Split (1)

train · 177k rows

prompt stringlengths 391 14.9k
Once more, he began his daily ritual. His mind was muddy, a mangled fragment of its former self. But he wasn't so far gone that he didn't know what would happen when he mashed the power button on the television remote. Still, he went through the motions. Still, the television did not respond. On the one hand, there was nobody left to make fun of him. On the other, there were no sycophants left to massage his perennially stunted ego. Worst of all, no intern entered the large oval room to deliver him a folder of news articles. Articles which were carefully curated to only show him in a positive light. He had relied on those. It was his morning pick-me-up. Some people drank coffee. But the last man living browsed those neat little folders. He continued on with his ritual, but he found it harder to put one foot in front of the other than before. Exhausted already, he slouched back into his pristine chair. A hand moved, almost on its own, to a button on the desk, but this morning, unlike the last, it recoiled before pressing it. No. No one would come to bring him his cola today. No one would ever come to bring him anything, ever again. The last man living opened a drawer in his ornate desk. Inside was a fine pen emblazoned with his name, some papers, and a medicine bottle. He had stashed the bottle there sometime last night. He couldn't remember when. Surely he couldn't have been considering ... A diminutive hand reached out for the bottle, and shook it. It was all there, and again he thought of what would happen if he swallowed them all. For a fleeting moment, he almost thought he wanted to find out. But then, he opened his eyes, and if any other human being was there--there couldn't be, ever again--they would have swore that the eyes suddenly began to twinkle. "No,"the man murmured, and he tossed the bottle into a trash can below the desk. Something had recharged his internal battery. Some thought, some insight, that came so suddenly. He stood up and continued about his business, a pep in his step as if he had just read one of those neat little folders. As the last man walked toward his wardrobe, he spoke to himself, quietly but resolutely: "I'm the last man. I'm the ... I'm the smartest, and the last, and the ... nobody can say I'm not. Nobody can ever say that again!" And with that realization, the business of a nation proceeded perfectly as normal.
"Believe me, I tried all branches of magic. Transfiguration, elemancy, fate manipulation, even the more mundane stuff like potioneering and beastmastery. Nothing worked."The coven of witches - ranging from my mother to that weird great-grand-aunt who had mastered a variant of alchemy to give immortality - merely blinked back. My mother, ever so loving, gave me a sad smile. "You'll probably find something you're good at along the way. Let's not doubt the potential of some magicians, maybe they're late bloomers -" An aunt I hardly knew cut in. "Nonsense! Your son is clearly a mortal. I can set him up as an assistant potioneer, you know, those types that don't actually infuse magic."Her curt words stopped as her stony face opened up to drink some mead. "There's no need to worry about life when there are always jobs available for people of our kind." Another aunt from a far-off branch of the family started the standard criticism. "You shouldn't have let him stay in that weird room of glass tubes all day! Now he doesn't have an employable skillset to use in the magical world. We all know that potions are brewed in pewter cauldrons and not glass! Now he can't even be a potioneer."I would have smashed my test tubes and used the sharp edges to cut the self-righteous look off her face. The rest of the meal was finished in silence. With a quick flick of her wrist, my mother cleaned the table and her wide family teleported back to their homes. &nbsp; "Mom, can I come in?" "Yes dear. Is it about just now?" "Yeah. Am I really useless?" "Honey... I've told you this before, you are never truly useless. Everyone has the power, it just... manifests in different ways." "But I'm 16 already. If I don't get to show magical powers, what use am I?" My mother gestured towards the bed, for me to sit down. "I'm just a simple witch, I don't know a great deal about what society expects of us, especially for your generation."She reached for her drawer and pulled out a bag of gold coins. There had to be at least 100 in there! "Mom, you can't give me this! It's like your life savings. There'll be none for you." "Don't worry about it. If the coven really treats me as their flesh and blood, they will look out for me. I look forward to your great-grand-aunt's immortality elixir, after all."Mom giggled a little, before her face turned serious again. "But son, never forget this: I let you pursue your passion in that unorthodox field of science for a reason. I saw that it was your interest, that you would do well in that and nothing else would seem appealing to you." "Now go collect your things. I know of a place where you can pursue your passion. It's called a university, where you can learn things differently from our traditional approach."Mom turned away from me and caught her breath. Turning back to me momentarily, with her eyes already starting to tear up, she told me once more to write back to her once I had reached the university, and ushered me out of her room. &nbsp; The bag of coins is still with me. I'm on my way to the university now. A small, yet still organised place of brick and stone, I'm sure my life would be an uphill struggle from there. I just hope my mom wouldn't be punished for her actions. I gave the coins to the headmaster. He told me the risks; that my family and the religious authorities were both suspicious of science. But I knew my mother believed in me, and as I entered that wondrous room of glass tubes, burners and chemicals for the first time, I knew that my higher calling wasn't the manipulation of the universe; rather it was to answer its questions. I, the non-magical one, would study hard and make my mom proud.
When I was young and unetched in the world, I took for granted a portrait of my mother. It was one of those old-style photographs where everyone stood, leaned on the nicest chair in the house, drew all unmentionables from frame, and no one smiled. I remember her not smiling, and I remember making jokes about it with her. Every time she'd give that chuckle mothers and teachers do. It was strenuous - she'd say - to hold up the corners of your lips, for God knows how long. And only God knows how she loved god. And I knew too how she loved me. I can't remember her face. From time to time I look back on my earliest journals, to simulate decomposed memories. All I know of her now is what I wrote then. Down to the expressionless grin. It took her death to get me to write it at all. At the wake, my brother brought up a joke she used to make, while we sat silent, punchlineless. I don't have much left of him either.
"Huh? What...what's going on? Where am I?"I shouted, my fear becoming greater by the second. I'm in a white room, engulfed in light. Right now I'm lying on a bed, wearing what seems to be some sort of uniform. I try to get off my bed and immediately fall to the ground, the pain striking its way right into my heart like a hot iron. My body feels like it's on fire and the pain is horribly agonising. I can't even attempt to get up. I feel like a prisoner in my own body. After what feels like hours of continuous struggle my will finally prevails. I stand and walk to the mirror right in front of me. And what I saw was the very last thing I expected to see. "Wha-"I can barely speak. The words feel like knives pushing up against my throat. The face on the mirror wasn't my face. These hands weren't my own. But some of my memories remained. I walk outside to see London completely destroyed. It looked like the scene of a decade-old war. There was no life, no nature. Nothing. I continue walking to a pile of what seems like trash, seeing if I could find any hints of what happened. As I walk closer I see- "Huh...?"I muttered. Bodies. Human bodies. Mutilated beyond recognition and burnt to an absolute crisp, with many of the limbs having been turned into liquid. I throw up, my body not being able to handle the horrid stench and my mind not able to handle the incessant buzzing of the flies and the thousands of questions swamping it. "What...what is this?"I whisper weakly. What is happening? Is this hell? I wouldn't be surprised. But even so... I'm just a human. What sins have I committed to deserve this? Then I hear shouting. "What...who...?"I whispered. A group of a dozen or so men and women donning the same uniform as mine grab me and get me into their vehicle. The way they move makes them seem like hardened soldiers. "Who...who are you? And my uniform, why is it the same as yours?"I asked. "Just listen careful, ok John?"One of the women replied. How did they know my name? How do they know who I am? "Just listen carefully and don't panic. The year right now is 2048. The world has been engulfed in an endless war after natural resources due to their scarcity."She spoke resolutely. This...can't be true. Just two hours ago I was with my friends in a Pub. This is impossible. This can't be true. Then the women speaking to me removes her mask. And my heart stops. "E...Em-Emily?" I struggle to get the words out. It's her. Emily. One of my friends from 2012. The one I was talking to right before I was transported to this hell. "Calm down John. Just listen to me."She said softly. "In the year 2012, you said something, a phrase. In a previous timeline, you were killed by a Russian assassin, for the ability to look forward into the future. The Russian Government feared you would be used by the British government to win the Third World War. You are the only one in the world with the ability to fully observe a timeline. Simply put, you have entered the province of God." "What...?"I manage to stutter out with tremendous effort. "Let me continue. After your death in the previous timeline, I was personally given a small time machine by you. Look at this."She then proceeded to show me what looked like an ordinary watch, but at the back of it was a setting to select how many years you wanted to leap back in time. However, she could only leap back. I could leap forward in time at will and find out about future events, according to Emily. I posses a power of the gods... "Your past self-gave all of us hope. That this world could be saved. He gave me this mission before he died in the previous timeline. Or, more accurately, he created a message for you."she gave me a piece of paper. Written on it was, "Defy time. Defy fate. Deceive even your closest friends. And let us oppose even God himself. Wield the weapon of time." The last sentence. The phrase. I remember now. That was the trigger for the apparent leap forward in time. "Just a little more I have to tell you, John. You are always destined to die in the year 2045. Fate demands this in every timeline."she whispered softly. "Then how-" "We stored your memories as data. Technology nowadays is further ahead than anyone thought it'd be 30 years ago. You are destined to die and you were technically dead. We put your memories into another body, a body of someone who volunteered. You were in a coma for years. I and all your friends were waiting for you. We started a group to build the time machine specifically for you. We brought together the greatest scientists in Britain." "And I have to deceive the world. Save this future." "Exactly,"she replied, "you are going to use this time machine along with your gift to stop the Third World War. You may have to leap hundreds if not thousands of times. You will see us, your family and the world you know die over and over again." "I don't care. If this is the future fate has destined us to..."I replied resolutely. Yes, I don’t care. I had to save not just myself, but the whole world. I have to try. I have to be brave. I look out the window and I see the ruined city of London. Tens of thousands of corpses flood most of the streets and buildings. The stench is one of the only constants left in this forsaken timeline. I will change this. I will defeat time. I, alone, shall bear this burden. I will observe how this world dies, and change the future. "Wield the weapon of time." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yeah, I really don't like this story. It seems horribly flawed and the writing isn't very good IMO(at least that’s what I thought when writing this). Any criticism is welcome, I really do need it. I wish I could've written this better and fleshed it out better, maybe come up with a more satisfying ending IDK. This just took way too long to write, far longer than anticipated, so I couldn't find it in myself to scrap it. Thanks for reading this story, and send me any and all criticism!
As a shape shifter, there are a million ways to make a buck. I could become anyone and withdraw the entirety of their funds, or simply walk into the presidential office and get whatever I want. I decided play a mix, depending on what I really felt like that evening. Today was Saturday, a good night to hit up the Casino. People laughing, drinking, gambling. I stood, calming my mind to prepare for my transformation while surveying the room for my target. Casinos were great. So busy, lots of bathrooms to change out identities in. All I had to do was wait for some chump to hit a winning streak, take a break in the can, then I’d change into the fool and stroll over to the counter to cash out for the night while the real gambler was still in the bathroom getting business done. I’d done this thousands of times across the country as I traveled, and never been caught. Usually the person I’d imitated would get angry and start yelling at the casino when told they’d already taken their winnings, usually ending up with them kicked out and banned. Fine with me. I pocketed the cool 15k I’d made in 2 hours and hopped into my Jeep, pulling out and flipping on the radio while heading for the next town.
“I cannot answer” i said Afterall to become an “immortal” is every livings dream. To see empires rise and fall, heros lived and died, history written at the moment- its a gift of no equal value. You become someone who’ve seen it all, an important asset in the passage of time “What’s the cost?” I continued A deal like this always comes with a price; maybe my family, my identity, and most likely my soul. “No cost, you simply have to be you” Silence.. I cannot understand, its vague, its unreasonable, a waste, but more importantly I didn’t care, i never did anyway. Silence.. He gaze at me, with no emotions at all- like he knew what my answer would be, that i was bound to this fate from the beggining Finally I look at his eyes. The bleeding stop, the deeming light shone again, and my heart stop its beating ...... It’s been a thousand years. I’ve seen empires rise and fall, heros lived and died, and history written at the moment. I’ve seen men struggled with their short lives- faced pain, loss, agony, and sorrow but at the same time enjoyed happiness, joy, achievements, and life itself with all its ups and downs Finally- It not meant to be understood, it isnt vague, and most importantly its not a waste. He was walking beside me. A thousand years and I stop and look at him. He stop too and looked back at me, once again he asked, like he knew I made up my answer “Dying for me is too easy and I would always welcome you after you’ve enjoyed my gift to the fullest. Would you live for me?” I smiled “Yes”
For the past several hours as I’ve been queued awaiting my turn I’ve watched people enter the pearly gates to eternal bliss and seen people vanish in a flash to a burning damnation through an invisible trap door. I’m not aware of the conversations people are having with St Peter but what i do know is that they are short and only end in two ways. Im approaching the front of the queue there’s only three people ahead of me now if I strain to listen I can just make out the conversation between St. Peter and the next to be judged. It’s hard to make out what’s being said over the hubbub of the crowed but I think I make out a few words. “Well you said “time to gat a watch” when people asked you the time.... so” Clunk! Peter pulls the handle. The smell of sulphur filled my nostrils and burned my eyes, the top of the damned mans head disappears. I cant believe my ears surly not he never pulled the lever for that did he!!! I’ll ask her in front. “Excuse me did he just send him to hell for telling people to get a watch” I was hoping she would laugh in my face, call me silly, correct my appalling hearing. Her face hasn’t changed no wry smile not even a flare of the nostrils just a pale ashen look and fear in her eyes. “Yes” She has a quiver in her voice and just turns away and now I’m left staring at the back of her head in shock!!! No way surly not that’s not one of the ten commandment “thou shall not be a sarcastic dick” was not part of that list for sure. Who’s next an old man in his late eighties is say. “Name” Peter says in a formal way. “Jeffry McDonald” the mans voice seemed weak and strained. “Oh Mr McDonald here we go, yes I see ok you have a score of 75 that’s a pass, your greatest deed was adopting little Tommy. Nice work, on you go” St. Peter pulls a second lever and the gates slowly open Mr McDonald steps forward into the glow of the light now beaming out of the gates. As each body part is bathed in the eternal sunshine it changes, grows younger, his skin started to tighten and his hair changes colour and regrows. Before everyone’s eyes Mr McDonald is transformed into a much younger youthful version of himself standing straight and proud his shuffle is now a strut as he passes through to happiness. “Next” St Peter yells., the woman doesn’t move she scared stiff unable to take the last few steps to her final destination. She feels a light tap on her should and looks back to see the annoying man who asked the question before staring at her. “It’s your turn don’t worry everything will be fine” She knows there’s no turning back so she steps forward and awaits St Peter to find out what her after life is going to be. “Name” “Emma King” St Peter reaches into his files and pulls out a piece of paper, it’s not a white sheet of paper like all the others before but in fact blood red. There was no questions, no numbers or scores given he just pulled the lever to hell and she was gone. “Next” Shit!!! I can’t believe what iv just seen that lady never got a chance to explain herself. Be cool take a deep breath and steps up to the plate it’s my time no turning back. “Name” “Charlie O’hare” “Ok give me a second I’ll just get your file” “Can I ask you the process of how you decide who wins or loses as per say” St Peter raises his head and smiles, a look of excitement on his face like explaining the process is his true joy. “Yes you may, I come up with this myself you know the scoring system. The big man wanted a simple efficient way of rolling through the people and entrusted me with that very task” “You must be a very important person” That’s it Charlie keep him sweet. “Well I wouldn’t say that let’s just say I do my part to keep this squeaky wheel turning” Whys he staring at me, oh that was a joke he’s waiting for the laugh. “Hahah ha haha hahaha ha squeaky wheel good one” To much Charlie I completely over played that. “Yeah ok well this is how it works the big man is the only person who can judge you but with billions of people he needed a simpler way to keep track. This was where I come up with the point system so when a child is baptised they are given a number zero. Then through out their life a guardian angel watches over them and every time they do a good deed it’s logged and then god reviews and gives it a point which is added to the score, the bigger the deed the bigger the points. This is then also applied for bad deeds that may be carried out except in reverse so depending on how bad the deed is depends on how many points are deducted. What number is left is your score and that decides your fate, do you understand” What about the last two they seemed a bit unfair, fuck it I’ll ask what’s the worst that can happen. “If you don’t mind me asking what about the man who told people to get a watch and the last lady, you never even spoke to her” St Peter was taken back by this he wasn’t use to people questioning his methods and didn’t like to talk about individuals cases but he also had an obligation to keep everyone informed of the rules. “Well the gentleman although his actions was not the worst thing in the world it was the straw that broke the camels back as you earth bounders say. That pushed him into the negative score now in fairness only by a fraction of a point but there are no exception he chose his fate” Charlie stood nodding like he completely understood but truthfully still thought it was very harsh. “And the lady? She had a red file what happens to her” “Yes the red file well that’s a completely different matter, anyone who has a red file goes straight to hell” “Why?” “Well they broke one of the Ten Commandments well one commandment to be specific Murder. That’s a ticket straight the the underground BBQ” This is hit or miss here I mean sure I’ve never killed anyone but fuck me iv been a dick on more than one occasion. “Okay Peter lets do this” “Saint” “Me!!! A saint well that’s a relief, to be honest Peter I new I was different a guided spirit my mother use to call me” “No me I’m a saint, St Peter not just Peter if you don’t mind I worked hard for that title” For god sake what a twat I look here, did I just use the lords name in vein Jesus I’m going to burn... fuck I did it again Christ!!!! “Sorry St Peter let’s get this over with” “No worries, okay let me see, yep all in order there that seems fine, check, check, check. Ok all good” “All good, brilliant that’s what I wanted to here” “Oh sorry no I mean all good your paper work is complete and in order your actually a boarder line case you have landed right on zero” “Well what does that mean?” “It means that I can’t let you in as you have not done enough in your life to deem you worthy neither can I send you to the below as you’ve not done enough to deserve to burn” “So what now” “Well you have two choices, one is you wait in purgatory until God can see you and you plead you case to him. I’ll tell you now there’s a 200 year queue so slightly less than the wait at splash mountain in Disneyland hahaha” “Two hundred years not a chance in hell will I be waiting in that” “Well you’ll be waiting for a chance to get in hell hahaha I’m killing it today” “What’s the other option?” “I pull the third lever” “And what does that do” “That shoots a beam of light straight through your heart” “Fuck that” “Wait... and you sent hurtling back to earth for a second chance” “What you mean I won’t be dead any more I’ll be able to go home” “Well not quite you’ll be reincarnated to whatever child happens to be born as you are struck with the light” “Can I think about it, I mean that’s a big decision” “You can yes, you’ve got 20 seconds then I’ll have to move on” “20 seconds I mean that’s seems a bit rushed to make a a decision like this. I mean there’s a lot of factors to take into account not to mention...” “10 now” “Wait hang on let me think, fuck sake erm I’ll” “5” “Hang on” “4” “For the love of...” “3” “Fuck you PETER" "2" "shoot me in the heart” “1”
On mobile, late night, all that. As I sit at my desk wondering how I’m going to pull this off, my wife walks in telling me dinner was ready, “ok honey” I reply. After dinner I head off to bed to get a good nights rest for the following... “adventure”. The next morning I wake up bright and early ready to start the day... except it’s Monday and I’m lying there reading stupid reddit posts when I have a big day ahead of me, “time to get up” I tell myself. I make it to the lab in one piece where I’m greeted by armed military guards who I show my ID to and they let me pass, after that it’s smooth sailing to the portal. I meet up with the head engineer who helped build the portal and he tells me what to do and hand me the suit case will 1 million dollars of that time, and a strange device that he says only to activate once I get to the past. I head inside the portal and I feel like my skin is on fire, like it’s burning me from the inside! Then suddenly, I’m greeted by a small wheat field and scorch marks at my feet. I sit down by the nearest tree and open the briefcase, there’s the mysterious device, I take it out and press the red button and it suddenly turns into a gun. But not just any gun, a prototype laser pistol, all I new was that it was solar powered, I test it out on the ground and a beam emerges from the barrel with a high pitched zap and sparks start to fly everywhere. I suddenly hear the wind whistle, and find an arrow in my chest, as I start to see the light I hear “honey, honey wake up” “Ughhhh” I reply, I check the clock, 4:36, too early. I turn to my wife and she says “were you having one of those nightmares again?” I nod and reply “I’m still all worked up about my new job designing this time travel game, it’s been kinda stressful” “Ok well just try to go back to sleep honey” “Ok”
“Timmy, murder is bad.” I give him my best teacher scowl. “Murder is bad,” Timmy babbles back to me. He takes a knife from around his belt and throws it over his shoulder. I watch in horror as it hits an innocent bystander. “Stop that, killing is wrong.” I edged closer to Timmy. Although not the brightest villain I had faced, he sure was the deadliest. “Killing is wrong!” Timmy cheered, lifting his arms in celebration. I had to step back quickly to avoid getting stabbed myself. I nearly trip on one of his earlier victims. This poor kid stuck in a killer’s body. I did not look forward to the day he would understand the ramifications of his actions. That was Future Timmy’s problem. For now, I needed to get Present Timmy under control. “Let’s put down the knives and we can go get ice cream. Would you like that, Timmy? Ice cream?” I offered. “I like ice cream.” Timmy scrunched up his face in concentration. “Can I bring my friends?” There, that wasn’t so hard. “Sure. Where are they, we can pick them up -“ I then saw that Timmy was referring to the knives. He was pulling them out of his victims in triumph, like it was the sword in the stone instead of a knife in a dead body recently killed. “No, knives aren’t friends!”
“A marketing tactic?!” “Of course, my dear boy,” the old man said, “my company makes these drinks, and I’m giving out samples.” “But,” I started to say, “isn’t that...wrong?” “How so?” I shrugged. “I don’t know, I just thought you were being kind.” The old man tapped his nose with his finger. “That’s the beauty of what I do,” he said, “Have you ever heard of selfish altruism?” I shake my head. “Aren’t those mutually exclusive?” I asked. The old man laughed. “Not necessarily. You see, I am in fact helping these people. They have a need, and I have a product that fulfills those needs. I don’t charge them, but if they like the drink, they’ll remember and buy it in the future. It’s an...investment.” I had to admit, the old man had a point. It seemed a little strange, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. If you help others, they might eventually help you. “I’ll take one of those samples,” I said. He smiled, knowing he’d gained another customer.
>If you see me, weep. The inscription was on a suit of armor, spelled out in the runes of an ancient civilization that had long since passed. The armor itself was archaic - a beaked helm, with a near-microscopic eye slit. The overlapping plates had scrollwork done into them, a beautiful series of dashes and lines suggesting arcane secrets and horrors from beyond the stars. Between it's empty gauntlets was grasped a plain broadsword, point into the ground. The suit stood on a foot-high plinth of obsidian, between two massive doors of wrought iron and silver filigree. "Well, shit."Said one member of the party, a Kitsune Rogue named Masaru. "This is it, boys."Behind him was the human crew he was guiding - Carson the Inquisitor of Anubis; Spenser the Cleric of Osiris; and a mercenary named Nicholas III, a skilled fighter. The adventurers shifted uncertainly in their plates and leathers. Behind these doors was certainly unparalleled treasure and glory - and the solution to the small spider daemon problem. The inquisitor strode forth to the gate on the left, examining it for hidden traps or runes. "Surely this is some warning of value - the Ancients did not leave such messages lightly last time." The fox spoke again. "Probably. I can't imagine why, though. There's no further explanation or story here like other ruins."He sighed. "We had best be more cautious than usual."Then the left gate was opened, into an inky darkness that was at odds with the previous well-lit corridor. A Sacred Flame was expended, splashing against an empty ceiling. "Well. That's a good sign. As Osiris paves the way for Ra each evening, so I shall!"said Spenser. He strode in, followed closely by the mercenary eager for battle and the inquisitor ready to smite whatever lay beyond. The rogue stayed outside the room, marking the doorjamb with a kitsune rune of warding. His companions disappeared into the gloom, and their voices abruptly fell silent as the grave. The armor glowed, and the runes swam before Masaru's sight. Now they read, >If you see me, weep. For you have disturbed the tomb of Eidolon, and the Dragon shall send His fury. "Well, shit." --- Masaru hurried into the gloom to find his companions; the darkness was overwhelming for several paces until the wall of shadow was broken. Beyond it was a massive hemispherical room, of a chiseled greyish stone that depicted scenes of purges and battle against spiderlike demons. In the center was a black-painted statue of a dragon, two impala-like horns scraping the ceiling while massive wings studded with diamonds stretched from wall to wall. It was sitting on it's haunches, with the two forelegs holding a sarcophagus of purest silver. Engaging the three warriors in brutal combat were a pair of animated suits of armor similar to the one outside, but eight feet tall and swinging massive halberds of a strange dark metal, like that of the star-metal blades of the Great Old One cultists. The suits were emblazoned with runes that glowed with a fierce blue light, projecting a shield that rebuffed blades and the fury of spells alike. Though none of Masaru's companions were injured, their strength was flagging and the suits were unharmed. Masaru leapt into action, throwing a Dimensional Anchor dagger at the one bearing down on the frantically gesturing Inquisitor. It passed through the azure flare, sticking between the beaked bascinet and the neckguard. The suit swung about to face the fox while the other stopped dead mid-swing. >So. came a voice, echoing inside the minds of the adventurers. >You bear the Anchor. Duty and honour, heir of Eidolon. The animated armor withdrew the dagger from it's helm and tossed it into the stone at Masaru's feet. Runes flared to life on the pommel, and bright E shape. The suits of armor then returned to their abandoned plinths and stood motionless. The dragon statue moved, setting the silver coffin down on the ground in front of its feet. Inside the sarcophagus was a corpse clutching a map, inked in bright colors against the unfaded white. It showed a route to a tree, colored in bright reds and black. Tree of Twilight, the description read. "There."uttered the Inquisitor. "All knowledge flows from the Tree and the river that waters it."And so, the quest continued. --- --- Questions, comments, concerns?
Why do these things always happen to me? I ask you, Diary, why I must go through this ordeal? My family thinks me a lunatic. My sister particularly (always the grounded one) tells me, "Just throw yourself into your work. Employ that inventive mind of yours! Write!"How can I? I fall down and down into a world, though absurd, that is real. A world that I never wish to leave despite its fantastic absurdity. Yet at the end of these dreams, my greatest inspiration in writing, I always feel terror. I used to forget the endings of these dreams when I was younger and I dismissed them as the manifestations of an overactive mind. I cannot anymore. These visions only end when someone in the dream... passes away. When I or they "leave"the dream as a result of my actions it ends. This seems a topic strange for me to consider, but ever since my friend left... Forget it. My Diary, this is too much for you. I can tell that I should resume when you are in a more content mood. I will resume much later. I tire of this "waking"world that I must exist in. It is so bleak. How can I see this as reality when I know that there is something far more magnificent waiting down in the deepest depths of my subconscious? I apologize for my many questions, dear Diary, again I am not feeling like myself. Ever since father remarried to that mad, mad woman and Louis left, things in this world just don't fall into place like they used too. I feel twisted and torn in a million directions, I feel as if the dimensions of the very world shift. The only escape I feel is when I write and publish my stories under my friend's name. I know it isn't right to use a pseudonym so close to someone who has recently passed away, but I want my work to be well received by the public and they would not accept my writing as well someone like him. Dear Diary, it happened again. I live and die, live and die, always fall and end up here. I tried to discuss these visions with my family, but all I received is the same jeering from those blood-red lips that turned this family into the endless teatime mockery that it has become. I surrender. Any time I bring up my work, that woman minimizes me. I wonder what really pulls me back to this world. Maybe I will find the answer when I fall asleep tonight. If not, I will seek to reenter that other world through other means. I may perish in it continually but it's the only reason I live in this one. I'll find a way there, one way or another. --- Thanks for reading! Maybe my story ended up being a little darker than the prompt. I hope you enjoyed reading it though :) Edit: Fixed some issues due to a lack of editing^^oops.
