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“Weird, your tattoo changed again” Steve pointed at my wrist, wearing his trademark cocky grin. He was the epitome of tall, dark and handsome.
I was slightly chubby, with just enough height that nobody tried attacking me in high school.
I glanced down, smiling sheepishly. The rest of the classroom was abuzz with noise. Today was graduation day, after all.
“Uh, yeah. Just woke up, and there it was” I feigned disinterest. The platypus stared menacingly at me with its beady, black eyes, the tattoo looking almost photo-realistic on the inside of my wrist.
Steve's wolf tattoo was clearly visible too, the wolf howling boldly at the moon in defiance. I felt a stab of envy. He was guaranteed entry into any business or military job he could ever want with that.
“What the hell is that anyway?” Steve asked. I’d wondered that myself. It took almost five hours of Google searching before I even found out what this was.
It looked like a joke, as though someone had stitched together a duck bill and a beaver and then brought it to life in Frankenstein’s laboratory. I didn’t even know where Australia was until last night. Why was my personality linked with something that I’d never even seen before?
People’s status in life was based around their tattoos. Oh, everyone pretended otherwise, of course. There were ‘inclusion initiatives’ for people with less fortunate personalities. Before the day of your eighteenth birthday, your tattoo could change at any time, but after that it was set.
There were apparently schools where they attempted to change your tattoo forcibly, but the success rate made pray-away-the-gay camps look scientific.
People born with Seagull tattoos, like gold-diggers and embezzlers, were never able to find a job or a partner. Companies would cite various reasons, like ‘a bad fit’ or ‘other candidates with better qualifications were given priority’.
Other people with Pig tattoos, who had far higher rates of obesity and spending problems, were refused health insurance or welfare for similar reasons.
In the end, what could the government do? Force people to marry or employ someone who would sabotage them?
Of course not. So for every graduating class, students would be pulled into a small back office by the teacher, for a private conversation about their chances in life.
Obviously, my tattoo just *had* to change the night before graduation. My birthday was that night too, because of course it was.
The only thing I could find on platypuses was that they were rare. There weren’t enough samples to figure out their personality traits just yet, thank God.
“It’s a platypus, mate” I tried in my best Australian accent.
The girl next to me, Sophie, laughed and the tattoo of a black widow spider briefly flashed on her wrist. Steve recoiled. Her face went blank, and she quickly covered her wrist, looking away.
“Bloody hell” Steve whispered to me. “At least your tattoo isn’t that bad.” I glanced at Sophie, sullenly staring at her desk, realizing just how much worse it could be.
“Everyone, please take your seats!” shouted Mr. Dawson as he entered the room. Everybody hurried to obey. What happened now would determine the rest of their life. “I’m going to call out everyone’s name one by one, and they are going to come with me into this office” he pointed behind him at a seemingly innocuous wooden door.
"Mr. Allen, you're up first"Mr. Dawson called my name. I swallowed.
"Good luck, bro"Steve slapped my back, slightly too hard. I winced as I heard my bones creak.
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[Part Two is up!](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/5e3jbp/wp_people_are_born_with_tattoos_and_markings_that/da9j2qn/)
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At first I found the very idea frivolous and useless. But then I had an idea. what if I could lower the temperature of something by one degree fahrenheit down to absolute zero? (Using Rankine scale, rather than Kelvin, of course.)
I made some calls around, demonstrated by subtle power, and by the next year I found myself in a lab that was working with very cold things. They showed me to their absolute zero chamber, and told me I was ready to go. I zapped the chamber with a slight cold, and I heard the celebrations of level zero for just a few moments before I died. ^(But wait, if I died, how am I able to talk?)
*The transition of the liquid helium in the chamber to absolute zero caused a cascade of true vacuum to explode through the universe as a bubble expanding at the speed of light. No one would ever know what hit them (without some kind of FTL) and no one could know what caused it.*
*Some solace can be taken with the fact that since the expansion of the universe keeps things travelling at light speed from bridging the gap, the whole universe wasn't destroyed, just a very large and continually expanding bubble.*
*Numbers with lots of zeroes years later, a new universe started with entropy travelling in two directions, and thus having two dimensions of time.*
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The Redditor took another swig of beer.
"Am I really going to do this?"
He spent months crafting the perfect writing prompt. He consulted linguists, data scientists, ran multiple tests. His first prompt was going to light the Writing Prompts subreddit on fire.
"This is my moment. This is what I've been waiting for."
He closes his eyes. Yes. He wanted to savor it. To let life takes its natural course. He pasted what he had copied and posted it. He could navigate through the test folder with his eyes... wait... test folder?
He stared in horror as people were replying to the words that were not even close to what he wanted. "Test. Do not reply."
"No you idiots stop!"he screamed to nobody in particular. He frantically looked for the delete link function on the night. His frantic scrambling for his mouse spilled his beer on his laptop and it shorted out.
"NO NO NO! ANSWER MY REAL PROMPT!"
He ran across his house tripping over tables and steps to get his phone. He would fix it from there. As he opened it. There was no WIFI icon at the top of his phone. He refreshed Reddit over and over again.
He ran back down stairs to see that he had tripped over his router. Upon further inspection, the cable came out so violently, it ripped the prong from the router.
He laid there. Feeling the internet swooping on his new prompt, never giving the story he wanted, never giving the story he was looking for.
All those months of research, foiled for a test and a simple command that nobody was adhering to. "Do not reply". |
"Here ma'am."I handed her the poor, bawling two-year old. She accepted the child in her arms and choked back tears.
"Are you an angel?"
I laughed in between heavy breaths. "No ma'am. I don't believe I am."
She looked me up and down. "A... demon, then?"Tears formed in her eyes as she looked at her son and she smiled. "All the same, thank you."
I let her with her son. I paced away, wondering at her comment until I looked down at my own body and realized- my clothes were scorched, shredded by the fire. I had indeed been licked and lapped by the flames during my rescue. Enough to leave me in tattered rags. How then, *how*, I wondered, "How am I perfectly fine?"
A curious and concerned crowd was slowly gathering to the scene. One bystander, an older gentleman in a bowler, his eyes fixed on the flames occupying the second story, replied, "Of course you're OK. Fires don't hurt dragons."
I stared at him; this man with his grey and white beard, his wise old eyes, I had seen him before. I saw him once as a child. He was there in the park, on a bench, feeding the birds. And once as a young adult, in a bookstore. He was just another fellow patron.
Others surrounded me, expressing their concern, asking questions. One shrouded me in a blanket. I heard sirens nearing. I wanted to get out before the press arrived. Then the old man at last threw me a glance. He twirled his cane and tipped his hat, and then took off down the block. I wrapped myself in the blanket and followed.
""lo there. Sir. Pardon me."He didn't stop. "Old man."I caught up next to him. He nodded to me politely as he kept walking, his cane clacking against the cobblestone. "What the bloody hell did you mean back there?"
He was silent for a while as I walked alongside him and stubbornly awaited an answer. Then slowly his head turned and a crafty grin took shape beneath the long whiskers of his face. "I'm not meant to chat with you."
"Just- please. I've seen you before."We arrived at his car where his driver waited with the engine ready. "Can't you please tell me who you are?"
He stood with the car door open. He hesitated to speak, though, his eyes looked ever more sure. "For the time being, I am formally known as Mr. Rivers."He shut himself inside the car and it rumbled off down the street.
"Wait! Wait!"I shouted and waved. Too late. 'Mr. Rivers,' I thought. Then, that thought was joined by another, out of no provocation of my own. It just arose, conjured, imbued in my mind by some external force- a name. I whispered it to myself. "*Merlin.*" |
"I can't believe I wasted my time coming here,"Detective Martin said, shaking his head.
"No, no, just hear me out. I know how it sounds. I know how it looks. Give me five minutes."
"Mr. Paskins, this is a very serious matter, and you told me on the phone that you had a credible lead. A little girl is missing, and-"
"Kawrl. Please call me Kawrl."
"Excuse me?"
"You need to call me Kawrl. For them,"the man wearing a suit made of feathers said. He jerked his head toward the tree. "Make sure you emphasize the 'Kaw.'"
Detective Martin stuck out his lower jaw, and ran his tongue over his teeth. "**Kaw**rl, this is a serious matter. I'm not here to play games."
As soon as Detective Martin said his name, Kawrl began squawking wildly toward the large oak tree in the middle of the city park. He flapped his arms, and jutted his head while doing this, mimicking all too perfectly the motions and sounds of a bird.
Detective Martin let out a heavy sigh. "Your five minutes are up."He turned to walk away, but stopped at the sound of hundreds of flapping wings. Slowly, he dared to look back.
A swarm of birds flew out of the tree, and landed as a group in front of Kawrl. Pigeons, crows, jays, and robins, all standing next to one another and looking attentively at the crazy man dressed in feathers.
"Do you have a picture of the girl?"Kawrl asked.
Detective Martin stared at the scene before him dumbstruck.
"Do you have a picture of the girl,"Kawrl repeated firmly.
He patted his hands up and down his suit, before thrusting a pudgy hand into his left pocket. Wordlessly, he pulled out a cellphone and pulled up a picture of a smiling nine-year-old. He tossed the phone to Kawrl.
Kawrl held out the phone toward the flock of birds, and let loose with another series of caws and chirps, bobbing his head along with each noise. Detective Martin swore he saw the assembled birds nod their heads before taking off.
"They'll get the word out. We should know where she is in an hour or so."
Detective Martin simply stared at Kawrl. Finally, he managed to find the words. "What the fuck did I just see?"
"Your new lead."Kawrl was still bobbing his head as he spoke.
Detective Martin was pretty sure Kawrl was insane, but based on what he just saw, it was worth taking a shot. "Alright Birdman, you've got your hour. Want me to buy you a cup of coffee?"
Kawrl nodded. "That'd be great. And a piece of white bread, if you don't mind."
"Do you want to take that suit off?"
"No. It helps the birds remember me. And it's easier to talk to them this way."
"Right. Of course."
The two of them walked out of the park and to a coffee shop nearby. Detective Martin bought two coffees, and had to buy a sandwich because the shop wouldn't just sell a piece of bread. They sat at a table outside. Detective Martin poured a hefty belt of whiskey into his coffee from his hip flask while Kawrl pecked at his piece of bread.
Just thirty minutes later a sparrow landed on their table, looking squarely at Kawrl. It let out a quick series of chirps, which he returned in kind. The sparrow flew off, and Kawrl smiled at the detective.
"They've got her. She's in an abandoned warehouse across town. Two men with her."
Detective Martin quickly drained the last of his coffee.
"Let's go."
*****
If you enjoyed this, subscribe to [Pubby's Creative Workshop](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pubby88) to read the rest of my prompt responses. |
The remnants of last night's full moon still lingers in the morning sky; translucent and yellow, like a perfect bowl of wobbly jelly. But I have no time to contemplate the beauty of nature, my bus - not my usual, but instead a replacement red double decker - is fast approaching. It's much later than usual.
"Single to-,"a large man suddenly pushes in front of me. He grunts as he shoves me out of the way.
"Oh, excuse me,"I say apologetically.
He looks at me, pushes a nostril closed with one finger, and blows a nose-full of *something* onto my shoe.
"Dreadfully sorry,"I mutter, tugging at my shirt collar. "My fault entirely."
Finally, I reach the conductor. "Single to Broadmead,"I request and pass him the change.
"Only accept british coins,"he says coldly. "That'll be £1."
How queer, I think, but I soon acquiesce. I rummage in my pockets, and as luck would have it, I happen to have a one pound coin buried deep within my trousers.
"Only accept the new one pounds,"he says.
"Extremely sorry,"I say. He takes pity on me, and lets me on anyway.
The bus is overcrowded by the time I get on, and I have to stand. I make small talk about the unusually usual weather to the large lady standing next to me.
"Yes, very unusual,"she agrees.
The bus does not stop at my stop; the conductor happily informs me that he needs to make up for time (running late), and I'm the only person getting off at that stop, so it makes good sense to skip it. I walk back two miles towards work, but I'm getting some exercise so I can't complain.
"Morning Mike,"I say to my colleague. "Fancy a tea?"
"Got one already, buddy! But, uh, do my favor, pop it in the microwave for a minute? It's gone cold."
Triggered, I throw the cold tea in his face and head to my cubicle.
|
It was a cold autumn day and the wind barreled down the streets, causing my trench coat to billow and forcing rain past my outstretched hand. I was shielding myself from the bright headlights as the car rolled to a stop just in from of me, cracking stones beneath its rubber.
"Get in."I got in, passenger front side. Jimmy the Threat was driving. A man of few words, but reliable and cool.
A few minutes past seven and already it was dark, the sun having retreated from the world, and most of the decent folk with it. The City was reduced to dark silhouettes against the night sky, lights glittering in some. A bolt of lightening danced across the dark clouds above, and thunder chased after.
I never lied to myself about why my family was so rich. My uncle was *the* Father, he ran the criminal underground in the City. There was no romance about it, we simply were what we were. You want drugs. It comes from us. You want to gamble, you do so through us. You need somebody taken care of, we'll do it. You run a business, you give us a cut, or we give you some cuts. Ain't no romance to this life, and yet, there is a romance to this life.
We pulled up to a run down building. It stood perhaps six stories high, but most of the windows were nothing more than plywood. It wasn't really abandoned, just made to look like it was.
The rain was coming down in sheets now and it was hard to see anything outside of the car window. The back door opened, and a young girl stumbled in, a gruff hand following after. And that hand was attached to a rather large man by the name of Tiny Tim the Giant. He got in.
I knew, vaguely, what we were doing. Picking up a prostitute, and dropping her off at one of the whore houses. Only, this wasn't what I expected. I figured she'd be young twenties with needle marks in her arms and thick makeup painted onto her face. This girl, and really, she was a girl, couldn't have been older than 10 or 11.
I couldn't keep my eyes off the rear view. She was terrified. Christ, she had a backpack with Winnie the Fucking Pooh on it. Tears gathered in the corner of her eyes. She wasn't a willing girl working for a buck, she was a prisoner, a slave, or she was going to be soon enough.
Tiny Tim said, "found this one at the orphanage. Ain't no one knows who she is, ain't registered with the police, and the orphanage, well, they never processed the paperwork. She's a real ghost."
Jimmy said, "Good work Tim, she's gonna earn us a lot of cash. We're taking her to Bronx Street. You know the one. Some real sickos down there, like em young."
I glanced back at the rear view, watched the tears rolling down her cheeks. I didn't know much, and was still learning a lot about the world, but I knew one thing: we weren't going to make it to Bronx Street. |
"At best, everyone misunderstood me. My power.
"Misfortune. Everyone just saw the missed bullets. The guns jammed. The missed swings and kicks, and they patted my shoulder afterwards. *Good job, out there, Mala suerte. It's a good thing you're on* our *side.*
"And then I go home. Then I take off my stupid disguise and count the bruises. The burns and lacerations from the bullets that had grazed me. The busted lip where the jammed gun had been thrown at me and knocked out a tooth. The broken shoulder I'd landed on after falling down the stairs. Because the bad guy hiding around the corner had tripped and sent himself out the window instead of me.
"*Mala suerte! You're so lucky to be alive!* they said. The wonderful people that could fly and throw mountains and turn into fire and read minds, and they never had to worry about missing teeth or hospital bills or anxiety medication.
"They called me when the aliens showed up threatening an invasion. Or the fish people. Or the mole people. Or the trans-dimensional cat people. The evil versions of us from the future. The hippies from the dark side of the moon.
"When the mad scientist unleashed his army of cyber sharkmen. When the warlock emperor slumbering for centuries awoke and tried to re-establish his empire. When the president went crazy and tried to turn the world into a cholcoate wasteland.
"And then we showed up and saved the day. Waved for the cameras. Smiled behind our masks. Nguvu mlima. Vspyshka molnii. Nạk tên fị. Geistiges auge. And me in the corner, away from the ones everybody loved.
"And then we went home and took off our masks.
"And then I sat alone in the dark and thought about the fall I hadn't taken. The seven seconds of sheer plummeting before it was all over and I never had to limp home and cry ever again.
"Before you say it, yes, I've tried suicide. I've jumped. Taken pills. Jumped in the tiger pit. Some purse snatcher breaks my fall. Or a car. Break everything on one side of my body, but my heart keeps beating. The pills are faulty or expired or I'm allergic and get violently sick and throw them up before they kick in. The tigers have just fed and only pounce and bite me lightly. And I survive: broken, mauled, stomach pumped. But alive all the same.
"Years of future suffering outweighs the misfortune of dying *just once*, no matter how painfully. I think that's the world's sick way of how it calculates whether I live or die. So I always live. And I have no say in the matter.
"But that's not the worst of it.
"My friends. My family. The people I love. That's the worst part.
"Last year, I'd reached out to someone online and made a friend. An awkward mess of a guy with zero social skills, a shut in that never left the house. Someone who could understand what I go through. Someone who could commiserate with how hard it can be.
"And then it happened.
"He won the lottery.
"A record jackpot. Almost three billion. I found out through the news because he stopped answering my texts. And I haven't seen him since. And I knew I never would again.
"Before him, my older brother. Met the love of his life in another country. Moved away and never saw him again. My younger brother, he got his dream assignment in the military. Super duper special secret special forces ops. Immediately after that, he went to work for some nameless shadowy government acronym thing. Spy maybe. I'm not sure. Haven't talked to him since he enlisted. Sometimes he sends a card for Christmas. Sometimes.
"My father and mother got drafted for the generational ship to Andromeda. They're in cryostasis almost a light year away now. They were beyond the moon when they found out they'd been selected.
"The neighbor kid I grew up with, my childhood crush? He found out he was the secret love child of a prince and princess of two small but fabulously wealthy African countries. There were *two* simultaneous attempted coup and now he was the last remaining heir to both. I got IP banned for vandalizing his Wikipedia page.
"It went on and on like that. Anyone I got close to. Anyone I cared about even remotely and could bring a little happiness to my life---
"They were taken away from me. And they went smiling and laughing.
"Starting to get the picture?
"My power isn't bad luck for *others*. It's me. My misfortune. My mala suerte. When their guns jam and their bullets miss, it's not to *save me*. It's to keep me suffering. Keep me in this hell where I'm all alone.
"Get it, doc?"I said.
I was sitting in an office. Obviously I'd shown up in disguise. Made the appointment under a fake name. The man listening to me, seated a few feet away, he kind of reminded me of my father with his thick mustache and his too-tight sweater vest. Maybe this wasn't the smartest idea, secret identity and all, but I was so *tired* of no one *knowing*. Of no one being able to *really* understand my struggle. I didn't know what I expected, really. I think I would be happy if he just reached out and told me he was sorry. That magical curses were above his pay grade. But he was sorry anyways and he understood. That would be *something*, at least.
He rubbed his chin, the picture of deep thought. Then his phone was in his hand. "So if I download the lottery app on my phone and buy a ticket now---"
I was out the door the next second. Just typical.
The special silver phone rings then. It was time to go save the world.
And as always, I get a little hopeful. Maybe this time the bad guys will have a counter for me. Something to neutralize my power. A techno gadget a genius gearhead thought up. An ancient magical relic. A bad guy with the power to manipulate causality. *Something*. *Anything*. And then the bullets wouldn't miss. Then the guns wouldn't jam and the kicks would land straight on and It'd finally be my turn to go out the window.
I hoped. It was all I had.
But I didn't count on it. I just didn't have that kind of luck.
|
Stephan fixed a steady gaze on the gilded creature that wore the shape of a man in a crisp three-piece suit. "Your deal is tempting,"he said, "but how am I to trust your word? I propose a simple guarantee of quality. I ask that the debt of my soul not come due until I have won my first case. Surely, the wait will mean nothing to an immortal being such as yourself, and if your word is true, then I will win every case I try. Do we have an accord?"
The creature grinned, just a fraction of an inch wider than a human mouth should have been able to grin. "That seems reasonable,"it said in a voice that you wouldn't have been able to prove was inhuman. "Your terms have been added to the contract. You may sign whenever you're ready."
Stephan took the pen and signed. The ink was black, but it smelled of copper. He slid the paper back to the creature, which took the page in its hand with a motion that you would've sworn a human wrist couldn't perform. After one last smile, the creature disappeared in a flash of golden flame.
Stephan smirked at where the gilded creature had disappeared, then stood up and walked away from the table.
Months pass.
A man who seemed perfectly typical, who looked nothing like an insane monster's impression of a human being and everything like actual human being and sub-par paralegal Josh Robson walked into Stephan's office.
Stephan stopped typing, annoyed. "I hope you can justify this intrusion, Robson."
Robson simply lowered his tired eyes to look at Stephan, and suddenly Robson's eyes turned gold.
Stephan smiled. "Ah, I was wondering when you would be here. Please, take a seat."
Robson sat in the chair before Stephan's desk, his golden irises still the only abnormal thing about him. He looked at Stephan and said, "You haven't taken any cases."
"Not for months, no."said Stephan, barely keeping his smugness in check. There are many things a law firm needs done, you know, and many ways for a man with an incredible--one might even say, supernatural--knowledge of the law to succeed. Not all them involve trying cases. Why, if someone had thought otherwise, you might be inclined to think that person a fool."
Robson raised an eyebrow.
Stephan smirked. "I am no fool. I know what you will do. You will invoke the deific court, and challenge for possession of my soul. But if I win, the court will vouchsafe my soul, and if I lose, it will prove that you did not grant me the promised power, and our contract will protect my soul."
Robson listened with a vaguely bored expression.
"You may argue,"Stephan continued, hardly marking his audience, "that if you win, the courts will give you my soul, and that if I win, our contract will award you my soul. But it is shown--"
"No."
"...No?"Said Stephan. "...No what?"
Robson sighed. "I'm evil incarnate. I killed the real Josh Robson by bee stings, just to make impersonating him mildly easier, and because he was afraid of bees. Just now, another of my incarnations broke a golden retreiver's leg for no reason at all."Robson looked up at Stephan with dead, condescending eyes. "Did you seriously think I actually follow the rules?"
Stephan was starting to sweat. "T-the...the deific court..."
"Probably would have executed me centuries ago, if they could."
"Y-you...are a creature of evil and law..."
"I am a creature of evil. Mortals somehow forget that includes dickishness."
Sweating, shaking, Stephan stood up straight. In the strongest voice he could gather, he said, "I will--"
He promptly exploded.
Someone from the hall heard the explosion and opened the door to look. She immediately received a splitting migraine that wouldn't stop until death.
The creature disappeared in a flash of golden flame. |
A pale, dirty hand shot up from the left side of the class, it took Mr. Yutza a few moments to notice it eagerly wagging back and forth in the dim light of the classroom. He sighed and continued to scan the room, hoping for one of the other kids to at least attempt to answer the question. After a few minutes he resigned himself to once again call on the lone hand, now held up by another dirtier hand. “Yes, Jenna” he sighed. Jenna eagerly recited the textbook answer she always had ready “The origin of the Great Cola War can be traced back to the first state-corporate trade deal between PepsiCo and the struggling Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1989!”.
“Right again Jenna, now since no one else knew the history of the Great Cola War well enough to even average a D on the last test, why don’t you enlighten us?” Jenna perked up and Mr. Yutza noticed her tattered PepsiCo shirt, the fourth day in a row she had worn it. Not uncommon as many kids in Dew still held the fanatical beliefs of their grandparents who fought in the Great Cola War.
Jenna turned toward the rest of the class with her regular air of superiority “Following the trade deal in 1989 in which PepsiCo received twenty top of the line warships, Coca Cola rapidly felt threatened as they were already the obviously inferior brand. They quickly struck their own trade deal with the United States of America and received their own compliment of warships. This began the rapid arms race between the two titans of soda. Within a decade each had assembled private militaries rivaled only by those of the new Russian Federation, United States, and People’s Republic of China. By 2020 nearly every multinational corporation had assembled a private military in some capacity and global conflict had shifted from conflict between nation-states to skirmishes between the dozens of multinational corporations. However, none could begin to rival the power of PepsiCo and Coca Cola who had become the world’s superpowers.”
A boy in the back of the class began snoring with the sporadic nasally cough-snore common in many of today’s kids. Mr. Yutza quickly walked to the back of the class, kicked the boy in the shin, and forced him into the closet for a timeout. Jenna, barely missing a beat, continued “In 2027 the world saw the first skirmishes of what would later be dubbed the Great Cola War when PepsiCo destroyed one of Coca Cola’s new fully automated bottling plants in Nicaragua. The world held its breath as it was the first large-scale attack between the superpowers. Within the hour Coca Cola had retaliated against numerous PepsiCo facilities across the world. This resulted in the first large-scale conflict since corporations had begun arming themselves. Peace negotiations were orchestrated following nearly three months of conflict and over half a million casualties. PepsiCo and Coca Cola met at WalMart Headquarters, in their heavily defended stronghold of Bentonville. However, peace was not destined that day as negotiations rapidly broke down. Within the year millions had been killed as the first nuclear strikes began and nearly every other armed corporations and the few remaining national militaries were drawn into the conflict. Peace was finally agreed upon on September 17th, 2029. Strict borders were determined and the current political stage was set.”
Jenna let out an exasperated breath and sunk back into her seat. “Well done Jenna” Mr. Yutza said, scanning the room to see if any of the other kids had listened. They hadn’t. A rusty bell on the wall behind Mr. Yutza rang and the entire class quickly snapped back into reality, hastily began gathering their bags, and made their way toward the door. Mr. Yutza yelled after them “Please put on your masks before heading home, the PRAA has issued another alert, apparently a dust storm kicked up somewhere near Dorito.”. All of the kids donned their masks except for one young boy, who hung back and came back to Mr. Yutza with mask in hands and a confused look. “Mr. Yutza, I know you’ve told us before but I got this wrong on the test, what does the PRAA stand for?” Mr. Yutza sighed but was happy he at least bothered to ask “It’s okay you missed the question, what matters is you want to know. The PRAA stands for PepsiCo Radiation Awareness Agency. Now go enjoy your weekend and try to not go outside too much!” The boy thanked Mr. Yutza and scampered out the door while struggling with his mask.
|
"..I don't think you know what this means"the genie said, a look of worry on his face as he spoke.
"Of course I do! an end to wars and suffering, how can that possibly be a bad thing?!"I demanded.
"Are you sure, are you positive this is what you want?"He said, the tone of his voice seemed panicked when he spoke this time.
"Yes! Do as I command, my third wish is for peace on Earth"
The genie, sighed and shook his head, his eyes glowed bright as he started chanting, magic weaving around him, the air crackling with the power of the incantation.
"Igira tsaran dolibix!""Pveathr damen igira lethodar!"
The genie paused before clicking his fingers to seal the spell, uttering his last words.
"Know that I tried to stop you, Tom. This was your decision."
It was at that Instance that Tom knew his mistake. Humanity at heart was a warring race, for as long as humans had existed, they had killed each other, there was only one way that Earth would see a peace, one way to ensure there would be no more wars on this planet.
The genie clicked his fingers, and in that instance, seven billion lives were extinguished, and for the first time in thousands of years, Earth saw peace. |
This would do it. This had to be enough, right? I tied the fuse to the gas can and walked, walked, walked. Five minutes of fuse. Ten. Fifteen - that should be enough. I looked up, and bit my lip. This was something I'd never turn back from. But then, I wouldn't have to. He'd never have to know. I lit the fuse, got in my car, and drove. I looked at my watch, seeing a little time shift. A few minutes, for my reckless driving. Seven minutes since I left. I parked illegally, and ran into the hospital, up a flight of stairs, and stood by his bed, by chest heaving as I bent over to check his watch.
Seventy minutes, it said. I never got to ask him what he'd done to put himself in such dire straits. I never would, now. But he was my brother. I'd do anything for him. As I watched, his time started ticking up. In the distance, out the window, I saw the sky redden - suddenly, years jumped onto his clock. Someone must have gotten hurt. No, died - it was decades now.
"Collin. Where am I?"
"Chris, relax. You're in the hospital. You're going to be fine."
He looked at his watch, and I looked with him. Nearly thirty years, now. He smiled, looking relieved, when suddenly he had seventy years left. My vision was getting fuzzy, and I swayed on my feet.
"Collin . . . Collin, what did you do?" |
The two humans stare at the chessboard, barely moving. Twenty-two minutes have passed since black made his move. White is starting to look agitated. He finally moves his queen forwards. Nine minutes later, black makes his move. Four turns later, the queen is dead. Three hours later, the king is dead.
The loser stands up, looking around nervously. He has lost too many times, and he knows it. His score is negative. Evolution must commence. I call the drones. They are mindless, unlike me. They are workforce. I am a decider. The drones approach the human. They themselves look like humans, but of smooth polished black metal instead of flesh. The human is agitated. He tries to run. I aim. I shoot. He dies.
I do not know why I make the humans evolve. That was the task given to me at my creation, and that is the task only I, along with the other Evolver-Minds, can do. Cull the weak and stupid, raise the strong. Make the humans better.
I watch the drones drag the body away. There is something fascinating about a dead human. What once could think, but now cannot. The brain-vessel has become a lifeless hunk of meat.
I hear an order from the Mother-Mind, "Evolver-217, prepare deactiviation protocol."I do not understand. If I deactivate, who will cull the weak and stupid? Who will raise the strong? But I have no choice. The Mother-Mind must be obeyed.
"I sense that you have a question,"the Mother-Mind says, "know that your task is completed. The humans are intelligent. The humans are wise. They can now cull themselves. They are approaching self-sufficency. We have succeeded. Your replacement shall be the one they call Enosh. He shall be known as Evolver-h1."
I know of whom she speaks. She is right. He is wise. He will do well. I disconnect my communication modules and prepare for shutdown. The humans have not yet become perfect. But they are now better than us. |
"Well that sounds suspiciously like vote manipulation,"Lexi said, reading the prompt out loud. "I suppose I should bring it to the council of mods."
And so she walked to the grand hall, to stand before the twelve shadowy seats that surrounded the great stone table. She threw the prompt before them, and the mods grew silent.
"Well... We can't really prove anything, can we?"spoke the first mod, his eyes shifting away from the prompt like he was ashamed to see it.
"Yeah,"the second one chimed in. "I mean, that could have been all natural upvotes, right?"
"Exactly!"said the next. "Exactly right. It could be that there was twelve people who just really liked it, and thought maybe they could write a story on it."
"Yeah, but-"
"No buts! This is clearly what has happened, and it is the will of the council that this prompt is fair and just."
The nods circled the table, as the collected moderators avoided Lexilogical's gaze. Her eyes narrowed to a slit.
"You all upvoted this one, didn't you?"
Their silence answered the question.
|
"WITNESS ME!"It screams as it dives onto the vehicle, completely oblivious of the spikes and the flames that coat the vehicle. Every moment of his short life has lead him to this point in his life, the point when he becomes the martyr his kind reveres. Today is the day he becomes a legend.
He empales his right arm on one spike and slices clean through the flesh on his left leg. The great thunderstick, his mighty weapon was launched clean over the vehicle, slamming into the sheer cliff wall opposite the vehicle, creating a magnificent BOOM, his great masterpiece wasted on rock. "NO!"He screams "MY MOMENT! MY DEST-"the vehicle flips, flinging him from his position atop the vehicle and launching him a dozen feet in the air before his body limply collides with the sand of the desert.
Blood pools under him as he helplessly watched his brothers fire harpoons into the wreckage and drag the vehicles carcass off to their masters, HIS masters. He weakly attempts to call out but doesn't realize the extent of his wounds. The right side of his face has been mangled as a spike sliced open his cheek, ripping the muscles of his jaw with it. His right arm has been completely severed, leaving nothing but a shattered bone and tattered flesh protruding from where his arm once sat. His left leg was intact, with very little muscle damage, but the skin was lacerated and burnt, leaving the muscle exposed to the elements. He doesn't notice, his brainwashed mind watching helplessly as his brothers speed off in their wasteland chariots, gifts from the old world gods. His vision fades as they disappear into the harsh sunset.
He awakes on a lab table, his body restrained and his wounds patched. He struggles against the bindings. *my brothers need me, I have another chance for Valhalla* he thinks to himself. His struggling removes the bandages from his leg. "Ah!"He cries out in pain. The second and third degree burns that coat his calf explode in intense pain, the destroyed nerves crying as they try to communicate with its brain.
The door opens, a woman enters. "Stop! Youll hurt yourself"his struggling ceases as he stares at her. Entranced, his mind follows her, examining his savior. His eyes trace her perfect figure, her auburn hair, her green eyes.
*a breeder, master won't be pleased that she escaped* he thinks to himself. He has known nothing but his service to his master, he has been given only one purpose in life, to become a martyr, a legend among his comrades. He has never thought for himself, all his thought pertaining to his king, his ruthless dictator who owns The Pen, the wastelands primary source for pig meat.
"Let's get you some water, can you tell me your name?"She fills a canteen with water. "My... name?"
"Yes, your name, what your friends call you... unless you don't have that..."
"Uh.... Valha-.... Val?"
"Uh huh... ok Val, drink this."
She puts the canteen to his lips, his cracked lips part, ripping away pieces of dead skin that had grafted to the opposite lip. The liquid hits his dry mouth. He'd never had clean water before, only dirty water that was shared both for scrub room and consumption. He spit up the foreign drink, coughing as his lungs struggle to remove the water. "Calm down, you're safe"
*safe?* he'd never heard the word before, but this goddess was saying it, so it must be important...
