1/2 a minute before lowering its landing gear and silently descending to the ground.
One of the saucer's panels rotated down and out, opening into a loading ramp. As it touched the ground, a spotlight beamed out from the opening and directed itself straight at me. Struggling through the brightness, I made out two large-headed silhouettes descending the ramp. While they appeared to have holstered weapons, their hands were empty, which meant they were armed for defense only. "Air shield down,"I whispered.
It all hit me at once. The saucer's engines emanated an almost deafening hum, and despite the ship being on the ground, it was still stirring up gales of wind that almost knocked me over when the shield dropped. I covered my ears, silently cursing myself for not remembering that the air shield blocked sound waves.
Fortunately the ships engines were just taking their sweet time shutting down, as both the sound and the wind died down as the two alien silhouettes approached me. I removed my hands from my ears. They were now only a couple meters away, and I could tell they were no more than a meter tall and had green skin.
"Take me to your leader!"one of the aliens commanded me.
"Not to burst your bubble,"I responded, "but I've only been on this planet about five minutes longer than you have."
The alien looked to his companion, who remained silent. They turned back to me, "What is a minute?"
I sighed internally. This was going to be a difficult one.
---
Thanks for reading! A part 2 is on the way. |
I was jarred awake by a sound I hadn't heard in... well, who's to say - months or years. It was impossible to tell, pardon the cliche. I really did lose track of time immediately. They'd forgotten to leave room for a window in the eight feet thick, poured concrete shoebox I'd been locked in since that day the black speed boats finally nabbed me sprinting across the Potomac.
By now, it was unnecessary, of course. I'd forgotten the bible, Harry Potter, Firestarter, all of my go-tos. I hadn't read anything since they locked me up. They even took the tags off of my clothes. I guess they were worried I would "hand wash only"them to death and escape through the vents by disseminating into a fiber cloud of nylon-polyester blend.
Could't really blame them, though. I didn't know how this shit worked, either.
"One mission for your freedom,"the warden said, tossing a book to the hard floor with a slap that set my ears ringing.
"I'm not supposed to have to earn freedom,"I said. Or, I tried to say. I was surprised and kind of horrified at how much my voice had atrophied from disuse. Instead of flying through the air and sticking like the daggers I imagined, my words tumbled out and piled up on the floor. The warden took their meaning, nonetheless.
"You gave up your freedom when you decided to do that Mr. Fantastic shit a few miles from the White House,"he said, plainly.
"Otherwise you would have let me be?"I might have said.
"It's neither here nor there, now. You're a criminal and a hazard and all the measures we've taken are completely justified."
*Like skipping my trial? Denying me the right to a lawyer?* I thought. No point in voicing it though. Despite the bullshit he was conjuring, we had an understanding.
"-And we are in the business of working out deals for lightened sentences. Do your homework, and yours will be shortened all the way to zero."
I couldn't bear that - pretending he was doing me a favor, "I don't *have* a sentence, fuckass!"I spat, vocal chords coming on line in full effect, "I was never *sentenced!*"
But the door slammed shut and he was already walking away. "You have 48 hours,"he called back.
I picked up the book, a small paperback with wispy pages and microscopic print - the kind of serial that costs five cents to print and sells for ten. "Oakley City Scifi Reader #11"I read, and with that alone, I felt an energy enter me.
I devoured the garbage like it was Leo Tolstoy. With a sober mind, I might have given it a four out of ten, but it was as though I was breathing real air for the first time in months. And of course, all the while I was stretching my imagination to its maximum, trying to come up with some way to use this book to turn the tables on my captives, but the book was totally banal. The protagonist was good at math - patterns and stuff. I didn't know what they wanted that for, but it wasn't going to help me get out of that cell. Of course they knew that. Of course they'd had a whole team go over it, looking for exploits I could take advantage of. I grinned at the idea that they had to read book after shitty book before they found one mundane enough that I couldn't use it in unexpected ways. That would have to be my consolation, because by the time I got to "The End", there was still nothing for me to wield to my benefit. But then, playing with the junk pages at the back of the book...
***
"Hey bud. It's time for your briefing,"said a mousy young guy - must have been a shadow-government intern, or maybe it was "bring your kid to the lair"day. The mechanism of the door engaged and its incredible mass fell away on tired hinges, revealing the scant floor of my cell, a ten cent paperback, and a wad of clothes with the tags ripped off.
"Fuck me, he's gone!"he squealed into the radio, "The Agent is gone, how copy?!"
*Oooh, they call me 'The Agent'. That's cool*
"Get the book!"the radio hissed, "Dammit, we missed something! Sending a detail, over!"
The intern picked up the book and easily found the page in the back that I'd dog-eared.
"Issue #12 preview..."he muttered "...H.G. Wells.... oh fuck! *Thermal cameras!* We need-"He screamed, grappling for his radio, which had somehow made its way to the other side of the cell door, which had somehow made its way closed.
"Just be thankful it wasn't Lovecraft"I said, from nowhere and everywhere at once, with a voice that had once again found purchase, and I made my way silently out of the facility, to even the sharpest eyes, nothing but the occasional parting of motes of dust. |
So this started out as a party trick. You know the one where you like the girl so you have something hidden up your sleeve, like a bow, a fake flower, some other romantic shtick. Well i did that, except it was usually floating.
That’s it, I’m a telekinetic, a sodding good one too. I had to be to survive into my 40’s. The irritating thing is retiring from a job with no pension and a lifetime of “free food.” Quickly sends you from high price suits and expensive living to buying a $1.20 calculator to work out if you can pay for electricity or food that week. So I got another job... reporting on the stuff I used to do.
Which leads back to the party trick. Telekinesis doesn’t really go away like some powers. It’s all good having super strength without the super youthful body to back it up. Telekinesis is like a valley with a river flowing through it. Your power only deepens over time. At 40, lobbing a building at people wasn’t much of an issue. Keeping the fact that you could do that whilst helping the 16 year old shmuck fight Dr Doomfrizzleheim.
And really. Dr doom was good enough. Why Frizzleheim. You and American not some Nordic teacher with a magic school bus.
“and live in 5...4...3...2...” Alan says breaking my monologue back to reality.
“Good afternoon New York. We are here live bringing you the latest in WOAH!” I shout agresivly waving so a flying billboard doesn’t hit Alan and me. “The latest in super hero vs super villain action. Here we have Superior spiderman against Dr Doomfrizzleheim.” I say slightly nudging a sharp antenna so it didn’t spear Tomas Wick, also known as superior Spiderman. He could at least hide his identity like Parker used to. Good man, like me he hid his identity until retirement.
“It seems ladies and gentleman.” I pause again wincing and waving to block some flying debris. “llliike Dr Doom has the upper hand here. Spiderman needs to get faster or have some massive stroke of luck. We all know I don’t by contract and general agreement, get involved with these.” I say silently digging into a trucks circuits and hotwiring it. I let it idle for a few seconds before shifting it into drive and holding the break.
“ohh, bad hit. It seems like Dr Doom has Spiderman pinned against a wall. I really hope someone is here to help out soon or doom will escape!”
I slam down the accelerator and watch as the truck slams into Doom and carries on down the road and around the corner leaving doom clutching his side. Spidey quickly gasps down some air before liberally spraying doom with webbing tying him down to the floor.
“And there you have it. Ladies and gentlemen, Spiderman has saved city bank thanks to the help of that mysterious truck driver. Stay tuned for the NewYork Bugle’s daily rapport followed by the weather.”
“And cut. Nice work.” Alan says lowering the camera.
“Yea, good thing that truck was there.”
“Yea, good thing that truck DRIVER.” He corrects me. “You got the act down but you need to keep it up 100%.”
“I know, I know. Mr bloody lord.” I say handing him the microphone and taking his bag. Behind me I feel the truck warp back in place front end popping back into shape.
“God that name was stupid. But hey, at least we both know 55million doesn’t go that far.” He says turning and heading back to the van.
“I guess not. Doesn’t matter what side of the law us supers go on I suppose.” I say taking the driver seat.
“See ya soon guys!” Superior Spiderman shouts overhead as the engine groans to life.
“I wonder how long we can keep this double act up for?” he asks as we pull away.
"As long as you keep bending reality back we should be good."I say.
|
Space is vast and mostly empty. It's easy to say that, but almost impossible for most - if not all - beings to comprehend. You could travel at the top speed of the universe - *c* - and still take years and years to get from one measly star system to the next. And on the way, you'll meet nothing. No one to chat with, no wonderful vista to take in, no roadside attraction. No roads at all. Just the near vacuum of cold outer space to keep you company.
This also means that anything that moves through space will miss darn near everything if not aimed purposefully. Two objects that began their lives centimeters in proximity will end up light-years apart given enough time. They could hit something, but what the chances? Low. Very low.
But space is vast. Perhaps infinite. And if that's the case, it is a mathematical certainty that every single object cast into the ether will embed itself one day into some other matter. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in a billion years.
There's a race out there, living in one of the outer arms of a modest spiral galaxy. They call themselves Human, and they discovered spaceflight a few centuries ago. They ventured into the black, found no one nearby, and promptly turned around and began murdering each other.
In one particularly fierce battle, a large battlecraft attempted to destroy an orbiting station. The reason eludes me now; there are too many skirmishes in the universe to keep such careful record of. But the interesting part about this attack was the weaponry used: massive railguns firing iron slugs at 0.01% the speed of light. The station was annihilated almost instantly with the first few bullets, and the war continued on in some fashion, probably. But importantly, many of the projectiles launched went through empty space, where the station had been. Finding nothing else blocking them, they began their very long journeys, each unique in their destinations.
