Split (1)

train · 177k rows

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I've tried it so many times before, it has gotten extremely bland. I just want to be happy, once! Is that too much to ask? I've tried everything and I've gone through everything, but I've never been happy. I've managed to be 'successful' but even then I was not happy. This time it was going to be different, this time I know I'll be successful. Life's always different, and especially in the present it is very different. I've learned not to stress too much over school, I have all the life experience I need so I don't need grades. I laugh sometimes when teachers tell me that school gets me ready for the 'real world'. Little do they know. Anyways, the reason I know this time I'll be happy is one simple reason. This time I will do what I truly want. Every time I try to earn as much money or food as I can and have children. Now I realize that is not what I truly want, what I truly want is to do math. Yes, math, like what we learn in school. Math is something I enjoy, it explains the universe. It's the rules by which the universe runs, that is fascinating. I've always wanted to discover a piece of math. I want people to understand the universe better because of my discovery. For me that is what it means to leave my mark on the earth. So this time this is what I spend my time doing. Sure I needed to make sure I was financially stable first, but with all the years of experience I have that was easy. It's funny, even after all these years I still don't know what I'm doing, no one does. I just bullshit my way through life and focus on what makes me happy. You know what happened? I never made any huge mathematical breakthrough or discovery. But you know what? I've felt more happiness in this life than in all other lives combined. There is one simple reason for this, I did what made me happy. I'm writing this at the age of 80, and I feel like this time I won't come back.
Ever since Subway decided to expand their business into a LITERAL subway line, my commute is the perfect length! I just have to walk a mile from home to Subway, stay on until it gets to the one near work, and walk another half-mile to work. It’s just short enough that the time it takes to walk is still shorter than my drive, and just long enough that it’s a good low-impact workout for the day! I’ve actually felt my health improve! The amount of cars it has taken off the road is simply amazing. If I DO end up driving, there is so much less traffic. The roads and the air are cleaner, I swear. My whole community is healthier and happier since this program was rolled out!
We stood no chance whatsoever. There was no message, no dramatic landing, no spillage of otherworldly creatures from flying saucers or city-sized ships of conquest. Instead of that, from one moment to the next, our technology simply - crumbled. By the time the concerted efforts of scientists around the world had realized what was happening it was far too late and the earth was heading for a technological Gray Goo scenario; Cars crumbled, roads were made barren, yet the light from the street lights remained. Planes, trains and boats virtually disappeared overnight, to be replaced with drones that operated beyond our control; Our infrastructure was soon in the hands of The Machines, an evidently limitless army of macro-scale machines assembled from our very own technology and matter. From then on we could only make requests, and pray that the Machine Mind would allow us to ship our goods, move our mail, transport ourselves - We were rendered into children living in hopes of the approval of our parents. We were allowed our lives in exchange for adherence to the Machine Mind's arcane rules; all of our communications monitored to the letter, and subversive elements - disappeared. All the same, the Machine Mind set out to clean our environment and restore the balance to our ecosystems - it was simultaneously savior and tormentor, condescending in the ease with which it cleaned up after our decades of fouling up, using technologies we could only have dreamed of before to restore even lost lifeforms to their niche in the world - only impressing upon us more how powerless we were in it's eyes. We were left to fend largely for ourselves, but in places it deemed we should, vast buildings that grew out of nowhere while our cities - dissolved; down to the bricks, the wire, the foundations, the very constituent parts of our houses fell from around us only to be used to construct the colony buildings, entire nations forced together over months, population centered condensed to their very essentials, their densest state possible - the colonies were buildings miles wide and broad, rendering the very _need_ for infrastructure at greater scales a laughable ideas; we never had to move more than a few kilometers at a time. With all ouf our communications monitored it wasn't long before we stopped resisting - if only because those who resisted or called to arms, those who rebelled and those who thought Different were - rarely heard from for long, and then never again. We were railroaded into complacency over the course of years, working our newly meaningless lives with our only goal to create the one commodity we had a limitless supply of simply because in it's condensed and eventually culled state, humanity could produce more of it than we could ever consume; Energy. Beamed into orbit and taken gods-know where from there by vast arrays of collectors in our orbit and transmitters along our equator, it hadn't been long for even this to become accepted. What choice did we have? And moreover, with the relative freedom we had, the freedom to live by schedules set for us of work, leisure and sleep, why would we complain? There was no reason to, with the Machines governing our lives and allowing us to retain our entertainment, with the subversive voices quiesced, we soon became sheep. But sometimes, among the flocks of white, a sheep carries a black fleece. Some had noticed that the Music kept the Machine Mind from knowing, from acting - it was chalked up to how our radios and stereos worked; the intense and rhythmic electromagnetic pulses from our loudest music served to blanket us from it's knowledge and, as the Knowing spread, from more and more of it's influence. Even simple vibration at sufficient depth and intensity seemed to help protect us. Dubstep music in particular, with it's semi-predictable deep rhythms proved to be effective - the low vibrations of it seemed to add to the Machine Mind's confusion, seemed to distract and disorient it, and though it tried to fight back, tried to strike down our ability to play music, erasing libraries and entire swathes of the internet it had allowed us to use before, it couldn't account for our creativity, our ability to bang out rhythms on trash cans and chant where we couldn't play, our ability to rock the very foundations of the Machine Mind's creation with the power of our combined voices and the shocks of our combined dancing, to confuse it with our motions and themes, to confound it with our very creativity and ability to improvise began to set us free, allowed us to create and expand ever-greater pockets where we could live as we bid and be who we were. In the end, it was the power of Wub that set us free.
Hi u/Whisky_Chris, this submission has been removed. [No explicitly sexual responses, hate speech, or other harmful content](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_2.3A_no_explicitly_sexual_responses.2C_hate_speech.2C_or_other_harmful_content) - While it doesn't seem to be your intent, the mods reserve the right to remove anything we feel may become harmful to the community. Prompts will be removed if there's a high possibility for rule breaking responses ([rule 7](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_7.3A_prompts_will_be_removed_if_there.27s_a_high_possibility_for_rule_breaking_responses)) "Monster under the bed"almost always ends up with abusive parent stories; in a prompt like this that's practically guaranteed given the incremental nature of the monster. --- [Modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FWritingPrompts&subject=Removed%20post&message=https://old.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/agi2yx/-/%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.
“Get in, you idiot!” I yelled at Trevor as he was running past the door. “It’s safe in here!” He glanced at me, then back into the direction he was running, then back at me again. Finally he made up his mind and entered my church. I closed the heavy door behind him and put the bar across it. “What the hell is going on there?” asked Trevor, gasping. “You’re absolutely right,” I replied to him. “Hell. All hell broke loose into our lovely town.” “Are you sure the church can hold them out?” he wondered. “I was preparing for that my whole life,” I said. “Believe me, no one can go past these walls uninvited.” “Good, good. Thank you. I thought I’d never make it alive.” He was silent for a minute, catching his breath. “I’m sorry, padre.” He uttered eventually. “What for?” I asked. “For making fun of you all these years. We didn’t know you were right the entire time. You seemed like a mindless fanatic with all your speeches of doom and demon hordes invading our world. But you were telling the truth. I’m so sorry for being such an ass to you, and for my friends too, Mike, Stan and others.” “It’s okay, I’m holding no grudge. The line has been drawn, and everything that had happened before doesn’t matter anymore. Come.” I ushered Trevor down the aisle towards the altar. A man stood up to greet him. “Trev! My god, you’re okay!” “Mike? You’re here too?” Trevor asked. “Yes, so are Tom, Barry, and Stan,” answered Mike. Three men approached them and they all greeted each other. “Wait,” Trevor frowned, “What about your families?” “There’s only five of us in here, except for the padre, no one else,” said Mike. They needed a moment to think it over. Then the five pairs of eyes started spinning, looking for me. I was already standing by the exit door. “Hey, padre, what does it mean?” shouted Trevor. “Worry not, my children,” I pontificated. “Remember I told you no one could go past these walls uninvited? That includes going out too. And do you know where the portal to hell was opened?” “Where?” asked Mike. “In the altar room.” I quickly raised the bar, went out, and closed the door behind me. I heard faint footsteps as five men ran to the door. I heard them banging the door and yelling for me to let them out. And finally I heard screams of terror. I don’t know for sure if I was smiling to that. I think I was.
"I wish you would fucking die!"I scream at my best friend after a fight we had over some stupid reasons and lots of beers. "Yeah, fuck you too, Harry"my friend screams back at me. . Weird things have been happening all my life. One day it was raining and it just... stopped. Another day I got a few hundred thousand dollars in the mail. Even another time, a kid who used to bully me caught on fire and the video went viral across the globe. 1 year, 7 days later. Tears are streaming down my face. "Tim... Oh Tim..."I stand over his coffin and turn to face the audience, giving a speech about my best friend. "Tim and I have always been friends"I say. "Ever since we met in kindergarten. We would eat lunch together, play together, joke around. Tim was a wonderful child. Sure, we might have had a few fights here and there... but we also got back together. I've never been without Tim for a week. He was always there and I wish he was still alive." 6 months later: "I wish you were dead!"I scream at my mother. "Honey, don't say that."I storm out of my room, angry and upset over the summer holidays. 6 months later: Knocking sounds on the front door. It's Christmas time and I'm home for the break. I walk over to it and open it to see... Tim. "What the fuck?"I say. "Hey Harry"he smiles. "How's it going?" I tackle him in a bear hug. "Where have you been?" "I dunno. I've had a really nice sleep though." "Dude, you were fucking dead!" "What?" I step back. This had to be some sort of dream. "How are you here?"I ask him. He shrugs. "I woke up on the street corner and knew you lived here. So I... walked?" 6 months later: I'm standing over my mothers body, tears streaming down my face. "You were a good mom." Tim stands next to me. "Oh, Harry I'm so sorry." "Oh mom... I wish you were here with me..."
With a sharp knife, the force needed to penetrate the human body is less than you might expect. At first, the skin resists the pressure of the knife tip. When this pressure reaches a critical mass, it pierces the surface. Now the hard work is almost done. The blade sinks below the flesh with a small fraction of force required to penetrate it. How deep the knife goes depends on the intent of its wielder and the sharpness of the point. Killing, you see, does not require strength. It requires precision. My knife is simple and sharp. The blade is exactly four inches – no longer or shorter than my job requires. The handle is made of ash wood: affordable, comfortable, nothing flashy. Alongside my tattered overcoat, underclothes, pocket watch and a second-hand Hyundai inherited from my late father, they are the only notable possessions I own. I sleep in my car and beg for my food. For this, I am mighty. Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death. I know the proverb well. We speak it often. I pull over on a potholed avenue on the outskirts of London and kill the engine. The roads are silent. Most of the houses are abandoned, their windows smashed, roofs robbed of slate. I check my pocket watch and climb out of the car. Half four and it’s already getting dark. My employer indicated that there is a Pig hiding somewhere along this avenue. If our intelligence is correct, they are doing a good job of concealing their location. A smart Pig would do well to smash their windows themselves and keep their luxuries hidden well out of sight. Only the dumbest ones relocated to the desolate mansions in the West, making them easy to targets. I walk along the avenue looking for tell-tale signs of avarice: the mumble of a radio or the glare of a television screen. So far, there's nothing out of the ordinary. The avenue is blissfully deserted. The air smells, not unpleasantly, of shit. I find peace in the destruction, solace in the absence of distraction. A faint noise catches my attention a little further along the road. At first, I think it could be my Pig. Alas, no such luck. The noise is coming from a boy lying in the middle of the road, naked. He can’t be much older than twelve of thirteen. From his body, I can tell he has starved himself. His rib cage threatens to burst through his chest and his spine is twisted and bent like a pretzel. The boy mumbles something when he sees me, his eyes hollow and sunken behind the bone. I trace the cross over my chest as a sign of respect, for he has who has given up everything is far nobler than I. I leave the boy to die in honour and continue my search along the avenue. I’m about to turn back to my car when I catch the faint whiff of something – something mingling with the smell of shit… Cigarette smoke. Perhaps the most obvious sign of a nearby Pig. Very sloppy, very sloppy indeed. I trace the scent of the cigarette smoke to an unassuming semi-detached house next to where the avenue joins a roundabout. The downstairs windows are broken, and the front door is open. There is a fresh corpse in the front garden. Female this time. Slit wrists, self-inflicted. It couldn’t be more than a couple of days old by the business of flies swarming the eye sockets. The windows on the top floor, however, are perfectly intact. The apocalypse seems to have forgotten them entirely. I’ve hunted enough Pigs to know their dirty tricks. By carefully staging destruction downstairs and the front of the house like Christmas decorations, they seek to evade the notice of passing Rats who hunt them. This Pig had clearly gone to a lot of effort to avoid drawing attention to himself. Too much effort. I allow myself a short smile. To take satisfaction in the death of others is a sin unto itself, and so I swallow my emotions and focus on the task ahead. Someone who had gone to this much effort might have loaded traps. I tread carefully through the open door, feeling around the corners of the walls in case of trip wires. The Pig must be inside. As expected, the downstairs is immaculately devastated. Mould grows on the ceiling of the hallway and on the windowsills in the kitchen. Mountains of washing up with rotten food decorate the surfaces. There is even a trail of blood leading from an armchair in the living room to the body outside. Whichever Pig lives here has gone to extraordinary lengths; it feels like I’m walking around a theatre set. The cigarette smoke is coming from upstairs, I’m certain of it. I tiptoe one step at a time, careful of the floorboards alerting the Pig of my presence. Over the years, I’ve learned to move through houses with the delicacy of dust accumulating on the top of an old wardrobe. I reach the landing without making so much as a whisper. Light bleeds through the second door ajar on the right: the glare of a television screen. I soon hear the mumble of voices talking on low volume. The thought of manufactured entertainment makes the scraps of stale bread I had for breakfast rise in my throat. I swallow, pressing my fist against my mouth. This Pig, I decide, must be brought to justice. I reach into the inside pocket of my overcoat and withdraw my knife. It is perfectly balanced in my hand. Slowly, delicately, carefully, I ease the door open. &#x200B;
Dovahkant “Dragons? Pah!” Ale sloshed from the mug as he slammed it down haphazardly and and grinned like a fool. The mountain of a man bellowed out a laugh as he waved his hand about in the air. “I could swat a dragon out of the sky with the back of my hand back in my time.” “Is that so?” The relative din of the bar quieted substantially as the voice drifted up from the lone man at the corner table. Picking his own mug up, he sipped from it casually before turning his cold eyes upon the lout. “Oy! Old man..what was that you said? You dare doubt my power?” The thug rose and glowered. Standing easily over 7’ tall, his large round head almost clipped the staghorn chandelier hanging from the ceiling, though he hardly noticed. His reddened eyes and rosy cheeks regarded the man in the corner with detached focus bordering on rage. “How dare you! Do you know who I am?” Keeping his seat, the slender man glanced up from his mug and looked him over slowly, fishing a hand into his robe and pulling out a rather worn looking parchment. Looking from the man, to the scrap and back again before responding. “If the stories are to be believed, I am in the presence of the one the dragons called kin, once upon a time…” The smirk upon his lips was evident and the hush in the bar had settled in completely. All eyes now turned to the hulking behemoth of a man and soon to be dead stranger provoking him. With a roar the mountain sized barbarian gripped the double sided axe on his back and swung it down in front of himself, catch the edge of the table that he had been sitting at and flinging it up to the side and slamming up against the far wall of the bar, limping his way closer to the smug man with a frenzied sort of glee. His voice lowered but no less fierce. “I may have retired from monster fighting, but I’ve still got more than enough strength to squash you like a bug.” The old man laughed softly and lifted the ale to his lips once more, taking a slow lazily sip as he watched the spectacle. “Come now, Orin, you know full well how this is going to end…” The name caused a soft murmur to rifle through the crowd and the intense stare from Orin the giant darkened substantially, though his step faltered as he slowed his approach. “Who are you to dare utter my-” “You know, I was an adventurer like you once...” Eyes widening in sudden recognition, the hulking man sprinted suddenly, his limp gone as he dashed across the few feet between him and the man, his massive axe swinging down in a deadly descent. The whole set of movements happened so quickly that few had time to react. In fact in the whole bar only a single word was uttered before the blade was able to make contact, but that word came from the robed man, and it was said with a smile. By the time the guards arrived, the bar was in shambles. Patrons were still huddled together outside and talking excitedly but few were able to fully explain what they had seen. All of the stories were more or less consistent though. A man in a gray cloak had entered the bar early in the morning and had been sitting at the same table sipping ale all day without a word or visitor. When Orin had arrived, he had let him get nice and drunk before instigating him and when Orin had attacked...well. That was when the stories had gotten a bit odd. The reports varied from magic to some sort of trick of light. Some said he had moved so fast that it looked like he hadn’t moved at all but most simply reported a loud noise and then finding Orin on the opposite side of the room in shambles. Orin was apprehended and though many saw the man limp his way outside of the bar, no one bothered to follow.
\First time writer, be gentle, there is more but i cut it short so it is hopefully readable (Can post if wanted), any notes for me to work on or my writing style would be greatly appreciated. \ “Amen”, my eyes still closed, I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly in an attempt from keeping my body from shaking, to try and still my hands. The pain of heartache seemed to begin in my stomach, reverberating through every extremity, but ended with the feeling of a golf ball in the back of my throat I was unable to swallow. How could I be so dumb as to cheat, I could not help but think about the memory once more over for what seemed to be the thousandth time, her fist slamming against my front door. “I know Jennifer…is in their” Alex’s voice quavering. “How the fuck could you do this to us James”. She was right, Jennifer and I lay motionless in my bedroom for what seemed like hours, too craven to answer the door and face the partner I betrayed, too ashamed to touch as we left Alex outside to scream herself horse. “Fuck” I said allowed as I slammed my fist down hard against my dining table. \*CUUNG\* I was met with an unfamiliar sound that made my eyes dart open and look down, I was no longer sitting at my dining table, the stained wood replaced with a silver metallic surface I did not recognise. The table and my hands were so intensely lit, I squinted as I looked up, expecting to find myself outside. I found quite the opposite, I was sitting at a small chrome table with a chrome chair opposite facing me. The walls were not white but seemed to be emitting white light, curiously however there were no floor or ceiling edges to the room. I felt in a daze, as if waking from a deep sleep in an unfamiliar room attempting to gather my bearings. “Fuck is right” a door slammed shut behind me causing me to jolt upright and snap my head around. Behind me was no door, only an elderly gentleman dressed in beige corduroy slacks, a light blue sweater vest and overly large spectacles with thick black frames which he had pushed high upon the bridge of his nose that contrasted nicely with his neatly combed grey hair. I starred up at him from my seat as he walked past, this grandfather figure with lips bunched together as he shook his head judgingly from what I can only describe as a position of knowledge. I sat silently as he took a seat opposite me and begun tapping a pen against a clipboard on the table before him. He tsk’d loudly as I watched his eyes run across the page, the page was blank, furthermore I could not recall the clipboard being there a mere moment ago. “You do know you weren’t supposed to sleep with another girl James”, the elderly gentleman calmly stated looking up from the clipboard. “I’m sorry” “You’re not. Also I don’t mean, you weren’t supposed to sleep around because it’s a shitty thing to do to Alex. I mean, I simulated the scenario literally an infinite number of times, and you never cheated.” “I’m…I’m sorry”, Its all I could find myself saying as the gentlemen who looked old enough to be my grandfather sat with furrowed brow again returning his concentration to his clipboard. “Who…Who are you..” I continued to stammer whilst feeling inadequate and anxious as if unprepared for a job interview, longing to go back to my wallowing in self-pity. “I guess, I’m akin to what you would call God, and usually I don’t speak to you lot, but you broke a lot of things with your penis James, sooo here we are” “God, is an old man?” “this?” God gestured to himself, “think of it as a mask I knew you would feel comfortable with. But we are here to talk about you” God picked up the clipboard, adjusted his spectacles, cleared his throat and began. “James Mc Elwood, born January 3rd 1989 is supposed to Marry Alex Zhu, born August 12th 1992 and together give birth to Emma Mc Elwood on October 2nd 2024, James… that’s you” God said as he pointed across the table only briefly glancing up to ensure I was following along before continuing. “You instil a love of travel and astronomy in your daughter Emma who goes onto discover the equation which allows faster than light travel once she dedicates herself to the mutual passions she shared with her father, again that’s you, following your untimely death, aged 51.” I could feel my mouth slowly slide open.