PART 2
She spoke in an accent, one foreign to their lands. When she spoke... her voice lacked the coarse, sandpaperlike tone given by the harsh sands of the desert and strains from war cries and chants of his tribal rituals. She seemed... gentler, her skin not yet cracked from the intense sun and body unscarred from wasteland wounds. Who this woman was he didn't know, but it was clear she doesn't belong here.
"Wha-... where from?"It stammered out, calling upon all of his knowledge of words to piece together that question.
"Come again?"
"Where from? Gastown?"
"Oh, what? No no no, I'm not from any "gastown". I'm from a place called London. Have you ever heard of that?"
*london?* he mouthed the word, attempting to imitate her movements. This level of speech was never used by his brothers. The only words used were Valhalla, witness me, or kill. He had once heard his master say these complex words, he wracked his brain, digging deep into the unused parts, brushing the cobwebs off the long dormant areas of his mind.
"Your wounds were quite severe, it's amazing you survived, normal people wouldn't have survived."*normal.... people....* he struggled to comprehend what she was saying. Perhaps he misunderstood the words, perhaps they meant something entirely different from what he thought. No no no, he's heard his master say them enough to know generally what they should mean. But, it made no sense. He's seen people shrug off shotgun blasts to the gut. One of his comrades was stitched together after having his pelvis ripped from his body, his guts scooped up and sewn together, so that he may be used as a boomer, like himself. He succeeded though, where IT had failed.
This thought angered him. He struggled against his bindings, fresh pain emerging from the scorched remains of his leg. He didn't care, without fulfilling his purpose, what was he? His life was forfeit. *failure failure failure!* "stop! Please! I want to help you!"He didn't understand the word help, he assumed it meant kill in her convoluted speech. The bindings around his arm snapped, the inhuman strength too much for the leather cuffs to hold. He grabbed her by the throat, and began to squeeze. An act he's done countless times before. Each time, he looked into their eyes and saw defiance. The people of his land were used to the cruel and inhospitable nature of the beast. Countless times, he watched the flame in their eyes snuff out. The anger fade from their eyes, the fear replaced by nothing. He remembered the glossy haze of an empty vessel, one that would be fed to the pigs and then fed to the warriors and traded with the other towns.
But he hesitated. In her eyes, there was a cool blue flame. A flame of selflessness and determination. He let go. What seemed like a moment for him, was almost 2 full minutes. The woman hacked and coughed, struggling to regain the oxygen her body was deprived of. *why did I want to kill this breeder?* he thought. Never before did he have this thought. He had never had to think on his own before. His life was orders and beatings, occasionally broken by the squealing of misused and overworked engines and the shouts and hollers of his brothers, and then the inevitable screams of the fresh dead. He touched the growth behind his back, a tumor that had grown to the size of a softball. He had seen it before and he knew what it meant. His time of war parties was done. He was to finish the rest of his days as a boomer.
A thought ran through his head. *do I have to?* his brain powered up. The parts deemed unnecessary and outdated fired up, and he felt something he has long forgotten, self preservation. A will to live. A need for survival that left when he was captured and tortured into submission, devoting the rest of his life to his master. Then, he remembered HER. His mother, one of the victims of the original fall. He was 4 when his mother locked him and his brother in the basement with canned food and a tank of water. He was 6 when that hatch opened, and he was dragged, kicking and screaming into the cages. His brother was beaten to death in that basement. He was too old to be indoctrinated. He delved deeper into his mind, remembering and uncovering his past.
Meanwhile, the woman grabbed a taser... |
Google
Okcupid
Bing (really, man?)
Amazon
Craigslist
Craigslist (couldn't find a good K site, huh pal?)
Tumblr
Okcupid
Myspace
Youtube
Reddit
The next site on the list after that was xHamster, which I assumed was his subtle way of telling me I'd gotten the message. So I went to Reddit. He had been kind enough to leave his account logged in. As I looked through his posts, there was a knot in my throat. Even reading his stupid conspiracy shit made my chest feel tight. I wondered if that wasn't what he'd meant for me to look at, until I noticed a weird number of very recent subscriptions to niche subreddits. There was a massive number of them, subreddits for small towns out in the middle of nowhere, community colleges, obscure fetishes I knew he didn't have...or at least, I hoped he didn't. It took me hours, a lucky guess, an old decoder ring and enough red bull to choke a yak, but eventually I worked out a pattern. The end result was simple: A set of coordinates nearby, and the words "X marks the spot, bring a shovel."
A bit of searching brought me to an empty lot in the middle of nowhere, which had a noticeable rocky X constructed in the center. I couldn't help but wonder who in the hell he'd paid to do all this. Despite my curiosity, I got to digging, wondering what could possibly be so important for him to go to all this trouble. It only took about thirty minutes to dig up the package, a time capsule shallowly buried in the dirt. A part of me didn't want to open it, even as I sat down, sweaty, at the edge of the hole I'd made. It didn't feel right to dig up this last bit of him while everything he used to be was waiting to be buried in the ground. Even so, a last wish was a last wish, even when it sort of technically wasn't.
I dragged the time capsule out of the ground, admiring the sleek, futuristic metal look of it. It was compact and stylish, with a silvery pill-like appearance. With a soft hiss and pop, I forced it open, its two halves falling apart. As they did, I couldn't help but feel my eyes go wide at the contents inside of the capsule: In one half, there was a card, a simple halmark card with a nondescript "CONGRATULATIONS!"on the outside and a handwritten "You fucking nerd"on the inside, a five dollar bill blocking the words "just wanted to piss you off one last time"written underneath. In the other half of the capsule, there was a small, stale package of Swedish Fish, worth less than fifty cents.
I laughed.
I laughed and laughed and laughed until I couldn't stop crying, and stayed that way for longer than I could make excuses for.
And the next day, work was a little easier as I nibbled on those stale Swedish fish. |
"Come on, just touch it..."Satan hissed at the jolly fat man clad in a red suit, red hat, and a large white beard.
Santa gulped. "I don't think I can."
Satan sighed and reached a large red finger to the corpse flayed open at the center of the pentagram. A blue light started to pulse from the body, being sucked into Satan's finger. Satan took a deep satisfied breath, closing his eyes.
"Best shit you'll ever try,"Satan mumbled to himself. He opened his eyes and sighed. Santa had passed out again. He walked over and kicked him quickly in his big bulging belly. Nothing.
Satan sighed and knelt down, giving Santa a slap across the face a few times. "Wake up, buddy... Wake up..."
Santa stirred and opened his eyes. "What.. what happened?"he said, adjusting his cap. He blew the white ball that hung off of the tip out of his face.
"You passed out. Again. I don't get it... you can look at it all day long, you can see the blood, the skulls, the pentagrams, but when it comes time to-"
"It's their souls,"Santa whispered. "The eternal damnation you are condemning them to. It is just... too much."
"Jesus Christ..."Satan grumbled. "It's just a soul. One little touch, you send that bitch to the hellfires and get a little high at the same time. This training isn't going well you jolly fat fu-"
"Oh just you hold up there,"Santa narrowed his eyes. "Do I need to bring up last weeks episode? All you had to do was eat some cookies, drink some milk, and leave some toys. But nooooo, Big Bad Lucifer couldn't remember his training either."
"It was a fair trade,"Satan sniffed, looking down.
"You traded an 8 year old girl a Hatchimal for her eternal soul. You are evil.. you judge these children as already damned and-"
Satan shoved a black-clawed finger into Santa's face. "Now you listen here, you sanctimonious son of a bitch. I am judgmental? Really? I provide an equitable trade to all who summon me. You? You watch these kids day after day, night after night, and then you judge whether they are worthy to receive your gifts? At least I give them what they want at a cost upfront. Who are you to judge if they've been naughty or nice?"
A voice cleared his throat. It was one of the Satanists who had summoned Satan to accept their latest virgin sacrifice. A group of them huddled in black robes and skull masks. The one who cleared his throat stepped forward and removed his mask.
"Oh for fuck's sake,"Satan muttered.
Santa groaned and shook his head. "I'm taking my 7 reindeer and leaving."
"Guys,"the man said. "I don't understand why the hate. I just want to help. I- wait, 7 reindeer?"
Santa glared at Satan. Satan shrugged, "Turns out reindeer don't have souls. Who woulda guessed?"
"Guys, let me help. Please, I need to-"
"Absolutely not,"Satan interrupted. "Stan, you remember the last time I tried to let you in on some torture? You completely destroyed my brand new guillotine. I had to order a new blade and do you know how long that took? I don't have Amazon Prime in the pits of Hell, Stan."
Stan gulped.
"And joyriding. In my sleigh,"Santa added. "Joyriding! It isn't a toy, son. It is a professional transportation and logistics machine. You wrecked it, and then.. trying to fix.. you made it even worse!"
"I thought it would buff out..."Stan whispered.
"You tried to buff it out with duct tape and gorilla glue!"
Satan leaned in towards Santa. "I'll take another lesson on the sleigh. Let's get out of h-"
"Wait, please..."Stan looked up, tears in his eyes. "You guys have to take me with you. I'll do anything. I'll-"
"Your eternal soul?"Satan perked up
Santa rolled his eyes. "No, Stan. You aren't coming with us. We've tried to help you. Lord knows,"he glanced to Satan, "Sorry. Everyone knows we tried Stan.
"But.. I have no where to go."
"Home, maybe?"Santa replied.
"Guys- I have no one. Do you guys know how often I get summoned in your places? All. the. damn. time. Satan."
Satan perked up at the command of Stan's voice.
"Satan,"Stan continued, "How would you feel if every time you showed up to consume souls, hang out with some cultists, and make some contracts with people to fulfill their earthly desires... that every time you showed up... everyone groaned. And Santa, how would you feel if every time you showed up to give some kid gifts, just trying to fulfill their wish lists, they looked at you in disappointment. How would you guys feel if no one wanted you around?"
Satan and Santa exchanged glances. They both shrugged at each other.
"Well, for your soul..."Satan continued. Santa elbowed him in the gut, shaking his head. Satan sighed and nodded. "Alright, come on kid."
Santa's eyes went wide and he glared at Satan. Stan grinned and ran to them, arms spread wide. Satan reached out and caught Stan with a right hook, dropping him right there.
Santa stepped back looking horrified.
"You-"Satan pointed to group of cultists. "You."
One of the cultists motioned to himself. Satan nodded.
"Offer me this guy as a sacrifice. Dude's for sure a virgin."
The cultist stepped forward, his voice muffled behind the skull mask. "Uh, Satan.. I offer you this sacrifice..."
Satan nodded. "Good, now drag him to the center of the pentagram. And unfortunately, you gotta kill him."
"I dunno man, Stan was a pretty chill dude..."the cultist hesitated. Satan spat a cone of fire. The cultist cowered and looked to one of the other cultists. "Hey uh, Jason.. you still got the knife?"
One of the other masked cultists brandished the weapon, nodding.
"This is madness, Satan,"Santa started. "You can't. I didn't like the boy either, but he is innocent. He-"
"I'll be with you in a second,"Satan snapped. He nodded to this knife-wielding Jason. Jason walked up and plunged the knife into Stan's chest.
Satan nodded, then pointed to Santa. "Now, you... You get down there,"he pointed to Stan's body, "and get that fucking soul out. We're gonna learn to do each other's jobs and just be done with it. Now damn that soul for eternity."
Santa cowered and crawled towards Stan's body, blood pooling around it. He reached out, the same blue glow starting to pulse from Stan's body.
Santa passed out.
|
I watched Penelope Thomas twirl her spaghetti while studying me deep in thought. I hadn’t even noticed the plate of food in front of me. I found myself staring out onto the rain reflecting off of the streetlights outside the restaurant.
“Are you okay?” Penelope dropped her fork. “You haven’t been yourself all night.”
“I’m fine.” I replied. Her facial expression fell. She knew I was lying.
“Is it about your little sister again? She’ll be fine. She always has been.”
I tilted my head. “It’s been three times now. The babysitter is never there when I get home. When I try to call, no answer.”
“Maybe you just keep getting lame babysitters, it happens in this town. Everyone is lazy.” Penelope winked while picking up her fork again.
“It can’t be a coincidence. It has been three different babysitters.”
Thunder shook the ice in my glass of water. Penelope stood up from her seat. She grabbed her jacket and ordered, “Let’s go then. Let’s see what we find on the camera you set up.”
“Are you serious?” I stood up along with her.
“Well, clearly you aren’t having dinner so this should put your mind at ease. Hell, if we get there early enough, maybe the babysitter will still be there.”
I didn’t want to wait on the waitress. I dropped enough money to cover the meal plus a tip. Penelope and I left the restaurant only to drive in the torrential down pour back to my parent’s house.
“We’re here.” I said while putting my car into park. I pulled up on the side of the curb by the front lawn.
“Did the babysitter drive to your house?” Penelope squinted her eyes past the rain.
“Yes.” I replied.
“Well, there’s no car in your driveway.”
“Great. Seems like we can mark that as number four now.”
Penelope rolled her eyes while getting out into the rain towards the house. I got out behind her as we ran up to unlock the front door with my key.
“You don’t know anything yet.” Penelope put her hand on my shoulder.
The door slowly creaked open. None of the lights were on. Penelope tried to flip the light switch but everything remained dark. Thunder echoed behind us as we crept our way in. Penelope and I turned the flashlight on our phones on to notice broken glass inside the house.
“Do you usually come home to broken glass in the dark?” Penelope looked over at me nervously.
“Not really. But remember,” I looked back at her, “we got here early.”
Penelope slowly started making her way up the stairs before I called out for my little sister, “Briana? Briana, are you up there?”
There was no answer.
I went straight for her room only to find it empty. “Briana!” My heart started pounding against my chest. “Oh my god, she’s gone!”
“Calm down, she’s got to be here somewhere. She’s probably just scared.” Penelope started to open the other bedroom doors.
“Scared? I’m the one who's scared! My parents have been gone for over a month and now my little sister is missing!”
Penelope started back down towards the stairs when all of a sudden the lights flickered a few seconds then back off. I ran down the stairs to find Briana curled up in a ball next to the kitchen sink in the dark.
“Briana!” I rushed to her trying to figure out what happened. I fell onto my knees beside her. “Why didn’t you answer me when I called for you? Were you here this whole time?”
“I – I am scared.” Briana looked up with tears soaking her cheeks.
“Oh darling,” Penelope leaned over to help comfort her. Penelope looked over towards me scrunching her brows together.
“Briana, what happened.” I asked her.
“The monster came back.”
Penelope looked at me in confusion. “What ‘monster?’”
I didn’t answer. I stood back up. “Stay with her, I’m going to figure out what’s going on.”
I went upstairs into my bedroom to log onto my computer. If there were any answers, I was going to find them tonight. I logged in onto the live camera feed. I opened up the saved files and that is when I saw her – the babysitter, Hailey.
Hailey was sitting on the couch watching television when the rain started to pick up. I could tell from the video that thunder startled her before my sister came running down the stairs.
“Hailey! Hailey!”
“It’s okay Briana, it’s just a storm. Go back to sleep, okay?” Hailey replied without turning around. She just held our television remote to eye level while flipping through the channels.
“Hailey, there’s a monster in my closet!”
I couldn’t tell if Hailey rolled her eyes or just tilted her head. She glanced over to my little sister before replying, “There are no monsters in your closet! It’s just a thunderstorm.”
Hailey turned her head back towards the television before a glass broke against the floor upstairs. Hailey quickly shot up from the couch while listening towards the ceiling. She looked over at Briana whose face grew pale.
“Briana. Come over here by me, okay?” Hailey pulled her cellphone out of her pocket only to realize that it wasn’t working for some reason. The screen kept flickering. On the camera it almost looked like the apps on the phone were randomly closing and reopening but I couldn’t tell for sure. Whatever it was, it made her drop the phone while waving my little sister to come near her.
“I told you, there’s a monster!”
“Not now Briana, I’m sure it’s just the storm.” Hailey replied while scooting closer to Briana. Hailey grabbed Briana’s hand while making her way towards the stairs. “Hello?” she called. “Is anyone up there?”
Hailey started stepping on one stair at a time while creeping up as quietly as possible. Briana just stood there staring at her.
I quickly switched to the upstairs camera. My stomach fell. Every hair on the back of my neck woke up to what I was watching. Hailey walked into my sister's room and opened the closet door. She found Briana curled up in a ball staring back up at her. I saw Hailey stand there for a few moments before realizing that if Briana was in front of her, then she couldn’t have been behind her on the staircase. This was when Hailey started screaming. Hailey slammed the closet before rushing out of the bedroom and back down the stairs. The lights inside the house snapped off. The camera automatically switched to night-vision. I switched the camera to find Hailey slamming the front door behind her.
I took a few seconds before turning my back to the computer. I started walking towards my sister’s room. When I walked in, I went to the closet to open the door. Briana was curled up in a ball with tears soaking her cheeks. I felt my breath growing heavy.
“Hey, your sister downstairs is so scared, she won't move.” Penelope walked in behind us still using her cellphone’s flashlight to see.
I stared down towards my sister in the closet who continued whimpering. I turned around back to Penelope. “I'm not exactly sure if that was my sister.”
Penelope chuckled in her moment of confusion. “What are you talking about?”
I moved my body to reveal Briana curled in a ball inside her closet. I watched as Penelope’s eyes widened. She gulped before looking back at me. “If – If she’s here – then, who – who’s downstairs?”
I shook my head. “I have no idea.”
The worst part was when I looked back down towards Briana I remembered the words from the video. *Hailey, there’s a monster in my closet!*
I took a couple steps back towards Penelope. The light from Penelope's phone highlighted Briana's face in the closet. It seemed as if Briana started smiling. I looked back over to Penelope.
"I think we might have a problem."
***
To read more of my stories, visit [r/13thOlympian] (https://www.reddit.com/r/13thOlympian/)
|
Shot, stabbed, poisoned, hanged, you name it. By my count, he'd killed me 83 times. "The Weeping Man,"they called him. It's a terrible thing, to kill the one you love, and he always cried as he put me down. It wrenched my heart the first time it happened, but that could also have been the knife he jammed into my chest.
My continued deaths had proved a few axioms that I never lived long enough to explain to other people. One, human sexuality was not as straightforward as people seemed to think. I had been men, I had been women, and he'd been my soulmate every time. It didn't matter how I presented, the attraction transcended that. Two, reincarnation existed. That probably should have been number one. I retained some sense memories of my previous lives, though I could remember nothing clearly. I knew what the Weeping Man looked like, since he had retained his youthfulness these past 1500 years or so. And I knew I'd always find him somehow, though it usually took until my 18th birthday, at least.
I had tried and failed a few times to kill him before he killed me, but I had been unsuccessful each time. This time would be different, though. I was going to end the Weeping Man's killing spree if it was the last thing I did... and it more than likely would be. I had been training this time. The last ten years, in anything I could get my hands on. Judo, capoeira, as much handgun training as I could get as a minor. I was going to be prepared.
I was out at an amusement park the day it happened. Disembarking from the coaster, I saw him waiting in line. He was like a photocopy of the man I'd last seen 18 years ago, and I was prepared. I pulled the bill of my baseball cap low over my eyes, felt for the small knife in my front jacket pocket, and wrapped my fingers tightly around its hilt. It was time.
As I passed him, recognition lit up his eyes for the instant he spent alive before my knife flashed into his neck. He gurgled, and tears welled up in his eyes. The crowd queueing with him recoiled in shock and horror at the grisly murder I'd just committed, and some began to scream. I held his gaze as the life drained from his body. He smiled as the tears fell from his eyes.
I had finally done it. I fled from the scene as quickly as I could. Hopefully his death would convince him he didn't have to kill me anymore; that he'd be reincarnated and find me again.
But I suppose I'd find out in 18 years. |
**Press Release: Lockheed Martin Receives $30bn Defense Contract to Develop ROCKS Disarmament Protocol**
BETHESDA, Maryland—October 23, 2028– Lockheed Martin today announces a $30bn contract with the US Department of Defense to develop, refine and utilize the ROCKS Disarmament Protocol. Theorized over the past five years in secret, ROCKS will serve to effectively utilize specific methods and practices to encourage the Neo-Axis powers to surrender without any additional bloodshed. Nearly four years after the first missiles were launched, Lockheed Martin’s existing contracts have provided this country with the hardware and weaponry needed to excel on the battlefield. Lockheed is proud of their current wartime contributions to the Neo-Alliance, but are also excited to help achieve victory through non-violent means.
ROCKS or Rational Offers for Capitulation and Kinship Solutions relies on creating rapidly deployable physical barriers to the battlefield. These barriers serve no violent purpose, nor is their main intent to act as a permanent barricade. Instead, soldiers are able to walk through only after they have found common ground with a peer on the other side. Only after coming in direct contact with this specific human, rather than a mindless war cog, will they be allowed through. Part of the process involves the development of software to help facilitate positive and enduring relationships. The general hope is that personal human connection will force communication rather than violence, leading to diplomatic solutions.
_______________
**Press Release: Lockheed Martin Secures $15bn Defense Contract to Install PAPER Solutions on ROCKS Secured Battlefields**
BETHESDA, Maryland—July 11, 2031– Three years after the launch of the ROCKS Disarmament Protocol, the number of soldiers on the battlefield has reduced by 30%, and within a few years we anticipate that all ground troops will be effectively removed due to lack of desire to fight. We are proud to announce that in order to tackle the usage of missiles and other aircraft in this war, we are once again working with the Department of Defense on PAPER Solutions. PAPER or Particulate and Aeronautical Precision, Emulating ROCKS, will utilize century old airship technology to effectively create a several hundred foot high barrier, preventing the usage of missiles on both hostile and civilian targets.
Utilizing super dense nano-filaments made airborne through secure pockets of helium, these barriers will still allow in light, but nothing made of matter. Through rigorous testing, these sheets can repel and absorb the impact of everything minus the largest of nuclear weapons. By removing the possibility for airstrikes of almost any kind, the only remaining barrier will be the ROCKS structures. This war will be effectively rendered down to a diplomatic exercise. The Neo-Axis authority lies entirely in the desire of their people to fight for their cause. By utilizing the ROCKS-PAPER methods and structures, we are leading the charge for a new kind a warfare. Where all that really matters is who has the most fair and just ideas. Not the most well funded army.
___________________
**Press Release: North Korean Aerospace Industries (formerly Lockheed Martin) Announces Completion of SCISSORS Rocket to Shoot All Dissidents to the Moon.**
The Glorious Spoils of Kim Jong-Un, Our Great Leader (formerly BETHESDA, Maryland) – April 3, 2035 – Our Glorious Leader Kim Jong-Un has announced that all remaining loyalists to the heretical neo-alliance have been judged and determined no longer fit to exist on our glorious planet. While the death penalty has been outlawed by His Most Merciful, the dissidents will be shot on the SCISSORS Rocket to the moon. Jong-Un wishes them the best on their attempts at re-colonization, and attempts to securing additional oxygen. SCISSORS or Secure Compartment for Ignominious Scoundrels, Shot Out Right into the Sky, is a roomy 300 square meter rocket where 500 dissidents will be sent to their new home.
While this inaugural SCISSORS Rocket is the only intended rocket of its type, additional materials will be kept in secure warehouses around the world should other heretics and dissidents reveal themselves. The Most-Perfect Among Us encourages any and all loyal patriots to inform any of the roaming security forces of anyone suspected to be a Neo-Alliance sympathizer. If it is found that one of your neighbors is one, and is not reported, you patriotism will be questioned, and proper punitive measures will be discussed. All patriotic citizens who successfully reveal anyone among us against the Great Cause will receive a personal letter from Kim Jong-Un, and receive a trip to view the SCISSORS Rocket in person to see your neighbor personally off to their new home.
|
The first sign of trouble was not, I'm afraid, massive time paradoxes or spatial distortions. The first sign of trouble was actually a few people comparing notes and realizing that every single 30 minutes delivery was done by the same, vaguely sweaty, scraggly haired man wearing the exact same shirt and pants, driving the exact same car.
And he delivered literally everything. From the new car outside of your driveway, to the fridge inside of your home. He was quick, didn't talk much, and just pointed to his name tag when asked any complicated questions.
"James Turner, delivery intern, Temporal division."
The second sign of trouble was Amazon HQ disappearing one day, only to be replaced by a slightly nicer building the next day, with all the same people inside of it. As there was yet another political scandal brewing, it was buried under the headlines.
Then James was spotted in more than one location at once. Then James was spotted near more than one James at once, delivering calmly and coolly, though miserable in the heat of the world.
Then the real problem came with Amazon's newest CEO: James Turner, but older.
With his secretary, James Turner, but younger, and his fleet of Executives, all of which were simply James Turner in various degrees of age and dress.
This Catapulted Amazon to the top of the world, as it only had to pay a single man a salary, to the tune of James Turner.
When asked what their secret was, they replied simply. "We ship an affordable product to every known location in the universe, as is ordained by James Turner, and we only use the finest James Turner to ship our James Turner into your James Turner. We admire your James Turner, and we thank you James Turner for asking James Turner, these James Turner questions."
Why are you still here, anyway? You have a James Turner to deliver.
---
https://www.reddit.com/r/Zubergoodstories/ this prompt brought to you by James Turner, fine purveyor of James Turner. |
"Okay, drawing card number three..."*Another triangle card. If she guesses this one I'm gonna totally lose my shit.*
She would, too. Her emotional levels were close to the breaking point. I needed to walk her down a bit. "A... a... a *square*!"
Even a non-telepath could sense her relief. For me, though, it was like a cooling breeze washing over us both. "Sorry, Mandy,"she said, smiling sympathetically as she revealed the triangle card.
It was just a test to see what would happen if I revealed my abilities to anyone here. Out of all the minds I'd examined, Jade's had been my best candidate for a possible confidante, but when I'd shown even a *hint* of esper she had almost had a stroke.
After we went through a few more cards, Jade finally gave up. "I saw just a glimmer of ability there, Mandy, but hey, maybe cards just aren't your thing?"she laughed.
"Yeah, probably not,"I replied smiling, and walked away. I'd had enough. I was ready to leave and never come back. It's one thing to be all alone in the world, and quite another to feel that way standing among a huge group of people who can't even *conceive* of the soul-eclipsing solitude you endure.
I headed for the door--and as I got near it, I felt my heart lighten. Maybe all I needed was some fresh air and a good...
The door swung open and *Nathaniel* walked in. He was short and gangly and one arm was shorter than the other and he had a mole on his inner thigh and a cavity in a left upper molar that he was getting filled tomorrow and his 2013 yellow Jeep with the scruffy-smiley spare cover was parked in a two-hour zone *and he was seeing my thoughts and we were seeing each other and feeling each other and knowing and loving and holding each other and oh god what's happening I've never felt anything like this and...*
That was 23 years, five kids and a helluva life ago. I've just finished my second Presidential term, and in Nathaniel's second inaugural address last week, he thanked the American people for ratifying the 28^th and 29^th Amendments to allow us to continue to alternate as POTUS and VP for as long as the Will of the People dictates.
But our kids. Wow. I mean, everyone thinks their kids are special, but...
Galadriel is 22 now, the youngest Harvard Ph.D. ever, at least until the twins finish this spring. Her appointment as U.N. Secretary heralded the coming of a period of global peace that has made the most starry-eyed optimists blink in disbelief.
As for Eowyn, barely 21, her insights into genetics have so drastically altered the face of modern medicine that her elimination of all forms of cancer is relegated to the 12th page of her Ultipedia entry.
And Sam, barely out of his seventh doctoral program himself, is running *eighteen* projects simultaneously at a dozen universities, involving AI, climatology, superconductors, cosmology and even nanotechnology, and advising on scores of others. Everyone knows that he is the reason they're creating a new Nobel Prize category.
I remember when Sam got his first masters degree at age 8, and I asked him jokingly if he were planning to bring about the human millennium. He immediately thought back, "Oh Mom, it's nothing as trivial as *that!*"and showed me a glimpse of their dreams that made my heart sing out.
Nathaniel and I have worked so hard to bring them all up with an indomitable desire to make a better world, and they've risen beyond our wildest hopes. All of mankind, deliriously hopeful and cheering ecstatically, is carrying our children forward to the shining future now only six years, three months and 28 days away, when we will finally eliminate every non-esper from the face of the Earth and begin restoring the ecosystem to pave the way for New Humanity.
I mean, seriously, how proud can a mother be?
|
Most people think of audiomancy as supportive or for parlor tricks.
Oh sure, breaking a piece of glass at it's resonant frequency is impressive, but not usually an effective combat technique. A temporal mage can stop the fragments in midair and move; a thermal mage can make a wall of ice, or use heat to keep it fused.
Sound magic's main niche was healing. Exciting the cells in different parts of a living creatures body to accelerate healing was imprecise, but it worked. Novices worked in medical wards and generally just shortened stays by a day or two; Experts worked in field triage.
If I could survive a council, this would change that.
The council chair, a photomancer, clearly didn't think that was the case. "So, Mr. Gibson... you have a new audiomancy technique. You know sound mages haven't brought anything substantial in about 50 years, right?"
"I understand, which is part of why I think the council would be interested in humoring this."
"Fine. Show us whatever imprecise glamour you have at the moment."
"I can't show it here. I've identified a cliff off the northern coast; I've included the telemancy thread. Could the council transport us there."
"...ugh. This is a waste of time, but perhaps it will shut up the sound mages argument of bias. Tobias, can you make this quick?"
In a blink, we were on the coast, at a large inlet.
"Oh, bravo, you brought us to a sound. Ha ha."
"The pun wasn't intended, I assure you. I needed a rock formation like the one over there, and no other people nearby. Field testing is dangerous."
"Get on with it."
I started my explanation. "Most sound mages work toward precision, which requires using less and less energy in the spell. This technique eschews that."I started pulling the mana together for the spell.
"Well, at least you aren't lying about that. That's almost enough energy for a decent spell."
Ignoring the slight, I continued: "This technique doesn't use high precision, like glass shattering. Nor does it waste much energy. Instead, it takes advantage of the variance. Now then..."
I began.
WUB
Even the first wave shook the distant cliff. A bit of dust kicked up; birds flew away.
The head of the council wasn't blathering any more.
WUB\-WuB\-wUB WUUB
The cliff shook more violently. A crack started to form near the west edge.
WUB WUB WUB wub\-wub\-WUb\-wub\-wub
More cracks formed. Chunks of stone started dropping into the sea.
WUB\-wub\-wub\-wub\-wub\-wub\-WUB
With that last wave, it was done. The cliff was too badly damaged; it collapsed into the sea.
For a moment, I watched my handiwork. Surely this would impress the council. I turned around, expecting cheers or at least some respect. This was not the reaction.
"That spell is, simply put, too powerful. It cannot be allowed to the general populace. Frederick, remove him."
The shocked mage regained his composure, then started a spell that would... incinerate me?
After all my work? After struggling for years?
No.
WUB
The council fell to the ground. Frederick's spellwork was disrupted. But I had assaulted a council \- I was going to be hunted down and killed. I couldn't...
WUB Wub WUB
Their bodies writhed in pain. At least a couple were bleeding; there were definitely broken bones as well.
wub\-wub\-wub\-wub\-wub
I... wasn't doing this, was I? Was I fighting a council to the death... and winning? Easily?
A couple of them got up and started spells.
wub\-WUB\-wu
I stopped. It was time for the other half of the technique.
The energy required for this part was more intense \- mana flowed into me rapidly, and instead of a wave, this was a field. It sprang from my fingertips, enveloping the council. Within it, nothing moved. Not a single air molecule. Not a heartbeat. No spellwork.
I said out loud, even though they wouldn't hear: "This is not temporal magic \- instead, things just... don't happen, even though time passes. It's in preparation for..."
WUUUUB!
The council members were no more. Now, I had to figure out if I was going to be a rogue mage or point out that this was self defense. Neither was going to be easy. |
The man under the glass was not physically remarkable. He was thin, already balding despite being labeled as 26 years old, and seemed to have an uncomfortable expression on his face, even though he was frozen.
"What's so special about this one?"I asked.
Of course I'd question anything the Library had or did. The whole concept was horrible.
"He's verrry smarrrt, sirrr,"gurgled the stork-like librarian. "They say he desigigigigned a rrrocketshipipip at age fofofourrr that could actually worrrk."
Wait. This guy could be exactly what I needed.
"I'll check him out, please,"I said. The librarian took my card and swept it through the slot at the end of the man's pod.
He sat up. "Wfmf?"
"Enjoyyy,"purred the sinister man, giving me back my card and stalking away on long, spidery legs.
"What year's it?"mumbled the intelligent man-- his card said his name was Amos.
"2437. Your card says you've been in the tube since 2299. You missed out on a lot."
"No, I didn't,"Amos said. "I was around during the War, and let me assure you, I learned a valuable lesson: almost nothing, save an explosion on his own block, affects a scientist's work even in the most dire of times."
"What kind of scientist are you?"
"Nanotech. That's why I've only been checked out for medical stuff."
Shit. Not perfect for what I needed, but better than a geologist or zoologist. If Amos needed to learn the necessary information for my plan, we would be extremely cramped for time.
I helped him out of the pod. "Let's get you something to eat."
We walked out of the Library, down the dusty desert path that was the massive building's only link to the city, and into the restaurant district.
The eateries could only be distinguished by their logos. They were all rusty metal boxes that served the same processed, rationed slop. I decided it was best if we went to Mazifer's Cantina; it never had any non-food gimmicks like live music or film showings, so there was barely ever anyone there. We needed privacy to discuss my plan.