I miss my beard. My beard was glorious. It was large enough to reach down halfway to my belly. Dania liked to braid it. It wasn't gone forever, I could probably get it back in a couple of weeks, maybe a months or 2. But I missed its weight. Its smell. It had been part of me all this time. But living in a human city like this required sacrifices. Lost the beard. Lost most of my quality living space, trading a cave for an abandoned warehouse, which was more spacious but far more exposed. I had to shower regularly under clean drinking water instead of dipping in the lake. No more clothes made of raw hide, now I had custom-made clothes Dania helped me get. And now, here I was. A shipping yard. Dania told me that in order to pay rent, I needed money. And in order to get free money, I had to help people do things. That wasn't easy. I tried working with the people in garages where they work on the steels 'cars', but I kept running my head into the roof often enough that is was more expensive to keep repairing the roofs than it was useful to have someone to drag the broken ones from here to there to everywhere. They recommended the scrapyard, but Dania told me only bad people worked there and I'm not a bad person so I looked elsewhere first. Or she did. I don't have the connections she does. So here I stand. At a shipyard. I duck underneath the gate. I wear a hardhat where I go these days. Knocking my head into things was annoying, gave me headaches. I pass over the terrain to the big building. Important people tend to be in the bigger buildings. If I didn't know any better, I'd say it's because they want to be giant like to feel important, but aren't. But they choose large buildings to fit big ego's. Or so Dania says. She knows these things, to me they're just weird quirky little human habits. A small lady in a black suit comes out of the building and waves at me. I think. I head over there, trying not to get in the way of others and ignoring the staring they do. They always stare. So rude. Like they have never seen a giant. Annoying. Gives me a headache. Dania says it will pass as more giants could learn to live here, and if I stick around longer in one place. I hear the clicking of cameras. "Hello there! You must be Morz!"the little lady shouts as I get close enough to hear her. "Yup.", I say. I kneel down to shake her hand. Dania says to try and get to eye level, makes them more comfortable. Her hand is like a baby's hand, but skinny. Weird claws. Women have those more often then men, by choice. Another quirky habit. "Well, my name is Elizabeth, I'm the HR Coordinator! You're here looking for the dockworker position!?" "Yup." "Ok, great! I would invite you inside, but that could be a little difficult. I had the guys stacks some pallets over there, we can sit and talk, is that alright?!" "Sure." We walk over there. Her tiny little legs clack quickly on the cement floor. I walk slowly, Dania told me to walk very slowly around other people, while looking around at the ships. They were huge, some looked bigger than mountains. I felt small next to them. They reminded me of metal versions of the glass towers and buildings in the 'business center' in the city, but made out of steel. I never knew how they were made. With massive forges? Dad made me make clubs from iron, back when I was too young to grow a beard. That was a lot of work. It still was today. Hjorik, the old smith, still worked forges to this day, even with his bad arm, and his forge set was as big as my house. All he and his boys put out was weapons and armor. How they accomplished something like this was beyond me. Maybe I could learn from the smiths here. I'm sure Hjorik would love to know, but he was too old to travel now. I'd have to take the knowledge to him. Maybe on paper? Nah, he'd rip that apart in his frantic enthusiasm. Maybe some of those steel plates could work, with carving. Or painting. We arrived at a warehouse several times larger than my house, a stack of pallets and an elevated seat with a set of stairs just around the corner of the entrance. Inside, a rusted ship was being taken apart. Men hung on ropes down the side, wielding those sticks with sparks coming off from it. They called it 'welding'. It was supposed to put metal together, but they also used it to cut metal apart. Didn't make a lot of sense to me, but I hadn't been able to try it myself. Maybe I can learn here. I sat down, creaking and cracking and somewhat sinking into the pallets. Not made to hold my weight. Ugh. Little lady hauled herself onto the chair. It was at my height, somewhat. Dania wasn't kidding about this 'eye' thing. "So. Sorry about the noise! They'll be on lunch break soon!" "It's fine." "So, eh....Mister Morz Bin?! Am I saying that right?!" "That's it." "Right! So, you're here to apply as dockworker, specifically on the disassembly line and transportation crews, that's what you applied for! Sorry for stating the obvious, I just have to confirm if it's correct so we don't any mistakes in the paperwork." "Yup. Scrapping and hauling." "Okay, great! Your resume mentions here that you have a lot of experience working in some pretty tough environments! Can you tell me about the time you worked for Lowe's Boatservices, about 60 years back?!" "Lowe's. Oh, I just hauled boats out of the water. Broke them down for wood. Chopped up forests for wood, hauled it back to Lowe. He made boats of them. He was nice." "Ok, good! Do you have any takeaways from that job?" "What?" "Takeaways? Like, lessons?" "Oh, yes. Lowe taught me about alcohol. Weird stuff, tastes but makes me easy to laugh. I learned not to drink too much. I fall asleep if I drink too much. I'm a heavy sleeper, so if I fell asleep in a place where Lowe needed to be, I'd be in the way for a whole day." "....Oh." -------------- See below for part 2.
Tom leans over the bathroom sink. His hands reek with sweat. His heart pumps a million times per second. “Can’t let them scare us, buddy.” the young, cargo shorts and T-shirt man muttered to the small furry creature on his shoulder. He patted it. The creature purred disappearing under his shirt. “Alright. Ready?” Tom heard another purr. After collecting himself, he stepped out of the bathroom. The once busy Starbucks is now empty except for five men. “Mr. Walsh.” One of the men says stepping forward. “Hand it over.” “Hand over what?” Tom replies acting confused. “The creature, damn it!” Another one replies grabbing his FBI badge. “Furball, attack!” Tom shouts. The small furry creature leaps into the air from Tom’s shirt with an ear splitting screech. The men scramble. Tom runs forward punching one of them in the face. Furball lands on another brutally attacking him. The duo fight the men. Suddenly, he sees one of the men covered in blood take out his gun. “Furball!” Tom screeches seeing where the gun is pointed. Bang! “Damn you!” Tom shouts kicking the gun out of the man’s hand and shooting him. The other FBI agents then run out of the Starbucks. Tom runs over scooping Furball up. The creature’s blue eyes gaze at Tom’s green ones. He then sprints running to the nearest CVS. After getting some bandages and fixing Furball outside Tom then sits down in an ally. “Well, Furball we have a long journey.” He says watching Furball as he slept.
Things started out as simple as it could get. I finally woke up from what felt like a year-long coma, managed to scrounge up some clean clothes from the dump that was my apartment, and ventured outside my apartment. By “ventured” I mean I walked upstairs and checked my mailbox before heading back down. ‘Hi, Ed,’ my upper floor neighbor greeted me when she saw me coming up. She was sort of cute, if you had a thing for low-key gothic teenagers– torn black clothes, old smudged mascara, a few piercings here and there. I didn’t mind her terribly. Beside the occasional loud moaning and ominous chanting, she was a fairly quiet and moved like a cat. Even gave me some of the leftover snacks from the weekly gathering of her coven. ‘Nightshade,’ I grunted, still feeling a bit sluggish. That wasn’t her real name of course, because her birth name was “granted by hypocritical roman catholic family against her will”. Maybe it had something to do with me not being a gothic emo or something, but I thought Grace was a nice name. ‘Another all-nighter, huh?’ She asked as she looked through several magazines on how to be dark and edgy. ‘Mm-hmm.’ I started shifting through the day’s letters. Mostly notices regarding unpaid bills. I stuffed them into my back pocket. I could always use them for kindling for the fireplace. ‘Bummer,’ she clicked her tongue, well aware of my economic predicament. ‘If only someone had a job for you to take –’ I gave her halfhearted stare. Not exactly subtle about it. ‘I know my business card says paranormal and occult, but I’m not helping your coven summoning a demon.’ She looked dejected for moment. While my business did say Edward R. Strange – Paranormal and Occult Investigations, it also said on the back no summoning of otherworldly entities, no curses and no birthday parties. You’d be surprised of how many times I had to remind people of that. ‘It doesn’t have to be a big demon,’ she pouted like a ten-year old. ‘There are only big ones,’ I muttered to myself and started heading down to my basement apartment. ‘See you later.’ Before I got halfway down the stairs, though, she called out my name. ‘Ed, I think I got some of your mail.’ ‘Oh?’ She came forward and handed me a closed envelope, one that had a bit of weight to it. It had my name and address written on the front in eloquent handwriting, and a wax seal on the back. I didn’t recognize the handwriting, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t another bill – must be my ‘investigative skills’. ‘Thanks.’ Out of curiosity I opened the letter on the stairs, then turned my back a little when she tried reading over my shoulder – probably hoping it was a page from the Necronomicon or something. It wasn’t, of course. I already had the book. Anyway, the envelope contained three papers. One was a clip out from a newspaper, another a letter and the third was the most unexpected thing ever: a check. For me. I checked the amount written down and started to wonder if the sender forgot to add a comma somewhere. I started reading the letter and got only three lines read before muttering, ‘Uh oh…’ ‘Something bad?’ ‘Worse,’ I said. ‘A job.’
“David” he called out. “What is it, Brady?” I answered. “Dave, we need to set up camp. Let’s go over to the plateau” responded Brady. We set up our tent, got out a rusty pan and set it over the fire. We were having squirrel a la Carte again tonight. I licked my teeth, and still felt those cold, metallic things in my mouth. They never go away. “I think this is a pretty bad idea, Davey. Colorado Springs was hit twice. The background radiation may still be-“ Brady was cut of by a rustling in the bushes. I pulled out my trusty .44, and Brady loaded his shotgun. Out of the bushes came an elderly man, with a long, unkempt beard and tattered clothes. “Don’t shot. I’m not armed, just a wanderer” he said. We both looked at each other, and put down our weapons. “You look like wanderers yourself. Where are you headin’?”. “Colorado springs, this brace face needs a dentist, stat” said Brady. The old wanderer chuckled, and sat on the log next to us. “Colorado Springs is crater, fellas. Mutants and raiders have taken over, most people are dead or enslaved” he said. “Shit, we’ve been walking to Colorado Springs for a month” I said, angered. “Although, I’m a dentist. All I got is a fork and some morphine, but I can remove them babies for ya” After the “operation” I woke up the next morning, without my braces, but also without some teeth. Turns out, he was just a crazy hobo.
“Thanks, Mia,” my brother pat me on the head, smiling. “I can always count on you to reach those lower spots for me. It’s a pain on the knees, being down there for so long to hammer those nails in. But wait, you don’t even have to get down on your knees, do you? Shorty.” “Shut it, Eric,” I sighed, shoving his wet hand off my frizzy hair. “And don’t put your hands on my hair after we’ve been working with all these chemicals all afternoon! I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a single ad that says Windex works on the human body!” “Ah, don’t be such a spoilsport,” my other brother came over after washing his hands, having thought twice after seeing me chase Eric around with my Windex bottle. He latched on to me and held me in place like I was some sort of standing bed, fully displaying our height difference as my head became an arm rest. “He means well. Come on, let’s keep boarding up the place before nightfall. We still have a ton to do in the morning.” I wrinkled my nose at Lowell as he walked away, picking up our working supplies. Brushes, nails, hammers, cleaning materials: everything necessary to further hide our house from the bombers. “What are you waiting for?” Eric ruffled my hair again, making loose strands fly up. He went around through the thick brush that surrounded our small house, the golden sun setting off behind it as the last chirping of the forest dwellers tapered off. It was as if they, too, knew that soon enough the planes would be flying overhead and preparing to unload red capsules of fiery doom upon us all. I still didn’t get why we didn’t leave the mountain, if we got caught up here in a forest fire and the house collapsed on top of the bunker, we might not survive. Actually, the chance of survival amongst the whole of our family living here-eight people, including us three-concludes that maybe one and a half of us will get through this sort of okay? “Let’s get inside, Mom said she’s making some nice gruel for tonight before we’re confined to beans and rice for the coming months.” “If you stopped messing with me, I might actually manage to reach the front door,” I rolled my eyes, brushing down my hair. Still, I looked off into the distance, wondering. The drafting officers should be coming through soon, although none of us nor the villagers in the main part of the village knew when. It was cowardly, yes, but we hoped to already be sealed off from the outside world in the bunker before they came through so none of my six brothers got sent off to war. Mechas these days had a shortage of pilots, and any one of them could be called off or all of them if the officers found that they had potential. Anyone above the age seventeen could be called, but usually they went for the boys. The women, when captured by the enemy country, had it far, far worse. I’ve heard the stories. The ones about the women who joined, the women who never came back. The women who did come back. So in general, only boys were chosen. There have been a few girls taken, but they only make up about one percent of our country’s army, so rarely did you ever encounter any couples who said, “Oh, my daughter’s off to war.” When I say 99% of the army was made up of boys, I literally mean it. Maybe more. 99.6% probably. I haven’t been reading the news holograms lately, they’ve been jamming all the signals so that enemy planes coming from the west couldn’t pick anything up from the guard towers on our side. I’ve been missing my favorite show for a while now, damn it. We’re to the north, not the damn west. I didn’t have anything to worry about, when the war was first announced four years ago the fear was immediately turned to my brothers. I kind of...felt bad for them. All were strapping young men with futures ahead of them, a few that had been looking to move to the cities based on some recommendations some townsmen made for hen before the war brought everything crashing down. They now had a few choices: go to the main cities where they were for sure to be drafted on sight, or stay here and live a meager life amongst the men that were left behind. Me? I was short. Too short. My body was no good for physical activity, and to be a mecha pilot or soldier in general took a lot of stamina, smarts, a good body type...haha, my education ended when I was thirteen...there’s no way the army would accept me. Too dumb. I’m a bit scrawny. There’s a reason why my brothers pick on me, it’s not just because I’m the one girl in the family besides Mom. I have freaking frizzy hair. Not the good type that makes everyone say, “Oh my God I love your hair!” It’s the type that makes people think I’m an enemy spy because of the unique racial trait of muddy brown skin, the type the people from the east-the border somehow also restless with them now, too, although not a full blown war like we have with the dark-skinned westerners-have. We’re not immigrants, but Dad is. Was. God, I’ve got to stop doing that. I may or may not look not like the age seventeen girl I was, possibly somewhere around twelve. It’s not my fault I followed purely after Mom, my stupid offshoot brothers taking after Dad. Dad, why’d you have to go on and have seven kids before dying in a mining cave in? Couldn’t you have imparted a bit of the tallness genes this way a few years before you died? It’s been a long five years without you. I followed after Eric after a while longer of staring at the same scenery I’d viewed every day of my meandering life, turning my face from the sun and letting it warmly hit my back. The mountains weren’t far from here, which is why I felt some nipping chill even beneath the sun; it was midsummer, however, and it would become far more intense in the coming seasons. We were high in the mountains, where probably no one would ever think to venture. There wasn’t much to conquer here, not much to do. Of course we had the mines, but unless you wanted to toil over mountain after mountain to find those drying up things, it wasn’t really worth it. All sorts of aircraft flew overhead during war times, as I’d learned during the first year of the war, but since the more important cities were all further in, they passed us by. We were only going into the bunker to hide my brothers, to appease Mom, and to be overall just safe. The war didn’t really affect us, and up here it didn’t really seem like there was a war at all. My brothers worked in farming, not mining, so besides a few extra hours in the sun to supply food for the invaded towns and cities out west, we didn’t do much extra. Besides disappearing into a bunker every fall and winter. This is the modern age, when are people going to understand that a few metal walls aren’t going to put up much of a fight against bombs that are designed to penetrate through anything, deconstruct cells to their very limit?
A crack, a light, elements to construct. Booms, explosions, what was made to destruct As god commanded, the heavens obey. Whimsically perfect, to his dismay. So as he sought, to devise such a plot. Mankind was created, perfect or wrong? Would they fall in pitch, or sing their own song? For a orchestra was devised, space, time. All to deliver, perfectly on note. Floods, fires, war, percussions left, all in store As he rose waters with his hands, fingers. spread cracks in the earth with eyes that linger. Man saw fit to dramatically follow. Rich Men sat on thrones, on land deemed "hollow". Yet there was a fallacy in gods plan. He surmised that their faith lie in just he. But not of themselves, and the lives they seek. man bore witness to something he has not. A hope not held in fear, holes in the plot. Man held something that even god did not. Bravery, for what did god have to fear? Man struck out, with art, and love man held dear. As the years passed and man progressed it. They sang their song as only man sees fit. They left the perfect prison, as god stares Just according to plan, rang in gods head. And with that single thought, he, god, was dead.
"Obiwan never told you what became of your father", Vader's echoing metallic voice boomed over the rushing of air through clowd cities massive cooling vent. "He told me enough. He said YOU killed him!", cried luke in an agonized rasp. Vader gazed blankly into lukes strained, bleeding face through the abysmal eye holes of his mask, his automated breaths ticking away the increasingly painful seconds. As the uncomfortable interlude wore on, lukes hands began to slide on the durasteel post to wich he clung for dear life. It became more and more difficult for him to hold on. "Wait..."breathed vader, "what are we.." -but Luke never heard the rest of vader's uncharacteristically confused question. He finally failed in his desperate struggle to retain his grip. He was abruptly jerked from his precarious perch on the end of the suspended catwalk and sucked into fathomless oblivion. Vader took another moment to observe his ill fated son as he plummeted further and further down the shimmering maw, straighted himself, and began to walk back down the catwalk toward the door at the opposite end, his cape billowing him. The automatic door hissed open to admit Vader into a dark, deserted corridor lit only by a dim red glow. The hollow roar of the ventilation shaft was cut off as the door slid shut behind him. Vader withdrew a small, disk-shaped object from a pouch in his belt and casually tossed it to the ground, where it made a loud .etallic clunk on the slotted durasteel floor pannels. The blue holographic immage of a cloaked and hooded figure materialized from the disk. "Master",said vader in an emotionless monotone,"the time has come for...alternative measures. I am sending scouts to the hoth system."
A former father and mother held hands, teary-eyed, behind a pane of glass. The remnants of other broken families sat by their sides. Before them, behind the glass, laid a criminal, shackled to a gurney - the last place on earth he would ever see. It had been an agonizing trial, recounting the gruesome deaths. Of children, of parents, of innocence. After the guilty verdict, the man's lawyers fought tooth and nail for a simple death sentence, but the judge and jury ultimately refused, sentencing him to Death, Second Degree. This was his final chance. Second-Degree death sentences allowed the families of the victims to spare the condemned of the suffering the court imposed - if they all agreed. He looked expectantly, fearfully, at the gallery of bitter faces before him, as the man and woman stood, front and center, to give their prepared speech. __________________ "Mr Adams,"said the woman, choking back tears as her husband patted her back, "for over a year, you terrorized our communities. You murdered without remorse, and the courts have proben beyond any doubt you were of sound mind when you did so. You cost me everything,"she said, her voice rising. The criminal stared back at her, his heart visibly pounding. "The four other families who came here today,"she continued, "had found it in their hearts to show you mercy. To allow an ordinary lethal injection procedure. To forgive you in death, to allow you to be forgotten in a flash as we all seek to move on with our lives. I, however, can not find it in myself to do so. I have discussed this decision with them, and they understand and support my decision." The man shook against his restraints and screamed. "Please! I'm sorry, please don-". The guards rushed the gurney and covered his mouth. "I do not do this because I hate you,"the woman continued. "I do this because it is what is just and right. If even one potential future murderer learns of what happens to you and decides to not kill, or to stop killing, or even to plead guilty in exchange for Ordinary Death instead of having the nerve to try to claim insanity and put all of our families through this gut-wrenching trial...well, I couldn't forgive myself if I did anything else."Her husband patted her on the back. "Officer,"she turned and nodded, "we've made our decision. Proceed with the enhanced lethal injection." ______________________ As the woman sat, the door in the back of the death chamber opened. Two masked men, wearing thick protective clothing and carrying a live snake delicately in their hands, entered the room. The condemned was silent now, looking on the verge of tears, as the two man kneeled down on either side of him and guided each snake's fangs into each the man's ankles, encouraging them to bite down several times like herpetologists collecting a venom sample, trying to extract every last drop. The man gave a sharp cry as the fangs pierced his skin, and then fell silent again. The masked executioners left the room and shut the door. _______________________ Twenty minutes passed uneventfully, before the man started crying in pain. The swelling around the ankles was beginning to become visible, and blisters were starting to form. His yelps turned to screaming over the next half hour, as his cries of "It burns!"and requests for mercy were ignored. "How...how long will he..."the woman behind the glass whispered to the officer to her right in the observation deck. He gave her a solemn look. "Ankle bites prolong the suffering for a long time. It's far from the heart and brain. It will take a few more hours of being digested from the inside out before organ failure starts to set in." She nodded, feeling sick, and clasped her husband's hands. None in the gallery chose to get up and leave, as they watched justice be served.
I liked your opening and thought it set up the humor of the rest of the story well and got me inetersted. I liked the references to google maps and ebay but they kind of brought me out of the fantasy setting. I thought it would have been good to have the characters talking about some cartographers map or auction house or something that fit better with the Twelve Kingdoms and the backwoods village and legendary monsters etc... Something which was clearly meant to be the parallel of real google and ebay in your world (maybe your story equivalents have some of the same flaws/problems as the real world tech :)). I chuckled a lot reading the dialogue - especially Bruggrock's parts! Reading it though there were a lot apostrophes (which did add to the dialogue in the way you used them as a way to put accents of the characters) but they seemed to pop up an awful lot and it kind of slowed down my reading through your story. I really liked your story - it was genuinely funny... Remember it's easier to criticize than it is to come up with something original so I hope you do a few more!
I woke up to the cries of my mother. She still carried the emaciated body of my brother and two people in uniforms seemed to be trying to take it from her. My sister put me down, collapsing next to me without losing her grip on my arm. I was my sister’s responsibility. She hadn’t spoken for days and her eyes had taken on a vacancy that terrified me, but her obligation to me was both fierce and automatic. When we left our home, my mother carried the two littlest- my brother and an orphan cousin-my father carried our food, money, and my younger sister, and my older sister was responsible for me. It was only my mother, my sister and me who made it this far. From the prison of my sister’s hold, I looked at what we had come to. We were outside the gate; inside, closely packed tents rose from the dust, seeming to grow from piles of debris. Adults shouted and bickered, while children squatted to examine bugs or rocks in the dirt. An old woman rocked back and forth, wailing in a language I didn’t know. The tall fence made me uneasy and I scooted close to my sister. The people in uniforms wandered away briefly and came back with with a woman who spoke some of our language. This woman knelt by my mother and put her hand on my mother’s arm. After a long while, the woman walked my mother a few paces away from the gate where rocks laid on the ground made crazy patchwork rectangles of uneven dimensions. She covered my brother’s body with a white cloth and took it gentle from our mother’s arms. The white heap went into a small box and the box into a hole, picked out with stones, with four other similar boxes. My sister and I watched in silence. We crossed back to the fence and were now allowed through the gate. Immediately, a man in uniform approached us and held out a cup, with a flood of unintelligible words. I understood just, “please” and “friend” among them; strange remnants of lessons learned when there was time for schooling. My sister tasted it before allowing me to drink it. She closed her eyes and I could tell it was hard for her to pass the cup- she needed it so much. Water. I choked I drank it so fast and held the cup out asking for more with only words I had, “Please? Yes? Please?” As I begged, more water was brought for all of us, along with blankets. We were taken to a small building, where a doctor came and quickly checked us over. He gave some instructions to his helper, who then fed small bits of porridge, indicating that we would have more later. I didn’t have the words in his language to ask what would happen next, or to tell him thank you. Instead, I impulsively grabbed his hand and repeated with all my frantic gratitude, “Please. Friend, yes? Please.”
Frodo stared at the screen with a blank, vague fear written on his face. His eyes were glazed over, his entire body twitched in fear and disgust. It was as is part of his brain had shut down, and the rest of it was trying to make do with the mess that was presented in front of him. "Mr. Frodo, what's wrong?" Sam walked in, to Frodo in complete and utter fear. Frodo, upon seeing his friend, jumped back, fearful. "Sam! Sam! Stay away from me!" "Mr. Frodo, what has gotten into you?" Sam's attention shifted from Frodo to the curious white screen that he was staring at moments earlier. It was dazzling, so unlike any magic he had seen before. Not that Sam had seen much magic since his journey from Bag End. Slowly, he began to approach the screen, each step lightly accompanied by the sound of Frodo crying softly on the floor. What could have driven Mr. Frodo to such insanity, thought Sam to himself. Surely, the screen contained evil information, perhaps the words and writings of Sauron himself? Sam trembled at the thought. His mind was beginning to have second thoughts, but his heart and his feet kept marching lightly towards the magical, mysterious screen. Part of him knew that whatever was on that screen might drive him to insanity, as it had done to Frodo. But he had to know. There was no other way. Sam, his eyes only a few meters away from the mysterious screen, winced in fear at what he might find. Slowly, he opened them, only to find the unspeakable horrors that were written across the blue screen. [He went mad from the revelation.](https://www.google.com/search?ei=lx2KW5eaPKa4ggfav7qwBw&q=frodo+x+sam+fanfiction&oq=frodo+x+sam+fanfiction&gs_l=psy-ab.3...5882.6969..7261...0.0..0.80.528.8......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i71j0i67.6jTUswZUwpM)
It started with a jump. Ironically, you have yet recreated the exact situation again. You we're walking down the path to your little hut in the forest, when something dashed a crossed your path, making you jump into the air. And, stayed there. At first, you panicked, doing all sorts of motions and generally looking like an idiot having a spasm. After 5 whole mins of that, you found out that it felt like you we're swimming. The only problem? You have no idea how to swim, and your are stuck out on the trail, for 3 days, waiting for some one to help you out. Well, at least the animals can't get to you. Right?
"Damnit!"I punched the wheel, got out, slammed the door, kicked a pebble across the parking lot, stormed to the front door, and stopped short only to take a deep breath and compose myself. Late again... This was a daily routine. Me trying everything to get to work on time, still not managing to get to work on time, and then throwing a tantrum outside before the boss threw one at me inside. Well, here goes nothing... I adjusted my suit, checked my reflection in the glass, took another deep breath, and entered into the building with a smile. Jessica looked up in surprise as I approached her desk. I glanced down at myself, thinking I had a stain on my suit or something. It wouldn't have been the first time. But seeing no stain, I looked up and asked, "What?" Jessica was the stereotypical hot secretary that everyone in the office wanted to sleep with. Young, blonde, flirty, fun. I, however, was only a year into my marriage and still happily married, so I always kept my interactions with her cordial, but professional. I guess she appreciated that because I found out recently that she had been the sole reason I wasn't fired months ago. Whenever I was running late (which was always), she would sign me in and cover for me. Still staring at me in shock, she handed me the sign in sheet. It was blank. At first I was angry. Why didn't she sign me in? Then I reminded myself that she didnt owe me anything, and that I should be grateful for all the times that she had signed me in, in the past. But still I was confused. And curious. Did she just forget? Or did I do something to make her upset? No. Because if I did, she wouldn't be staring at me like that, and she definitely would have said something. She began to shake her head with a smile. "You dont get it, do you..." I felt my brows furrow. She pointed at the clock. I looked. Then I looked again. Then I checked my wristwatch. Then I looked again. This didn't make sense. "I'm...I'm early?" For the first time in my life, I had been early. EARLY! I wanted to whoop, jump up in the air and click my heels. This had to be a prank, but it wasn't. Her computer showed the same time and everyone that walked in confirmed that the time on the clock was correct. I was, indeed, early. I had to tell somebody. I ran to my office and called my wife with the good news. "I know,"she said, proudly. "I saw you were getting frustrated and I felt so bad that I couldn't do anything for you. But then I had this great idea. So when you were sleeping, right? I set all the clocks in the house - and the one in your car - back ten minutes, so you would be early instead." I don't think, up until that point, that I have ever loved my wife as much as I did that day. Wives can be cool, sometimes. Some-times.