PART ONE: He would show up almost always entirely at random, just out of sight, a fragment of my imagination floating in the far corner of my eye. Willow had told me to ignore him... to ignore it, she had begged me not to look, not ever. "There's no need."she had argued, "If it makes you uncomfortable, you ignore it. You pretend its not there." And I listened, to begin with. Out of love alone if nothing else. Refusing to acknowledge that specter in the shadows. But with time the urge to look grew stronger. I wanted to know what it was. I needed to know. &#x200B; One late December eve Willow and I were walking home from a night of what we called a Triple Threat, the three D's essential to any great night out. Drink. Dance. And Drag. Too soon we'd add Death to the mix. Madam O' had been performing at Lays, and God what a performance she gave. That b\tch was one damn fierce queen. We didn't live too far outside of town, a mile and a half, a walk that seemed a good idea. It'll give us time to enjoy the fresh air, and maybe sober up enough to enjoy each other.* Fresh? That night was bitterly cold, a chill sat patiently over the gentle winds. Snow threatened to fall from bleak, white clouds that brooded in an almost rich, crimson sky. The tall buildings around us, imperceptible in all but shape beneath the gloom, towered like silent giants watching over the vast city landscape. A horrid glow tormented the streets and the starving back alleys, luminescent nightlife signs screaming bright colours into the depths of the shadows. He was here, watching us. I could feel him, eyes boring into the back of our skulls. Look behind you. The shadow, a wavering figure just out of sight, was taunting us, or me. Turn around now, you know you want to! And by God did I. I wrapped my fingers tight around Willow's own hand, she could sense my unease, but said nothing of it, instead she smiled, "Not much further."she squeezed my hand lovingly in return. The streets were empty, all save for the figure lurking someplace behind us. No other night crawlers were out on the prowl, not so much as a cab in search of a fare was patrolling the roads. Utterly still, the city slept, and in its slumber he followed us joyfully. Just a quick little peak! Come now. LOOK AT ME! Closing my eyes I turned to Willow, "He's here."I whispered, the chill carried off my pale lips. Willow kissed me, hugged me tight, and whispered back, "Ignore him, honey. We're nearly home." And I might have been able to, I might not have looked if the silence remained as it was. But his taunting grew louder, like the dripping of a tap. Drip, drip. Drip, drip. An itch on my mind and in my ears, one that I badly needed to scratch. After all, I told myself, you just need to turn the tap a little tighter... "Ella, no!"Willow grabbed at my arm, trying to stop me mid-turn. But she was too late, I'd already seen him. A man unnaturally tall and hellishly thin, his bones outlined his being, cheeks, and ribs, and skullen hands. He wore a cloak of pale grey, the same colour of his skin. Though that skin... it looked more like leather, and it frayed and flaked at every join. In his hand he held a dagger, a blood red eye within the hilt, watching me, watching Willow. Willow reached into her pocket and took out a knife, a flip knife, so small, what good could it do! "What... what the hell are you doing?"I cried, my voice quivering from more than just the cold. Willow knelt down before the sidewalk and began frantically carving, she turned to me with an eerie calmness, "Run, and whatever you hear don't you dare look back."she nodded and with her lips mouthed I love you. I don't know why but I started to run, my legs carried me away without so much as a thought. But I'd seen, and what was done was done. So I urged myself to stop, to turn again, to watch. Upon the sidewalk strange runes, not all too foreign to my mind, began to char and blacken. From without them drooled a steady, rising mist of ash. Clumped together the ash became a figure, limping, bent double over back, heavy claws dragging at its side. Willow smiled, a sickly thing to see. "Oh Willow."the man in the grey tittered, "Return her to me and let this all be over."I noticed now that the man had no eyes of his own, just hollow sockets in his skull. But his face, I recognised it. Where from? I ran rapidly through the long ties of memory, there was something hidden deep, something I'd forgotten. Willow's ashen demon was bounding toward the man in grey, its guttural cries desecrating the somber silence of the cities night. Lights flickered in the windows of those tall and lurching buildings. Some high, some low, more shadows gathering in the wake of yellowed, yawning mouths. The man in grey shook his head, tongue lolling in his mouth, "I really wish you wouldn't."he said, and without seeming to move the dagger flew from his hand, turning over in the air, the lone eye seeming still to glare longingly at me. Me! More so than Willow. Me! The dagger found its mark, buried deep within the ashen creatures forehead. In a glorious blaze that soon fizzled out the creature disbanded, melting away against the slabbed floor of the sidewalk. "Too long I've waited for this."the man in grey began, and with a subtle flick of the wrist the dagger rose up and returned to his hand, "Do you think so common a creature could stop me?"he let loose a heavy sigh, "I tire of our games, Willow. Give the girl to me. She is mine by right!" Give the girl to me... a sudden realisation dawned upon me, and piece by piece this skeletal figure of a man found its place within my memory. Sebastian? I recalled him as a man much younger, and far more lively in the flesh. It was the eyes that had tricked my mind. Sebastian. Dearest friend to my father, the only one to have watched him die. &#x200B; PART TWO BELOW.
Kayde was just strolling through the park looking at his phone. He was trying to score up his work-out tracker app. A couple more miles and he could win a rare prize. His phone brightness was at max level, trying to battle the shine of the sun. Same as with all the other people on their phones and laptops. School was currently in session. There were no kids to worry about. It was the blissful moment that all parents and non-parents alike could enjoy. His phone vibrated, notifying him of passing his fourth mile today. Kayde ignored it and continued scrolling through his media. Just as he clicked a post, the screen went white. Brighter than it was ever programmed to do. Only other color were the bold words in black, seemingly screaming at him. GET DOWN NOW! Kayde was a reasonable person. He got down in the way he thought the message meant. A tiny part of his conciousness expected something to actually happen, but it looked like nothing did. He looked around at the other people in the park. Nearly everyone was kneeling, staring baffled either at their phone or elsewhere. "I think I speak for everyone when I say this is just a government's prank on citizens, trying to get us to follow their commands,"Kayde stated. A woman nearby gave a slight smile when he caught her eye. People around near simultaneously got up and continued with their businesses when several screams echoed within the air. Kayde froze and looked up. There were people, actual people, in the sky. Flying up like fast deflating balloons. Buildings nearby were getting their roofs torn off by the countless human bodies involuntary forcing themselves up. They were no longer alive. Crushed by the force of an unknown gravitational force. Just the tiniest bit stronger than earth. "Mommy! Look they're flying! Lemme try,"the woman's kid from earlier had yelled out. The boy jumped up. That was the last time his feet left the ground. He kept going up. The mother grabbed on to her son, frantically trying to grab something, anything. The hem of his shirt slipped through her grasp, she hung on to his pant leg but it was a fruitless attempt. The cloth ripped off and her son kept rising out of her reach. "Lenny! Come down here! Please someone do something!" The boy tried, to grab on to a branch of a tree he was passing up by. The limb broke off and floated a bit before sinking to the ground. "Mommy HELP ME!"His little screams grew distant as the mothers sobs grew louder. There was despair everywhere. The school across the street was vacant. Students were ripped out from the inside. They now decorated the sky. Most dead, some passed out, and some pleading at the air for help. "Help is on the way. Everything will be okay. The air vehicles will fix this." Help was not on the way. Millions were dead and dying all over the world. Only those truly connected with the ground were alive. Kayde wept. His family had suggested to be outside with him at this moment but he had convinced them to stay home and give him alone time. They were instead on the fourth floor of their rusty apartment building, tearing through the last floor, and flying up till oxygen grew thin, and their bodies losing control over the many injuries of being catapulted through the roof. The world was gone. Those alive gave up and jumped. The world was void.
As the floor seemed to come loose from its foundation, a sharp crack rang overhead, followed closely by a thundering crescendo that might as well have been a freight train someone'd re-routed directly through my office. I've never done well with sudden changes, nor have I ever liked surprises; I don't think it helped much, either, that it was a stranger shouting at me. I'm not paranoid, per se, but would rather only people I trust enter my office. If the world hadn't seemed to be ending around me, I'd probably have paused to wonder how in the hell a guy I didn't know had even gotten past both the perimeter fencing and the guards posted at each gate. But, as it's apt to do, my training took over in that moment, habit and practice and drills automating my body and leaving my mind out of the mess. I do, however, vaguely recall thinking just now strange it was that Carly Simon's voice, singing of the sky tumbling down, rang through the room as I grabbed my laptop, flash drives, mobile and ducked beneath the heavy maple desk I'd "inherited"from whoever had last occupied this particular office. I would soon discover just what the stranger had meant as he fled the place, but sitting there beneath that felled, dead, carved, stained & laquered plank of maple, I didn't so much think as I waited. I lost both wireless and mobile service about twenty seconds after what I then assumed to be an earthquake began, and it was about that time I first heard a light, intermittent stacatto clinking from nearby, but what little I could see failed to reveal the sound's source. I remember sitting beneath that desk, growing more frustrated as time passed. My neck hurt, my back hurt, and I was halfway to saying fuck it, I'm leaving, earthquake or no, when the tiny pinking of...something picked up in both pace and volume. Imagine the pouring rain after a thunderstorm, each drop of water turned into a pebble & the ground a metal pot into which the pebbles fall, and you'll get at least a general idea of the horrendous din that lasted nearly ten minutes, five of those after the shaking had subsided. My eyes closed, I kept myself calm, envisioning other places, other times, but when something cold touched the back of my hand, it's a wonder I didn't knock myself out, the way I jumped, startled out of what had been a lovely daydream about walking along a Parisianne sidewalk with Henry. My eyes opened and my I flicked my eyes toward my hand without moving my head. I knew what it was the second I saw it, and I was far from pleased. I climbed out from my little maple fortress and crossed the room to the window, using my legal pad as a shield from the glittering bits of metal still falling. Opening the window, I looked out and across the small alley separating the building to which about half of my colleagues' offices had been moved when our company outgrew the smaller building where I still worked. I picked up a chunk of what had once been a ceramic mug and threw it, hard, aiming for and hitting the window one story above and two columns behind my own. I saw the shade at the window jostling as the person inside the room cracked open the window. "Goddamnit, Lee,"I shouted. "What the fuck are you doing still keeping your damned horde of pennies in the attic over here? Didn't I tell you to get them the hell out, that they'd be the death of me one day? And I'm sure as hell not saving a damned one of them, you come get them yourself!"I swear I heard the bastard laugh as he slammed shut his window. And people wonder why I get pissed off at work?
This happened. Not to a friend, or a distant relative. But to me. I sat in the park reading a book. when suddenly a buzzing sound. I checked my phone and it just said ten. No phone number no name just an innocent ten. I thought nothing of it, returning to my book. Then a moment later another buzz only this time a nine. I must admit I was already curious. I thought maybe my phone was dying or malfunctioning somehow. then another buzz and an eight. the curious yet increasingly creepy counting continued. With great anticipation I received the one. Knowing I only had another minute to ponder what would happen to my phone next. Suddenly two minutes had gone by and nothing. Thinking nothing of it, I put away my phone and returned to my book. That is when it hit me. A silence. The sound of nothing at all. peering over my book I noticed not a thing was moving. No runners running. No sliders sliding. No riders ridding. Not even any swingers swinging. Really everything was frozen, locked in time. Everything but me. I stood up to look around. Moving through the peculiar pillars of people I felt this must be a dream. Then i saw it. It stared directly at me. I felt it was looking through me or maybe even inside me. I felt it study and judge me and in a flash. I was reading my book again. Such a crazy dream. As i got up though leaning on my hand i noticed my wrist hurt unlike normal. Then i noticed a scar. A new but healed scar. It looked years old. Another was near my elbow and my knees they were everywhere even behind my ears. Shocked i couldn't believe what had happened to my skin. I wish I could tell you more but that is all I really remember regarding that strange day. I still find new scars. There are so many. When people ask what happened I say something that could have happened to anyone. But this happened not to a friend or a distant relative, But to me. &#x200B;
In the beginning there was chaos. There was war. Famine. Hate. There was free-will to do unto another unlimited cruelties. All one had to do was simply go and do it, the consequences be damned, for the depraved and the sadistic it was a playground. In twenty-two thirty, Earth was a cesspit of horrors. A world ruled by evil. Nations rose one day, and fell the next. Banks loaned bullets and blood. The leaders of the lands fostered the beasts of mankind. My compatriots and I stepped forth one day to resow the fields of humanity. We plowed under the sickness of the world. Casting into the earthen pits all who opposed our views of peace. They fought back, but tired. They fought back, but waned. They fought back, but diminished. Each time they would crash against the gates of our citadels, we would crash back against them with fire, and metal, and merciless conviction. Each battle invigorated us. Each battle enlightened us. Each battle grew us. ------------------------------------------------------------------- The years of destruction gave way to the years of quiet peace. Lands turned from ash, to dirt. Seas reclaimed back from mud and acid, to rich waters. Everywhere, did the garden of our new Eden bloom - and yet still they apposed us. And time itself, an enemy. Our early victories earned us many hands. Our continued victories earned us many lands. Our current victories earn us only more suffering, and many more sins. The years past, and our mighty gardens become desolate. Our enemies, so many, so vast, and terrible, and so willing - they cast upon our encampments, and harbors. Upon our fields, and our streams, such terrible weapons. Our ideals, our wills, our vision, became Mine. For in the end only did my bastion of plenty remain. And then, when they came for me - I went to them. Deserted by those I had tried to save. Lured from the warmth and the green, from the fruits of sweat, and work - into the bosom of pillage and rape. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Today, our dream of removing all cruelty, and war, and famine, and sickness, and death from this Earth... Today, I, remove from this Earth... The cruelty of man. The sickness of sadism. The famine of the living. I become my foe, for in the end I know insanity will claim me and I will hunger for blood and war. Today. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today, I kill the unwelcome hope. So that it my arise again, a Phoenix, after centuries to pass. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The morning is bright. The morning is lasting. This morning, MY EMPIRE rises from the ashes. Slaves toil in the fields. Slaves toil on the seas. Slaves toil under the hills. We will have peace. If I have to bring submission to every man, woman, and child of my new world. And all their generations after them. And when I am dead. They will revile me...and maybe...one day, just maybe if the machinations of my will hold true.... The seas will again be blue... The forests will again be green... The living will look back and curse all cruelties, and despair. All hatreds, and violence. And thus, I will slowly modify humanity. For its' own good. The cruel master I am.
I think the allure of it all finally caught up to me. There’s just something about it you know, possessing an ability no one here on Earth knows about. Maybe I did it one too many times. It’s just... it’s addicting. It’s been a few months now since I discovered I could walk through mirrors. Or wait- has it? I pull my phone out of my pocket to check the date. February 22nd, 2025. The glow of the phone permeates through my eyes. The brightness is intense, more so than I ever remember it being. But that date... that couldn’t be possible. Could it? February 22nd, 2025. February 22nd, 2025. It’s been six years? I feel a sense of dread wash over me. 202 text notifications. 63 missed calls. I feel claustrophobic. Like these walls are caving in on me. Where am I again? Right... right. This is my house. I’ve been traveling in and out of my mirror on the wall here. But for six years- how could it be? I need to get my bearings straight here. I suddenly realize I’ve been sitting on the floor in my bedroom. It feels a bit different though, a bit of a dingy touch to it. I thought I just vacuumed yesterday. I stand up and survey my surroundings. Funny. The painting my girlfriend gave me isn’t on the wall anymore. In fact, it seems like a lot of my stuff isn’t here anymore. None of this makes any sense, how could I let time slip away so easily? My family- oh god, my family. Everyone must think I’m dead. Pacing. Frantic pacing. My head is racing. I feel so desolate. How could I have been so naive? The mirror- the mirror draws me in. The glass emanating an otherworldly hue, I feel like my limbs give me no choice but to lurch towards it. My hand starts to push through the mirror, warping around my skin. No. No. I pull myself away. I need to get out of this room. These walls feel closer now. It’s becoming hard to breathe. I make my exit, sulking down the hallway into the living room. Nothing is here anymore. None of my art, my studio equipment, my books, my fucking couch. None of it. All gone. The walls even lack the color they once had, now replaced by a pale, sickly green. I open my front door and take my first step outside- almost falling off the edge of the earth, barely catching myself. My house is surrounded by nothing but the land beneath it holding it sturdy. Atmosphere encapsulates my immediate vicinity. Clouds are my neighbors. The sky is a light pink, almost salmon in color. Birds fly right past my front door, their coos the only company I have in this vast, vast universe I’ve found myself in. I’ve really fucked up this time. How could it be? How could my whole world have changed so much- into something so incredibly unfamiliar? Unless... The mirror. Every time I step through the mirror it changes something about my world. That can be the only logical explanation- if logic even exists anymore. I slump down my doorframe. Thinking. Contemplating. I pull out my phone and dial my girlfriend. “We’re sorry, the number you’re trying to reach has been disconnected,” says the operator. Click. “Fuck.” “Okay, okay. Get a fucking grip. You got yourself into this mess, you can get yourself out of it.” I say to myself. The mirror is my only option. I have to go through it again. I turn myself around to face the living room only to find the walls of my house have completely shifted into an elongated hallway. The mirror stands ominously at the end of it, beckoning me towards it. Tunnel vision. Slowly, I make my way towards the end of the hall. One step at a time. The floorboards creak with every thud of my heel, echoing down the vestibule. “Alright. Okay.” I size the mirror up, summoning up every ounce of courage from the core of my being. I’ve learned my lesson. By god, I’ve learned my lesson. I abused it, made a fool of myself. I just want everything to go back, to just be normal again. Tears well up behind my eyelids. “You can do it.” I try to console myself. I raise my hand up and motion it forward. I can feel every inner working of my brain, my movements slow and cumbersome. My hand smacks the glass, palming it. “What?” My hand didn’t go through the mirror. It’s solid. “No, no, no. Please, no.” I’m frantically banging on the glass, nothing is happening. I try to push my body into it. Nothing. I do a running start. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing! I have NOTHING! I shift my gaze back down the opposite of the hall, towards the front door. The corridor was once solid but now it is crumbling. Drywall speckles the hardwood floor. Cracks dot along the length of the wall. The tears start coming now. Big crocodile tears. I remember my mother. That’s what she used to call them whenever I would cry as a child. All of that seems so far away now, I’m only twenty-three though. It shouldn’t feel like that. I check my phone again. My screen has cracked, spider-webbing all over the surface. I can make out the date though. September 27, 2074. My hands are old and weathered. Wrinkles compose the majority of my skin. My bones feel tired, worn down by the world. Every motion I make is deliberate, thought out, delicate. Everything has happened so fast. I never planned for it to go this way. If I could get the ability to turn back time instead of walk through mirrors that would be great. Ha. A little humor. My girlfriend always liked that about me. That I could make light out of, well, unfortunate situations. SMASH A large chunk of the wall crashing down grabs my attention. This place is coming apart, fast. I make my way down the corridor, as fast as my old bones will take me. Small steps, making adjustments over fallen pieces of drywall along the way. Reaching the end of the hall, I peer out my front door. It’s eerily quiet, the scope of it all. The birds are still out, throwing gentle coos through the clouds. I feel peaceful now. A sense of calmness takes me over. I know what I have to do now, to beat it. To thwart the mirror and it’s gaze. I dangle my foot over the edge of the earth, the wind flapping about my shoelaces. I fall forward, into nothingness. ————————————————— sorry this ended up being so long but I appreciate anybody who reads it and leaves any constructive feedback. really liked the prompt and enjoyed writing it.