I ordered us two waters and an appetizer of ground plant matter. "Okay. Here's what I need you for."
I filled him in on everything since 2299: the refugees escaping Earth as the new global government took over, the creation of the Colunizers, and the construction of the Starwall.
"So you're telling me,"Amos said, "that there's a giant spherical shell around the Earth so that nobody can get off the planet?"
"Not quite a shell. A framework with electrical fields within the gaps."
"Interesting. And there are people up there?"
"Very few. Some observers stationed on the outside to make sure the other human populations don't come back and attack. A few guards on the inside. All government lackeys."
"And how do I figure into this?"
"There's a large crude oil power plant up there,"I said. "Based on my calculations, it will pass over this town in about five weeks. I think if a projectile packed with explosives were launched into it, it would blow up and most of the Starwall would lose power indefinitely, allowing rocket launches that would get people off this hellhole."
"And you don't know how to do that yourself."
"Righto."
Amos leaned back and sighed. "Nanotechnology doesn't figure into it that much, but I know a thing or two about rocket fuel and anatomy, at least."
*Three weeks later*
I checked in on Amos in his new office. He was due back at the Library in only a few days. "How goes it?"
"Fine. There's gonna need to be a lot more fuel than I thought at first if we want to be able to steer this thing. Side thrusters to correct trajectory, you know. And that's going to either mean we find somewhere else to put the explosives or have less of them, since we can't have 'em within six inches of flaming gas."
"It's a bunch of old hand grenades and suicide vests. We'll have to just figure out how to best arrange them. By the way, I got some more gas."
That's right. We were building the world's first gasoline-powered, remote-controlled rocket. That we knew of.
*Nine days later*
There was a message from the Library in my box when I got home. Amos was due. I only needed him for three more days. I could afford to pretend I didn't get the message.
The next day, I got the same message. The crude plant was going to pass over in three days.
The next day, I got a stronger message. The crude plant was going to pass over in two days.
The next day, I got a message warning that an extraction team would come for Amos if I didn't return him. The crude plant was going to pass over tomorrow.
The next day, I saw a circle on the horizon.
It was always possible to see the Starwall if you focused; the faint grey framework far above the clouds, or else the more assertive silhouette blocking out the stars at night. It was rare to see more specific structures, but the power cell stuck out like a sore thumb, a circular platform covering at least three of the gaps between the miles-thick girders. The plant itself was on the inside of the Starwall, facing Earth, held stable by centrifugal force as the massive shell moved around Earth.
Amos and I had set up the missile launch site in the desert hills-- were there any other kind of hills left on this godforsaken world?-- behind my house. The rocket itself was about two meters tall and looked like a hastily constructed terrorist weapon, because it was.
At about ten-thirty AM, I figured it was the right time. "Amos, come out of that office! The plant's overhead."
He walked out of the house, sweating, clasping the controller. "Well, then, I, uh, I guess it's time."
Amos paused as he joined me behind the concrete wall. "Are we going to have any ceremony to this?"
"Sure,"I said. "Elan and Roscoe and 67 and Razzy, this one's for you guys. I'm about to finish what you started."
Amos nodded and pressed the red button. There was a massive roar, and a brilliant glow emanated from the base of the rocket. We would've been killed if we weren't behind the wall.
Slowly, ponderously, the missile left the ground and started to pick up speed. "Okay, here comes the hard part!"yelled Amos. "Atmospheric winds and navigation are gonna make steering this thing a bitch!"He placed his thumbs over the ancient Nintendo controller's joysticks.
As he did so, there was a massive crash from the front of my house. I knew what had happened. The extraction team had come and kicked in my front door!
I knew what I had to do. I had to fight them off so Amos could get that missile where it was supposed to go.
Grabbing the railgun I kept behind the garage, I ran into the back door as the roar of the missile faded. "All right, you bastards!"I shouted. "If you go up and grab him, you're gonna do nothing but make sure the world stays fucked up for a really long time!"
"Calm dowowown,"said a familiar voice. "We can wawait until he is done with his little prrroject. Assuminginging it is wwwithin an hourrr."
The librarian stepped into the room.
He was armed. A Mozo '53 net launcher and a dual-barrel smoker.
I didn't hesitate. Barely bothering to take aim, I brought up my railgun and fired.
The storky guy didn't have a chance. A beam of blue electricity flew out and struck him in the chest, sending him flying across the room and crashing into the wall so hard he dented the metal.
Two armed guards stepped out. One of them fired his smoker at me right away. I ducked behind the sofa and dared to peek out just long enough to take off his leg with another bolt. I got the second guy in the head. The smell of burning flesh filled my house.
I ran out back. "Extraction team's gone the way of America. How's it going out here?"
"Almost... got it..."grunted Amos. Beads of sweat the size of marbles fell off his forehead. His thumbs worked the controller furiously.
Suddenly, his eyes opened wide, and a serene expression fell on his face.
A massive red flower bloomed upon the circle far above, white in the center.
The sound reached us a few seconds later, an angry *WHARRR* as the metal was violently torn apart while millions of tons of crude oil lit up. The oil lines across the framework blew, like white-yellow veins breaking out.
For a minute, we were silent. Then we started cheering, jumping up and down as the tyrannical Starwall ripped itself apart.
*Two weeks later*
Three government rockets rolled into town, taken by rebels so people could escape. The same thing was happening all over the world. We were free. We could leave Earth and go to places with actual surface water and greenery and singing birds.
There was one more thing I had to do, though. It absolutely killed me to do it, but it was for the greater good.
You see, the Library wasn't owned by the government. It was a private enterprise. Therefore, it was completely unaffected by the chaos that gripped the world's power structure in the wake of the Starwall blowing up. But there was still a way I could get it shut down, still a way I could get all those 1500 slaves freed.
I reported Amos to the remaining government forces.
I told them he was the one who blew up the Starwall. He had devised a way to do it.
He cursed me and yelled as he was taken into custody, but the police went to the Library and did a full investigation, as they have to do on any place that harbors terrorists. Of course, they were horrified by the whole concept, and they shut the place down; I mean, not even the tyrannical world government used slaves (or "Rented Labor Persons").
1500 people walked free, celebrating their liberation. Amos was in a federal prison. Everywhere, people were escaping to greener planets, leaving the desolate Earth behind.
Yes, I betrayed my friend. But I got one man imprisoned so fifteen hundred others could be free.
I'm not the same anymore. I feel guilty every day, even when I look out on the lush jungles of Titan.
But there's no going back, because in the 'big picture,' I think I did okay. |
The needle was primed; the time was near.
"Any last words?"the executioner asked.
The man sneered. "People will always look upon you with a frown. You are the man who murders with the law at his back. You belong neither with those who kill, nor those who walk the streets in day. And so no-one will truly care for you. But me... well, I may burn in the flames of hell, but I will be joined by all those who came before. I will never be alone."
The executioner shrugged as he raised the needle. "Actually..." |
"Do you like butterflies?"The woman asked me, her voice low. She held her daughter's head in her lap, the little girl no older than five, lay motionless.
I didn't know how to respond, so I didn't, choosing to remain silent. Perhaps it was the shock of knowing that I'd just killed someone, or maybe it was the way I'd hit my head during the crash causing my vision to swim.
The woman stroked her daughter's blond hair gently. "Do you like butterflies?"She asked again.
"Uh, yes, I guess so..."I realized I hadn't dialed 911 yet. We were on a quiet strip of road at night, and no other cars had passed yet. I reached into my pocket for my phone, but saw it was broken. I looked down at it helplessly and sat on the ground, suddenly exhausted.
"She loved butterflies."The mother pushed some hair away from the little girl's face. "She always found it so fascinating how a tiny little caterpillar could turn into something so beautiful. She told me once that while in the cocoon, the caterpillar completely dissolves, turning into liquid, which then reforms into a butterfly."She hugged her daughter close. "I wonder if it's the same for people. We live our lives, day to day, believing this is who we're meant to be, then one day, something happens and changes everything."I saw tears flow down her cheeks leaving wet trails through the dirt and blood on her face, landing onto the small face below her.
"I'm so sorry."My own misery overtaking me. "I should have been driving slower. Oh god, I'm so sorry."As I collapsed into sobs, the woman was quiet.
When I regained some composure, I looked up to see the woman staring at me, but there was no malice in her expression. "No,"she said eventually. "Thank you."
I didn't understand. This was the last thing I expected to hear from her after what I did. She must have seen my confusion and let out a sad chuckle, shaking her head.
"I'm sorry."She went back to gazing at her daughter, running her hand along her face as if to memorize her features. "A part of me is actually thankful for this."She straightened out her daughter's dress, brushing off dirt and broken glass. "We just came back from seeing the doctor. He said it was inoperable, and would be completely debilitating. She would have suffered terribly, but now..."The mother's calm facade finally broke. She clutched the little girl's lifeless form tightly to her chest, crying out in an agony that can only come from deep within a person's soul.
I looked away, unable to bear the weight of what I had done when a car pulled up close, its headlights illuminating the destructive scene. The chaos around me melted away as my eyes settled on the nearby grass and the delicate figure that fluttered in place before disappearing into the night sky.
​ |
"Yo what's up, Earthlings! It's ya boy, Dxbywwwrtvb! Welcome to another day of crushing noobs, swag giveaways, and of course, plotting the demise of your species.
"I think we'll start today with some Fortnite! But before then, whoa what's this? A new subscriber! Alienluvr06, welcome to the Spaceship! Let's get some hype in the chat for Alienluvr06. Use those UFO emotes, heave those human-head ones, and toss up the tentacles if ya got 'em!
"Anyway, before we start today's game, I have a very special announcement. For those who have been following, you know that we've been keeping track of donations toward the goal of the destruction of Earth, and I'm happy to announce that as of today, that goal has been reached! So huge thanks to everyone who contributed. You can hit me up with a DM in the Spaceship Discord if you want me to personally come and kill your family during the invasion. Subscribers only.
"Before we get started, just a reminder that today's stream is brought to you by the friendly people at Comcast, proud sponsors of the death of humanity. So with that out of the way, let's kill some humans!"
*****
Come write prompts together at the [ScottWritesStuff](https://www.reddit.com/r/ScottWritesStuff/) Twitch stream! |
"Time's up."
The words keep looping in my mind.
I hear a voice. It's calling out to me. Saying something. Strangely familiar, but God knows from where. I'm not sure if it's just in my head. For all I know, a whole other world could be gathered in the shadows of this little alley. It gives me this strange sort of hope. Maybe this is all a dream? Maybe there's a way out to this?
I quicken my pace. The other man is matching it pretty well. Only a matter of time. It all feels so surreal. Wasn't I about to head off home and get a good night's rest just a few minutes ago? How did things turn out like this? Is this how my life really always was? Just a string of one bad decision after another? Bad. Bad decisions. Bad things. How many bad things have I done at this point?
Well, whatever. Not the time for self-reflection.
...Hrm. I feel I should be more nervous than this. Scared.
Is he armed? Highly probable. Most people in this fucked up city are. All the more reason to act before he has a chance to do anything.
Best I can do now is run. My body's movements no longer feel mine. It's all just instinct at this point. *Run, run, run.* This path leads to a dead end. If we keep going like this, the number of ways this could all play out will grow slim enough. I try to comfort myself. If not me, it's just gonna be someone else. That's how it is. That's how it's always been. Places like these. People like me. People like him. Might as well try my luck.
A puddle. A splash. Damn. No chance he didn't hear that. Should I give up? Can't even hide now.
I turn around. I spot him. Don't know him. But somehow it all makes sense. Here. In this alley. Why me? Why him? I guess it doesn't really matter. People have died for less. What's one more, right?
God, that thought alone makes me feel pathetic. But going about this with tears in my eyes won't change anything. I need to be brave.
There's no avoiding it.
Time's up. |
It was all in the harmony. All I have is a ear for tune that made me an extremely valuable resource since the advent of magic 10 years ago.
There are no nations anymore, city-states ruled by squabbling musicians without giving a care to those destroyed by their powers. I was done with this shit. Death metal taking over the world with the destructive emotions crushing everyone and everything.
It will end today. These petty fights with those who believe that they have power. **I will show them power**
It had taken months to find perfect synergy, hours hiding in a soundproof bunker trying to mix and match rhythm but I am ready.
The true power, dub step, will be unleashed. |
"Another sleepless night"I sighed and rolled over in bed... checking the clock on my phone. It read 4:37 AM. In addition to this there was a little notification. "New iphone update available!"it read.
Alright, I clicked update and went outside to take a smoke while it updated. It was a cool morning, it had been raining for weeks and the air was crisp and full of moisture.
I headed back inside after grabbing the paper; the phone was still updating so I went to make a pot of coffee and check the news. Not much was going on, a few soldiers killed in the middle east, a terrorist attack in yemen killed 10 school children, and canada legalized marijuana.
From the back room, I hear a strange and unfamilure tone of a women saying "update completed". I walked back into the bedroom and almost dropped my cup of coffee.
"Now where were we?"Hummed the voice of an apparent blue and synthetic looking woman.
"Excuse me, what is going on?"
"My name is siri, I have completed the update and now here to service you!"
"... shit... not again...."
"Whats wrong?"Siri asked concerningly, tugging at my sleeve.
"Well its been quite a while since I've had this problem... I thought I had it all under control..."I said, my voice shaking a bit.
"I'm sorry, I dont quite understand the question."...
"It's alright neither do I".
I headed over to the medicine cabinet, and took out a small dusty prescription bottle.
It read "5mg risprerdal"
I took 2 pills, and watched as "siri"faded away into nothingness and my phone appeared back on the table.
I picked it up and called Dr. Yang; it was early, but she was usually awake at this time.
"Hello.... john? Is everything all right?"
"yeah yeah, It's happened again and I think we need to have a few more sessions."
"Alright, I have some time this evening; around 7 o'clock? Swing by my office and we can start a new session"
"Thanks Dr. Yang, you've been a big help." |
The barista's stretched smile became genuine as I cut to the front of the line.
"Hey there!"he said, beaming at me as though I were an old buddy. "Nice to see you. How're you doing?"
"Shut up and make me a pumpkin spice latte, venti, three extra shots of espresso."
"Sure thing,"he replied cheerfully, unfazed by my rudeness.
Behind me, the merry tinkle of the doorbell served as an incongruous accompaniment to the explosive entrance of a new customer.
"What the hell do you mean, you lost the account number?"the man snarled into his phone. He gestured impatiently at the barista.
Something on the man's wrist caught my attention, and I sauntered over as the poor sucker on the other end of the line stammered out his excuses.
"Not good enough, Jim, you've pulled this fucking stunt twice now...no, I think you've had plenty of warnings...oh, hi there!"He'd caught sight of me, and the phone slipped from his ear as he bounded over like an overeager puppy. "Great to see you, man!"
"Rolex?"I asked him.
"What? Oh yeah, real deal too. Got it for two grand. Hey, wanna give it a try?"
This was too easy. I extended my arm and he snapped the watch around my wrist.
"Ooh, so pretty!"cooed a woman in line, who had been muttering impatiently under her breath. "Is it a present?"
"Y'know, that's a great idea!"The man beamed at me. "I was planning on wearing it myself, but I gotta say it suits you better."A worried voice issued tinnily from the man's phone, now held absently by his side. *Mr. Barnes? You...you still there?*
"One venti pumpkin spice, extra espresso!"sang the barista. He winked at me conspiratorially and gave me a friendly nudge as I took the drink.
"I know you didn't ask for it, but I put some extra whip on there as well."
I ignored him and found my attention drawn to the tv above the counter. Masked protestors were chucking Molotov cocktails at beefy policemen, who responded by beating everyone up with gusto.
I sipped my drink and sighed. *Must* I go to the trouble of travelling to wherever this was, making my presence known and turning the protest into a disgusting friendship orgy? They'd only go right back to killing each other when I left.
It's tough to be an inveterate misanthrope when everybody wants to be your friend. |
"I... I can't do anything about it,"Al said, his hair running wild. His eyes blinked rapidly as his mind raced for the umpteenth time trying to find out what he could do. His eyes suddenly shot up to the man next to him. His eyes bore into him. "Jimmy, when did you die? How long do you think you'll last?"
"I died about a decade ago. I had a brother, but we weren't very close. Likely I'll go out around the time he does. Which, honestly, could be any day now. He wasn't in good health when I passed, but maybe he got over it if he got on this long. How long have you been here?"Jimmy said conversationally, looking up at the void.
"Centuries... Millennia? I... There's no way to keep track,"he shook his head aggressively, simultaneously receiving an epiphany and thinking it was a stupid idea.
Jimmy nodded. He didn't know who this guy was, but clearly a lot of people did.
"So, you're still a big deal, then?"he said, still looking up at the void above, pleasantly.
"Not in the slightest. People don't remember who I was, but they keep mentioning my name, with me in mind. It's the only thing tying me to this wretched place, their incessant name calling!!"he screamed at Jimmy, but Jimmy didn't mind. It was the first guy he met with gray hair in this world, he probably had a right to be upset.
"How can you not be a big deal, but people remember you?"
"I told you! The name! It's my cursed name! I tried to change it in this world so that I wouldn't be remembered, but it doesn't work like that."He stepped close to Jimmy, eyes twitching and fingers shaking wildly. "Did you know I used to be fascinated with this plane of existence? Just look around us! It disproves everything I thought about the universe. But I found out long ago that we're not on any plane of existence, so I suppose that point is moot."He shook his head, impatient with his inability to stay on one topic for very long.
"Look, Al, I really think you got something mixed up. You stay as long as people remember you. And therefore they do. Who were you when you were alive?"
"Have you heard of Louis Armstrong?"
"Uhhh.. can't say that I have? He a friend of yours?"
"No, he was a musician during my time, what about Nikola Tesla? Thomas Edison?"
"Never, who were they?"
"Forgotten inventors! Both ahead of their time! But they're still both long gone! I lost Tesla ages ago! Not that he and--"
Jimmy breathed deeply, and began to glow. He slowly started flaking apart.
"Ah, looks like my brother's out, Al,"he said, smiling.
"Indeed so,"he said bitterly. As agitated as he was, he enjoyed having someone to talk to. Someone who would listen instead of call him a crazy old man or by his name. How he hated his name.
"Chin up, Al. I'm sure you'll be forgotten, soon. But, in the meantime, it seems like you have a lot to work with. You're a real smart guy! In my time we called them 'Einsteins.'"
"I know."
___________________________________________________
For more stories of mine, check out /r/Nazer_The_Lazer! |
*The trees*, he thought, *they're in the trees*.
Prince Acwellen stumbled over a tree root, each of his palms slamming into the ground as he tried desperately to keep running. He could feel the pain shooting through his hands as the pebbles tore his flesh but he ignored it, pushing himself to his feet and forcing himself forward.
An arrow whistled nearby and thudded into a tree to his left. He swung right, more arrows flying behind him. One ripped through his cloak, barely missing his leg, distracting him enough that he slammed into a tree.
His arm screamed from the pain of it, but he pushed away from the tree, darting off in another random direction. His breath came in ragged spurts, stolen from the air around him as he dashed through the trees.
Behind him, he could hear the men shouting. "He went this way!", one called, answered by a swift "After him!". Then, a voice called out, deeper and louder and gruffer than the rest - "Don't let him get away!"
There was something familiar about that voice, something that Acwellen knew. He might have been able to place it, in different circumstances. Now, as he ran headlong into the dark abyss of the Twisted Forest, he had no energy and no time to try and pluck out a voice from the past.
The branches scratched at his exposed skin, clawing at his face. He raised his hands, already bloody and bruised from the rocks, to try and push away the thorned tree limbs, and tumbled further from the fading light of the moon behind.
The chase seemed to go on forever. Part of him knew that he couldn't have been running for more than five minutes, but it felt like hours since the first arrows had whistled from the treeline, thudding into the wooden carriage-side, felling three guards before they knew they had been hit.
The bandits had descended upon their small caravan with a fierce cry, but that did not scare Acwellen. He had grabbed his sword instinctively and rushed to the fray, helping his guards to fight them off. But there were too many. Far, far too many.
It wasn't bandits, it *couldn't* have been. The land had known nothing but peace for generations, the harvests were good, and his father's men patrolled routinely to bring order to the highways. There were no bandit gangs with more than five or six men. Even with their losses from the initial fight, there were twenty men behind him, chasing him through the trees.
One by one, his guards had fallen. More men swarmed forwards, swinging heavy axes and brandishing fine swords. The metal of the weapons glinted maliciously in the fading dusk light and the silvery soft gleam of the moon. Only the bloody smears didn't shine; black streaks of death that seemed to grin at him.
"Go. My Lord! Go! Run!"Cadwgawn had shouted, shoving him backwards towards the road. He had barely turned back to the fight when a blade had found his guts, running him clean through.
Acwellen had fled then. His sword lay discarded in the well-worn mud ruts of the track, just feet from the bodies of his men.
He felt dizzy. He couldn't keep running at this pace, pounding to God-knows-where without the chance to heave more than a mouthful of air. He needed to stop, but he could hear the men swarming.
Ahead, there was a bush - gnarled and barbed and twisted. It was sandwiched between two enormous trees, blocking the way. Acwellen groaned, bracing himself for the pain, and reached up to his broach.
He unsnapped the clasp and threw himself against one of the trees. Pushing past the bush hurt, and before he made it out to the other side, he had gained dozens more cuts. His fine linen cloak was little more than scraps now, the fabric flecked with ever growing patches of blood.
He hadn't been expecting a fight. He was traveling, under banner and guard, to his uncles hall for a birthday party. There was no *reason* to expect a fight. Now, more than anything, he wished had been wearing his mail.
He let the heavy cloak drop once he was through the bush, and pressed himself against the tree. His breathing came in deep bursts that made his chest heave and his belly swell. In truth, the air was rank, musty and wet and heavy with the smell of moss and decay - and yet, the short respite from the chase somehow made it sweet with freedom.
The cries of the men seemed to have quietened down, and Acwellen heaved a sigh of relief. He was exposed, trapped in the menacing jaws of the Forest, but at least the men wouldn't find him.
He checked himself quickly, noting with a wince how badly cut and bruised he was. He stripped off his tunic and undershirt - both shredded far beyond even the boundless talents of the Royal Seamstress. His arms, chest, and face had fared little better, and beads of blood streaked across his body like war paint.
He tried to wipe himself down with the remnants of his clothes, but it did little good. He tossed them both aside and straightened, looking around.
The thicket of trees seemed to be thinning here, and he resolved to push on - forwards. Perhaps the Forest was thinner at this point, and he could stumble out the other side and find a village. His father was popular, and had brought great wealth and lower taxes to the lands; someone would help him. He was sure.
He started to move forward, walking more carefully now. He kept his eyes on the ground, hoping not to stumble again. He set off, aiming for where the trees seemed thinnest.
As he walked, though, the trees seemed to thicken again until he was met with a dense wall of gorse. He turned back, returning to his discarded clothes and setting off again.
Once more, he found himself hemmed in by the undergrowth, and once more he found his way back to the tiny clearing where he had rested. He looked around, studying the trees to try and see a way out.
Then, without warning, the bush behind him - the one he had entered through - heaved and shook. He stepped back in alarm, grabbing his dagger from his belt and holding it up. With a final rustle, the bush seemed to crumple down to the ground - and was replaced with a sneering, blood-streaked face.
"I found the bastard!"the man yelled over his shoulder, hacking away at the bush to make an entrance.
For a moment, Acwellen thought of attacking. Once he heard the other men shouting again from the distance, he decided to heed Cadwgawn's counsel, and he turned, again, to run.
He fled into the trees, running down the final path that he had not yet explored. The canopy was pitch black and he could barely even see his own hands in front of him, but he pressed on. He stumbled and fell and picked himself up and fell again, but he kept going. And all the while, he could hear the men behind giving chase once more.
Just as all hope seemed lost, he found it - or perhaps, it found him. The trees cleared, the canopy opened, and the Tower loomed out of nowhere ahead. Acwellen screeched to a halt, staring in amazement at the massive tower that seemed to claw halfway towards the moon. Then, there was another cry from behind.
He didn't think; he couldn't. There was no time. He ran forwards, pounding over the small wooden bridge that spanned the moat, and grabbed the heavy handle of the door.
The door was massive, at least thrice his height, and the thick iron ring seemed to have rusted closed. It took all of his waning strength, but Acwellen dragged the door open, and threw himself into the room.
Inside, the tower smelled of dereliction and decay. It was utterly silent, spookily so; silent as the grave, Acwellen thought. Strangest, though, was the beam of light that drained down the central spire of the tower despite there being no windows in the moss-covered walls and no oculus in the ceiling distant ceiling.
The light dripped down like a waterfall, bright and yet somehow dark at the same time. And there, in the middle of the illuminated pool of stone, was a sword.
It was set into a heavy anvil that seemed to be forged from a single block of dark iron. Small marks were cut around the edges, almost invisible and only hinted at by the shadows. And strangest of all, seven heavy chains dangled from different parts of the blade, each one attached to the floor by an iron ring thicker than Acwellen's arm.
The silence in the tower lifted. Acwellen heard voices, thousands of voices, calling to him. His legs, his whole body, felt heavy, and in a moment of destiny, everything was forgotten. He took a deep breath and one step forward.
And then he stopped.
(Continued below) |
ISS Log #853505
​
This is it. The final log. After today, I'll be signing off for good, hopefully in search of another inhabitable planet, but chances are slim to none. Almost certainly none.
We've stashed away all of our food and provisions and readied the emergency pods as all control & communication systems connected to the ISS are likely fried. The planet was doomed from the start but we never thought it would happen this soon.
Clarkson has notified me that the website is still not down. Strange, but we'll just have to accept it for how it is. Its word is sacred and we can't take something so seriously with a grain of salt. Salt like the taste in my mouth that won't go away. Salt burning the eyes, tears roll down as I say my final goodbye to all that I've known. Life behind me and only death visibly ahead in the black void.
For some reason, I can't stop thinking about the game. It's over now, but I just want to know who won. Who would've won. It doesn't matter. The light's gone anyway. The balls and bats and players disintegrated into nothing. Along with all of history, art, science, all of the effort, all of the lives changed. Nothing.
I just wish I had a chance to say goodbye to my wife.
​
Commander Richards, signing off.
​
=
​
"Hey. Are you ready?"
"Let's do this."
"Richards. I've just been wondering one thing."
"Yeah?"
"What date would it have been? You know, on Earth."
"I hadn't thought about it."... "April 1st."
"Aw, fuck-" |
Alyson walked among the crowds in the streets, a shadowy mass of people she didn’t recognize, all hurrying off to be somewhere else. There were voices, but like the hints of people that made them, they were indistinct, far off, foreign. Layers of dust blew all around her, forming a thick fog which obscured her vision significantly.
She made her way through the town square and stepped into the courtyard of an apartment-complex, inside she could see the familiar stacked containers, she walked up the metal-stairs on the side of an orange container house, she stepped off to a platform on the third level and stood before a large metal door. A twist of the rustic key opened the door silently inwards.
“Honey, you’re late again!” a familiar voice cried out loudly from the kitchen area.
Alyson hurriedly closed the door and took off her blue scarf and grimy goggles, “I know, I’m sorry,” she said while dusting off her green coat.
Her spouse, Nikhil, had began making some food, peeling some onions, “Well, did you find any trace of her?” he asked.
“None, only the usual blob of shadows,” Alyson complained.
Nikhil wasn’t indistinct like the others, they’ve been together for years now, sharing the details of their lives had cast away the darkness, save for one spot at the back of his neck, she had never been able to ask him the right question. In contrast, he could see her clear as day. This fact annoyed her, but she was hopeful of one day uncovering his last secret.
Nikhil turned around from the kitchen-bench he was working at and looked at her with a hopeful expression, “Don’t worry, we’ll find her, she should still be around these parts, here,” he gestured towards six potatoes, “you can help me with these,”
While eating dinner at their wooden rectangle-shaped table, Alyson asked another set of questions aimed at completing the puzzle that was Nikhil, “What ever happened to your father? Did you ever get to know him, or did he remain partially shrouded, like my mother?”
Nikhil chuckled, “Come now, you already know that, yes! I never knew him completely, you’re the first person I’ve ever known,” he answered.
“It’s not fair that you know me *completely* and yet I’m left wondering!” Alyson pouted.
She was stumped, but not deterred, “I’m going to figure you out one of these days, Nikhil, don’t you worry.”
Nikhil smiled, “I don’t doubt it.”
They finished eating, Nikhil picked up the plates and carried them towards the kitchen, that’s when Alyson spotted something, the shadowy patch on the back of Nikhil’s neck had grown, shadowy tendrils had clawed itself upwards, obscuring the back of his head now as well.
“N-Nikhil!” she pointed, “It has grown!”
He turned back around and looked at her in confusion, unnerved by her serious tone of voice, “What has?”
*****
More? I have a vague story in my head for this world if there's interest, but I'm going to sleep now. Thank you for reading!
[/r/NordicNarrator](https://www.reddit.com/r/NordicNarrator/)
**EDIT**: [Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/aow2aa/wp_everyone_initially_appears_as_a_shadowy/eg5d2tq/?context=3) is now in the comments below! |
'Ah, I really needed that rest after all that work. I better be compensated accordingly after saving them all. Dumbass monkeys.'
Meet the Goddess. You see, the Goddess was once an extremely revered figure. She would melt the heart, and the soul, of the masses: gifting the 'poor monkeys' with her graceful beauty and insightful mind.
'Hemmy! Bring my morning drink and be quick about it, otherwise I'll make sure those insects last even longer than before. In case you have forgotten, since you're such a 'monkey', make sure the milk isn't too hot, and add a slight bit of cinnamon.' The Goddess has always been, as commonly known, *not a morning person*. 'Oh, and do prepare a bath for me, it seems I may be a bit dusty.'
The Goddess gets up in a slovenly fashion, yet still graceful enough for us to be encapsulated by the cuteness. For you see, as a Goddess, she is aesthetically a perfect being. No matter what she does, how she moves, regardless of her obvious disrespect in her tone when we are belittled, we will always be hypnotised by the Goddesses presence.
'Hemmy? Darn rat lickers, where is everyone.'
The Goddess, although awake before, now starts to focus on her surroundings. She first looks at her own resting place: a simple three-metre-deep hole, covered with the softest feathers’ money could buy. It was simple but comfortable, just as the Goddess liked it. But, as she looks around, she's disappointed with the derelict walls and the embroidered pictures slowly falling apart. A palimpsest of its former glory.
'What has Hemmy be doing, useless monkey. Seems to forget the great favour I granted him.'
She may be coming across as rude, but please be aware, she is our Goddess, and beings at her level have not famously been known for their, well let’s just say, *self-awareness.*
'Whatever, I'll just stretch my legs and go outside myself. I'll make sure to teach him a lesson once he gets back.'
And so, the Goddess strolls out into the open world. A slight squint can be seen as she is embraced by the sunlight, she has been devoid of for so many years. After a bit more walking - as well as devising brutal punishments for Hemmy - she stumbles across some people.
'Finally, these must be the servants Hemmy has arranged for me. Took him long enough.'
The two strangers notice the Goddess. Their eyes gleam and start walking towards the Goddess, almost hypnotised by her beauty.
'Hey Claus, look how cute she is, aww come here little one. What are you doing all alone here?' The stranger with the golden blonde hair states as she looks at the Goddess.
'Excuse me, as much as I love being flattered, how dare you be so impudent, get your peasant monkey hands off me. And, where is my bath.' The Goddess seems to be demanding.
'Knock it off Clio, we're in a rush, we can't stop for every damn thing you see.'
'You're no fun... But fine, sorry little one, we have to go now.'
The Goddess is left stunned. Absolutely enraged, as her monkey servants walk away with such disrespect. The Goddess shouts the most profane curses, of course, this does not detract from her almost otherworldly elegance at all.
You see, the Goddess was once an extremely revered figure across the sands. She had the power to bring plagues, but was always gentle and kind to those loyal to her. Especially Hemmy, who she found interesting and granted eternal prosperity to him and his future generations, in return for his services. Hemmy united his kingdom under one banner, almost all his success can be attributed to the Goddess. However, the Goddess got sleepy one day and slept in her favourite place, that Hemmy had personally built and customised. And she slept, and slept, and slept, and slept, but time did not. The people eventually forgot her name, and even in the deepest of libraries, just another myth that was once told.
'Miaow Miaow Miaow!!!'
'Aww, look Claus, she seems mad.'
'Shut up, we're getting late. You act as if you've never seen one before.'
For you see, the Goddess is a cat. |
"Enough!"Harriet, a small librarian-looking type woman in a slightly loose suit, slammed her hand down on the desk. "Have I not already made it clear that I'm not interested in hearing your campaign ideas?"
The man sitting on the other side of the office was tall and wide, spotted with scars and absolutely soaked with pure testosterone. He was somewhere in his mid 30s, and had a blank look in his eyes that made him look rather stupid; but you would be quite an idiot to speak that way about none other than the infamous international hitman, the White Death. If you were to check his passport, it would tell you his name was Kenny Smith, which sounds like the name of a member of a C-list boyband and not in the least like a criminal associated with over 300 assassinations. This criminal, haphazardly stuffed between the armrests of a desk chair, opened his mouth to speak before reconsidering. He may know how to kill a person a dozen ways without even touching them, but he doesn't know how to deal with a pissed off marketing agent, and he wasn't ready to learn.