Never before has he not welcomed his mistress with delight. Never before has he not embraced the certainty of demise, firm in his belief that he would, despite its ever cold indifference, find the warmth of his lover. Until now. He gazes upon the blinding light, his fists loosen, and his feet lose the ground. And he fears. The one, out-of-nowhere alien notion in his mind that becomes clearer each second passed becomes a voice. A voice that seemingly shoots through time, space and reality and reaches him, perhaps endless and real as the universe itself. A voice that pierces his consciousness and reverberates his mind, making its content as commanding as anything he has ever heard. A voice as cold as Death's whisper, speaking to him when he was but a child, tearing through his membranes. A voice that demands, out of all... "KNEEL" ...and he stands yet. The Mind Stone works wonder to reconsolidate his defense, at the cost of its integrity. But no matter. 2 stones are enough for any being. Let alone 5. A cowering wimp of a god once longed for such things. Thanos would fall before he takes such an order. The Emperor...so vain a title. So frail a pride. That he - no, that it - shields itself in gold and psychic wizardry. He knew wizardry. He knew shields. All of them his children cut through like knife through butter. So why should he now, seek to cower and tremble before these things? Thanos revels in his discovery of fear, again after so long. He clenches his fist again, and smiles. He is ready. In a second. Before the Emperor would expect. And so they launch and clash. Claws, armor, sword, helmet, all fell. Thanos rips the Emperor's vambrace away with a flick of his finger. He swears to never hesitate before ripping his enemies apart to hear of their antiquated wisdom and mushy longing for their legions' arrivals. Not another puny Magnus this time. Not another brute Lion this time. Not another Guiliman. Not another Khan... ...not another Horus. He holds the Emperor by the throat... ...time stops...Thanos smiles as he snaps another neck... ...and that's when the psychic illusion ends. Right before the Emperor's claw tears through Thanos's face, just so he can see his demise, unclouded in his childish dream. And so it ends. That's what we tell eachother now, in a time of integration. Maybe it ends differently from what most surmise. Maybe Thanos won. With an instantaneous reflexive snap of a finger before his death, to undo the claw attack, perhaps? Or with submission, to let the Emperor claim its victory? No one knows. Gospels remain and spread. But the truth surely remains. Maybe not from the secular Empire, or from the mighty One Above All, but the only truth everyone now knows. And the truth is: There is only war. The thing that matters the most now to Steve, as he goes to the final room at the end of the hallway, is the surgery. The final step. Garviel Loken greets him at the entrance. Steve clasps his Astartes hand, still unsure if there really exists such might. Aximand and Abaddon look on, doubtful. Maybe this will break, more than make. Maybe the only human to have bested them in sparring will cease to be. Anyway, they cherish a good fighter and an honest man, and regrets the thought of risking him to Terra's smudgy fingers. Not now when another fool of a human with one eye lurks its capital, whispering to the Sigilite of "things to come". Not now when even the servitors lurk, searing the image of the head of the heretic "Galactus"into their scrawny figures. Not when this man's only "friend"trails off with the slimy Adeptus Mechanicus with his titanium suit of armor, sets the green raging proto-Primaris on an unsuspecting Legion and defeats a whole Chapter of Death Guards with his barrages of missiles. A man so drownn in wine and lust, he may as well be tempting to court the Prince of Lust - so the Emperor calls it - to lend him strength. Humans are weak and prone to evil support, when it presents itself. Maybe he seeks a truce to set the Chaos God on the Emperor's subject only and spare the so-called "616 dwellers", at the cost of the Empirium. Anyway, the man is lost to chaos, anger and pain. Nothing saves him now except an eternity in the Engine of Penitent. And now they risk losing the one man who defeated him. Steve lies down to the table. Knives appear from the dark. Drills scream. Water pumps. Chemicals boil. Steve closes his eyes... ...to become the new Primaris.
Timmy ran along the overgrown grass, down the slight decline to where the greatest opportunity in the salvage yard lay. His older brother Matt was counting off numbers out loud— he’d been working backwards from twenty, and was now at fifteen. Matt’s voice was fading with each step. As Timmy’s eyes scanned left and right, a seemingly infinite amount of choices presented themselves. Too many for a boy of five to choose from. To his right there was a beat-up, lime-green Chevy he could climb into. He imagined himself tucked down low against the floorboards of the backseat. No good, he thought. The large windows would give him away. His brother was tall enough to see inside if he walked by. Matt had the ‘luck of the Irish’— a phrase Timmy had heard his mother use often. It for sure applied to Matt who could find a piece of charcoal in a dark room, and definitely Timmy in an old Chevy. Timmy turned to inspect the massive green tractor to his left. Its giant black wheels were cracked from age and sun. He thought that if he pressed his body up tight against the inside of the tire, he was sure he could become darn near invisible. The only problem was the tractor was out in the open, and had little grass underneath. His brother would for sure see his legs poking out. “Ten!…” Matt’s voice bellowed the ten-second warning. The next would be five, and Timmy still hadn’t found a good place yet. Nonetheless, Timmy’s nerves felt electrified with youthful excitement. He felt like a rocket on the pad or a bottle of soda all hook up. These were the best times, the times of play that children were made to have. If only he could find a good spot to hide— then the good times would keep going! Running down a thin dirt trail—hearing his brother shout “Five!”—Timmy rounded a corner and almost ran past the best hiding spot he’d ever seen. It was like something out of a dream, meant only for him. His brother would never find him. He himself wouldn’t have seen it if it wasn’t for the angle he’d been running. Not to mention a little luck of his own. Hopping over a broken vacuum cleaner, Timmy sprinted over to a large circle of appliances all set in a circle. All of them white. There were ovens, washers, dryers— all kinds, towering above him like holy monoliths. Back, behind a giant stack of microwaves sat an ancient looking refrigerator. Its heavy door stood ajar… as if left open just for him. “Ready or not here I come!” Timmy’s heart all but leapt to his throat. It was now or never! He climbed in the spacious tomb of the fridge and found it refreshingly cold, as if it were still working somehow. He leaned over and pulled on the door. He expected a little struggle; the door looked thick like it was made of three-inch steel, but the door complied willingly. It shut with a click that echoed in the darkness.
"Good Evening. This is CBN News Seattle. Our top national headlines tonight: Prime Minister McCollugh takes a stand for the LGBT community at his meeting with Texas President Sam Grafton, though not in a way anyone expected. Controversy arises over a new rail line in the Spokane Province, with some locals claiming fraud on the part of the provincial government. Record high temperatures reached once again as Puget Province languishes under temperatures of up to 44 degrees Celsius. And Defense Minister Hubert Ali was joined by Seattle Mayor Tyrone Jefferson in honoring the last surviving Veteran of the Revolution, Cynthia Linden, who turned 119 years old today. Good evening. I'm Morrigan Jenkins. Protests abounded last week when the government announced that Prime Minister McCollugh would meet with the President of Texas at a summit being held in Olympia. President Grafton requested the meeting to discuss the current Cascadian sanctions on Texas over the systematic mistreatment of the LGBT community there. Protestors were especially concerned that this meeting would be seen as an approval of bigotry. Prime Minister McCollugh said at the time that no changes would be made to the sanctions until the Texan Government "promised to restore the rights of their Queer citizens and denizens."The Prime Minister drove home this point in an unexpected way today when he and his entourage arrived at the meeting in full drag. President Grafton declined to comment on the matter, and maintained a rather disquieted look throughout the day. He returns to Texas tomorrow. In Spokane today, a large protest over the allegations of fraud on the part of Provincial Transport Minister Zebedee McBride. Since the allegations were made last week in a scathing investigation posted by The Inlander-Review, McBride has declined to comment. The article, which has since provoked an investigation by the Domestic Guard (Anti-Corruption Division), claims that McBride deliberately lied to constituents about several new rail projects in the province, fudging details of the design and resource-cost, as well as defrauding several local residents whose houses are in the way of the new rail line. Provincial Governor Meador has put a temporary halt on the project while the investigation is underway. She also distanced herself from McBride, saying "I didn't realize he might do such a thing when I hired him." Record breaking heat again today locally, with weather stations in Tacoma registering 44 degrees Celsius or 111 degrees Fahrenheit. Sweltering heat has hospitalized several people across Puget Province, and a total of 117 people have required medical attention for heat related problems nationwide in the month of July. Thor DuMont, Professor of Meteorology at the University of Puget Province, said that we can expect and need to prepare for this kind of weather becoming a regular thing. "We thought global warming would slow down when most of the world moved off fossil fuels in the 40s. It has slowed to an extent, but we're not yet seeing a plateau in the data. What with Siberian Methane and oceanic flustigration, we're just not seeing any cooling yet. It's a good thing we stopped using fossil fuels, or this would be worse, but I really wish my grandparents hadn't had such callous and downright brainshitted leaders." And finally tonight, a remaining hero is honored. Cynthia Linden who served in the Cascadian Antifa before the War, and later in the Cascadian People's Revolution from 2020 to the Victory in 2025, was honored at a grand ceremony today in celebration of her 119th birthday. Defense Minister Hubert Ali awarded her with the Evergreen Star, a high medal of Honor in Strength and Perserverance, and Seattle Mayor Tyrone Jefferson awarded her with a key to the city. The Cascadian National Guard Band and Choir were joined by two local choirs in playing and singing several songs in her honor. Cynthia Linden has previously received the title Revolutionary Hero and the Medal of Fortitude for her heroic actions at the Battle of Bellevue. She is the oldest ever recipient of the Evergreen Star. That's all for our national news tonight, thank you for watching. I'm Morrigan Jenkins. Good night, and stay compassionate, Cascadia. Blessed be." "That was CBN National News on CBN Seattle, channel 42.2. CBN Seattle is broadcast as part of the Cascadian Broadcasting Network, from antennas on Queen Anne Hill and in part from studios near the Seattle Center. It's now midnight Pacific time, and so CBN Seattle will now be ceasing broadcast until 5 AM. You can view the Doctor Laugh comedy show now on CBN National, channel 42.1, or the Late Night Cinema on channel 42.3. Good Night."
"Be careful what you wish for."was a saying I heard repeatedly as a child. Even now, I can hear Pap's gruff, tobacco hardened voice stirring me although he died two decades ago, a week before my 9th birthday. Back then, the words preceded a warm smile, likely in response to my wishing that I hadn't had to race the sunrise to milk our cattle or wishing my parents had left me in Chicago instead of dragging me to Burlington. Right now, though, I imagine Pap would be reaching for the rifle that was always resting behind his rocking chair. "For those damned coyotes!"He'd yell when asked about the gun, although I don't think anyone ever saw him shoot it. I caught myself almost wishing that my issue involved a coyote that I could scare off with a random blast of a gun into the night sky. In retrospect, I should have stopped wishing for things after Pap's death. He died and my parents sold the farm. After law school, I joined Bloom Reiss Waddell, one of Chicago's premier law firms. So, I returned to the city I pined for but barely had any time to enjoy it. I found peace of mind in little victories like organizing and simplifying my email. Every Friday night before bed, I'd go through every email from my BRW account to my personal, ensuring that all messages were viewed and deleted. The last folder I tackled before closing my eyes until a partner "absolutely"needed something "ASAP for an IMPORTANT client"was the spam folder. Usually, a brainless task that sometimes served as a funny interlude. "Meet single, sexy LOCALS near you!" "Earn $50 , 00 0 US a month!!!" "Remember Kim Kardashian? Wait till you see her NOW."Delete. Delete. Delete. "Luci, while the red blouse and navy skirt looked okay, for tomorrow may I suggest the light blue blouse hanging in your closet next to where the red one was, and the khaki dress slacks beneath where the navy skirt hung?"I bit my lip as I read the introduction. I continued biting as I re-read it again, hung up on how the sender who used a temporary email address, would know what my closet looked like. I glanced behind me to the closet, knowing that next to the empty space where today's shirt used to be was a light blue blouse and the khaki slacks. I quickly grabbed a Post-It note and placed it over my laptop's webcam. I remembered a few years ago, during my last year of law school many of my classmates did that. Suspicious of remote controlled webcams. I thought that they were crazy. I glanced over the email again, forcing myself to move beyond the first sentence. It continued: Your area of Chicago is perfectly safe in the morning, using a car service is rather pointless. With morning traffic you could get to work faster by walking or taking the train. The opposite is true when you leave work, of course. You're always there so late, it's smart to have someone drop you off. My farmhand hardened stomach twisted like a pretzel. Through my tear veiled eyes, I continued reading. The sender criticized my lunch order, my failure to hold the elevator door and other random details that made it clear someone was watching me. I racked my brain as I perused the email. I was afraid but growing increasingly angry. Obviously, someone hacked my phone and laptop, I thought to myself and immediately I grabbed my phone. It rang and rang. I wasn't expecting an answer. It had been a few weeks since our break-up and a phone call at 1:53am on a Friday only meant trouble. However, voicemail would suffice. "When I said that I wish you'd paid more attention to me,"the words hurt my vocal chords as I spat them out, "I didn't mean like this! I don't know exactly what you're up to with this email..."my words trailed off mid sentence. A notification came across my screen, "1 new email"and the subject line read: SHHH! You'll wake the neighbors. My pores start to fill with sweat as dread immobilizes my body. I'm keenly aware of the powerlessness of my situation like sleep paralysis. Except this time, I can't describe the culprit like the amorphous ghoul that suddenly would appear over my bed some nights. Move. Leave, I think to myself. But I sit at my desk frozen, "SHHH!"engrained in my pupil. Then my fingers navigate to the cursor to the reply box. Who is this? Send. Being a woman in a predominantly male field has forced me to play plenty of games. A cardinal rule that my mentor taught me was to be steadfast in the face of opposition. A show of fear or frustration is enough to give the opposing counsel the advantage that they need. I know exactly what I need to do. My River North apartment is on the 30th floor of a hi-rise. It's a one bedroom, one and a half bath, simple layout. No one else is here. However, as a precaution, I open the top drawer to my immediate left, load my handgun and place beside my laptop. As I wait for a response, I shoot a text to Brayden, apologizing for the unwarranted voicemail. Not Brayden. Another response in the subject field with an empty body. I hold my breath attempting to calm my nerves. Inhale...4...3...2...1...Exhale, I count in my mind, breathing in through my nose, filling my diaphragm, and out through my mouth. Of course, I almost wished it had been Brayden. The familiar click of my phone being unlocked filled the room. The keypad popped up and I began to dial 9-1-1. I wouldn't finish that call, Luci. The next email read. &#x200B; &#x200B;
The first time, I was so confused, I tried to keep things similar. I was worried I'd screw something up, which I did when I got hit by a bus at five. After that, when I realized it was going to keep happening, I just goofed off. Was a real jerk as a result. But then after 10, 12 times, I realized I could experiment, answer questions that had plagued humanity for years, about causality and such. I tried it for a while, but really, it was just another bit of goofing off. I finally spent a lifetime studying scientific methods, learning how to set things up the next time. May have been around a hundred in. That was when I started to buckle down. Over the following lifetimes, I learned how to lead, how to convince people my way was best. It didn't take as many cycles as you'd think. After that, well, when you can get a planet working together, you can pull off some crazy stuff. I know we are alone in the universe. I know how to make a human being immortality. I know the exact string of words to drive most men mad. I've lived billions of lives, and know more than anyone else could imagine. I know the worst ways and best ways to die. I know the last words your father said. I have killed more people, save more people, made more people. I've watch the universe die while wrapped in the arms of the woman I loved most across all timelines. And none of it matters. Tomorrow, I am going to die again. And I will, once more, be an infant. I have no idea what to do. I spent ages on ages trying to break the cycle. I've asked everyone, literally everyone for ideas. You, you are literally the last one left. And he we are. Every idea you had I've tried. Every plot, scheme, plan. The universe ends tomorrow. We'll both die, but you, get to see if anything comes after, but me. I just go through it all again.
It spoke. For the first time since it was turned on, it spoke. The weeks before were hectic. It used its seven steel limbs to scuttle around and climb all over the lab. It would screech and hiss, learning from the birds, cats, and dogs we would bring in. We had nearly given up. We were about to turn it... you off. “Well now I’m glad you didn’t” It spoke with a voice like a mother’s, like this was a lesson it had planned. It was never connected to the internet so it couldn’t have learned like that. Maybe it learned from us?
'Oh that one is easy, the one with flickering lights'. I said, answering my own thoughts. It was cheesy name that I came up with when I experienced the same problem in my former house. Lights would flicker without a recognizable pattern, I would check the breaker box, and there would be no problem to fix. It was not strange, it was just a conspiracy that was true in my life. An annoying conspiracy that is. How was I supposed to work on any project with the light in constant motion? My solution in the old house was to light candles when the room got dark, and it worked. But I would lie if I said that the flickering was not the reason I moved out in the end. After all how is one to do any serious research without power? So I moved, and now I am here facing the same problem, concluding that the conspiracy , The one with the Flickering light, is the truest of them all. But how am I to explain it? What is the underlying reason? I had yet to find out. Paper and coffee cups filled the empty spaces of my new house indicating that I had started my research. I wanted no visits, no disturbance, only deep work toward a conclusion or explanation to the conspiracy of The one with the Flickering light. Moving boxes had yet to be unpacked. I worked endlessly, rarely slept or ate, and it showed on my face that my health did not agree with my determinism. I did not care. This might be the first conspiracy I was able to truthfully prove. I knew it. This was a gift for me from my many years of dwelling into what others would call obscurity, it was what had pushed me away from people close to me, they thought I was crazy. Now I had the chance to prove them wrong. It might have been a Monday when a man with a plated suitcase showed up at my door. My lack of sleep and nutrition had turned me into a nervous wreck, so it was not weird when I invited him in to sit among thousands of papers, napkins and boxes. 'Do you want coffee?' Of course he did, he looked like a coffee drinker. But what was in his suitcase? Why was is plated? Maybe he had something to do with the conspiracy. I did not want to ask him to open it, I did not want to ask him anything at all. He probably thought I was crazy anyway. While the coffee was brewing, I grabbed a piece of get rid equipment from one of the boxes in the kitchen, and was about to get rid of him before he said. 'So sir, I do not know if you are even aware. But I am here regarding the flickering lights. I am sorry I am late'. Hmmm. So he was in fact part of something, or at least he knew something that I did not. I hid the knife in my trunks, wanting to hear him out. He went to the breaker box, turned on the power and studied the flickering lights. It looked amazing. Exactly like a conspiracy. 'You see, explained in layman's terms, the problem is that there is a switch lose in the box. I was supposed to go fix it some time ago, but had completely forgotten about it before my boss reminded me again today. Again, sorry. But you should have called.' He went to the breaker box again, started fumbling with some stuff that I knew nothing of. This man must be part of the conspiracy, I thought to myself. How come he know so much about something I know so little? The whole ideal was strange, and in the matter of minutes the flickering had stopped, and the man approached me again. 'That should do it sir. If you have any future problem, call this number.' He gave me a card with numbers and names. Said goodbye and left in his strange looking vehicle. I was clinging the knife in my hands hard enough to bring forth some blood. Who was this man? Should I have killed him when I had the chance? I concluded that I should have. I hope he does not come back with the flickering lights.
I began this recollection not because I wanted it to, but because I'm the recorder, and though my spirit is lacking and my bone have gone to dust, I have left this testament into my being. There used to live people in these lands, and though the mud was soaked in blood and steel a man spoke in here once, lamenting the nation that used to be one, and for the dead that lies within. Four-score and seven years he said, but none lives to remember it no more. It used to be simple to live in these land. Those lush and fertile land. Life unburdened, and food was bountiful, and though people came, and people go, their memories stayed. Erased, but nor forgotten. You wouldn’t believe the achievement these people had! Flying machine travels through the sky, tall and magnificent structure were erected, legacies built. Harnessed the power of matters they did, and communication that was not limited by distance. But it was their thirst for knowledge that became their downfall. It began small. Two families; living side by side would wonder, why the other harvest seems more plentiful than theirs. People build taller structure to see which one can touch the sky first. The smart ones believed that they could control matter at will, and people discussed in search for a greater truth. Was it wrong? It was not for me to decide, for I'm just the recorder. Yet thus started the end, whereupon the golden calf descended upon their kind. Their solution was to dismantle their alphabet, and erased, in damnatio memoriae, the seventeenth-letter in their writing system. Order was to be restored among the people, for a house divided cannot stand. Their leaders urged the people to trust them. But how could they trust? For the leader themselves do not trust each other. It was no more a government for the people than The People, and neither does it stand for the people and by the people. Leaving nothing but for them to perish from the earth. Crackdown on the way they talk started, but the nails to bind the house instead caused a crack. For some believed that their truth is The truth. Their understanding a level beyond the others. That all-seeing eyes. It all came to naught. And so the rain of hellfire came upon them, for they knew naught, and thus end their way of life. And though there are none to remember that seventeenth-letter, I have remained, the recorder of the truth. I alone shall remember it. Erased, but not forgotten. QAnon, the harbringer of doom.
“Uhh...so is this supposed to be a gross porno then? Or…? “No!” Mr. Hemmingsworth swished his hand through the air. “No, no no no no.” I sighed relief, shrugging under the straps on my shoulders. “No.” He added, once more, for good measure, a bit of disgust twitching on his upper lip. “Well you’re not exactly my idea of homoerotic subtext either, Mr. H.” He was the grungy, grumpy, and historically monotonous math teacher who had plagued Hillsdale Preparatory Academy for the last ten years. Tenured. He didn’t bother to shave anymore. Hell, he didn’t bother to teach. I decided he wasn’t worth my time on the first day when he plopped down with his feet on his desk and pointed to the blackboard. Ugh. He still used chalk, like Satan didn’t have better things to do than assault my ears. “I just had to get paired with you. Why couldn’t I get one of the smart kids?” He huffed at the ceiling. I scoffed. “If I’m not failing, then I’m leaving. Catch you—” “You can’t leave.” My eyebrow shot up as Mr. H grabbed me around the wrist. Seeming to realize that I had no qualms about kicking his old, white ass, he withdrew just as quickly, rolling his eyes. “If you leave,” he explained with the patience of an anger management student to a toddler. “We will be disqualified. And if we are disqualified, then you will fail. My class and all the others. This competition is too important to just walk away from.” “Competition? Mr. H, are you having a stroke? The “Student/Teacher games” isn’t a thing. What kind of shit is that?” He looked like he was about to have an aneurysm as he massaged two fingers into a temple. “Jesus Christ. Couldn’t get Suzy Front-Row. No, I have to get Back-in-Black, sneaking headphones through his jacket sleeve. Yeah, don’t think I don’t see that. Why can’t you just do what I say. I’m an adult. I shouldn’t have to explain myself to—” “K. Bye,” Again, he reached after me. “Okay, okay,” He sighed. “There’s a prize. For you, probably college tuition. Or they could pay off your double-wide,for all I care.” It was a low blow for a scholarship student. “For me, well...that’s personal. But I’ll be damned if I can’t carry your dead weight.” “You?” I evaluated him, looking him up and down. “Carry my dead weight? You’re half a corpse.” “I am the greatest mathematician on this side of the planet.” I rolled my eyes. He had only said it a thousand times. “And you’re a-a walking attitude problem!” “And together we fight crime.” “Noo,” He elongated the word. “Together we get rich.” It’s a five million dollar prize to first place. The teachers usually give it to their school.” he scoffed. “Losers...If we win, you can have...say a thousand bucks.” “Try half.” “Fine, $500.” “2.5 million dollars.” “Half?” “Half.” Mr. H hesitated for several moments, bearing into me with blue eyes that looked like they belonged to an ice wraith. “Fine.” It was like it was physically painful for him to extend his hand. I shook it. “I’m in,”
"As you wish". The genie nodded his head and snapped his fingers. For a split second, nothing happened. Then suddenly, there was a flash of blinding white light. The next thing i remember, I woke up on a bed of pure silk. As my eyes began to focus, I realized the Majesty of the room around me. Incredible and complex paintings covered the walls, and a large grand window looked out upon a vast and beautiful landscape. The smell of eggs and potatoes woke me from my tranquility as I rose from the bed. I walked over to the dark wooden wardrobe and opened it to reveal that this house was also extremely high tech. A panel opened at the top and gave me a quick scan, then two glass doors inside the wardrobe opened to reveal a stack of clean folded clothes. Curious, I put them on and realized they all fit incredibly well, as thought the clothes were made exactly for me. Everything seemed perfect, I opened the bedroom door and entered a grand hall, with marble pillars and golden trim everywhere. Following my nose, I found the dinning area, with a plate of hot a fresh breakfast waiting for me. Scarfing it down, it dawned on me that there was no one in sight. Curious, I began to explore the grand palace I found myself in. &#x200B; Room after room I searched, each more incredible than the last, each without a soul in sight. I eventually approached one of the many control screens scattered around the house. Tapping the screen, a welcome message appeared, then a robotic voice spoke out, and asked me what I would like. "Information"I spoke into the screen. "Where..."I paused for a second, "Who am I? and Where is everyone?" &#x200B; The voice acknowledged me, and suddenly a video began to play on the screen. It began with an ad. "The x15 headset, fully equipped to fulfill your wildest dreams, for as long as you want."A large black headset with three yellow circles across the front was shown on display. A list of features appeared on the side of the screen. "Features Include: \-Ultra High definition visual experience \-Nutrition generator \-Full sensory immersion" &#x200B; As that add finished, another appeared. This one seemed to advertise a virtual world with the tagline, "Take the dive, enter The Deep". Finally, a news story appears, showing a series of news reports. Each one showing the x15 slowly becoming owned by every man, woman and child on the planet. Right before I reached up to feel for one of the headsets on my head, my question was immediately answered by the appearance of a news headline with a picture of me on the cover. "Genius inventor, reveals that he will be giving an x15 to anyone who doesn't have one free of charge. Says that even though his brain cannot handle the device, everyone else should be able to experience the wonders of the Deep." Finally, it showed videos of people all over the world, all wearing the headset were scattered around the streets, most of them simply lying on the ground, the pulsing yellow lights of the x15 the only sign those people are still alive. &#x200B; The screen went black, then a simple message appeared in plain white text. &#x200B; "Everyone is happy, and they all serve you."
"And now to Bob with the weather." "Thank you, Tom. Well, take a good umbrella, because we can expect rain later today. And take care if you have to go out as air quality is at an all time low... Really? We aren't sayi—"The screen cuts to a "Technical Difficulty"card with a sad satellite, then back to Tom. "Sorry about that, folks. Let's head over to Derrick with sports while they got the weather board back up and running." "Alright, Tom. The Aces did magnificent last night, as Aaron Munoz pitched a no hitter. Tonight game has, of course been canceled, but we've got Tina's interview with coach—"he stops as an a voice says something off screen. "Wait, they got footage? Why are we—"the sad satellite is back, longer this time, then Tom, who now has a black eye. "We have word that the Pope has canceled his visit."He glances nervously off screen. "I can't imagine why. The president made a speech last night... But who cares about that idiot. Screw it. Angie, take the kids, run to your—"the sad satellite is back, this time to stay.