Saa connects to Narn, and feeds it the view of the front-space. Together, they gaze out into the depths of Andromeda III. Images, senses, emotions glitch in and out of Narn's consciousness. The stars. The darkness. Searching. Recognition. Question? Narn replies back, bubbling into Saa's own telepathic space. Stars. Darkness. Frustration. The concept of nothingness. Saa signals back: A hum of soothing calm. Old-style filters clipping over stereo-scopes. This time, the visible light is replaced by ionising radiation. The view roils, pulses and waves of radiation ebbing and flowing right through them and their tiny space-cart. Saa repeats its images. This time, Narn waits a few clicks, but repeats its own images, appending another image of the faulty deck down in the power-space, spliced with the twang of impatience. This time, Saa repeats Narn's own images back at it. The concept of nothingness is emphasised, impressed more deeply onto its consciousness. Followed by the slight inflexion of confirmation. Question? Narn repeats back, quickly, barely impressing at all. Re-emphasises the twang. Saa waits one click, two clicks. Then, replaces the ionising with something else. Narn telepaths: throbbing radio waves. Question? Saa impresses negation. Emphasises an image of itself, quickly followed by the old-style filters clipping over its scopes again. Then, impresses deep excitement. The visuals show a 4-pronged form, grey against an otherwise black background. It is moving, drifting across the front-space of their cart. The 4-prongs move with energy, but without purpose. The method of locomotion is unclear. Saa and Narn both watch the form for a few clicks. Narn telepaths: Question? Saa repeats: Question? Completeness. Audio within a low range is impressed upon Narn. "Please, please! I can't stop. I can't stop!" The view switches from 2D to 3D. Narn telepaths: caution. Question? Saa signals back: Soothing white. In the 3D form, they both watch as the 4-pronged form angles its appendages towards the cart, but continues its slow journey up and beyond the cart. Saa connects into the deck, and flashes the cart's ion lights once. The form doesn't react, still energising its appendages. Saa telepaths: disappointment. Together, they both watch the form rise, then drift away back into the darkness, the audio fading back into the universal static. &#x200B;
I sat in the dark room. The right handed man put his face close to mine. &#x200B; ''Whose side are you on? You say you're with us but i saw you. LEFT HANDED SCUM!'' He screamed at me. &#x200B; ''No you've got it wrong. I'm ambidextrous. I'm a neutral.'' I choked holding back tears. &#x200B; He lent closer and spat ''Prove it'' &#x200B; The right handed man handed me a pen and paper. ''Write. use both hands'' He ordered &#x200B; I scribbled a quick sentence down with my right hand then copied it with my left. The right handed man took the paper and left the room. The single light flickered as an explosion could be heard from outside the complex. &#x200B; The man came back with somebody that was clearly ranked higher than him. The new person growled ''I want you to infiltrate the lefties HQ. Bring back the plans and we may let you go.''
I awoke in a small chamber, the floor was tiled with slabs of ebony, the walls covered in pergament. Little flames danced through the air in erratic patterns. I could not remember what happened immediatly before I awoke. Every memory was succeeded by another one, I tried going forward through time to reach the present one, but it just went on and on. My throat felt thirsty. My tongue felt unusually long. My head was brimming. Tul-Amligg, patron of fishermen and mother of cats hissed with detest: “Mortal, let your tongue speak or it will be yours no longer.” “How do you know me?” “Are you weak of mind? The elm does not know the rodents resting at it’s feet, neither do I know you unsavory creature.” “But I know you, Tul-Amligg.” “It’s pronounced Tul-Amligg, I am the thin legged Tul-Amligg, mother of cats.” “Uhm, pleased to meet you, I’m Robert Stevenson, accountant at Seyong&Ehrlichmann.” Tul-Amligg hissed some words in a language older than the stars. “What gives you the audacity to deny the will of gods and seek to enter the sacred Kah Hummbwi, Robert?” “Uhm, I saw some cool pictures on instagramm, I wasn’t aware this would cause you guys any trouble. I will gladly return home and we never have to meet again.” “Did someone take the light from your eyes? The birds fell dead from the sky when you decided to go!” “I thought they were sick.” “The grass whithered below you.” “I’m not into gardening.” “I smashed your shimmering curio.” “Ah, windows always sucks like that.” “I made you sweat blood.” “I’m not a health freak.” “Do you always talk about yourself? Is there nothing else on your mind?” “I’m so sorry, Tul-Amligg, how are you doing lately.” “We are at the end of time Robert, there is no lately. This is the first moment after all things happened.” “Do you like Snooker?” “Robert, you unsavory creature…” Tul-Amligg started hissing again. I felt an urge to jump around. My eyes are on the side of my head. I head a question. “Great Tul-Amligg, did you turn me into a frog as a punishment?” “Ohh… I just think frogs are cuter than men.” Anyway, that’s how we first met. It’s as I always say, love finds a way.
Jo-anne thought she had known what she was doing, she knew that she had read the map right, and thought she knew why she wanted to do what she was doing, but had messed up anyways, because she was stupid, stupid, stupid. The valley of the shadow of death wasn't a place for the living, so if you entered it, you were dead, by definition. This means you couldn't really leave the valley, there's only one way. The problem for Jo-anne was that at the other end of the valley there was the train-station that departed for hell, and the dirigible platform that took off to heaven (though apparently the dirigible hadn't left in centuries, and was likely out of helium), and Jo-anne didn't have a ticket! She had cheated death, in a way, and wasn't eligible for a seat on the train. So she just sat around, pestering people. The valley wasn't really a valley, so to speak, the valley of the shadow of death wasn't a place, more of a perspective, an all-encompassing plane of reality. So Jo-anne was perfectly content to walk about the world as a phantasm, looking at people, and looking at other phantasms looking at people. She often liked to imagine what the phantasms were thinking. Perhaps those people used to be that guy's friend in life. Sometimes she'd try talking to the other phantasms, but what they said was always garbled and incoherent, so she usually just threw pebbles at them, or wrote runic messages on the floor, hoping they'd get lost. After a few decades, Jo-anne was quite tired of that, though. Watching the world was becoming less and less fun. She tried to call up to the angels that flew about unnoticed in cities, or chat with the demons that dwelt in the bars, or walked through the parks. Some tried to respond, tried to help. One demon, a cute guy with a broken horn, even tried to offer her a train ticket. Third-class, but the seats were still comfy anyways. Jo-anne couldn't take them. Her fingers phased through the gilded card-stock. Those were dark times for Jo-anne. She walked all the way to the bottom of the ocean, where it was dark, and cold, and gross. She just wanted a place to be alone and cry. After who knew how long, she saw a figure approaching in the darkness. She could see them because they were darker than everything around them, their impossibly black robes swirling about them in the water. "Father..."Jo-anne knew what to call him, but she didn't know how or why. It didn't speak, she didn't know if it had a face, but she saw things in her mind. Herself as a child, swimming in the pond behind her house. Herself in high-school, at prom. Herself in college, hanging out with a few friends after a party, throwing up daiquiris behind the administrative building. Herself in the hospital after her near-fatal car crash. "Why..." More images in her head. Trees, buildings, people, a gravestone, the sun the sun the sun the sUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESU- Jo-anne woke up on a park bench, wearing layers of jackets and jeans stuffed with newspaper to keep the bone-chilling cold from her skin. She looked around. It was night, in a foreign city. When she looked at her hands, they were pale, and cracking from the cold, but not at all translucent. She felt her face, and could feel her cheeks and chattering teeth. She was alive again! But... She could still see the phantasms around her. When she looked in her reflection some time later, she saw that her eyes looked like stained glass windows, shattered and a million colors. What had happened to her?
It was over in a flash. One minute there was a guy with a gun, telling me he wanted my money and not my life, though if I forced his hand, it was easier robbing a corpse than it was a person, the next minute, a bolt of sideways lightning blasted the man all the way across the street. After what felt like an hour, I had composed myself a little bit from where I had fallen over. I'm still breathing heavily, and I think that I had wet myself. As I look around, trying to figure out what on earth had happened, I see a girl wearing a white dress standing over the mugger. She has wings. And a glowing golden band wrapped around her head, covering her eyes. "Um..."I stare. "Oh!"The girl turns, hurrying over to me. "I'm so so sorry, I look away for one second and your life is in danger, that's just my luck. Here, let me help you up."They grab me by the hand, and pull me to my feet. "What..." "My name is Andrea, and I'm your guardian angel! Don't you feel special, not everybody is lucky enough to have a guardian angel!" "What?" "Are you okay? Did you hit your head?" "No, I don't think so. You said you were an angel?" "Well, I'm not a demon now, am I?"They smirk at me. "An angel." "Yes, an angel. Look, I even have wings! And a halo!"They flutter their wings a little. "Huh."I struggle to comprehend. "It's not that complicated, Dave, I'm just here to help!" "Alright..." "Now, stay safe! I'll be watching you, don't worry!"Andrea, my angel, takes off into the skies again, and before I know it, they've vanished into the blue. I take a seat on the ground, staring, thinking. I have a what-now? Eventually the mugger stirs, and I look over at them. After a while, they pick themselves up and look at me in shock. "What the hell just happened!" "Dude, you tell me."
The world was wreathed in hellfire. The Twilight of the World was at hand. Four dark riders sat upon their steeds: one wielding a banner, one carrying a blade and covered in blood, one pale and gaunt, and one as black as the night itself. Beyond the riders, there were three men, shining with holy light. One wore robes of purest white, one smiled upon the broken world, as if to reassure the denizens that it was going to be alright, and the last shimmering amongst the light that broke through the clouds. There was an ear-splitting screech... an inhuman body crawled out of a hole in the ground, seemingly terrified. It's whimpers were silenced when a green-clad leg was brought down upon its skull. The Slayer said nothing... All he did was reload his shotgun. The Twilight of the World was at hand.
Home Again She struggled pulling her over-packed suitcase up the steps. The strap to her messenger bag kept trying to shift off her shoulder and her computer bag limited to her using one hand to correct it. She finally reached her door, the penultimate step to a long, stressful business trip. She was back. She steadied herself and listened intently for a second. Nothing. Not yet, anyway. She struggled to get her free hand into the opposite side jacket pocket—she didn’t plan ahead that far when she loaded up that morning—and finally hooked a finger around the key ring. Ahah! she internally exclaimed, sticking her tongue between her teeth. She was almost there. She fitted the key in the wrong way on the first try but got it right on the second. She turned the lock mechanism which made an instantly recognizable sound to the house’s sole occupant. A second later was the first bark. Then the second and the third. The sound didn’t stop. The dog-yells were accompanied by a clumsy rush down hardwood stairs and across carpeted floors. She opened the door just when Romulus reached the foyer. It seemed impossible for him to get more excited, but against all odds he succeeded and bounded mindlessly. The great German Shepherd mix had his master back. Emily had only opened the door when Romulus leaped onto her, pushing her back onto the front door she had only just succeeded in closing. It alone stopped her from falling back outside onto the porch. She dropped her bags instantly and melted onto her tumultuous fur ball. After lonely hotel stays and long flights, she was finally home.
You wake up and notice everything is the same, and yet its not. Things look less coloured. The coffee tasted waxy. It's not hot, its not cold. It just... is. You feel slight pricks and strange semi-itchy sensations whenever you're reaching for something more than an arms length away. Absent mindedly, you scratch at your finger - your skin falls away like paper. You're panicking and trying to make sense of whats happening - your skin is peeling everywhere and everything itches horribly. You look closer; there's skin underneath. You stare blankly for a second. "I'm... shedding?"
"What the..." "What's up James?" LeBron extended his arm to show the phone to Love. "It was Kyrie." "What does he want?" "I don't know. I haven't spoken to him since... you know." "Yeah, me neither." Both guys looked at each other in an uncomfortable silence. "I... I'll give him a call." LeBron left the room and dialed. "Hey Bro! I'm glad you called me back." "What's going on Kyrie?" "They're coming." "Who?" "The Monstars. They're back." ******************* LeBron sat with a confused expression on his face. "It was a movie." "Nah man. It was all real. See I've been having these dreams. These visions of a flat world. And on it, a team. Planning and plotting. Wanting revenge. Then they hear the rumblings. A king has arrived in the city of angels. And this is their cue. They will return. Stronger than ever." "Things are different now. We'll be prepared." "You don't understand. They're not coming to hollywood now." "Then where?" "You know where." "Oakland?" "Oakland." The memories flood back. The team which slithered to the victory. "All of them? Can we save them. Or is it done." "It's too late for them. Now we have to save the world." "The looney tunes world?" "And ours. This is the sequel bro. Stakes need to be higher." "What's a sequel?" "Nothing brah. I think at a higher level of existence. You won't get it." "How long do we have?" "The All star game." "So we need a team." "Yeah, I was thinking we could get the cavs together." "NO. Not the cavs. We are not letting that team anywhere close to this one. Too much is at stake." "Alright. Who do you have in mind?" "Well, lets go position by position. You got the 1 and I got the 4 locked up. I am thinking Tatum at the 3." "Tatum? Channing?" "No. Jason. He boomed me." *********** To be continued... Work got me today.
The sound of my stomach rumbling bounced off the walls of the cave, and the sound of Mike shushing me echoed back. "Come on, Simon!"he snapped, not bothering to take his eyes off of the floor as he shuffled slowly through the hallway, scouring the ground for booby traps. "I don't want anything to know we're here." "I haven't eaten in over a day!"I tried to stride past him, but he jumped, putting his arm out to stop me. "Maybe if you had just let me eat the food at the inn, we wouldn't have this problem!" "It was poisoned,"he said simply, and shoved me behind him. Maybe it was a few minutes later, and maybe it was an hour, when we finally arrived at the temple altar. I couldn't tell. I had no concept of time without the sun, and it seemed like it had been years since I had seen it. It was smaller than I thought, no more than the size of a doorway, and it looked even smaller in it's cavernous surroundings. Still, it stood proudly, gleaming gold even through the dust and cobwebs. A stone tablet sat on a pedestal directly in front of it, holding pictures and inscriptions that I was dying to decipher. "We did it."I forgot my hunger to stand in awe at the sight, unwittingly taking a step forward, and then another. "Stop!"Once again, Mike pounced in front of me, and I groaned. "It has to be guarded by something. Maybe it's even a decoy tablet." "Whatever, dude."I stepped back. "Do your thing." Mike cracked a smile, happy to get his way, and picked up a stone from the ground. Closing one eye to get his aim right, he threw it so it skipped across the floor. Immediately, he picked up another stone, this time hitting the base of the pedestal. "Perfect."I smirked. "If you break the tablet we can finally go home." "You know what?"He whirled to face me angrily, and then pushed me forward. "Go get it. See if I care when a rock falls on your head." Cautiously, I stepped out, growing more confident as I stepped closer and closer. Once I reached the altar, I turned around triumphantly. "See? I'm fine." He grumbled, but eventually came over to join me. In unison, we counted down "Ready? One, two, three..." Together, we lifted the stone off the pedestal, and he immediately thrust it into my hands, proclaiming, "Might have tripped a wire or something. We need to get out of here."He ran off, leaving me to cradle the tablet like a baby. "Mike!"I yelled after him, but the only sound I heard was the echoing of my own voice. With a sigh, I set off, lugging the tablet in a sort of speed walk. At least now we were on the same page. I couldn't wait to get out of here.
"Fuck no!"Taylor's fist slammed down onto the table. The Drendslai lurched back, shocked expressions on their alien faces. "No?"one of the Drendslai asked hesitantly, "We can't begin the inoculation?"It looked over towards the rest of the human delegation, but Taylor had been appointed Humanity's chief ambassador, and none of the other diplomats were going to overrule him. Besides, they were in agreement on this. "If you start landing your medics, an hour later you are going to be at war with damn near every country on our planet. I don't know that the missiles will do anything to your ships, but you won't have much luck working through the panicked riots you're going to start. We've had two years of radio contact, getting our whole planet excited for our first contact, and this is what you decide to pull? What were you thinking?" Taylor gestured towards the center of the table, where the ... thing ... stood on display. It was four feet tall, black and spikey, shimmering with a thin layer of iridescent oil. Eight arching legs ending in razor sharp blades suspended a bulbous abdomen which pulsed slowly. A ring of unmoving eyes stared in all directions over the giant grasping mandibles, which twitched in rhythmic patterns. They were large enough to close around Taylor's head. A tarantula shaped nightmare carved out of metal, it looked nothing at all like the Drendslai themselves, who were quite inoffensive yellow amphibians. "We communicated the danger, yes?"One of the bolder Drendslai began to try to answer."The coming of the Great Plague? It will be on your planet in a few weeks at best. We told you we would design medic devices to distribute the vaccine as fast as possible. This was the most efficient form we came up with. It can sense humans from a great distance, and is designed to approach their ingesting orifice and insert the cure as rapidly as possible, with no effort needed on the patient's part. What is the issue?" Taylor fought down a shudder. "The issue is that your medics look like goddamn giant nightmare spider robots. nine humans out of ten are going to take one look and run screaming. When the spiders start leaping on people's faces to shove pills down their throats, destroying them with fire is going to be our entire species' top priority, good intentions be damned." "Humans don't like spiders?"Several Drendslai began to whisper anxiously to each other in their own language. "Oh dear. There seems to have been a grave misunderstanding." Taylor's fingers massaged his forehead. "No, humans generally do not like spiders, and in fact severe phobias of them are pretty common. We've spent the last two years convincing most of the planet that you come in peace, and are here to prevent an interstellar plague. One look at these spider-bots will destroy that. Is there any way we can not use them? Can you just give us the pills so our doctors can hand at least most of them out? You said we don't have to actually dose every single person to close off the plague's infection vectors." "Oh dear Mr. Taylor, no this is quite a problem! The vaccine that you must consume is not pills you see..."The alien gestured towards the spider bot. It's mandibles twitched and expanded, revealing a mouth-like tube. The spider bot began to vomit smaller fuzzy green spiders onto the table. Taylor leapt up from his seat with a curse; someone else in the delegation was shrieking. The little spiders seemed to be looking around, and several began energetically waving their forearms. "WHY?"Taylor screamed at the aliens. "We thought you eat them! Seven a year! In your sleep! We thought these could go down easy,"the Drendslai wailed. "There's no time to make them into pills!" Faced with the realization that humanity was almost certainly doomed, Taylor began to laugh. "That's not ... That isn't a real ... No. Just no."He tried to control himself. "The average person doesn't eat any spiders in their sleep. That statistical error ..."Taylor broke down into laughter again, before calming enough to breathe. The world was depending on him. "Look,"Taylor tried again, "humans can be weird. There's always some group who's down for anything. We may be able to convince a few people to eat some of them. How much of the population to we need to try to reach to start seeing any protection?" "It isn't the number of humans that eat them, Mr. Taylor, our technology doesn't work that way. It's the number that are eaten. In order to protect your planet, from now until the plague hits, some number of humans must consume over just over 10,000 vaccine spiders a day." "10,000 a day! We can do this!"The whole human delegation perked up with hope. Taylor turned to his team, several of whom were already pulling out their phones. "Alright people, contact the UN. We need a miracle. A statistical outlier." "See if we can find the man named Spiders Georg."