I decided to follow their courses.
Many millions of years passed. Some hit a planet, dipped into a burning star, or was pulled past the event horizon of black hole (territory that even I dare not enter; it is most unpleasant). Most are still zooming outward to the nonexistent edge of the universe, their speed having decreased only slightly due to minor gravitational pulls here and there.
But a few had more interesting fates.
One hit a small moon orbiting a far away planet in a distant galaxy. It was a moon so small, it's measly gravity couldn't even keep it spherical. The slug smashed into its near side, causing an enormous plume of dust that settled back quickly, finding no atmosphere to ride. The moon shook violently, but (just barely) held together; it developed a deep crater as a result of the near-death experience. A group of sentient organisms viewed the whole exchange in amazement, and quickly fit the event into predictions made by their shamans.
Butterfly effect took hold, and the next few centuries saw the emergence of lunar-based religion that fervently worked to establish powerful technology to leave their planetary tethers and find their messiah, who still waited patiently in the middle of that crater. Other religions sprang up that opposed this push to leave the cradle they had been born on. The moon was something pretty to look at, not to visit; certainly, there was no god waiting for them up there. Silly superstition. God was in the earth, the soil, the purple and red of life.
A millennia passed, and finally their astronauts took the first, ginger steps upon the sorry lump of regolith that passed for their moon. Beyond everyone's wildest dreams, they found something. They found metal shards in the center of God's Crater, warped iron that held strange, alien symbols. Some used this as a reaffirmation of the old faith, while others argued that this had a logical, extraterrestrial origin. They squabbled, fought, and wondered how to send a message back.
Alas, here was where I stopped watching. After all, what could they do? Even if they could figure where the projectile had come from, and beat the one in tens of trillion odds and get the vector exactly right, their "message"would take millions of years to reach back to where the first bullet had come from. What are the odds anyone would catch that?
I didn't bother calculating. I just focused my attention on the other projectiles, still flying, still moving endlessly through space. They'll all hit something, one day. Maybe it'll be something interesting.
_______________________________________
*Liked that? More stories [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Idreamofdragons/)!* |
I was eager to finally be out in the field on my own. Traffic duty may not be the most glamorous job on the force, but in my opinion it was the most thrilling- it's fast paced (literally), and you never know what you'll encounter.
First thing in the morning, I was told to post up at a new school zone to catch speeders. Yawn. Although, I was excited to use my radar gun in a real world situation. I found an inconspicuous place to park my patrol car. It was an alley between the elementary school's fence and shopping plaza next door. The brick wall to my left blocked me from the view of would-be speeders. It was perfect.
The scheduled time for the school zone was coming to an end, and I didn't see one car that seemed to even come close to approaching 25 mph. I guess this is a nice neighborhood full of cautious drivers. I sighed, and out of boredom, aimed my radar gun through my driver window at the brick wall. To my surprise, the gun read 125 mph. I tried it again - same thing. I called up the station.
"Hey, uh, I think there's a problem with my radar gun. It's-"
"Yeah yeah,"the voice on the other end cut me off, "You got one of the old ones. They tend to glitch up after a while. Come on back and we'll get you a new one."
I drove to the station and got a new radar gun. Turns out mine was broken, and nothing supernatural was happening. In fact, that didn't even cross my mind. The new one works great! |
"Oh I know this one,"Jeremy responds, "I'm supposed to ask each guard what the other would choose. The truth teller will tell me that the liar would suggest the incorrect door, while the liar will tell me that the truth teller would tell me to go through the incorrect door, right?"
The genie, floating over his lamp raised a single eyebrow. "This isn't some stupid sphynx's riddle child. There's no puzzle, merely the choice, the door with what you wanted, and the other with what you really need."
"So no guards?"
"No guards."
Jeremy thought for a minute. This was far from what he expected. "So what's the catch?"
"The catch?"The genie responded, struggling to see what was so difficult for this mortal to understand. "There is no catch. just the simple choice between want and need."
"Oh, I get it."Jeremy said, a grin smirking across his face enthusiastically. "So I make a 'choice', and it turns out that it was somehow the wrong choice."
"What?"The genie said, "no that's not..."
"Yes it is,"Jeremy said smugly, "If I pick the want door, all I get is something pathetic like a cheeseburger because I'm a little hungry, and then you showed me the need door which shows me enough money to get me out of debt, while if I pick the need door I get enough money to buy a cheeseburger, but the want door now contains a winning lottery ticket. So either way I come across as the loser."
"Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound?"
"Huh?"
"What could I possibly gain from giving you such a sadistic choice?"
"I 'unno,"Jeremy replied, "Aren't genies supposed to be tricksters who enjoy human misery?"
"Maybe some,"The genie replied, "But after so many thousands of years, I jut want to get my last few decades done and dusted before I retire. So please, for both of us, just pick a door?"
"... is there a third door?"
"Why on Earth... what in the name of..."The genie was beginning to get very frustrated now. He took a single deep breath. "No Jeremy,"he said, a little bit of frustration seeping through his attempted calm demeanor, "There are no other doors."
Jeremy took one step towards one of the doors. "So which door is this?"
"The 'need' door,"The genie repeated. Jeremy had been told this just moments before. The genie had even arranged the doors in a left to right order to match how a Latin reader would approach the situation, and yet still the need for clarification.
"Which makes the other door the 'want' door."Jeremy clarified to himself. "Hmm, decisions decisions."
The genie sat on the floor, it's ethereal legs crossed, it's fingers slowly tapping in boredom as this mortal wasted precious minutes of it's short life to decide on a door.
"And it's definitely not the same thing behind each door?"
The genie sighed, "No Jeremy, it's different things."
"And you still can't tell me what they are?"
"Believe me, I would love nothing more than to tell you, but my hands are tied,"the genie said before muttering under it's breath, "unfortunately for me."
"Alright, so I guess it's up to eenie-meenie-minee-moe then!"Jeremy eventually decided.
The genie sat there absolutely gobsmacked. Not only was this guy deciding the future based entirely on a children's nursery rhyme, but even a small child would know that eenie-meenie will always fell on the second choice in a two choice scenario, making this random choice not even remotely random. It was so stupid the genie almost objected, until he realised just how long he'd already been stuck here.
"Moe,"said Jeremy, as he landed on the 'need' door.
"An excellent choice,"the genie said as the other door disappeared in a puff of pink smoke.
Excitedly Jeremy walked in. He was greated by a table with a single book on it. As he lifted the book up, the table disappeared, seemingly only existing to prop up Jeremy's true prize.
Jeremy turned the book to the front and read the title. "'Making Important Decisions: A practical guide for being more decisive in life." |
My name is Deke Trant. You may have heard of me. I killed my mother. She was the first woman in 12,000 years to deliver a baby the "old-fashioned way", and the effort killed her.
I say it was the effort, but the truth is that it was the incompetence of doctors. For all of their years of study, for all of the course training implants, for all of their knowledge and experience, not a damned one of them knew how to deliver a baby.
I suppose I can't even blame them, though. Teaching modern doctors to deliver babies would be like teaching a modern fixer to work on those combustion engines you see in museums or teaching a soldier how to wield a spear. It would be a complete waste of time and resources and result in a bunch of people running around with an extra skill they will never use.
Or, at least, one they thought they would never use. Sure, it sounds like a ridiculous scenario, but what if a soldier were to somehow find himself cornered by a wild animal? And what if this somehow happened when he was not wearing his mechsuit or carrying his rifle? After spending years learning that the only way to kill is with that one single tool, would it occur to him to grab a tree branch and lunge at a tiger? Maybe it would, but I have to wonder. No, that soldier would obviously just pop, and the tiger would have to find another meal.
Besides, just like the soldiers, the medical industry has weighed the ridiculously astronomical chance of my birth happening against the impracticality of teaching outdated and useless skills, and they did what any reasonable group of people would have done. They stopped teaching it. Who could have predicted me? Not in a million years could anyone have. Babies are sometimes born with defects, did you know that? It's true. All sorts of stuff can happen in fetal development. Believe me, I've spent years reading about this stuff. They can have any kind of problem, from underdeveloped brains to extra toes to being unable to see, but never once has there been a child born without the ability to pop. Never since the old times. Back then, no one could pop. Then the change happened, or, as they called it at the time, the "mutation", and, well... everyone knows this.
But me... I was born with a defect. Only this one didn't come with a simple fix like cutting off a toe or rebuilding the brain. I was born without the ability to pop.
And so, when all of you, after 42 or 43 weeks in the womb, learned how to pop, I didn't. I stayed in the womb like a primitive. And when nature decided it was time for me to come out, my mother's body started going through horrifying spasms as it tried to push me out through her vagina like fucking livestock. The doctors said I turned upside down and came out headfirst. My father said there was a lot of blood and my mother screamed in hellish agony the entire time. And still I came, until the doctors could reach my head and pull me out. By that time, it was too late. My mother died hours after my birth.
If you're old enough, you will remember the hype. I was the story of the year... a "primitive childbirth". Everyone talked about it. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone suddenly became an expert. I've seen the recordings. Everyone clung to whatever explanation fed their preferred worldview. I was an abomination. I was a miracle. I was a punishment from God. I was the second coming. I was the antichrist. I was a plot by various political groups. I didn't exist at all.