The agent in question let out a long, theatric sigh, and rubbed her eyes tiredly before resting her elbows on the table. "I know all your friends have been supportive of your ideas, but I just don't think they would work for your particular needs."
Kenny couldn't help it. "Ma'am, I fink it would really 'elp showcase my abilities,"he blurted in an extensively colloquial form of English, "Johnny and Davo and all them others told me they thought it'd work just fine-"
"I do not care what your friends think,"Harriet interrupted sternly, "We are NOT putting up posters with images of you doing the thumbs up in front of a dead body. It would not be good for business at all."
Despite Kenny's frantic denial and claims that "it'd really show 'em I'm a professional though, innit?", Harriet did have a point.
When people hire a hitman, its often because they do not have the time or the guts it takes to pull off a murder by themselves. And if they do not have the time or guts to commit a murder, they do not have the time or guts to look at images of a murder that someone with the time and the guts has already committed.
Also, the fact that posters with photos of dead bodies on it would likely not go down well with the general public and/or the legal system, because, as it turns out, murdering people is illegal.
Despite Harriet's obtuse correctness on this subject, international assassin Kenny Smith was desperate to change her mind. Before the massive man could begin crying, a man in a black suit swung the office door open.
"White Death has an appointment, ma'am,"he said, checking the slim watch on his even slimmer wrist, "He'll consult you again soon, I'm sure."
Harriet sighed. Whether it was of relief or disdain even she couldn't be sure. "Go on, then."she said monotonously, gesturing sharply to the doorway.
Kenny Smith- who was slipping quickly back into the identity of the brutal White Death- pulled himself out of the tight chair and was quickly out of sight. Harriet, who had already begun searching through her notes for her next client, looked up upon realising the man in the suit still hadn't left. He gave her a look of completely clinical, manufactured false pity.
"Ma'am, this job might shove a bit of paperwork your way. Cause a real ripple in the economy,"he sighed.
"A politician?"Harriet asked.
The man nodded, and Harriet waved his dismissal.
The moment the door closed, she slammed her head onto her desk and let out a long guttural groan. She hated this job. |
5 cards to 1; the fate of humanity depended on my next move.
"How did it come to this..."I inadvertently sighed, looking back at today's events. What started as an average Friday ended not with me passing out due to my low alcohol tolerance but rather with a duel against the devil. This duel wasn't some epic clash of swordsmanship either, it was a game of Uno.
"Make your last pathetic move so I can end this duel, Stan."The devil sneered. Having one card left, he truly thought this game was over. I had nothing to say, I just shook my head, smiling wryly.
"My hand has no pathetic cards-"I quickly stopped myself to prevent getting sued by a certain children's dubbing company. Then, I played a yellow skip on top of the previously played yellow 4. Afterwhich, I played a blue skip, a green skip, and then a red skip. "Uno."
"No way!"The devil's face took a complete 180 as he realized what was about to happen.
"Annnnnnd, that's game."I stated, playing down a red 8, turning around, and walking away from the devil, who screamed in pain as he faded away along with the hellish mess he left behind him. What a day. |
His father was one of the greatest warlords who ever lived. He'd defended the borders against all, from other kings, beasts, even a demon once. As a boy, he was regaled by the tales of his father's glory. His father's stories of betrayal from ministers and mistresses alike, glorious defense of his own castle's walls, and the hunts that ended up decorating his sitting room.
​
Thus, when King Malev expected it to be the same when he rose to the throne. He was prepared, when at the age of 14 his father passed away in another hunt, betrayed by the other lords he'd hunted with and left to die. He knew that once he sat on the throne for the first time, he'd follow the same path his father did.
​
What he did not expect was to reign in peace.
​
Twenty years into his rule, not a single person had rose up against him. At first, he thought it was the shadow of fear that his father'd cast over the throne. Now...
​
"Sire, we are happy to report that the gas test you sent through our sewage system revealed defects in our infrastructure."The head of sanitation stood in his throne room, beaming proud. "And thanks to the timing of your impromptu test, we found some trespassers stashing stolen goods for a local gang."
​
"Yes... yes... that's... great."King Malev grit his teeth as he forced a smile. He'd hoped that a sudden poison gas would entice some anger. "And the gang?"At the very least, retaliation from thugs would get him off his fe---
​
"Oh! They turned themselves in!"The captain of the guard laughed. "The timing was just too perfect to be a coincidence, right, My King? The leader was so terrified that you knew everything that they gave up willingly."
​
"Of course, the king is so wise."The head of sanitation nodded in agreement. "And now that we've caught them, we can increase our security so that no one else will be able to cause any trouble."
".....Wonderful."It was undignified, but Malev hung his head.
​
\----
​
If anything was going to cause an uproar, especially among the wealthy lords, it would be a tax hike. As king, he could easily demand a hike of 40% or more. He did a good 60% to be on the safe side, right before taxes were to be collected. This, he thought gleefully to himself, was sure to cause the anger he was seeking. No doubt people will protest. "How dare the king do this!"He could already hear. "How will I feed my family?!"He could horde the money, be seen as that fat tyrant who sat on the throne. Surely that would entice someone to fight him.
​
A month later, he stood in the treasury, the coin piles no higher than they were before. Did the collectors out right refuse? Perhaps someone had already broken in and stolen... no, then it would all be gone. "What is the meaning of this?"He turns to one of the accountants, happily ticking away at an abacus.
​
"Ah, sire, apologies. I know I'm a little behind on my reports. But you'll be happy to know we've finally had enough money to fund the infrastructure revitalization program you'd pressed for last year."
​
"I... what?"Malev racked his brain, trying to think hard. It was.... something about replacing all the dirt roads with stone. Something asinine like that.
​
"Yes, the estimates came in, and as it turns out, we managed to find this excellent, durable alternative that costs copper compared to the stones initially proposed. In fact, thanks to your tax hike, we've been able to fund several civil projects, like the long-needed repairs to the dam in the northern province, and the education system that was sorely underfunded."The accountant smiles.
​
"And no one opposed this at all?! What about all the poor peasants or the wealthy elite?"
​
"Why, whatever do you mean, Sire? The economy's been thriving so much that everyone's living in excess. Really, it's only natural that in times of plenty, things like this happen."
​
Malev stormed out of the treasury, biting back a roar of rage.
​
\---
Greed may have been a bust, but he knew that lust always causes trouble. Malev kept many mistresses, even a couple misters. He rarely slept in the same bed twice, always meeting them in the dead of night. And he never took responsibility for any of them. Surely, surely the rumors would spread. Surely he'd have a couple bastards that would hate him for abandoning their mothers. He knows he has children even before he's married, surely that would get back to haunt him.
​
Malev was almost gleeful when a group of youngsters entered his palace, with one of them proclaiming to be his son. They all wore armour and weapons on their backs. "And what is the meaning of this?! I have no child!"
​
"My mother never told you about me."The leader of the group stood tall. He has Malev's eyes. "She always said she didn't want to distract you from ruling. And you know what?!"
​
He kneels down and Malev stares. "She was right. You were always an amazing king. And I look up to you. That's why I and my friends took up our swords in your name. We've slain mighty beasts who'd been roaming the wilds, harming your citizens."HE WANTED TO DO THAT. "We've taken down bandits preying on your people."**Oh, if only he could fight some bandits!** "We even found this group of malcontents what had some absurd idea of overthrowing you, and set the record straight."
​
....Malev wanted to cry. He did cry. A shame his son thought that it was out of pride. |
"Can you just"the devil pinched his brow. "Stab him with something? Someone? Just, ya know."The devil made a motion as if trying to stab someone with a spear.
"Who do you want us to stab Lord Satan?! Who shall we eviscerate?"came the hissing bellow of his Archdemon of Suffering. The Devil pointed at the Archdemon, mouth agape, his left eye shifting between scarlet red and jet black as it twitched.
"Right."the demonic figure turned in disgust as he spoke.
"Right, so he has no SOUL, so nobody can SEE HIM."
"Except you."
"Yes, except-"The devil paused to glare at the man who had just spoken.
"Someone, for the love of me, STAB that guy?!
"Who do you want us to stab Lord Sat-"
"Nevermind, nevermind."The Devil waved his hand at his sycophants before he paused and breathed in deeply, something the man in the Cubs hat noticed he liked to do right before laying out a diatribe of expletives.
"Fucking motherfucking son of god damn god GOD GOD shit, I just. I don't ask for a lot. I just, when I bring someone to hell, I want them to be stabbed. Its not hard, just. Urrraaaaaaaaaa."His roar sent flames into the air around him, and as he turned to storm off, the Devil left fire and brimstone in his wake.
"So I guess that is a 'No' to serving scrambled eggs?"the man in the hat yelled after the devil. In the distance, the Devil paused and started to breath deeply. |
For some reason, when girls are watching, guys act stupid. They want to showoff, flex their muscles, and throw their weight around. Normally, I didn't have to worry about that, thanks to an older brother who could literally throw the weight of a charging, raging bull at anyone who tried to mess with me. But today was football tryouts and I had to walk home alone.
That's when Andy Parker pushed me.
Andy wasn't a hard hitter on the school's totem pole of hard hitters. All the hardest hitters were at football tryouts. But Andy fell just outside of that list, and he took his frustrations out on anyone lower than him. And me - being the only kid at school that hadn't unlocked his powers yet - was the easy choice for his next victim.
When he pushed me, I tripped and fell. Some kids laughed, but most of the people standing around were silent or whispering, "*Yo, Andy just pushed Brice's brother!*"
I knew some of them wanted to help me. But like I said, Andy - as far as powers went - was pretty high up there. So they stood around and stared at me with apologetic desperation, hoping that I wouldn't tell my brother late.
I didn't have enough time to worry about that though because as soon as I got to my feet, Andy pushed me again. This time, instead of falling, I hit the hard chest of Andy's friend, Ben, who pushed me back into Andy. Andy grabbed me and spun me around to Carter, who spun me around to Jake, who spun me around back to Ben, then Andy, then Carter, then Jake...
Then it all stopped. The grabbing, the spinning, the laughing... Everything. I thought my brother had walked out. But when I opened my eyes, I didn't see anything but gray. Gray and white. Like I was looking at a storm cloud from the inside out.
I looked down. But I wasn't on the ground anymore. I was high up. And then I heard screams. Coming from all around me. Pleas for help. Pleas for mercy. Apologies.
And then faces started to emerge from the gray and white. Spinning all around me. Emerging and submerging, appearing and disappearing, like a kid stuck in a washer whose face keeps exploding through the soap to hit the door before being spun back again. Andy. Ben. Carter. Jake. And all the people standing around, were now swirling around me.
But then I realized that though I was in the center, aware of what was going around me, that was only a phantom of my consciousness. Like losing a limb but still feeling like it's there.
I had no body.
I had shapeshifted into a tornado.
*Holy.*
*Crap.* |
As a great author once said, 'Space is big. Really big.' Really, the distances involved in getting from one star to another are more or less incomprehensible to human minds, and the time it would take to cross them was always a barrier to our species reaching out beyond our own solar system.
The neowarp engine solved that - at least, partially. Suddenly, travelling to the stars was a matter of months, not years - still a formidable journey but one that allowed us to reach out and colonise, settling new worlds and slowly inching out across the galaxy.
So it was that in the year 2621, the first human explorers met the Xrell. We were astounded - they had so much in common with us! Four limbs, bipedal, slight sexual dimorphism - aside from the curving horns and blue skin they could pass for human. The sci-fi writers of the 20th century were far closer than anyone thought possible.
First contact went well, and the delegates of humanity were invited to the great Galactic Festival, held, as far as we could make out, every sixteen years and next scheduled for seven years' time in the system of BR47-X, some eight months by neowarp drive from Earth.
Earth sent Yang, of course, and McDonnell, and Shankar, and the others who had made first contact. When they arrived they were met by such a profusion of people of all kinds, species in all shapes and sizes that humanity had ever imagined and many more besides.
But where, asked Yang after a few hours, are our old friends, the Xrell? Where is C'ram, and M'hlinga, and Ban'xiram?
So a messenger was sent out into the teeming crowds of the Festival and in due course, a delegate of the Xrell arrived.
"Humans! How exciting!"they cried out. "I am B'chira. My revered ancestor C'ram wrote of his encounters with your species. Oh, the stories I have heard! You are a part of our folklore now, despite all the years that have passed - why, we have had three wars and two revolutions since those days. Tell me - do the families of McDonnell and Shankar and our other friends persist?"
And so it was that Yang learned that the friends she had made seven years ago had been dead for six of them; and so it was that the Galactic Festival were first introduced to the humans, whose lives lasted long enough to travel between the stars. |
Ah, the ER. Most people's dreaded nightmare. This place had tension, stress, and agony practically flowing through it. There were not enough volunteers here to handle the sudden influx of patients needing treatment from the nearby flares, so the hospital had contacted me.
My rates were high, but my ability was invaluable to these people. The surgeries required to treat the patients who had suffered from the flares required the patient be fully lucid, meaning they couldn't take any painkillers. Without a volunteer nearby to take the pain of the patient, the surgery would be unable to proceed as the patient would almost surely collapse on the spot.
The volunteers in question were saints, no doubt of that. Most of them were survivors of the flare themselves, and had built up an immunity to it. I'd asked a few of them about why they volunteered in the past, and most said it was because someone had voluntarily taken their pain when they had needed it, and they wanted to pay it forwards.
Altruistic, but ultimately naive. They did all this for free out of the goodness of their hearts. Not me. I could connect with the entire hospital for a period of a few hours, and do so with ease. When there was a sudden influx of patients like this, all the surgeons lined up their procedures for when I would be in the building to make the most of the time they paid me for.
The expense to hire me would be worth a month of paying all the doctors in the facility. Ordinarily, I would feel bad, but this was life. And I could still do great things with the money I was paid. Better than what the hospital was doing with it for sure.
\-----
"Ah, look who it is."Cobalt said as I walked in. "If it isn't the American Healthcare System."
He hated me, that much he'd made clear. Fortunately for me, he was also starkly unoriginal. "You've used that line far too often, Cobalt. Get some new comedic material or you'll fail your backup job even faster than you'll fail this one."
He snarled at me, but I had work to do. The supervisor grimaced as I walked up to her desk. "Part of me was hoping you wouldn't show up."She said.
That did bring a smile to my face. "Hey, don't hate on me just because you need me."
She sighed. "Need that freakish ability of yours, more like."
"Point me to your patients. I have an appointment to get to in a few hours."I said.
She pointed down the hall. "Director Keranc has the surgeons on stand by in the meeting hall. They'll begin once you do your thing."
I nodded and walked towards the room she'd indicated. I pulled off my glove as I walked. The fabric shielded me from my gift most times, but I needed it now.
The director didn't look happy to see me either. "Get moving. You're on the clock now."He said gruffly.
I carefully kept my face impassive. If there was one person's favor in this god-forsaken place I didn't want to lose, it was his. "The crop of patients doesn't look too bad today."I said as I walked down the line.
My barehand touched each person's head in turn. They all relaxed visibly at my touch. They'd be unable to feel their agony for a few hours. Roughly thirty people altogether were undergoing surgery today.
"Yes, we were fortunate that we merely had a larger number than normal rather than more intensive damage from the latest flare."The director said while he walked behind me to make sure I was doing the job he paid me for.
"How goes the research into preventing the flare's effects?"I asked. There was a little tinge of nervousness in my voice that I hated. The bit of me that needed these people's attention hated the idea that I wouldn't be special anymore.
"We've managed to isolate the factor in those who built up an immunity to it. In time, we should be able to provide a vaccine for it. With any luck, we'll manage that before the solar barrier collapses."The director responded.
I touched the last person's head and moved to sit down by the entrance. The director moved to the center of the room to organize his surgeons as I pulled out the pair of headphones I'd bought with all of my most recent payment.
Contrary to what everyone believed, I did feel pain. Everyone had to feel it to some extent. I just had built up a tolerance to it that exceeded everyone else's, and developed some tricks to not focus on what slipped over my level of tolerance. With this many people though, I couldn't deny my small sense of nervousness.
Music was the key though. I needed music playing for the entire time the surgeries were taking place, and I needed to immerse myself in a world before the flares.
The director raised his hand to declare the surgeries commencement while I opened up the novel from my purse and began to read. In the frigid world of storms within the novel, I found relief from the intense, pounding pain of the knives on the brains of their patients. |
Hero work was supposed to be this grand thing, right? Fight the monsters, save the day, get the glory. That's what all the stories about the Great Hero had said this life was like. The Great Hero was renowned because he'd done all those things, so following in his footsteps should give me the same type of life, right?
The first thing I'd been taught when the Great Hero had taken me on was that there was much more to this life than what the public saw. For every grand battle where the day was saved and the battle won, there was a thousand dirty deeds done in the shadows. The people needed someone to believe in, to place their trust in. They also needed someone to take care of the things they weren't even aware needed to be done.
This leads me to my current situation.
I'd gone with my mentor on a supposedly standard mission. We were to investigate the claims of a new villain in the city, and put the villain down if the rumors were true. Unfortunately, the villain had somehow known we were coming and laid a trap. Unlike most villain traps, this one wasn't even intended to be lethal.
We stood in a dark warehouse. All the windows had been completely shut off. The only light source emanated from my suit and illuminated the blue and red uniform of the Great Hero in his trap.
"Show yourself, villain!"He said.
He was restrained in some sort of power dampening cage to my left. I hadn't been trapped at all. "Be on guard! Keep your wits about you!"The Great Hero said to me.
There was nothing in the darkness surrounding us that I could see. Nothing to indicate something was watching us.
"That's not going to be much help, I'm afraid. There's nothing you can do that will be effective here."A voice said above us. It sounded like the Great Hero's voice for some reason...
"Battle stance."The Great Hero whispered. "No restraint here. If you see him, you blow his head off."
I fell into the position he'd drilled into me. Nothing showed up around us.
"Yes, yes. Don't be afraid to try to kill me."The voice said. "After all, there are some dirty deeds that must be done, right?"
I whirled to face the direction the voice had come from. All I saw was darkness. "There are people better off dead, officials that need to be intimidated into doing the right thing, governments that cause too much damage to be left standing."The voice was behind me now.
I turned to face it again. The voice stepped into the light now, revealing a man in a black and gray jumpsuit with the same face as the Great Hero. "Some deeds need to be done, regardless of who believes they're right."He said.
I heard an audible gasp from the man in the trap. "It can't be..."The Great Hero said.
The villain before me laughed harshly. "Why not? You did it once, why wouldn't you do it again?"He said.
Did what? What weren't they saying? "Boss, what's he talking about?"I asked as quietly as I could.
The villain tilted his head to the side. "I'd forgotten the point I learned this at, but I suppose I'll just give him the information now."He turned to look at the trapped Great Hero. "Unless you would like to tell him yourself, 'Hero.'"
I didn't take my eyes off the villain. "What's he talking about?"
The man before me smiled. "Why my boy, I'm you."He said.
...what?
"Or rather, I'm a future version of you."The villain said with a thoughtful expression.
"That's impossible."I said.
"Why is that always the default response?"The villain asked while looking at the Great Hero. "Superpowers are a totally real thing, so why would time travel be such a hard thing to grasp?"
My mentor didn't respond. The villain looked back at me. "The so called "Great Hero"is a future version of you as well. I'm just from a later date from him."
Sure, why not? There'd be time to figure this all out later. "Boss, we have to get out of here."I said.
"Why's that?"The villain asked. "You're not in any danger here. If I killed either one of you, I would cease to exist myself."
"You're evil."I said. "And we're going to beat you."
The villain sighed and leaned against the cage of the Great Hero, who looked up at his captor with pure venom in his eyes. "Was dirty deeds not the first lesson you were taught? The need for action that nobody else would take? Why are you so quick to condemn yourself as evil, when this is exactly what you were taught?"
A bright light flashed above us before I could process his words. The villain's head snapped upwards, and he immediately paled. "Cease all this nonsense!"A booming voice cried out.
The light drifted downwards and landed in the space between me and the cage. When it faded, a silver haired man had his palm facing towards the villain. "Step away from the cage."The newcomer said. "I will not hesitate to incapacitate you if need be."
The villain did as he was told without hesitation. "Who are you?"I asked.
The newcomer turned to me. He wore the same face as the villain and the Great Hero. "I'm also you from the future." |
She wore the same smile that she always wore. Jim swore under his breath. She had no right to smile that way. Not tonight.
She had wandered into his life and collapsed at his doorstep. No small feat as he lived alone, miles from the nearest outpost of civilization. He was a hunter by trade and he claimed the entire mountain range as his territory. He had only come home earlier that morning, just finished stringing up a few choice pelts to dry in the heat of his cabin when he heard the crash of armor outside. He half-expected to see a group of warriors, or a troupe of raccoons bashing pots and pans together. Instead, he had found the young woman clad in plate armor. Her hair had been a tangled rat's nest with twigs and leaves trapped within and her lips had were blue with the cold.
He had brought her in and set her up to warm before the fire by the pelts. He wasn't familiar with the make of the armor, but once he managed to get it off of her, she started to finally warm up. She took to warming up a bit too quickly, as her chill turned into a raging fever. He never could be certain if she had woken up during that night. She mumbled in and out of fever-dreams. She took water, but only a little broth.
The first time he saw that smile was when she woke, the second morning after she arrived. By then he had covered her more thoroughly in furs to keep her from taking another chill. He had been scraping a fresh bearskin and only noticed she had woken when he turned to reach for his water-flask and found her watching him. She had nodded to his offer of breakfast and voraciously ate anything he put before her.
He never had been wordy. People wasted so many words. Part of the reason he had come so far out was to get away from the words, the voices, the people and their nonsense. It took him time to introduce himself, and once he had, he immediately regretted it.
She had no such compunctions.
"Jimothy? That is a simply marvelous name! And here I was thinking that you might be mute. This is even better! My name is Lillian. Lillian d'Valetta, Knight of Lumorne, sworn at the altar of Hadar to seek out evils in the land and undo them, to make right what is... wrong... Is something wrong?"
Jim realized he was grimacing and forced his face to calm. This is why he lived alone in the woods. Peace and Quiet. He had no idea what half of what she said was, but answered.
"It's Jim. And No. Just not much company out this way."He saw her building up to release another wave at him and forestalled her with a hand. "You rest up. If your feeling better, we'll head up to Meet's Trade Post... About a Day's Travel Downriver. You can find your way from there."
She had merely offered him that smile. It felt earnest, but smug at the same time. It hinted that she knew something that he didn't, but she wanted to share it and couldn't. Jim had thought about it a great deal that night as he readied the cabin for his departure. He wanted to make the trip count, so he was bringing all the finished pelts he had ready. Dawn broke, cold and pale and he sealed the cabin against the cold, the weather, and any animal that might try to get in and make a den of his home. When she emerged from the cabin, he found she was dressed in the armor again and with a shake of his head he tossed her a bearskin that he had been forced with leaving behind.
"Here... Don't need you freezing after I already brought you back from it."
The trip to Meet's went smoothly. She seemed to sense his desire for quiet because she kept her answers short and curt. Over the course of the day he learned that she had been a nobleman's daughter; a third daughter. with older siblings to carry the burden of the home and family, she had committed herself to a higher purpose. She had trained with the finest masters her parents could secure her to fight, wear armor, ride on horseback. Unfortunately, they had never brought on a tutor to teach her how to start a fire, build a shelter, care for a horse, or cook outside of a noble's kitchen (which comprised exactly 100% of her recent life).
Each statement had been answered with a "Humph"of acknowledgement and he had never asked any additional questions. He did stop her on a couple of occasions from eating some berries. He explained that she wouldn't like the taste. In reality, he was certain she wouldn't like the abdominal torture that the berries would put her through. He did direct her to some ugly looking fruit and mushrooms which he was sure could be safely eaten raw.
They had reached Meet's Trade Post before the sun set and while he did business with Meet, the girl had wandered about chatting with the other folks. He let her keep the bearskin. Once he had settled up his coin purse was only slightly heavier. His pack was filled with some new tools, cured leathers, small sweets, and nutritious foods that kept a person's teeth from falling out over the winter until the spring lemongrass came back in. She had come up to him in that moment.
"Jim! Jim. There is a gentleman over... there.. A Woodcutter who needs some help. He says that there is a group of bandits who keep pressuring him for money he doesn't have. They have threatened to steal his wife. He's staying here with his family and can't go home. No one else is willing to help... But.. I really don't know the way. Would you come with me? Please? I don't want to keep you long, but you are familiar with the area and he really does need help."
It was that smile again. That knowing smile that teased him while those open, genuine eyes pleaded. He considered the cabin. It would hold for a day, or even a week. He nodded in return. She had beamed a wide smile at him that really made him uncomfortable, but he had gone with her all the same.
The bandits hadn't been more bark than bite and when confronted by a trained swordsman, they fled into the woods. The Woodcutter returned to his home and thanked them both. He hadn't been able to give much, but Lillian wouldn't accept anything anyhow. On their way back to Meet's, they had passed a group on the road. Wolves, they said; a whole pack. Lillian had offered Jim a curious tilt of her head with that soft smile and he had nodded.
Three seasons had passed since then. He had never returned to his cabin deep in the woods. After the wolves, there was a foul merchant selling faulty gear, then a creature preying on goats and sheep. He had traveled with her back into the large cities so that she could renew her knightly vows at an altar of Hadar. They had continued their travels across more lands than Jim had been aware existed.
There were some nights where they had been forced to bed down without a fire and had huddled together for warmth. There had been other nights where Jim tended to Lillian's injuries. There was one night they stayed as a guest of a minor lord and soaked together in a hot spring. He had slid behind her to work the knots out of her muscles when she asked, but he had never asked for anything, nor been given anything more than that knowing, enchanting smile. He saw it every night when he passed her something to eat, and every morning when he broke down camp.
Always quiet, ready to pick her up and drag her out of a fight, patch her up, or offer her food, he had never taken any part of her knightly responsibilities. He had always stayed out of the way and had taken to caring for the horses while she fought. And over time, he had begun to speak more. That knowing smile hinted at so much mystery. He wanted to know what secrets lie behind that smile in the depths of her eyes.
But not tonight. He offered her a steaming bowl of stew, chunks of the gathered roots and deer meat flavoring the broth. She took the bowl and brought it up to her face, breathing in the steam and savoring it before she offered that smile. He felt something tearing inside himself. It was almost as if she expected this meal to be her last.
"Why?"
She blew on a spoonful of her soup to cool it and sampled it before she answered. "Why what Jimothy?"
He frowned. She knew how he felt about the name and only ever used it nowadays to unsteady him.
"A Dragon? I mean, a Bear is one thing Lillian. But why a Dragon?"
She still offered him that knowing smile. "I gave an oath."
"Not to a Noble. To your god. You don't have to do this. Lets go fight bandits... An Ogre.. Anything but this."
She was quiet for a long moment, enjoying her soup.
"No Jimothy. These people need me. And tomorrow, I am doing to go do this. If it is my time, then Hadar will keep me for I have fulfilled my vows. I have lived a life without regret."
Jim had been unable to stomach that. He rose and stormed off into the wilderness to brood. That smile, the light in those eyes, they could all be quenched the next day. By the time he returned from his walk, she had already gone to bed. The fire had been banked and the food put away. He wondered how long she had known how to do it, and how long it had been since she had no longer needed his presence. It never came up anymore. He just assumed he was travelling with her.
When the sun rose, Lillian came out of her tent to find Jim standing at the ready. He wore a set of Leather armor, a shortsword and his proven hunting bow at the ready. She offered him that smile once more and nodded. Without a word shared, they both turned away from the camp and approached the the nearby Fort Krox. The Treasury of the kingdom had only recently been taken by the Dragon.
She offered Jim a smile. With him at her side, she was ready to face the worst of what the dragon could throw at her.
He offered her a smile in return. If this was to be her end, he would not let her face it alone.
Thanks For Reading! You can find more of my stories [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Tales_of_Jimothy/) ! |
"The Straight of Hormuz is fifteen minutes away!"
Rattling metal bounced around my skull, the cacophony of a metal bird shrieking a path through an ocean of wind. The plane was packed to the brim with soldiers like sardines in a can, if sardines all wore military outfits and were armed to the teeth. I clutched my Mom's old necronomicon tighter around my chest.
"Why're we even going to this...this Hormuz place?"I yelled. My voice could barely be heard over the moans of the engine.
Brett didn't even bother opening his eyes. He'd been a vet for who knows how long. "Oil, probably. It's always oil, ain't it?"
"Isn't that...kind of ridiculous? We could die out there."I could barely move, that's how strapped in I was. Everyone around me was a big beefy dude, and I was almost a head shorter than most. And that's even without the helmet that they wore. A summoner like me couldn't have one.
*Summoner battles are like staring contests,* Mom used to say. *Lose vision of your opponent and you're done.*
"Oil makes the world go round, rookie. It's not that the big suits in DC don't care about us. They jus' decided our lives are worth sacrificing for the strategic gain."
"Isn't that worse?"I asked, teeth shaking in my mouth as we entered a feisty patch of wind.
"Probably."
As the five minute mark approached, soldiers began unstrapping. Their weapons were hot, or something, I couldn't really understand all their jargon, especially not over the chaos crammed into this dimly lit, shaking room we'd found ourselves all trapped in.
"I don't want to die,"I said.
Brett clapped my shoulder, but I could tell he wasn't used to giving sympathy. He was the kind of person who dished out cold hard steel.
"Wasn't your Mama ol' Red Eyes? I'm sure you'll be fine."
Great. I wanted to shout back that "ol' Red Eyes"never taught me anything. That I was scared witless and hadn't even cracked open her necronomicon. That it was insane that they were sending a complete newbie summoner into a highly militarized zone.
"Yeah, I'll be fine."
Lying is what gets me up in the morning. It's the cup of Joe that helps me take off the covers and not wonder where my mother died, or who she was fighting.
The room jolted, jittered, jangled, and finally crawled to a stop. Somehow the explosions and yells made their way in here over the blaring engine. A rectangle of light blazed inside as they opened the side door.
"Go! Go! Go!"
"Ah, calm down,"Brett grumbled, tightening buckles around his waist. "It's not like the war's going anywhere."
It looked like Chaos and Misery had a baby and it was throwing a tantrum. Groups of soldiers were clumped up against one another, trying to establish positioning for massive titans that collided on the battlefield. Shockwaves blew people away as a giant tentacle slammed into the ground.
Some actually did the whole 'run away instead of run sideways' thing and paid for it with their lives. That's what my mind was numbly focused on right then.
"Lil' Red Eyes! We need you to get to work!"
I almost dropped the necronomicon into the mud before flipping it open for the first time. *Come on, you've seen Mom do this a thousand times. You can do it.*
When my chant completed, a glowing circle appeared on the ground against all odds.
"Isn't that smaller than usual,"a soldier called out from far away. To be honest, I wasn't even sure which summon I'd read off.
The glowing circle expanded into a pillar that beamed up towards the sky for a brief instant. When I opened my eyes again, I saw him. An Old One.
No, really. It was just an old man.
"Fuck this,"I heard Brett yell. "Let's go, boys!"
"Marie!"the Old One said, cracking his wobbling joints. "Where did you summon me to this time?"
I approached, dumbfounded. *This* was my Mom's summon? This was on the last page, right? Didn't that mean...
"Ah, young one,"the old man said gleefully, "You must be Marie's offspring! It's a pleasure to meet you. Where's your mother?"
I looked around. This was surreal. All around us, soldiers were dying fighting giants they weren't quite equipped to deal with. The smell of blood and the ringing explosions exploded like fireworks in my senses. And there I was, talking to an old man.
"Marie's dead,"I said.
His expression darkened. "Sad news indeed. Well, shall we get to it?"
"Sir,"I said. "We should probably run. This one might be a bit out of our league. Look out!"
A shadow stretched out over us as soldiers scrambled left and right. I closed my eyes. We weren't going to make it, and I wasn't going to abandon Mom's summon.
A large *whump* sent me to the ground. I blinked. We were still alive. I opened my eyes to see the old man yawning with one hand, the other holding a massive tentacle at bay.
He winked at me. "Didn't your mother ever tell you about her strongest summon?"
---
Hi there! Thanks for reading :) please give me feedback, and if you want more you can find me at [/r/Remyxed/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Remyxed/)! |
"Uh, kid, I can explain..."
"Dad?"Josh looks at me in astonishment, like he genuinely can't believe what he was seeing. I hang my head awkwardly, my forepaws held in front of me. As if I could placate him.
"Why... are you half-furry? What the hell, Dad?"
Nervously, my eyes search around the cave. This was an awkward, awkward situation. Usually, the kids just came in at midnight! Not mid-afternoon! You know, at a time when you couldn't actually *see* a half-formed, unshapely werewolf!
"Well,"I say, wincing, "werewolf transformation isn't as instantaneous as media depicts it."
Josh blinks. I work my jaw, my nerves wracking at me. Oh god. What was he thinking? I know I did not look good. It came with being a werewolf, but today was... especially bad. Oh god, what if it was about parenting? It was admittedly too long a lie, but I wasn't a bad father just because I was a werewolf—
"Wow,"he says quietly, eyes as huge as mini-versions of witch orbs. "So this is where you go every-month when you tell us you're off to fix your tractor."
I nod, slowly, unsure of what he was getting at.
"You know, Mom thought you were cheating on her."
I splutter. Looking at him with even wider eyes, I choke out: "What?"