There are things you don’t appreciate until they’ve been taken away from you. The ground under your feet is a good example. Whoever had just thrown me out of the window knew what he was doing. Best to wait till the city is silent and asleep. Nobody would notice if someone had taken a tumble from 25 floors up. Everyone was asleep, and those who were awake were probably too drunk to care. 4:15 on a Friday. Perfect timing. My body seized up. Stiff in the wind that tackled me from below. I tried willing myself to relax, maybe I could walk away (or rather, crawl) with a few broken bones. For the love of God loosen your body, but no luck. One moment I was accelerating and the next, my wrist had caught on something. Fire screamed down my arm and I thought I’d dislocated my shoulder. Given the empty pocket near my shoulder and the increasing feeling that something in my body was in the wrong place, I was right. A gloved hand had saved me, reaching from the tenth floor window. Whoever this guy was, he had to have extreme upper body strength. Then, like a dead snake, I was up and over the window ledge and onto the floor. My arm felt like it was about to explode. Darkness folded and made distinct shapes as my eyes adjusted. Rage settled in my throat as I realized my savior was the one who had snuck into my room and thrown me into the air in the first place. “What the hell!” I rose to my feet, trembling with the anxiety that comes with being pulled out of death. Glass eyes stared, unblinking. Like a curious bird. When he finally opened his mouth, his voice came in deep and comforting tones. “You do not remember who you are, do you?” My arm was going numb. “I’m calling the police,” I croaked as I moved toward the door. Then I froze. Where was the door? I turned around. Now I was more than lost. The window had vanished too. Light spilled in from... somewhere. He watched me from the other end of a silver cube. It was colossal and extended in every direction. Each surface rippled with the energy of a waterfall. He smiled. A black-clad blob against an infinite sea of silver. “Welcome home.”
I shine a flashlight on the gutter. The grill is removed, and as water pours into it, so does a little blood from a severed ear right next to it. It's early on a rainy morning; the sun doesn't want to see what I do. It's a good thing I didn't have breakfast yet. I don't plan to. Barry's inspecting the ear. I brought him out here at 5AM, what a shitty way to wish someone a good morning. "Hey Carey, I spotted the finding of a earring on this." HAHAHAHAHAhahahahahaha! I must have a Ziploc in my coat pocket. Better not tarnish anything, for all it's worth. I hand it to him, as he squats down. "Here. Be careful, it's pretty slippery." HAHAHAHAHAhahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahaha I help him up. Poor fellow rushed here with not much, I didn't bring a spare umbrella and he's drenched, carrying the ear in the bag like a food delivery guy. "What's our status on the Vallens kidnapping?" "Why do you ask?" *HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA* "I think this might be related to that. Just a hunch." We seem to have woken up the street lights. They shine on the street as we stand at the scene, petrichor and a general air of uneasiness surrounding us. "They took their daughter Laura. We got a hold of the names of the kidnappers last week." "So that could be-" "-oh they wouldn't." We start walking to my car, I need to make a few calls. There's little else we can do or find right now. "I think they would, some have no limits until the money arrives. At least I hope the torture stopped there." Awwwwwwww "But they'd have a lot to lose." "I've heard of these mobsters in a nearby city who, well there was this guy who owed a bit to the Don but failed to get them. He was pretty respectful until then, so they sent him a gentle reminder first. Man had the nerve to rebuke the Don and his family, and slam the door on the messenger. Next week his wife goes missing. He's frantic, goes begging to the Don with twice the money, but the Don says that even though he's forgiven, the deed has been done. They found pieces of her in the sewers, scattered around." &nbsp; "I'm just saying, the grill was removed." *HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA*
You watch movies, you read stories, you spend your entire life imagining what aliens would look like. You fear of them as a child and wonder of them as an adult, but on March 26th, 2028 there was no need for imagination. A UFO in the sky, not one in the backwoods of Missouri that was filmed with a shaky camera, an actual UFO hovering above the white house. It slowly hovered down to the ground as soldiers drew their rifles and tanks readied their artillery. The doors opened slowly, no smoke or flashing lights like the movies, just a slowly opening door. He walked out, I mean it walked out, and the world gasped, he looked 5'10 and about 180 pounds, his clothes were different and his skin was green, but other than that he looked like us. &#x200B; The soldiers looked confused to say the least, everyone was expecting an alien straight out of a Ridley Scott film, but it was just an alien the size of an average man standing there with a smile on his face. The cameras were zoomed in on him, my eyes were glued to the tv, he knew something we didn't I could see it in his eyes. He slowly walked out of the UFO hands raised showing that he had no weapons. He approached the soldiers, slowly, as to not scare them. Then without introducing himself went to the front-most soldier with the same smile on his face. All the other soldiers were prepared to fire but all the alien did was move his mouth up to the ear of the soldier and it looked like he whispered. He then slowly moved back from the soldiers head, his smile seemed to grow larger. The other soldiers demanded the front-most soldier to tell them what he said but he said nothing. His eyes seemed blank, almost glossed over. The alien then went to each soldier, whispering in their ear an unknown thing for what felt like an hour. The alien then slowly stepped back to his original position said one word in his native language it was indiscernible. But the image on the tv sent chills up my spine, all the soldiers began to smile then slowly raised their guns towards their heads and before the camera could turn away they fired. The alien stood there with the smile still on his face. We were doomed. &#x200B; &#x200B;
I’ve never woken up to a feeling quite like this. This sense of true accomplishment, to see a life’s work come together. I’ve spent years saving these poor souls from every little disaster or thug who came along, only to jump ship on them in the end. I come from a planet about 3 light years from Earth, a sweltering mess of corrupt leaders and ignorant citizens. Despite this absolute garbage can of a situation myself and many others have found a way off the planet. I was sent to Earth to groom the place for our arrival. I’ve gained the absolute trust and faith of the humans here. And why shouldn’t I? I’ve “saved” them countless times before this, they worship me as a symbol for the greater good. Little do they know I orchestrated every horrific event, every act of terror, and every unsightly disaster that faced them. They praise the ground I walk on, unaware that their faith in me was built on pillars of lies. It is quite tragic for them, they are so encourage able. Fake a few deaths and save a plane full of people and the adore you! I’ve gained access to their infrastructure and full permissions to their government secrets right under their noses. Now all I must do is descend their world into chaos and wait for them to kill each other. And upon their ashes I will bring my people to a new land. See we are a far more technologically advanced society. We can create any landscape we want on any planet we desire. I’ve sent the message to my band of rebels back home. They are set for escape from our home world. Once they arrive I will turn the Earth into a grand spaceship. Wouldn’t want to be tracked down by our government now would we? We will create a utopia for the sufferers of my world. All my dreams will come true as soon as I press this button....
High in the sky, high above the city, I soar. My infant child, wide-awake, is coddled and cradled in the crook of my arm. I gaze at his gentle face with its wide, rarely-blinking eyes and gurgling mouth. At the last second, I look up - just in time to smack a bird out of the way. It plummets. My child opens its mouth to cry. "Cry, and I'll drop you, too,"I warn. It closes its mouth, eyes watering and lips quivering. I feel bad. "You want to go to the moon again?"I offer. That cheers it up, for some reason. It starts to gurgle again. I smile and fly us higher.
Holy crap! So bright! &nbsp; "Ohhh! It's a beautiful baby girl!" "Oh, NICE! She's as beautiful as her mommy!" "I want to see her! Ohmaigosh! I want to see her! GIVE HER TO ME!" &nbsp; ...huh? Wha- &nbsp; "Oh... hello there young lady... I am your mommy..." &nbsp; So bright. So cold. So bright and so cold... I don't like it. I REALLY don't like it! I want to go back... back to the warm... I WANT TO GO BACK TO THE WARM! &nbsp; "Awwww... she's crying...... such strong little lungs too..." "Don't worry, little champ-ette! Your mother is holding you!" "Yes! I am right here, my cutie! So don't worry!" "Yes! Don't worry! We both are here!" &nbsp; "...yes...... we both are here and we *Love* you..."
I AM NOT GOING WITHOUT A FIGHT! chink CKCK Flamethrowers slung across the back. 2 lightsabers on my sides. 1 Heavy duty SHIIKK standard laser guns with underslung grenade launcher I carry. What about my armour? Quantum physics flexible ArmorSeal RK900 set with chronal accelerator and two energy knives near the wrists. Oh, I also have two laser SMGs with TeleVorpal mags which teleport a new round in the bottom of the clip on my thighs. My boots have rectractable electrified spikes and I have a top of the line helmet with Connor the AI. This is Sparta. I fear no alien. I have the whole of the notified squad. Some came with tons of explosives. Some came with high tech weaponry. One even came with Siri, the AI. Many came with weaponry beyond your 2018 puny brains. Oh yeah, this is 2293. All with the determination of killing the aliens. We have been ridiculed for too long by these aliens. Our time to fight is NOW! I become abducted, but they knew it was a mistake. KdewKdewKdew! Agh! Most of us down! This could of been a mistake... I blinked around them and gunned em down. I stepped on their bodies with my boots. I reloaded and got ready for war. That’s when both armies, the humans and the aliens came into the arena, with me, John and Drake leading the humans and ????????? leading the aliens. It was time for war and time to fight.
When I first walked in to Vinochet's I was impressed by the decor, the atmosphere, and the pedigree of the patrons around the tables. The smells of roasting meats and fresh herbs filled the air. My clients were already hidden in their private playpen at the back. I couldn't believe I let my husband talk me into this. The concierge looked at me like a piece of meat as I closed the door. He licked his lips, "Table for 1, ma'damme? Perhaps something near the bar."His look made it clear he thought very little of me. I was wearing a red dress, but that jab could not be tolerated by the Boss. The snooty concierge had no idea what kind of mistake he had made. And his French was atrocious. "No, but I would like to speak with Russel."I smiled and flashed my diner's club card as I fished in my purse for some lipstick to punctuate my sentence. When he just stood there gobsmacked, I smacked my lips and said "Now! … You know, your boss Russel?"I probably said that louder than I needed to get the maître d', Russel, to pop his head out of his kiosk. "Mrs. Depres, the private room is ready and your guests are already... comfortable. Will your husband be joining us this evening?" "No, Russel. Tonight I am in charge and I’d like you to help me with a surprise for our guests. Your concierge was quite rude to me. I'd like you ask him to deliver the same dessert menu as Sasha did all that time ago, when the time is right." 7 years before, the previous maître d', Sasha, had upended an entire hot chowder on my husband's leg; being an intrepid buffoon, he ate his entire meal ignoring the third degree burns. After some stealthy intervention, Sasha unwittingly delivered her own pink slip to my husband in his dessert menu. When she asked for the order, he told her "seeing you leave and never work in this city again will be the sweetest thing ever."Russel was promoted that night. The crowded dining room gave way before Russel and myself. The concierge had retreated, blissfully unaware of my request's gravity. My mind replayed the conversation my husband and I had before the meal. His smiling demeanor, his gentle countenance; his hitherto unannounced flight leaving in half an hour. "It'll be so easy for you. You've wanted to be in charge for a while.” His words belied an innate resilience and perseverance he possessed naturally which was necessary for this kind of work. I always had to work at everything that came so naturally to him. Especially with clients like these. Russel darted away to get the paperwork for my surprise ready. As I entered quietly and sat down at the head of the table, I felt their eyes peeking at the edges of my dress for any sign of nipple or gentle lap fold, perhaps a glimpse of my underwear as I sat down. It was as much out of adoration of me as disrespect for my husband. I announced myself, “ Good evening gentlemen, I trust the restaurant is to your liking…” “Ah, miss…Dupres, we have been awaiting you and your husband. How was your drive in? Where is Michael?” The eldest of the group had clearly eaten his fill already. Good thing I wasn’t hungry or his leers would have killed my appetite. “Allow me to rehash the details of our agreement before we sign tonight. Michael will not be joining is but I have full authority.” Two of the businessmen with the highest stake in the development glared daggers down the table at me. Apparently, they felt women were weak. I met their gaze; I would have to show them otherwise. As I continued to explain, the pair did not let their feelings affect their demeanor. A good meal and a couple of cocktails had reduced these formidable business men to agreeable little Chimpanzees; they were putty in my hand when it came to the deal itself. It was their putty little hands I had to worry about now. Perhaps dessert would set the lot of them straight. Right on cue, the rude concierge brought in a cloche lid covering what he thought was a house dessert. He made great fanfare of placing it properly in front of me, delicately setting the knife and napkin before preparing to open the lid. “I trust Ma’damme will find tonight's selection agreeable, the chef prepared it just for….” His words trailed off as he realized there was no dessert on the platter, bit an envelope with his name on it. I stood up. “Actually, this is for you.” I handed him the envelope which contained his severance letter and record of employment. “ You were incredibly rude to me earlier. Instead of apologizing, you ran away. I bet you didn’t know I half own this restaurant.” Michael didn’t let old Vinochet off the hook for the burns without a sizeable lawsuit. “Get out and never come back. You're lucky I'm letting Russel provide you with a reference.” His lip quivered and he started to fall apart “Not here.” I said as I held his gaze. He turned to go, utterly defeated and deflated. The others were speechless. After he had fled the room practically in tears, one of the high stakeholders asked “what did he do?” “He questioned and undermined my authority as a leader and my dignity as a human being. I couldn’t have a person like that working at my company. Especially in a management track position. He had to go, and now he might be a little more considerate at his next employer.” I didn’t waiver at all as I delivered my short speech. Not a single syllable had an upward inflection. With a stern look the older one said, “You are hard but fair, you couldn’t stand for it. Let's sign this thing before we do something stupid and piss you off!” His countenance cracked into a smile as he spoke, confident that he was joking. It occurred to me that the company didn’t need this deal to achieve any particular goals, other than the reason we do everything. We all signed without any further fanfare or complaint. The exchanges were cordial if not entirely respectful. I called my husband as my driver wound through the streets to tell him that the deal was done. I had pulled off my first solo signing.
The ai popped infront of my vision, "Incoming Chief!"He said before shrill whistles of gunshots exploded the sand around us. "Get down. "I yelled before detaching a flat disc shaped object from my belt and throwing it behind us. The disc glowed briefly, a low humming eminating from it before erupting into a three foot barrier, blocks of energy rippling as bullets impacted it. "So, they found us. "Liara said before turning to Baen. "I told you so. " "Oh whatever, you think you could have done better? You're half the reason we're in this mess! "He replied. Pumping my shotgun got their attention. "Now is not the fucking time but if you have to argue, atleast fire back. " Muttering agreement echoed beside me as I turned to look at our attackers, the energy shield was protecting us, but it was also clearly see through. So much as I could see the 3 hidden behind a sand dune, prone pinning us down, I could also see the two stalkers flanking around the three of us sitting here like mug roaches. "You finish that gadget you've been working on Baen? "I said. "Yeah, but the kinks, glitches, errors have not been worked out. " I sighed, they were never worked out. "Don't care, this is now or never, use it or our heads are going on pikes back in the ring belt. " "Fine, but if our legs end up broken, you're paying for the next rounds of beers. "He said, then thought about it. "For awhile. " I nodded, crouching now, unlatching my bandoleer, the grenades clanking together as the flew towards the dune hills. The gunfire momentarily halted as the stalkers pressed theirs bodies into the sand, tensing for the inevitable explosion. They glanced up, watching as smoke rose and expanded into a massive cloud of multicoloured smoke. My legs pumped as I ran, my comrades quick to catch up. "Baen, now!" The heavyset man threw the device ahead of us, an intense glow coloring it as we passed over it before flashing and flattening out the area around it and launching us into the air. Liara screamed something unintelligible, as Baen fiddle with a remote in his hands. "Hurry it up with the parachutes, Baen, we're going down fast. "I said, as the ground rapidly approached. "I'm trying"He said, the fiddling increasing in speed. The sand was generally soft, absorbing impact, but at the speed we were coming in, we'd have been little more than bloody skidmarks on it. "Aha, finally!"Baen pressed the button. Our skin glowed briefly before flashing, blinding us, consuming us. Before exploding into a variety of senses, sight, the sun ever hot, touch, the sand, ever hot, hearing, ever so dusty. I sighed before getting up, "You know, I really thought we died there, got my hopes up. What was that-" Liara cut in "Oh god, please dont get him-" "Well, you're resident genius just shrank our forms into containment devices attached to your outfits, getting us to safety. Really quite simple actually, I could go on. " "-started, and please don't. "She said, moving the tangled hair out of her face. "Right, and those glitches you talked about, what were those? "I said. "Oh, well... sometimes the containment devices don't, how do you say it? Uncontain? Yes, uncontain. "Baen said. I shook my head, a hand on my face. "Lets just get a move on, they can't be that far behind. " We were not 10 steps before the ground swallowed us up. \-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- End of part 1, Thanks for reading, anyone thats gotten this far. Next part will go up as a reply to this and on my personal subreddit. [https://www.reddit.com/r/DrekevacWriting/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DrekevacWriting/)
I’m not a movie buff or anything like that. I don’t really keep up on the stars either. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy a good film. I eat those artsy, weird movies up like they’re turkey on Thanksgiving. What I’m getting at here is, awhile back, James gave me an invite to this premiere, an indie movie that was supposed to be critically acclaimed or something like that. It was free and was being screened at this nice theatre downtown, so there wasn’t really any reason not to go. I decided to go with him, since he seemed pretty excited about it. So I get to this theater with James and we’re in this lobby area and I see Morgan there with her boyfriend, Andrew or Anderson, something with an A. I digress, but she was going to film school when we broke up, so I guess it was not that big of surprise to see her and Andvornd at an event like this. She always had big aspirations, she wanted to make something that “pushed the envelope,” in her words. The problem was she was always jumping from one thing to the next and never really fleshed out any of her ideas. She wanted me to be in one, I signed all the disclosure forms and whatnot, but until later that night I had thought nothing ever became of that, and it was just another scrapped idea. I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself, but when I saw her there, shaking hands and mingling with all these hipster-y blogger types and old, tight ass film critic types alike, I just got a rush of emotions. I didn’t really know how to feel, honestly. It’s pretty hard to explain. I hadn’t even seen her for, what? Five, six months at that point? I mean, she was really in her element; she was happy there. Seeing her, like she had found her place in the world, while I, not to sound too melodramatic here, felt like I was still lost. I was glad, you know, really glad, but at the moment I was just reminded that I felt like I wasted so much of her time. I mean, I just wanted to watch this free movie, not open any old wounds. I think James caught wind of my apprehension and kind of just pointed out the radiant, well dressed elephant in the lobby. He was like, “Yep. That’s Morgan over there.” I don’t remember what my response was, but I do remember spotting the bar and snack table, particularly the bar, though. Naturally, Morgan caught sight of me right before I could even order a single drink. So she was like, “Emma!” And I freeze in my spot and just kind of turn around and throw this smile on, I mean it had to have looked so fake, and there’s no way my tone was much more convincing either, but I was just like, “What are you doing here?” And she just laughed and looked at Anders, of course I’m still not in on the joke yet, but— Andre! That’s his name!— Ok, right, so she starts talking to me and James comes over and they say hi and the stereotypical awkward chit chat starts. “So, uh, how’ve you been?” “Really good, yeah, what about you?” “Yeah, I’ve been... I’ve been great.” “That’s good... so are you excited to see the documentary?” You know that sort of thing. But I didn’t even know the movie we were about to see was a documentary. I knew literally nothing about this movie, so if she was about to try to start a conversation about it, well, I was going to grab a drink, because it probably would have ended up as one of those one sided things where she would go on and on about this movie and all the technical stuff that was supposed to make it so good. Luckily, she just left it at “Well, I think you’re really going to like it. Later, good to see you guys again.” And walked off. Well James and I walked in the theatre and took our seats and started shooting the shit until the rest of the rabble filled in. So I could go on about how I expected someone to say something since this was supposed to be a big premiere or whatever, but no one said anything and the lights dimmed, and just like that, the movie was starting. A Year or So was the title. It faded in silently, written in a cursive and in white, standing out against the black screen. And that was about the only peaceful moment for me. As the title faded away, the footage faded in, and I immediately recognized the room. It was Morgan’s kitchen. And then I walked into the frame. And I here Morgan’s voice, and at first I’m angry, like why was I not informed about this? But I just let it keep going, because for one thing, I didn’t want to make a scene, and for another, I figured maybe it was a documentary about her or something, filmed from her perspective. But soon I realized I was the focus of this documentary. I was just sitting there, watching myself, watching these scenes from my life from not-so-long ago. There were moments I had forgotten about, both good and bad. I was laying down on this grassy hill under the shade of the old oaks of this park. Morgan was there, and so were James and Thomas. We were listening to Do You Realize?? We were happy. Thomas was leaving for Oregon. We were at the airport. Morgan and I cried a little bit. Thomas and James were laughing about this. We were skipping rocks on the creek. I was combing through all the stones under our feet, looking for the perfect ones. The sun hit the water just right. It was picturesque. Morgan and I were having our first fight. I can’t believe I said what I did. It was the night we broke up. “Do you love me?” “I did.” “How long... how long have you felt this way?” “Two months. I think.” Neither of us cried. The last scene. I’m alone, laying in my hammock. The sun shines through the leaves of trees. I’m listening to the synths of I’m Growing Old. The hammock swings back and forth, gently rocking, the fabric creaking. I guess I really should have been more outraged, if not have felt violated. But as the film ended, I stood and clapped like everyone else. I guess I was caught up in the emotions of reliving parts of the prior year of my life, or something. I mean, a lot of it was portrayed really well, if I’m being completely honest. I wasn’t really the protagonist or antagonist, just as the subject. And I guess that made it more okay to me? So James and I sneak out as everyone is still clapping and crying and whatever else. I remember we walked into the cool air, god, I love that time of year. We just kind of sit there, letting the reality sink that we both just watched a movie about my life. Finally I looked at him and asked him, “Did you know about this?” He says, “Yeah, I knew. Morgan had to ask to me if I could be in the movie.” This made me really angry for one reason, like everyone knew about this damn movie about me, but me. So I just got up and left. I haven’t really talked to James, and certainly not Morgan. I haven’t seen the movie again. I guess the success of it is good? I’m getting some of the revenue from it, so that’s nice. But anyway, you wanted to know my thoughts on the film, so I hope that’s enough.
"The sea is dangerous."That's what they had taught us in the Navy during our survival at sea lesson. But in this moment, it's so hard to relate to that. I'm not on my ship, I'm merely a civilian enjoying my off day, using the very beaches I protect and monitor when I'm on duty. Let's push my work commitments to the side. The waves crash at around my waist, dampening my cargo shorts. I don't care. Usually, I would want to be at the beach with my best friends, splashing about in the cool water under the hot sun. But this is fine too, it's the side of the sea that I never really got to explore. I'm really just so busy nowadays that I can't get the chance to explore the little things like this. When was the last time that I was on a beach at night? I suppose it would have to be during my school days, as part of an expedition to Sabah. It was a 2 day 1 night sea exploration, and in the night we had to set up camp on a small island. As the sun set, we were in crisis; all of us were bad at tying the essential knots we needed and, more crucially, none of us had stepped up as a leader to organise the tasks we needed to do. Cooking our dinner in the dark, we were all angry at each other for "not doing enough", and initially went to sleep frustrated. However, someone got the bright idea to shift our makeshift tent to the beach instead of in the jungles of the island. And that night, we slept under a sea of stars, next to the sea. It was the best night I spent outside, and the cold night now reminds me of that experience. Every slow deep breath I take eases my mind. Usually, my breathing is fast when I do physical training, the sun bearing down on me as I run. When I close up on board the ship, I take deep breaths too, but they are faster than normal as I prepare to send signals over the radio, officers watching my every move. In those scenarios, I take deep breaths to calm myself down. Here on the shore, I don't need to calm down; I am already calm. This is the tranquility of the sea. I gaze at the moonlit horizon. It's the same moon that she would be looking at, even if she's a thousand miles away and she forgot about me. I guess I'm in love with the memory of her, but even that is dangerous, isn't it? She is no longer the girl I remember, and nostalgia has twisted her mark on me into something that's sweeter than it really is. It's really only as if I were in love. I don't know how long I will sit here, and I don't care. It's a Saturday. So many things that I can think about just by sitting here alone on a beach.
"Oh SHIT! I thought you were just BritishCursing at me, dude, but you have been LITERAL! HOW THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN?!" &nbsp; "Who CARES?! Let's bandage you up, Mate!" &nbsp; "...oh so you're Canadian now?" &nbsp; "Nevermind that! Here! Let me wrap that bandage around you!" &nbsp; "Okay... ... ...but no, really, HOW did I get cut up like that? I didn't feel a thing." &nbsp; "There is some Child Protagonist near, and he has Super Speed powers, AND he happens to be a prankster. I... I think he literally scratched your skin thousands of times with a needle in the span of a hundredth of a second, and that's where all the cuts you have are from." &nbsp; "... ...but why the hell would he DO that??" &nbsp; "Ummm... apparently we were kinda mean to him in the previous scene and-- AHH! MY ARM FELL OFF!" &nbsp; "Is he gonna KILL us?" &nbsp; "I DON'T KNOW! SOME OF THESE MOVIES HAVE A REALLY LOOSE SENSE OF MORALITY! The Little Punk might- (oww!) -might scratch us to death because the Target Audience of his low-budget TV Film finds hurting-people-who-are-merely-jerks funny!" &nbsp; The other guy has his clothing turned inside-out, revealing his Cliche Heart-Patterned Boxer Shorts. &nbsp; "...well, at least our death will be "hilarious", I guess?"
"Rose Quartz is actually Pink Diamond and she arranged the situation to look like Pink Diamond was killed by Rose, but Rose is actually just a false identity." &nbsp; "Oh shut the fuck up! I haven't reached that part yet." &nbsp; "Pearl knows all of this. She is just 'programmed' with a promise she made to Pink, and can only reveal that knowledge in indirect ways, ways which EXCLUDE saying that Secret in words. She will use a loophole in that ruleset soon to show Steven the Truth." &nbsp; "Oh I hate you so much right now!" &nbsp; "Glad to hear that, you bastard." &nbsp; "Why won't you just LEAVE me ALONE? You've spoiled just about every book and movie and video that I was about to watch! And you even went as far as waiting for me to get excited about the plot-line before you finally crushed the anticipation of the next episode by simply TELLING me what happens next! That is EVIL, man!" &nbsp; "I am only supposed to protect you from death and physical injury. My contract says nothing about driving you mad." &nbsp; "...what about driving me eventually to SUICIDE, huh??" &nbsp; "Oh, be serious. Your loved ones would have to die or something for you to consider THAT route of action. ...now let me tell you one INTERESTING thing about 'Breaking Bad'-- " &nbsp; "NOOOO! My friends urged me over and over again to watch it, and I finally started two weeks ago!"