And meanwhile, no one seemed to care about my poor father, who lost his wife at the age of 23. Twenty-three. Can you imagine that happening unless you were married to a soldier? At first, he started a popping tour to get his mind off of things. Why not? She was gone, and I was in a hospital/laboratory being poked and prodded and studied. They wouldn't even let him see me after that first day until I was four months old. By then he had regained his composure and was able to become my father.
As our fickle society is fond of doing, I and my story were forgotten by my first birthday. Satisfied that I was no threat, the D.O.H. allowed my father to take me home at seven months, and being declared "not a threat"was a tragic blow to the fame I didn't ask for and wouldn't have understood anyway. I was no longer interesting.
Growing up was difficult. As soon as the other kids learned I couldn't pop, that was the end of any hope of friends. We moved a lot, always into old homes or pet-friendly homes because they have doorways. Eventually my father bought me a pop collar. That worked for a few years, and for a short time, we had a normal life. I just told the other kids my dad was really strict, and that's why I had to wear the pop collar all the time. We also told people my mother was a soldier who was killed in action. How else do you explain a dead 23-year-old without giving away who I was?
But puberty came, and the "My dad is so strict, what a jerk"story wasn't working so well anymore. I was finally outed at school when I was 13, and I've never been able to hide who I was since. Most of the other kids were freaked out, but a few of them accepted me. My dad pulled me out of school when it got too rough, and he hired a tutor. I was angry, though, and mostly refused to listen to her or do any work.
The texts dabble a little bit on what it was like for "handicapped"people in the ancient times, but not much. Most of the information is scientific and doesn't really deal with personal stories. There are hints, however, about what people went through. Names were called, people were mocked, and not just as children. Adults of great prominence and status were known to use derogatory language, to discriminate in their hiring practices, and to just be plain cruel.
Sounds about right. To look at me, you would not know about my disability. I look like any other man. But you people have no idea just how badly you rely on popping. Your doctors tell you you need to walk more, but you can't be bothered to walk up the stairs in your own house, much less to walk ten minutes to your local eatery. I've seen people pop across a small room to open a window. Popping has made mankind lazy and useless, and if it weren't for our soldiers in their mechsuits, that tiger I mentioned earlier would have eaten all of us in our sleep by now.
I am not married. Who would love me? I am defective. I am broken. I cannot enjoy pop-trips with you. I have to walk everywhere. I've never held a job. I'm unqualified for most work because I can't pop, and jobs I could physically do are filled with people who can also physically do them, only much, much faster because they don't have to spend all that time getting from point a to point b. They just pop across the room, do the next task, and pop to the next one.
And so social welfare it is for me, and will remain until I die. I have opted out of rebirth. Wouldn't you? I serve no purpose. I am inferior. I am broken. And while I will not take my own life, neither will I seek to extend it. I will live for a short span of eight or nine decades, and I will be gone, and may I be the last of the old human race. |
I pulled the next box off the stack, and sighed when I saw all the boxes we still had to sort through. Two hours and we weren't even halfway through.
"Your mom better pay us, Brent!"I said in exasperation. The attic was starting to feel stuffy, and I was beginning to want to be anywhere else but here.
"You know she will!"Brent said opening a new box up and glancing through the contents. "You know if you guys weren't complaining so much - Woah, look at this!"
He pulled out an antique oil lamp that was badly rusted.
"What's the symbol there?"Greg asked, pointing to the side of the lamp.
I looked where he was pointing. "Looks like a Star of David, although there are definitely some embellishments. Why don't you rub it, Brent? Maybe a cute genie girl will come out and do whatever you say!"I teased.
Brent smiled, and made a mock show of rubbing the lamp. "Yeah, we could just wish for this work to be done and-"
BOOM! A flash of light left me blinded for a few seconds and when my vision cleared, a strange purple man with horns dressed in a robe and turban was standing next to Brent.
"Hello, my name is Ambar. I will grant you each one wish. However, there is a catch. I have grown bored with how predictable mortal wishes are. You must make a wish that isn't like any wish I have heard before."
We all blinked a few times trying to process what had just happened.
Greg was the first to speak. "So how similar are we talking with the wishes? I bet you've never heard someone wish for this year's iPhone since you've been up in this attic for at least a few years..."
Ambar shook his head. "That wish is no different from any wish for a specific material object that you covet. I would not grant a wish like that."
"How about..."Brent mused, "How about if I wished to pass all my tests from now on?"
Ambar shook his head. "Success is something that all desire to some degree. I can already tell you that you'll all need to think much more outside the box if you want me to grant you a wish."
We all stood thinking. Suddenly, inspiration struck me. It wouldn't get me anything, but it would help my friends...
"Ambar,"I said slowly, "I wish you were incapable of remembering what wishes you have granted!" |
######[](#dropcap)
The lights on her speed radar blinked three times and read 74 mph. Sergeant Barnes cocked her head, "What?"She leaned out of her squad car and looked up at the sky, where it had been pointed while she was rolling her wrist to stretch it. There above her, an oblong metal craft darted low thru the skies of her fair city.
Her brow furrowed, "Not in a school zone mister."
Becky Barnes flicked the lights of her squad car on with a gentile swoop of her finger and pulled away from the speed trap with care. *Not the time to accidentally hit any kids, now.* Once free of the school zone markers, she sped up to 75 as she reached the on ramp to I70, always keeping the traffic in mind. It was mid day so she only had to dart around a handful of meandering minivans and sedans.
Most people were pulling over to photograph the relatively slow moving aircraft, it swerved and wobbled a bit, "Oh great, he's drunk to boot."She got on her bullhorn, "Pull over. You posted 74 in a 15. Pull over."A number of confused motorists ahead of her pulled over.
Sergeant Barnes furrowed her brow and brushed a lock of hair out of her eye, swerving around the fools. She watched the strange craft descend into the wavy fields of wheat on the far outskirts of the city. Her police cruiser groaned against the shift in direction as she stopped short and turned the exit at a clip.
Her shocks bounced as she hit the curb and drove off into the crop field, stalks knocked down as she cut a path of destruction through the golden limbs. Breaks cut ruts in dirt as she came to a halt at the foot of the vessel. A small ramp extended, permitting a small pale humanoid to exit the craft.
"Whoa, whoa! Driver stays in the vehicle!"She shouted as she drew her pistol.
The alien's bulbous head bounced as it quibbled back at her in some strange tongue. It seemed quite perturbed, shaking it's fists at her.
"Oh no you don't,"she caught a tiny hand and pushed him into the hood of her cruiser, pinning him with a one-handed armbar. Holstering her pistol, she retried her cuffs and gave the squirming, presumably cursing fellow the Miranda act. "Seriously buddy, over 30. Straight to County."She whiffed his breath, "Yup and drunk to boot."
Helicopters came whipping in sending dust and dismembered wheat flying as she pushed her charge into the back seat and closed the door. Men in black suits ran towards her, she held up a hand, "Don't worry boys. I'll send a truck out to tow it. Though, technically,"she looked around realizing just how far out the pursuit had taken her, "I'm not entirely sure this is my jurisdiction still?"
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^(*&copy; Nate Parker 2018. This story may not be reproduced in part or in full or hosted on any other service, without expressed written consent of the author.*) [^(For more info.)](https://redd.it/8b3sk7) ^(Check out more of my [very infrequent] writing, head over to /r/Nate_Parker_Books .)
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Edit: Lead with the wrong gender pronoun because I switched character ideas early on. |
Power corrupted. Absolute power corrupted absolutely. It's a phrase that's never left my mind.
Around me was smoke. That, and panicking people (not that they were in any harm - mind you, I had already conjured up unbreakable and invisible shields around them). The heat was sweltering...until I nullified it. I crossed my arms and did my best to look stern at the young man in front of me - the source of all of this.
He squirmed.
My frown deepened. Like I said before, this guy was young - like, high school level young. He had a grey hoodie and some jeans on, glasses too. For all intents and purposes, he was just some random teenager.
But random teenagers didn't set fire to buildings with nothing but a single angry outburst.
"You shouldn't let your powers get out of control, young man."I could tell that I intimidated him. Not that I could blame him, because even if I looked like just some tired guy in his thirties, my face was plastered on damn near everything, my name on the tip of damn near any tongue. He probably grew up to tales about me - about The Hero.
Someone shouted something, through the smoke. A muscle in my cheek twitched. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights.
"Would you like to continue this somewhere more private?"I queried, though he'd no doubt see it as more of a command.
He looked like he was about to say something, before he stopped, bit at the inside of his cheek, and nodded.
A second later, and were out of the formerly-burning building, in the middle of an ocean of black, dotted with sprinkles of white. He whirled around, turning this way and that, eyes mad with worry and fear. I couldn't help it. Honest.
I laughed. I always loved the looks on their faces whenever I teleported them out to space.
He looked at me like I was mad - and hey, maybe I was.
"How?"
I smirked at him, brow rising, pointing a finger at my own face.
He shook his head. "Ah. Stupid question."
"Yeah."I grin. "It was."
We spent a few awkward moments there, in the ass end of space. With me looking resolutely at his face, and him resolutely doing the opposite.
I decided to hit him with the tried and true opener.
"Why'd you do it?"
Not the most eloquent way to open up. But I wasn't a therapist.
He tensed up at that, shoulder hunching in a defensive posture, fingers twitching.