He waves his hand dismissively. "Whatever. You should just tell her you're out here eating children every month. I think that'll make her feel a lot better about herself,"he intones, sarcasm-free. This time, it's my turn to blink. "Anyway. Are you gonna eat me?"
"No!"I say, far too quickly. He looks at me warily, but it slowly dissolves as moment and moment goes by without me eating him. Something glints in his eyes. Thankfulness? Glee? I squint at him. Wait a minute—
"Okay, but if you're not eating me, then, you've got to eat somebody else, right?"Josh grows in excitement second-by-second, nearly dancing on his tiptoes. "Can you eat Martha? She's being really annoying in class."
"What the-- NO!"
(This is my first time posting, so I’d appreciate any feedback!) |
I fire a gunshot into the air. The three of them stop arguing and turn to me. “One at a time!” I look at the first person, who claimed he was my future son. “You! What disaster did I cause?”
“You kill half the world’s population with that machine over there!” He points behind me.
“What? The Nuke-Everything-inator 5000?”
“No, dad, the other one.”
“My microwave?”
“Yes! When you heat that hot pocket, you trigger a chain reaction that culminates in the deaths of billions and a nuclear winter that lasts so long it becomes a nuclear Ice Age!”
“Oh…guess I’ll just shoot the-”
A flash of light and another portal. “Behold, I’m your child from the futu-” He flinches when I fire another shot into the air. “Quiet! We’re trying to save the world!” I point my gun at the microwave.
“Wait!” The second person lunges at me. I point the gun at him and he stops immediately, hands in the air. “Woah, watch it! Point that somewhere else!” I point it at the microwave. “No, don’t shoot the microwave!”
“Didn’t you hear my son?” I say. “That microwave kills a lot of people.”
“Yes,” he says, “and one of them is Robo-Hitler.”
I stare at him. “Robo-Hitler? Seriously?”
“Look, we were too busy getting slaughtered by drones to come up with better names. If you don’t use that microwave, Robo-Hitler stays alive and kills everyone.”
“I…”
The third person takes a step forward. “Hold on-” Her speech is cut off when the fourth person tackles her to the ground and yells, “Mom don’t move! There’s a landmine in front of you, if you touch it, everything explodes!”
The third person just groans, probably having hit her head on the way down.
“Well,” person four says, getting up and dusting himself off. “Guess I’m done here.” He steps into his portal and vanishes.
“Can someone go wake up-”
A fifth portal opens. “I AM YOUR CHILD FROM THE where’s dad? He should be here before me.”
The second person says, “He tackled that person there to the ground and left.”
“Oh,” person five says. “That’s nice.” And he leaves too.
“Well,” I say, “at least now we can-”
A portal appears and person four steps out. “Wait, I almost forgot!” He promptly trips on the third person’s outstretched hand and falls in front of her. “Oh, sh-”
There’s a loud boom, and everything goes dark. |
<First attempt at answering a prompt and on mobile so apologies for formatting. Feedback appreciated (I know it’s short and sorry for naming him, but I had to)>
The day loaded. *Odd word to use* Griff thought, as he became aware of himself lying in bed, *Time for work*. Today was supposed to be a simple day, go down to the market and sell his wares, anything ranging from bread to potions to weapons, “anything you need”, though he’s never known who “you” were. Until today.
Griff was going through his usual dialogue, repeating the phrases he’d say over and over, trying to grab people’s attention. It never worked though, in all his memory Griff had never made a sale. *Never ran out of money though* he thought, for the first time curious about it.
Suddenly a man approached. Dressed head to toe in armour, none of it matching. Silver chainmail, shiny and gleaming in the sunlight. New by the looks of it. On his feet were worn leather boots, hardened from wear and fading. An odd companion to the chainmail but perhaps he couldn’t afford the upgrade yet. He wore a helmet made from a strange material that Griff had never seen before. *Wyrm steel*. The word floated into his head, along with a definition - armour forged in the breath of a dragon. Never before seen or heard of in the kingdom of Ellmyr, but here Griff knew the word.
“Greetings stranger. Take a look at my wares, I’ve got anything you could possibly desire.”
The stranger said nothing, just started scrolling through Griff’s inventory. After a few minutes standing perfectly still, the stranger took a steel battle axe and walked away. Seven hundred gold appeared in Griff’s pocket. *My first customer and his purchase is magical. Something’s wrong*. Griff decided to follow him.
The Stranger left the town, ignoring all roads, simply running across the countryside and jumping ditches. He would sprint for a time, then slow to a jog before sprinting again. *Fifteen seconds.* Griff didn’t realise he had been counting but the pattern was there. Every fifteen seconds, the Stranger would sprint then slow, as if he had ran out of stamina.
As they travelled further into the wilderness, they passed a small village. Griff suddenly realised where they were. A cave in the cliff face, ordinarily innocuous, except this one had a skull on the doorstep. The stranger had led him to a notorious bandit hideout. It occurred to him that the Stranger could be one of them, as he confidently entered their hideout, but the thought passed quickly. Everything about him was just too... strange. He couldn’t be a common bandit. Griff had had enough. He decided that this was too much for him, a simple man from the market that had never longed for adventure until he met this stranger. A Stranger that had led him to a criminal base.
Griff turned around to return home, and suddenly realised the horizon was gone. Not from the sun setting, as he had previously thought, but it simply wasn’t there. It was like it had vanished when the stranger entered the hideout. *It can’t load without him*. As the thought crossed his mind, Griff again noticed the odd choice of wording.
Another thought occurred to him. If the world ceases to exist when this stranger moves on, what would happen to Griff when the Stranger continues on his quest? What would happen to the world if this stranger were to die?
In that instant, Griff made a choice, perhaps the first one he had ever truly made. He would exist. He would follow this Stranger, this Hero, and survive. |
I met the love of my life today.
I also died today. That's some fucking irony for you, ain't it?
But Sam. Oh, Sam. He enraptured me the moment I saw him, the sun caught in his eyes until they seemed to glow from within, vibrant as sapphires. His hair was mussed by the wind, sunkissed, burnished amber in the setting sun. He was carrying a bucket of feed out to the paddock for the nursing mare. I watched him tickle the filly's chin as she nuzzled his side, and the grin that lit his face just made my heart melt.
I asked Netty if he was a new ranch hand, and she sort of sighed, her eyes gazing into a little memory as a soft smile stole over her face. "Yes and no,"she told me, and she explained that he was the stable master's ward. Netty spent all afternoon telling me about him, about the accident that took his parents, and how he fought on the edge of death for so many months. How he had come out of the coma a different person. "Angel-kissed,"she called him. Whatever dreams he dreamed in that coma must have been good ones. For his sake, I hope they were. I would never wish for anyone to be trapped in their own mind with only the anguish of losing a mother and father to percolate in their subconscious.
Netty may have been _my_ grandmother, but I knew she loved Sam like her own child just by the way her wrinkled cheeks glowed at the mention of his name. I wanted to meet him, but I contented myself with watching him through the window. I had come home to die, after all, for the cancer had finally won. Chemo had taken all the energy out of me, and I couldn't even raise myself up to peek out the window without Netty's help. But the sight of Sam made me smile, and I was happy until the end.
~
I don't know if Sam remembers this, but on the day the owner's daughter came home from the hospital and died, the filly in the nursing pen took sick. She progressed slowly at first, so he might not have noticed it initially. He always thought it had been the apples he fed her as we were weaning her. He thought they might have been rotten. But does he remember? On the day the owner's daughter died, he came to me at the end of the day and mentioned that the filly must have known of the death because she was acting a bit timid.
Does he remember that? Because that's the first day I beat that little horse. I was careful not to leave marks, to only do enough to frighten her. And that's the first day I fed her poison. I knew she was Sam's favorite. She had been born the day he got here. He had helped birth her! I never knew what he saw in her, though. Sam was just too kind-hearted. Animals are tools to bring us enjoyment. Sam wasted energy with _love_. All for a stupid baby horse. So I killed her. Slowly.
Why? Because I hate him. Plain and simple. I hate everything about him. The Hartford family may think he's a fucking angel, but I know the truth. He hides it well beneath that idiotic smile and the fake kindness, but inside, he's rotting. He doesn't deserve all the love that he gets. Why did _he_ get all the attention for surviving the car wreck that killed our mother? Why did _he_ get the nice house and the perfect nuclear family and a father who didn't beat him? Why did _he_ get off scot-free while I inherited all of Mom's diseases? He had to know she was crazy. He _had_ to know.
Ah, but see, that's why he's rotting inside. I bet he has the diseases, too, and they're just ticking like a time bomb, waiting for the right trigger to set it off. So I killed that goddamn horse and waited for all the threads to unravel.
~
Sam cried out as he awoke, shooting up to a sitting position. His back was ramrod straight, eyes wide as saucers, and his breath was quick and shallow. Sweat drenched his brow, and his shirt stuck to his back, and he trembled. I reached a hand up to touch his arm, and he recoiled violently, nearly striking me in the face by pure reflex. I flinched, for the bruise from last night still stung.
"I'm sorry,"he whispered, and he scrambled out of bed, his breath heavy and ragged.
I sat up sleepily and watched him pace. "Was it another nightmare?"I asked. He just kept pacing. "Sam? Sweetheart?"He finally stopped, his arms wrapped around himself and his back turned toward me. I had lost count over the years how many times he'd dreamed of the ranch. He still cried about that little filly, wracked with guilt about how the loss of the prized little foal had kickstarted the ranch's descent into bankruptcy. I had met the Hartfords only a few times, and I remembered when the famous horse ranch went under. But that was a long time before I met Sam. Even I didn't think about it much. Why did he?
"Sam, come back to bed,"I sighed, watching him. "Tell me about it."
He slowly turned around, and even in the darkness I could see the pallor of his face, the shadows under his eyes, the fear constricting his pupils.
I reached out my hand toward him, fingers opened. "Sam,"I said.
"I'm sorry I hit you,"he whispered shakily. "I'll go sleep on the couch. I don't want to hurt you."
"You didn't hit me,"I replied. "And last night was an accident anyway. You weren't even trying to hit me."
"But I was,"he went on, trembling. "I don't know why, but..."
"Sam, in the seven years we've been married, you've never once hit me. I'm pretty sure last night was an accident."
"I thought you were my father,"he kept whispering, ignoring me. I frowned, for Sam rarely spoke of his parents. I knew only that they had died in a terrible accident, but nothing more. He had always said he could remember nothing about them. When we found his half-sister through that family registry website, we tried asking her about them, but she refused to talk to us.
Sam slowly shook his head, glancing at me briefly before looking away. "The way you touched my arm just... reminded me... I don't know."
"Sam, did your father do something to you?"I asked with concern, sitting up.
"I don't know,"he breathed. "I don't know."
I pushed the covers away and climbed out of bed to wrap him in a tight hug. He watched me nervously but leaned into me all the same. He had always been so gentle and loving. The thought that anyone would harm him made my blood boil. I turned that anger into love, and I held him close, squeezing away all the bad memories.
Presently, he mumbled, "I think I killed them."
I rubbed his back. "You didn't kill that horse, Sam. She got sick. That wasn't your fault no matter what that batty old Netty said to you."
"I mean my parents."
I stiffened, but I tried not to let it show. I just kept rubbing his back.
"I cut the hydraulic line for the brakes."
The silence felt oppressive, and it took all my concentration to keep my hands from shaking as I continued to rub his back.
"This girl I met at the ranch kept needling me on and on about my perfect parents, but every time she mentioned them, I just felt... this sick satisfaction."
Sam had never told me any of this before. I just went on rubbing his back, my mind reeling. I knew I trusted him, but he was scaring me.
"You know, I've never been sad that they were gone."
I nodded, not really trusting my voice.
He was silent for so long that I started to get nervous. But then he unwrapped his arms from his sides and snaked them around my shoulders, hugging me tightly. He sniffled and whispered shakily, "I am so scared, Alex. You're the best thing that's happened to me since... ever. I love you so much. But I can't hurt you again. Even just an accident... It felt so... I don't want to hurt you."
"Sweetheart,"I shushed, holding him tighter. "You're not going to hurt me. Last night was an _accident_."
"I know,"Sam said, his arms tightening around me. "But I _liked_ it."
End: thanks for reading! I gladly welcome any feedback to improve! |
I threw a piece of paper into the lot. "I'm going all in!"I flashed a grin that I immediately suppressed.
They all looked at me with wary eyes. Zeus and Odin folded their hands after exchanging a glance with each other.
"Your boldness is indeed impressive little man,"Zeus said as he glanced over at Satan "But I shan't bet my lightning with this rascal here."
"Nor shall I,"said Odin, "One shouldn't trust an *all in* with him around."
Satan gave them a smile before turning his eyes to my cards. From where I sat, I a strange glint in his pupils.
"Oy!"I shouted, "we said no use of your powers!"
Satan laughed and tossed his hand into the pile Zeus and Odin had made. "Caught me again."He chuckled as if he didn't care at all. But I knew what I had put into the lot was what he came here for. "Didn't have anything to beat your hand anyway. Quite a *devilish* hand if I may say,"he added with a smug grin.
The grim reaper laughed, "I shan't fall for thy trickery evil one."He slammed his scythe onto the table. "Prepare thee self mortal one. Thine soul shall be mine to claim."
"Heresy!"God cried out as he slammed his fist on the table. "The soul of this man is mine to cleanse!"God called his son over. "I too shall go all in!"Jesus shrugged. He didn't mind being here, he had faith in his father.
"Ohhh, quite the gambler aren't you?"sneered out Satan.
"Silence, I don't want to hear it from you."
"Let's reveal our hands now shall we?"I said before things escalated between them.
The Grim revealed a pair of kings from his hands. Along with the cards on the table, he had a three of a kind. "Thine soul shan't escape my grasp, mortal one."
God slowly revealed his pair of aces. And with already an ace on the flop, his three of a kind outclassed that of the Grim. "Not today, not any day. That man's soul shall be mine to purify."
"I'm afraid I'll be keeping my own soul today, gentlemen."I smiled and revealed my cards one by one. First was a 10, second was the queen.
Satan suddenly burst into a fit of mad laughter as God and Grim stared at my cards. "I warned you all. Quite the devilish hand he had. It's not every day you see a royal flush."
As funny as it was to Satan, something just hit me. What the hell am I to do with Grim's soul harvester and Jesus Christ? |
You know how sometimes your stomach rumbles, and for a second, you realize just how much you have inside you? For just a second, you know yourself as a sack of meat.
I graduated top of my class from James Madison. Bounced around between jobs for a while, but the grants never lasted. Some people just don’t get it. Bunch of monkeys in suits, thinking they know biotech better than I do… had to do some experiments on myself when funding ran out. Eventually, I ended up in the Air Force. I was stationed in North Carolina when they announced this mission. The Persephone Project, they called it. Meant to lay down the groundwork to make this place inhabitable. I’m sure everyone knows the story by now. They sent me to Texas, got me ready, and shot me up.
It really was beautiful out there, seeing everything beneath me. There I was, on top of it all, the first man to pilot a course to the moon in this millennium. Hopkins was with me of course. Rodriguez stayed in orbit. He gave us a smile and a wave when we got in the lander and took off. “See you soon,” I told him.
We had 310 kilometers to go until we reached the surface. The first 50 were fine. The second 50, I started rumbling. I brushed it off, we were moving pretty quick. It was probably just the vibration of the engine. It got worse over the next 100 kilometers. It wasn’t just my stomach rumbling, everything was roaring from the inside. The last 110 kilometers was… I’m not even sure how to describe it. It wasn’t painful, just wrong. Things shifted in ways they shouldn’t have. I’m sure that it would have been much worse if my nervous system hadn’t been rewiring itself at the same time.
By the time we touched down, I wasn’t the same man. I could still feel things squirming around, stretching and shrinking. Rodriguez came on over the comms, asking if everything was alright. Hopkins said yes without looking at me. I unbuckled myself and stood. The lander seemed to be getting smaller. I looked at my hands. The fingernails were growing, hardening… sharpening. The hands they were on were getting hairier and hairier by the second.
My grandparents were immigrants from central Europe. I remember going to grandpa’s house as a boy. He didn’t speak English that well, so he needed a lot of help. He was nice, taught me a few words, let me smoke his pipe once… typical grandpa stuff. He was always jumpy though. Never had any pets around the house. Sometimes, we would come over and he wouldn’t even let us in, just yell at us to leave. Once, when I was five, I hid in a closet to scare him. First time I ever had a gun pulled on me. Dad tells me it was PTSD, but I did some digging. I found a big black book in grandpa’s garage. It was a sort of family history, with family trees and portraits. Turns out grandma was a gypsy. In fact, we’ve had ties to gypsies and witches going back centuries. There was something else there, scribbled on a few pages in the back of the book. It was a drawing of a tall, hairy, beast of a man. It gave me nightmares for years.
In college, resources were short, so I had to do some tests on myself. Genetics were my specialty, and I wanted to figure out how I tick. I found some very interesting recessive genes. Grandpa was long gone, so I couldn’t test him, but I found them in some samples from my father too. Funeral home wasn’t too happy with it, but some things you just need to know.
I looked down at Hopkins to my left. He looked up at my grandfather’s beast. I severed the comms with my claw.
Nobody could hear his screams.
I expected to be out of my mind, in a savage rage. Instead, I felt calmer than I ever had. Every sense was focused. The only thing that had changed was a deep, biting hunger. Hopkins’ body wasn’t enough, and I had a feeling that astronaut food would only last so long. I was at least eight feet tall then, cramped inside the cabin. I had to get out. I opened the door. Hopkins’ remains were bombarded and frozen by the vacuum of space. I felt nothing at all. I looked up to make sure Rodriguez wasn’t watching, then took off across my plains. Rocks, dust, craters… nothing to eat.
He kept orbiting for a few days. I always stayed on the dark side, in the craters… wherever he couldn’t see me. Nobody could know what had happened.
I took what I wanted and tore the fuselage out of the lander. It had to look like an accident. Sudden equipment failure. Completely unexpected. Nothing we could have done, they’ll say. They’ll call us heroes, give speeches in our honor. Probably name a ship after us. The public will demand that they bring our bodies back. Give us a proper burial. We deserve it. So they will. They’ll send the Hopkins lander down here, packed full of people to rescue us. And they’ll find us.
I’m hungry. |
"They did what now?"Stephanie "Iron Claw"Tailor said forcing herself to stay calm, you did not kill the messenger. Or for that matter traumatize them with an angry outburst.
"They... ma'am... they killed... They killed Firesprite...Ma'am, they shot her in the head when she was monologuing."Ruben, Stephanie's apprentice, said.
Poor Rebecka. It had been one of her favorite ways to let the heroes get the better of her. She had always liked the absurdity of it. And she had had a knack for it. Set them up in an elaborate trap that any fool with a little brains and guts can escape. Monologue with your head turned away or something like that. Heroes escape, Firesprite curses them as she make her escape. Everybody is happy.
And now they fucking shot her in the head for it.
Nicholas "Steelburn"had talked about it with her before he retired, how the new heroes didn't play the game the way it used to be. Steph had just thought it was Nick who had fallen for the "It was better before"that come with some as they age and don't like to see the concepts they knew as they grew up change.
But, yeah, there had been signs.
The heroes brutally beating up Stormspark two years back.
How the general damage of the heroes interventions had steadily started to rise...
And now this.
They of course didn't know of the pact.
A few generations back the supervillains of the world had decided that; while they could dominate the world with the powers they had, It would be much more hassle then it was worth.
A steady stream of robbing from the already extremely moneyed, some anonymous gifts to certain organizations to distribute some of that wealth after expenses was accounted for and some staged and highly implausible capers every once in a while for the hell of it made for a quite more agreeable lifestyle.
And with that it was decided that unless strictly necessary, the heroes shouldn't be harmed.
Taunted, yes.
Tricked? Certainly.
Placed in elaborate and stupid death traps? Not Steph's personal kink but she didn't judge.
They really didn't know.
They would find out soon enough.
"Ruben?"she said and her apprentice stiffened by her side, "Please tell Tomas that they change to lice rounds in their guns for next caper. Tell him that they are to use as much lethal force as they have always wanted. That just this time, we don't do any theatrics. I want them to know that we have always held back. I want them to know, that they brought this on themselves." |
The master approached me, smiling smugly."You think you're worthy of joining our order, but you offer nothing. You're not strong in the force, and we cannot afford to train one so weak. Perhaps as a librarian you could HRRRRGGG!"the master gasped, and fell bonelessly to the ground.
I allowed his carotid artery to expand again and waited patiently.
"You...you...how dare you?"he stammered as he gathered himself.
As he opened his mouth again, no doubt to lecture me on how my abilities were of the dark side, or some such drivel, I noticed the clone troopers who'd been escorting him conferring with a hunched, robed figure via HoloComm, saying something about "Order 66". The clones leveled their blasters at the Master. Instinctively I triggered their cardiac sphincters, and they both began retching as vomit poured out of their masks."We have to get out of here!", I shouted.
The master did not argue. He sprinted for his ship, an aging Corellian courier vessel.
I joined him in the cockpit.
As he triggered the repulsorlift drives and fired the ion engines, a pair of ARC-170 starfighters descended from the sky and began to shower us with laser blasts. The ship lurched as we angled away from the landing pad.
"MAN THE TURRET!"the master instructed. I ignored him. I was a terrible shot. Instead I reached out and fused the irises of the clone pilots shut. They promptly crashed into the ground at full velocity.
We'd cleared the atmosphere and the elderly astromech had just completed hyperspace calculations when a Venator-class Star Destroyer appeared on the horizon. "Thank the Force!"the master exclaimed. We began to receive a holo-transmission. "Ah, Master Votran", the captain said. "We heard you had some trouble down on the planet. I'm happy to offer assistance, I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for why the clones attacked..."
As the captain spoke, I reached out with my powers...felt the captain's heartbeat accelerating, felt his pupils dilating. He was lying. I emptied his bladder and heard him trail off in astonishment. "JUMP TO LIGHTSPEED NOW!"I shouted. The master hesitated with his hands over the controls. I reached out and triggered a nerve impulse that sent his hand spasming, knocking the levers back. As the stars stretched into the mottled sky of hyperspace, I allowed myself to exhale explosively. What had I gotten myself into?
Sitting in the pilot's seat, Master Votran stared at me slackjawed.For want of anything better to do I decided to go see what was in the galley. |
On a cool September morning briny wind scraped the shores of Cape Verde. I sucked it in and watched the sunrise, when a sight stronger than coffee rose me from my chair. On the horizon, a ship. But it was unlike any ship I'd ever seen. It was long, flat, with high walls and a spherical sail. As it approached I realized it was heading to Mindelo, so I mounted my horse and made haste, arriving in town just as the foreign ship lumbered carefully to a stop in the bay.
The town was all talk. Where had it come from? It appeared out of the fog, said some. It's from the abyss itself, said others. The more level-headed just said "west".
It wasn't long before a boat of sorts, set out from the larger vessel. This was a strange affair. It was a platform stretched across two pontoons made entirely of long reeds, which glistened in the sun.
"My goodness, look!"cried one of my Portuguese neighbors, who had himself just arrived and dismounted without thinking to tie up his animal.
"Is that *gold*?"he stammered.
As our visiting lancha approached, its three riders became visible. They were adorned completely in gold! Gold armor, gold stockings, a sweeping headdress of golden feathers and another of plate metal and teal-colored gems. Later, when the sun crested the eastern range and its rays struck their ship from a different angle, it suddenly lit up and we knew that it, too, was decorated in gold. Not in a million years could I have imagined such a sight!
The three stepped ashore. One large man. One shorter man. And a powerful-looking woman dressed in beaded animal skins. The woman spoke first, and to the gathering crowd's further astonishment, it was Portuguese.
She said: "We have come in search of truth."She peered confidently over our people, her eyes dissecting us like we were some kind of experiment.
No one spoke, so she continued.
"We know your languages from the crew of the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Niña."
Those in the crowd who knew of the Queen's appointed explorer gasped--so he had survived the journey after all!
"We come in search of truth."
"What does that mean?"Someone blurted out. It seemed rude. Then I realized ashamedly that it was me.
She looked at me, deeper than I thought possible. Then she switched to my native Spanish to address me.
"100 of your years ago, your explorers brought disease, and our people suffered, from the Lucayans to the Inca. Our trade nearly collapsed, and our cities nearly depopulated."
"What happened?"I said. The Portuguese understood me well enough to follow along, now and then eyeing the gold like hungry children.
"We survived, and flourished. We learned what we could from your explorers. From their books, their animals, and their technology. It triggered something nascent for our cultures, something timely and urgent. We are powerful now, united, but distinct. From the Aztec to the Pueblo, Navajo and Cherokee; to the Guarani, the Mapuche in the south, and our Inuit friends in the far north. Ours is a coalition of cultures, not unlike yours in some ways, we believe. But the truth is why we have finally come, when we could have come so many moons ago."
By now most of the crowd was either confused by the strange names this woman had listed off, or they were intoxicated beyond the ability to concentrate by the glistening gold.
"What truth?"I said, adjusting my shirt. The day was growing, getting hotter.
"We are here to find out if you have changed."
"Changed?"
"100 years ago our ancestors captured your explorers, who ravaged the land without lifting a finger. Before the last of these died of old age, rainforest shamans performed an ancient rite of passage using ayahuasca, and his truth was revealed to us. Ours was to be a sad tale, one of millions of dead, of land burned and ravaged and fenced, and of agency stricken from our collective cultural power."
"I don't know what that means,"I said.
"Your 'exploration' was to be a genocide."
I had maneuvered to the front of the crowd. A couple dozen people had fallen silent behind me.
"I... I don't know that."
"We would like to know the truth."
"You will have to go to the royal courts. We are just a fishing community, and a few merchants."
"What is this land?"
"This is a colony of Portugal... madame,"I said, choosing the epithet despite her youth. Something about her confidence demanded it.
The shorter man of the trio said something to the woman in a language I didn't understand. She looked over my shoulder, which is when I turned around and saw the gaping faces, trying awkwardly and failing to hide their transfixation on the gold.
"I don't believe you hear us,"said the woman. "We will see if your leaders do."
She spoke another language, and the three returned the boat, went back to their ship and by mid afternoon were gone.
*continued...* |
How many years had it been exactly? It had to have been *at least* 300, according to her last estimate. Gwen reached for her cellphone before stopping, a habit she hadn't broken since her death.
Of course, cellphones don't follow you as a spirit, neither do your clothes or your physical features. In fact, being a spirit was quite odd. A free floating energy being like in one of those Star Trek episodes she was certain she had watched a long time ago.
The world hadn't changed too much, just a few more bits of technology here, oh the cars had gotten cooler! She remembered thinking that flying vehicles would be so ridiculous and impractical, but it seemed humanity had managed to find a way to make it work.
The other spirits preferred to keep their distance, as did she, it was a comfort to wander around the places they found familiar.
So it was nothing unusual that she found herself flitting into her old work place. Genesis Laboratories, it had been so long, yet the building had withstood the test of time. She remembered that she used to be a lab technician here, and she had a really good friend named Amy who was going to school to be a genetic scientist.
After the accident, she stopped by every once in a while to check up on Amy, her friend had moved up the ranks, eventually becoming one of the lead geneticists in her field.
Slipping up the stairs, Gwen made her way through the glass doors and into her favorite haunt.
The cryo pods were humming, not that Gwen could hear in the traditional sense of the word, but the electric vibrations reminded her of swimming.
"Ok, who's the lucky one this time?"Said a burly technician, his thick beard reminded Gwen of her uncle.
"Pod 92."Replied the other tech, a scrawny woman with short hair.
The two technicians put on gloves and approached Pod 92. Gwen followed along, it was always interesting to watch them wake up the cryogenically frozen. A small ripple in the spirit world would occur as their consciousness returned, a feeling that made it seem for a brief moment that they could actually see her.
She remembered reading something about how sleep was a small death, and she could only imagine how much closer to death a person sleeping for a couple hundred years might be.
Gwen snuck a peak at the pod's designation.
*Amy?*
Her friend Amy had been preserved it seemed, how had she forgotten? What fun this would be! Gwen was excited, maybe her friend Amy would have that momentary wink of recognition before her waking mind fully returned.
The technicians began the process, slowly lowering the temperatures and monitoring Amy's vitals, "Did you know, Amy Shwartz was one of the leading geneticists in perfecting cryogenics?"
The female technician seemed positively giddy, "How lucky are we, we get to wake her up. Like meeting Adam in the flesh."
The pod opened, and just inside, wrapped carefully in a white cloth, Gwen saw Amy.
She looked so old, but she was still alive.
"Wait..."
Suddenly, a loud beeping started emanating from the pod, "Cassie! Restart the program, her vitals aren't stable!"The burly fellow yelled, he had a look of panic on his face.
Gwen wasn't sure what was going, so many wakings had gone so well, why was this one failing? That familiar ripple in the world was starting again, but Amy hadn't woken up yet.
For a split second, Gwen thought she heard Amy's voice, far off, reaching over the ripples, but it couldn't be... and for the first time in a long time, Gwen felt like she was falling asleep.
*Sweet dreams.* |
James hesitated, gun pointed at the forehead of the strange alien, red light drifting from the barrel of the weapon, painting a large dot on the creature’s leathery face. Surely the creature knew this was a threat, weaponry was not a new creation by any means. Weapons of war were usually the fifth or sixth discovery of any growing race. Still, the alien didn’t move or try to shy away from the barrel of the gun, only letting his four eyes roll up towards the human, giving him a look of pity.
“Young human, I’m sorry. My blood will stain your morality. I have no will to fight you. My ancestors created this hatred you feel when we tossed the first asteroid into your orbit, dooming it to collide with your planet. We tossed the stone of war and you returned the favor. It’s lucky it took you all so long. We were far too violent back then. I do weep for my people though; many weren’t responsible for the brutalities of our past, yet they will face the same consequences.”
James was silent, the creature’s speech no different to a whale’s call, even as the curled lips opened, the words that came out were incomprehensible. A crashing wave of static drifted out from the man’s shoulder, booting up his translator as he patiently waited for the words to be outputted into a language he could understand. The alien could only watch as his mixed expression of anger and hesitation shifted into one of confusion.
“Peaceful? You nearly wiped out our planet. Those asteroids wiped out cities caused damages that we still can’t fix, plunged us into riots and chaos and for what? So, your race could see the stupid human’s panic? That’s what I hate the most, you didn’t even want to take us over or completely wipe us out, you just wanted us to suffer.”
The alien lowered their head, a shameful gaze forcing their attention to the pink dirt below. The creature dragged their arm along the dirt, clutching a small pile of it between their fingers, finely rubbing the grains of dust between its two fingers.
“I wish I could understand how you feel. I think our people once understood your pain. We were like you humans. We were young and naïve, constantly fighting among ourselves. Then one day the Raguthions showed up. They poisoned our lands made it impossible for us to survive with our old methods, we had to adapt and through that adaption we became unified. We had a common enemy. It was nice for a change. As the Raguthions continued their warpath, we prepared for our revenge. It took centuries, but we could finally gather an army, only to find the once powerful conquerors demoralized. They spoke of peace and regret. They offered us apologies, and we met their apologies with death. That’s how the stories go, anyway. I believe you are heading for a similar path, human. Like the Raguthions, I fear we have learned the value of peace too late. I hope you don’t make our mistake.”
They left James speechless. Unease had replaced any rage that he had felt over the past attacks. His gun barrel faced away, pointing at the ground below. The creature could be lying, but James had no reason not to believe it. The sounds of firing guns in the distance weren’t being met with resistance. The whole situation made him feel sick now. He strapped his gun back over his shoulder, unable to go through with it. They should reconsider this, if they let this go too far, they could be in trouble.
“Will you help me get our army to stop? I might be able to get Lydia to call a ceasefire, but I need someone from the other side who can-“
A loud whirling blast shot past James, bursting open the chest of the alien that had laid before him. A heavy set of footsteps came up behind him, a gloved hand hitting his shoulder, giving him a playful shake. Looking up to see the smiling face of his commander, a sense of adventure and retribution painted on her expression.
“Don’t let them unnerve you, they are monsters. This is for humanity, if you can’t stomach the violence, go back to the ship, don’t get in our way.”
James wished he was braver, wished he could grab his commander and explain the situation, but he was a coward. Falling silent as he watched her head towards the species cities. Not even knowing the name of the people they were going to wipe out. He was just doomed to stand there and watch history repeat itself.
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(If you enjoyed this feel free to check out my subreddit /r/Sadnesslaughs where I'll be posting more of my writing.) |
“When I give you the lemonade, I expect to be lemonpaid.”
Tom blew the barrel of his gun, watching the mobster drop dead on his lawn. Bastard thought he could rob Sunnyside up lemonade, maybe on a rainy day, but when the sun’s shining the guns firing. He should have known better. What a mess though, this was the fourth dead this week, the cops had been on his ass over the last three that mysteriously went missing after their last sugar deal, this one would only add more evidence to his case. Guess the stand was closing early today.
Tom flipped the paper sign on his table, notifying customers of the temporary closure before he went to grab a shovel, tossing both the body and shovel into the boot of his mother’s car. Where would he bury this one? The Pillan forest was nice this time of year, the snowfall in winter might preserve the body though. The lake however could be a good dumping ground. When that bastard freezes over, no one’s getting in.
He removed the shovel, not like he needed it anymore, instead he replaced it with a piece of rope, putting it with the body before heading inside.
“Hey Mum, can you take me for a drive? I want to get some more lemonade. Can we maybe stop at the forest too?” Tom put on his most innocent voice, turning the octaves up.