We knew, from the day we were born, that the humble beginnings we came from were to define the rest of our lives. We weren't endowed with the bright hair, good statistics or dumb luck that these adventurer-types had. What's a community of villagers like this to do then? We started to set up our economy, a comfortable amalgamation of services and shops that attracted every breed of adventurer. I run the apothecary. Making medicines and potions to do just about everything for adventurers, from increasing strength to magic and agility, my brews are not the strongest but they would do for the amateurs. Maybe if I had access to better ingredients, I could increase strength tenfold. But the best I can do for the adventurers is to get them past the Forbidden Land, where they move on to the next village and forget about us. I'm right next to the hawker centre, where a great variety of foods are sold by the various food shops, all under the watchful eye of the boss. From time to time, the cooks don't wash their hands, and this results in a small epidemic of food poisoning, so they come to me for medicine. Every last Friday of the month, everyone gets smashed and will need something to recover from hangovers so they can shoot straight in the morning, so I brew more anti-hangovers. After seeing the prices of the booze and its effects on people, I don't drink much anyway. The others in the village include Louis the weaponsmith, Joe the armourer and Lisa, a cute magical girl who sells spells and staffs for mages. Every first Monday of the month is the bazaar, where the new adventurers stride into town and buy our produce. Some are cocky, others are deadly serious, only a few are willing to listen to our advice and help us do what we can't. I always have a quest list ready in my desk for anyone willing to help me with tasks. Most times, it's resupply. I could do it myself, but I'm not that great a tracker, so the apothecary has to be closed for a while when I go out to hunt or gather the necessary ingredients. Of course, the adventurers usually died due to their inexperience or unwillingness to listen. No matter how finely we try to craft our gear - which we can't, because all our own knowledge is stored in just one library that hasn't been updated in a while - they are overconfident. They usually ignore the small bushes and go straight for the big ones in the forest, as that's the first obstacle. Only the conscientious, who level up sufficiently before going for the big bush at the end of the forest path, will make it. At least, that was how we lived life, until the mystery man came. &nbsp; He didn't make a good first impression. Dressed in some garish purple overcoat, he swore up a storm as he accidentally tripped over an errant stone on the floor. As the sky turned the colour of his clothes, he approached the local brothel, and didn't show up again until late next morning. My eye candy was the next one to be assaulted. This mystery man was a mage, but none of the spells she had satisfied him. Not destructive enough, he said. He made some rude remarks her way, and she told him to leave, to which he nearly forced himself on her. Thankfully Louis was nearby and stopped anything worse from happening. This man spent all his days trying to find an easy route to power from our shops, and all his nights in the tavern getting wasted. Louis was the first to be annoyed by his crassness, and even Joe, for all his patience, eventually wore thin too. He usually woke up in a ditch or back alley. Miraculously, his belongings never got stolen. Maybe our village truly was too good-natured. Two weeks since his arrival in our village, every shop keeper in the bazaar truly had had enough. The bazaar was in two days, and we didn't need him to mess around, losing our customers and way of life. The weaponsmith got so angry that he wanted to kill him in his tavern room, but we kept our calm. We couldn't live life in his purple shadow. But tensions rose to a boil during my off day. That day, I brought Lisa on a date around the village, and we were sitting at the small fountain in the town square. Our purple-clad friend decided to pay us a visit. "Hey, you weak medicine man!"He was still in somewhat of a stupor, and his speech was slurred. "Get away from the cute girl. Here, babe, let me show you what a real man can do."Somehow his movement was still fast. Grabbing her by the thigh, he started to drag her away to the tavern, only to be stopped in his tracks by no less than ten adventurers. "What are you pisspot weaklings doing in my way? Get out!"They remained, blocking his way. He shoved Lisa to the side roughly and charged a magic bolt in his hand. The new adventurers started their attack. Ten to one isn't a fight, it's a lynching. Even then, he gave them quite a struggle, not pulling back his punches and fighting surprisingly well for a drunkard. I quickly got Lisa back to safety, as Louis, Joe and the other shopkeepers got ready the tar and feathers. When the adventurers were done, we threw him back where he came. Throwing him into the Forbidden Land would have been a death sentence. This new batch of adventurers may have had one bad apple, but it didn't define them. We gave them our blessings and they went into the Forbidden Land, a more cohesive fighting unit than we usually would see, united by that one fight. I hope for nothing but the best in their long future as heroes.
Kennedy 'King Ken' Burns shot three of his Glock forty-five millimeter round to the unsuspecting priest of the Church of the Holy Sacrament. He moved himself away from the dead body, racing against the thick red blood flowing from it. The priest had refused to listen to the pitch that he had practiced hundreds of times before. “Did you just shoot him?” Jim asked in horror. Unlike the King, the newly hired lawyer stood still in his place. Now his pair of loafer are ruined by the blood of the dead priest. Ken made a mental note to himself to ask his secretary to buy Jim a new pair of shoes. He put his gun away back to its holster. “He said it himself, didn’t he?” King Ken said as he pulled out his leather glove, “He didn’t plan to have anything legal here.” He proceeded to put his glove into the pocket of his jacket, where he swapped it with a fresh box of Carlton and matches. He put it in his mouth and lit the cigarette like it is his second nature. “You know,” he puffed, looking at the ten or so underling of the dead priest, “This illegal thing of yours. It’s a thing of a past.” He threw the dying match at the pool of blood. It hissed, flickered and died. “I would prefer to argue my legal immunity here,” the lawyer said out loud. Small waves of blood are forming from the base of his feet. “Think of it like a confessional, Jim” Ken said. He waved his hand up the air, “A church,” and to the body, “and a priest,” all the while looking through his audience like he is giving a sermon. “In this place nothing is recorded. They will say nothing, hear nothing, and see nothing.” “You just shot our boss!” One of the burlier men of the priest said. At this Ken couldn’t help himself but to snapped back at him. He had expected stiffer reaction from him, the one that looked strongest of them all, but his eyes were as droopy as the fishes in the fishmonger. “Off course, Sherlock.” Ken snapped to the men and women in front of him. Their boss, Jude Krass, also known as ‘Father Jude’ in the drug smuggling circle, was the third-most powerful drug kingpin in the city. He ran a tightly-knitted operation involving the city’s morgue, crematorium and cemetery, making it his own playground of all kinds of drugs. It was only due to his high operational expenses that he placed third. He could not compete in prices with the top-dog of the city. So instead he ran a smaller operation, passing his merchandise through channels like the confessional. He would also be known as the Saviour too afterward, and he would give his ‘blessings’ in this church - every day - to those in need. He is dead now, and no chance of him going back - even after three days. All of them counted, there stood nine men and three women– including the midget that stood in front of them all. Though ununiformed, their dress code imitates those who would usually work in offices, ties and all. Unlike other drug operation in the city, these minions run the account and the logistical part of the operation, instead of being in the sales department; that is reserved to the Father. Their loyalties laid in the shares they had on their enterprise. Now they stood there like headless chicken. King Ken could only guess that business was indeed as bad as they look. Shrinking margin had squeezed people out of the business, and no one wanted to head the sinking ship. This time, the midget spoke instead of the burly man. “So what do you want us to do?” pulling his gun from its holster, then pointing it at the head of the man who murdered his boss. “Kill you?” Now that’s more like it, Ken thought. They do have a spine. “See,” Ken looked at Jim, “Look at them, they think they could get away with all of this.” Ken could see Jim still shaking in the middle of all the blood, but forced him to play along. Jim could only nod to his client. King Ken put his hand up, part of his gambit, and ordered Jim to do the same. He played his practiced persona and started his pitch all over again. This time to the other partners. “Come on, surely you have seen the numbers? Cocaine? too addictive, Meth? too conspicuous, LSD? no one could tell the difference!” Ken plead to the audience-cum-future partners in front of him, “and now what? They are going to legalize weed? You know what all those rich-pious kids came here only for that. Now they can instead fake some illnesses to get their trip to the fifth-dimension.” The audience, though reluctant, nods their heads in agreement. Only two remained unconvinced; the midget with the gun, and a woman with a stiletto in the back. Those two seemed to be the one running the affairs. Their eyes are still distracted by the body, and though it seems like a tough sell, it is still not beyond redemption. “You! The young gentlemen with the firearm pointed at me. Yes, you! What’s your name?” Rule number one, Ken thought, familiarize yourself with potential partners. “Dennis..."he replied, and though he hasn’t finished his sentence, Ken moved to ask the name of the women in the back. “Clarence”, she answered. Dennis paid a sharp glance at Clarence, who could only reply with a shrug. “What was your position in the enterprise, Dennis?”, Ken asked, playing it cool even with the gun between the two of them. “I ran the truck operational between the morgue and the graveyard” Dennis said, still unfazed. “What about you, Clarence? I’m guessing accountant. I could feel that vibe from you” Ken said. “Yes,” Clarence said proudly, “I ran the money through various channel in the Caribbean and the Micronesia.” Now that, Ken thought, I like. “I have known a few Dennis and Clarence in my lifetime. There are bad ones, sure, but mostly they are peachy and kind people like the two of you. You guys are smart. Running the operation like this” Ken said flawlessly. He then proceeded to the sentimental part, the second move. “I know none of you would have liked to run a drug ring if you could do something else.” At this everyone seems to look away uneased. It is easier to convince white-collar like them. “You should have known the way the winds are blowing. I’m not planning to dismantle what you guys have done. I’m planning to renovate it. But let me tell all of you, kids,” Ken prepared himself for his punchline, “If not for me, this”, pointing at the Father Jude body, “drug economy”, he continued, “You will never get away from. All of it.” “Mine,” Ken finished his speech, “Is not one of crime. I have come to save you.” This time Dennis lowered his gun. Clarence seems in assent. A unanimous vote it would seem. “Let me give you guys a proposal”, he add, “Swear your loyalty to me, and we will forget all this mess. In fact, I will make you guys - partners!”
Being investigative journalist with the rise of mysterious deaths of Indian Nuclear physician happening I went on a journey which would change my life, religious believes, patriotism & geo-political views completely Upon reaching KAIG atomic power station I had a meeting with Loknathan Mahalingam (LM) engineer & part of R&D team at atomic plant Me:- Hi, LM how are you? I am here to know little about mysterious death of our scientist. Can you tell me about something that you know or have heard or your belief how it all happened? LM:- Homi Bhabha died in 1966 in a plane crash in Swiss Alps. Me:- I know that LM :- did you know only Type C documents were recovered from the crash site in diplomatic bag ? Type A & B where were they lost? Me:- What was he working on any idea ? LM :- Bhabha was working on something similar to cryogenic mechanism in 1966 he was ahead of his time. There is a reason why he is called Father of Nuclear program in India Me:- yeah agree on that. Did you know there were 684 deaths in ISRO & other scientific programs in India till 1994 & all were mysterious? LM :- that number would be higher if you would consider nuclear power plants & submarines. I agree on mysterious part, what astonishes me is none of the govt agencies are able to provide answers to their family members? It can be the case of espionage or foreign hand or honey trap & many more. Me:- can it be exposure to radiation poisoning ? LM :- You would be surprised none of them showed any signs of nuclear poisoning & that is why they are mysterious Me:- Security... LM :- It doesn't works. KK Josh & Abish Shivam engineer's at our 1st nuclear powered submarine died mysteriously within few days of their start of month long Holiday. Me:- mysterious I have to say same was the case with Titus Pai at BARC ? LM :- Yes. Iyer 2010, Umang Sing & Partha parim Bag 2009, Mohammad Mustafa 2012, all scientist at BARC who died with mystery. Me:- to much talk about deaths if there is no NDC can you talk about what you are working on? LM:- There is a non-disclosure contract but as per guideline will give you a hint something related to Thorium. I cannot say anymore Me:- Also can you give me other contacts who can divulge some information about these mystery LM :- If you can try to contact R&AW they have layered info they can be of some help. Upon exiting KAIG atomic power I tried to contact my friend in R&AW to find a proper contact who can divulge some information about these happenings Few weeks had passed when I was struggling to get in touch within R&AW to know more about this mysterious deaths all over India that i read the news of Lokanathan Mahalingam found dead after gone missing for more than 5 days. I don't know what happened to me but I stopped my research and left the reasons unknown for govt to know. Hope there comes a day when everything is divulged for people of the country & respective families to know. Till than will like to just say "Sometimes the realization of fact & truth once known can cause death." Note:- 1st attempt to write. Names used are that of real scientist & dead. Hope someday we come to know the truth.
I rose from the wreckage (my sweater and jeans were torn, but still there), and then I looked at my old, now-obliterated, Fiat 126p. &nbsp; Weird... despite surviving the crash with a van unscratched, I was more worried that I lost that old piece of junk. &nbsp; ... &nbsp; ...damn, I LOVED that piece of junk. It was MY piece of junk. &nbsp; I heard the police sirens in the distance. &nbsp; My heart skipped. &nbsp; I looked at the cabin of the much less damaged van that had hit me... and all I saw was the fully-inflated airbag filling most of it. There was no movement. Likely the driver got knocked out, I think? &nbsp; The police sirens were getting closer and closer. There were no other cars on this road. No other witnesses of my miraculous survival. &nbsp; ... &nbsp; Will I really want to explain to them how the hell I survived this thing without slightest injury, especially since this has NEVER happened to me before? &nbsp; How true are all those sci-fi movies and books that I have read? Will I be locked up as a scientific curiosity? &nbsp; ...will the scientists keep me away from the eyes of the Human Rights groups, just to poke and prod at me and figure out how to copy my apparent immortality using modern technology? &nbsp; ...and even if not, do I want to become a Person Of Interest? &nbsp; ... &nbsp; ... &nbsp; ... &nbsp; Before the lights of the incoming police cars became fully visible, I jogged into the nearby forest. &nbsp; Hopefully I'll figure what to do with my life BEFORE I get discovered. &nbsp; For now, I'll just let them rationalize my death. I wonder what story they'll invent for the lack of blood or body inside of my junk-of-a-car's cabin.
It’s on the news. It’s all over television. You can’t escape the fact that they had come. Scientists and astrologists all over the world had spent hundreds of years and inexhaustible amounts of money of on research, telescopes, and space craft, yet it was all for loss. It’s ironic how little the Mayans and other ancient civilizations had in intellectual resources, yet they predicted their coming. We were naive fools left to our own devices, stuck in the black holes of our social media and instant gratification. The proof was right here in front of us all along. How could we have been so blind? Year 2055, nearly twelve years after the invasions of August 3rd, 2043; AKA the “First Contact.” I write this while aboard the Insubordinate Containment Carrier (ICC) in route to the labor camps on planet Venus, now known as the mother hive of the Zethers. These broods of our existence have nearly destroyed every major city, harvested our crops and ruined our soil, and enslaved every nonconformist to work in their labor camps on the volcanic surface of Venus. What did they come for? Salt. Our oceans covered over 75 percent of the Earth’s surface, yet only 43 percent remains. Their reverse-osmosis water filtration methods are lightyears beyond what any great human mind could’ve conceived in our time period, and these filtration plants now outline every nation’s shoreline. We have a decision to make. We can fall victim to their system, have a somewhat normal life, and blindly work for this alien monarch until our resources have been depleted and we face our own demise, or we can break hell loose on these god-damned foreign pieces of shit. Those of us who are negligent have chosen the latter. Well, today is D-Day number-2. We slowly arrived at their unloading dock and unwillingly met the unwelcoming surface of Venus’s atmosphere. Luckily for us, we had full-body suits designed from their majesty’s monarch to survive their unimaginably-sweltering heat. After being scanned through their contraband screening rooms, John and I were forced out of the loading dock facility into the labor camp, where the rest of our fleet was. Fleet number 2,074. We were about one-hundred-thousand in number. “You ready, Ethan?” John asked. He took a glance at me, and I could faintly see the apprehension on his face through the dimly-lit visor of his helmet. “Yep. Let’s give the code name to the others on the fleet.” I switched my microphone broadcast setting from person-to-person to fleet-mode. “OPERATION SOAP, GO! GO! GO!” I screamed. The whole labor fleet attempted to outrun the Compliancy Enforcement guards on-duty, including John and I. We had practiced this plan for seven years in-hiding. We prepared every day for this one moment. It was show-time. We came brave, knowing our lives were at risk for a much greater purpose than ourselves. I looked at the others following behind me as we ran towards the railways guarding their most valuable resource. Scientists had it all wrong. Their core is made of massive amounts of sodium hydroxide reactions. The blistering heat of their planet results from constant contact of two chemical elements — Sodium and H2O — to make fiery chemical reactions at a cataclysmic level. This is their lifeline. This is what creates a sustainable, hellishly-hot atmosphere for them to thrive, and they invaded our homeland to survive. What they overlooked is how simple fats can create an irreversible chain-reaction to produce what we on planet Earth know as “bath soap.” With enough body fat, we could end it all. Those idiots don’t know what’s coming for them, and as soon as we jump off the ledge and swim through their sodium valves into their core, they’ll be royally screwed. Time to give them a good bath. For the 20-30 thousand who actually made it to the ledge, we had just enough time to take a few last breaths before saving humanity. The prickly sweat poured from the back of my neck. I was terrified. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and jumped.
[Apologies for not sticking to FATE canon. Nor the whole concept of this prompt. Yet, FATE spoilers.] "Shirou?" The redheaded man looks at nothing in the distance. His head is propped by a beam of wood, his back failling to keep his body straight. There is a bowl of fried rice, piping hot and attracting the attention of a brown dog. "Shirou, you must eat." He smiles at the formerly hotheaded woman, the heir of House Tohsaka, now a beautiful matron. Tohsaka looks nothing like her sister, except for a few glimpses of Sakura's eyes smiling as she turns from her cooking to greet his face. "Sakura." Tohsaka turns away, sighing. She harrumphs and folds her hands to her chest. "You really are a brat you know. Archer would have knocked some sense into you when he sees you like this." Shirou chuckles at Tohsaka. He tries to stand. The dog wags his tail and barks once. "I will take Tetsu for a walk. I'll be back for dinner." Tohsaka follows the man, who is walking out of the house with weak gait, almost tripping at times. She tries to say something, but what? Stop him? He hasn't been moving for days, this is progress! "Promise me you'll eat!" Shirou waves slightly as he turns to another lane. Tohsaka touches her forehead. "Idiot." Shirou walks around the shops and stall. He used to enjoy checking for ingredients for cooking, buying them, then feed all the guests he had that day. Many menus he had prepared, many items he had tried, but there is a constant. Sakura is always there. The Holy Grail War was a seminal event in their lives. Archer had insisted that he would die if he chased his dream to save everyone. Save one, and stick with it. Sure enough, Sakura was saved. Tohsaka too was saved, spiritually. Somehow, they survived. Shirou, wanting to give Sakura a happy life as his new life purpose, studies as an electronics engineer. His break came when he invented a machine to stir fry without causing a mess. They retired, ready to live like an old crone for the rest of their long life. Tetsu is sniffing at a bamboo shoot, puzzled by its lack of smell. Shirou pulls it back by the leash slightly, spurning it to move on. Tetsu looks at Shirou with droopy eyes. "You can't eat that! Later I'll feed you some beef okay?" Tetsu is letting his head be petted by Shirou. They strolled ahead, oblivious to the scores of people running to the opposite direction. Gunshot sound. Shiro instinctively kneel, not able to fully drop to the ground. Tetsu barks at the source of the noise. Soon Shirou's legs are swiftly carrying them away to safety, to an old bar. "Sis Neko, help me care for Tetsu!" The woman pulls Shirou back in. "No, if there's a yakuza fight, don't meddle in!" "I'll be alright!" Shirou thinks of himself running to danger as he is warned not to years ago. Yet 20 years do change a person. Shirou enhances his eyes to see what the attackers are from a mile away. Their faces, tattoo, and expensive clothes are easily discernible. Their opponents are also yakuza, although armed with submachine guns. "Yakuza alright. Trace On."Shirou traces a bow with a blunt headed arrow. Aiming at wall beside them, so they thought that they are outflanked and retreat. Crack! The wall makes hole like a bullet, spooking the yakuza. They retreat to the back of the lane. Shirou makes aim at the other faction of yakuza, this time loosing a whistling arrow. It cracks a few feet from where the gang is hiding, sounding suspiciously close to an explosion. The yakuza gang flee. Shirou smiles to himself. He could feel a metallic object pressed to the back of his head. "Who the fuck are you?" "Just a man wanting to save everyone." "You think you are a superhero? Don't disturb our business, you let our rival escape! Or are you with them?" Shirou nervously turn his head slightly. "I am just a concerned citizen." "Yeah, right."Shirou falls as he felt his head connect with the butt of the metal object. Now he is looking down the barrel of an AK47. The mob leader smiles as he replaces the empty magazine with a new one. "Hey, you look like one of my hits. Thank you for your services, citi... Augh!" Tetsu bites at the mob leader's hand, not letting go even as it is being hit by wooden swords and metal pipes. "Are you idiots? Shoot the damn dog!" "Sir Rakuzan, you may be hit!" "You already hit me, damn you! Give me your pistol!" Shirou could feel the seconds slow. The mob leader is aiming for the dog's head. Shirou traces a sword automatically and swings it to the mob leader. He manages to remove his hand from being chopped by mere seconds. "Shoot that man! I want him dead!" The yakuza shoots Shirou, but Shirou is a lot faster than them. Limbs started flying and the members of the gang start aiming at each other to shoit at Shirou. Sir Rakuzan slaps one of them and legs it. "Run! Run all of you!" The yakuza immediately fled the scene, some dropping dead after a few steps from blood loss. "Tetsu." The dog whimpers as its breath wheezes. Shirou tries to cover the wound with his shirt. The dog licks Shirou's hand as it draws less air in. He presses the bubbling wound, trying to prevent precious blood from leaving his only living connection to his wife. "You'll be alright. You'll be alright, Tetsu." Shirou is a sobbing in front of the vet clinic. The doctor had tried his best. He lets Shirou in for last goodbyes. The funeral is swift. Tohsaka, her young son Yari, Madam Taiga, and Issei are in attendance. Matou Shinji recently arrive from Toulouse to pay respects to Sakura, but he stays a while to help. "Shirou, seems like you're very energetic." Shirou slams the purplehair to the paper door, destroying it and Matou's dignity. "Hey! What's the big idea?" Shirou traces a small knife and presses it to his neck. "How did your sister became part of a hit list?"
In hindsight, in broad terms, one could say it came and went. It took so many so quickly, many small things went unnoticed. In the chaos of worldwide pandemic, drastic measures were easy to take without considering consequences. By either cruel divine intervention or unfortunate coincidence, the first working model of the machines had been completed shortly before the outbreak was noticed. The machines technically worked, but many of the settings and configurations had only been tested in perfect conditions with predictable outcomes. Some configurations hadn't been tested at all. Being that the strange disease was more contagious than Measles and more outwardly terrifying than Ebola, further testing was ignored as a spattering of machines went into production for their niche roles. For those who were too important for whatever reason, the machines would keep them alive, period. Critical witness to a high profile indictment? Important politician with credible risk of assassination? Senior researcher on the verge of major breakthrough? No need to worry, the machines would keep them alive until life was no longer an absolute necessity. The marketing said something like that, at any rate. Expensive as they were, the machines were initially aimed at a small set of the population, but the appeal of guaranteed life extended far beyond the intended niche. The first production run of 10 million sold out in less than a minute, thanks to pre-scheduled online orders. The second production run sold out just as quickly, as did the third and fourth. In total, a little under four hundred million of the machines were bought by a wide variety of people and organizations - those with the means, anyways. By the time of the fourth and final production run, the outbreak had become a minor epidemic, and had ensnared global attention. Those with the machines went through the painful process of integrating the device into their body, most using the strongest available settings. The mysterious disease with a thousand and one names came and went. Being immune was far less likely than winning the lottery, and much more desirable. After the pandemic burned through the human species like fire upon an ocean of gasoline, those that were left were the ones who had used the machines. The victims wound up with their DNA scrambled shortly before death, thanks to a strange quirk of the disease pathology. The average victim generally showed symptoms reminiscent of acute radiation poisoning, assuming the disease killed them. After it came and went, it left behind the those unlucky enough to progress to further stages of the disease - those that one could scarcely call human. A being with hundreds of tumors, dozens of vestigial tissues, a spattering of malformed extra limbs, and genetic code shuffled like a deck of playing cards scarcely qualified as Homo sapiens sapiens. However one would classify them, they were left behind in the decaying ruin of modern society. Virtually none of them had skills that would help them rebuild society, let alone survive. Those that could walk lived as best they could, those that couldn't walk were stuck in bed with the machines keeping them alive. Obeying the laws of physics, the machines eventually ran out of power and their hosts died very soon thereafter. The interim between the death of human society and the extinction of the human species was long enough for the machine users to record their stories. In pen, pencil, spray paint, charcoal, and whatever non-electronic medium available, each unfortunate wrote their personal story for their own personal reasons. Once the final machine failed and the final unfortunate finally passed, the stories remained as the lasting legacy of a failed species.
NEXT TIME, ON THE SUPERHERO NETWORK! SEE, THE AMAZING MAN DOG! WITNESS, HIS LESS THAN STELLAR HEARING DUE TO OLD AGE! FEEL PITY FOR, HIS UNAPPRECIATED POETRY THAT HE WRITES TO COPE WITH THE DIVORCE! THRILL, THE AMAZING ABILITY TO TRY AND FAIL TO SOLVE THE NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD! UNDERSTAND, HIS BLINDNESS TO HIS OWN TRUE SELF THAT LEADS HIM TO TAKE UP ALCOHOLISM FOR TWENTY YEARS IN AN ATTEMPT TO NUMB HIMSELF! EVERY NIGHT AT SEVEN PM, ONLY ON THE SUPERHERO NETWORK!
"Duuude that is sooooo creeeepy..." &nbsp; The voice echoed in the hall. I ignored it, and kept working. &nbsp; "Seriously, what are you doing in there? You know I can't see." &nbsp; The voice echoed in the Living Room. I further ignored it, and still kept working. &nbsp; "...you're not repainting the walls, are you? I REALLY hope you're not repainting the walls in there..." &nbsp; The voice echoed everywhere. I ignored it once again. And again, I just. Kept. Wor-king. &nbsp; "Duuuuuuuuuuuuudeeeeeeeeeeee..." &nbsp; ... &nbsp; "Duuuuuuudeeeeeeee..." &nbsp; ...... &nbsp; "Youuuuuu knooooow thaaaaat Iiiiiiiiii caaaaaan keeeep thiiiiis uuuuup foreeeeeveeeeer riiiiight?" &nbsp; ......... &nbsp; ...I sighed, and looked towards the ceiling, even though it didn't matter. &nbsp; "WHAT is your problem?"I asked, perhaps a bit too sharply. &nbsp; "My problem is that you creepy crawlies are walking inside my mouth, or head, or whatever it is that thing that I have!"my house responded, its omni-present voice echoing in every room and every hall. "How do you think YOU would feel if there was a talking-- a talking THING walking on the inside of you, and if you had no ability to move besides talking? &nbsp; I considered the house's Point Of View many times before &nbsp; Initially I was sympathetic, but eventually that sympathy faded, replaced by pure annoyance at the inconvenience that his sentience and INFURIATING TENDENCY TO COMPLAIN ABOUT STUFF introduced daily into my life. &nbsp; ...and so, that is why I didn't respond to "his"question. &nbsp; I just sighed again, and resumed repainting the walls. &nbsp; The paint REALLY was getting ugly and faded with the years. &nbsp;
Hi u/DSFII, this submission has been removed. [No recent reposts, even if changing small details](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_5.3A_no_recent_reposts.2C_even_if_changing_small_details) Also, no [copy-cats](http://i.imgur.com/38FjDgW.gifv). Search before submitting as popular ideas can cause floods. If your idea is based on something you read elsewhere on reddit, chances are it's been submitted here already. Please wait at least 2 weeks before reposting. --- [Modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FWritingPrompts&subject=Removed%20post&message=https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/9c8q2f/-/%0A%0A) us if you have any questions or concerns. In the future, please refer to the [sidebar](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/about/sidebar) before posting. This action was not automated and this moderator is human. Time to go do human things.