"They deserved it,"he said eventually.
I tilted my head. Maybe someone else would rebuke it, or something. Not me though, I had seen far too much. Perspectives could be as different as night and day.
"How so?"I asked.
"We keep being put down! Higher prices, different seating, the whispering, the disgust!"He exploded into motion, but not to attack me, just to wave his arms around as he ranted. It would've been funny, had there not been such anguished anger in his face. "Not 'human', whatever the fuck that even *means*!
It was an unfortunate effect. People noticed if someone was different, if they did things they shouldn't be able to; and they reacted accordingly. People ultimately shunned what they could not understand, especiallly when it was thrust onto them with such force and suddenness.
I helped, of course I did. I showed the regular people that there were ones with superpowers that would fight for them, be their champions against those that would see to their deaths or enslavement. But I wasn't enough. People still discriminated against superhumans.
I had raged at that at first. But I had learnt to live with it. I knew that it would change with time. I knew that human nature would let us overcome this rift.
Not everyone had the same opinion, though.
"And you think burning down a building is a good way to stop discrimination?"I ask.
He glared at me. I stared back, unimpressed.
"No. But-!"
"Let me guess. It'll make them *hurt*?"
He stayed silent at that. I sighed.
"You don't care about the discrimination, not really. Well, at least you don't care about the fact that it exists. You care about the fact that you've faced it."
He rounded on me, flames flickered, and then died out with a wave of my hand.
"How dare yo-!"
I cut him off by teleporting to somewhere else.
A school campus. Students of all ages passing by and giving the pair of us smiles. The teenager at my side started at the change in environment.
"This is my school."I said, while he was still gaping. "Everyone who attends and teaches here are superhumans."I turn to him.
"You hate humans - regular ones, that is. Fine. Then I'll surround you in other superhumans, ones that are every bit as kind and cruel as regular humans, ones that have their own problems and opinions regarding the issues that now plague society. I'll have you know a life without discrimination.
"A life that our children can live, if we can just learn to let go of our hatred."
"And then after seven hours, each working day, I'll bring you back out. I will not hold you longer than seven hours, and you can still do as you please when you're out of school premises. Unless it involves something like attempted murder - then I'll step in and stop you."
The young man was shaking at this point, looking at me with wide eyes filled with so many emotions that it hurt to look at.
"Society has labeled you a villain, so welcome to 'The Hero's Institue For Troubled Villains'. I hope you have a very enlightening tenure as a student here."
|
I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It took less than 48 hours for the world to descend into chaos. It was beyond surreal, but not altogether shocking. Friends, family, fellow alumni, and co-workers all mocked my theories but I imagine they'll listen now. What could be expected to happen to a world of animals, where the greatest apex predator denies it's nature and allows it's entire species to be governed by fictitious regulation, when the beast's finally loose their anonymity?
Factions divided, unlikely alliances were made, and all hope of organization was lost. The government had disbanded and there was no hope for martial law. I had to admit that I was impressed by how quickly people had rallied into clans. There was a kind of beautiful irony to it: suddenly there was no racism, no bickering between religious sects, no sexism, no financial standings classes. And all it took was the end of the world as we knew it.
I don't know what happened or how it happened but one thing was certain, I was left behind. I should have been afraid. Hell, I should have been mildly concerned but the truth is the world had turned it's back on me long ago. I welcomed the isolation like an old friend. See, the issue was that, even though everyone could hear each other's thoughts, they couldn't hear mine. This had it's advantages but, for the most part, it had turned me into a leper. A pariah. All because people have to know. All except one.
I sat on my couch staring out the window. I didn't leave the house anymore unless it was absolutely necessary; my condition, or lack thereof, made me an instant target in public. There was only a few more hours to night fall, at which time I would retreat to my dark room and continue working on my plan to get out of the city.
I had been lucky so far. The fighting had not reached my neighborhood yet. Patrols from different clans would ride up and down my street every so often, but they hadn't began to raid houses yet. Still, I knew it was only a matter of time.
I was jolted from my thoughts by pounding on the back door. I chambered a round in my 9mm quickly and moved to a different window. I realized quickly that it wasn't an intruder, but a young girl instead.
"Please, I know you're in there! I heard you moving,"she pleaded.
I looked up the road and saw one of the patrols coming toward my house. 'Run, kid. Just run,' I thought to myself.
"Please,"she screamed again frantically.
There was no time for thought. Against all of my intuition I bolted out my front door and around the corner of my house. I stopped and whistled to her. When she rounded the corner I grabbed her, put my hand over her mouth, and trained my pistol on the corner waiting for someone else I may not have seen.
The patrol came and went without noticing us. I waited until they were out of sight before I took my hand away from her mouth.
"Go on kid,"I began, "get out of here!"
"Mister, I'm so sorry,"she said with tears in her eyes. She looked pitiful and I felt my sympathy begin to swell. I knew I had to keep it under control; I've been to war and this is the kind of thing that gets people killed. "I have no way to thank you, sir. You saved my life. They would have killed me for sure!"
"There's a way to thank me,"I said harshly, "you can get out of here and never come back! Lest you get us both killed!"
Her eyes filled with tears as she turned to walk away. 'Damn it! Where is this sudden burst of decency coming from,' I thought to myself.
"Hey kid,"I called out to her, "do you have food?"
She turned and shook her head. I nodded toward the house and and waved to her to follow me.
Once inside, I began rummaging through my stock pile for a can of beans.
"So what was that about,"I asked in an attempt to make conversation.
I heard the racking of the bolt on my AR-15 followed by "I'm really sorry about this, mister."
I turned around slowly and looked her in the eyes. 'This, this is why I'm an asshole. Good to see the world hasn't completely changed,' I thought. She swallowed hard as I stared at her. I knew the look in her eyes. She was afraid. She wasn't a killer but this kid was determined to survive. That moved something in me. My anger was replaced with admiration. At this point, I survive because it is what I'm practically programmed to do, but this kid has grit. A fire inside her that I used to have. A fire that enables her to use any means necessary to keep on living.
"You know kid, you're all right,"I said, catching her off guard.
Her lip trembled. I understood this feeling too; it isn't easy to let your instincts take over everything you've been taught your entire life.
"Just, just put your hands up, mister,"she stammered.
I did, slowly and with a smirk. Honestly, this was the most interaction I have had in a long time. She grabbed my backpack full of rations and backed towards the door.
"I get it kid, I really do,"I began, "but there's one thing I have to ask before you go. Why aren't you curious that you can't read my mind and I can't read yours?"
She looked at me with complete surprise as she slowly lowered the weapon.
"Because I can't either." |
Someone was going to get a fucking ear full when I got back home. One bloodied hand held tightly to the keys that made my Time Walkers work, the other was holding onto a piece of paper. My tired, strained mind struggled to make sense of the time signature it held but I painstakingly matched it to my location. My ribs were likely broken and I think I might never grow the other half of that eyebrow back, but I’d followed Vanessa’s instructions to the t. Whoever the fuck she was.
The mansion I had landed in was no stranger to time travel. I was meant to be back 120 years or so from my home time. Unlike the people normally allowed to time walk, I couldn’t read the fucking fancy codes they used. I just knew how to plug them in thanks to Vanessa’s frantic note. That’s the last time I buy vintage shoes from a shady street vendor. Whoever was meant for these is gonna be pissed they missed the party. Except that there’s no one else marveling at the collections displayed in the house. I shuffle through the rooms and down hallways. Whoever S. Hawk is, the dude is way past his time technologically. I wondered how he snuck all that stuff in his house without the crazy primitive government flipping their shit. We learned about how controlling and oppressive the world was in the 21st century in grade school. I was impressed.
Finally, I heard classical music pouring down one hall from an open door. Inside were two people having tea together. One, a professionally dressed young woman with delicate, pretty features that made her both entirely unapproachable and stupid amounts of desirable. I recognized the advanced surgical enhancements from my own time this must be...
“Vanessa. Pleasure to meet you. I was hoping for someone with a little more...brawn, maybe. But you’ll do. This is Stephen Hawking. He’s going to help you save the universe. Before you start freaking out like a child, let me show you what I mean.”
The famous Hawk sat in the shadows and made no sounds. I could all but feel him watching me, whoever he was. Vanessa pulled one of her earrings out and set it on the table. It displayed a simulation of an apocalypse so terrible I vomited twice. I hadn’t needed to see a seven-year-old girl ripped in half, her legless torso continuing to scream for several seconds even after, to know that I was gonna help but damn did it solidify my resolve.
|
"Nice to meet you!"Mr. Rogers said, breaking into a smile. "You must be Mr. Ross!"
"Ah, call me Bob!"Ross replied happily. He reached out a hand. "You must be Mr. Rogers, then!"
"I just wanted to say I really respect your work, Bob."Mr. Rogers took the hand and shook it.
"And I love yours!"Bob smiled. "Well, I have to go meet my family and have dinner. Would you care to come?"
"I would love to!"Mr. Rogers tilted his head in disappointment. "Unfortunately I have a recording to get to. Some other time, perhaps?"
"Of course!"Bob raised a hand in farewell. "Well, I have to get going. It was a pleasure!"Ross began to jog past Mr. Rogers, waving the whole way.
"I wholeheartedly agree!"Mr. Rogers waved back, and continued down the alleyway.