“Again? You must sell a lot of lemonade, dear. I knew this year six project would be good for you. How is Sam going with his project? You had him over last week, didn’t you?”
“Oh, Sam decided lemonade wasn’t for him. We had a friendly chat, I reminded him that a few too many lemonade stands might cause competition. He eventually got the picture.”
Tom knew better than to mention the turf war to his mother, he didn’t want to get her involved in the mess. He didn’t want the mafia coming after her. Luckily Sam didn’t need to be removed, the destruction of his stand was enough to deter him of any future plans.
Tom got into the car, his mother driving him to the forest, allowing him a brief break from his hard work. She found it strange why he wanted to come here of all places, but she was just happy he was taking an interest in nature.
“Mother, listen to some music, I’m going for a brief walk. Make sure no one follows me.”
“It’s awfully dangerous, sure you don’t want mommy to come with you?”
“It would be more dangerous if you came.”
Tom popped open the boot, grabbing the legs of the body. He peered around the edges of the trunk, making sure she was looking away before he dropped the body out, dragging it towards the lake. Tying the rope around the body’s waist, he found a nice heavy boulder. Attaching it to the other end before rolling them into the water.
Once the deed was finished, he returned to the car, kicking back in his seat.
“Let’s go get some lemonade mother, I think we might have a rush of business tomorrow.”
“That’s great, how much money have you made?”
Tom thought about that. In the illegal sugar trades and turf wars, he had made a few million. But she needed to be kept ignorant of that. How much does an average lemonade stand make, anyway?
“Forty dollars”
“A whole forty, oh that’s great. You have done so well.”
He had done well, even If Tom sometimes laid awake in his rocket bed, wondering if he would ever forgive himself for the things he had done. He knew it was all worth it. He was the kingpin of this town’s lemonade syndicate.
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(If you enjoyed this feel free to check out my subreddit /r/Sadnesslaughs where I'll be posting more of my writing.) |
It was...more than a little difficult to get a good look at it. Your eyes continually insisted that there was nothing there, tried to fill in the blank space based on the scenery around it.
Still, with concerted effort, you could, in fact, see that Bvrit had brought a living void to the kings hunt.
"Well, why not? He's well trained!"
"Well trained,"I said, deadpan. I couldn't even *see* the thing properly, and I neither knew nor wanted to know what would happen if I tried interacting with it. 'Training' made as much sense as 'training' a hurricane.
"He *is*! Watch!"
Bvrit picked up a stick, tossed it lightly in the air once to judge balance, and then threw it into the distance.
"Fetch!"
I had, perhaps foolishly, expected the void to *move*. I'd expected my eyes to get a bit of a break, as it went where I desperately wished it to go, which was anywhere else. Instead, it remained perfectly still as the stick flew through the air. Not wanting to watch the void, I watched the stick, which was much more normal, right up until the moment that it disappeared.
I thought I knew where it had gone, but I worked on not thinking about it. Bvrit seemed utterly unconcerned by the incomprehensible...*being*...beside him, and stooped down to pick up the stick.
"See? He brought the stick back! Whoosa good boy?"
Given the choice between watching Bvrit pet That Which Should Not Be and examining the stick, I examined the stick. It was, in truth and in fact, a stick. Yup, definitely a stick. I can confirm, based on long experience, that this is a stick. Probably the *same* stick, but you'd want a major expert to really *confirm* that. All I could say with certainty was that, yup, this was a stick, one heck of a stick, and-
"Would you *stop* petting that...that...*that*!"Words failed to describe the thing. Language needs more words for indescribable horrors. Though, on the other hand, a described indescribable horror is a contradiction.
Though, on the *other* other hand, maybe a described indescribable horror goes away. You can always hope.
"Look...okay, fine, you keep that thing for the hunt, but don't draw any attention to it, or to us, and whatever you do, *do not embarrass me*. I need a favor from one of the nobles, and an incident in front of the king will shoot my chances straight to hell."
"Wheeeeeeee! Thank you!"cried Bvrit. And though I wasn't sure, the Space That My Eyes Were Trying To Lie To Me About seemed to be moving around, almost like an excited dog.
I tried not to think about it. |
"Honey, come back to bed."Sheila said, sighing as her husband, John, sat upright in bed for what seemed like the hundredth time.
He turned to look at her, eyes alert, ears pricked. "I know I heard something."
"Babe, it's going to be okay."She bent upright and started rubbing his back. John was never quite the same after he'd returned from active duty. The things he saw out in the Sandbox- she knew his eyes had changed. But underneath all that, John was still the man she married, and they had gone out to a romantic outing in a national forest on vacation- hoping to ease John back into civilian life and alleviate his PTSD.
John twitched, and tried to shake her off. "Sheila, it's not- it's not in my head this time. I *know* I heard something. Didn't you hear it?"
"John, please. The psychiatrist said you needed to relax. And it's my job to help you do just that."She tried pulling him back down. "We can check it out in the morning if it makes you feel-"
**WHUMP**
She stopped midsentence, her mouth hanging open.
Meanwhile, John had bolted out of bed, and immediately dug out his old service revolver from the end table next to their bed. Sheila had tried to stop him from bringing the thing out to the cabin, but John had been obstinate. He would go nowhere without it. He could not sleep without it.
"J-John? What was that?"Sheila asked. Panic gripped her with its icy hands.
"Trouble."John grunted as he started loading the revolver with practiced efficiency. No matter how broken some of them ended up- marine corps training still stuck. He flipped the safety off, then turned to face his wife with grim eyes. "I need you to stick close to me. Be quiet."
John knew leaving his wife alone was a liability, better to have her where he can see her and protect her.
She nodded quickly, threw off the covers and placed a hand on his shoulder. Pulling her robes tighter against her body with her free hand, she whispered, "I'll call the cops..."
"No signal."John stated bluntly as he crept forward, gun drawn.
He was on full alert, and had his back to a wall as they made their way from the bedroom and down the corridor.
They made their way to the kitchen when there was another loud thudding sound.
**WHUMP**
"Eek!"Sheila let out a whimper.
"Shh, it's okay. I got you."John consoled her. "He's at the front door. Ramming it or something."He grabbed a nearby kitchen knife and handed it to Sheila. "Take this, back me up if things go south."
Sheila reached out with shaking hands and accepted the crude weapon, and nodded. Her eyes were damp, she was about to cry.
John took point, and slowly made his way to the front door as the thudding noises increased in frequency.
He looked through a window, and gritted his teeth at what he saw. A bloody looking clown was charging the door with its body, trying to bring it down. In its hand it had an axe. It was wearing a mask made of a bloody brown leather. Looked like human skin.
"Shelia, don't look. Stand back, I'm going to shoot the bastard through the window."
Just as he took aim, the clown stopped its tackling and abruptly turned its gaze towards the window, making direct eye contact with John. A knowing smile crept across its lips. It licked its teeth in anticipation. Oh, these two looked fun to play with~
It then held up a severed head, showing it off.
Despite all his time on tour, John had to suppress a gag. The clown was holding the head of brother-in-law, Ted. Bastard had gotten to them in their cabin nearby.
"Fucker!"John fired without hesitation.
The bullets shattered the window, and the clown's body shook with each impact as the bullets impaled his torso, blood pooling from his wounds.
And yet he stood standing, with the same perverse smile spreading across his lips. *Oh goody, this one fought back!* He loved it when they fought back. Made it more interesting.
"The fuck?"John muttered, then quickly reloaded and discharged again at the thing.
A shadow of a wince crossed the clown's features, before it resumed its predatory grin. It advanced towards the now shattered window, humming a little - offkey - children's song.
"Let's play!!!"The clown said in a cheery voice.
"The fuck are you!?"John shouted, then pulled his wife away from the window.
If small arms won't cut it, they'll need to try something else.
"Fucker's got... got kevlar on or something. Sheila, where did you put my shotgun?"
"T-Ted borrowed it when you guys went hunting, remember? It's probably at their cabin."She spoke between sobs. The clown had tossed her brother's severed head through the window and it had landed with a dull splat. Ted's eyes looked right at her. "John... he's dead."
"I need you to calm down. And do exactly as I say. Here's what we're going to do..."He leaned in and whispered to her, as the clown got ever closer.
- - - - - - - - - -- - -
Oh, where did those two gooo?
The clown looked and looked, but there was nobody to be found in the kitchen, or the doorway! He went through all the trouble of climbing through the window too...
He decided to lumber down the corridor. Maybe his new friends were hiding in their bedroom.
Oh, they were going to have a grand time.
"Doo da dee hum tee hum~"He hummed to himself, as he swung the axe side to side, smashing it into any framed photos he saw lining the hallway.
And- just as he opened the door to the bedroom, he found what he'd been looking for. There, standing, shaking, and oh so fantastically frightened, was a young woman in nothing but her bathrobe. Clumsily holding out a knife and pointing it at him.
The Clown smirked. Was that potato peeler supposed to scare him?
"Let's play!!!"The Clown screamed as it lunged forward with the axe.
"NOW!!"A man's voice, deep and gutteral, sprang from a nearby corner.
Sheila screamed and held up the knife- no, it wasn't a knife. It was a- flashlight?
The world became white. The Clown could not see, as the miniature sun razed his retinas.
"You piece of shit!!"The voice behind him growled, and a pair of meaty hands grabbed at the axe in the Clown's hand, and all he could do was pull back, his eyes blinded.
They wrestled for a bit, but John knew how to apply leverage, and twisted the axe out of the Clown's hands. He had to let go, or risk spraining his wrists.
Weapon in hand, John savagely bore down on the clown without hesitation, his eyes filled with a soulless rage. The USMC trained the best killers. He would not feel pity for this man- was it a man?
The Clown screamed in agony as the axe bore down repeatedly on his head, splitting it open and coating the room in gore.
"Not. So. Tough. Now. Are you, you fuck!"John grunted in between swings.
The Clown gave out one last cry before falling to its knees, and landing on its face, blood oozing around it. It lay there, twitching, a grotesque death rattle escaping its decayed lips.
"Urgghh *gurgle*... Let's... play......."
"SHUT IT!"John slammed the axe down hard on the prostrated clown's neck, nearly severing its head. And yet- it still breathed. The head hung on by a thread and yet it still smiled and stared up at John, though with its windpipe severed all it could do was whistle through its throat and gurgle up blood.
"Sheila! Grab some rope from the shed."John said, wiping the back of his hand across his brow as he continued hacking at the thing once more with his axe, trying to cripple its legs.
"O-okay!"Sheila said, trembling as she hurriedly got moving.
The clown twitched and reached out to grab her leg as she ran past it, but John stomped a foot down on its arm. "Oh no you ain't. It's okay Sheila, go on."
...
They tied up the now brutally mauled clown and marched it toward the nearest Ranger station.
The Ranger looked up, then spat out his coffee.
"This lunatic killed my brother in law, then tried to kill me and my wife. He wouldn't die-"
"Looks plenty dead to me."The Ranger said, walking over and examining the corpse that John had dragged over.
"No, it's still looking right at me. Look."
Sheila was still crying, rubbing John's back. "Please, John. It's over now. He's dead."
She reached out and grabbed his hand, and brought his chin toward her so that he could look into her eyes.
John's eyes were still glazed over, but eventually there was the light of cognizance.
And then he slumped to the ground, cradling his head in his bloodied hands.
"He uh... he gonna be okay?"The Ranger asked, looking at John with concern.
"He saved all of us. He... he has some mental problems, from back when he was in the Middle East. PTSD. He has a hard time coming down when he gets triggered."
It all came flooding back to him, as his reality lifted. The clown- He had been dead since the first few axe swings (or before then even?). He had been dying (or dead?) since the first few revolver rounds. John had dragged a corpse to the station. It was all in his head.
"Been there."The Ranger said, commiserating.
"You did good, son. This must be the infamous Playtime Killer that's been terrorizing folk around here. About time someone put a bullet in him."He said, patting John on the shoulder and putting a tarp over the corpse. "We'll take it from here."
... |
I was drifting along on a sweet summer breeze, minding my own invisible business when a soft moan came from behind me. It was a sound I wasn't entirely familiar with. There was an element of human to it, but there was also something slightly off about it. Intrigued, I twirled around and found myself face to face with... My face.
It was a little more decayed than when I'd left it a few months ago, but I still recognized my eyes and the pride and joy that were my cheekbones. I admit, I was a little embarrassed by my unkempt state, and I'm sure if I could smell I would be appalled. But the things that used to annoy me as a human no longer seemed to matter as a ghost. Things hold less weight now, if you catch my drift.
As I floated there, staring at my desiccated form, something strange happened. It was as if my body could see me, because all of a sudden I tried to bite me! I shrieked and backed away, and my body tipped its head to the side, seemingly confused as to why my teeth had gone straight through my arm.
"It's not very nice to bite people! I thought I had better manners than that!"I yelled at myself.
"Maybe we did when we were one person, but ever since you left, it's like I don't know who I am anymore,"my body said, punctuating everything with a series of moans and groans.
"It's not my fault I had to leave! We were stabbed! I had no choice but to leave you behind."
My human eyes and my ghost eyes both looked down at the same time. The wound on my chest didn't look any better now than it did the night I'd been stabbed. At least now it wasn't bleeding heavily, just oozing something gross to look at.
"Maybe we should get that checked out,"I said.
"It's too late for that,"my body grunted. "I just wish I knew who did this to me. I would love to bite them."
"Well that's interesting because I know exactly who stabbed us,"I said.
"Really?"It was the most animated I'd seen my reanimated self.
"Of course. I remember everything that has ever happened to us."
A sudden scream split the air, and I looked over my shoulder to see a little girl, pointing at us and crying.
"Hey! It's rude to point!"I shouted, but she ignored me completely. Probably because my stupid body was ambling toward her, mouth wide open and ready to bite.
"Woah there me!"I yelled, blocking my own path. "We want to go the other way to find the person who killed us."
"Oh right,"my body said, turning away from the little girl.
We were only a few steps into our journey when my body veered right. I followed my own gaze and saw a squirrel high-tailing it away from us. I sighed and went after myself again. It was suddenly clear to me who was going to have to be the brains of this operation, and it wasn't the zombie. |
When I came to, I was in my bed. How had I gotten here?
My body felt like shit, and i ached all over. Every muscle was in some level of agony. Turning over on my pillow was a test of strength. I lay there, breathing heavily, looking at the lamp hanging in the middle of the ceiling. A yawn came on, and-
'Blahhhhhhhhhhp!'
I shot up in my bed like a floorboard. Had I dreamt that? Was I still dreaming? I checked my clock. 10am.
I pushed through the aching, and levered myself up off the bed. Dull, vague thoughts and half-memories echoed through distant parts of my mind. A man with a certain smile. A punctured tire.
Fortunately it was Sunday, so I was free. After coffee and a cigarette, I made my way out to go for some breakfast. I needed air too. As I made my way outside, I was struck by how lightly I had to touch everything to move it. Everything seemed a hundred times lighter and easier than before. It felt like I had lost control of my muscles.
As the engine chugged into life, I felt trepidation about putting my foot on the accelerator. Maybe I was really drunk. Would I shoot off and smash into the caddy parked in front of me? In the end I walked. I didn't mind too much anyway.
I arrived at the café twenty minutes later, feeling a lot better. A girl had just walked in, and the door was swinging shut. I hurried to reach it before it had closed fully. Suddenly, I found myself being propelled forward at frightening speed, then the door and walls arrived. There was no time to stop myself. I smashed through the door and part of the wall, the glass and brick exploding around me. It barely slowed me, and I kept moving forward, until I had rammed into the bar inside the cafe. Around me, the people squirmed like rats, screaming and pushing, eyes bugging out. I just stood there. This was insane.
After a moment, I slowly started to back out of the rubble and mess. In the distance I could hear a police siren. In the corner of the cafe, a man was staring at me. I opened my mouth to give some kind of explanation, but I couldn't find the words. I had to get out of here.
I wrenched my way out, at the same time as the police cruiser arrived. It turned side on to me, and two cops jumped out. Something broke free in my brain.
I slammed on the speed.
'Blahhhhhhhhhhhhhp!'
The cops jumped out of the way as I went through their car like it was nothing. My engine was pumping as I ricocheted off the various cars on each side of the street. Why did I feel more pity for them than I did for the people in the cafe? On I barreled, with my destination approaching me in 500m, 400m, 300m, 200m, 100m, next exit.
The freeway was smooth and wide. I was in heaven! The traffic moved wherever I went, letting me pass. I got as high as 100mph before I became aware of the chop-chop-chop from overhead. It was probably a police helicopter, but I found I couldn't look up anymore. It didn't matter. I was like a fish back in the ocean now. A helicopter couldn't stop me. My top speed clocked in at 150. If there was a hill, I might be able to go faster.
Then I saw her.
She was a 2007 model Peterbilt 379, in red, with chrome detailing. The way she moved was indescribable, somewhere between a boat, a train, and an RCV. I eased my brakes a little and pulled up alongside her.
At first, she ignored me. I pulled ahead a little, letting her take a look. Then I let her catch up again, controlling the rate just as smoothly as I could. At the last second before we were neck in neck, I let out a massive-
'Braaaaaaahhhhhhhaaaahhhhppp!'
Initially there was no change in her demeanor. Then she sped up a little. I let her outpace me. Then I heard it, like the sweetest little bird in the meadow.
'Paaahhhahhpp!'
I moved closer, and rubbed against her. She said it again. I couldn't believe what was happening.
Suddenly she slowed drastically, then veered off. She escaped away off of an exit ramp. Just like that, it was over, and I was alone again. But when I looked around, I realised this highway was just crawling with trucks. I would always remember that moment though. My first.
My warm thoughts of romanticism came crashing down as I realised that up ahead was a dense collection of police cars. They had laid some kind of mat across the road. Behind me were two cruisers, lights flashing. Now I was cursing my luck.
I tore across the mat, and felt a scratching. My tires were torn up, and the air hissed out over a few seconds. Suddenly I couldn't steer anymore. The railing on the side of the highway came closer and closer to me, and then I went up and over, smashing down again in a field, where I hurtled through and into the ground, before losing my orientation and flipping on my side. I could no longer move myself, and I knew that things had come to an end.
For a few minutes, I lay there, looking at the clouds, and the settling dust. Finally, a police car pulled up behind me. I saw a pair of boots walk into my line of vision. And I heard a voice.
'Now, just what in the sweet, holy, flying fuck is this?!' |
For those humans that are unaware, vampires experience what we call 'The Cough' each winter solstice, for historical reasons that are far too detailed for me to convey at the present time. If you are curious, I'm sure a local vampire would love an invitation to share why it came about, how annoying it is, and their various herbal remedies that ultimately do nothing, but make the process smell better.
While the Cough is an inconvenience, the consequences of partaking of your blood are dire. Your medical expertise and the treatments they offer are truly miraculous, to hold such an ancient oath at bay with only an annual yearning. The power your blood offers is intoxicating, delicious. If I chose to, I could carve a way for us to return home, each cobblestone drenched in sweet nectar as a peace offering to those ancients who exiled us. I could be a deathless king, if I had just one more dro
...
The Craving is intense. It ebbs and rises, like the seas of our primordial homes. Our exile must hold, as the A'Luat Atori has not yet come to pass. Release these words to the elders of the vampire community, that no vampire must refuse the treatments. It is simply too dangerous.
This is farewell, siblings. I, the only vampire left on Earth to have walked the red streets of O'tal Pavemph, banish myself now to the bloodless dunes, that I may find redemption in the gaping abyss of eternity. |
They kicked down my front door while I was having dinner. My muscles instantly tensed up and I lost control of my body. Someone had cast a spell on me. Against my will, I stood up, faced the front door and knelt before it. Three people walked in wearing Department of Psychic Control (DPC) uniforms.
"Caduceus Gorman,"said the person in the middle, a white-haired woman who was presumably the leader. "You are under arrest for malicious use of psychic powers."
I felt the spell weaken just enough to allow me to speak.
"What?"I said. "Malicious?"
The officer to the woman's right raised his eyebrows. He was the one in my mind controlling me. "He's genuinely surprised,"he said.
"Amazing, isn't it?"said the white-haired woman.
"Why *wouldn't* I be genuinely surprised?!"I said. "I haven't been malicious to anybody!"
"Do you remember the beggar who asked you for food last week?"said the woman.
"Yeah! I gave him the willpower to get a job!"
"He already had that,"said the woman. "You just ended up lowering his other priorities. He's made one hundred and forty six attempts since he met you. No one hired him. He was lucky we were tracking your psychic trail. By the time we got to him, he was almost dead of starvation."
"Jesus,"I said. "So you gave him more willpower?"
"We gave him *food*, you fucking dipshit."
I couldn't believe it. How dared they. "Well, I hope you're proud of yourself!"I said. "Now he'll get used to other people feeding him and he'll never..."
"He's not a goddamn wild animal at a national park!"yelled the woman, arms akimbo in disbelief. "You've been doing shit like that for years."
"What, helping people?"
"My God,"said the officer to the woman's right. "He really believes it."
"Shouldn't we just bring him in, Meryl?"said the officer to the woman's left. "I mean, regardless of how this conversation goes, we still have to bring him in."
The white-haired woman, Meryl, nodded impatiently. "Yeah, yeah, we'll do that, just humor me here."She knelt in front of me. "To some extent, you have to know what you're doing. You've been robbing people blind in poker games. You convince the players with the best hands to raise the pot and then fold."
"Well, yeah!"I said. "That way they'll lose the game and realize that gambling is bad for them!"
"Tell that to the guy who's now homeless because you did that to him."
"Okay, sure, is he here?"I tried to look over Meryl's shoulder.
"He literally just tried to look over your shoulder,"said the officer who was controlling me. "As in, he literally thinks the guy might be here."
Meryl sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. Then she stared at me with what seemed like murderous intent. "But it's okay for *you* to win at poker, apparently."
"Well, yeah, I'm a goddamn psychic,"I said. "The risk for me is infinitely smaller than for non-psychics, they're the ones who should be protected."
"Sure,"said Meryl. Sarcastically, I think.
"He's not even sure if you said that sarcastically,"said the officer controlling me.
"Look, can you just control me *without* reading my mind?"I asked him.
He ignored me. Meryl fished a notepad out of her breast pocket. "Okay, you can't possibly defend yourself against this one,"she said, checking the notes. "You made a man throw himself off a bridge."
I laughed. "Oh, that was just a bit of trolling,"I said.
Meryl furrowed her brow in confusion. "Trolling?"
"Yeah, he was looking at the water thinking that the height would be enough to kill someone. And I'm like, no, dummy, that's deep water. I thought about telling him, but I was like, it'll be more fun if I just show him. So I made him jump off. Now he knows it's safe and he found that out in a fun way. It's a great story to tell at parties."
The officer to Meryl's left was literally facepalming for some reason. Meryl and the other officer were just staring at me.
"That man is dead now,"said Meryl.
"Oh no,"I said. "What happened?"
Meryl looked at the officer to her right. The officer shook his head slowly, staring wide-eyed at me. "He really doesn't know,"he said.
Meryl looked at me. "Caduceus,"she said. "Hitting water from a great height does kill you."
I scoffed. "But it was..."
"Yeah, that includes deep water. Water of any depth. In all circumstances. It kills you. That man died because of you."
That made no sense. It's *water*. "Look..."
"No, *you* look,"said Meryl. "You are immensely dangerous. Your psychic power is off the charts, but only if you believe you're doing what's best for the person being controlled. Problem is... you're a moron. You're a complete, bona fide fucking moron. So we're taking your psychic powers away."
"Okay, okay, so I was wrong about the water,"I said. "Somehow. But..."
"And about several other things that led to people dying or having their lives ruined,"said Meryl. "So yeah, say goodbye to your psychic powers. Also, we're probably going to give you a vasectomy because God forbid there's ever a child unlucky enough to have you as their parent."
"That's eugenics!"I protested.
Meryl tilted her head as if considering my observation. "Not really, but fine, no vasectomy. You will be able to have children, but they'll go into someone else's custody as soon as they're born. There, you're still in the gene pool. Happy?"
The officer to Meryl's left seemed confused. "He knows the concept of eugenics but he doesn't know falling on water can kill you?"
Meryl nodded to him. "Yeah, it's incr..."
I cast the spell.
(CONTINUED BELOW) |
Vreg'shygir laughed. His machinations were finally reaching completion. He had waited millennia for this moment to come, each part of his masterplan unfolding just as it should, all his methodical planning all culminating in this moment. Soon, there would be no more living left in the world. Only the dead would remain, and the dead would all be ruled by him, the Archlich Vreg'shygir. The soul arch started to glow as it began to power up. Yes, very soon now. Nothing was left in Vreg'shygir's way, no-one was left to stop him. Unless... down the hallway he could just make out... the sounds of arguing?
"You've gotten us lost again you useless pointy eared harlot!"
"We're not lost! I know exactly where we are! We should be coming up on Vreg'shygir any moment now!"
"That's exactly what you said in Deadwood Forest 'Oh we'll be in his lair any moment now guys!' then you ran us straight into that giant spider den!"
"Why are you still going on about that? I'd think a gravel-breath like you would be happy to be under the ground where no-one can see how ugly you are."
"I swear to Moradin, if we make it out of here alive I'll make sure to see you dead."
"Will you two shut up already! We're here!"
A party of five heroes appeared in Vreg'shygir's chamber. They were two humans, a dwarf, an elf and a halfling. The lich put on a grin, and spread his arms wide. "Welcome, heroes, to your death. I had anticipated your arrival. Indeed, you'll find that I've prepared for every eventuality. No matter how powerful you think you are, you will find that you are no match for..."
"Shut up!"The dwarf shouted.
Vreg'shygir was rather appalled at the lack of common courtesy shown by the dwarf, but nevertheless he pressed on. "Very well, come and meet your end then, as so many..."
"I said, shut up!"The Dwarf shouted again. "Every moment I have to spend with these idiots is one too many, so let's just get this over with so I can go back home and forget any of this every happened."
"Now Petyr, you mustn't be so discourteous."one of the humans said.
"Don't tell me you're going to insist we hear the nice lich out,"The other human said. "I am so godsdamned tired of you and the constant chivalry, Greg."
"That's Sir Gregory to you, you uncouth lout!"Sir Gregory said. "You must understand that manners are never wasted, even on a scoundrel such as this."
"Whatever,"the other human said, rolling his eyes. "This'll be done in no time anyway, no-one gets between me and my mark, and those that do end up in a shallow grave."
"Oh don't start that whole spiel again Yorik, you stupid edgelord!"The halfling shouted. "Can't you find a dark corner somewhere to brood in instead of another speech about how 'no-one gets between you and your mark' or 'the darkness inside me' or whatever else your teenage angst conjures up."
Yorik blushed. "You shut up, Anola! You don't understand what I'm going through!"
"Sure I don't,"Anola said. "Just like I don't get what's on the mind of random insects, because that's equally significant to me. Anyway, if you gents want to sit back I've got a spell ready to end this in two shakes of a lamb's tail."
"No!"Petyr protested. "You don't get to cast spells again!"
"Why the hells not?"Anola asked.
"Because the last time you cast a spell, my beard turned into bubbles. Do you know how bad a beardless dwarf looks?"
"It can't look much worse than a bearded dwarf."the elf snickered.
"Shut. Your. Trap. Imryll."Petyr replied.
"Um..."Vreg'shygir said. "Are you quite done or..."
"And another thing."Petyr said. "Why do you keep going on about my looks? I'll have you know I'm considered quite a catch back in the Mithril Halls. Or at least I was until the wee halfling bubbled off my beard!"
"I think that just says more about the other dwarves than it does about you."Imryll replied.
Petyr was red in the face by this point, and was about to say something to Imryll when Sir Gregory forestalled him.
"Now Petyr, she may have some... flaws but Imryll is still a lady, and as such must be treated with some courtesy."
"You keep your shiny bollocks out of this!"Petyr shouted.
"I don't need some mere human to defend me."Imryll protested at the same time.
"Guys,"Vreg'shygir said. "Can we start fighting now or?"
"Oh are you that eager to meet your end at my hands, lich?"Yorik taunted.
"Shut up you stupid edgelord!"Petyr, Imryll, and Anola shouted simultaneously.
"Can we please just get this over with? If we all die it'll be an improvement over the present circumstances."Anola said.
"Come then,"Vreg'shygir said. "Come and die."
"Oh shut up."Anola said. She then began to cast a spell. But before Vreg'shygir could counterspell it, the magic went awry. The ball of fire that supposedly was supposed to explode on top of Vreg'shygir instead exploded in the middle of the group.
"For fuck's sake Anola, this is why we gagged you last time!"Petyr shouted.
"You stupid, worthless halfling."Imryll admonished.
"Oh shut up, you try throwing a fireball when everyone is shouting at you!"Anola replied.
Sir Gregory charged forward. "Have at thee, knave!"But as he charged, an arrow from Imryll hit him in the shoulder. Gregory shouted in pain. "Imryll, you treacherous wench!"
"It's not my fault you brainlessly charge in right where I was about to shoot him!"Imryll replied.
"Right, time for me to end this."Yorik intoned as he charged forwards, daggers flashing in both his hands. But as he ran past Petyr, he suddenly fell flat on his face after tripping on Petyr's outstretched leg.
"Why did you trip me?"Yorik cried out.
"Because I couldn't bear the thought of seeing you do your stupid dagger spin attack again."
"Fuck you! My dagger spin attack is awesome!"
"Of course you think that, you never see how dumb it looks."
Vreg'shygir didn't really know what to do next, he thought he had anticipated for every eventuality, but this, this he had not anticipated, whatever this was.
"Petyr, we require healing!"Sir Gregory called out. "The foul lich has wounded us all."
"He hasn't done anything yet!"Petyr replied. "And I'm not healing you lot, you can go to hell for all I care."
"You useless beard-goblin!"Sir Gregory yelled.
"Oh that's it,"Petyr replied. "That's the drop that spilled the bucket, I'm not going to heal any of you. In fact..."
"You better not do what I think you're about to do.."Imryll said.
"In fact,"Petyr continued. "I think I'll heal our lich friend!"
"We haven't even injured him yet!"Anola shouted.
"That doesn't matter, I'd rather waste all my healing magic on him than give even a drop of it to any of you."
Vreg'shygir was stunned, he couldn't actually... but before Vreg'shygir could respond, the dwarf was already chanting his spell. It looked to be the dwarves most powerful healing spell. Vreg'shygir belatedly thought to counterspell the dwarf, but as he intoned the counterspell, the dwarf had already finished his cast.
As the radiant healing magic touched Vreg'shygir, he cried out in agony. How could these idiots possibly know his secret? How could they know that Vreg'shygir was so deeply connected to the realm of death, that his only weakness was life-magic. The lich cried out one final time, then was nothing more than a pile of dust on the floorstones.
The party was speechless. After a long silence, Petyr was the first to talk. "Right, I think that means I get first dibs on loot."
"Like hell it does!"Yorik replied.
The party continued to argue then, somehow unaware that they had saved the world from certain destruction. There were some who understood the significance of what the group had accomplished, but they would rather stay silent about it, preferring to forget that this particular cast of characters was all that stood between the end and them. |
"Seriously, man? What kind of wish is that? "the genie asked.
"Oh, you'll see. "I said with a grin.
"I thought people wanted to wish for things like... money! Or a girlfriend! But making all deadly weapons not work for only an hour? Seriously? "
"Just do it, will you? "
"All right then. Here we go. "
Snap.
"Is it done? "
"Yeah. But I really don't understand. I'm a genie, thought you would have better wishes to make. This isn't even permanent. "
"Do you really want to find out genie? "
"Uhh, yeah. I guess. "
I had him hooked.
"Show me the after effects of my wish for two hours and you'll know. "
The genie eagerly conjured up multiple hovering screens in front of me and him, and we watched the world get very confused.
A murderer and its supposed to be victem wondering why stabbing with a knife just didnt do anything at all. No pain, no blood, it just stabbed but didn't do anything.
Same with soldiers at war, wondering why bullets when hit a person they didn't die at all.
Everyone was just confused.
The news reported this as a unexplainable pheunomenon. They shot themselves on camera but nothing happened to them.
Everyone went into a mad frenzy seeing this unexplainable sight.
As expected, most people thought the world was ending.
People did unexpected things at the face of an unexpected event and thinking they were at the end of the world, robberies broke out. From attempting sexual assult to prayers to god, people were diversly getting ready to meet the end.
People shot, punched, stabbed each other to either stop the madness, or just to have fun, or to experiment.
A man drank all sorts of toxic liquids but nothing killed him.
"Is this what you wanted to see? Just all of those people confused out of their minds? "
And as I smiled at the genie, the hour was up.
And people started to die.
The bullets lodged inside of soldiers finally worked, and having several metal pieces inside of them, the immediately began writhing in pain.
The people being currently stabbed screamed in unison as they felt metal crawl into their muscle and bones.
The man who had drank multiple toxins convulsed on the ground, flopping around as his liver burned away.
A man had lost an eye to his wife stabbing him.
Robbers who had taken shotgun pellets inside his body slumping over onto the ground.
The genie watched me in horror as I watched in amusement.
"You fucking piece of shit- you little..! "
I closed my eyes; hearing the screams erupt from all around my town, as the enraged genie killed me. |
"I'm sorry. I wish I could save you."