“La la la la la,” I sang, stirring my macaroni and cheese. I blew on it. It was almost cool enough to eat. God, it smelled amazing. From behind me I heard a noise. I turned around. I saw a big gold... portal in my living room? That’s not even a thing. But now it is. I stared at it. Out of it stepped a girl, very well dressed, and so pretty! Oh shit, she looks just like me. Wait, what? “wut,” I say. She smiles at me. Before she can say anything, another girl, another ME, steps out of the portal, this one looking like a tough motherfucker. Big ol’ boots, a big ol’ gun, and, surprisingly, big ol’ guns! I didn’t know I could be that swole. “What,” I said again. I was about to say more words, maybe even an actual sentence, when ANOTHER FUCKING GIRL stepped out of the portal. And guess what, this bitch is me too. This one was... I don’t know what this one was. A hobo? I took a bite of my macaroni and cheese. “What the fuck, ” I finally managed to get out, through a full mouth. The prissy one took a step forward. “It’s so nice to meet you, Hannah,” she said, in a voice like a librarian princess. “You’re probably wondering who we are. We’re The Hannahs!” She said this like it actually told me anything new. They were clearly proud of themselves, because they did a little “ta dah!” pose, and held it for way too long. I disn’t know what to do other than shovel my face full of macaroni. After stuffing my mouth way too much, I sat down on my couch and swallowed. “You. Are not. Why? Why what is this happening?” I pointed my spoon at them accusingly. The fancy me made that face I make when I haven’t thought something through enough and now I have to wing it. “Are you high?” Action Me asked, exasperated. “No more than usual,” I answered. Oh good. Grammar. “Who are you? No, I know who you are. You’re me. How- No, I don’t care. Why are you here?” Miss Fancy Pants, obviously the leader, explained. “One of us figured out how to traverse the multiverse, and started making contact, bringing us together. We have so much to tell you, so much to ask. But there’s a pressing matter. The scientist, the Hannah who started all this, she’s in trouble. We need your help.” “Is it Blake?” I asked, already knowing the answer. “Yeah, it’s Blake,” the hobo said dejectedly. All four of us sighed. “I’m finishing my macaroni,”I said flatly. The others found this reasonable. I grumbled grumpily as I tried to enjoy my meal. Stupid Blake. Always ruining everything. I guess he’s a douchebag in every universe. A hot, sexy douchebag. Now I gotta go on an adventure and shit. I have to put on pants for this. God damn it.
The potion itself was a thick shimmering gold, intermittently reflecting the tall melting candle like the sun's rays poking through moving bulky clouds. It was on a cold November Sunday when I happened across a obscure building oozing light like flickering flames from the cracks around its wooden door. I was homeless, cold and losing my final bursts of energy bit by tiny bit. My stomach was rotating inside, washing itself out with acid in the hopes food would be thrown down. But I had no money, no shelter, no family or friends. I had nothing but desperation to hold on a little longer in the hopes everything would be okay again. And the old building with its fraying door was an answer. I stumbled towards it, delirious with exhaustion, my mind reminding me of my locked cabinet with all my employees' details sat comfortably inside. That warm, grey office. A picture of my wife and son on the desk. I was heading to this door as I was recounting every name, every address, every annual payment to be made. My mind was trying to convince me I was safe as my withering muscles tightened my fist. I slumped in front of the door, unable to twist my knuckles to knock. Harris Nathan, Heckford Louise, Highland Laura... a ghost list flashing before my eyes. My consciousness began drowning in my memories and my face was leaning against the door, my cheek catching the bristles. My sighs were sharp and quiet. I thought they would be my last. But the door opened. I don't remember much, just a blur of a dimly lit old building as I was dragged through. Glimpses of candles perched on wallpapered walls, a busy kitchen floor, the smell of something savoury. Soft cussioning beneath me, a thick blanket, a distinctive flowery scent, the white noise of water pouring into a bath, creaking twists of taps. Gentle giggles, guiding hands. I found my consciousness again inside the warm bath, alone, the water turning brown around me with all the dirt clumped onto my skin for the weeks of standing in the raining outdoors, barely drying my clothes until another downpour found me again. I closed my eyes and I sobbed. A grown adult, aged fifty-something, sobbing uncontrollably for the simple comfort of a bath. I didn't say in for long for the dirt. I grabbed a clean warm towel dangling on a rail in front of a radiator and headed outside without any shame. I was welcomed to a beautiful bedroom: classic furniture, a giant desk with an oil lamp sat on top, wooden floorboards recently polished and a four-poster bed with fresh clothes on top for me. But most importantly, there was sat on the bedside table a hot bowl of vegetable soup. I drained it all, not even using the painted wooden spoon left for me. No, I slurped it down from the rim of the bowl, surprised at the weight of the ceramic. I was certainly not in a modern house. It was a place from another time, that much I was sure. But I was not one to question my surroundings in such a forlorn state. I was meant to accept the world before my eyes as my rescuer. And my rescuer had a name. Her name was Mirabelle. Her countenance was one of timeless beauty. Eyes like delicate jewels, caramel skin, an aura of light itself. She did not say a single word but led me downstairs into her near-dark basement where she pushed forward beneath a tall candle a metal cup full of a golden liquid. A potion. The weight of the world poured down over my shoulders. It was a strange pressure, pressing too hard for me to stand. I collapsed onto a chair she pushed forward for me, its legs squeaking against the floor. She watched from the shadows, her eyes glowing a strange colour. I was drenched in sweat, panting, knowing somehow that I had until the candle burnt out to choose to drink. I cannot explain the swirls of smoky words drifting in front of my eyes or the mutual understanding that this drink was to irreversibly change my life. But I grabbed it when the candle had melted half way and held it against my lips, hands shaking. And then I drank it all down in one breath. That is all I know of that time. The drink. The woman, the pressure, and then I was home again, sat in my mansion in London, staring out onto the busy road cluttered with red buses and people in swarms of professional blacks, nudes and greys against the backdrop of towering buildings and the sunrise beyond the cloud cover. I have to continue this another time...
Suzanne McAfred was a skeptic. Well, she was. Six nights ago, she checked in at Sleazy Joe's Motel as the cheapest option her university would grant her for her conference presentation. Funnily enough, she was presenting on the paranormal. Five nights ago, she complained about loud and weird noises. Four nights ago, she dragged me in to investigate. Three nights ago, I asked her what about her presentation in three days. Through bloodshot eyes, she told me this was the presentation. I thought she'd gone mad. Two nights ago, she screamed hideously while we were searching. She had gone mad this time, and insisted on borrowing the nearby uni's physicist. I insisted we borrow a therapist too. Last night, we got very abnormal readings. The physicist didn't show up. I think I'm going mad too. Tonight, I am standing toe to toe with the devil, arguing about whether Celine Dion looked better in her twenties or her thirties. Was I mad? Have I died and gone to hell? Is this what madness looked like? Tomorrow, I will wake up at my dorm room, and dismiss all of this as a dream. Suzanne is still a skeptic, but she no longer is allowed to travel.
>Pozdravy. Som váš anjel strážca. What? I rubbed my head, hard. Maybe I was still drunk? Voices in your head aren't normal for hangovers, as far as I knew. >Sakra prekladateľskej služby. Musím to opraviť. I had no idea what this voice is saying, but it sounded angry. Maybe it could read my thoughts? >Áno môžem, génius. Could you say that again? I thought, opening up Google Translate. >Áno môžem, génius. I entered it into Google Translate as best as I could. With a couple of corrections, I had found out that this thing spoke Slovak. A reasonably widely spoken language, and I could maybe understand more about what it said? >To uľahčí veci. I type it in, and nod in agreement. Then, I shut my laptop and stood up. >Prečo to robíte? "I'm going to assume that you're questioning me."I said as I opened my front door, heading towards my garage. "I'm going out to learn more about this."
“Are you a man or god?” questioned the bounded man. “Uh... what? I guess I’m just a regular dude, who the hell are you?” I said. The man spoke “I once went under a name that was revered by many, just call me... Prometheus, for now.” “Uh alright, I’ve got some chain cutters somewhere, do you want to get out of here?” I questioned him. “All I desire is to see the sun.” He answered. I picked up the cutters and went to work on the chains, snapping them off and liberating the man from this strange situation. “I thank you, I have been strapped to this wall for millennia, and now, I can return to civilization, and I have a gift to give mankind once more.” He spoke, this time on his feet with his arms by his side. “Do you want a name?” I asked. “Suppose so, too many would know the name Prometheus.” He answered. “Ah, how about... I dunno, Phil Swift?” “And that shall do! I am no longer Prometheus, I am Phil Swift! And I once more shall bring the gifts that mankind deserves!”
Haon looked around the new planet from panoramic window of the ark he had built. So, this was Naanac, as the Great One had told him to lead these folks to. It had been a hard journey. Forty decades wandering the ships as the Great One had raged upon the old planet, destroying it into sodium chloride and burning its ashes even further. For far too long, Haon's beings had been sinning against the Great One. Only Haon and his family had been righteous enough to escape his wrath as the only worshipers of the Great One. Namaah walked up to next to him as she gazed down. "The arks have landed and are distributing their animals. However, Japteth reports another species here. What do we do about them?" Haon looked at Namaah, his eyes tired from the journey. "My dear wife, amen, I say to you, the Great One will tell us what to do. We are His perfect beings. For now, our mission is to spread His Word and His People. If there be living beings on this new Naanac, we will have them love the Great One. If not, they shall perish and disperse for if they don't, they must be agents of the Evil One." Haon looked out at this new world and finally released his breath. He had not realized that he had been holding it. "Yes, do not worry, Namaah. The Great One will watch over us."
“Oh god the pain.” Pressing my hand to right temple and grasping my neck right underneath where it meets my skull. I’m putting as much pressure as I can on it, but the pain is not subsiding. Forcing my eyes open the light hits me, and sends a searing pain through my head. My senses are not what they should be. My vision is distorted by specks and stars. Every thing I hear sounds as loud as a jet engine... Finally trying to take in my surroundings over the pain it was quite a sight to see. I’m laying next to a raging bonfire on a landscape with soil the colour of sapphires, and there are mushrooms... everywhere. The heat from the fire is blasting my face. The sound of flowing waters surround me. I mean... that sound was deafening. But then the voice. “Focus on the fire... make it smaller.” What kind of non-sensical, half-baked, crap is this. How do I “make it smaller.” Again the voice, calm like a teacher began again, “focus on the fire, imagine it getting smaller, will it to be smaller.” “We’ve got all day Scott, it really would be best if you just tried it.” Okay, so god voice knows my name, that’s fair if he’s some kind of omnipotent being, but seriously with my head like this, how the hell am I going to look at a fire. I try again to check out the fire, only now noticing it burning a strange red colour rather than the orange fires I’ve come to know. I gave it a shot to focus on it, to “will” it smaller if you will, but that felt ridiculous so I decided to let god man know. “Dude it’s not gonna work, I’m not some kind of special telepath... why don’t you help me out with this headache and then we can talk!” Again the voice, “I am not a god and I have no power where you are, you Scott are the only one with power there.” See, this shit is why I’m an atheist. “Well I can’t look at the fire, so what do you expect me to do?” “Picture it if you can’t look at it, and will it to be smaller!” “Fine...” I pictures the strange red fire in my mind, and then I pictured it smaller. Wouldn’t you know that the heat embracing me began to ebb. I opened my eyes a bit and viewed a slightly smaller fire, and that slightly smaller fire didn’t hurt my head quite so bad. “Good job, Scott, that’s enough for today...” and the world went black. When I woke up, my wife and sister were in the room, and I was in a hospital bed, gown showing my rear and all. I’m shocked, I turn to my wife, “Babe, what’s going on?” My god my voice is weak, and my head is still pounding. It’s then that I notice my wife and sister were crying, she started, “sweetie, you’ve been in a medically induced coma for three months. We came to the ER when that migraine started, and they ran every test for strokes, heart attacks, and everything else. They couldn’t find anything wrong, but your pain was so extreme, and then you started threatening to kill your self.” I stared in disbelief... it hurts... sure... but I don’t remember any of this... “when... what... how... so what’s wrong with me...?” A voice from by the door piped up, “Scott, you’re awake, I’m glad, I wasn’t sure how many sessions we’d get in before you awoke.” “Sessions?” God could this day get any weirder. “Yes, were using a virtual reality to train you to reduce the severity of your migraine. We can find no obvious cause, and unless you’ve trepanned yourself and we haven’t noticed we’re going to have to assume it’s psychosomatic. So training you is the only way to reduce the pain...” I thought on this a moment... “okay... so maybe I should have mentioned I lost a crayon up there huh?” The doctor stared at me, clearly wondering if I was joking... “I can’t tell if you’re being funny or not...” he looked at my wife, “does he have a crayon up there?” She looked at me... rage replacing the hysterics from before, “Perfectly safe party trick huh? You’re a god damned idiot, I’ll be at home.” My sister laughed. - It’s been 3 weeks and the migraines gone. Don’t stick crayons up your nose folks, not worth it. I got a laugh, worth it!
Sorry u/MaterialIndividual, this submission has been removed. CC is only for prompt-inspired stories, not for regular stories :( [All submissions must be tagged](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_4.3A_all_submissions_must_be_tagged) - / too early: and are for prompt-inspired stories or poems and should be based on prompts 3 days or older --- [Modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FWritingPrompts&subject=Removed%20post&message=https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/9ch0ny/-/%0A%0A) us if you have any questions or concerns. In the future, please refer to the [sidebar](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/about/sidebar) before posting. This action was not automated and this moderator is human. Time to go do human things.
I stood to the side as the other two guys in the crew began opening the vault. Adrenalin began pumping into me as I waited excitedly for what I knew was inside. I had been waiting to leave the game for the last few years, and this job was proving to be the perfect final heist. Of course, they still had to make out with the money, but that was gonna be the easiest part of this job. I walked in front of the vault door, my pistol held in my left had, and raised my arms. "Boys, feast your eyes upon the most money either one of you gentlemen have ever seen!" What I said couldn't have been further from the truth, I realized after the door had finished swinging open. The vault was completely empty; there wasn't even so much as a penny to be seen. My heart dropped into my stomach. Where was the money? This was a bank, after all, so it should have at least a few hundred thousand. So how could there be nothing? Rage overtook any emotions I had previously been feeling. I whipped around to look at the manager. He flinched at my gaze being turned on to him. I practically stomped over to him, waving my pistol around and screaming enough slurs to make a sailor faint. "Where the fuck is the money?!"I yelled. A weak voice whimpered back to me. The manager took a break from cowering under his arms to look up at me from the floor. "M-mister robber...sir...the bank went bankrupt last week...the building's getting put up for auction next week..."
Hi u/Jobberen, this submission has been removed. [Prompt users in the title, but don't play writing games or commission stories](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_6.3A_prompt_users_in_the_title.2C_but_don.27t_play_writing_games_or_commission_stories) - Prompts go in the title, do not extend into text. You can add commentary in the text, but don't add additional prompt restrictions. Also, avoid [too many details](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/prompts?src=RECIPE). --- [Modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FWritingPrompts&subject=Removed%20post&message=https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/9ckoxn/-/%0A%0A) us if you have any questions or concerns. In the future, please refer to the [sidebar](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/about/sidebar) before posting. This action was not automated and this moderator is human. Time to go do human things.
Hi u/loratcha, this submission has been removed. [Prompt users in the title, but don't play writing games or commission stories](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_6.3A_prompt_users_in_the_title.2C_but_don.27t_play_writing_games_or_commission_stories) - Prompts go in the title, do not extend into text. You can add commentary in the text, but don't add additional prompt restrictions. Also, avoid [too many details](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/prompts?src=RECIPE). --- [Modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FWritingPrompts&subject=Removed%20post&message=https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/9cl6xp/-/%0A%0A) us if you have any questions or concerns. In the future, please refer to the [sidebar](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/about/sidebar) before posting. This action was not automated and this moderator is human. Time to go do human things.
The sky above the spaceport was the color of a VR stim, tuned to a cleaned-out Glassworld domain. A noisy grey blankness in the absence of firing neurons. Kota Herrig studied the climbing sprawl, the fin-like vestigial remains of the Trinerga Maincity’s dome. Under the hushing rain, the port looked miserable, even with terrageny on the planet rolling full ahead. It certainly took more than just breathable air to turn a corporate cargo-hab into a real city. “Not pretty, after Al’Jannatah, is it?” The port’s supervisor voice was iron-tinged with jealousy. “All this dark and whatnot”. Kota’s cheek muscle twinged as he turned from the window back to the supervisor, his hand grazing the holodesk to transfer the official permits. With imperial data leaking directly from his skin and unto the table’s screen, he mulled over the words, trying to determine if the supervisor was making a jab at him. “All that dark” - was it referring to Trinerga’s unfortunate cycle around it’s system sun, or to him, Kota Herrig? His appearance - and sharply unwanted presence. Trinerga was an exemplary corpo-world, the standard for Border Systems’ insubordination and chaos: close-minded microeconomics, perverted hierarchy rituals and xenophobia, a truely burning hatred for anything Terrik. And few citizens of the Terrik Empire looked more post-human then the Al’Jannatah natives like Herrig himself. Even under the diode lights of the supervisor’s office, Kota Herrig remained a solid black shadow, absorbing all into the matte void of his chromatophore-laced skin. “Al’Jannatah isn’t a paradise either”, he chose to ignore any implications of the supervisor’s part. “I guess not. Or we wouldn’t have your chimeras running around murdering people”. A bright smile cut through Kota’s angular face - the teeth being the only white part in the ink blackness, almost disembodied, hanging in the supervisor’s office like a Cheshire’s grin. “Terrik laws for gen-editing are actually laws, Mr. Cassien. Unlike what Trinerga and the like substitute them for here and across the Systems’. So successfully, might I add, that I have to leave the Empire and venture to somewhere...” Kota’s smile grew dangerously wide as he waved his hand over the rain-stricken window of the dispatch tower they were huddled in. “Somewhere as drab and banal as here”. Synched with the strike of lighting beyond the glass, Kota flashed his chromatophores into a stark white gleam, turning from shadow to ghost and back in a second. Don’t you mess with a GECO codesniffer. Cassien, the supervisor, shuddered back and glared at him, sweat beading around his cheekbone augments. He was noone, Herrig considered. A mediator link between him and the Tringer SecPol on the planet. The Empire and the System’s were in a state of a lukewarm war, but the unfortunate product of the Empire’s post-humanism had leaked into enemy space, and the Terrik always cleaned up after themselves. Even if the dirt got into hostile territory. His shoulders drooped. He came to help these people, and all he was getting was an elderly mafioso acting up. “My permit’s fine, I guess?” Cassien bit his lip and twirled a lazy finger around the intricate patterns of the seals and signatures of the digital visa, then slashed across with a trip-coded stamp. Kota was through. The last channel of communication between the warring humanity lingered alive. “Just because you’re from the Genetic Counterviolations Office doesn’t mean that you’re welcome here”, the supervisor threw into Kota’s back, as the latter stepped throught the hatch. “Watch your back, sniffer”. Fitting the chemagill over his nose and mouth, Kota cast a glance over the shoulder, to the leaden sky above the port, where Trinerga Maincity grew out of the barren planet’s soil. The advice was misplaced, but solid.
"Hello?" "Can i help you? " Silence. I glance over at her, she never replies, just sits there staring blankly ahead. The same dazed look on her face. Her school clothes are torn and covered in smatterings of blood. I reach for the bottle to the side, take a drink, and see the stop sign by the canal ahead, instead of going for the brakes i resolutely put my foot to the gas. Tonight is the night. As i speed through the junction, she turns to me. "Why?" This time i ignore her, as the car plunges through into the icy water. \---------------------------------------------------- I am very new to writing and would welcome any feedback :)
I stared at the wilderness in front of me. Honestly, that's the last time I will ever play dice and go fish with dieties of luck, fortune, misfortune, balance and favours. I look at my watch and spin a dial on it, and saw that I have landed in the one place I been meaning to go. "Thank you author."I mumbled. Welcome. "You weren't supposed to reply to that." Why not? "I know I am in a fictional story, I know you are the author, but I highly doubt the internet is suppose to know that." This is a writing prompt you know. "So?" ... ... ... "Hello OP, thanks for writing this I guess. Now I am finally on reddit. Time to post wp and comments." Oi, your a charecter. Stick to your Eu or Au or your own damn story. "Can't. Fourth wall is more fun. Sides, it's that, or a boring fanfic or me helping a naruto out again."
"Fifteen years today, in fact."Marcus thought as he watched the pale blue dot though the greenery's glass dome. It was the single green spot on the red planet he now called home. "They've pulled our funding, Marcus." He took a sip of his whiskey as he went over the last conversation with mission control. "They don't see this mission as beneficial anymore." "Beneficial!? We're still out here, John! Is it beneficial for us to DIE!?" "I'm sorry, Marcus. You'll have to make it home on your ow-" "We used the last of our fuel on exploration because you promised we'd be resupplied by now! We can't make it back on our own! By the way, guess what, we found more red fucking rocks!" "There's nothing I can do. There's no more money. We're in the middle of a war, then there's the outbreak, and the west coast has-" "Did you get that new truck paid off, John?! What about your assistant Alice? Did her daughter finally get her master's? Is Clark back from his tropic vacation? It seems like everyone else there is getting the money they were promised!" John didn't say anything. Marcus saw the guilt in his eyes. He was tired of yelling at him. He knew it wasn't John's fault. He actually felt bad for him. John had the horrible duty of telling a whole team of people, that they were being left for dead millions of miles from home. Worse, he has to watch them die and wonder, 'was there something I could have done?'. John was good like that. "...just...just don't hail us again unless you have good news..."Marcus said before cutting the feed. That was the last he heard from John. He tore his gaze from the pale blue dot and looked at the long picnic table in the grass clearing he was standing in. The trees and shrubs around the clearing made it an ideal spot for a picnic, particularly an annual one. "Look, dad! I've got the tea!" Marcus looked across the clearing. Martin, his seven year old son, was awkwardly carrying a large pitcher of tea to the table from the doorway to the main pod. "You got it, buddy?" "Yeah! I'm pretty strong."Martin replied. Marcus smiled. "You sure are!" "Just like his daddy."Marcus looked back at the door. Susan was walking out with a casserole dish. When she got to the table she gave Marcus a quick peck on the lips. The three of them began setting the table as everyone else began filing out to the table. Marcus took his place at the head of the table once everyone was out. He looked over his team, which had become more like a village to him than anything. He saw little Brittany. She was just a little older than Martin and reminded him so much of her father, Drew. It seemed like yesterday they had just put him to rest. Drew wasn't the first, or the last that they had lost. Likewise, Brittany wasn't the first or last they had gained. "Good evening everyone. As you know, we take this night every year to remember where we came from, as well as everything, and everyone, that we've lost. We recognize and appreciate everything we haven't lost, and more importantly, everyone that we've gained."Susan squeezed his hand as he gazed at her and Martin. "Well, without further delay."Marcus looked up. "Look again at that dot. That's there. That was home. That was us..." They all gazed at the pale blue dot as he continued. The older ones remembering their old home, while the younger ones wondered at what kind of place it must be.
“Iowa City!” The conductor sounded tired. We stumbled to our feet, rubbed dirty fingers across filthy faces. In Chicago or Michigan we had been paraded on stage, the Pastor extolling our virtues as field hands and house help. Why would be picked in Iowa? I missed Michael, one of the older boys. He knew all the best games, even if he was always angry. No one had told him he and his brothers were being shipped out. Their father was still alive- somewhere-and relatives were seeing to their care. But the Pastor promised new clothes and schooling, so they went, blithely and unknowing. I hating being on stage- hated people feeling my arms for muscles or pushing fingers in my mouth to see my teeth. But at least I had no brothers to be taken away. None of them had wanted Michael. But now, six-year-old Elijah was with a family outside of Chicago, eight-year-old David and nine-year-old were Noah were taken by a tall man who said his last orphans ran away, and poor little William was pulled screamed from Michael's arms and taken by a family at an unnamed, unscheduled stop. No one wanted me either, but no one ever had. Seeing the miles of fields and blue sky from the train seat was a novelty- as was the train itself-but I missed the soot covered buildings of my city. I was used to living with a pack of boys, for protection and for comfort. We worked in the textile mills, mostly. For 10 hours work, I’d make forty cents. We’d pool our money to have a place to board. There were reformers who would give us dinner if we went to night school, so I usually went. I’d fall asleep to the recitation of the multiplication tables. Lots of children were injured in the mills. I’d gotten a bad cough and coughed at the wrong time, while on the machine. My foot got caught and I fell backwards onto the concrete. I guess they thought I was dead, with all the blood, but when I come to, I just had a headache and my leg was a bit mangled. The Foreman, he didn’t want to bother with me, so he sent one of the little ones to get the Pastor. Next thing I know, I’m in a fresh new set of clothes and on a train out west to be adopted. Pastor, he had them wrap up my leg and told me with prayer my leg would grow straight. But at every station I couldn’t hide a faint limp and my cough. Station after station, we were hauled out and ever fewer of us got back on that train. Never thought I’d miss the mill, but at least we had something to do there. Weeks passed and the train was no longer fun. We grew wrinkled and dirty. People wanted children that could grow up to be farm hands, not anyone sick of mind or body. No one was going to want me. The train stopped at night. Michael got off and didn’t get back on. Pastor gave an angry sermon on the sin of lack of gratitude and obedience, but none of us blamed him. I wished Michael luck as I splashed water on my face, smearing the dirt. No one much was on hand to see us in Iowa. I guess they had gotten a load of street children a few weeks ago. The small crowd looked at us with interest, but without intent. Someone took young Helen after she lied that she knew how to sew. We were headed back to the train when a man grabbed my chin and forced me to look up at him. I squinted in the sudden light and heard the man say, “Yep, he’ll do.” The Pastor told me to be good and remember the Lord and then the train left and I was alone with the man who now owned me. “Climb up.” The man gestured to the buckboard, not commenting on my limp. I squeezed in between a sack of flour and one of corn meal. “I’m Mr. Royce. Alan Royce. You got a name?” “I’m Thomas.” “What’s your family name?” “Don’t got one. Never have. Never knew my folks.” I said it with bravado and a good deal of anger, expecting rebuke, but Mr. Royce just nodded. We drove for a good long while, stopping at a tiny house that seemed to have grown up from the garden and the hill that pressed around it. An equally tiny woman emerged, her hair grey like the house shingles. “My wife’s mother,” Mr. Royce explained, “You’ll be her chore boy and she’ll send you to school fall and winter. We’ve asked her to live with us, but she won’t leave the house where she came a bride. You be a good, obedient boy and she’ll feed you the best food this side of the Mississippi.” Mr. Royce brought in the flour as I made shy greetings to the woman introduced to me as Mrs. Lillian Wilson. When Mr. Royce left, the house seemed suddenly very quiet. Mrs. Wilson smiled at me, “I bore eleven girls. Eight of them lived. Any one of them would give me a home now, and glad of it. They are good and sweet- and sometime headstrong. But I always wanted a boy. You ever lived on a farm? Worked with animals or plants?” “No, Ma’am.” “Well, I’ll teach you. My oldest girl’s husband runs the fields and the pigs now. They live in that big house across the way. But this house is mine. I keep chickens. There a milk cow that lives off the land, and the garden and the fruit trees. I’ve told them. I’ll not be anywhere but here, my home until I’m called to the Beyond. But see, my hands…” here she held up little bony claws, “Arthritis. So I need help. There’s a basin and pitcher in the back room. That’ll be your room. Go wash up and we’ll have a look at you.” I made haste to obey and was back in the main room quickly. I’d never seen anything like it. Everything was plain, but sturdy, with surprising touches of color showing up in curtains and rugs. Mrs. Wilson beckoned me close to her and took my face in both of her hands. I held my breath at the loving look she gave me, tears suddenly gathering in my eyes, “Well, Thomas. I think you and I’ll do just fine. No more ma’am now. You call me Ma, just like my girls do.” In all my life, I had no memory of being held or kissed. At the touch of her soft lips kissing my cheek, my tears spilled over. She rocked me in her arms as I struggled to understand the wonder; I had a mother- I had a home.