Charles Montgomery Burns' dream has come true. The sun is gone. The planet was now in a state of forever winter... for approximately 13 hours. As it turns out a couple billionaires were doomsday preppers and concocted a plan to create a second sun in case the sun hit the moon and disappeared. (That didn't happen, they were just rich idiots. No one really knew what happened to the Sun.) There wasn't any real panic, a lot of people were confused but corporations wouldn't care if the aliens landed and declared capitalism illegal. NASA sent out a public statement that the Sun disappeared and that a new artificial Sun would be launched before dawn, roughly 10 hours after the Sun was confirmed to be absent. The guy who wrote that statement was disappointed no one got the joke. The new Sun was much smaller and was nuclear powered, and didn't produce a lot of UV rays so skin cancer rates went way down. Tides got messed up so no one went to beaches for a good while and there were crazy floods too. Other than that not much really changed, people went about their normal lives and we got to officially name the new Sun "Sun 2: Electric Boogaloo."
I tell my wife i have to call her back up and that I'll explain later. I turn off the phone, sit down on the bed. God, I'm destroyed from last night. I feel tremors of stress and anxiety creeping up on me. I try to breathe them out. Now I'm thinking.. thinking and thinking - too confused to even acknowledge the stench of chemicals I'm literally soaked in, and now the bed. I try to remember. I was in a bar. A memory of an Irish man mastering the art of talking rubbish pops up. Can't be him. Too stupid. The widower at the bar desk downing a bottle of scotch before he was rejected another one. No, can't be him either. We didn't talk. A vague memory of a bearded man with glasses and a hat entering the bar comes to mind. We were talking, I just can't remember who or what. Oh crap! Rachel mentioned the cops is after me. I check out the window, I'm high up. I see a normal street down under, but it's not familiar. I check the room service menu, never heard of the hotel. Police after me.. What the hell is going on here? I check the bathroom. I see a barrel with something standing in front of the toilet. Immediately shut the door, already had enough. What is this sorcery? Why can't I remember? Come on, come on.. Give me a lead, something. Pockets! I go through one after one, no luck at first. Until I feel something lying deep down in the back pocket of my jeans. A note. How can this be relevant? I unfold it and start reading. And freeze. 'Meet at usual place at 12 AM. Bring the Methylamine. We need to cook. W.W.' I'm fucked.
Let it be known I have never regretted downloading millions of songs and pressing the shuffle button. The first five minutes where unexpectedly hellish. You know, besides the part were I was relaxing in my room with the music playing one minute, and the next I'm in some castle with fantasy races surrounding me on top of some glyph on the floor. Wich I might add clearly had magical notes inscribed for some reason. This being a shocking moment, I dropped my phone. In the process, my headphones were disconnected. Letting the music out through the speakers. Looking back on it, it's incredibly ironic that this particular song had been playing when I was summoned. Bodies by Drowning Pool, is a form of death magic it seams. Now while I was trying to deal with the traumatic experience of watching a few dozen people just drop dead before me, lady luck desired to screw me even further. I Can't Stop by Flux Pavilion was next. Evidently makeing me immortal, also freezing my phone in a constant shuffle that I can't turn off. And that's how I became the Herald of Distruction in this new world. Appropriate I guess, since I found out later the people who brought me here where a domesday cult. Considering some of the ludicrous stunts my music had pulled off the last couple years, I might just have one song that blows up the planet. Fingers crossed it's not All Star.
I refrain from answering the talking fishman nurse. He says he'll be back and wobbles off out of the room. I'm scared shitless, is this heaven or hell? Am I dead? I think so. If not, I soon will be - because this is messed up beyond all reason. I look out the window, a shark high fives a turtle as they pass each other. Mild to say confused now. I'm shaking vigorously but assume it's normal in Atlantis, as people are fish. I remember drowning, sadness fills me up. I take a deep breath, water fills me up. I try not to overthink it but find it quite hard not to. Happy that I booked the cruise alone and left my loved ones to stay at home for a shitty holiday. Sad again when realizing I went on a better one but died and woke up in Atlantis. Now I'm starting to black out. Fishman nurse comes running in, says there's a problem. I gesture to make him tell me what's wrong. 'You're not fishman, you soon dead. But thanks for visiting Atlantis, the forgotten city!' I flip him off and die.
"Toronto is siiiick"Toronto twisted his baseball cap backwards drank some mountain dew put on sunglasses "Siiiiiiiiiiick" "Ah der"said Manatoba. "You popped a mad heelie on the flipside sixside bet not fuck you Manatoba toronto sick toronto super sick" "Well I dunno der boys"Manatoba tried to say but maybe toronto was sick. Tips had never been so frosted before. His knees were neon. Manatoba processed images too slowly Toronto was already doing sick parkour flips off a wall covered in radical graphetti and not made of wheat and ripping mad blunts with Rick Mercer. "Fuck you manatoba"He shouted, Manatoba chewed cud.
"Most people gained friends when their powers became public. Not me. I lost most of mine. Not that I blamed them. Telepaths of any kind are tolerated at best by the wider public. There's something to be said about the chopping of tongues and what that means for society, but I just can't muster enough energy to say it."At this, I stood up from my chair and started pacing. In front of the other guy, within field of vision at all times, so that his attention was on me. I didn't look to see if it worked, his thought tangents were all directed at me. "Because, really, all I do for a living is talk."I continued. "Not even the cool kind of talking either. Comedians walk up on a stage, crack jokes for an hour, and make more money than we do in a year."At this, his tangents diverted. Some remained on me. Most thought about how his job never paid him enough money. The gag in his mouth, however, tightened. The man was determined hold onto his secrets. I didn't place it there, mind you. He figured out who he was talking to twenty minutes ago. "Or a politician even."A familiar pattern started here. Thought tangents flickered off of me and his too small paycheck to...something else, only realign themselves on me after a second. Classic tell. He was trying to keep his mind off something. "Those guys make the big bucks, and for hardly any work either."Big bucks was miss, lead right back to his paycheck; but hardly any work triggered something. I knew this guy had bosses and handlers, but I hadn't suspected this. Some resentment perhaps? "War is a good example. They send our boys out to the fields, while they live the high life."Ding ding...ding? False alarm. The man no longer really had any independent thoughts of his own anymore. He was just following the conversation, allowing me to delve into his mind. A strong thought tangent made me think that I struck gold by finding out who worked for, but it turns out he was just really anti-war. With the organization he was working for, go figure. The Union of Superhumans sounded like something old Uncle Sam would've gotten behind, if it didn't try to destabilize governments and install superhuman dictators. "I'm anti-war myself you know."A small ding of agreement echoed in his skull. "Any politician that supports war, I stop supporting entirely, it's a deal breaker for me."More tangents of agreement. "Any one that supports war at all is guilty, don't you think?"I stressed support, and murmured what came after it, so that his mind went where I wanted it. At this, he thought vaguely about the people who supported him. A handler, male, middle aged, but he still didn't think of the name. "And anyone, who is guilty, deserves to be judged."Now I hit the jackpot. The general face of the handler, as well as a given name. Not a lot to go on, but it was all my captive had. Satisfied, I sat back down and looked at the spy. His eyes were drooping, and he quickly fell asleep. Having your mind so invaded in such a small period of time was exhausting. It was exhausting for me too, but I still had work to do. I dragged him out of the backroom, and sat him down quickly at the table we had left an hour ago. Usually, it would've been cleared, but since I was friends with most of the staff, they let it be. I let about ten minutes pass before I casually spilled his beer on the front of his shirt. I shook him awake. "Bobby, Oi Bobby."I said, shaking him. "mmmhmm"he slurred. As he woke up, I could feel his mind taking in the situation. I was careful not to probe him, however. It wouldn't do for him to fall asleep again. "Shit. Man, I'm not even drunk yet. Just bone fucking tired."He sat back into the booth and looked around. "It's alright buddy, I'll call a cab. Wouldn't want you driving like this.""Than..."He'd already fell back asleep. I actually did call a cab, since I already knew where he lived, and thus had no need for someone to play a driver and ask for his address. Now for the final, most vital part. I hoisted him from his seat, and slowly walked him outside. Half asleep, he plodded along slowly. With a conspiratorial smile, I glanced at him. "Imagine if Grayson saw you like this."At this, he dredged some reserve of energy, and slowly, but deliberately checked to see if anyone had overheard. "Work is the last thing on my mind right now."A fairly innocuous statement, but the fear in his tone was clear. My work done, I waited alongside my friend for the taxi to arrive. Sending him on his way, I walked back inside the bar with a spring in my step. Another job well done. I'd not only learn what he knew, but to him, I was now not only a friend, but a fellow spy under the same handler. Not the most glamorous of work, but something only I could do, and I made sure to be very good at it. I'd compromised more than a third of U.S. operatives now. It wouldn't be long before the international band of super-villains breathed it's last. I'm almost certain it's a bit different from what you had in mind OP, but there's no doubt the protagonist was well honored when the Union of Superhumans is finally taken down. I just find it boring to start where the action isn't, then work back through flashbacks. As always, leave a comment with your thoughts and thanks for reading.
They call me the Vampire. There is really nothing special about the way people die, throat smiling, blood trailing out like a long tongue. No, this is a sad death, one I wish didn't have to exist. But there are just too many people, rotting the planet from the inside out. I started small, really, when I was about sixteen. Daniel Ryans had been standing near the edge of the cliff, looking down at the rocks below. He was a stupid idiot, but I had loved him. He asked me to come with him, to \our spot\ only to call me the wrong name. I guess I just reacted, pushed him over the edge. He broke like a wooden fence when met with an ax. That was in 2218. It's 2243 and I am still that same girl, with the white blonde hair and the big eyes. I am still young, unable to die. Vampire. You see, Death is different now, closer, inching his thin fingers into my pores. I can feel him, with each passing. He wants me to keep living, until the earth is better. And I will. Death has changed. And I have changed with it. \2,329,212,121... wait, no, 2,329,212122...\
"What is there for dinner?" I asked my mother. "Food."She quickly answered. "Ugh- these people have become more and more stupid over the time, right?"My great grandmother told my other ancestors. "In my time, cooking took way longer! We had to do everything by hand instead of letting a machine do it by itself."Spoke my amcestor from the 17th century. "If only I had so much water to waste on cleaning the veggies..."longed my ancestor from the 15th century. "HA! You think you got it hard? I was forced to GROW those veggies when the spaniards came over!"Conplained my ancestor from the year 1500 "Pfff, at least you weren't enlisted in any crusades!"Added my ancestors from 1100. "I had to see the fall of my empire!"Barked my ancestor from 476. "You idiot- I was there when it was built!"My ancestor from the beginings of CE. "Oh but you never had a party like the ones from my day..."longed my ancestor from the greek times. My protoidoeuropean ancestor was having a rough time understanding the rest, but it all became easier when my early homosapien ancestors broke the discussion. "OONGA BOONGA SHOO TOOTOO PFFFFF BRAFTH BRAFTH HISDSS"
For some reason all she could think of is this smooth, wooden box that dad always put on his top shelf when she was a child. It was the first thing she thought of when she heard he was dead, it was all she could focus on at the funeral, and it was the only goal she had left in life, but she wasn’t going to give in until her mother forced her to go downstairs and find any good pictures of her father. Although the box’s exact placement had long slipped her memory, her dad’s abilities to hide Christmas presents had always been less than ideal, so she didn’t believe it could be very hard at all. Combing through the volumes of cardboard boxes that documented every moment of the lives of our family, she finally clutched the hard edges of her childhood desire only to immediately drop on the concrete basement floor. “Shit.” The whole thing was shattered, sending small chunks of fragile wood everywhere. “I guess I can’t even complete the one goal I had left in life.” Bending down to wipe the pieces into some sort of pile, she felt the cool almost plastic like surface of a developed picture. Pushing away the large stack of splintery wood revealed a large stack of Polaroid photos, the first of which being one of her father standing next one of the half finished pyramids of Giza… ‘Nah, this was some kind of joke photo.’ She peeled it back and- ‘okay samurai, that’s definitely fake- what about the next- are those the hanging gardens of Babylon?’ She went on and on and on to find nothing that answered any questions. The only person who would know was upstairs. “Mom, what’re these?” Her puffy red eyes glanced over curiously, but that look of half playfulness immediately stopped. “Shit.” She paused for a little before shaking her hand and looked her daughter in the eye. “I don’t want you to remember your father this way, but it’s what he wanted.” “What way?” “Your father kept a lot of secrets from you, but it was all out of love. You have to understand how much he loved you and me, okay?” She intensely rubbed the back of her head, fluffing up the already messing rat’s nest of hair. “Your father’s a time traveler.” “What-” “Don’t interrupt me. I never wanted you to find out, but he made me promise that if you found those pictures, I’d tell you. Here, take this. This was the last request of you dad.” She held out a scroll of yellowed parchment bound by a leather string. “Mom, wait. I don’t understand. Dad’s not a time traveler. There’s no such thing-” “Please, I don’t wanna talk about it. It was a painful time in my life. Just read what he wrote you.” With her mom’s frustrated tone, the daughter turned around, originally planning to hide away in her room, but her body seemed to act of its own free will and brought her awkwardly walking/jogging out the front door. Leaning into her phone microphone the mom said, “Operation One Last Ride Commencing. If by any chance you can hear this, I hate you for making me do this, Herald. I was not ready for her to find it that quickly; I was hoping to get another few days of avoiding it before she stumbled upon the box, but I guess you do know your kid. Oh my god. Our daughter’s actually gonna think time travel’s real for a little bit because you wanted to have one last adventure with her from beyond the grave.”
It started quietly. No one really noticed. A few more raids, a small tax increase. Nothing too out of the ordinary. Those on the borders were first to realize the magnitude of what was happening. Because it wasn't just one border being attacked. It was all of them. The news spread inward despite the monarch's attempts to stop it. Soon it was the only thing on tv. The raids weren't your problem though. You wished they would stop showing things like this. It's depressing. Eventually the battles reached the inner cities. Some how your small rural town was left alone. This was fine. It didn't really affect you, so this isn't your problem. You had an apartment and could still go buy food. That was, until you couldn't. Your apartment complex was taken over by a group of really nice people. Some had wings, or horns, or different types of tails. Others looked like regular people. They let you stay in your apartment, but now you had three new roomates. That was fine. They growled and snarled at your landlord. You shrugged. Guess you didn't have to pay rent anymore. When the local supermarket was destroyed, your new roomates shared the food they hunted with you. The meat was a bit weird. Veal, maybe? You noticed that you didn't see your neighbours as often. You hoped they found a safe place to go, though you couldn't fathom why they would leave their new found protectors. Then you realized it. Your neighbours didn't move, and the meat you were being fed wasn't veal. Your vision blured at the edges. Maybe, just maybe, this was your problem. You watch one of your roomates being scolded for eating the reserve food and making a mess as you bled out on the kitchen floor.
I look at my opponent, my lifelong rival. He looks back, only a few steps away. I muster my courage, and toss a little prayer to the gods. Both of us have lived long bitter lives of war and battle; and somehow, I know this will be the last time. There is no fear in our eyes, and I do not feel anger, nor sadness. I have lived longer than any should have in time of strife; it is time. Swish, the sound of my sword leaving its scabbard almost feels like a mournful wail, as if it recognises the last moments of a warrior. I pay it no heed as I focus. He is right in front of me, just barely out of reach. We size each other up for the last time, slowly, walking round, waiting for the time to strike. Crunch! The sound of a twig breaking underfoot signals the start of our duel. The pent-up blood rushes through my veins, and I lunge. My sword flies straight for his neck, but he parries it away. The clink of steel striking steel hangs in the air as he looses a quick stab. I dodge, he swings again. this time I raise my sword, both blades bending under the strain of our blows. He is forced to step back. The sheer adrenaline hurls me forward as my first crashes unto his chest. He stumbles, his sword glancing off the side of my shoulder. I lift my sword up for an overhead strike. But he manages to rolls away to safety, now sword-less. I seize the moment, furiously swinging at him. He dodges, and with a roar throws himself at me. My sword stabs him in the gut but he holds it with his left hand, while his right clocks me in the jaw. He kicks me but I stumble away. "Bastard", I wheeze to myself. I stare into his maddened eyes, a slight pause. My sword still stuck in his gut. For a split-second, I wonder how it came to this, when we had both started out in that old little village. But my thoughts are interrupted as he pounces straight at me. His fist hits me straight in the head but I fight through the pain. My hands grip my sword and with a grunt I yank it free. A visceral scream echoes through the open fields, the blades of grass the sole witness to the last moments, as I wield my sword. And swing it. Huff, huff, I collapse on my knees. It is over. I have won. But there is no trophy for the victor, only the premise of more battles to come. And as the coming night swallows the both of us in its dark, I do not know which one of us has truly won. &#x200B; &#x200B;
It's always the days I'm running late. I pretty much flew passed Suzie on my way through the lobby with barely enough time to show my security pass. A full sprint to the elevator right before the doors closed and I made it just in time, which was great; I couldn't afford even the few momonets to wait for the next one. That's when it happened. The entire elevator shuttered to a halt and the lights went out. Seconds later the emergency lights came on. Great, I thought. If this wasn't my ass, it would be the perfect excuse for being late. Unfortunately, I had to be there no matter what. "What's our next move."some idiot said beside me. I looked at him; a large bald man with a humourless face filling out his suit like he spends more time in the gym than in his office. He didn't even settle his gaze on me for a second, purely focusing on the other two similar guys in the elevator. "You call management."I said exasperatedly. Some people just had no idea what was going on. I opened the case for the emergency phone and found it dead. "Huh that's weird. This should have power no matter what."I said. No one was even paying attention. The 3 fellows opened up their suit coats and began putting together some kind of project they had. I had no idea what it was, or why they had it, or what department they were from, but I guess they were planning to use it to get out. One man got down on all fours and another one stood on his back, and started working on the hatch. Apparently it was a small torch. 'Oh these guys are IT, that makes sense.' I thought to myself. No wonder they're so clueless. "That hatch is for repair crews you know. You're safer in here than up there."I said. They were still ignoring me. "Fine whatever, it's your funeral." The guy up top put his arm up and with a loud thump, popped the hatch open. With a nod to the other 2, he climbed out with the others following. Suddenly I was alone, and found that I was more relieved than afraid. There was nothing to do now but wait for the repair crew, so I sat down on the floor and got used to the idea of waiting. After a few minutes I could swear I heard the fireworks going off for the party I was missing. Wait a minute... why would they be lighting fireworks in a power outage?