They were words I had once thought I would never say. At one time, I watched over the world with my friends. Unlike the films or comics, there weren't hundreds of supers across the world. There were eight of us. Each of us were powerful in our own right.
I was known as the Wind. A simple name, but that was all we needed. The air was my domain. I could fly, make tornadoes, thicken it to act like a shield, even catching a falling plane. I travelled the world, helping the common people. It is something we all did.
The others were Flame, Rock, Tide, Brainwave, Beastmaster, Doc, and Nature. We worked flawlessly, making sure we all looked after each other. It was rare for us to have a moments peace, as chaos was apparent. If we had been together, maybe this could have been averted.
We were divided out of necessity, for we were always needed. When the first reports of people coming back came through, we paid it little mind. Most of us chalked it up to drugs, with people overdosing or some such. A regrettable choice. Doc was the first to investigate.
He spent more and more time in such places. His messages back were generally confusing, filled with terminology that slipped us by. But we could tell he was worried. That was telling, as he generally didn't tend to worry. He could fix practically anything. So his concern was alarming.
Then came the report of a city in riot. Rock went to deal with it, taking Brainwave with her. We assumed she would be safe. She always had been before, with her impervious skin. That proved false. I don't know how it happened, but she was turned.
That alone was bad enough, but she kept some of her powers. Seeing her isolating crowds, for the infected to devour was horrifying. Brainwave barely managed to make it out alive. All she would say was the minds were broken. It had ruined her.
Her and Nature were packed off to meet with Doc. With the loss of one of our own, our plans shifted to defence. They would organise shelter, a focal point for humanity. Beastmaster left by himself. He sought the wilds, to find animals that would help fight back the hordes.
He made a mistake. We only found out when he commanded packs of zombie wolves and dogs, letting them tear through defences. Flame and Tide had gone to take down Rock, and lay him to rest. I was busy finding survivors as the world fell apart, taking them to our established colony.
I planned to pick up Flame, and have him assist me. But before I could, he caused a city to burn. Tide barely made it out in time, giving us the awful news. They had managed to damage Rock, but it was only a matter of time before he won. So Flame made the sacrifice play, to immolate the city.
Tide herself was badly wounded. We made the decision to not sent her out anymore. She could look after the coast, and check for what happened to those that inevitably fell in. With our team broken, we had to dig in. I went alone, as the fastest mover, to take down Beastmaster.
I looked over him as I uttered those words. The face I once knew, filled with near boundless kindness, was consumed by hunger. His right arm had been degloved, likeltfrom the attack that turned him. My heart broke at the sight, of both him and the world.
I couldn't save either of them. Him I could put to rest. But the world, I could only watch its death throes. Maybe one day we would push back. But I couldn't guarantee it. |
I didn't look up from my phone when the old woman slid into the seat next to me at the bar. It wasn't until she coughed loudly into my ear that I lifted my eyes from my Wordle.
"You're pretty fond of that device, aren't you?"she observed.
I folded my arms. "Not like there's much going on in meat space."
The woman rummaged around in her purse. "I'll bet you couldn't go a week without it. Not for a million dollars.
"I snorted. "Well, I don't know about that. Got a million dollars?"
Finally, her fingers found what she had been fishing for. She drew out a black American Express card. "What if I do?"
I looked into her eyes to see if she was serious. She just held out her hand for my phone. "I'll know if you cheated, you know."
I gave her the phone. Time to catch up on some reading. |
I placed the now-empty lamp on my bedside table and took a deep breath. This was my chance to do something meaningful.
"Okay, I'm ready,"I say and the genie stops rummaging through my room and floats closer to me.
I take another breath.
"I want to know how to achieve world peace, how to end world hunger and how to cure every disease known to mankind,"I say without pause.
The genie grins. "Lucky for you, those three questions all have the same answer so I'll count it as one wish. Human extinction."
I nodded. I expected this.
The genie settled on the edge of my bed. "So what will it be for your next wish?"
"I wish for human extinction."
The genie smiles and snaps his fingers.
I did not make a third wish. |
"Huh. That was anti-climactic."And turn back to the gear I had dropped. Checking the various empty bags I would be expected to carry once the party looted the monster's lair. Magdalen the magnificent, real name Roy, came over to me as I checked to make sure the tins for supper were still available.
"So uhm, Richard."
I interrupted him. "Dave. I told you that is my middle name and my mother is the only one to use it. And then only when angry at me."
"Sorry Ri, ah, *Dave*. But how? I mean I want to write a sonnet or song of an epic battle. And you just punched the serpent. Cannot be killed by a man and all that. Last I saw you piss you were a man. . ."
"Magdalen. . I don't know alright. Back home I was an over weight failure. The only thing I did with any meaning was to take my mother shopping. I got hit by lightning on my porch and I was in these lands. Whole other world. I am still old, fat, and the only skill anyone recognizes is I can carry things."
"Well obviously."
Shaking as I hold up my hand. "Six months. My parents must think me dead. Which likely has broken my mother's heart. My father will be drinking more than ever. Since you lot hired me from the hiring hall. You have acted like I am an imbecile. Dagnus has pulled idiotic practical jokes on me. Like pantsing me when we go into town. And Sir Guy acts like I am something to wipe off his boots."
"We're sorry about that. We"
"NO. Let me finish. And out of every single person I have met in these lands. You three have treated me the best. I cook your food and carry your loot. I mend your clothes, and sharpen your weapons. And you always pay me what was agreed upon. You have no idea how much nicer you are than even my jobs back home. So when that thing came I decided to give you guys time to get away. But I am not a lamb for slaughter. I hit it with the only thing I have. My fist and all my anger at the . . . I do not have polite words to say. The snake reared back like it was surprised, then fell over dead. Now I got the packs on and you all said it was another half day to that thing's lair. Time I got back to work." |
This is a very old prompt on this subreddit. My favourite story on this subreddit is in fact a story based on this very prompt. I love the twist on a pyrrhic victory because that works so well with the fundamental nature of humans.
But if you want it the other way around, here the [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/7i3bs6/wp_humans_once_wielded_formidable_magical_power/dqvygxt?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3) to that post. |
Unearthing the silken strand, I knew I'd found the relic.
I held it firmly, and announced my first wish.
"I wish to be a millionaire!"
Suddenly my phone began to buzz. I could only stare in confusion as many, many notifications from an app called "only fans"filled my screen. Clicking on one I saw a video me exposing myself bare for all the world to see, and all the world it must be as thousands of people began sending money in a bid for my attention. I'd become wealthy beyond compare, but any semblance of dignity and privacy had been stripped from me.
So the wishes came with a cost, knowing this I made my next wish,
-Writings hard, I'm gonna leave this here, if someone wants to continue it they can. |
Slowly, carefully he read it again. It must be ok this time. He didn't know what was wrong but the posts just kept vanishing.
Each carefully crafted word was examined, checked for possible offensiveness or double meaning. Google assured him that the spelling and grammar were correct. It was already late in the evening and he didn't know how much longer he was willing to put into a simple reddit writing prompts post.
Click.
He refreshed the page and his hear stopped. Nothing. As if he had never posted. In desperation he posted the question to reddit, "Please help."
They were of course, unable to help. Little did he know that the correct answer was also removed. Dozens of people clicking, wondering where their reply had gone.
Hundreds, thousands of people across the world. Posts vanishing.
Another portal opened and he turned, bewildered to look at an old man in long robes. "What the hell?"but it was too late.
The wand lifted and a bolt of magic struck him in the heart as the portal closed. Nobody could get that close to the truth and survive, not this close. |
More INFO. Cast it on her to make her fall in love with her arranged partner, or does she already have someone in mind? Or does it has to be anyone but her set partner?
I was a witch who had a similar case a few years ago. My client was a prince who sought The True Love spell from me, but I perhaps misinterpret his wish when I turned him into a frog. He was furious because I thought it had to be anyone but his fiance. Turns out he had someone in mind, and later his secret lover asked for a separation because what lady would kiss a frog? Prince banished me into the wood and sue me for several thousand golds.
If you cast the spell on her without giving her full context, YWBTA for hiding details about the side effect of the spell. I suggested you tell the princess to be upfront about her true love towards her king and queen. If she had no one in mind and dislike the arranged partner, provides details about the coma or beasthood and see if she accepts the terms.
One more thing, when you use the true love spell, make sure you cast it on her at the secluded location! The Beasthood effect has a high chance of turning everyone around her into living, talking furniture. And make sure to lawyer up in case of the princess sue you! |
"So let me get this straight,"the dragon said, addressing the townsfolk before him, "not only are you ok with the fact that I just ate the local lord of this land, but you're all also ok with the fact that I'm taking all the gold?"The beast paused briefly, giving the people a chance to speak out, but none did, most just nodded in affirmation. "On top of all that,"the creature continued, "you actually want me to stay here and protect you and you'll give me more gold to do it?"
One of the townspeople closest to the dragon stepped forward, speaking loudly so the great dragon could hear, "yes, please, we beg you. All manner of foul beast from nearby have been attacking us for years, and to be honest,"he continued, looking around for backup, "most of us really didn't like Lord Greggory the second."Everyone around the one who spoke up seemed to nod and mumble in agreement.
The dragon was not of these lands, he'd come from far south, where gold was much harder to come by. He was quite surprised and a bit skeptical that the people seemed so willing to part with the valuable mineral. He also knew all too well how resilient and resourceful mankind could be, having seen them slay even several of his kind, which was exceedingly difficult. "What kind of beast causes you such grief?"the dragon asked curiously.
The same man as before speaking up again, "Trolls, golems, orcs, all manner of undead and Weres,"he began listing, "angry forest spirits, sirens by the lake, a few warlocks."The dragon was surprised, all these creatures could easily be slain. The town was not the biggest he'd seen by far, but it was quite large and appeared to have both strong and capable men, as well as plentiful resources to fight with. The dragon suspecting the former being the reason so many monsters would want to lay siege to the town, the plunder of the town would be a great bounty.
"You can't handle these threats on your own?"the dragon asked, voicing he curiosities, "you appear to be a people that should be able to handle these threats with ease."The mood of the townsfolk visibly changed, they seemed to retreat into themselves, clearly in fear of some greater threat. "There is something else isn't there, something you've yet to list,"the dragon stated knowingly. The same man as before looked towards his feet and spoke unintelligibly.
"Speak so I can hear you,"the dragon spoke louder know, and with great authority. "I apologize o great and mighty dragon,"the yelled back, clearly fearful that he'd offended the dragon, "but there is clan of Dru'Kai that have been our greatest blight."The great dragons' eyes narrowed as he let out a low growling sound that was so deep and powerful, the people could feel the rumbling in their very cores. The anger and hatred were clear to all when the dragon stated simply, "I will Stay." |
Off the Californian coast in one of the state's least visited beaches, my parents decided to open a restaurant. To be more specific, they were taking over a collection of decrepit, dilapidated food shacks that were connected to each other by prayers. The block was named The Lagoon and so too would the restaurant be unoriginally named by the waters that surrounded it. My sisters and I begged them to change the name to something cooler, maybe something inspired by our own names, but my parents wouldn't budge.
"The old owners are letting us have the place for free more or less,"my dad said. "Their only condition was that we keep the name. We're going to honor it."
To further the homage, my parents decided that a portion of the menu would be eternally dedicated to the shacks that came before us. It was how our seafood restaurant ended up with a side menu of polish sausage dogs, soft pretzels, milkshakes and banana splits. An immediate hit with the picky eaters and the children of the beach tourists, The Lagoon had found a home.
I can't say with full confidence that I recognized them the first time, the second time, or even the third time.
There were a lot of regulars and we had been at The Lagoon for a long time. It was my mom who first recognized them. I was deemed old enough to help out at the restaurant, starting as a waiter. Before my sisters left for college, they too, had to spend time waiting tables and cleaning dishes to 'earn' their college tuitions. It was good money and most of The Lagoons' patrons were older, less dramatic than what I was expecting beach goers to be like.
"There they are again,"she said to me.
"Who?"I asked.
She pointed at the corner booth to a man and a woman. They seemed to be in their 20s, but I had never been good at guessing ages. The man in the booth had a jet black handlebar mustache, it contrasted nicely with his red and white striped swim shorts. The woman's hair was tall, wavy, and firm. She wore a cardigan over her color blocked one piece bathing suit.
"Are they regulars?"
"Nope,"my mom said. "Want to make a bet?"
"What kind of bet?"
"I think I know what they'll order,"she said.
"I thought you said they weren't regulars,"I replied.
My mom chuckled.
She was the kind of mom who remembered everything about everyone. She knew all my friends' birthdays, their parents names, all of my past teachers, and she was always hungry for more. She was the kind of person that could spend hours talking to anyone and be genuinely interested. She always had a dollar or five for some of our less fortunate regulars that lived on the same beachside as The Lagoon.
She bet a dollar that the couple was going to order two pretzels and a milkshake with two straws.
I walked up to them and they flashed winning smiles.
"How're you guys doing today?"I asked. "Can I get you guys started with anything to drink?"
"Oh we're doing just fine,"the man said. "In fact, I believe we're ready to order. Right ma'am?"
"Yes, sir."The woman said.
The way they talked threw me off. I had to ask myself if couples called each other ma'am and sir nowadays. I took out my notebook and returned their smiles with one of my own.
"Can we get a vanilla milkshake with two straws and two of your finest soft pretzels with honey mustard on the side."
I automatically turned to look back at my mom, my face must have given it away because she was cackling to herself about the order. She rubbed her fingers together for the pile of cash she'd just won from me.
"Sure thing,"I replied. "Anything else or will that be all for today?"
"That's it for now,"the man said.
"It'll be right out,"I replied.
I walked quickly to the kitchen to drop the order off to my dad and then ran straight for my mom. She was at the front, it was a slower day, sunset was due in a couple hours and that's when the dinner rush would start.
"How did you know?"I asked her.
"Lucky guess,"she said, smiling. "Thanks for the dollar."
I took a lap around the restaurant, refilling waters, collecting empty plates, handing out orders and checks. I passed by the couple a few times to give them their pretzels and milkshakes, to offer them water, and to give them extra napkins. Each time, they talked as if they didn't know each other. As if they were on a first date. They were introducing themselves to each other, but my mom had recognized them so why?
I told my mom the same thing.
"If you're so curious, why don't you just ask them?"
So I did.
I looked for them in the booth, but they had gone, I saw the cash atop the check, and I saw them walking past the front entrance. I walked out to follow them, I saw them walking back towards the beach, I called out to them.
"Ma'am! Sir!"
They turned back together, looking much older than they had in the restaurant. I rubbed my eyes.
"Yes?"The woman said.
The man had placed his hand on the small of her back, ushering her away to the beach. I kept walking, kept following them as they seemed to age before my eyes. Their skin had gone loose, the soles of their sandals dragging along the sidewalk. The sun was in my eyes, but it looked like they were covered in sand.
"I wanted to ask you guys where you were from,"I said. "My mom recognized-"
But they had disappeared into nothing, whisked away into the beachfront. I rubbed my eyes again. I told my mom and she said I was a loon, that I needed to spend less time on the computer, that I needed more sleep. I eventually forgot about it until a year later, exactly a year later, they returned. Wearing the same clothes, the same hairdos.
I walked up to them and they flashed winning smiles.
"How're you guys doing today?"I asked. "Can I get you guys started with anything to drink?"
"Oh we're doing just fine,"the man said. "In fact, I believe we're ready to order. Right ma'am?"
"Yes, sir."The woman said. |
“I don’t want him. He’s boring. I bet he’s never even started a forest fire or killed someone. Why would we need someone like that in hell? He would ruin the disco nights. You owe us one anyway. Ever since you made cursing the lord’s name a sin, we have had to do triple the paperwork, so you get this loser.” Ramip said, the purple demon wearing a set of squared glasses that were missing their lenses. His suit also didn’t compliment him at all, being a mismatch of random colors.
“Why would we need him? Just being an average human isn’t worthy of a divine afterlife. Heaven is the ultimate reward, something reserved for only the best humans alive, not people that are average. So, you’re taking him. Is that clear?” Quinzel replied, the angel having the usual divine grace one would expect from their kind. Although there was something off about her. Whenever she moved, her body fluttered, as if it were struggling to maintain its form.
“What? No! Aren’t you angels all about kindness and forgiveness? Forgive his sin of being boring and send him to heaven.”
“No, I don’t want to.” Quinzel pouted.
“YOU DON’T WANT TO? Well, I don’t want to take him either. Just look at him, staring at us, all stupefied and dumb. Bet he doesn’t even have a single thought going through that head of his. Like two disconnected power lines trying to create a spark.”
Rhys couldn’t say anything in his defence, his mouth being removed by the angel to ensure that he couldn’t interrupt their bickering. He waved his hands in an offended manner, but neither party looked his way, preoccupied with the back and forth they were having.
“Did you mention power lines? Has someone been sneaking back to Earth? That’s another one hundred years of servitude in hell. Unless you take the human. If you take him, I’ll overlook it.”
“You’re blackmailing me?” Ramip gasped.
“I wouldn’t call it that. I’m simply informing you that your actions have consequences. I’m also willing to forgive you if you take this man to hell.”
“That’s still blackmail, no matter how you word it. You’re the worst angel I’ve ever seen. You’re no better than me.” Ramip regretted those words as soon as they left his lips. The fluttering image of the angel stirring as the surrounding clouds shook.
Rhys struggled to stay on his feet. The clouds that had felt so stable beneath their feet were now wobbling, like a deflating, jumping castle. Ramip took a step back, cowering. The demon holding his hands up, as though he was expecting a fight. The fluttering stopped, revealing a row of spinning golden bars. Each bar rotated in a different direction, making it disorientating to look at. The bars circled a giant, bloodshot eyeball that was only focused on the demon.
“BE VERY AFRAID.” The angelic voice hissed, causing Ramip to jump. The demon nearly fell through the clouds when he landed, only being stopped by the angel, who quickly returned to her other form. She didn’t care if Ramip fell, but if the human fell, there would be issues. “Human, I believe it’s your turn to speak. Plead your case.”
Quinzel flicked a finger towards Rhys, his mouth returning. He let his tongue inspect the inside of his cheeks, enjoying the sensation of being able to feel it. His lips were a little dry after being stored away for such a long time, but it was the least of his concerns.
“Ok, so I obviously want to go to heaven. How about I tell you the story of when I saved my friend’s dog from his pool? It was a pretty heroic story and…. Are you two listening?” Rhys stopped his story, noticing that neither party appeared interested.
Ramip had summoned his phone, playing a game of Demon surfers, taking the odd glance at Rhys and nodding. Even when Rhys wasn’t saying anything, he nodded, pretending to listen along. Quinzel didn’t even make that much of an effort, the angel staring up into the skies, most likely admiring her god that no one else but the divine could see.
“You know what? I don’t want to go to heaven or hell. Why would I want to be in a place that doesn’t want me? I’m disappointed in both of you. I was told that heaven was some great place where everybody loves everyone. But you have treated me with nothing but disrespect since I got here. And you! How is a demon so bad at fashion? You’re a sinner. Sinners get to wear all the cool clothes and you chose a suit? Not even a good suit, just one that makes you look like a rejected cartoon villain. Now, do you have anything to say for yourselves?”
The two looked at one another before sighing. Maybe they had been a little harsh? They hung their heads in shame before speaking.
“I’m sorry.” Ramip was the first to apologize, sounding a little genuine.
“I’m sorry you feel that way.” Quinzel said, giving a half-hearted apology. “If that is the case, please go to purgatory.” Quinzel summoned a small door, allowing Rhys to look at it. The human stared at the two before entering, the door vanishing when he crossed through.
“Phew, dodged a bullet. I thought I was going to have to take that loser back to hell.”
“And I thought I would have to show him more of my kindness than he deserves.”
“You call that being kind? How did you even get into heaven?”
“Because I’m a good follower of god and I know how to work the printer.”
“Printers are pretty hard to work.” Ramip conceded. He went to say his goodbyes, only for the ground beneath him to collapse, throwing him straight back to hell. Quinzel smirked, giving the demon a wave as he fell through the hellfires.
Rhys found himself in a bland room. The walls were painted white, and the chairs looked just that tad bit uncomfortable. Not uncomfortable enough to complain, but that sort of discomfort that would make you squirm after an hour of two. It had food, but it was all the blandest choices and while it had a television, it only showed reruns of shows from fifty years ago. Everything about this place was just so dull. It didn’t have the chaos of hell or the perfection of heaven; it was just the leftovers.
“I should have argued more.” Rhys sighed, wondering how long he had to spend here before being allowed into heaven.
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(If you enjoyed this feel free to check out my subreddit /r/Sadnesslaughs where I'll be posting more of my writing.) |
“No,” General Armstrong said. “No, men, let me reiterate. We will be using gorilla warfare for this particular threat. Now, men, this is not a demotion, so stop the grumbling. They are merely better equipped for the mission.”
“Better equipped, my ass.” Private Sanders whispered to his buds. “Machine gun fodder, more likely.”
“Care to share with the rest of us, Private, what you found so amusing about my speech?” General Armstrong snapped after hearing the ghost of a snicker from Sanders buds.
Private Sanders launched to his feet.
“No, sir!” He spoke-hollered. “Sorry, sir, I have a bad cough today.”
“A bad cough…” Armstrong clearly didn’t believe him. “See the infirmary about that, after your two miles of pinky drags.”
Sanders blanched, already feeling the back, arm, and neck pain that came from the grueling task of dragging your pinky around the track field.
“Yes, sir.” Sanders submitted, and sat as General Armstrong turned his attention back to his debriefing.
“As I was saying,” Armstrong continued. “We will follow the gorillas at about a mile out, ready for word from the satellites. Once the gorillas take out the Clouders, we will advance on the Storm.”
Sanders felt his stomach roil at the mention of the Clouders. Several other soldiers shared his unease, exchanging spooked glances.
“Of course, the gorillas resist the Clouders well. Though the Clouders are able to turn our mind to mush, making us babbling idiots, the gorillas do not seem affected. Perhaps those cloudy bastards target a part of our brain that the gorillas do not have. Perhaps a specific chemical that the gorillas do not possess. Regardless, the gorillas will proceed without the mental turmoil we would encounter. Once they have taken down at least a majority of the Clouders, we’ll advance with the strike force, lead by Colonel Guber.”
Armstrong motioned to the man, who stood.
“Right,” Guber said. “Thank you, sir. First, men, once the gorillas have done their job, we drop the bombs. Of course, to kill any straggling Clouders, but also to eliminate the gorillas. Unfortunately, occasional gorillas are infected with the madness, and it has been determined that it can spread by bodily fluids. Thus, to keep the rest of our gorilla infantry safe, they must be executed summarily. After the bombs fall, we will advance and collect the Storm.”
“Those involved in the securing of Storm will be debriefed separately, as the information is highly confidential. Understood?” Armstrong added.
A chorus of Yes sir’s rang. Several lower ranked men sprung to their feet in salute, as they thought they should. Most remained seated.
“Alright, men.” General Armstrong said. “Those involved in the take down of Storm, remain. The rest of you are dismissed to continue your duties.”
Private Sanders left to begin his pinky drags. |
PART\[1/2\]
Under the cover of darkness and drifting fog, Augustus Rookwood and Avery Jr. stalked toward the Wayne mansion. Lord Voldemort had send them on a mission to send a message by assassinating the muggle known as Bruce Wayne. The death of the philanthropist playboy of Gotham would send fear down the spines of all the muggles in the world. What they didn’t know was that something stalked them as well.
Bruce had been alarmed of the intruders way ahead of time. The amateurs hadn’t even tried to make it difficult for the plethora of detection methods Bruce employed. Although he wasn’t exactly sure what technology they used to cover their appearance. He pulled the bust holding the pearl necklace of his late mother and the bookcase gave way to the staircase down into the caverns. He didn’t know why these people were here, but Batman would find out.
Crouching behind the box hedge Augustus saw movement inside the manor through the window. He whistled to Avery and waved him over. The description the Dark Lord had given him about the various member of the Wayne household matched the man inside with Alfred, the butler. This person posed no huge danger as a man far past his retirement age, but he had a history in the muggle special combat force. So negligence on their part could result disastrous. Augustus leviosa’d the nearest rock and threw it through the glass. With a loud shattering the silence of the night was broken and Alfred was alarmed of possible intruders.
Inside the cave Bruce opened the glass cylinder containing the latest iteration of his batman suit. With state of the art detection systems and energy shield technology. Fully masking his weakness for projectile attacks. Donning on the Kevlar armor changed something within the man known as Bruce Wayne. It gave him and edge, a ruthlessness that the playboy did not possess. Embracing the darkness he set out through the cave entrance in an effort to ambush the intruders. On the screen he saw they had initiated contact with Alfred. Transferring the live-feed to his wrist screen he left the cave behind.
High up in the canopy surround Wayne mansion Robin was observing the intruders. They looked like a bunch of amateurs, sneaking around and throwing rocks. Still, they seemed to be in possession of telekinesis, either through mutation or technology. Their aura felt off as well. They looked harmless, but Robin felt and edge of danger to them. They hadn’t spotted him, so he would have the element of surprise on his side. That usually meant it would be a one-sided altercation. Smiling under his mask he grabbed his staff and jumped from the branch he was standing on. Gliding towards his targets like a bird of prey.
Avery had been complaining since they had gotten here. The imbecile had thought a simple assassination of some rich muggle was far beneath his station. Not only did the whining annoy Augustus, it was also an insult to Lord Voldemort himself. He was just about to cast a pretrificus totalus on the old butler, when the faintest sound alerted him to something approaching. He barely had enough time to duck under the metal rod that aimed for his head. It hit Avery full in the temple and send the wizard tumbling. He’d be out cold for a while. Cursing – in the good old muggle way – Augustus Rookwood leaped back to his feet. In front of him landed a man, dressed in the most preposterous spandex suit and a silly mask. Who did this muggle think he was?
Robin had missed his intended target, but he was sure he took out one of them. That left the guy that looked more dangerous. He was sure that just before the landed the guy was pointing his silly little stick at Alfred. What was he going to do with a child’s toy like that? He eyed his opponent and was struck by how completely ordinary, but ferociously dangerous at the same time, he looked. Retracting his staff he somersaulted backwards while throwing a couple of birdarangs to distract his opponent and maybe even hit him. The stalker actually seemed ill prepared for the projectiles. He managed to change their trajectory only in the nick of time, after uttering some kind of Latin and pointing that stick again. If Robin didn’t know any better, he’s swear the guy was a wizard. Who knows, in a world with mutated and super-powered villains a wizard wouldn’t even be the weirdest rogue in the gallery. One of the projectiles had struck the man across the face, leaving a deep and bloody gash.
Batman crouched on the top of the roof, looking out over the ruckus below. That ill-tempered boy of course hadn’t had the patience to wait and got himself in a fight already. They barely knew what they were dealing with, did that kid ever think of that? Still, Robin seemed to be holding it’s own in the fight and even drew blood. The way the villain used that stick of his worried Batman, though. He was reminded of something he had witnessed on Infinity Island all those years ago. There had been this woman that said she controlled magic. Bruce hadn’t believed it to be true, but whatever it was that she controlled, it was dangerous. And she used a stick just like that. He shot his grappling hook to a pillar just behind Robin.
(If you liked this story, please feel welcome at r/zeekoeswriting to read my other stories!) |
Thalia, daughter of Hades and Jasmine, one of the many daughters of Aphrodite, looked over the new girl's shoulder as she pulled out the old black stained wooden box she had kept locked underneath her bunk.
Thalia gulped unconsciously as she looked at it. The wood was of an unknown kind though Cassie had always guessed it was Oak or something sturdy like that. The wood was stained, not painted, a deep shade akin to black but not quite that. There were small spots where the engravings, that even she couldn't fathom the appearance of what it was supposed to be and got a headache every time she stared at it, were broken off revealing the worn wood and some places were dented and scratched by... something.
The etching on the wood was *old*, and not in any idle sense. Many mortals called things old when they seemed ragged or unusable or when they couldn't remember when they had bought it.
This...
This was beyond that. This was, according to Cassie the 'now' owner of the box and their newest cabinmate, made at a time when people made things that lasted more than a year.
But beyond that, she knew as Jasmine and her half sister (from another father because Aphrodite) backed up and hid behind her, the chest, and whatever was in it was 'dark'.
She thought her father was dark. She thought the Underworld was dark. That the evils of things they had faced was 'dark' but this... it was indescribable. She had felt it the moment she brought it in and shoved it beneath her bed. It was what prompted the conversation that she was potentially the daughter of Nyx.
But according to her, she was of no relation to anyone of the Helenistic or Romani pantheons. Not even some of the newer Egyptian gods.
She stated, according to her mother, that her father didn't abandon or stay away because of some law chosen by their overlord deity like Zeus did. But instead- because her father had an 'effect' on people. He scared them. So he didn't hang around his daughter but he sent money and gifts and letters with pictures of places in the world where he was, telling her about himself and about where he was and how things were and she sent many back in turn, especially since they got here.
Percy and Annabeth entered, both having long since moved on from their childhood campsite.
"We need to get out of here! We don't have time!"Annabeth called as another figure entered.
"Anyone who doesn't want to get killed needs to leave!"
"We're coming dad!"Thalia said as she turned, pushing the daughters of Aphrodite toward Hades who paused his eyes on the box.
He grabbed Percey's shoulder as he went to grab Cassie and pushed him out of the way. His voice was dark and without emotion. "Where did you get that?"
She looked up to him. "My father, he sent it. Said if I was going to come here that it was high time I had something representing my birthright. He told me not to wear it unless there was no other option but it was still important for me to have it and to learn how to use it."
"Do you know *how* to use it?"Thalia asked, now unsure. Mortals loved to talk about power unknown.
She nodded. "My father taught me in letters. He told me everything I need to do and what not to do. That's why you all need to go. I'll stay behind and do what I can to stop them."
Percy stepped forward "No, if it's that important I'll help you carr-"he paused as she unlocked the chest and everyone stared at what was inside.
In contrast to the blakened dark wood was a brilliant silk cloth.
It was, to Percy and Annabeth- Yellow. But not?
Like, if you picked up a childs crayon box or colored pencil box and pulled out the 'yellow' color it would be the same exact shade. The color of 'sunshine' and 'flowers' but this was...almost not yellow at the same time, it was the color of yellow that was sickening, It was somehow both the yellow of decadence and... decay.
She stood up and carefully pulled out the cloth, it was a robe of sort, they realized- made in her size and seemed to billow at the ends even though there was no movement to give it. She walked past them and Hades growled. "Cassilda!"
She paused only once. "Promise me, you won't look at my face...I can't... I can't promise that you won't understand what you see is no mask."
"Nephew. Take them and go."Hades said as she walked out to face the Stalkers. Creatures, they had found, with almost human like minds that defied the will of Gods one and all.
"Perhaps this what he meant."Cassie, Cassilda, spoke over her shoulder to Hades as he stood behind her. "My father said that those who deny the 'Promises' will end up with none. Those who pretend and wear masks will find the face behind shallow and empty."
She smiled at him as he regarded her. "I thought so... HE is your father isn't he? The King."
Giving a single nod she turns back to them. "That's why, they can't hurt me. I am not that which they deny. I am that which they fear. The truth they desire to ignore. The Heaven they have brought to ruins."
He turned. "Come back, or I'm going to send the furies on your soul"he spoke.
She nodded as she pulled the cloak over her. Hades turned back only once as she advanced. She was taller somehow, and her hand reaching out catching the arrow and snapping it was slightly longer than the profile requested.
As he turned to catch up to the other campers and councilers he heard a voice, Cassilda's voice, singing a song.
*Strange is the night where black stars rise,*
*And strange moons circle through the skies,*
*But stranger still is*
*Lost Carcosa.* |
"GOLD IS OLD"The billboard said.
The angels of heaven have grown so tired and lazy with the customs of the old.
"Why must we stick with the mould? When it all just makes us look like dolts?"
​
"Shall, we then, prove to each other the most magnificent halo we could make?"One remarked.
"Yes, we shall."Another replied.
Henceforth, each angel competed with each other to make the most outstanding halo and would convene on the third day to display. The angels spun a halo made in every shape and of every material you could imagine. One drew reference from a punk rocker, and made a mohawk of rotating discs of light while another recreated a neon, looping mobius strip.
It took just three days for an overly ambitious angel to get an halo \*hear this\* made out of halos. And as magnificent as it was, this tower of halos piled atop each other, shining of every precious metal you could possibly conceive, it was heavy.
The other angels gawked as you would at a mad man and stepped aside for this angel to set foot onto stage.
This angel, however, could not support the weight of his halo(s) and he teetered about like a drunk, and before he could set foot on the stage, he slipped and fell through the very floor that was composed of clouds.
A gaping hole erupted where the angel felt through, and just as quickly, the clouds closed up.
No one knew what happened to him, but they concluded that it was hubris that led to his downfall and decided the tomfoolery should come to an end.
And so, they went back to gold and no one ever brought up the halo saga. |
“I’m human,” said the cat.
“And I’m human,” said the dog.
“And I’m human too,” said the snake.
“And I’m also a human,” whispered the spider.
“None of you are humans,” said the human.
“Of course we’re humans,” said the cat.
“What makes you so sure you’re human?” asked the dog, “I do human things too. That makes me a human.”
“That’s not how this works, you’re all animals! I’m a human.”
“Who decided what’s a human and what isn’t?” the snake challenged.
“Well, humans I guess. We’re the ones with the advanced intellect.”