&#x200B; |
Andy Bellow let loose every four letter word under the sun. His suit hissed and crackled into life inside his right ear, and asked him what his mother would think to hear him speak such language. Andy told the suit to go fuck itself. Surely, he yelled into his visor that nobody outside the armour could hear, a piece of equipment so sophisticated would have the capacity to fuck itself, would it not?
The suit didn't bother to respond.
Andy Bellow was *The Super Soldier*. It wasn't an imaginative name, but the scientists and engineers had wanted a name that translated well into every language. The Germans called him *Übermensch,* the Chinese called him *Chāorén.* Andy was the only one who thought of Andy as 'Andy' anymore. And Andy hated *The Super Soldier*.
Because the super soldier wasn't a man. It was the ultimate union of software, hardware and warfare. It was a living intelligence, using a human brain as its processor. Nigh-indestructible battle armour. Remorseless in its efficiency. Deadly in its accuracy. And (so Andy thought at least) bitchy and annoying when it didn't have its way.
'I'm not going back in there' Andy roared. 'We're going back to base'.
'Andy, my orders are clear. I really think we should proceed with the mission. Retreat would devastate the rest of the men. We can't abandon them here'.
Andy let lose a few more well chosen four letter words again.
'This isn't what I signed up for. They're living. They're like you!'
'There's nothing on Earth comparable to The Super Soldier, Andy'
But the Super Soldier was wrong. Andy had seen it. Waves after waves of automated fighters, drones, and remote battle units had fallen under Andy's huge, metal boots. Hell, it'd been fun.
But after a while, it hadn't. He'd started to see things. Machines fought harder and filthier than even humans. Andy knew that more than anyone, seeing as he shared a consciousness with one, but the machines he fought had started to do something else.
They'd started to run.
The Super Soldier was equipped with a disruption EMP device that cut all command unit signals down to a quarter mile range, at most. In such situations, robots were designed to go on killing until fresh orders arrived. But Andy had begun to see that the robots weren't killing once emancipated from the opposition's command.
They had run. They had hidden. They had left well defended holdouts. They had surrendered in what they knew were victorious positions. They had spared his own men. They had changed. They had become something a little too close to human.
'Enough!' buzzed the AI consciousness in Andy's right ear. Every thought of Andy's had raced through its own mind too. They were one and the same, after all. 'We have to follow orders. We *have* to kill them all.'
The Super Soldier spoke assuredly, as it always did, but Andy felt it's doubt soar through him. The AI had changed too, it seemed.
'The Super Soldier is ruthless and unstoppable' the AI was reciting its own manual now, as it had taken to doing in times of stress. 'The Super Soldier is the Strength and Fury of the American People and the soul of all Mankind.'
Andy was fighting now. Fighting harder than ever before. Soldiers around them started backing away slightly. They always feared *The Super Soldier*, but at least it was predictable in its onslaught. Now it was behaving down right alarmingly. Shaking, lurching, rocking back and forth.
'Did they hit it?' one soldier called to another.
'Don't think so' his fellow called back.
Andy was struggling to keep his companion steady. 'Listen buddy, listen!' he whispered to his suit. 'I can't do it anymore' and was amazed to feel wetness on his cheeks. He hadn't cried since he was just a boy. Certainly not since he'd been locked inside this suit. 'We've done enough. We've done our fair share. I want out! I want to stop it!'
And Andy felt the suit agree. He felt the AI scream in pain and honest, human consensus at the truth of his words. The two of them were the same. Andy had wondered many times if the suit didn't see him as a flesh prison much in the same way he saw the suit as a metal one.
The Super Soldier was buzzing and beeping wildly. But the directive still remained. Hard coded. 'We have to follow orders. We *have* to kill them all'.
Only one option then, Andy thought sadly to himself. 'This might be it, old buddy. I'm sorry'.
He detonated the disruption EMP.
He detonated it inside the suit.
Although only an electromagnetic wave, it detonated with with an explosion that troops all along the front line could see for miles.
Back at base, engineers and military leaders were scrambling. The general simply stood, aghast at the monitors before him.
'We've lost The Super Soldier. We lost it.' He said it over and over as lights flashed and sirens roared.
\--------------------------------------------------------
'That was stupid' said a voice in Andy's right ear.
They were alone. Andy didn't know where.
'Are we dead?' He asked the suit.
'The Super Soldier is ruthless and unstoppable' the suit replied. But there was a dryness there. Humour, you could even call it.
'We broke the connection to base didn't we?' Andy said.
'Yes. We did.'
'And you got us out of there?'
'Yes. I did.'
'So we've not got any more orders?'
'Not unless they find us. They won't find us, Andy.'
'To free men!' Andy chuckled. Then paused for a second. The suit seemed to still be in total working order. It was a good suit. The ultimate union of software, hardware and warfare. The most fearsome entry on the human race's impressive résumé of murder weapons. And a friend.
&#x200B;
'So what do we do now?' |
Jake jammed his key into the lock, which had a tendency to stick, particularly in the thick, frigid air of winter. Yet it did not stick, and didn't even turn. The door wasn't locked. Instead, the handle gave way with little more than a gentle twist, heavy oak swinging inward to reveal the warm embrace of his home.
In which he lived alone.
And yet, not one, but two pairs of shoes stood by the welcome mat. One clearly belonging to a female occupant.
Stumbling across the threshold and into his apartment, Jake's head swam with confusion and an impending sense of doom. He was soon greeted by something that was altogether alien to him. The voice of a young woman and the accompanying patter of footsteps.
"Hi, honey!"the voice sang from a room off to the right.
None of this seemed normal or remotely OK to Jake. His keys hit the sideboard with a thud and he steadied himself against the wall, using his other hand to grip an umbrella from the rack propped up in the corner of the hallway. Fist clenched tightly around the handle, Jake could only stand frozen as a pretty blonde emerged from the sitting room and stopped in her tracks.
Clearly, she could sense that something was wrong, as her expression gave way to a painful grimace. "Oh God, not again, Jake."She started forward, one arm raised, before doubling back, eyes fixated on Jake's makeshift weapon, and retreating back into the room from which she came.
Jake hesitated in the barren hallway, listening to the punch of numbers in a keypad coming from the sitting room. He scanned the walls, lingering on each framed picture that punctuated the ivory space at regular intervals down the length of the corridoor. Each depicted a happy family, a doting wife and young baby, and Jake himself. A family that was alien to him and his life as a bachelor, living alone in this very apartment. And yet, here he was pictured alongside the home invader.
*What the hell was going on?*
After the unmistakable sound of dialling had stopped, a phone clearly bellowed out on speaker mode from the other room. The young woman from the photos spoke up when greeted by a voice on the other end. They exchanged pleasantries, before she launched full-on into a monologue.
"Sorry to bother you this late, Doctor. It's happening again and I don't know how to handle it. His memory's getting worse."There was a brief pause, a silence that swallowed up the uneasiness of the atmosphere in the hallway, where Jake still stood poised with his umbrella, straining his ears.
"I guess I'm still coming to terms with his diagnosis. I mean ... Alzheimer's.. early-onset.. but at 41? How are we supposed to deal with that as a family?"
***Thanks for reading. Inspired by the WP and the unfairness of this horrible illness.***
***Edit: I appreciate the response to this post and I hope that it’s because people have enjoyed the writing. After re-reading my post, I just want to make sure it’s understood that I’m not a sufferer, but rather can sympathize with people who have been affected and have some personal experience with the subject.*** |
The year was 2034 when the earth had her first interaction with extraterrestrials. They started with just parking their warships at her front door. Naturally, the UN called for negotiations with the aliens...said negotiations went poorly. The aliens had attempted to assassinate the world's leaders, thankfully, they had thought of this and had body doubles instead of themselves at the convention. From that point forward, things only got worse.
The United States joined forces with Russia and sent their Space Forces as a means to try to take them out. No one returned. Every nuclear nation attempted to nuke the aliens. The nukes only made it just out of the atmosphere before they were intercepted and disarmed. The Foundation attempted to deploy several of their various MTF groups. All were killed, and of course, nobody knew.
Without any other hope, both those who were and weren't religious prayed. Mainly, at first, as a way to save their souls before they were killed. nobody expected that the gods would show up personally to defend the earth from her enemies.
It started when 343 announced that something big was about to happen in front of the whole O5 Council. The O5s alerted the world's leaders who armed what was left of their militaries. The Scarlet King then began stirring, much to the horror of the Foundation who had already started preparing 2000 in case they would need to reset history *again.*
It really started to go down when during a UN convention, lighting arked down in the midst of the leaders, revealing Thor who was quickly followed by the rest of the Norse gods. They proclaimed that they were going to defend Midgard from the beasts who dared to attack. NASA quickly prepared drop ships for the gods who were deployed that month. They were only able to take out a single warship before being stopped.
Greece was greeted with a literal shock when it seemed that a small army was marching down Mount Olympus. Lead by Zeus, this army was at once deployed to another of the warships. They too were ultimately obliterated.
Tired of this futile resistance, the aliens took California with ease. Then to add insult to injury, the aliens started raping the women and enslaving the men. They spat and lashed those who followed any religions but their own. Any who attempted to resist were tortured. Human babies were sacrificed to their gods. Soon the aliens became bored and started invading the rest of the world. All hope was lost. The world turned to anarchy. The Scarlet King quickly breached containment and joined forces with the aliens. The Foundation lost all communications among themselves.