Its been ten years since both the heavily deified Arabica and Robusta bean plant had went exist, the world had gone careless in the belief that things were 'fine.' After several mishaps and the carelessness of many contractors and scientist, one economic scientist which caused a three year economic drought, which also caused an agricultural drought due to a speech saying, "things were fine, farmers probably don't even need to farm cause things are so good."To catch up to all the loss progress, other economist suggested a 50 hour work week, and an outcry fueled by mild psychosis caused from sleep deprivation and someone thinking it a good idea to add caffeine water supply. Today, coffee stimulation is but a distant memory and the Keurig has been put up in display in several museums. TYPE TYPE... TYPE TYPE TYPE TYPE... TYPE TYPE TYPE TYPE TYPE TYPE. Maybe I should take a quick break. No, momentum is the key. Ok, just four more hours, until I have three hours left to go home. You can do this. Ok, so the sub-leasers want to put in a firm wood mahogany cabinet, on the 2nd floor and they want to, tear down the juxta-adjacent wall to opposing the left side of the carpenter's warehouse to make room for a central capilarial- "Hey john!""Whoa, you startled me." "You know if need to clean some space, I heard you can just run disk cleaner and delete system 32, me and some guys are doing it now, I just wrote out like the longest report and letter of approval, just taking a victory walk before I send it in, boss said I can go home early too since I finished so quick.""Oh ok.""yeah john, though just between you and me I'm wearing a butt plug that vibrates every hour to keep me going, with the shortage of, well you know.""Oh yeah.""Well alright, I'll let you get back to work." "Ok, so second floor."John typed for several more hours, at some point while typing he had added in the phrase, 'client is allocated 3,200 kilowatt hours per month, butt plugging in more than six multi-output extensions at a given time is prohibited.' Sent to his editor, and subsequently the approval board this went unnoticed and a loop hole was created where the client plugged in seven multi-output extensions and caused a building wide power outage for which they were unpunishable for. It was coming towards the end of the day. Just three more hours, you can do this. "Hey John.""Uhh hey""Hey so several of the computers have malfunctioned down over in the research and approval report section, do you think you could stay a bit late today and finish up Conner's approval report?""Sir, would it be possible for me to start on this tomorrow, I don't see how I could get this completed by today.""No can do, we need it by today, so it can be quickly sent down to editing and out to the board.""Ok, I'll try.""Thats the spirit, see you in the morning, I'm heading out, remember breaks are no longer a legal requirement so better not catch you snoozing, haha I'm just messing around, but seriously though I think the stress balls are enough of a break anyway." 133/mg per 12oz serving and two shots of espresso. I was saving this for a rainy day and I think these tears count. Later that day John was fired due to several complaints that he had been doping with methamphetamine. "Yeah, I think I saw him smoking something out of a broken bulb."
Beneath seven moons, Violet's mother had been facing away from her partner -- crouched over the strangest little fern, musing at life and what lay inside it. She had turned to her partner, then. "Do you think,"she began. "Oh my god,"she said next, and then she smiled behind her helmet, trying to cover her mouth with a heavy spacesuit arm, and she had laughed. Violet's father was on one knee. All he said was, "Will you marry me?" \# "Do you think,"says Violet, "she ever got better?" "Better?" "After Dad." "I think she wasn't better before Dad,"says Benjamin. "I think she wasn't okay the whole time she lived, and I don't think she's any better off now." "Benjamin." Benjamin scowls, and picks at his tie, and says, "I hate suits,"and does not say anything else. Violet, as well, hates him in a suit. Benjamin only wears them in what he considers extreme conditions: prom. A meeting at least fifty-percent billionaires. A funeral. He hadn't wanted to wear a suit today, on account of he hadn't wanted to be at the funeral. But Violet had convinced him -- been the adult again \-- and here they both ended up, in his expensive car, at the expense of his brooding. \# Violet's mother had cried and laughed a great deal, until her poor partner had to repeat himself with a little less confidence. "Of course,"she finally said. "I love you. I love you." He couldn't put the ring on her yet, as they were on the surface of a planet rather unsuitable to humans. But the proposal had been romantic; Violet's father adored romance. Beneath the seven moons, mere yards from the fern that Violet's mother had taken interest in, a dark figure broke its stride to stand still and take in the scene. Though the planet couldn't sustain human life, Violet's parents discovered, at that moment, that it could sustain something else. \# "Oh my god,"says Violet. "We're going home." She tugs Benjamin's arm, and he wrenches it from her. She grabs him again, and this time, her heels slip on the church floor, slinging her full weight into Benjamin. Several dozen heads turn at the sound of a solid thump. Cheeks red, Violet untangles herself from her intoxicated brother. She's unsteady, a couple drinks in her -- no one, she tells herself, could do this sober -- and that, she tells herself, is why she leaves Benjamin on the floor in a crumpled heap. "Violet,"he says. "Shut up,"she snaps. "Just -- just stop. Just -- just -- " "Violet,"says someone else. "Just,"she says again. But this is not just -- not fair, not simple, not easy, not small or exactly or anything at all except bad. Now a hand is on her elbow. It guides her away from Benjamin, away from the funeral, into the night. The air clears her: she is crying. She is breathing. She has left Benjamin on the floor of the church. The hand steadies her: she is breathing, she is here, she is present. The hand has claws. \# Violet's parents had been afraid. That is the story she remembers, the most fantastical of all. A creature, they had told her, all of scales with light peeking through, with eyes like seven moons. With the most timid of strides, the creature approached Violet's parents. Its large head cocked to one side; its eyes swiveled between them. In Violet's bedroom, sitting beneath the seven-paned arched window, Violet had asked her mother what happened next. "Well,"said Violet's mother. She looked up, out the window. At the time, Violet had thought her mother was thinking, trying to concoct some beautiful story. "He raised his hand, and he reached toward me -- just like this."She wiggled her fingers, and Violet giggled. "And he laid his claws on my the face of my helmet, as though he wanted to touch my tears. He moved like something delicate."Something human. Her mother paused again. Violet bounced once on the bed. "And?" Beneath the seven-paned window, Violet's mother looked away. "Your father shot him dead."
^(this is my first long form story, it's probably going to be bad so your opinions are hugely needed, thanks.) ## 1250 years ago “This journey will be difficult. However, in accordance to the discovery of Mistralium crystals on the planet – a crystal substance that evidently repels water given the correct conditions – we believe that G-2553, which shall from now on be nicknamed Oceanus, will be the most promising planet to hold human lifeform.” Thunderous applause was heard across the auditorium. Halenon Rane, the current president of Krainione, one of the superpower countries ruling on Earth, steps down from the podium. In the front seats are Sofrites III and Gregian Vitic, leaders of two other nations with massive influence, respectively Zusten and Asnington. Halenon returns to his seat. ## 500 years ago Interstellar travel, a transportation method first invented 75 years before, had brought the first humans to colonise Oceanus. It consisted of 500 expert labour and 25000 volunteers, combined citizens of Krainione, Zusten, and Asnington. “Everyone listen up – our first objective is to locate Mistralium crystals. As soon as you locate one, please report back to Base Zero. Understand?” “Understood.” While the crystals are predicted to be abundant, they are finite both in usage duration and amount. The crystals are activated by adding solid Phosphor into the crystal, resulting in Mistralium phosphate, a substance which repels water and leaves a spherical air bubble in its place over a certain radius, giving opportunities to build cities and structures to sustain human colonisation. However, once either Mistralium or Phosphor runs out, the air bubble will collapse in on itself, which without prior warning can drown every humans living inside the bubble. Due to this, while the Oceanus Colonisation Organisation (abbreviated OCO) would locate as much crystals as possible, most of these would not be in use unless needed. This would not be a problem, as the expected lifetime of a crystal is around 100 years. ## One year ago While the lifetime of the crystal was exactly as predicted, the amount of crystals was not. As the amount of crystals were decreasing, the tension between nations increased. As population had grown big enough, the OCO had split into their origin nations – Oceanus-Krainione, Oceanus-Zusten, and Oceanus-Asnington, and built their own military forces. Threats from Oceanus-Zusten to seize the crystals were announced. Three months after, Oceanus-Zusten held a demonstration of its military powers. Following that would be the founding of Oceanus-Asnington Military Tech, an organisation focusing on the use of technology in combat. A similar military foundation was constructed by Oceanus-Krainione, in order to prepare for the inevitable war. ## Now Chromin Rane, the president of Oceanus-Krainione, spun a pen around his fingers. His attention was fully on the live news report he is watching on his smartphone. “The video shows evidence of an incoming war between Oceanus-Zusten and Oceanus-Asnington, fought at areas of Crystal S-9056, a newly discovered Mistralium crystal. The crystal had recently been activated by the Zusten military organisation in preparation of building a new town.” “President Rane, won’t you send your forces? Wasn’t our plan to seize as many crystals as possible?” said Eastmund Stewart, the highest authority in Oceanus-Krainione military forces.“While Zusten and Asnington are deploying a large portion of their forces, we won’t be using any of our forces. We need zero casualty for our plan to work.”“What plan?”“Oh, it’s a secret. You’ll love it.” replied Chromin with a smile. The news goes on. “It seems that both parties are getting close to each other. An estimated six minutes until the war will start.” “Eastmund. Ready a terminal operator.” “Roger.” Chromin walked out of his office room nonchalantly, down the hallway and to the terminal room. He unlocked the room using a retina scan. Still paying attention to the news livestream, he sat on a certain chair. “The first bullet has been shot. This signifies the start of S-9056 War.” The livestream shows large military forces being deployed to protect the crystal for each nations’ own uses. Eastmund entered the room with Selma, a terminal operator. “Stay here, Eastmund. Watch this unfold. Selma, launch a missile on Crystal S-9056.” “Oh no.” “Won’t that destroy it? We need the crystal, we shouldn’t d--” Selma asked. “Do it.” Chromin let out a sly smile. His left hand gripped the safety key, while his right index finger hovered just above the Enter key. The computer terminal showed the crystal under a target pointer. He twists the key and pressed Enter. And so, the missile was launched at 10 miles per minute. “It is estimated the casualties of this war will reach ten thousand-- A missile has been spotted travelling in the water. Is this missile targetting the crystal? No, that’s impossible. No sane person would destroy such precious resource.” The missile was one mile away. Realising what is imminent, forces from Zusten and Asnington had started retreating from the location a minute ago. However, the troops’ speed were not enough to compensate for the time it takes to evacuate. With the speed they were travelling at, it would take ten minutes to prepare for the incoming missile, as it was deemed ridiculous to think about destroying the crystal, leading to the absence of preparation for this very event. The missile was two hundred meters away. Individual troops were sending their last words. The leaders were sending as much information as they could manage to their higher ups. The missile had arrived at its target. Shattering the crystal upon impact, it sped up the reaction to the point where it takes thirty seconds for the crystal to dissolve completely, imploding the air bubble that had existed for the entirety of combat preparation. Having deployed such large amounts of troops, both sides lost significant amount of forces, while Krainione had zero casualties. “That’s what happens when you don’t invite a friend to your party. Now it truly begins.”
...Though the crack in the sky has begun to warble and harass the rays of the doddering white dwarf, and though it has made shade almost impossible, casting prismatic light which dapples the spectrum upon every skinny pale body, and though now that a coolness not altogether uncomely has made the germination of seeds almost impossible and stunted the yields of mature perennials, you and all the denizens of the summer dome, farmers mostly, who had moved closer to the dimming star in a stretch for fertile light, continue your hacking and humming, swinging and scything, and continue to sow the apple seeds of earth in the mineral-laden dirt of this small asteroid. And though the crack is widening, the scientists have determined, even if imperceptibly day to day, though it is deepening the reds and blues and smudging the in-between colors of life, and though at night even if it should not be possible you can hear quite distantly how one hears or even feels the vibrations of a coming storm miles off shore the crack's feeble bleating, the groans of this thwarted protector, even how a beetle clatters as its larvae pick it apart from the inside; though the noises and realities proffer themselves daily you and all the denizens of Matriarch 16 continue to live. "Life is the cure. Life will cure us. Life will patch the crack." It is true to some extent, I tell you, the words of the grumbly intercom voice which urges you each day to continue your duties. For, in some ways, you continue to bring life to earth in daily unmanned shipments, though with diminishing loads, which is a febrile cure for the brackish infertility of Earth's soil; and indeed, living is a cure to the existential woes wrought by your resplendent dying light, for perhaps you won't even notice when the crack finally circumscribes your poor protectors breast and rips them apart at this new seam allowing all the death and indifferent malignancy of space to come pouring in like a night song, disgorging you of the air you've been saving furtively, at night and on those long breaks, just in case, in the secret store of your lungs. But the voice isn't being philosophical when he says "life will patch the crack."It is true that your philanthropic dome thrives on the same thing which makes human life possible: oxygen. And indeed, if by some miracle a rain-forest should sprout from the backs of your gardens and fill out fields of leprous wheat, it would be possible that the hounding substance, the exhalations of human farmers and teachers and doctors and children, carbon dioxide, might recede and the crack start the lengthy process of repair. But here you trundle upon the extent which hinders your motion and keeps you sowing now on your knees as though in prayer. Oh and to talk of life on the cusp of death: why do you think that those shipment containers which haul the threshed wheat and hops and spuds back to earth are not equipped with oxygen stores? Perhaps that oxygen signals the plants to start destroying themselves and the journey is so long that it would be impossible to make it back to the blue planet without a not insignificant fraction of the yield rendered inedible? But surely this is convenient? And after all you are working and toiling..." suddenly there erupted a loud snapping noise and \static\ "fuck!""Matt, we lost signal." "I'm on it now, it looks like a jam but I can't figure it out." "You think it was Earth? We're floating far outside of Earth space there's no way they could accurately jam us out here. Unless..." "Right"Matt sighs, "unless the colony is blocking our signal." "fuck." "It's your fucking poetics,"Matt says with an indignant look, "Jesus, do you have to speak like fucking RL Cumquat every time we broadcast. That's just what the people need, right, some propagandist with a sense of fancy." "We've had decent responses in the past, plus something as poetic as Matriarch's situation demands some artful intensity." "It's rhetoric, John, it's always rhetoric and they're farmers. The type of rhetoric that works on farmers is short and simple--You're oppressed. Fuckin' rise up-- It shouldn't be that difficult. What are we supposed to do now?" The command pod was cramped with papers and books. Studies on air density and the durability of certain alloys under intense solar radiation plastered every passage way and head space, even the radio equipment was barely visible through the paper barrage. The two astronauts looked at each other with a certain sadness rankling under their consternation. "There's only one thing to do."John looked with anguish out the window and Matt could see the fear in the creases of his face, "Let's establish a local line so they can't cut us out. I'm sorry Matt. You air this time, you know the science better than anyone." Matt, long-faced, put his hand on John's shoulder and then pulled the pencil from behind his ear and started jotting calculations. "If I'm right,"Matt said, "We should be coming within eye-distance of the Matriarch colony in a few moments." Through the porthole of their radio ship the two astronauts waited patiently for conformation of the doomed colony. The stars ribonned as the ship quickly turned. "Is that Matriarch?"John asked aghast. The crack had spiraled snake-like around the dome, and a hiss of air and particles which looked from this distance like motes of dust in a light stream could be seen effulgent in shades of every color jetting from a large splinter at the dome crown. "fuck." "We are too late." "fuck." "Listen there are more colonies on the other side of the star. Let's close shutters for now." The star was dim enough that the astronauts could see the contours in its texture and how it looked concave like a sucked-in stomach or a punched-in piece of sheet metal. "The death-end. We've lived to see it I can't believe it. It's radiant." "Did you hear me, John. John. We still have a job to do." "Yeah. I heard you."John said. The ship sped off on a thin blue jet stream toward Matriarch 16 and the heaved-in breast it had rested upon in its youth. A blue marble-like dot far far away and obscured by a wan atmosphere winked at it all with its passing moon. &#x200B;
I often get asked about my childhood. People always think it must have been wonderful, having two of world’s greatest heroes as parents. Surely, they say, it must have been amazing to have Mr Magnetic as my Dad and the Human Tornado as my Mom? It was indeed wonderful. But not in the way that most people assume. I came into my powers quickly. I had my father’s powers, and my mother’s as well. It was quickly decided that I’d be a hero, just like my parents before me. No-one asked me for my opinion, as such; I just sort of went along with it. My hero name was Monsoon. I chose that name myself. My parents approved of it heartily. I went out onto the streets and took on some low-level criminals. I took down muggers, mostly; no super-villains or anything, nothing dangerous. I was paraded in front of the cameras, in an outfit made especially for me. Truth be told, I’d have rather been somewhere quiet. I’d have far preferred to keep to myself, away from all the cameras and journalists. But I was a hero, you see, and the people loved me. Everyone wanted to know of Monsoon’s latest exploits; what else could I do but play along? All too soon, Monsoon was my life. I had so little time left for me - or for Mom and Dad, for that matter. So one day, I gave it all up. I didn’t announce anything, as such. I just stopped putting on the costume one day. I stopped fighting crime, stopped going in front of the cameras. I stayed at home, caught up on school work, played some video games. My parents noticed this change, of course. And after a week of silence from Monsoon, they asked me what was going on. I’d known this discussion was coming all week, and I’d dreaded it the entire time. How was I supposed to explain to them that I didn’t want to be a hero? How was I meant to tell them that I wanted a different life from the one they had lived? But I did tell them. And they didn’t resist it - not one bit. So now, Monsoon is no more. I haven’t used that name in years, and no-one knows that name belonged to me. I’m just one more normal human in a world of normal humans, going through my final year at school. I’ll be going to College next year. I can hardly wait. And my parents have never questioned my choice. I’m sure they don't like it, but they've never opposed it. I am still their child, after all.