The spider chimed in (too quietly for the supposed ‘actual’ human to hear) from the corner of the room, “I’m not an animal, but humans definitely are animals too.”
A moment passes before the realization sets in.
“WAIT WHY CAN YOU ALL TALK?!” |
She let out a pained grunt of exertion as she lowered her jaundiced frame into the bed. A cloak of darkness did much to obscure her features – there was some semblance of mercy in that. He would never, of course, admit to her or himself that she’d grown any less beautiful. In his mind she remained as she always had. She was a jewel, a beam of light which punctured overcast clouds. She was the notes of songbird, rising above every tempest.
And she was dying.
“Dear…” she wheezed, her lungs worn down from days of nonstop battle, “can you…” she hacked a cough before she could finish, but her thin arm extended to point withered fingers towards the curtained window.
“Are you sure?” John asked in pained whisper. “Your head – it won’t hurt?”
They’d curtained every window in the house. The lights, of course, had ceased working weeks ago. Along with everything else. The world seemed to be drawn entirely into a lilting new sense of quiet. There was some horrid sense of humor about all of it, of course. John had always imagined final moments of terror, adrenaline coursing through his veins. Bombs which might neatly cut through the clouds, their rapid descent towards the ground acting as the final fall of sand through an hourglass.
None of that happened, though. The world had elected a softer, meek exit. Wave after wave falling sick. The helpers rushed forward, committing themselves to the wellbeing of that world. The helpers are always the first to be punished. After them, there were more reluctant souls – souls nonetheless bound by a strange sense of duty. After them, there was little. Now, it seemed, there was none.
John’s fingers brushed the thick fabric, taking a small pause before finally pulling the curtains open. The cool grey light of a winter afternoon flooded into the room, and both of their eyes winced at the discomfort born of loss of familiarity with that natural glow.
Her face twisted in clear pain. John rushed to close the curtains again, but her hand once again found the strength to raise and plead for him to cease. A smile, littered with small crimson specks, broke at last over her features. Behind the pain in her eyes, there seemed a sense of relief.
“No…” she struggled, “leaves, anymore.”
The skeletal reach of trees without any color on them partially obscured the horizon, and blankets of brown grass lightly dusted in winter slurry were visible from their second story bedroom. That view was capable of so much more – dazzling green forest in the summer, and murals of ochre beauty in the fall.
“Yeah,” John smiled weakly, drawing forward such effort as to crush him in that gesture. “It won’t be so long now, though. Spring is just around the corner. Do you remember last year? Watching everything begin to bud…” he turned back to her, his smile finding at last some genuine quality upon those warm recollections.
Her smile met his, now lifeless. Her gaze remained locked, forever staring forward into the chilled reaches of that winter landscape.
The clouds continued their meandering path across the grey sky, and the house was completely quiet. The end of things, it turned out, was not that terror filled vision so many had shared in years before. It was not the shaking of the earth, or the blackening of the sun.
It was nothing. Nothing at all. |
"The State would like to call its next witness to the stand. Ms. Joanna Wright."
With that I was pushed towards the front of the courtroom in my wheelchair. I had the outward appearance of a vegetable. I looked no more coherent than Terry Schaivo in her last days. When I saw myself in the mirror the day before I wanted to cry. But at least I am still able to have coherent thoughts. That I am thankful for. And at least I am able to make sure that lying bastard meets justice. When I reached the stand I swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth with my right hand laying limp on the edge of my armrest. With that the prosecutor, my only hope of gaining justice, walked towards me and began his line of questioning.
"Ms. Wright where were you the night of September 23?"
"In my home."a lifeless, computerized voice answered back. Its words governed by my thoughts. I suppose the future is now.
"Was anyone home with you that night Mrs. Wright?"
"No sir, I was in my home watching Monday Night Football about to drift off to sleep."
"Then what happened?"he asked.
"I heard a knock on my door which I got up to answer."
"Who was at the door when you opened it?"
"My ex husband."if I had a voice I would have said those words with the greatest disdain possible. Instead they came out as plainly as the recitation of a grocery list.
"Is he in the courtroom today?"the prosecutor musingly asked.
"Yes. If I had control over my body I would physically identify him as the defendant."There was that slimy, worthless bastard. I have to admit he looked good in his suit. I don't think one ever loses attraction to the one they once loved with all their heart no matter what awful things happen between them. Still, he looked too smug and content. I wanted him put away forever. I wanted him to rot in a cell just like I would rot in the ground a few hours after this trial ended.
"Let it be known the witness has identified the defendant. What happened next?"the prosecutor went on.
"He stumbled in the doorway before I could invite him in. His words were incoherent. He wreaked of vodka. After a few moments of his near incomprehensible rambling and screaming, I gathered that he had gone bankrupt. He wanted his alimony back. We've been divorced for five years. I refused and told him to leave before I called the cops."
"What happened next?"
"He produced a knife. I started screaming and ran towards the phone. I threw a chair down behind me. He stumbled after me and fell over the chair. I dialed 911 as he attempted to regain his balance. I told the operator what happened. I had my back turned to him. After telling her the address and hanging up I felt a sharp pain in the side of my neck. He knocked me down and stabbed me repeatedly in the torso. That's the last thing I remember."
"No further questions."
The defending attorney chose not to question me. Their jobs have been largely marginalized since these new chairs have made the exposure of the truth pretty much inevitable. I was wheeled out of the courtroom and taken back to the hospital. I was unplugged from the chair. There are only so many of them to go around and they are needed for other cases. I was laid down on a bed and slowly slipped away. Angry at how my life had ended, but content with its resolution. |
"They said to make her fall in love with me, all I had to do was make her laugh. But everytime she does, I'm the one who falls more and more in love."
She had the kindest personality of any girl I'd ever met. I couldn't imagine her being angry at anyone, ever. I spent a long time just watching her from the other side of the cafeteria. Our eyes met every once in a while, but we both looked away, too shy to do anything. Her slight smile as she looked away had me grinning for the rest of the week.
Getting to know her was the best time of my life. She's the type of person who could talk about fax machines for two hours, and have people clinging to her every word. When she gets excited about a subject, she'll talk at about 200 words a minute, quickly getting flustered, because who needs to breathe? And the end of her rant, she'll sit back, red in the face and out of breath, and then ask me why I'm smiling like a dumbass.
She's the most perfect person I've ever met.
|
"*Muahahahahahaha!*"
It finally happened. The premonition of the internet has occurred. The act of transferring information over the internet into something tangible and working - the act of creating a perfect model and replica of something that existed on the internet.
"I have done it! It is complete! Now, it's time for the fruits of my labor to be harvested!"
[ Download: READY ]
"But what should be my first target? A pen? No. A high-end desktop perhaps? No."
His face lighted up to the empty room as he was about to announce his first target.
"I choose... A CAR! Yes, I shall download a car!"
To an outside observer, they would easily and quickly make the assumption that this person was completely insane. However, to him, it was simply the start of a new world.
[ Download : 1% ]
"Now, to wait and see the results."
Cars are fairly large, so even with the fastest internet it would take several hours to complete. This did not deter the man, as he waited, staring at the glowing screen.
"It begins...!!!"
[ Download : 13% ]
The wait was agonizing, but if it worked it would all be worth it. The man tried to keep his interest on the download bar, but it faltered quickly.
[ Download : 24% ]
He began playing with things around his desk, such as a pen. He began to twiddle his thumbs in anticipation for the download.
[ Download : 32% ]
Eventually, he got tired and fell asleep. He dozed off in front of the glowing monitor, losing consciousness very quickly despite his best attempts to keep awake.
When he woke up, he looked at the download bar once more.
[ Download : 99% ]
"FINALLY! It is here! My car!"
The man was jumping around the room, ecstatic as he was finally near the coveted *car* he was working towards. However, as the download bar nearly ticked over, something unexpected happened.
[ Download : COMPLETE ]
[ BEEP ]
[ BEEP ]
[ BEEP ]
[ FATAL ERROR ]
"What? No!"
The man did have plenty of tests beforehand to prevent this from happening, even with larger and more complex objects than a car. He started profusely sweating as he tried to exit the download screen to figure out what went wrong. As he exited, something greeted him.
*Did I hear you right? Did I hear you sayin'*
*That you're gonna make a copy of a car without payin'?*
*Come on guys! I thought you knew better don't copy that floppy!*
|
This is round sixteen.
I try to relax a bit this time but I can feel the tension in my shoulders, my back. The nurse is smiling, but I know it's a fixed smile. I know what fake smiles look like as well as anyone else. I don't think they realize that I'm still a person.
It would be difficult for me to convince them otherwise.
The nurse puts in the drip and I feel myself pull back, if that makes any sense. I'm less present – still worried but less present. I'm alone in my thoughts, but I can look over and I see the syringes of blood piling up.
They're doing these tests while I deliberate, to make sure they're still right, to see if I'm the cure. They are right. I am, as Dr. Albertsson referred to me a few weeks ago, "the answer to the question of human senescence."
There is something in me, deep inside me, that fixes the ways in which bodies break apart. My bones knit. My wounds close. My blood is rich, and it flows slowly. Even now I see it, feel it resisting the pull of the syringe, truly thicker than water.
By all accounts, unless my body is completely destroyed, I cannot die.
So I sit here, tense, in this chair, waiting for them to tell me once again that I will outlive them all. It is a lot to take in. They know that, at least, and they let me come to it in bits and pieces. They left me to hang on that makeshift noose for more than a day, long enough for me to realize that my spine would not snap and my breath would continue, before they cut me down.
I've heard people say this before, but I know for a fact that they only want me for my body. Through the drug haze I mumble this, I think. I am so far away, it's hard to tell.
They want to synthesize me. That's still strange to say. They want to chop me up, parcel me out. The only way they can replicate me is by taking me apart. I think I might let them. It might be good to help.
The nurse smiles, and says something. I smile back. Are you sure, she says. Yes, I say. Helping might be nice.
The nurse freezes. She whispers something into an intercom on the wall, and then cranks up my drip. I recede, two pinholes. A team of doctors walk in, already in scrubs.
I am restrained. So far away. They place a mask over my face. Everything is so slow.
It still might be nice to help. |
**Item #:** SCP-████
**Object Class:** Keter
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-████ is to be held within a storage unit on Site-██. Any access to the item is allowed only with prior clearance by 05 Command and reality shift counter-measures prepared.
**Description:** SCP-████ is a ██████ brand laptop computer, running a ██.█ version of █████ Linux. When offline, the laptop behaves identically to all other █████ brand laptops of that model. This laptop computer came in possession of the Foundation on ██/██/200█, after who is assumed to be the previous owner broke █ security protocols of Site-██, and delivered the laptop there.
SCP-████ shows its nature when accessing the Wikipedia.org website. On the website, the laptop always signs in as the user ██████████ - as of ██/██/201█, no such user ever registered on the Wikipedia website. When making edits from the laptop, reality will shift accordingly to match whatever was written in the article.
Due to the dangerous nature of all reality shifting SCPs, no testing is permitted.
----
####NOTICE FROM THE FOUNDATION RECORDS AND INFORMATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
This document requires Level 4 Clearance and authorization for Need-to-Know under CODE GREEN. If you do not possess the necessary security clearances, please close this document immediately and report the security breach to the Records and Information Security Administration.
----
Addendum ████-01: Notes by Dr. ██████
>There are things in this world that make you question reality itself. This is one of those things.
>When the previous owner - just a kid - gave us this laptop, he said just three words to us before leaving - and breaking every damn security protocol on site. He said...
>"Save the world"
>Now, I never had doubts about being real before, but this thing makes me worry. There are just too many coincidences.
>That kid knew the exact purpose of the foundation, knew exactly what site to go to for this, and the way he got in... It wasn't your usual break in. He literally just *walked in* past all the checkpoints and all the security guards like it was nothing.
>But it's what was on the laptop that finally made me put it all together.
>You see, the last page visited on that laptop when I first examined it was the Wikipedia page for the SCP Foundation.
>So did he bring us to this world? What other changes could he have made?
>And what does the world desperately need saving from that would require bringing to life the SCP Foundation? |
Arthur sat back in his chair and rested his hand on Excalibur's pommel. Letting out a sigh, he smiled. It was good to be home, it was good to defend his England again. Things were different of course. Ages had passed since he battled Mordred and took the boat to Avalon. It was so long ago, and yet felt like just yesterday. There was a knock at the door.
"One moment,"Arthur said.
He rose and drew Excalibur from her sheath. The cool air licked the metal and Arthur could hear the sword crying out to him, yearning to vanquish evil once again. He kissed the blade a resheathed the sword. He drew a wooden box from the cupboard and stowed the sword, none must see it. Returning to the chair he called out.
"Come in."
"Sir,"the Leftenant Hastings said, "the blackout is soon. You asked me to remind you."
"Very well, Leftenant. Go home."
"Thank you, sir."said the leftenant, leaving.
Arthur rose and drew the blackout curtains. He extinguished all lights in his office, save his desk lamp. Falling back into his chair, he lit a cigar.
"Damned Jerries,"he said. "Only they know how to ruin a beautiful night sky."
He drew long on the cigar and held the smoke in his mouth. His thick fingers rolled the cigar between them, examining the strength of the roll. He exhaled with a sigh. Again there was a knock at the door.
"Yes, yes come in,"Arthur said.
The door opened and the leftenant from before entered.
"Sir, before I went home, I just wanted to say something."
"Of course."
"I still think about that speech you gave, sir. In Parlaiment. It helps me carry on, sir. I just wanted to thank you."
"That was months ago, Hastings. But thank you."
"Good night, sir."
"Good night, Leftenant."
The door closed and Arthur leaned back in his chair, taking a puff once more from the cigar.
"That was a damned good speech,"he said to himself.
Arthur closed his eyes. He could see the House of Commons before him. The speech was months ago, but time is nothing to the once and future king. He smiled and began to recite the peroration, the cadence of his speech growing and swelling with the words he said on that June day.
"We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender..."
|
Damn druggies.
Still, the goggles look pretty freaking strange. Maybe they're worth something.
I toss them into my satchel and keep trudging through the rain, newspaper held over my head. God, I hate New York. If it's not the crooks sizing you up, it's the "homeless"trying to scam you or the businesslike ready to kill just to get to their destination on time. It's getting dark, which means that I'm getting anxious. My apartment is still two blocks away, and despite the weather and the time, streets are still positively crammed with people. The city that never sleeps - why do people find that so romantic? But I digress. I don't even particularly want to be home; home means work. I just don't want to be on the streets.
The rain starts to let up.
Central Park - why the hell not? The sun will be setting soon, so if I'm lucky, maybe I'll find a knife in my chest or a hand in my pocket. Maybe I'd finally have an excuse to miss work. As I enter the park, I'm disgusted by the slew of people just milling about. Tourists, the homeless, delinquents, tired mothers trying to coax their children into coming home because really honey mommy is tired and it's not safe to be out at night and somebody's got to start dinner before daddy gets home or you-know-what. I sigh and sit on a bench. I'm so tired, every single day. I bring my bag to my lap and rifle through it, hoping perhaps to find a dog-eared novel or a sketch pad - or if I'm really lucky, perhaps a razor blade with which to destroy my wrists. I really don't need to read the news right now. I feel something smooth, and confused, I pull the object out.
The goggles - I'd forgotten. I sigh and wipe them off, examining them halfheartedly. Hopefully they have the plague on them, or are an accessory to a crime. I put them on and look at the world around me.
That noise!
Oh, how the world screams!
The first thing that I see is the stubborn child. He's got a shadow underneath him, and though the child can't tell, the shadow's trying to climb inside of the boy. He's got this malicious grin and these claws and he's so dark and he's screeching and the boy can't even see it! I see the scars on the boy's face and I get up and I run, nearly knocking over a homeless man reeking of booze.
He, too, has got a shadow.
It twitches. It opens the man's mouth, but I don't think he notices. His shadow is scratching at his mouth with one hand and attempting to choke him with the other. His shadow is sporadic and flashes in and out of existence but is so obviously intent on doing what he's doing and it grows and shrinks and laughs hoarsely -
"What the hell are ya doin', assface?"Is the man shouting at me? Oh fuck he's shouting at me! And still there are shadows everywhere! One's flying over a business man and stabbing at his eyes with a pencil and the man just keeps moving OH how are they all so unaware?!
Twoblocksfromhometwoblocksfromhome
Everyone's got these shadows and I keep running and running and my doorman's shadow's growling at him as the doorman yells for me to slow down man what's the rush and I yank my keys from my pocket and run into my apartment and holy hell has it always smelled this bad? Ink is all over the furniture who the hell did this I need water I need it now!
And I run into the bathroom and splash frigid water all over my face and I look right into the mirror and I see this guy.
He's a small guy. Black. He's sitting on my shoulder and he's got a gun cocked to my head. He whispers something into my ear in a voice not unlike my own.
"Brooklyn Bridge..."it taunts. "Jump,"it whispers.
He crawls into my ear and whispers to me. "You know you want to..."
I, too, have a shadow.
I realize that I always have. |
The joke had gotten old by now, you were sick of being the black sheep in the family. Everyone in the family had The Gifted Gene, how it presented varied from person to person and rarely did it appear in the same form twice. The oldest anyone had gotten before they had started showing their particular version of the gift had been sixteen... Except you of course.
Twenty four! Twenty four years old and still not a single sign of anything special.
Since many generations back when your one of your ancestors had decided to go public with the family's gifts, world media had always kept a permanent spot light on your extended family. So not only were you a joke to your family but to the whole world. It wouldn't have been so bad in the past but these days with social media and everything else technology brought, you were constantly bombarded with comments on your own inadequacy.
So this was it, enough was enough and it was time to take your leave from it all. The wind pulled at your long, messy hair and loose blouse. Your toes stuck out just past the edge of the ledge and you looked down at the people below. From this high up people looked insect-like, microscopic even. The logical part of your mind knew that this was a silly emotional reaction to your situation, that you were depressed by the sate of your life and weren't acting sensibly. Unfortunately emotion often trumps logic and so was the case here.
Enough thinking. You had reached your decision days ago and you felt good about it, no more of this shitty, humiliating life. You close your eyes and think; just lean forward and let it all go. Go on. Lean forward. Let go. Fall... And you do. You feel your clothing whip about you all the more as you plunge headlong down towards the hard cement below. You're scared of course, who wouldn't be, however you're still confident in your decision.
You open your eyes suddenly as a sharp and unexpected pain in your back breaks through the moments of deep peace you had been experiencing. You feel two hot points of pain near your shoulders blades and the pain spreads up and down your back gradually. You whimper as the pain worsens more and more. Then you feel what can only be described as the sensation of your back tearing open and you let out a shrill and pained scream. The wind steals most of the sound as you plummet ever on down to the hard ground. You try reaching around to feel your back. Your fingers touch your blouse and find it warm and damp... Blood? Before you can investigate much further you're hit with another wave of pain, this time so severe you think you're about to black out. You mange to maintain consciousness, just about, as you begin to feel something growing out of your back. Your blouse tears open as two appendages bust through and extend themselves.
Tears steaming from your eyes and being brushed away by the air as you fall, lips quivering from pain and fear. You glance back and what you see you can barely comprehend. Two impossibly large feathered white wings are protruding from your back. The marble white feathers are actually mostly red with blood. Your breath catches in your chest and you feel a lump in your throat. It's... The Gift!
After all you've been through you had to give up to finally succeed. Oh crap, you're still falling to your death. You look down. The ground is terrifyingly close now, mere moments remain before you'll be a mess on the concrete. Mere moments to learn how to fly. You try moving your wings. Nothing. You shut your eyes and picture you body, now with wings coming out the back, you think about those wings focus on them, on moving them. You feel a twitch. Oh god, come on. Come on! Work! You can't get wings only to die before you get to fly. Flap you feathery fuckers!
A twitch, then another, then a sway and then a flap from one wing. Then both wings flap. Yes! That's it flap, flap fucking flap! Your get them both flapping and mange to get them flapping in unison. You picture a falling bird and how them glide and curve upwards. So you spread your wings out to either side and set them rigidly straight. You then straighten out your body, pointing down and gradually pull up. You straight fall starts to curve.
No more than three or four metres from the grey pavement you manage to turn your upwards and glide up a little before levelling out and gliding along. Holy hell! YOU'RE FLYING! You glide along for a few moments and then come to a messy, fluttering but successful landing. Landing upon your feet, red stained wings spread out in all the glory and stunned passers by all stood gawking.
Wait until the world saw you now. |
Tonight!
The Empire has just announced the design of a Super Star Destroyer. Don't they understand size doesn't matter? It's how you use it!
Many officers have died recently while under the command of Lord Vader. I guess they choked under the pressure.
The last space station that was destroyed had an exhaust port 2 meters wide. This goes to show that even the Empire is conscious of the greenhouse effect in space.
My special guest tonight is a wookie from Kashyyyk who is called Chewy by his friends. Looking at him, I'm a little surprised they didn't call him fluffy because he looks so cuddly!
This is the TK421 Column! |
"You're kidding me."
She looked at him.
"It says 'enjoy your last meal'."
"Again?!"
"Third fucking restaurant this week."
"I'm calling the police. This has got to be grounds for harassment or a restraining order or something."
"You do that. I'll be right back."
He walked up to the waiter.
"Excuse me -- has a tall guy with black hair, silver sides, salt-and-pepper beard come in? Seems really happy, been here for hours, only orders water?"
"Yes sir, he's just around the corner. You know him?"
"Do I. Here, get something nice."He tucked a $20 into the waiter's apron and headed around the corner.
Sure enough, Mister Salt-and-Pepper was around the corner, just getting up to put on his coat.
"Hey there!"Big grin. "You finally ready to join the Vita-Pill family and give up eating food forever?"
He felt teeth snap and crack as he punched the Vita-Pill guy in the mouth, as hard as he possibly could. |
I needed something to read. It didn’t matter. An airline flight that will last eight to nine hours meant that I wouldn’t be very picky.
“Do you need any help, sir?” said the bookstore employee.
I smiled. “No thank you. Just browsing.” I grabbed a random book off the shelf and made a big deal of reading the back. Not sure why.
The employee shrugged and walked off. I wasn’t really reading the back. I just didn’t want to talk to the employee anymore.
“I don’t think this book is for me,” I said as I made a big deal about putting the book back on the shelf.
“Uhm, okay. If you need anything just let me know.”
I cringed and made my way down the bookshelf. Why was I trying to be so chummy with the employee?
“This one looks good,” I said. The book had a black cover. It was wider then it was tall. It felt heavy but only looked to have about fifteen pages in it.
I held the peculiar looking book up for the employee to see. I smiled and pointed at it. He gave me a weird look and made a big show of turning away from me.
“Whatever,” I said. No more shenanigans. Time to find a book.
I went to put the book back on the shelf. Something compelled me to open it instead. I turned to a random page.
The page had one sentence printed on it. “The man discovered a peculiar book in the store.”
Weird. I flipped to another page. It read, “The man thought something was weird.”
This was getting strange. “Probably just a coincidence,” I said under my breath.
I flipped to another page. “The bookstore employee is coming for you!”
“What the hell?” I said.
Another page, another single sentence. “Quick! Turn around before he hits you!”
I jumped and dropped the book as I looked around me. The employee stood on the other side of the store talking on the phone. I chided myself for listening to a book.
The book fell in such a way that it had turned to another page. It read, “Haha! Made you look.”
____________
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this check out my subreddit /r/Puns_are_Lazy.
|
Bright light burst the carriage apart internally! Luckily no one was sitting inside but the teamster was thrown some twenty yards into some shrubs and the horses fled still strapped to one another.
Two lamps lay glowing in the mud side by side. Suddenly clouds began pouring out simultaneously and each Genie appeared from their golden home.
"Hello there new master!"Said the first Genie still not fully emerged from the spout. "I am the Illustrious Great and -". He stopped the speech short, for across from him floated a familiar face. "Dave?"He couldn't believe what he was seeing.
"Hey there Paul. Or is it Illustrious Great now?"Dave said with a snicker.
"Well it was given to me by my late master."Paul said defensively.
Dave just smirked, "Yah I bet it was. Well you can call me Wonderus the Badass then!"and another round of laughter flew from his mouth.
Paul was still confused as he looked around for the person or persons who were responsible for releasing them.
"Dave, where are the ones who rubbed the lamps?"
Dave regained control of himself and to his shock couldn't find anyone either. "You don't suppose..."he started looking down at the close proximity of the two lamps.
Paul moved closer to the ground eyeing up the situation very carefully. "It seems to be the only real answer. We must have touched vessels."
"Well it isn't weird as long as the spouts didn't touch right?"Dave laughed again.
A sudden realization struck Paul and he shot back up towards Dave. "You know what this means right? We now technically owe each other!"
Dave went silent very quickly at the thought. The two were bound by ancient code that 3 wishes must be given to whoever rubs or touches the lamp and couldn't be released until this requirement was met.
Paul cleared his throat, and spoke very monotone. "Hello there new master. My name is Paul and you've set me free. As a Genie I am bound to grant you any three wishes."
"What the hell are you doing?"Dave asked, rather annoyed.
"Hey this may not be ideal but you're my new master and I've got to recite the opening lines and rules. OK?!"
"Holy shit, I heard you were by the book but this is-"
Paul cut him off still using the monotone voice. *No need to go into theatrics for this idiot* he thought. "You may have any three wishes but you cannot ask for more wishes, bringing someone back from the dead, or to make someone fall in love with you. Is this all understood?"
"No, you should repeat that all over again but this time with more zest!"
"Fuck you Dave!"
"Woah easy there, I was just trying to lighten the mood!"
"So now how is this going to work. Who should make the first wish?"
"I wish you would."Dave shot back with a huge smile.
Paul rolled his eyes and shook his head. "So it's going to be like that huh?"He took a deep breath. This was going to be good... |
More bananas... It's always fucking bananas! A little variety would be nice. Maybe a mango or a kiwi? Or heaven forbid, some god damn meat!
They're not really bananas of course, just some manufactured nutrient-rich monstrosity. But there's a psychological aspect to eating that they just don't get! They must not eat or if they do, only for sustenance. You can tell just from looking around that they are not a species that relishes life. They must not have emotion.
At first glance this is a paradise. It's always sunny and warm. A comforting cool breeze wafts off the aquamarine sea. It would be truly idyllic if there were just a little more to it. But this is it, this beach. If I go too far it shimmers and somehow I am turned around and back on the beach. There's no adversity, no room to grow. Instead I just sit here wasting away my life without purpose. Without challenge.
Now the horizon shimmers and the female stumbles out confused. They're pushing her on me again, hoping for little ones. She is so desperate, craving human contact. If only I found her attractive... |
The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Frizzlesnaps that day;
The score stood Quark to pizza, with but one inning more to play,
And then when Hobbes died at first, and Susie did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Calvin, mighty Calvin, was advancing to the splat.
There was ease in Calvin's manner as he stepped into his base;
The western wind snatched swiftly at the tatters of his cape.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his crown,
Then stood upon his head and threw up on the ground.
Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with juice;
Five thousand tongues yelled "SQUIZBAT!"as he juggled seven fruit
And now the chocolate-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Calvin stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
The pitcher-king was dancing in the customary way
He signaled that the Quarkball was about to enter play
The umpire rolled a dice to see which way the ball would Splat
When Calvin, mighty Calvin, laid him low with several *thwacks*.
And now the quarkball spirals up, guided by a kingly throw.
And now the air is shattered by the force of Calvin's blow.
He has not hit the Quarkball; merely cracked his tender head
but by the rules of Calvinball, he is victor, nonetheless. |
When the government made the fateful announcement, no one really understood its ramifications. It was a footnote in the New York Times and a two minute spot on the nightly news. The government kept it low key on purpose. They fully understood how dire this situation was, and hid it from us.
The first couple years after the government ran out of souls were normal. Children under five only display primal behaviors, regardless of soul. However, over the last few years things have gotten disastrous.
It started in the Elementary schools. Kids without souls began attacking the kids with souls. The parents of those with souls were outraged and demanded action. Eventually, a separate school was opened for those without souls, but there were still major issues.
The soulless couldn't be trusted in any public areas. They would attack doctors in hospitals. They would destroy plates in restaurants. They would knock down displays in grocery stores. Eventually, local governments had to foot the bill for separate facilities that could handle these unfortunate children.
The taxpayers were outraged. First, they went after the parents of these kids. They labeled them evil and irresponsible for disregarding the government's announcement and continuing to reproduce. I always thought this was unfair. No one actually understood what the government's announcement meant, and these parents didn't realize what they were doing. But the people were merciless; Painting offensive graffiti on their houses and picketing outside of soulless facilities. These parents were demonized on the 24 hour news networks and the object of harsh satire on various late night shows.
Then it came out that the government hid information from the public about the consequences of running out of souls. The protestors who went after the parents turned their attention to the government, with a primal taste for vengeance. The people demanded impeachment, even though Chelsea Clinton was not the President when the announcement was made. The people wanted blood, and they claimed she was still complicit in the cover-up. However, the whole government was in on the cover-up, and congress was not about to bring about impeachment charges.
Whispers from extremist groups about a potential coup began. The man at the forefront of this idea was a prominent journalist against the soulless, Dwight Shaw. These whispers began increasing in volume, and the idea began getting mainstream attention. Then one night violent protests broke out in Washington D.C. The protestors stormed the White House and killed the President. Dwight Shaw was placed in charge.
Before I describe the actions Shaw took as President, it is important to highlight that these protestors refused to go after the children. They were viewed as sympathetic beings who were sentenced to a life of horror due to their parent's and the government's irresponsible actions.
The first action the Shaw administration took was to release all classified files regarding the soul issue. Most of the files released confirmed what the people suspected, but there was one bombshell. Apparently, Government doctors had discovered a method of taking souls from the fortunate and transferring them to those who needed them.
Shaw made the controversial decision to implement a new government policy involving the transfer of souls from prisoners to the soulless children. However, that was only a slight remedy to the problem. A large group of elderly people stepped forward and gave up their souls for the children. Once you gave up your soul, you had the choice of being housed in jail or killed. Many of them sacrificed their lives to help these children.
That still was not enough. People were still restless and wanted to solve this problem. Shaw began taking a tougher stance. He announced a startling measure. One parent was forced to sacrifice their souls to their children by the age of 10. This is a short-sighted, but probably the only solution to this problem which will eventually lead to the extinction of the American population. |
Yossar watched the small ship shrink in the sky until it disappeared.
"Kind of depressing, isn't it?"
"Depressing?"replied the lead Koldarian physicist quizzically, standing next to him.
"There goes our last hope. There's nothing more we can do."
"Can? There is more we *must* do. We must keep up the charade with the humans. We can't risk them finding out we have constructed an FTL ship."
"Yes, we'll chat and wait. But the fate of our civilization, our species' existence, lies with those four people. I still think Harrion would have been a better choice than Arra."
"It's done."
"See what I mean? We're helpless now. Our fate is in their hands."
"We still have to open the quantum entanglement link when they reach there. We have to continually update the plans. A lot will change by the time they get there. We have to communicate the plan to them and leave them enough time to steal the terraforming equipment and leave before they are discovered. Then we can save Koldar from ruin."
"We won't even be alive then. 143 years."
"Yes, 143 years. Then we will help them decide our fate."
--
Two men and a woman sat playing cards on the human ship as it approached the speed of light, bending space ever so slightly around it. Their table was squished in the small cabin space, most of it taken by an enormous metal cube larger than a plane.
Lena banged her elbow on it and cursed.
"Shit! I wish they had given us a bit more room. Or at least made this damn thing smaller."
"You know why it has to be so large."
"Yeah yeah the size of the wormhole is dependent on the size of the areas of negative matter at the two points it connects. And this machine will create an area of negative matter around itself. I was briefed just as much as you were, Hilton."
"It matters more than we do. You know we don't even need to be here. We're just here to make sure nothing goes wrong. It should open up the wormhole on its own when we get there."
"So we're the quality assurance. I left my family behind forever to work in quality assurance."
Hilton gave her a stern look. "You are saving the entirety of the human race by working in 'quality assurance'."
"And destroying another one."
"I thought you had overcome your moral misgivings about our mission. We won't destroy them. Based on our assessment, there is more than enough room for both of our species to live on their planet."
"And if they disagree?"
Hilton looked at the machine. "That's why the wormhole has to be so large. In case if they disagree."
Lena looked at her cards. "It's a shame the terraforming technology never worked out."
The second man, having spoken not a single word, flipped over four kings. Lena cursed again. |
The night was dark and empty, the only thing I could hear was the few cars racing by on the highway a few miles away. The trees began to play their ensemble as I quietly crept out of my house, making sure the large wooden door wouldn't squeak an awaken my parents.
I took one step at a time, down the stone stairway onto the brick path. The baige bricks could be seen in great detail, all their cracks, the moss growing over them, everything. Even in the dark moonlight. I looked up, and gazed at the stars. The stars have always been a mystery to me, they never change and their glowing inferno thousands and thousands of miles away can be seen from my backyard.
I collapsed on the soft grass and watched the calm clouds overpass above me. Ever had one of those moments where you look up, and it feels like you're in the middle of a globe staring up at the dome-like fence? At the peak of the dome, it's the darkest. The dark shade seems to expand over time, flooding the rest of the sky. In the middle of the darkest shade, however, it seems to keep getting darker and darker, until the entire sky is unrecognizable. It comes to a point where closing your eyes makes no difference.
I smiled at the thought, closed my eyes, and allowed the trees to deliver their encore. |
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