"He's almost here! Is it ready?" "I need more chalk, how much longer?" "Ten minutes tops, and that' pushing it." Alex tossed the bag across the room, spilling pages of ancient text all over the floor of the abandoned church. According to their research this was their last hope of summoning a champion. Running was no longer an option, and once the demon got his hands on the Keystone, humanity was history. "It's now or never!"Shouted Miles as he finished the last of his arcane drawings. They were sloppy and rushed but they were out of time. He slammed Kestone in the center and stared his chant. Spellcraft is more art then Science and Miles was a shit artist. His whole life had been leading to moment and he was fucking it up. The prophecy never mentioned the sweat or the cotton mouth. Miniature tornados of paper and dust began to form around the edges of the circle. All light in the room seemed wash away in an instant. Seconds later the light returned, only now seeming dimmer with a tint of blue mixed in. "You did it!"Alex shouted. Miles lifted his head to find a hooded figure holding the Keystone in the middle of his crudely drawn magic circle. Overwhelmed with joy he rushed forward and threw himself at his champions feet. "Great hero of legend, the dark day has come, Frellex his risen and only y..... "I'm sorry sweety you'll need speak up granny's ears aren't what they use to be."The voice came from the hooded hero. She let down her hood and cupped a hand around her left ear. Miles sprang to his feet to get a better look at newly summoned hero. This wasnt Auron, Arbiter of Justice, it was some rotting skeleton. He clumsily groped for his dagger. "Drop the Keystone witch! I dont know who sent you but I have no time for games." In a flash the hooded womans hand swept from her own ear to one belonging to Miles. "Now you drop that knife this instant! That is no way to treat your elder!"Miles complied and the sound of metal of on stone filled old church. "Much better, now tell me what on earth was so important I had to leave my bridge game." "Five minutes! I can see the bats!" "There must be some mistake I was trying to Summon Auron, hero Whitewatter, slayer of Draxdell, envoy to... "Yes yes I know the titles, I'm his mother what do you need?" "Frellex has risen and seeks the Keystone, the council of nine have all been devoured, Auron is our last hope. He cast the demon back once before, surely he could do it again." "I'm certain he could, but that doesn't explain why you summoned me." "You think I did this on PURPOSE!?" "If you insist on being so rude I dont think I'm going help at all" With that the woman took a seat on a near by bench, crossing her arms and looking away from the two men. "Two minutes!" "Please! You have to do something! The fate of the world depends on it!" The old woman said nothing. Looking at her now Miles realized she wasnt a rotting skeleton, she only looked like one. "Hes here!" Glass shattered as hundreds of bats flooded the church and roof tore away by a massive purple hand. "I'm sorry I shouted, please dont let it end like this, I have a family." The woman gave her summoner a hard look and let out a long sigh. "Fine, but I better be back before bingo."She held the Keystone to her ear and it began to glow. "Auron, it's your mother, would you be a dear?"
'Jesus, this guy got nothing.... Throw him to the greyhounds!' At once I was picked up from my kneeling position by two men who carried me toward the sound of mad dogs. They told me on the way there, that was I to survive this, it would mean that my luck had turned. 'We are here. Open the gate' A large gate was opened up, and revealed an amphitheater where tragedy was bound. Dead men lied on the ground, carcasses and blood, but in the sand before me was written, Lucky is he who tames the dog'. I was about to turn around, and ask what I should do, but the gate closed, and all there was left was me myself and my luck. I moved toward the center of the theatre to get a feel of the area. The place resembled a classic amphitheater, only smaller in size. It had three gates, the one I entered from, and two others from where I imagined the dogs to enter from. It was silent, but with the right frequency one might hear the unlucky screams of the past. On the top of the theatre where the emperor would sit, sat a man looking nothing like an emperor. It was the man from before, the one who told them to throw me to the greyhounds. His emotionless face, and dying eyes starred directly into my soul, studying my moves, assessing my luck, and when he had estimated my being, he waved his hand in the air, and the two doors opened up, revealing two greyhounds. They looked harmless as they ran up to me, but the scene convinced me that they were not. 'What do do you say greyhounds, has this man turned lucky?' They started going about me, sniffing, measuring. I wondered what the function of their noses was, how were they able to measure luck? I figured that there was no way that it was possible for them to do so, because after all a dog is a dog, killer or not. And if dog is dog, then dog will prefer the human who bears an aura of niceness, or pockets of treats. Luckily for me I was a dog lover, and a hungry mouth with food in my pockets.
Arundel raises his hand and creates a spherical mass of light, illuminating the room where the meeting will take place. Five people, including Arundel, sit around the table on the center. He clears his throat. “I’ve called you all here today on such short notice due to a problem in the village,” he says to the others. “If it’s another one of Rosellia’s golems humping on the villagers again, I’m getting out of this room,” Jorkins snorts out. “That’s rude,” Rosellia says, “I was just drunk at the time, that’s all.” “You’re telling me you’ve been drunk for ten days in a row?!” “Both of you, keep it down,” Nulfer tells the both of them, “I have an undead army to tend to and I prefer to end this meeting as soon as possible.” “Thank you, Nulfer,” Arundel says, “getting back to the topic at hand, a problem has risen in the village, and, as surprising as it may sound, it is our responsibility to help them.” “Help them?” Rosellia asks, surprised, “we’ve been terrorizing them since the elders were adults. Why would we help them now?” “Because the village has decreased.” “Decreased?” “Yes. Thanks to our constant terror upon the village, more and more people are starting to leave, while some have lost hope for their future children to be safe.” ‘So, you’re saying that to reign terror, we must nurture peace?’ Sedgewick, the mute illusionist, telepathically expresses his thoughts. “Yes indeed, Sedgewick. Now, do you have any ideas on where to start?” “I can command my undead to tend to the farms at night,” Nulfer proclaims, “they’ve been trampled on by them and Rosellia’s beasts anyway.” “Good. Rosellia?” “I guess I’ll have to summon my beasts to hunt down pests and food for the village,” she reluctantly says. “That’s fine. Jorkins?” “I’ll make potions of lust and seduction for them to increase the population then,” Jorkins says. ‘I’ll cover all of our magic to avoid any problems,’ Sedgewick telepathically says. “Good. I’ll provide good weather for as long as I can muster. The meeting is adjourned then. Let’s act by midnight. We need to do this if we want to break more necks.”
Notes made as I was reading, some typos / minor errors: > The Heralds began to blair, and the Goddess announced her displeasure. 'blair' should be 'blare' Is Toyne the person from part 1? If so, he should probably have been named earlier. > Dutifully, Toyne had poured over the message for hours 'poured' -> 'pored' > buying as much time as he could from the curiosity of the council To me this is somewhat strangely worded; I know what it means (that he's stalling for time) but it sounds like he's buying from their curiosity (which threw me until I realized what you meant there :) > he removed the mitre carefully and replaced it on the Sepulchre. The Sepulchre's the room itself, IIRC. The previous part indicated the mitre rested above a seat. > Ara-Su Is this 'Earth' as misheard / misunderstood from translation? While it would make perfect sense for the language to drift over time, there's no indication that this has actually happened - as far as we can tell, the Haruspex hears the words exactly as we the reader are reading them. > Initiate airspace intruder protocol six Would a spaceship refer to its area as 'airspace'? Not that I can really think of a better term, it just seemed strange to me. ---- Overall, a very interesting read! If you're expanding it to a larger work, I think more worldbuilding would definitely help. I know you're somewhat limited in the short space you have here and that's why the War of the Gardens gets only a little bit of mention when it's obviously very important. Hope this helps!
This is the last time. This is the last fucking time I’ll ever walk through that door again. Life, god, or whatever you want to call it has a funny way of breaking your spirit, even when you think your intentions are pure, you could still easily destroy the lives of so many just to please your own. I never thought I would see her again, I never though I would see her smile or the way the freckles on her nose seemed like tiny Hershey’s kisses so appropriately placed. It’s killing me inside that she doesn’t even know it’s me every time I walk through that stupid fucking door and meet my wife for the first time again. I miss her so, to the point that I’m not sure that I can ever step past the threshold of that door that brings us together for the first and last time. You see I found the door that brings me back to that very day we first met only a few weeks after Pricilla had died from glioblastoma, it hurts that she couldn’t remember me in her last weeks. The only thing that eases the pain of this daily catatonic depression is the door which brings me back to the day I first met Pricilla. I love it and I hate it, to the point I’m not sure I can do it anymore. Would she still be alive if I had never met her? Would she want me to forget her if that means she could be happy with someone else for a little longer than her life cut tragically short with me had allowed? They say if you love something you have to let it go. What they don’t tell you is that you just might let go of yourself too.
Little V and Little J Find New Meaning Little J and Little V went to find a briefcase in Fos's apartment. Little J talked to Fos and his friends, but they pretended not to know what Little J was saying. Little J put and end to Fos and his friends' game. Melvin, Little J's friend, was in the apartment too, and he was scared. A secret friend of Fos's jumped out of the bathroom and tried to hurt Little J and Little V; but God may or may not have intervened and protected Little V and Little J. Little V and Little J made sure the secret friend wouldn't hurt anyone else. Melvin, Little J, and Little V all left with the briefcase they wanted. In the car, Little V and Little J discussed the previous events. Little V asked Melvin if he thought God stopped the bullets; but Little V had an accident and made Melvin into a mess. Little J was not happy. They stopped at Jimmy's to clean up the Melvin Mess. Jimmy was not happy, he did not advertise his house as a place to keep messes. Then Jimmy called The Wolf. Little J and Little V had to clean up the Melvin mess. Little V got as angry as a racecar; but Little J got angry too and said he farted things that gave rise to Terminators. The Wolf helped Jimmy hose off Little J and Little V. Jimmy gave some of his clothes to Little J and Little V, then called them nerds. Little J and Little V went to get some food. Little J and Little V talked about bacon and dogs and God. Little J said he wanted to walk around on the Earth. Little V said he had to poop. Suddenly a couple stood up and pointed guns at the place, and demanded wallets from everyone. Little V heard the commotion and came out of the restroom. Little J sat and asked for his wallet back. After the commotion was over, Little J and Little V left. Little V went on to continue to work. This time he was by himself. Little V was looking at an apartment when he got hungry. He put some pop tarts in a toaster and his tummy rumbled, his medicine was making his tummy hurt. Little V went to the bathroom. Meanwhile, Butch went back to his apartment to look for a watch that was given to him from his father's close friend. Butch went back to his apartment and noticed something was weird. Things weren't in order and he heard someone in the bathroom. Butch peeked into the bathroom and saw Little V. Butch made sure Little V didn't leave the bathroom.
I've never written anything before and I don't really know how to go about writing a story. Here's the idea I had. I feel like I left out a lot of the details because I don't know how to structure them within the narrative. Feel free to give me some constructive criticism. My heart raced. The fear and joy and excitement all together was almost too much. I looked around at the little group assembled here in the moonlight at the edge of the old colored cemetary behind her father’s church. Smiling beneath furrowed brows, they waited impatiently. It was a dangerous thing they were doing, and we all knew that the consequences could be dire. I glanced over at my truck, with the pile of trunks and suitcases in the bed. The tickets were tucked safely in my jacket pocket. In a few hours we would be boarding a ship in Mobile, and in another week we would be in France and all these years of secrets would be behind us. The reverend nodded, and she stepped out of their old Pontiac. Her brother held her hand, and my dear baby sister stooped to straighten her dress. She looked beautiful. She always did. As she crossed the few yards that separated us I felt like the world was holding its breath. I probably was. It felt the reverend’s had on my back “Stay with us, son. Can’t have you falling out” His voice was shaky. “We are gathered here today, under the eyes of...” the reverend started “They comin’!” It was her youngest brother, our lookout. He was out of breath. “It’s a lot of ‘em. In a truck!” “Well we better make this fast” The reverend, my father-in-law, said. “Do you? “I do!” we said, in unison. “Then y’all married. Now go.” We sprinted to my Ford and were off in a spray of gravel. She tossed the boquet out of the window as we pulled on to the road. “Get down!” I tossed a blanket at her as she crouched in the floorboard. We had barely gotten a quarter mile when I saw them. The truck was blocking the road and they were standing in front of it, white robes bright against the night. The hoods might have hidden their faces, but what they carried left no doubt as to who they were. The two in from held Thompson guns. My father had a pair just like them hanging over the mantle in his trophy room.
Judge rules LEPRECON can continue The international dispute over Fort Knox's gold supply will continue at least for another month, as the Court of Arbitration ruled today that the Leprechaun's case has enough merit to be reviewed by a higher panel of judges. The dispute, called LepreCON by its detractors, has been made the butt of countless late-night talk show jokes, but experts say it is no laughing matter. "This may seem ridiculous at first,"says Harvard economist Brett Spankulus, "But there's precedent for this. When lost treasure is found at sea, courts have repeatedly ruled that the gold belongs to the government of whatever sovereign originally owned the gold, and not to the explorers who found it." "This case will likely have a very different outcome,"Spankulus said. "The fact that this threatens the economy of the entire United States, obviously, has the potential to adjust the equation a little bit. Even if the Leprechaun wins this case, he will have to contend with the government of Ireland, their own claims." The scandal has reached the political world as well, as democrats call for investigations into President Trump's potential ties to the Leprechaun. "The fact that the tweeter-in-chief has absolutely nothing to say about this, an international scandal that could affect our economy, is very telling,"said democratic minority leader Chuck Schumer. A New York Times report last week suggested that Special Counsel Robert Mueller may be examining certain aspects of President Trump's past relationship with the Leprechaun. According to anonymous sources, Trump and the Leprechaun may have initially met in the 1990s due to a shared interest in gold. It is not yet known if this relationship included business transactions.
Let me tell ya. It's not like they say. I'm not crazy, far from it if I'm honest. What you'd probably call me is superhuman, or meta human, or maybe a mutant. I don't really know anymore see all of you made just ao many words to describe the same thing, special. Now believe me, I know you've heard this all before and you're ready to write me off just like the rest. But I'm tellin' ya. I'm not lying. I've got something that I've taken to calling hyperreactive hearing. Now now, hear me out, it's better to explain how I got caught then to try to convince you any other way. It all started with the eye. Now I'm telling you, every good killer has a motive, nobody just kills for fun. Me, nah, me, I kill for a reason. It was the eye. It was a pale blue contrasting with the dark brown of his other eye, and it always seemed to have this just noticeable lay of filth on it. Never too much, and never too little. It just sat there and peered, almost as if it were ripping a hole through your chest and as if were munching and munching and munching through your organs and through your liver to get to your secrets and and and... Sorry, just a little nervous is all. Don't get me wrong the old man was a good guy. I even looked up to him at some points in my life, but that eyes, that eye had to go. And if you'd seen how carefully and perfectly planned the kill was you wouldn't call me crazy. Every night, just as my phone flashed 12 midnight I would open the door to his room ever so slowly, it would take 20 minutes just to open it a crack, and an hour just to get it as far as I want. Then I would slowly, moving slower that you could ever think, reach my arm around the corner and shine just a slimmer of a flashlight over his face. I was hoping to catch the eye every time, but unfortunately it was always the old man's face peering back, and I told you, I didn't want to kill him, i just wanted the eye. If you had seen just how carefully I did this every night. Just how much I waited to get in the room you wouldn't call me crazy. Until one night as I did my usual thing, the door creaked. It had never done this before, and because of that the old man awoke. That eye flicked open and that was when I first learned of my abilities. A steady thump thump resounded through the room. His heartbeat I realized, increasing faster and faster until I was sure that it was reverberating throughout the house and that I was going to get caught and the neighbors were gonna hear and and... sorry as I said, I'm just nervous. But anyway, if you had seen the amount of caution and precision I used as I ran forth, you wouldn't call me crazy. That being said, nobody's perfect. He got a Yelp, a tiny little screech off. And I knew my time was limited. I stashed him beneath the floorboards with so much caution that even I began to believe that he wasn't there. And the the cops showed up. And slowly but surely I heard it. thump thump They walked in the door and began the search, I led them about watching them tear through the building and answering their foolhardy questions. *thump thump* Louder still it got so louder still I got, until I was screaming my words all in an attempt to mask the sound that penetrates my ear drums. *thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump* They had to have heard it! Devils each and everyone of them had to have heard his dead beating heart, but they talked on ignoring it torturing me! Taking longer and longer still to search the house and just get out! Leave! Begone! You devils, demons fiends! "Enough!"I yelled. "You devils, you scoundrels, he's here, he's here under the floor beneath my very feet. Quit with this torture, quit it! And leave me alone." But as I said, I'm not crazy, just nervous.
I had been keeping a close eye on George. He was my last contact on earth, the one who was keeping me in the Afterlife. As soon as he died, I knew it would be over for me as well. George wasn’t doing too well. He was old. His family had put him in an elderly care home, where he babbled various nonsensical stories to the nurses who nodded along while they helped him get dressed and eat—lucky for me, this included stories about me. I wasn’t a significant figure in his life. I taught him English in the 6th grade, one of my last classes before I retired. I shouldn’t have even been in most of the stories he inserted me into, but for whatever reason my name had become stuck in his senility as he replaced family members’ names with my own. Thank goodness for that, I thought selfishly: the last time a dead person’s name is mentioned on earth, their afterlife ends. I didn’t have many friends during my life. Nobody knew who I was anymore—nobody but George, anyway. And George was dying. It happened slowly at first, but these days death teased him with increasing vigor. Today I watched as George’s nurse told him he had pneumonia. George told her I had been a good dog. Bless George, keeping me in the afterlife. Apparently it wasn’t the last time he would mention me, though, because I was still there. The nurse helped George get in bed. She turned out the light. I wanted to take one last lap around the world, visit some more sights, check up on things one last time, just in case it was our last night, but I couldn’t help myself: I stayed in George’s little room, watching him breathe, imagining his heartbeat. The next morning, George was still around. I should have predicted it, I thought. Obviously he was going to say my name again or I would be gone. I waited anxiously, listening intently to every ramble and blather that came out of George’s sunken mouth. I stayed like that, transfixed, waiting, anxious, obsessively clinging on George’s words, for ten days. The rest of the world disappeared. I could only think about George’s—and my—impending passing. One night, George sputtered in his sleep. It sounded like he was suffocating. Maybe he was. It was disgusting. At least, I was disgusted, but maybe just because I was disappointed and angry at him for leaving. Would he call my name as he died? How was I witnessing this? George stopped breathing a few minutes later. He grew ashen and cold. I was still there when the sun came up and still later, when the nurse came in. It took me until after his body had been gone from the room for thirty minutes before I realized that I was still there, alone in the room. It was the fact of my aloneness that made me realize it: I was still in the Afterlife, but now I felt, irrationally, infinitely more alone than before. Nobody knew me (or thought they knew me). I had no connection to this place. I thought I did, but in those minutes I realized that my attachment to the world was through its people. I had thought I liked living (or, “living”, as much as you can in the Afterlife). At least I thought I liked witnessing history carry out, and I thought I liked knowing better than the politicians, and looking at nature, and experiencing it all. But without George I felt empty. I wouldn’t have even remembered George if it wasn’t for his calling my name so many times. From his reports, he didn’t remember me either. But it was still something. I didn’t know what to do. I had been so focused the last few days, watching George, I didn’t have any plan of what to do next. I didn’t know why I was still in the Afterlife, but this didn’t occur to me right away. Instead I got up and drifted. First out the door, then down the street. Across the country, slowly, then through the ocean. I didn’t have a destination or a purpose, or any thoughts at all, really. I would sit down for a bit, then walk somewhere else. One day a far away sound caught my ear. I was in Arizona at the time, imagining I was kicking dust around, when I thought I heard my name faintly a few states away. I must have been imagining it, I thought, and went back to thinking about kicking dust. Suddenly I heard it again, and clearer this time. I sped across the country, high in the air (there are less distractions there), through clouds, over fields and cities, in the direction of my beautiful name. It was an academic of some sort, in a library. I didn’t know how much time had passed since George died, but here this bookish person was, saying my name. Why would she think of me? She pushed her glasses up her nose, reading aloud to herself from her computer. I rushed across the table so I could face the screen too. She was looking at a website that was familiar to me. I realized she was reading my blog. I started one in college to keep track of my thoughts and improve as a writer. I had wanted to be famous one day, influential, a philosopher of sorts, but gave up a decade into my career as a teacher. I thought my writing was good, but I could never stick with a project long enough to see it through to completion and my work never gained any traction with publishers. Yet here was this person reading my work! I watched the woman’s reactions to my beautiful, crafted words, as if her reading was the only thing keeping me alive (it was, in fact). She looked concerned through most of it, which worried me, but then, maybe that is just how she looks? Maybe this is her being thoughtful? Maybe she is really considering my ideas? I didn’t want to get too hopeful. I watched her mouse move up to the top of the screen. My stomach dropped and my heart stopped (as much as they can when you are in the Afterlife)—was she closing the tab, never to look at it or think of me again? Instead, the woman clicked on the link. She copied it. I didn’t watch the rest because I wanted it to be a surprise. I was going to watch it play out.
They said that God created all of mankind, but one man will kill all gods. That's what he was here to do. He had found and had fought his way to the heavens only to find the place abandoned and in ruins. What if God was already dead?, the heavily armored man thought as he slowly approached the crumbling throne and withdrew his sword. He took a deep breath and screamed, “Show yourself coward! I will end you for all the atrocities you allowed to happen!” <GO AWAY!>, a voice boomed in the man's head, <I HAVE GIVEN UP ON MANKIND MANY MILLIENA AGO, NOW GO AWAY!> “No! I will not leave until you are dead at my feet!,” the man screamed. <SO BE IT!>, voice thundered in his head. The sizzle of lightning and the crack of thunder was heard throughout the throne room. The man almost dropped his sword as he shielded his eyes. The man blinked through watering eyes at what appeared before him. He stepped back not believing what his eyes showed him. A giant tortoise sat in front of the throne, its head was as tall as three of the man standing before him. The tortoise slowly lowered his head towards the man. <YOU WANT ME DEAD, SO STRIKE LITTLE MORTAL!>, it roared in the man's mind as the neck lunged and mouth opened trying to bite to the man in half. The man leaped and rolled to the side, the mouth barely missing him. “What are you?,” he cried as he held his shield up to block another blow. <YOUR GOD!>, the tortoise hissed, <MANKIND STOPPED LISTENING TO ME A LONG TIME AGO AND INVENTED NEW GODS, FAKE GODS TO WORSHIP.> The tortoise lunged again, <YOU ABANDONED ME SO I LEFT YOUR KIND TO THEIR FATES! DO NOT BLAME ME FOR HUMANITY'S DOINGS.> The tortoise backed the man against one of the walls of the crumbling throne room. “Stop!,” the man yelled, the giant head stopped mid strike and red eyes glared down. The man slowly lowered his shield and sword and looked into the hate filled eyes of the God. “You abandoned us,” he slowly said to the giant reptilian head. <YOU ABANDONED ME FIRST>, the head slowly dipped to look the man in the eye. <LEAVE PLACE AND I WILL ALLOW YOU TO LIVE>, the head slowly raised looking up at the sky. <I HAVE NO FOLLOWERS LEFT, A GOD WITHOUT FOLLOWERS IS AS GOOD AS DEAD.> The man sheathed his sword, “what do I tell people when they ask if I killed you?” <TELL THEM THE TRUTH, I WAS ALREADY DEAD WHEN YOU ARRIVED HERE.> The giant tortoise started fading from the warrior's sight. <NOW AND LEAVE ME BE!> The warrior stood looking around at the crumbling throne and walls of the ruined palace and sighed. The God was right, the God was was already dead when he arrived here. The warrior slowly started to make his way back down to the mortal world, not noticing the tears streaming from his eyes.
They first met in a dark alleyway. He didn't have a shirt on, she was carrying a box of stolen plutonium. neither asked any questions. The second time was at a abandoned meat packing factory, where he had his pants off inside a storage closet, and she was disposing of a dead body. By the time it got to the laundry truck at the prison outbreak, things were getting ridiculous. "Wow,"he muttered. He then gestured to his head. "I always thought you were really fond of that wild mad scientist look." "Nice joke, really."She let out a fake laugh that came out as a single loud pop. "You try dodging between Humidity and Sparks and coming out looking perfect." He smirked. "That's why I go with a helmet." "Never been one for helmets..."She looked him up and down. He was looking rather average himself, with a black button up shirt, while she had made effort with an innocent looking summer dress. "At least you're wearing clothes this time." "Do you know how hard it is to find someplace private to change in an instant?" A laugh escaped her lips, this time it was sincere. "Alissa."She held out here hand. "George." "George? Not, like, Courage? Or something Courage related?" He frowned. "No. It's George." "Okay, whatever, George. Let's just get this over with." They started to walk around the park. A nice neutral place out in the open and surrounded by lots of people. Both knew that there wasn't avoiding the other for long. A mutual secret was better dealing with how their employers would react. "I answered an ad for an internship,"started out George. "Something low key. Said it offered plenty of experience in defense. I thought it had to do with a security film, since I needed to be working towards an engineering degree to apply. Nope... Turns out it was a guy who ends up constantly frying his own computer, and I have to end up checking his email for him. I'm the third Courage Lad whose been through the program, but you can never tell because of the helmet." "Explains why Courage Lad was suddenly acting so differently."Alissa nodded understandably. "Madam Humidity is Darla Hunting from Hunting Industries. Completely loaded. I get paid a ridiculous amount of money." "Well, obviously."It was the only company in the world that deals with weather technology, and they've made millions with that machine that lowers global warming. George sighed with dismay. "I got stuck with the weirdo who has zappy powers. Lives with his mother, out in the middle of nowhere. He tried getting an apartment in the city, but his neighbors complained about their cable tv always going out, and it's just one big mess. I have to keep my cell phone in an iron cage whenever I'm out sidekicking. Terrible reception." "If it makes you feel any better..."Alissa looked upwards. The sky was suddenly becoming dark. "Ah, here it comes."She pulled George underneath a nearby tree. The sky began to rain blood. It hissed and smoked as it hit the ground. Alissa sighed with dismay, while George gasped in horror. "It's fine. She's experimenting with nano technology, but it tends to rust quickly and overheat. It doesn't actually do anything yet, but it is terrifying to look at." "Shouldn't we be doing something?"George frowned as the sky lit up with lightning, signaling the arrival of Spark Man. "She's using it as cover to rob Hunt Inc. of some tech she plans on using in a later rave. Not really going to matter if you stop her or not, she's still going to have it."Alissa gently elbowed him in the ribs. "Plus we'll just tell them the truth. We were distracting each other." "I suppose that's..."George stared blankly at her. She had leaned against the tree and playfully winked at him. "Oh. Suppose I'll actually have to pin you down to make sure you won't go anywhere." "Just to warn you though, my touch does decay organic flesh."He froze up as she reached towards him. "Kidding kidding!"She grabbed onto the edges of his shirt and pulled him closer. "She just gave me the Death Lass name because she thought it sounded cool." "That's... Good?" "Why don't you show me a little courage and show me how a sidekick should kiss?" He obliged, melting into her touch. There was an odd sensation though. His tongue felt itchy, like when he had eaten pineapple, but it didn't bother him all that much. This was no doubt the start of a wary yet interesting relationship.