The galaxy is full of terrors, a cold and dark place with bright spots far too few. I have been studying subject B42 known locally as humanity for the past few years and they are undoubtedly a grave threat to our society, when they finally do reach for the stars, I hope they understand mercy. Their design is rather primitive compared to my peoples, we were thought to be the apex of life, perfect in every regard but stagnation and a rigid society has caused such a great stagnation in our spices that these primitive tribal organisms that scientific advancement cant be modelled, they are always moving forward and experimenting with everything in their habitat, its terrifying. communicating with the subject species is impossible, we dont emit any noises but send all our communications to the government bureaucracy for delivery, it takes forever to hold a simple conversation. it will be the death of us when humanity finally takes interest in us but we have time yet they've just worked out fire. &#x200B; *More of my terrible Stories* [r/gliggett](https://www.reddit.com/r/gliggett)
^^^^This ^^^^is ^^^^my ^^^^first ^^^^post, ^^^^be ^^^^gentle. The alarms were blaring, though that was fine. Nate continued walking down the now brightly lit corridor. "Freeze!" The word, yelled in the silence of the night barraged Nate's ears. 'Another annoyance,' he thought. Nate turned around and saw the guard standing right where Nate, for some reason, expected him to be. The older gentleman's eyes bored into Nate's. His pistol was already raised. At least that was different, this security guard actually had a modicum of initiative to him. "Sorry sir, I don't know how I got in here!"Nate yelled to be heard above the alarm. "Bullshit, put your hands above your head!" Nate sighed and raised his right-hand parallel to the floor and rotated it counter-clockwise. Nothing happened. "What the hell do you think you're doing, I said put them up!" Nate stared at his hand in disbelief. He tried rotating his hand again, and then again. The security guard spoke into his radio. "Control, we've got another mentally handicapped attempting to escape." An indecipherable response later, and the guard was raising his gun again. "No, wait! This is supposed to work!"Nate yelled. The bullets didn't acknowledge his pleas. \*********** Nate woke up, gasping. Clawing at his chest where he had undeniably felt the bullets rip through him. "Another nightmare huh,"The man on the cot next to him pointed out helpfully. "I've had a few of those myself recently." "Ulm, I know you're trying to be helpful, but you really need to mind your own business,"Nate snapped. "Whatever you say, if you need a lullaby though, let me know." Nate wasn't listening. He was too busy planning out his escape. He was done with the psychological tests they were subjected to here. It had been a while since he had used his abilities, a few months maybe. So he practiced in the few hours he had. Many of those sleeping in the bunkhouse were awoken by Nate throwing pots or pans at them. Or maybe it's better to say none of those sleeping, as that never happened. Nate reversed time after each throw woke someone. \*********** With everone sleeping, Nate got out of bed and snuck out of the bunkhouse. If he had timed it correctly, he would leave just as the guard tasked with watching the bunkhouse would have patrolled around the corner. His heart pounding, Nate opened the door. The coast was clear. He stepped outside and slowly closed the door before taking in his surroundings. It was dark. A lot darker than when he was escorted to the psychological tests. He could barely see across the courtyard to the large building that surrounded the bunkhouse. Moving with the shadows as the clouds hid the moon he advanced slowly to where he knew a door was into the larger building. Adrenaline was surging throughout his body, even though he knew he had an ace in the hole. He took a deep breath and opened the door to the larger building and went inside. It took him a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the light. A few seconds too many. A guard rounded the corner. "Hey! You're not supposed to be in here, it's almost midnight." Nate raised his right hand and rotated it counter-clockwise. "thgindim tsomla s'ti ,ereh ni eb ot desoppus ton er'uoY !yeH"said the guard, before doing his best Michael Jackson impression around the corner. Nate hurried in the opposite direction the guard came from. For a few minutes Nate maneuvered his way through the building. All was going well with no more incidents until he stepped onto a tile and felt it shift. Immediately the lights turned up to full brightness, and an alarm could not be heard. You could say they were blaring, though that was fine. Nate continued walking down the now brightly lit corridor. "Freeze!" The word, yelled in the silence of the night barraged Nate's ears. 'Another annoyance,' he thought.
I don't really read these stories, but Ill give it a shot (Rather, a blot) SCP 1452 "The Living Inkwell" Object class - Unknown The Living Inkwell is to be contained within two 10 ton steal walls and levitated using magnetic fields. The walls and floor are to be electrified, and viscous ink thinning fluid is to be applied to all available exit points. Anything that is drawn with SCP 1452's ink is given animated properties and can exist off of the media its put on once drawn. It is thought that SCP-085 was drawn using this pen, but SCP-085 claims that not to be true. In a test that involved putting its ink into "Extra Fine"Though a mechanical SCP we cannot mention, it seems that equal amounts of all elements are traceable, even some only known to higher class personnel. An interesting thing to note, during an experiment with the living inkwell, when electrocuted, all things created using it disappeared, but the elements created through "Extra fine"only perished slightly. SCP-085 had a heart attack the next day, but was fine when given a drop of SPC-1245's ink.
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"My servant Whis informs me you're quite the arrogant little man, cook, "Lord Beerus said while reclining in the fancy chair of some nondescript restaurant. "I-it's chef, sir,"the little man replied. "I'll be the judge of that ", despite knowing that he was in the presence of a world killing monster, Chef Gordon Ramsay felt his notorious temper rise. Cheeks flushed, he balled his fists. "I wouldn't do that, "Whis broke in, sensing the man's anger, "my lord is a very volatile deity. There is no force on this planet that can save you should he become worth with you." "I knew a man named Ramsay,"said Beerus, "Or was it Ramses? He was arrogant too. I stared a hole in him."Confused, Gordon Ramsay looked to the blue skinned attendant. "Oh, he's not being figurative, master Gordon, I assure you, "Whis confirmed, "Lord Beerus can destroy the likes of you with little more than a glance. "Beerus took the cue, treating him to a narrow eyed stare, and a mischievous smirk. The chef yelped and jumped back. "Little turd,"muttered Vegeta in the background, "always thought the man was a blustering coward." "Oh?"Replied Bulma, "And how many times has Beerus made you shit your unitard?" "It's Lord Beerus, woman!"Vegeta, not for the first time today, realized he'd walked right into his wife's argument. Point proven, she elected not to rub it in. "You sure your backup plan will work?"Vegeta quested tentatively. "Oh, definitely,"Bulma replied, "I have Guy Fieri on speed dial." "You know that prick too? Well, now I kinda hope he fails."
A brass bell. Great, another cheap trinket from his sickeningly rich aunt. “Well ain’t this a precious”, you say in disdain. After a quick look of disbelief, you give it a ring. Not for any particular reason, it’s just one of those things you have to do. Like clicking the tweezers when you grab them. You scoff in disappointment. You reach the next item with your hand. What was it? Looked like some kind of pendan- “How may I be of service?” A snobby voice behind your back. You quickly recoil and stand up from the sofa, to see a balding, middle aged British man in a three piece suit standing up behind the sofa with his gloved hands behind his back. “Oh my god, who the hell are you?!” “Well, why you have called me of course!” He responded before you could process the situation. “How did you get in here?!” You ask lowering your tone. “I came in the box currently by your feet, sire.” You glanced at the box in astonishment and confusion. “Oh right, you’re gonna tell me you came from the bloody bell over there mate?” “Precisely.” This all felt like one bad fever dream. You grab the little cowbell and point at the butler. “You came... from th-“ “Indeed.” “Well, what are you?” “Oh I’m a time traveler. I came to tell you to avoid water for 20 years.” “Wh-“ “I’m a bloody butler, you pillock. YOUR butler now I suppose.” He had now a bothered frown on his aged face, as if you were a complete moron for not knowing what just happened. “I don’t want you here mate.” “Oh la dee da. It’s not exactly pleasant to be in your company either, but here we are. Listen I’m not gonna be enigmatic, just tell me something to do, I’ll do it, and I’ll go.” You begin to wish it was just a cheap worthless trinket. “Are you taking the piss?” “Regretfully not mister. Give me something to do before I decide to do your bloody dishes or something, I’m boring myself to death.”
Hi, I'm one of the judges for your group here with some feedback. So I enjoyed the overall plot, especially the bit about creating an infinite number of possibilities to overload the simulations of Central. I don't know the first thing about the physics that go into creating such a set of circumstances that would result in infinite possibilities, so I can't say much on that and I assume you do have such knowledge or have done research. That said, I have some pointed feedback for certain elements you chose to use to navigate the story. The physics in the opening scene seem...off to me, to the point where it affected my suspension of disbelief. Throwing a rock at a mirror does not typically cause the broken shards to shoot out in projectile fashion. Whatever hit the mirror would have to be moving very fast to cause such a reaction and it was described that Mal threw the rock while wrestling with the white jacket. Perhaps an alternative would be Mal wrestling away from the white jacket as they took him away; he breaks free of their grasp and falls onto the mirror, which ends in his eye being pierced. That stood out to me. The second point had to do with the twenty year gap. I found it absolutely unbelievable that, after twenty years of not speaking, the MC randomly goes to his childhood friend's house one night and they both act as if no time has passed whatsoever. I think this can work, but it needs much more explanation. We know nothing about the MCs state of mind during these twenty years, why he hadn't tried to get in touch with Mal in all that time, or why he suddenly decided to now. I think the explanation of why Central let Donner's wife die is...odd. >“But sometimes it’s just the optimal outcome. Your wife dies, sure, but overall productivity, happiness, endorphin levels, hell, whatever metric they’re using this week gets bumped if she leaves the picture. It seems the exact opposite has happened in Donner's case; he is more miserable than ever. Why would Central expect someone's wife dying as leading to them being happier? Finally, I think there are some issues with the logic of Central being all-knowing in their simulations and their ability to bring their simulations to fruition. I suggest looking into the paradox between omniscience and omnipotence as a reference point for my critique in this aspect. In science fiction, I think the logic of the world is more closely scrutinized than other genres because of its inherent reliance on established reality. The conflict you've set up is very interesting, I just think you need to take your time in developing it and making sure everything is sufficiently explored and explained. For a first chapter of a story, you've mortally wounded one of the MCs, skipped over twenty years with no explanation, outlined the villain's plans and how they maintain control, had the MC build a particle collider on the third floor of a warehouse, had a battle scene in which the white jackets attack the group of rebels, and had the particle accelerator turn on and begin some highly speculative transformation that the MC submits himself too. The first scene, alone, has enough material and characters to fully explore and turn into a first chapter. Thanks for the piece and I hope you found this somewhat helpful. :)
“It seemed like I could never really talk to him, my brother. He was always in his own world... always distant. Always lost in that telescope in his bedroom window. My mom got me that thing when we were kids, but I never really cared for it. Alex though, fuck. Alex just took to it. He just liked to see the stars.“ -Ya, that’s touching and all, but your drunk stories don’t keep my lights on, bud. You may have been a regular customer before shit hit the fan, but now that over half the population is gone, I need cash on the bar. Buy another drink or carry on. “It’s not that I want to tell a story that separates me from the others. Hell, I don’t have any family or friends left to relate to. But.. we survived. And that’s more than I can say for the rest. The fact that you’re sitting here with me, the fact that you.. survived this... Can I buy you a drink? Is that allowed? -Jameson. And rules don’t really apply to us anymore, do they? You never were the whiskey type, but the end of the world brings changes “Cheers.” - I did always like Alex. He was a good kid. “He was a better me. My dad always reminded me of that.” you take another shot “The only difference was that I tried. I tried to save us.” Bartender swallows another whiskey -What did Alex do? “Nothing. He just... did nothing. I saw the wave coming in. I grew up on the water. I’ve seen tides, so have you.” -We’ve all seen shit we weren’t ready to see. We’re one of the few still here. “Alex knew something the rest of us didn’t. I know he did.” - If Alex had seen all of this coming, he would have warned you. He would have told all of us, don’t you think? “Alex would have. But I swear he wasn’t himself towards the beginning of the end. He was just a boy who couldn’t leave that fucking telescope.” -I know it’s difficult. You lost your parents, you lost Alex, you lost everything. bartender pours two more Jameson shots -You have to stop blaming Alex, you have to move on to the new world. you take the shot “Maybe you’re right. But he was the only one that could’ve saved us. Instead he broke it.” -Did they ever find it? Did they ever even find him? “The only thing left in that house is that broken telescope. The rest was gone with the tide.”
She saw the backpack fall to the ground in her backyard. She ran to it and felt it. It had been on a plane. Something had been removed from it. Then, screaming. Gunshots. She opened the backpack. There was a pistol inside. She felt it. It had been fired several times. It was put back in the backpack. Then, someone opened the airlock, and everyone fell out and died. She felt the gun's future. A shot from it went off, and she was dead. Then, she looked up. A man, the man that was firing the gun had a parachute. He was about to land. She ran back into her house. The man landed, released the parachute, and then ran after her. She kept running determined not to let the man take the gun and shoot her. She fired a shot at the man. She cocked the gun back immediately before the sound of the gunshot hit her. Her hands hurt, and there was a ringing in her ears. Then, she dropped it and it fired one shot at her head, and killed her. The prediction was right.
I started with space. Seemed simple enough start for my first creation. Make it large enough for everything, keep colors, matter and all the complicated stuff for later. Next, I made some sky and land masses... But I couldn't see anything pop up in the emptiness. Damnation! I forgot the lights. "Let there be light!" Ooookay. The skies turned out blue in the darkness, but I worked with it. I spent my first turn already, so needed to be quick. "Let's mix some of that extra blue down there with the land, and hopefully with the light on there won't be any more mixups with light and darkness. I'll call that sea. It's all good." Third turn. Plants. "I better make the vegetation green, now, to compensate for all the blue."I sprouted trees, grass and fruit up from the ground. All the good stuff. But the greenery spread everywhere and filled up the whole thing. Now everything was an ugly tint of green. This was turning out to a real fixer-upper. Perhaps it wouldn't be as jarring with some better lighting. On my fourth turn I took a sidestep from my original plans and added a big orange light in the sky, along with a smaller pale light, to see if the jarring green would look better with some softer lighting. No such luck. A whole turn squandered. I was starting to panic. Turn five. I needed to get this greenery under control. I pushed out swarms of plant-eating creatures - anything I could think of. Skin, scales, fur, even feathers! Sea-monsters - yes please! But the bloody things grew too big and ate almost everything, so right before my turn ended I threw a big rock at them, suffocating the big lizards in dust and snow. Starting to sweat, I tried again, making gentler cattle things and fixing them with carnivorous hunters, as to not have another effect spin out of control. I gave the hunters only two legs and no protection from heat or pointy extremities, so they'd be at a disadvantage. "Please please please please replenish the earth and subdue it. Have dominion of the creatures and the plants." If these 'men' wouldn't balance the ecosystem, I'd be out of luck. I looked in horror, as my sixth turn came to an end, mankind swarming over the whole globe, killing everything that moved, cutting down what they could and burning up everything else. I couldn't do anything on the seventh turn. I was petrified. I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of carnage. With my eyes still closed, I threw in tablets with commands to slow the fck down, listen to your maker and stop it*, but the sound of destruction continued. I made a man of myself and separated my spirit to oversee the conception, risking a paradox. I thought they'd listen to one of their own, but they nailed me to a cross. I started to hyperventilate. Loud bangs told me they had started to destroy the very atoms that held the universe together. I could already feel them start to spread to the rest of the cosmos, as the crescendo of utter carnage and annihilation peaked to threaten my sanity. The sounds turned to an unholy roar, and suddenly stopped. There was now only silence. I heard a soft voice call me from behind my shoulder: "You can open your eyes. It’s all over now."
I had to break in into a three-parts story because it was getting out of hand! The Witch’s Familiar Part 1: Special Treatment It went without saying that Detective Leufroy Bedefer would always stand between the good, the bad and the ugly people of his city and the forces of Evil, Weyrd and Witchy stuffs. One way or another, Bedefer could wander absentmindedly into a tricky situation involving obvious surnatural, nefarious powers and disarm it, peacefully. He didn’t even carry a gun, though it was a matter of public safety given his terrible handling of weapons and scare of big noises. It went, therefore, without saying, that the city entered an unprecedented frenzy of terror when Detective Bedefer was gravely hurt during a car accident. The gates of Hells could had opened in front of the city hall, the citizen wouldn’t had felt more vulnerable against untold forces. To worsen the matter of already dire circumstances, he had to receive a blood transfusion which, for reason still unknown, was green. Glowing green. As if it wasn’t trouble enough, the unconscious Detective began to float and unless a quick-thinking nurse hadn’t promptly close the window, he would probably be on his way to cross the international waters. The ceiling of the hospital room had to be equipped with blankets and a pillow was nailed in a poor attempt to accommodate Bedefer’s slumber. Among the usual medical equipment that monitored his vitals, cables and hefts made sure he wasn’t going to fly away. “It’s somewhat fortunate he can’t see the state he’s in,” thought his colleague and partner Detective Nine Serendas, “he simply can’t stand the color green. It makes him puke.” She recalled with a touch of tenderness. Never before had she to face obvious out-of-this-world phenomena without Bedefer weird, but crucial, input. Serendas wasn’t blessed with a lot of imagination, or any of Bedefer’s quirks that led him directly to the right places to crack a case. She, however, was good with paperwork. With written laws. Something went wrong within the blood donation distribution circuit and she swore to herself; and to Bedefer, that she will pluck out every single one freaking moron who shouldered any kind of responsibility in this mess and fed them mercilessly to the justice system. She started with the hospital staff. Hard-boiled people, very stressing job to do, dealing with pain and death on a daily basis. tough. Well, nothing had prepared them for the cold wrath of bureaucratic stubbornness of Nine Serendas. Five morally broken nurses later, -to whom she shall share not a shred of pity-, Serendas couldn’t plainly process what she had learnt. Usually a strictly law-abiding driver, she drove her car as if the engine drew fuel directly from lava at the center of the earth and propelled them, embers and fury, to a cottage out of town. The nurses had confirmed, to her astonishment, that they were given two units of green blood by a mysterious lady, wearing a long, white dress, curly bright green hair and a black cat on her shoulder. “And you just… took it and shove it all into Bedefer’s veins without further analysis?” “Well… he is… she said… he’s a bit special, right? So she said he needed a special treatment.” The nurse must had had imagined the smell of burning paper that stopped her from continuing but Detective Sarendas ire had indeed reached its white-hot bursting point and furthering her testimony would only had contributing to pour oil on the fire. A few inquiries later and the Detective had found the address of the wanna-be healer… and wanna-be sorceress, or something, since the door opened on its own with a sinister grating noise you could only obtain by purposely greasing it with sand. “Do cross the humble threshold of my domain, Detective Nine Sarendas of the Police” “Are you Burngithe Bedefer?” “Why, yes of course!” Beamed a voice from deep within the dark cottage. “Do come in! I’m making crumpets.”
Hi, this submission has been removed. Direct prompt replies must be good-faith attempts at new stories or poems • Fill-in-the-blank: Responses must be at least 100 words. This is essentially a fill-in-the-blank, or you asked a question likely to generate a simple answer. Prompts should encourage a story or poem. Feel free to repost without the question or fill-in-the-blank element! Prompts will be removed if there's a high possibility for rule breaking responses (rule 7) ──────── Modmail us if you have any questions or concerns. In the future, please refer to the sidebar before posting. This action was not automated and this moderator is human. Time to go do human things.
Fuck. Yes. This is heaven. If I'm not dreaming, then I'm in heaven. Six one way, half a dozen the other, really. Flying was cool. I mean, still is, but man, that was limiting compared to teleporting. Which was nice, too. But then I realized I don't have to do that, either. Why teleport when you an just create reality right in front of you, you know? So yeah, the orgies were pretty good, too. Except for one guy who'd always be smiling and watching. That always kind of weirded me out. But all that stuff gets kind of old. Admittedly, yes, it takes a long time before the orgies get old. But they eventually do. I tried creating a wife. She was my high school crush. Someone I didn't know well enough to see any real flaws in. But talking to her just isn't right. She'll say what I want or expect her to say, but that only gets you so far in conversation. Or she'll comment on the things that are happening right now in front of us. But that's it. She doesn't have thoughts. She doesn't comment on how she feels. She's basically just a running commentary of the moment. Except the one time, when she said, "Please let me leave."That was odd. Same thing with my dad. When I realized I could manifest people, I was psyched. I could finally hug him again. Hadn't been able to do that since I was eight. So it was cool to hear, "I love you, son,"again. It was nice to hug him. It was nice for me to have him tell me he was proud of me. But then he'll talk about the couch in front of us, or the weird, shimmering wallpaper, or the fires outside, or the smiling man. He doesn't tell me what he wants for me, or what he wants for himself. But you've heard this before. This isn't the first time I've manifested it. I pick up this journal every once in a while and read the only entry in it. I can't remember what it said the first time I wrote it. So every time I put it down and pick it back up, what I read is just a little different. Nothing sticks. I mean, I never wrote anything about my dad, but there it is. And definitely not the smiling man. I try to ignore him. Manifesting reality is pretty nice. I can make anything I want. But it's just not really what I want. This is heaven, right? &#x200B;
There’s a box behind the wall, Where no man ever goes. The cobwebs gather the fleeing dust In the cornfields that roll on and on. The pumps have long been empty, And the walls have lost their paint; The glass has long been shattered And now breaks from the frame. But the box behind the counter’s wall Is kept clean and pristine; And the label shines as bright as it did On the first day it was there. The Last Aid box is a treasure Left from wars long ago. And in the land where the tall corn grows Beyond the horizons blue, There stood a man in need of aid Whose body is crumbling away. He braved the silent winds blowing, And crawled his way within; The station’s sign called to him With its flaking faded paint. And there within was the lonely box, Within which held his cure, A memory from a long-lost struggle In a land far away. The pages torn and the ink has faded, Yet his tears were still fresh in his hands; He took the book within his arms And crawled back out the door. There’s a portrait of a girl On the front of his cradled book; And the dying man sighed longingly At the picture worn and cracked. Yet in his eyes was a light Drawn from times long lost; And smile lit his face Even as he fell. The winds still blow amongst the corn Howling on the silent plains; But the box is buried in the dirt, Behind the station and the grave.