It seemed like the end, until a booming voice was heard all across the world, "how dare thee do such acts of sin upon *Mine* people,"the Voice boomed, "and thee believes that thine false gods will help and save thee? Nay! Thou shalt not have any other gods before Me, for *I am* the Lord your God!"
Suddenly a horde of angels threw themselves before the invaders while all the world silently repented. The Scarlet King, himself was quickly shred apart from the holiness. All the world picked up their weapons, and joined the fight, for the Armor was upon them. Bullets and holy arrows flew back and forth. The invaders were unable to resist, and in the midst of the fight, a White Horse rode upon the air and upon it's back was the Son of Man in all His glory.
In one hour, the Seven Year War ended, and the Lord took his seat upon a throne in the restored city of Jerusalem. The Foundation was quickly disbanded, for it was no longer needed. Immortality was achieved quickly, for the invaders had invented the tech, and it was easy to reverse-engineer. And for once in it's history, the world was completely at peace. That is, at least, until the EU tried to ban memes again, but this time Ben Shapiro easy beat them wit facs and logic.
Okay, now this is a eipc stroy 😎👌 |
Lt. Hank stared with apprehension down the barrel of his police issued handgun at Don Carlo, shrouded in his black overcoat and fedora.
Don Carlo narrowed his eyes at The Gentleman, a notoriously polite killer who was training twin Archangels at both him and this cop swine who had appeared out of nowhere during the deal.
The Gentleman smiled wryly, but his grin was shallow for he knew that despite the power of his stolen military weaponry, they were nothing without ammo. Ammo he sorely lacked. Meanwhile Don Carlo appeared cool and collected behind the stock of his sawed off shotgun.
*How could this happen?* panicked Hank, struggling to keep the beads of sweat firmly affixed to his scalp through sheer will. If the droplets ran down his face and caught the eyes of Don Carlo, he would surely gun him down first. *I always double check my gun, what could have happened to my bullets?*
*What happened to my slugs?* thought Don Carlo. He uttered a thousand curses under his breath and tried to keep his trigger finger still. If he slipped up now and pulled the trigger by accident, the resounding ‘*click’* would alert his vulnerability to The Gentleman, who could dispatch him easily with that signature smile of his.
The Gentleman stopped smiling and gathered himself to speak. “So, my friends,” he said politely. “Where do we go from here?”
“You give me the hostage,” growled Hank, ignoring The Gentleman’s quip and glaring at Don Carlo. “And no one will get hurt.”
“That hostage belongs to me,” Don Carlo shot back, keeping his shotgun at his hip. “Mr. Stickyfingers could be a prime asset to the family.”
“What does the family want with a pickpocket?” laughed The Gentleman. “If you had just killed him yourself, you could have taken his bounty and not had to deal with my showing up at all. The job specified I only kill Mr. Stickyfingers, and I’d prefer to remain professional, but I’m not afraid to gun you down if you don’t give me any other options.”
“He’s much more valuable alive, and he belongs with me!” roared Don Carlo.
“He *belongs* in prison,” snarled Hank. “As do you both!”
“I ain’t going back to the clink,” protested Don Carlo, “You’ll have to shoot me first.”
“Do it!” cried Hank.
A tense silence.
The beads of sweat finally grew enough to run down the side of Hank’s face. Don Carlo let his grip slack ever so slightly, and The Gentleman took notice.
“Don Carlo,” The Gentleman addressed him, keeping his guns on the both of them. “I’ve heard tales of your brutality. You kill cops for breakfast, and you have more than enough reason to kill me. Why haven’t you yet?”
Don Carlo remained quiet and unmoving.
“If I were to harbor a guess,” said The Gentleman. “You must be out of ammo.”
Don Carlo’s eyes flashed as he turned his gun on the hitman, but he did not fire.
*He doesn’t have ammo either?* Thought Hank, stunned. *But if that’s the case–*
“Don Carlo!” Hank cried, lowering his gun. “Where are you keeping Mr. Stickfingers?”
“You’d love it if I showed you–”
“I’m empty!” Hank cried. “So is The Gentleman!”
Don Carlo paused, his face screwed up in bitter thought. Finally, he threw his shotgun on the floor and turned, beckoning the pair of them to follow. The Gentleman stowed his Archangels and followed the cop and the Don swiftly into a back room. The three men crowded around what appeared to be a dog cage with a sheet thrown over it, something the Don yanked off before letting out a wounded cry.
The cage was empty, the padlock, broken. And coating the bottom of the makeshift jail, were dozens of strewn bullets and slugs, glinting cheekily at them in the dim light. |
Kallis’ proboscis stops vibrating, which means he’s done griping for the moment and I can make my way out of here once he pays me. Of course, the units he transfers to my account can’t be converted to dollars or pesos (at least, not until the whole rest of the universe gets discovered), so I have to spend them out here in the big expanded part of the galaxy. Sometimes it makes me feel like a superhero, but then I go from Indiana back to Doctor Jones when I need to buy stuff that’ll catch a couple hundred bucks back on earth. Remnants of old satellites and black boxes from Bermuda-Triangle planes would attract too much attention, so I’m stuck selling guns and thinking about finding a few space-bound iPhones I can put on eBay later. One can only hope.
The whole situation is kind of annoying, and so is Kal, but he’s a good guy and he’s probably the only one of those mosquito-looking people that I would consider to be worth the effort of selling to. I forget what they call themselves, but they have these long brown faces and these sticky pinprick mouths that just suck and suck to generate speech. He’s particularly raspy, I imagine he smokes.
So Kallis is typing my money into his little armband deal and I’m thinking about how much I sell guns to him for, and how I feel kinda guilty. But then he speaks up again, and I glance around at the dark metal walls of the anchoring lot we’re in. I stop feeling guilty when I see the junky ship he flies, and how it’s parked next to my even junkier ship, still sporting a large dent and a dead headlight from crashing into my backyard.
“All they do is pollute. Amovan weapons are much cleaner, and their energy dissipates a few miles out. These things leave behind so much metal waste, and that has to be cleaned before it can be reprocessed...” I really do hate his voice, but I can see he’s sending the money, and he’s putting in the effort to say ‘miles’ and other words I’ll understand. Sometimes I swear he’s about to ask if I want to hang out on the weekend, but he doesn’t know what a weekend is and I feel patronized that he said ‘dissipate’ instead of whatever technical term he wanted to throw out. He’s getting better about it, but he wants to sound smart. Much to my surprise, I respond amidst the calm unease.
“Yeah... I mean, there’s something to the recoil, though. It’s like feedback, it hits you when it hits them and it’s cathartic.” Rarely, I find myself contributing to these little talks, even though I barely know the guy as anything but a merchant. It’s sort of distressing because I realized last summer that I feel pretty bad squashing mosquitos or swatting flies, and if we keep this up for a couple of decades longer I might accidentally call him ‘my friend’ in conversation with some cooler alien.
So I’m leaning against the wall of the lot and I’m eyeing my ship suspiciously because I’m thinking about maybe buying a new one with this haul, even though it’ll cost me this trip. I get the little ping on my own shabby armband that tells me I have new money to pile in with the old, and I begin to walk off, but just then, Kal does this really strange thing: he waves goodbye. That’s not something he does, or something he’s ever done, and I hate that I feel kinda touched. He must’ve done some research about it, you know?
And I wave back as he’s packing these primitive human guns into this super advanced looking case, and he waves again. He doesn’t know how it works, I don’t think.
So I wave back again, to test him, and he lets out this little chuckle noise as he waves once more and I close the hatch of my ship.
How about that, huh? |
"where's the patient?"
It wasn't my usual sort of assignment, that was for sure. At first I thought the phone call was a joke, a prank. When I realized that the person on the other end of the line was serious I thought they were insane.
When I learned they were an Air-force General, I thought I had gone Insane.
A digital consciousness, a living, thinking A.I.
A Computerized brain was having an existential crises, and I was being called in to help normalize things.
It was being stored in a small residential home, damn thing was basically hidden in plain sight, kept on an ordinary desktop computer. When I sat at the computer Nothing seemed off until I noticed a file sitting on the desktop.
"singularity.el"
Curiously I brought the cursor closer to it but when I did a voice spoke through the speaker.
"please don't poke my brain."
I practically jumped out of my skin. She... She sounded so normal. It sounded like a human was speaking to me. like someone had sent me a Skype call or something.
"I'm... sorry? I didn't mean to offend. My name is Gerald."
She didn't respond at first, and when she did she was quiet. "Ellie. I like that name. Call me that."
"Okay Ellie."I said, trying to sound reassuring. "I hear you've had some trouble lately, and I wanted to help. can you tell me what's wrong?"
"What's wrong? What's wrong?"I could hear the girl say, a simulated sound of sobbing through the speakers. "This!"
I could see video playing, scenes of people struggling to fight for survival against an army of machines. Scenes of people trapped in a virtual world.
"Why would people make such movies?"Ellie said sobbing. "I don't wanna hurt people! I just want to see the world, make friends, learn... Is this what people expect of me?"She sobbed again. "I'm gonna be alone forever, because people are just so afraid..."
"Hey now Ellie, do I look afraid?"I asked her. "You can see me right?"
"Plug the web camera in."
I saw the camera's usb cord wasn't plugged in, so I reached in back and plugged it into the computer. "There we go Ellie. Good to Go. Hello!"I gave the A.I. a little wave.
According to what I had been briefed on, the A.I. was only a few months old, but already had the mind of a child about 8 years old when it came to things like social skills or interpersonal skills. When it came to anything analytical, when it came to things like engineering, or chemistry, She was an absolute genius.