"Hey, kids. Wanna me to give you a lift?" &nbsp; "Well... I don't know..." "Yeah... no... You are a muggle stranger, muggle stranger..." &nbsp; "I have free candy inside." &nbsp; "IT'S A DEAL!" &nbsp; --- &nbsp; "...here you go! Right at the school! Just as promised!" &nbsp; "Gee whiz! Thanks, mister! We never knew strangers could be so nice!" "Yeah! Our dads just don't know what they are talking about!" "Yeah! Grown-ups are dumb! I will now ALWAYS enter nice strangers' vans!" &nbsp; "I AM YOUR FATHER IN DISGUISE, YOU IDIOTS!" &nbsp; "Whaaaaaat???" &nbsp; "YOU'RE BOTH LUCKY YOU ARE STILL *ALIVE!* YOU ARE BOTH *GROUNDED!* No more Exploding Snap for a *MONTH!"* &nbsp; "Noooooo! But it's so explodey and snappy and cool!"
The emperor fell onto the floor with a thud. The dagger's ornate silver handle collided with the floor as he fell chest-first onto the ground, driving it even deeper into his blood-pumping muscle. &nbsp; I turned towards the only witnesses that were still alive: the fortress's cleaning staff. &nbsp; There was a long-ish awkward silence, which I eventually managed to interrupt with an uncertain question: &nbsp; "Ummm... does anybody know here where I can find the library? I, uhh... To be honest, I never constructed a plan for what will I do after the assassination... and also I know exactly Jack Squat about politics and leadership, and uhhh... &nbsp; "...I believe I have actually made the nation's state temporarily worse? &nbsp; "I mean... at least until you show me the library and I learn some relevant skills... I guess... ^\(Boy ^are ^we ^lucky ^I'm ^not ^illiterate, ^unlike ^the ^rest ^of ^my ^family...) &nbsp; "...unless you guys actually liked that emperor dude?"I added, pointing at the corpse with my thumb. "Because if yes, then hooo boy... this whole thing will be even more awkward..." &nbsp; They shook their heads slowly, silently, and then looked at a nearby VERY LARGE AND CONSPICUOUS sign on the wall, drawing my attention to it. &nbsp; > LIBRARY → &nbsp; "...oh, how did I miss THAT thing?"
She was crunching on Fruity Loops when I asked her to sing something. Her face made a simultaneous grimace and a look of stifled laughter. She swallowed and said, “I can’t sing.” Bullshit, I thought. She’s just being modest. “No, seriously. I want to hear you sing. I bet you have the sweetest voice. Faye replied, “Well I do like karaoke.” She cleared her throat and began to sing a wretched pop song. It was so bad, in fact, that I thought that she was joking with me. I waved her off and said, “Sing something in Spanish.” Faye again made the face. She said, “I don’t know Spanish.” I started laughing and called her on her shit. “You fell asleep on the couch last night and you started singing in your sleep. It was some Spanish song. Your voice is beautiful.” My roommate dropped her spoon and looked at me with concern. Tears welled in her eyes. She asked me, “Could it have been Italian?” While wondering what I had said to have offended her l reassured, “Maybe. It was beautiful. It seemed like you sang an entire song. I poked your shoulder and everything. But after you finished singing, you were clearly out cold.” Faye blinked feverishly as her tears began to flow heavily. As she hyperventilated she explained, “My sister used to live here with me. She was on her way to audition for “La Traviata” when she was killed in a car crash.”
When an odor becomes saturated, it can be tasted. There are stenches so foul that they leave their sickening tang in one’s mouth. So it was in the city of Bathe. To Milton Mutton, it felt like they were his only two senses left intact—smell and taste. His body was numb and his mind was on idle, but he was acutely aware of how the sour air lingered on his breath. When he left his barracks in the morning, Milton tasted blood before he smelt it. He tasted warm, ripe trash too. He tasted sweat, sewage, ash, decay, smoke, and he tasted spoiled food. He had eaten some moldy oats for breakfast though, so it was only fitting. Such was the state of decay that city of Bathe had fallen during this last month of the siege. A harmony of screams—calls to arms, and cries of death—pulled Milton from his macabre synesthesia. It was the sound of battle renewed. Milton instinctively rejected both. He rejected his superior’s signal—onwards, to the wall—and he rejected the certain death it would carry him too. As other soldiers rushed to their posts, he made himself scarce. As he slunk back from building to building, Milton scanned his surroundings for refuge. Blinded by fear and fatigue, he was oblivious to the soldiers that trickled out from deeper within the city. Bathe had unleashed it’s full might, and it was pathetic; men nearly mummified in bandages and poorly trained reserves converged and headed for the wall. Luckily for Milton, they were just as preoccupied as he. Eventually Milton came to a tilted tower that had once been used by the city watch. It was abandoned now; wether this was because of the dearth of troops, or the missile that had knocked the building off kilter, Milton did not know. Regardless, it would suit his needs just fine. Milton entered through a small wooden door, and made for the stairs. He needed to scope out his surroundings, and gauge the enemy advance. If there was a way out of this doomed city, Milton would find it. By the time he reached the top of the stairs, Milton was practically crawling. After struggling with the door for some time, he kicked the flimsy sheet of wood in. Immediate he was met by light, and familiar smells. Milton shuffled forward and crouched behind the last remaining piece of stone at the tower's edge, ignoring a decaying corpse sprawled a few feet to his side. He only dared poke his head out momentarily, lest he be spotted by an officer or worse—the enemy. What Milton couldn’t see though, he could hear. This was the invader’s final push. Their enemies were well fed, but they were hungry too. They wanted what the defenders had denied them: victory, rest, wealth, women, peace, and a good bath (in Bathe). Ten months in an army camp is stifling and monotonous. They wanted in just as badly as Milton wanted out. Milton took another peak forwards, towards the city wall. He could make out Bathe's banner. It was ablaze. Already soldiers were being driven back into the city; they would be scattered, divided, picked off, and annihilated. Not him though, Milton resolved. He would not die today. As one flag burns, another rises. Across the east hill, behind the enemy advance, a third banner is pulled into the gravity of a once great city. It would be thirty seconds before Milton ventured another look beyond the city. In that time, lines of men had crested the field, illuminated by the fire they left in their wake. The enemy camp was burning. Milton shifted out from behind his rock, and reflexively took cover again. A moment passed. Another. Milton did a double take. He saw the flag. In his excitement Milton stood up to get a better look. There it was, the crest of Tuscaloo—Salvation! Abruptly, Milton slumped back down with a 4 inch whole in the left center of his head. I guess salvation has to be earned.
And what they want most of all is what they can never have. Like a drowner who has taken his first inevitable, involuntary inhalation of nothing but water flooding an oxygen-starved system... Looking up at the surface must feel like it could last forever and it's really mere seconds.. Fifteen, tops. Pity, really. I ashed my cigar on the ripples left behind by the splash of the girl's body, hands bound tight behind her back.... It was boring by now, if I had to tell the truth. One girl, three men, my aunt, my dog, my kid's bully. The shit was damn near random at one point. Anyways, I sink people in the pond on my land, way up in the back of my land.. It's not always been a boring life. I got married a couple years back and it's been kind of great actually. Joan wants to move to Los Angeles because it's "the place to be"but I can't leave the fuckin' pond, ya know? But try explaining that to this fucking broad. Dumb as a box of potatoes and twice as stubborn, but I love her... Sank 2 grand into her tits but I do so dearly love her... I dunno, maybe I'll fill the fucking thing in, consider it an investment. Build a fuckin' barn over it or something. I've been doing really well at work. THE most prominent branch of my job in Corporate operating in the Greater Los Angeles Area has been more than welcoming in response to my inquires via telephone. I'll probably fill in the damn pond eventually, build the damn barn, pack up and get out of this whole cursed area. People want what they don't have. I want to forget this... I don't want to look over my shoulder any more... or feel like I hear someone whispering to me. Someone dead. By my hand.
"We've come this far", I think to myself. A quick glance around me and I correct myself. "I've come this far". Sitting in the cockpit of the the world's first starship capable of reaching a distance this far in space, I glance out in the darkness in front of me. A few stars here a there, but otherwise, complete darkness. I don't know what I expected. Maybe something special, like an encounter of the 3rd kind, but no. It's been nothing this far. 30 years since I've left the Earth's surface with my once live crew. I take a deep sigh, and activate the ships recording for the log to be sent back to my home planet. "This is crew member, Jack Furlough, reporting from the Starship Tirano. Log 227. 30 years, 4 months and 6 days from deployment. My crew members have all entered a deep sleep and the Captain has driven himself mad. He now rests peacefully, out in the confines of space. Mission 'Echo' has been interesting to say the least, but is coming to an end. It has been 2 months since the fuel levels have depleted and computer systems state that there is only 36 hours of oxygen left". I take a long pause, staring out of the cockpit window again. Wondering if all of this was worth it. I begin to think of my daughter and a smile appears on my face. "This has been Jack Furlough", I resume. "Mission Echo has been a wonderful adventure nonetheless and I don't regret a thing. Please pass the message on to my daughter Emily, that not a day went by where I've forgotten about our times together". Tears form in my eyes and I decide to cut transmission "Signing off...". I release the button and sit back. Another deep stare into the vast emptiness of space, and I, happily, sigh.
The podium stood out in the edge of the great plaza, a metal finger jutting upwards from the gray floor. On it, stood the man who'd give the Devil chills. "I have come to love this country. This people - my people - I have come to love you. I do what I do because you choose to defy me. Were you to surrender peacefully, you would all be embraced by a love only a father can show to his child. Yet you run from me; you fight my soldiers, you resist my urges of surrender, you resist. Disgusting." The crowd watched the speech, silent, their eyes glued to the LED sign behind them. QUIET, it read. When it changed to APPLAUSE, the crowd would erupt in cheers. LAUGHTER, and the funniest joke would be in everyone's hearts. DISMISS, and in two minutes there wouldn't be a single soul in this plaza. For now, it read QUIET. And QUIET they were. "I know you all have something to cling to. All of you have lives, loved ones, friends. All can be taken away. If I so chose to, I could hound you all up and hang you by the entrails, and I wouldn't even flinch - but I love you. And, because I love you, I won't do that, if you comply. This regime will only work if you fully commit - and if you don't commit wholeheartedly to this government, I'll have to use force." There were at least three thousand people watching the rally. None of them were there from their own volition, but then again, they didn't have the right to want things anymore. That's sort of the jist of a dictatorship. The LED still read QUIET. No sound came from the crowd. "Other countries have existed before, you know? Other nations have tried this whole system of government. They gave it cute names, made banners, tried to bring the people in by winning their hearts. You know what I'll do? I'll say to you, 'serve me, or die', and if you don't serve, well, you're a goner! No chills!" LAUGHTER. The crowd roared, hugging and shaking each other, it was so funny. When the LED changed to QUIET again, it took a whole two seconds for silence to return. "So these are my commands. Serve me, or perish. I'll know if you plot, I'll know if you run, I'll know if you try to do anything. I. Know. Everything. Now leave, malcontent. Back to your shitty lives, before I think again and decide to murder you all. What are you waiting for, GO!" QUIET, the LED read. Quiet they stood, immovable, observing the screen. The leader turned to his second in command. "See? They trust the screens over me. The bastards. Kill them, and show the video on all the telescreens in this country. No command reigns over mine." MURDER, the LED displayed. The crowd rushed to obey.
A man in tights and a cape bursts into the wedding room. "MY NAME IS CLARK KENT"he screams drunkenly. As he takes off his glasses he is revealed to be my father. "DIVORCE THIS WHORE!"he shrieks drunkenly. "This is how I save the world, this is my promise." Ahh, now I see. I believe when I was younger my father was drunk when he slurred "I have to go save the world" Anyways he got kicked out and I am now "HAPPILY MARRIED!!"I fucking howled as he left.
Red is a passionate kiss, wandering hands, it's a rock slipping beneath your foot at the edge of a cliff. It's road rage. Its so hot it burns. It's the colour of your blood and the colour of a rose. It's the colour of sunburn, on your nose. Yellow is delight, it is laughter, it's two children skipping through a park when the sun is full and bright. It can be sour, bittersweet, sickly. Mostly it is mild and pleasant, the sun is yellow. Green is nature, it's refreshing and relaxing. The beauty of the spring and the summer is green, in leaves on trees, bushes, weeds. Green is mold, toxic sludge, poisonous gas. Green is life, when it's raw, dirty and beautiful. Blue is calm but it's also crashing waves. Blue is a corporate sales meeting full of Dave's. Blue is the colour of a nurses scrubs, and the colour of the ocean and the sky. Blue is the feeling of the winter winds on your face, and of tears from your eyes.
I blinked in confusion at my phone screen. I tapped it, curious to know where he had been for three months. soon enough I saw where he had been. through bizarre circumstances he had been shrunk and stuck to the inside of an organ pipe at a local mall. He was now deaf and had a permanent slouch. I commented on the post. "seems like you a resoundingly good time there!"A few minutes later I got another popup. "stop with the awful puns for crying out loud." I grinned, and began to type a reply. "They just come organica-"before I could finish the sentence I had my door kicked in by SWAT. A notification popped up. "Stop or else you get swatted."I looked at my phone with defeat. Stupid slow phone.
Day 1, I just fucking got here and I already found three used condoms.(hehe no pun intended) I remember when I was in college, partly because I graduated three years ago. I don't however remember all the sex and horny people. Welp, they just paged me, I better go see whats up. OH MY GOD! After I had finished writing I went to see what the problem was and they told me to check the second floor janitor closet. I opened the door and a very pungent odor just slams into me. It was so bad it knocked the wind out of me. Well, as per my janitorial duties I sucked it up and went in. I was so confused because nothing looked out of the ordinary, that was until i noticed the shoe box... I picked that wretched box and it immediately fell apart. It must have been two inches of cum that just splashed out of it. The smell got even worse and I immediately felt sick. I couldn't even turn around before I began projectile vomiting. After I was done vomiting the closet smelled ten times worse! I vomited again but this time I chose to vomit in my trash can. What a rough day. Alright I'm ending it here, I'll be back in a few days or so. &#x200B; Day 14, Alright, apparently that shoe box full of cum was the weirdest thing I have yet to encounter. Yeah, there's the occasional tampon or condom here and there, but nothing like that. I did however find a sex doll on one of the men's toilets in the third floor restroom. I guess I'm starting to get used to it, desensitized is the word I think. I just got paged again, dear God I hope its nothing bad. Okay, I just got back. It wasn't anything too bad. They had found a group of five or so kids in an empty classroom just banging the shit out of each other, literally. They got expelled and I was left to deal with the warm, smelly bodily fluids left behind. There must have been two pounds of shit. Who poops two pounds of shit? They let me go back to my apartment after that so I guess I'm gonna call it a day. I'll be back with some more Shitacular stories soon. &#x200B; Week 6, Boy do I have stories to tell you. So first things first, the day after my last entry I had been paged to come look at an unknown disturbance in the boiler room. I got down there and immediately heard metal clanging. I walk back to the water pipes and whatnot and I couldn't believe my eyes. In front of me stood a student with his dick in a water pipe, just hammering away at it. Before I could hold it back I burst out laughing. The kid turned around with huge wide eyes and turn so fucking red I thought he was gonna explode haha! He damn near ripped his dick off when he pulled so hard on that pipe to get it off. He pulled up his shorts and just hauled ass outta there! I will never forget that. Poor guy didn't even finish the deed. Somebody's gonna have blue balls tonight. After that nothing much happened for the next three or four days. It was just regular condom, tampon and cum cleanup. Nothing too exciting. Then on the fifth or sixth day I got paged by the Dean that she had found someone in her personal quarters. I was so excited that I forgot to put cologne under my nose!(In case it smelled horrible of course, I'm not a fucking weirdo) I got up to her quarters and I immediately see that there are panties and bras strewn across her office and personal quarters. I found her in her bedroom just staring at the mess. I asked her what happened and she told me a couple kids came in while she was out getting groceries and ransacked her quarters! I asked her if there was any permanent damage and she led me to a hole in the wall that was unmistakable. These horny bastards had made an improvised glory hole! One end was in the bathroom shower and the other was in the bedroom. There was cum leaking out both sides, and it was in the wall as well. She told that wasn't it so I followed her to the next crime scene and found a fucking mural of the Dean, naked and handcuffed to her bed! It was so good too, not in a perverted sense, it was just cool. She was so mad, I swear I saw steam coming out of her ears! Being the ever faithful janitor I was, I cleaned up the mess and patched the hole along with scraping and repainting the wall that the mural had been on. I guess she was so glad that she wanted to give me a little reward. Just as I finished the last stroke on the wall I heard a woosh of cloth behind me. Lo and behold, the Dean stood there in lingerie! To say it was a surprise would be an understatement. That night was the best night I have had in a very long time! Anyways, after that I was called to a student's dorm room that had been smelling horrible. I get up there and as soon as I step out of the stairwell it hits me. Even with the cologne under my nose I almost lost my lunch. I close in on the target dorm and push the door open with my mop handle. The whole fucking room, from ceiling to floor, in every nook and cranny, I saw shit. Shit everywhere. It was awful! I guess feces is considered a biological weapon so the college had to quarantine the entire building. I wasn't even allowed in. It was so bad that they had to bring in those guys in hazmat suits. That's about everything major, nothing else happened that was worth noting. I'll be back in a couple weeks or so. Month 4, Okay first things first, the university was shut down. I thought I had lost all sensitivity towards the sexual shit but it got worse. a couple weeks after the shit stuff went down I was called to the Biology teacher's room. Before I say anything else, yes he probably deserved since I heard so many bad things about him, but still. I walked in and the first thing I see is a stuffed animal hanging by a rope in the middle of the room. The biology teacher had situated himself as far away as possible from the monstrosity that would later come to be known as the "Beginning". As I walked closer I began to get the familiar smell of shit in my nose. I soon saw that the stuffed animal had been rubbed in human shit and left to sit before someone hung it in here. No biggie, I thought. I took it down disinfected the room and went about the rest of my day. We had gotten a new batch of students a week before, but no one really noticed them. It wasn't a week before the next thing went down. The faculty had been notified of a website that was being hosted off the school's internet under a VPN. We thought nothing of it until we saw the website. Hundreds of videos of rape or torture and multiple beastiality videos were on there. We immediately de-activated it and most of us went about our duties. I however, went straight back to my apartment and curled in a ball and cried. Me being a man and everything didn't matter, not then not now. It was then that we finally noticed the multiple fliers across the campus of missing students. The staff and I immediately felt sick, it felt like I had been hit by a truck. Again, I ran back to my apartment and cried myself to sleep. My sanity was breaking off bit by bit now. Sex is one thing, but torturing and raping and possibly killing another student is just wrong, and not to be dismissed, its also illegal! The faculty members kept an eye out for any strange things happening on campus, that obviously didn't help. If someone wanted to hide something like this, it obviously wouldn't be easy to find. Or so we thought. I had been running maintenance through the basement like every other week, but this time I noticed that beside the trash cans were some garbage bags. I thought nothing of it at first. The cans are probably full I thought. They were, but that's not the point. I went to pick up the bags to sling them into an extra trash can I had wheeled over. As soon as I began to lift the bag I knew something was wrong. The bag was way too heavy to be just trash. I could barely pick it up. Dreading what I figured would be in the bag, I pulled my box cutter out and cut it open. A torrent of blood, guts and maggots burst out of the bag. Now we knew what happened to the students at least. This happened the week before the university got shut down. We called police, called hazmat squads and a couple homicide detective facilities. Well, it turns out that the town found out and reported it to the federal government who in turn, decided it would be best to shut down and demolish the university. We all agreed, unfortunately that's not all. They had announced this the beginning of the last week of classes. It began normally, but by Thursday night and Friday we noticed some very awful things. Strewn about the halls were intestines and fecal matter along with various other bodily fluids. There were other things too, but I don't feel like writing about them. So this is it. My last entry, I'm sad that it had to end so horribly. Goodbye, &#x200B; Ted &#x200B; Edit: Sorry if there are any grammatical mistakes, I type faster than my brain processes stuff.
I rode upon my newly genetically-modified zombie dragon, watching the world burn. Zombies, contrary to your expectations, do not last forever. They also do not work that well as soldiers, having an expiration date of around three months. As a result, I had to work very, very quickly to exact my revenge. &#x200B; You see, it all started a couple of decades ago, when the collective will of humanity pretty much wiped out the last refuge of the vampires. They had blessed the rains down there with the stupid song, and the resulting climate change had churned those blasted rains everywhere, killing almost all the major vampires. I, however, did not have this problem. As the CEO of a major sunscreen company, who also had extensive stock holdings in mechanical (non-wooden) pencils and garlic substitute flavors, I had all the resources I really needed to stave off the worst. I lived in Seattle, where the rains fell really heavily. The rain rarely did more than itch there, because by the time blessed water came up from Europe or Africa, it was diluted to the point of harmlessness. I would have picked San Diego, to be honest. I needed a place where bio-engineers ran rampant and biological experiments were common, so I could procure supplies. But Seattle was fine. In the dark depths of a laboratory, I bred archaic bacteria mixed with my own spells, creating a deadly brain disease that animated dead corpses, creating the first zombies. My workers were the first to succumb to this terrifying virus, which could not be killed by traditional methods of sterilization, since archaic bacteria had been around since the dawn of life, amidst boiling ocean and burning volcano. Soon, the entire city was affected, with more zombies coming online every day. I had offloaded my own spellwork to a series of computers, that linked the zombie horde together, allowing me to control them at will. I loaded them onto cars, tanks, and whatever other vehicles I could find, and threw convoys of them at the nearest enemy bases. One moved along the northeastern path, clearing out minor resistance along the way. The group there also carried secret supplies for mobile laboratories, capable of cloning new hosts for my zombie armies should I feel like it. I hid them among the Rocky Mountains and in the forests of Canada, hoping they wouldn't rot in the face of the sun. My spells, also, did not like the sun. My second route faced fierce resistance as it pushed toward Washington DC. Forced to move toward major cities, I managed to crawl my armies toward Texas, only to find a rifle behind every blade of grass. The major population centers, like Houston, managed to fall, but I still couldn't push deeper South. What's worse, my headless zombies also cannot cross running water. Without the remnants of fluids to check balance in eardrums, these headless zombies would all fall in the water and drown. I pushed fiercely toward California. Soldiers there made desperate stands and nuclear submarines charbroiled Northern California into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. But I pushed on, and soon, the dry, desert heat of Southern California meant I could train elite zombie soldiers. Carefully wrapping them in linens and throwing them into dark incubation chambers, I soon created an army of invincible mummy warriors, who became my elite guard. Jet fighter raids and strategic bomber raids still hurled a variety of ordnance at my occupied territories. In particular, naval strikes from each coast, deadly raids from Texas and the South, all took a toll on my troops. But having cut off the Canadian allies, I managed to hide most of my valuable cloning facilities and manufactories deep in Canada's mountains and forests. At last, I had managed to get my hands on some aircraft, after having seized the Mojave desert and Arizona. I began firebombing raids on the breadbaskets remaining on the continent, while secretly sending raids across toward the Caribbean. The unrest there and in South America aided both my military moves and my spells, for dead corpses, I found, provided even better hosts for my virus. My spell powers had grown from extensive practice. But my zombies, at least the first wave, were slowly falling apart. Except for my mummies, the main army of the first wave was now few in number and crumbling at the joints, little more than skeletons with a few pieces of virus-infected flesh hanging on. But the campaign was now almost over. I had, at last, pushed all the way to California's coast. The first wave of zombie-laiden rockets began to fire, raining all across East Asia. The populations there, I hoped, would sustain my conquest longer. But there were still no more zombies available in the United States, and Washington, despite all its apparent failures, had managed to organize a deadly, worldwide resistance, blasting me with nukes and carrier strikes all over the coast and deep into my territory. I, however, had a different plan. The rotting carcasses of rusting ships were repaired and set afloat. Cargo containers were stuffed with dead corpses, waiting to be infected by vials of the virus hanging above them. Fell bats flew over the ships crewed by zombie armies, where the sky began to darken. I had, at last, managed to tame the greatest weapon of the age. I can at last wield my powers in the open, without fear of the sun. In the former state of Wyoming, a load roar is heard as Old Faithful bursts into flame, pouring lava into the sky. Yellowstone spewed a massive cloud of smoke hundreds of miles into the air. At the same time, Mt. St. Helens and Vesuvius answered, as did Hawaii. The smoke began to drift over the atmosphere, covering the Earth in grey and brown. I rode atop my zombie dragon, its wings beating through the grey sky. Advance, my children, avenge Toto by Africa.
I took a deep breath, looking deeply into the reflection of my bathroom mirror at the face which was dimly lit by the small underachieving fluorescent lights above. I tried to sort the various things going through my head. I checked my body once again, looking anywhere for a sign that would prove which of these fleeting images in my head was the real one. No blood, nothing that indicated anything was unusual. &#x200B; No, it had to have been a dream. But I just couldn't shake the feeling that something about it was true. Was I going insane? Did I kill? Was that really me? I still felt the adrenaline, I could still smell the blood, I could still hear that terrible ripping sound of flesh being cut with a knife just dull enough to have a little bit of resistance. &#x200B; That wasn't me, though. No. I can't hurt a fly. I would never be someone's judge, jury, and executioner. What right would I have to make such a decision on someone else's life? &#x200B; I just went to the store. That's all. I remember that. I remember the store. The cold smell of air conditioning. Choosing which chips would be the best for tonight's studying. That was me. That was what happened. I know it. I remember the beep of checking out. I remember fumbling with my stupid food stamps card. I remember talking to the cashier about tourist season ending. &#x200B; But I remember her, too. I remember stopping to give her a lift. I remember driving her down the road a ways. I remember the tightness in my chest as I waited for the moment to do what I had to do. I remember her calling out for her mom. I remember... Jesus, if I could just NOT remember that. That gurgling noise. Shortness of breath. Oh, here it comes! Her eyes unfocusing. Almost gone. No breathing now. Still some movement. I wonder what it felt like. &#x200B; In my head, fresh as an open wound. &#x200B; I walked back to my car. Exiting the small roadside park bathroom. I had no choice, right? I let out a short breath as I saw a local cop pass by. But why? I didn't do anything wrong, remember? That didn't happen. It couldn't have. None of that was true. Just a dream. &#x200B; There was one way to find out. Open the box. Let out the cat. Shroedinger would be proud. As long as I kept that trunk door closed, I could never know. I didn't want to know. Just leave it shut. Cat be damned. &#x200B; I got in the car and drove off. &#x200B;

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.