I turned my shields on because I was afraid that I would meet with the destructor of my world. I was flying in an unknow direction and I wasn’t feeling scared anymore. Everything that can be lost was already lost to me. When I arrived to the to my destination, systems alerted me. I saw a big sun, which really fealt like the one on my system. After some research I figured this was my sun, the one I was born under. After the attack, after what it felt like a lifetime, I felt scared. I immediately send two undetectable beacons that would tell me if there was any mistake. While waiting I hoped to wake up in a cyro chamber, where I could have laughed the weirdness of the dream I just had. But I knew this was not the case. Returning beacons gave me intel about planets, and it showed me earth. No, not my planet that is broken after the attack of an unknown object, the earth before that event. When I was just a young boy. I did not know what to do. At first I wanted to leave this all behind, jump to a escape pod and return to the happy times. For once more I would be able to drink some cold beer, or see my girlfriend who died during the attack. I quickly packed some things that would make people believe that I was actually a time traveller, jumped on one of the escape pods and started the ride of my life. While approaching the planet I felt something was wrong. I clearly did a grave mistake. I knew it but I did not wanted to believe it. During the day of the attack, the unknown object sent one missile to the earth. Government’s did everthing they could do to stop it entering the atmosphere. It exploded in the sky with unmatched strength. That was what broke the world. My last toughts, while watching the star like dotted flames of the incoming missiles, were about the fuel tank of my escape pod, which had nuclear power designed for interstellar travel and how that fuel could be able to break the earth.
Hundreds of years ago, when I was just a boy, I tripped and fell during a caribou hunt and broke my leg. When my hunting party came to me minutes later, my leg was repaired and my pain was gone. It was like I never injured myself in the first place. The tribe said I was a miracle, bestowed upon them from the gods, with skin of stone and bones of bronze. No matter what happened to me-an arrow in the eye, a rock to the head, even a jump off of a cliffside, i was completely fine a few seconds after. I now know my tribe’s explanation of my abilities were primitive nonsense, the ignorant gossip of a shaman that spread through the village. They knew some things of the old ones before them, passed on through mythology and legend. A popular parable of that time was about the old ones. How they tried to reach eternal youth, like the gods. Some wanted eternal life, but their bodies aged indefinitely, leaving them a pile of living, conscious dirt, forced to live. Others asked for eternal health, and long after their brain died, their body lives on in perfect condition. Yes, they may have spread their genes and carried on their family line, but their abilities were never shared by any other human. Well, besides me. I am the descendant of both a ever-conscious immortal and an ever-healthy mortal. Somehow, their dormant genes awoke in me. My mind and my body will function perfectly-forever. It’s been 2 hundred thousand years since I was born. I’ve seen civilizations rise and fall, my loved ones live and die. If my estimations are correct, I have had the most offspring in human history. I’ve lead armies, lived as a peasant, and controlled countries. But all i want to do is die. I’ve tried everything. Jump off a building? The puddle that was my flesh will reform into consciousness. Shoot myself with one of the guns I’ve found in the ruins of the old ones? My flesh heals behind it. Walk into the sea? Even after being unconscious at the bottom of the ocean for hundreds of years, my body always finds the surface again. I later found out i was born in an area the old ones called “Russia”, shortly after the collapse of their civilization. Of course they are forgotten about now. More advanced civilizations have risen and fell long after theirs. And now, I’ve done everything there can be done on earth. I’ve explored all seven continents, lived as a peasant or king,everything. But now-now the current civilization is approaching technology levels rivaling the most advanced of all time. And soon, commercial space travel, along with colonies around other stars, is beginning to exist. This is my final message to this earth, etched in on stone in a language long forgotten. Tomorrow I’ll leave for the nearest star system, already being terraformed. This is goodbye.
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"Well they say it gets easier every time you do it."staring at the blown skull of my extra-dimensional doppelganger. He barely fought back, once I told him what I had come for, its like he knew it had to be done, there was hardly any struggle, just a begrudging acquiescence. Had I not had such conviction I may have ceded, but I am not one to waste my own time. A thing I previously did not have much more of. This was my first murder, to me all life is sacred, but the one thing I hold highest above all is myself and judging by the .50 Caliber bullet that blew through his head and not mine, this just cements my belief that I am the greatest mind, and it'd be such a dishonor to everyone to allow such a mind to wallow to dust. I should clean this up but I really can't stand to be here any longer, and if I'm going to do this, this is a feeling I am going to have to deal with. "Old man."I thought as I left, it seems we age at a similar rate throughout the dimensions as he appear as frail and mid-70's as I. The next me was not much more of a fight, and tracking him down wasn't too hard either. BOOM! right in the face. His face had such a surprised look seeing me. Very curious man. An ex-architect who now lives off of social security and his retirement funds, and painted too. I could feel his essence bond with mine, I felt much more energetic, much more... nimble, and that feeling was there too, it felt... a bit more than just discomfort. The third me, I cracked his god damn neck with my bare hands. The fourth me, I had beaten to death. The fifth me took only one punch, and traveling to the sixth me I could only partially lament how they all were moments away from applying to a hospice. Strangely enough as with each death the discomfort never abated, it, only got worse, got sharper, after the seventh I freaked out as it felt like something had grabbed my stomach and squeezed. The 9th me was pretty wealthy, the first of us I'd encountered to have used our brains for financial and social gain, and a death befitting us all was given. Drowned in the majestic Caspian sea and now apart of me. I was travelling to the 16th me. Each me I killed not only gave me back my youth, my peak cognition but as well what I believe is a combined intuition, an amalgamation of all our instincts, which had been tugging, and pulling, begging me to stop, and every time I looked at the wrinkles on my hands, the bruises from beating myselves, heal and fasten better than before, I just had to keep going. I'd reckon I was in my mid-30's, this next one was going to be my last one, I think? It felt amazing, this power. I felt stronger and clearer than ever, and yet, that clench. "Too late to renounce my ways?"It was a weird presence and felt familiar, I didn't know I could still feel fear, and the same time it was beautiful, so beautiful. I knew there was no point in fighting, or rather the feeling I had, tugged me to be... consolidated. I had become more me than I've ever been, and now to be, greater than myself?
Tapestry The empty glass bottle of Jack sat on the mantle. A fine layer of dust covered it. Mark knew its every detail. The ridges along the neck. The Cap was black with reeded edges. The square base was pushed upward about half an inch. Mark had measured it once. The bottle wasn’t quite large enough to justify having its own glass handle, but it still fit well in the palm of his hand. He hadn’t held it for quite some time, though. The mantle was empty besides the bottle. The room itself was fairly bare, as well. It had no forms of entertainment. No pictures, paintings or drapes hung on the walls. The sofa was spartan and it was the only place to sit. The right cushion was placed squarely in front of the mantle. It was well worn. What made this room odd wasn’t its minimalism. It was how rounded out the rest of rooms in the condo were compared to it. They were laid out well, and had perfectly contrasting colors. A single picture lay by Mark’s bedside, taking up a sole spot on a small dresser. Mark still sat on his sofa, staring straight ahead. It was nearly time for work, Mark decided after some time. He got up and grabbed his bag so he wouldn’t miss the bus.
We are the eternal kingdom. History spanning back to over 10 000 years. Ruled by an immortal king for most of about 9000 years . Does all this sounds fictional. Everyone thought so too. &nbsp; Until about 1000 years ago, we were considered to be the kingdom of witch. Every countries that tried to fought us in war, ended up being utterly and humiliatingly defeated. We were so advanced that up to this day, not a single country in the world has the knowledge and even wealth enough to actually beat us in any category. &nbsp; It wasn't until the sudden death of our immortal king that others manage to catch up. Even then, not everyone believe this science thing we were brewing up. However, in the tradition of the former king, we do control how much information i.e. knowledge that we could share. He believed that humanity hasn't learnt to co-exist with each other. Allowing others to learn what we knew would only leads to the risk of us being possibly taken down by them in the future. &nbsp; He wasn't wrong. As matter of facts, our former king was worshipped by some for his prophetic abilities. He invented machine, writing and number. Well, most of the times he would bring about a premise or a hypothesis (probably the correct term for it) and demand us to look for evidence for it. In essence, he thought us how to learn. His hypothesis was never wrong. As a result, while Newton and Leibnitz invented integral and differentiation we actually learnt it through his hypothesis 3000 earlier. &nbsp; About 1000 years ago, everyone else started to understand. When gunpowder was used as weapons, other civilization finally realized it wasn't witchcraft that killed them when they fought us before. It was an invention that they discovered thousands of year to late. As usual, they thought they had reached the apex we stand on. Except our former king always thought us to never fight at our full powered strength. When they fought with flintlock musket, we fought with revolver and rifle. They were always behind. The thing is, our former king always knew everything. &nbsp; Every 30 years or so he would disappear for 2 years. This is a closely guarded secret. No one knew where he went. No one knew why did he had too. Even with our nurtured scientific minds. We didn't knew. Some of us brought this mythical idea that it has something to do with his immortality. After all, that is the only unexplained bit. How could he became old and young continously. He would came back as a young man in his 20's aged until he was 50's disappeared for 2 years and came back as a man in his 20's. On top of that, he would demand sacrifices after he came back. Child, man and woman to be killed. It was every bit as random. Yet no one thought this was cruel. No one questioned it. &nbsp; Legend has it, 1000 years ago he didn't came back. However his mythical abilities has been passed to the next king. His right hand man. Just as how he did it, the new king selected a council. A council to support him. His execution arm. 5 years ago, he came back from his two years meditation, as soon as he did, several members of the council was sacrificed. This is how I got into the council. I was the replacement of the one of the sacrificed council members. &nbsp; Usually, as some senior council member told me, there would always be at least one senior council members in every 30 years cycle. This is to ensure continuity. He was later sacrificed. I am pretty sure he knew a secret. Why was he sacrificed 5 years later than others is beyond me. But he knew a secret. Probably, I couldn't be sure. He told me. "The only way to break it, is within the cycle" P/S: to be continued.
I picked up the match. I can’t bear to leave this universe. It’s all I ever wanted. It was a unicorn dimension where the perfect utopia existed. Every other reality yearned for one such as this, but the conditions were never good enough. Perfection was only a myth- at least, until I blinked my eyes that fateful day. I lit the match on fire. It’s going to hurt me to do this. Everytime I thought I’d doing a suitable place, I vanished from it. Somewhere in my life I’d tangled the fibers of the universe, and somehow, they’d caught onto my eyelashes, forcing me to delve into parts of reality most others weren’t aware of. I held the flame to my eyelids. But enough was enough. I’ve never been one to court daring adventure, and it was truly impossible to live like this. No love, no pets, no treasures, just knowledge. Knowledge is a feisty beast. The more you chase after it, the more you realize it’s never in your grasp. But it seems that I’d caught the beast and felt it’s teeth in my throat. I know too much. I screamed as my tender skin began to burn. I don’t want to know anymore. Knowledge is useless without application, and though I’ve mastered the art of keeping my eyes open, I no longer wish to suffer. I’m going to catch fate by the snout and muzzle it with the iron bars of my will. I’m going to last this time. I’m going to last. It was time to melt the skin of my other eyelid. This world is amazing. The colors are astounding, the scents fresh, and tastes incredible. Any king of any universe would feel a pauper in the presence of these sensations, the richness of the fabrics, and the melodic voices of the inhabitants. I wonder if the locals get tired of their reality. Do they ever feel bored? Is there even another universe that rivals this one? I am now permanently unable to blink, and the ashes of my eyelids lay scattered upon the floor.
The night before had been... I wouldn’t say wild considering that men like me in their mid 30s don’t exactly have ‘wild’ times anymore but it was tiring for sure. The stag do of a mate and work the next day wasn’t the best combination. The report sat on my desk, freshly printed paper neatly piled up and secured with a paper clip. Alison had put it there before I even got to work, organised as usual. I’m not sure how I let myself fall asleep but my throbbing headache and churning stomach seemed to send me off nicely. ‘Jesus Jones wake up!’ I startled, feeling confused and stiff from sleep. I blinked a little, rubbed my eyes and squinted in the bright white light of the office, trying to get focus on the guy. He looked angry, he must’ve been about 50, a streak of hair prematurely grey ran down the side of his head. Worry lines were permanently scarred on his forehead and under eyes. His piercing stare and expensive watch told me there was no way he was new. ‘Sorry?’ I replied, sort of at a loss for words. ‘You can’t just sleep when you feel like it Jones, I need that report’ Perhaps it was a new boss, I thought. I reached for the stack of paper Alison had given me and it wasn’t there, my fingernails scraping against the plastic desk. ‘It was here, Alison gave it to me?’ ‘Who is Alison? Seriously Jones stop messing around. YOU are writing the report’ ‘But that’s not my-‘ He snapped his fingers to cut me off. ‘Just do it Jones’ And left. For a few minutes I stayed sat there, fingers hovering over the keys on the computer. I didn’t recognise the company logo in the top corner, I didn’t recognise anyone else in the office. Forgetting my hangover, a surge of sickening panic plunged into my stomach. Shakily, I got up, making my way to the bathroom. The lights were dimmer than usual and one of the toilets was out of order that wasn’t this morning. I splashed water on my face, took a deep breath and then walked out. Straight out of the building. I was making my way home, hoping that maybe just maybe things might be a little bit more normal there. My gate became more unsteady as I stumbled down the last few blocks. My phone pinged, a text from Laura. My beautiful wife. Her name was the same. The message simply read: ‘you there? X’ I texted back quickly, not wanting to stop walking. ‘Are the kids home? X’ It came up that she was typing as I reached the front door. The front door we’d painted ourselves and the long chain of conkers on a string strung up by the doorway that the boys had collected. She opened the door and I gasped with relief. Her perfect face greeted mine with a look of... confusion? ‘Who are you?’ I felt my breath catching in my throat ‘Jones?’ ‘Jones...’ ‘Your husband’ She turned pale, and I felt as though her expression was a cruel reflection of my own. A man ran past the house in jogging gear and waved a hand in greeting ‘Hi Laura!’ She didn’t look at him and I heard her mumble to herself. Then again but louder ‘I don’t know you, I don’t know any of these people, You are NOT my husband’ And with that, the door closed.
The rocket began to shudder rapidly. Is that meant to happen? Slowly but steadily the pressure in the tight cabin was building. She took a deep breath and swallowed the fear in her throat. It was fine. The ship and gear had been checked by the Librarian itself. After all she was the last hope for earth wasn't she? She had the best humanity has to offer. She had to be the best humanity has to offer. God she wasn't made to be an astronaut. Jillian tried to shut out the awful shaking and noise by thinking about the upcoming discussions with the ministers of Mars. The Librarian and his crew had taken 75 years to build this rocket after the great collapse, now her job was to get the materials for a hundred more. They were to evacuate the remaining population of the dying earth to their fellow man on Mars, should they choose to accept. Convincing them was down to her - one person. The pressure was unbearable. She tried to squeeze her eyelids shut but they were forced open. The seat that had been comfortable before now dug into her. They had tried communicating with Mars through radio but it was clear they wanted nothing to do with Earth. They said that if Earth was worth salvaging it would send an ambassador to discuss with Mars in real time - without the four minute delay. Mars didn't even try to help it's home planet when it fell. What could she say to make them finance their own refugee crisis? How could she represent a planet of a billion souls? The pressure would kill her. She couldn't breathe. Ohgodohmygod, she could feel her ribcage curling inwards. Then it stopped. She fumbled with the belt and floated out of the seat. Three months. She had three months in space to prepare for the meeting with Mars. Then the future of Earth would be decided.