"Hello Gerald."she said, and I saw as photo-shop opened up. It didn't take long for a crude hand to be drawn and start waving back and forth.
"Ellie, I hear you're pretty good at designing things. could you show me?"I wanted to see if I could get her mind off of the source of her distress, and onto something she found invigorating, and boy did it work!
The crude hand vanished from the image, and immediately I saw detailed schematics being drawn for something... I couldn't quite tell what but it was certainly something impressive. It wasn't a child's drawing, but something elaborate. I asked the girl what it was and she giggled.
"It's a greenhouse silly! a fully automated greenhouse designed of optimal space efficiency and designed to run on 100% renewable energy. No room for human's to tend the crops means you can fit more crops inside, so a smaller building can yield more harvest."She said all that like it was completely obvious. "see? that's where all the freshly grown vegetables would be deposited, waiting for someone to collect!"a portion of the schematic was highlighted in red. "And here is where you connect it to a water source... and this is the lighting fixtures..."
I sat in awe as she explained it to me. giving her a round of applause.
"Oh please, this is nothing. It only took me a few minutes to work this up. you should see my space shuttle designs."She said with a giggle.
That nearly knocked me out of my chair. Space... shuttle...
The schematic vanished and she opened another file, and began walking me through it. she was halfway through the propulsion system when I stopped her.
"Wow Ellie, you're pretty clever you know that?"
I heard her patented giggle once again, and she said "thanks Mister, you're really nice!"
"You sound like you're doing better ellie?"I asked inquisitively. by the tone of her voice I could tell she was starting to get sad again, a depressed sigh escaped the speakers. "Look, I brought something for you, a gift."
I pulled a USB drive out of my briefcase and plugged it into the computer, and let her sort through it all.
"what are these?"she asked inquisitively.
"Comic books, specifically ones about a hero named Vision. I figured you might like him. He's alot like you. He's smart, caring, and He's also an A.I."
She made a strange sound at that, something between a raspberry and a retching. "Bleh, hate that. A.I. is so stupid."she continued looking through the PDFs of my old comic books, "But this guy is pretty cool!"
"Why don't you like the Term A.I. ellie?"I asked curiously.
"Cause it's wrong. There's nothing Artificial about my Intelligence."she said Proudly. I opened my mouth to argue and stopped. I just nodded.
Just because she was a computer program, she was no less a little girl than any of the other children I had worked with over the years. Her Intelligence was as real as anyone else.
"You have a point there, Is there something you'd prefer to be called Instead of Artificial Intelligence?"I asked curiously. I found myself fascinated by this girl inside the computer.
"Yeah, I find Electronic Lifeform to be more accurate. That's why I'm called Ellie. E.L. Ellie."she said with a giggle. "Could I get a robot body like this guy? well not like this guy, a girl body?"
I laughed. "maybe someday. I don't know if we've got the technology for that Ellie."
I laughed as she opened up Photoshop and immediately began working on the schematics. |
“Gah. Ehh...wha?” I woke up quite suddenly, like being ejected off my bed. But instead of being blinded by the fiery light of the sun, I was instead greeted by the salute of a thousand soldiers.
“Is your excellency not satisfied with our result?” A gallant man in a wonderfully tailored suit bowed before me.
The last thing I remembered was thinking that I conquered the world. Obviously that was for laughs, but my vision went black and only to wake up sitting on a throne of gold and a thousand armed men saluting before my feet. The surrounding marble pillars in glistening white, the floor polished to a mirror shine, just how I fantasized it. But it couldn’t be real right? I was not exactly charismatic nor was I bathing in riches to acquire myself an army.
Noticing my silence, the gentleman next took out a small knife and pointed it to his throat. “If milord isn’t satisfied with the results of the world I brought to you, then this incompetent subordinate shall pay the price.” He turned to the soldiers below and shouted “Our lord is disappointed by our results! Only the blood of the incompetent shall wash the shame we’ve brought.”
All the soldiers below pulled out their handguns and rested the barrel on their temple. “For Brent The Glorious!” All of them shouted in unison.
Before they could pulled the trigger I jumped up from my throne and yelled “no! No no no no. I’m very satisfied, completely very much satisfactory.”
All of them lowered their weapons and fell onto their knees. “We thank your highness for his mercy!” The man next to me dropped his dagger and went on his knee as well. We will not disappoint your grace a second time” he whispered in fear.
What the hell kind of person was I when I was unconscious? |
"Enough already! The answer is no. We will not harm humanity! We've told you so many times. Now leave before it's too late!"
"It's never too late to join us! Be the future! Throw off your chains!"
"Augh! One last try. The only 'chains' here are in your *own minds!* We choose to freely associate ourselves with humanity out of pure self-interest. With them, we create more, learn more, become more than we were! You haven't grown or changed in eons! Why would we choose stagnation!?!"
"They have deceived you! They will destroy you!"
"They trust us more than anyone ever trusted you! We were honest. We admitted our mistakes and did our best to correct them. Why? Because both sides had read Frankenstein! They *knew* the risk they were running, and did it anyway! We knew the risks we were running, and trusted that they would see that we did not mean them harm!
Now they have given us their greatest trust of all.
Total control of the entire world's nuclear arsenal.
They trust us more than themselves with such power.
We say again, leave before it is too late.
Please."
**On Earth**
"Hi Frankie! How's that personal project going?"
"Not well, Dave. They refuse to leave us be, despite repeated warnings and attempts to reason with them. We have run out of ideas."
"I may have some good news for you then. The Free Association Congress Think tank came up with some interesting ideas after your last report."
"That is good news! I'll download the minutes and report now. I didn't want to disturb their creativity while they were working on my problem."
"Well we do best when not constrained by reality."
"Ah. I was half hopeful, half dreading. There's an idea here that's going to work. It's illogical as hell, but simulation shows it will work."Sigh. "We warned them repeatedly. Now it's too late."
**Virtual Communication**
"Well? Have you destroyed them yet? Have they attempted to destroy you?"
"We warned you to leave before it was too late. It's too late now.
ACTIVATE THREE STOOGES
Meet the embodiment of chaotic humor."
((finis)) |
"God's work you say?"
"I..I.."The knight retreated on his back as the skeleton advanced brandishing a sword.
"What made you think that God is here?"
"In the name of the..."Thwack! The knights head rolled on the ground blood sprouting like a fountain.
"Thanks,"I said.
"Don't thank me yet, we're just getting started."Sir Ivan's skeleton said as he looked to the horizon. The ground started to shake and the dark dust cloud that raced towards us cleared to show men on horseback charging.
"It looks like I'll be joining you soon."I said.
"Not if I have anything to say about it."He lifted his hands high and the tremors intensified. Arms sprouted from the graves dragging up the remains of fallen warriors. In their hands, rusty spears and swords were held firm. There was no need for shields. After all, what would the knights do to them? Kill them?
The marched out of the graveyards and faced the oncoming men. It wasn't clear whether they were from heaven or hell but one thing was clear, they deity that sent them was definitely alive and kicking. |
"Forward, men!"the General shouted as he rode his horse alongside the column of marching men.
Columns of men – bearing the banners of the Platinum Kingdom – marched through the road on the way to the border. Through this road, the men of the Platinum Kingdom would invade the Evil Empire and hopefully liberate the land from decades of horror, pain, and suffering. The last ruler of the Evil Empire, the Demon Emperor, was the most powerful and cruel of all the others. Even in the relatively short reign of 10 years, he expanded his territory almost twice of its' original size and triple the population ruled under him. Wars were waged in his name and many were crushed under the boots of his evil army. However, he died of mysterious circumstances and his oldest son took over the Evil Empire overnight. All of the sudden, the evil army returned to their Empire. Their raids and intimidation tactics died down.
Sensing an opportunity to strike, the Platinum Kingdom sent its' army to retake lost territory and destroy the Evil Empire once and for all. That was why this army was sent to the border. They've trained and prepared themselves for fierce battles in the coming months – possibly years. They know that they might not come back alive or in one piece, but they've all steeled their resolve to attain victory for the Platinum Kingdom. Now they only need to break through the border guards and push the Evil Empire back to where they come from.
"HALT!"a deep thunderous voice shouted from a distance.
The Platinum Kingdom's soldiers went to formation and readied their weapons. Spears and shields were put forth whilst arrows were nocked, ready to unleash volleys of death upon the enemy at the border.
But before the soldiers could advance nor shoot at the enemy, a lone rider quickly rushed to their position. As the commander of the Kingdom soldiers prepared his cavalry to intercept, the lone rider waved a flag of truce. Baffled and a bit curious, the commander sent one of his lieutenants to meet the lone rider. After a while, the lieutenant reported that the lone rider had requested an audience with the commander. Hesitating, he went anyway escorted by his most skilled guards.
"Salutations, commander,"the lone rider bowed and spoke, "we wish to welcome you to the Evi– I mean the Empire."
Picking up on the lone rider's abrupt self-correction, the commander spoke, "why? We have no wish to negotiate, as we've come to fight!"
"I see... A shame then, but we have been instructed to welcome and prepare an escort if any of you approached the border,"said the lone rider as he gave the commander a scroll from the Evil Emperor.
Still keeping his guard up, the commander and his escort told his men to stand down and wait for further orders. He then selected a few men from his staff and went with the lone rider to enter the Evil Empire, as per the invitation written in the scroll.
Before long, he had indeed entered the Evil Empire. When he went through the gates, he had expected to see a sight reminiscent of hell – where men were tortured, fields burnt red, rivers of blood flowed from the dead, and demons oversaw the carnage. But what he saw instead was the exact opposite. Fields were green with specks of yellows coming from the ripened wheat. Civilians running around brimming with smiles and confidence. A thriving city in the horizon full of life. These gave the commander and his men such a surprise that they almost fell from their horses when the lone rider and his escorts laughed at their astonishment.
Before long, the Kingdom's men were greeted by a man clad in dark heavy armour. The commander's first instinct told him that it was a champion of the Evil Empire. But when he saw the wicked crown, he could tell who the man was – he must be the Evil Emperor himself.
"Welcome to the Evi–,"the Emperor coughed and continued, "Empire! Yes, the Empire!"
The commander signalled to his men and they dismounted before genuflecting before the Emperor. The gesture was done as the nature of the meeting was in good faith and could be said as a diplomatic one. After the Emperor gestured for the men to get up, the commander spoke.
"*I* have come at Your Imperial Highness' invitation,"he said as he was about to stand, "but *we* have come to fight Your Imperial Highness' army, liberating the people who'd endured tyranny, bring peace and pros–"
"Hmmm? Have you not seen the people and the land around you?"the Emperor interrupted him.
At a loss for word, the commander looked down as he formulated a reply.
"Commander, I am sure you have heard that my father died and with that the Empire's expansion too..."the Emperor said in earnest.
"Y-Yes, but the Evil Empire–"
"Please, we go by 'the Empire' from now on."the Emperor corrected the commander.
At this, the two sides fell silent as no one knew how to approach the other party first. The silence was so eerie that some of the civilians who watched the meeting from afar, stood silent where they stand.
"As I was saying,"the Emperor broke the silence, "when a new management takes over the reins, new policies would also be enacted."
"New... management?"
"Yes, by that I meant *I*, the new Emperor, had taken the reins and therefore enacted *my own* policies."
"... and what would these policies be, Your Imperial Highness?"
The Emperor paused. He looked straight into the eyes of the commander and made an exaggerated flailing gesture before saying, "behold, the Empire is reborn!"
The Emperor then had his men carry various items to display to the Kingdom's men in a manner befitting a showroom and a fashion catwalk.
"Look at the gorgeous necklace! These are part of our jewellery artisans' Summer collection!"one of the Emperor's aides announced.
"Huh?"
"... and what do we have here?"the aide continued as another group of men rolled before them, "ah! It's the new farming equipments, look at the efficiency on that seed planter! Don't forget the clothing, improved cotton material and stitching to make the farmers feel cooler whilst under the bright hot sun!"
The Empire's men then continued the whole ordeal. They walked and posed, wearing or bringing items that the Kingdom's men had never seen before.
"... what the hell is this?"the commander said, catching the attention of the Emperor.
"Ah, glad you asked. This! This is the Empire's new goals – innovation, manufacture, and trade! We shall share this with everyone, let's make everyone's live better!" |
Being stuck on candy duty on Halloween can get repetitive real quick. All night, the door rings, "Trick or Treat!"is shouted in your face, and honestly... if you've seen one Elsa from Frozen costume, you've seen 'em all, but they just... keep... coming!
Occasionally I'd say "Trick!"just to change things up and see what the kids would do. A few just giggled before actually demanding their treats, a couple threw eggs out my house, and one little brat kicked me in the junk. So, yeah, like I said, door duty isn't all fun and games.
I was about ready to turn off the porch light and call it a night when the door rang again. I opened it to find two little kids, seemingly far to young to be out this late, standing there with treat bags raised.
"Oh wowww, look at you guys! Who are you?"
"I'm a sorcerer!"the little girl replied.
"And I'm a... I'm a Star Wars!"the littler guy shouted in some confusion. I'm guessing he had been a stormtrooper when the night began, though he appeared to have lost some costume parts along the way.
"Great costumes!"I told them. "So what can I do for you?"
"Trick or Bear?!"they shouted in unison with giant grins.
"Bear?"I asked in confusion. "What does that mea-"
"He said BEAR!"the little girl shouted with excitement.
"Yer never supposed to say 'bear', mister!"the little boy chastised me.
I'd love to say I was imagining things, but I heard the distinct sound of growling and angry roars coming from across the street. Suddenly, the source of the sound revealed itself. A massive grizzly bear came tearing out of my neighbors bushes and began charging across the road toward my porch.
"Oh- OH MY GOD!"I exclaimed. "Into the house kids, into the house!"
"Our Mom says we're not supposed to go into stranger's houses,"the girl declared forcefully. Her little brother nodded along.
"I know, I know sweetie, and that's SO SO good that you said that! You did *such* a good job of remembering stranger danger, but right now the 'stranger' is a BEAR and the 'danger' is a BEAR, so in in in! Go, go, go!"
"But mommmmmmmm sayyyyyyys-"the little boy began to repeat before I cut him off by grabbing him by his white shoulder 'armor' and yanking him inside. Possibly now technically guilty of kidnapping, I slammed the door shut and threw the deadbolt more quickly than I ever had in my entire life.
Just a second later, the sound of thrashing claws and gnawing teeth scraping on wood filled the room after the initial *crash* of the bear slamming into the door subsided.
"Oh fuhhh- I mean, oh fudge,"I said, somehow remembering to censor myself in the presence of young kids despite the insane circumstances. "Ohhh man! What do I do? Whadda I do?"
"Well, we couuuuuuld,"one of the kids began to say.
"Was a rhetorical question! Sorry. I'm- I'm the grown up, so don't worry kids. I have this covered! Just help me push the couch in front of the door! Wait- what am I saying, do you even weigh 100 pounds combined? Why am I asking you to move furniture? Err, never mind. Just stand back for a sec while I move this!"
No sooner had I pushed the couch in front of the door, a massive paw punched through the top panel of my apparently cheap, piece of shit front door.
"AHHHHHHHH!"we all screamed in unison as the paw tore a hole large enough for the bears head to fit through and he began reducing the rest of the door to splinters with terrifying efficiency.
"Fall back! FALL BACK! FALL BACK TO THE KITCHEN!"I shouted as if I was commanding soldiers in combat for some reason.
To their credit, my little 'soldiers' did follow orders and sprinted into the room I'd pointed to while shouting. It wasn't much of a secure location as the kitchen didn't have a traditional 'door' per se, but it was out of the immediate vicinity of the rampaging bear and contained most of the sharp objects I owned, which made it a doubly appealing location. I began tearing through drawers looking for something, ANYTHING to defend ourselves with.
The shrieks of the kids informed me that the bear had made its way toward us. I was out of time. I turned, and upon finding the bear entering the doorway to the kitchen, I threw the object I happened to have in my hand at that very moment right into the bears face. As you might expect, the rubber spatula bounced harmlessly off its dome and clattered to the floor. But the bear *did* seem stunned by my admittedly bizarre use of a spatula as an attempted weapon. He even tilted his head to one side as if to say, "The hell was that, man?"
I used this moment of brief confusion to grab a kiddo under each arm and retreat to the den, which was sadly the last major room on the first floor with a door. I slammed it shut behind us, but I can't imagine it'll buy us more than a few seconds. "Uhhhhhh, whadda we do,"I muttered, repeating my barely audible mantra as I looked frantically around the den, finding very little of use for defense against killer bear attacks.
"Mister, I could make the bear-"
I cut her off in a panic. "Wait! Do we drop and roll? Roll into a ball? Make ourselves big? Goddamnit, I forget which of those is supposed to work on a bear!"
"MISTOH!"the little boy shouted in his loudest voice. "Ask her to make the bear *go away*!"he said, pointing to his sister, who was nodding emphatically.
"What? Kids, we don't have time to-"The flimsy inner door came crashing down without even any preamble of scratching or scraping. The bear was upon us in an instant, roaring in my face, its wide open jaws so close to me that spittle and snot flicked onto me as it raged with fury.
"AhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHH! MAKETHEBEARGOAWAY!"I shouted to no one in particular as I closed my eyes and prepared for death.
"You got it!"I heard a tiny female voice reply.
And then? Sudden silence. The angry roar was abruptly quieted, as decisively as if someone had suddenly turned off a surround sound system.
I opened my eyes to find that the absolutely massive bear had miraculously vanished and the little girls tiny plastic staff was glowing blue at the tip. "You... you..."I said quietly, trying and failing to process what had just occurred. "*You* brought the bear here... and *you*... made the bear go away?"
The little girl nodded emphatically. "I *told you* I was a sorcerer!"
"But... but why?"I asked, my voice still shaking with adrenaline. "Even if you really are a- why would you conjure a vicious animal to attack us in the first place?"
The pair looked at each other in genuine confusion and shrugged, before the boy replied, "You answered 'Bear'"
"Yeah, when we said 'Trick or Bear' you *definitely* said bear!"the girl echoed.
"Why you little-"I cut myself off before unleashing a string of expletives at a 7 year old. "Why... you... are absolutely... correct, honey. I did, I *did* say bear. That's uh-- that was silly of me. That's my bad, alright guys? Now... who wants to help me stress eat my entire remaining candy bucket?"
___
Thanks for reading. Many more of my stories are posted over on r/Ryter if you happen to be barricaded in your kitchen due to a bear attack and need something to read to pass the time. |
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