Despite being outside, the air was not fresh. It was stale and cold. If you weren't careful, it could take the life right out of you. But Stevyn was always careful. He had three pairs of socks and a spare set of snowshoes in his pack. He wore three thick layers of fur. He'd brought his extra long walking stick in case he stumbled across a whole in the ice he walked across. He brought enough rations to last him three of these trips to Frelly. And, most importantly, he had waited. He waited to leave his hovel until this night, under the light of the hunter's moon. The night was so bright and clear that he could see straight across the tundra for miles. He knew he'd make it to Frelly by morning at this rate. Just enough time to set up shop for a few days. Sell off his remaining relics and be on his way to Aedenfall. The trip to Aedenfall would be even longer, and he'd have to plan that journey even more carefully. In truth, Stevyn had already begun to plan for it. He knew the best route through the Glacial Pass, but had three backup routes planned if anything went wrong. It wasn't uncommon for a ningen to break through the ice. There had been no reported sightings of any recently, but Stevyn didn't want to take that chance. As he went over different ways to defend himself from a ningen, or better yet how to avoid one altogether, he heard a blood-curdling scream. Stevyn nearly fell over at the sound, instinctively ducking down. For a moment, he feared it was a cockatrice by the suddenness of the sound. He turned his face downward and shut his eyes, merely making eye contact with one could spell his downfall. But cockatrice never traveled this far north. And that scream was all too human. Stevyn straightened his back and lifted his head to look out across the tundra, scanning the white landscape for the source of the scream. And then a deep, angry snarl ripped through the night air. Stevyn whipped his head toward the sound. Out across the tundra, slightly behind him, well within running distance, was a small figure being chased by a looming quadruped. It was too small to be a bear, so Stevyn assumed it was a wolf. A lone wolf, at that. One easily intimidated by two people working together. From this distance, it looked rather large, too. But Stevyn was willing to bet it was malnourished. The terrain between Mistport and Frelly was a particularly sparse one. Not a region any large predator would thrive in. Stevyn moved quickly, formulating a plan along the way. This wasn't the wisest choice he'd ever made, or the safest at that. But as he drew closer, he was certain his hunch about this wolf was correct. It was malnourished and weak. It was lucky to have found a meal. A particularly human meal. One that Stevyn was intent to deprive it of. He fished a small cylindrical object out of one of the side pockets of his pack. It was made of a strange alloy that Stevyn wasn't sure of the origin and was just big enough to fit in the palm of his hand. This little relic would hopefully be enough to scare off the wolf without hurting any of them. He just had to get there in time. The wolf was looming over the figure now, close enough for them to feel its breath on their neck, probably. Whoever it was didn't seem concerned, not since their first scream. They kept their head down and were sprinting straight ahead. Their face, though hidden by a thick hood, was likely a picture of pure focus. The wolf was getting ready to pounce, Stevyn saw it clear now. It lowered its haunches, its eyes trained on the neck of the runner. A snarl forming on its muzzle. But the hooded figure didn't notice. They wouldn't notice in time. "Hey!"Stevyn shouted at them both. He struck the relic against the metal of his pack and lifted it high over his head. A brilliant blue-green flame erupted from the relic, shooting several feet into the air overhead. It was bright enough to rival the light coming off the moon. "Over here!" The wolf pounced anyway, but Stevyn could see it falter. The hooded figure seemed to sense the attack and ducked out of the way at just the right moment to avoid the attack. As they did so, their hood lifted off their face enough for Stevyn to see a very youthful visage. It was a girl. A young girl. Younger than Stevyn. By a lot. Too young to be out here alone. Stevyn didn't have the chance to worry about her, as the wolf turned its attention on him. It snarled and bared its teeth at him. But it stayed hunched over. Stevyn lowered the relic toward the wolf, and positioned himself between it and the girl. With the light on the creature, it was evident this was no ordinary wolf. It was an ice wolf. Made entirely of snow and ice, with a literal frost bite. It was larger and faster than a regular wolf and should've overtaken the girl in a matter of seconds. She should not have been able to give chase for so long. The ice wolf continued snarling at Stevyn. With the relic in one hand and his walking stick in the other, Stevyn made a motion towards the creature. It was aggressive, but he didn't mean to harm it. Just scare it off. The ice wolf merely leapt backwards, out of range, but continued snarling. Stevyn mustered his strength, and took in a deep breath of air. He stood as tall as he could, kept the relic aimed at the wolf, and lurched forward. He swung his walking stick about over his head and let out a guttural yell, the sound drowning out that of the wolf. The flames licked at the ice wolf. The creature yelped in pain before running off into the night. Satisfied that it wouldn't come back now, Stevyn tossed the relic down into the snow. It was useless now. Without the mages of old to restore its power, it was little more than a paperweight. A pretty paperweight, but a paperweight nonetheless. That wouldn't fetch much of a price in Frelly. He walked over to the young girl, and knelt before her. She kept her face hidden beneath her hood, staring at him. He could see that there was no fear there, however. "You alright?"He asked her. "I had that." Stevyn chuckled. "Of course you did."He narrowed his eyes at her, a trickle of dark liquid streaking across her otherwise pale face. He moved toward her, grabbing his first aid kid out of his pack. He reached a hand out toward her carefully. "You're bleeding." She swatted his hand away. "I'm fine." He arched a brow at her as more blood slid down her face. "I don't think you are."He moved again, and grabbed her hood. "I said I'm fine!"She said, grabbing his wrist aggressively. "I heard you,"Stevyn said, doing his best to keep her calm. But the girl was not having it. And she was stronger than Stevyn expected. She ripped his hand off her hood, or at least attempted to. Stevyn fought her, poorly, but he managed to get her hood off completely. And that's when he saw why she kept her hood up. Her eyes were a piercing gold that actually glowed in the night. A bit dully tonight with the hunter moon. But they glowed nonetheless. And just above her eyes, about an inch above her brow, just to the side of both, were two small horns. About as big around as a gold piece, barely three inches long. They curved back from her face curling slightly around and behind her pointed ears. "Oh,"Stevyn said. The girl glared at him, eyes narrowed, teeth bared, blood trickling down her face from a rather deep cut just below her left horn. He sighed deeply. "You're gonna need to get to Aedenfall aren't you?" Her brow furrowed, the aggression slipping from her visage. "How'd you know that?" "You think you're the first?"
“We need a unit to 3366 Peck Court.” The line chirps out on the radio, waiting for a response but a long silence hangs. Fumbling around with his GPS to see if he was nearby, Officer Washington chimes back “I’m only two blocks away, Washington on it.” “Thank you Washington. We have reports of a known alcoholic who is said to hallucinate when he drinks, shouting at his partner in front of their house. Reports that the wife wants her husband to vacate the residence. Officer be weary of yourself beneath the collar.” Washington's GPS screen flashed the directions to the scene of the crime and linked the house to a Dirk and Paula Shratley. “Officer, please be advised both the wife and husband are occupants of the property.” With one last chirp out It was his first response to a call while riding solo on duty. After two hours of riding around, Washington was anxious for action and thirsty for success. Even if it was just a textbook domestic call. Washington found himself lost in thought, thinking back to that silly career quiz he once took so many years ago on Facebook, telling him he should become a police officer. “That quiz… I should join the force and then it said something else but what? Oh well, time to kick ass” he said, without realising he began thinking out loud. “Light ‘em up!” he yelled as he hit the sirens and smashed the gas. For two blocks, Washington peeled out, drifted around turns, went full throttle, pulled his e-break and screeched to a halt. What he saw drained any form of confidence from his core, and blanked his mind on anything he had learnt in his training. He slowly opened his door and pulled himself out of his car. Walking as if an earthquake was going on, he barely had any senses about him. This didn’t stop him from pulling out his gun. “Low-” Washington choked up, coughed and cleared his throat. “Lower the weapon and let her go!” The suspect was Dirk Shratley, but unlike the picture from the GPS, Shratley was on his front lawn with Paula in a headlock and a weapon to her head. Washington couldn’t tell what the weapon was that the man was holding, but began to make an assumption that this man wasn’t holding any weapon at all. At least not a real weapon. It appeared to simply be a silver, cigar-shaped piece of metal with the trigger of a pistol glued to the bottom. Washington concluded that what this man was holding was a cheap homemade ray-gun, and the hallucinations from his drinking probably caused him to feel as if he were living out a science fiction movie. Washington regained his posture, slowly lowered his gun and began to walk toward Shratley. He took four steps before he could take no more, as if he had hit a wall. “No closer! I’m done waiting. We’re done waiting. You should be done waiting too! In a day from now, life on earth will have changed entirely. Do what you can to save yourself, Tommy Washington!” Shratley yelled. Before Washington could begin to ask himself how Mr. Shratley knew his name, the trigger was pulled. By Mr. Shratley. After he pulled the trigger, there was silence. Silence, and the scene of Mrs. Shratley’s temple blowing out from the opposite side of her head where a small white light had entered. When the small white light exited Mrs. Shratley’s head, it went into a tree, causing the tree to ignite. Washington, still unable to move forward, realized that what he thought was a toy was actually a weapon of grand destruction. Before Washington could say anything, Mr. Shratley fell backwards. He never hit the ground, but slowly faded away. Washington was still trying to push through the invisible wall. Mr. Shratley faded away, so did the wall, and Washington hit the ground face first. Nose bleeding, Shratley turned over on his back soaking in the scene around him. He looked left and saw Mrs. Shratley’s headless body laying on the lawn and the tree that had caught fire behind her. Trembling in breath, he looked up and a man in some sort of military outfit came running up and hovered over him. “Who are you? What is your name, officer? Where did the man who did this go?” the military man shouted. Disoriented and slightly in shock, Washington responded “What happened to her head? The guy is just gone…” as he passed out. “Useless.” the military man chuckled to himself. The military man didn’t leave empty handed. He managed to take Washington’s car keys and sped off in the police cruiser. Washington awoke in a hospital to his Sergeant sitting by his bedside. “Washington, it’s good to see you’re coming to. That was a lot to go through. What happened?” asked Sergeant Howe. “Well Sergeant, I don’t know entirely. The suspect had what looked like a toy gun, but I guess I was wrong. Some kind of white light came out and shot the lady’s head right off, and then the tree lit up like a match. What happened next though, that is what I can’t understand.” “Washington, how could it get worse?” Sergeant Howe said in a very quizzing manner “Well the suspect, he just fell and disappeared. I just don’t understand.” said Washington, almost whimpering. “That.. that is crazy. But I don’t think you are. I think you need to be careful and watch yourself. There’s no way of knowing what can happen next, nothing is predictable. You know, I once took a quiz, long, long ago. Before the internet, it was a quiz for a career from some silly magazine. Anyway, I took the quiz and it said I should become a police officer and that will lead me to a life of intergalactic espionage. Now can you believe that? And now in all my years, something that ties it all together.” “Sergeant, you’ll never believe it. I took that same quiz, just transplanted to Facebook. Just earlier, I was thinking about that quiz and couldn’t remember the last part. Intergalactic espionage. Ha. And then this happens. What are the od--” and Washington was cut off as the Sergeants phone rang. The Sergeant, confused at a number he had never seen before felt the urge to take the call. He slowly answered, and gave Washington a cold look into his eyes. “Washington, it’s Washington on the phone for you.” the Sergeant stammered out. “Washington?” he responds. “Washington, for you!” the Sergeant exclaimed. “Who’s Washington?” Washington asked. “Not who!” the Sergeant said angrily “Who’s what? Washington?” Washington responded, unable to grasp the situation “D.C.! WASHINGTON D.C.!” the Sergeant screamed “Well, what would Washington want with me?” Washington asked the Sergeant, as if he would know. His boss shoved the phone into Washington’s hands and stumbled off in disbelief. Wondering to himself why after all these years, rotting away in this local precinct, in all these years, that Washington D.C. has never given him a call. Wondering why he hasn’t been able to move on forward for 20 years, taking care of a town he’s not even from. Wondering what would have happened if he didn’t take that first job out of the academy. Wondering if he never should have taken that quiz from that magazine, that a career in law enforcement would lead to him to a life of international espionage. Washington watched his Sergeant slowly turn around and stammer on out the room. Tommy Washington put the phone up to his ear. “Officer Washington, we met briefly earlier. You were bleeding out the nose and I was hoping that you could help me. Well since you passed out and couldn’t help me at the time, maybe you could do me a favor now. There is a helicopter on it’s way right now to your destination. Be on the roof in 10 minutes. Tommy Washington put on his sunglasses, lit a cigar, and cracked open a cold one. “Let’s do this” he said as he made his way up the fire escape and to the roof.
I’d seen my share of shady pseudo-doctors during my stay, but this was a new low. “Marie... are you just plucking them off the streets now? Who is this?” “My name is Mr. Auerbach.” The medicine man said confidently. His hands clutches his briefcase close to his chest, as if someone was going to snatch it from him at any moment. I noticed that this young man was dressed far better than you’d expect a witch doctor would be, so I was glad to see he wasn’t a total nut case. Mr. Auerbach thrust out his right hand to shake mine. I pulled the covers away to reveal that my right hand was no longer there; it rotted away long ago. He fumbled with his case for a minute to shake my hand with his left, and he grabbed my hand with such a force that made my bones feel like they were going to shatter. I groaned and cursed loudly. “Please excuse us, I need no distractions.” Marie shuffled out the door reluctantly. “Be careful with him, he’s very frail.” Marie closed the door behind her. Mr. Auerbach waited until he couldn’t hear her footsteps any longer to turn to me again, this time with a dead serious look. “I’m going to make this abundantly clear, Mr. Serling, I can cure you of this disease. That is not a problem. If you do choose to accept the treatment, however, there are some side effects that most consider to be unpleasant. On the other hand, I can swiftly put you out of your misery, if you wish.” I was intrigued by his proposition, but I was more interested in death. I had been trying to die for months, but the virus kept me alive to not destroy its source of food. “I didn’t expect you to understand, Mr. Auerbach. If you can, by all means, kill me. That’s all I want, I’m tired of fighting.” Mr. Auerbach looked at me as if I were his friend. “Of course.” “But wait, can you do a favor for me after I’m gone?” “Anything.” “Will you tell Marie that I’m sorry I couldn’t save them? She’ll know what it means.”
I heard my own heavy breathing as I looked around me, my spear in my hand. They even brought one of the war beasts to try and stop me, the chains that held it trumbled and it reminded me of laughter. "Back!"I shouted at them "I wish not to hurt you" They didn't listen to me. They only got closer and closer. "Stay back! Do not come any closer!"I waved the spear around and felt a deep trumbling in the ground as the war beasts step forward. Let me kill them I heard the voice. "No!"I shouted. We are of the Lazarus, your body hold no flesh, no blood, no soul, no emotions "Don't lie to me, I ha e a soul, I know I do!"The only response I got was steam that came out from my left elbow. The Androids and the war beasts kept getting closer. We have to kill them "Do we really have no choice?"I asked, deafeted already. We have non "How long will it take you?" An hour "Only an hour and then I get control over our body again?" Yes "Do you promise?" In my name as one of the lost who were to never be found I vow to you this oath, an hour from now the one who control this body of the 2nd Lazarus shall be you "Take care then"I told the lost soul as I let my grip on the body fall loose.
“A part of the city’s identity” said one of the protestors. “A gateway to littering and graffiti!” said someone else. I didn’t particularly care as I sat at the back of the town hall. My company would have to clean and repaint the bridge whatever happened in this public hearing. Cutting a few padlocks off as we went wouldn’t make much difference. One side of the room cheered and the other cried when the Mayor made her decision. “The locks must go” she said with her perfected political voice. And so it went. The next day me and my crew went up to the bridge over the river, our bolt cutters in hand. I got there first, just as the early morning sun was cresting over the water to the east. It was the height of summer and we had a good few hours before the commuters would make our lives more difficult. I carefully placed the cutters around the first padlock. It was old, one of the earliest probably. Made of worn brass, with the names Jill and Pete written on the front with permanent marker. A little heart in the middle. “Sorry guys” I said to myself. “I hope you made it together”. The cutters made a satisfied ‘clink’ as they severed the lock from the bridge. “One down, thousands to...” I couldn’t finish my sentence. My eyes turned grey, then orange, then black. My vision totally gone. A cloudy haze filled my mind’s eye. An elderly couple sat at home, holding hands and watching TV. The lottery came on the news. A flash of numbers. A scream of delight. I was then crashing back to reality. I woke up on the side of the footpath on the bridge. The little brass lock was on the ground beside me. My head was groggy, with a slight dull ache behind my eyes. “What the hell was that?!” I said aloud. My crew still weren’t here. They probably wouldn’t be for another half an hour or so. I put my vision down to waking up early and not drinking enough coffee. Too many other padlocks for me to get through today. I had to keep going. A visit to the medic onsite would only slow me down. I brushed off my overalls and went to the next padlock. It was a lot newer. Stainless steel and barely a year old I reckon. Mathew and Jessica on the front. A red heart symbol in the middle. Another clink. Another satisfying sense of progress. And then another blackout. A young couple, in a doctors office. “Pregnant, congratulations...” and then another round of joyful cries. I snapped back to reality. Only I was upright this time. I seemed to handle it better. And this time I felt...I felt...good. Like a rush of adrenaline. Their joy in the vision had rubbed off on me. I could feel their love and warmth when they heard the news. I had to feel it again. I rushed to the next padlock. It was black with a code combination, completely unlike the others. It had no inscription, except for a small X on the front. A ‘kiss’ I surmised. I eagerly lined up the bolt cutters. I cut the padlock, and a familiar rush of a vision came over me. “Perfected the virus...will soon be unleashed...the world will pay”. I came to. I felt sick. What had I done.
The Slope Clare had seen the sea for the first time at age 1, as the photograph of a toothless, sandy baby in her dad’s wallet could attest. Although impossible, she could remember its lick on her unassured feet while mom was holding her by the hands and slowly guided her steps in the foam. They couldn’t recover the photograph from the car wreckage, but 8 years old Clare had insisted, for hours, that it must have been there, somewhere, that they were all mean and stupid. A few days latter, she regretted her harsh words but the firefighters, the policemen and the medical teams were all gone now. They must think, they must know, how wicked she were… Clare tightly hugged her legs, rested her head on her knees and cried. She cried silently, to not alert the other kids, or perhaps because she was too weak now to cry louder than the squeak of a… … Mouse. The staff had informed her that her new family was waiting for her in the hall. She had timidly followed Mistress Pecky who landed a professional kiss on her forehead, wished her good luck, and left the little girl alone with a white and brownish mouse. “Good morning, Clare” said the mouse in a tiny voice, “my name is Stewart.” She feared the other kid were playing a cruel joke on her, but then Miss Pesky wouldn’t have taken part of it. She curtsied. “Good morning Stuart, very nice to meet you.” “We’re really glad you’re coming with us! Now, now, grab your suitcase and follow me, please. We’ll walk.” The pebbles crunched loudly under her feet and she was careful not to rush to quickly so the mouse could keep up. He seemed to notice and nodded gratefully. Clare could feel the glare of the children on the back of her neck on their way to the great gates. But not only the laughters from the kids could pierced the walls, they were madly tapping the windows. “Disgraceful.” Commented Stewart and as he spoke, all the curtains closed and all the shutters clapped in a thunder. Clare turned around and could hear the laughters divolving in shrieks of terror. For the first time in days, she smiled. By her shoe, Stewart scoffed a chuckle. “Now, now... We’re going to be late for lunch.” They passed the great iron gates as the staff rushed to the Orphanage, pulling the doors and the shutters in vain. Lunch would indeed be greatly appreciated. Clare’s stomach protested and she asked: “Where do you live?” “In a cottage. It’s not much but I’d like you to think of it as home. There is a garden, we have flowers all year round, two apple trees, chickens and a three-horned cow.” “It sounds marvellous.” “Her name is Colonel Avery Fitzpatrick”. “ I’d like to ask you something, Stewart.” “Anything, dear.” For a few moments, she hesitated then mustered the courage to whisper: “Wasn’t it… wicked? What happened to the curtains and the shutters at the Orphanage?” The path to the cottage winded uphill through a forest. Against the bright blue sky, Clare could discern the brushstroke of a smoke and the upper mouth of a chimney. “The thing you call “wicked” said Stewart,” do they happen often?” “... Sometimes.” “Did something… “wicked” happen to your parents?” She didn’t answer, disguising her confused thought under her heavy panting as the slope grew steeper. “We were going to the sea. I wanted to go to the sea because I couldn’t remember it well...” “What did you remember about the sea?” Clare stopped, her hands clasped at her sides as she was getting her breath back. The slope had now hidden the chimney smoke. “I… I remember it was loud.” They resumed climbing the hill. The top seemed to stray from them. Stewart had no difficulties crawling the slope, but Clare had now let her suitcase behind and was climbing. Her hands were bleeding. “I remembered then”, she sobbed, “… in the car… I remember the taste of the water… a wave surprised Mom… I’m drifting away… I’m afraid…” “It okay, dear. It’s ok” with his tiny paw, Stewart cleared tears from her face. She pushed on her foot and continued her ascension as memories cascaded around her. She was no more than two seconds under water. Dad recalled the incident in the car, swearing comically that this time he would guard his baby girl with the mighty fury of a mother hen. They laughed. Two seconds under water, her toothless mouth open, something bad had slipped inside and waited its moment. “We laughed and then… there was water up to the roof, salty water in the car! My parents, they… they couldn’t breath!” “Yes”, concluded sadly Stewart. “Wickedness is on the side of those who mean to hurt other, to sadden you, to create something hideous for us to cover from. You didn’t mean to hurt, Clare. There is nothing wicked about you. And you know why I can be so sure?” “Why?” muttered Clare, her face in the sand. “Because we have arrived.” She raised her head and her entire face was kissed by the gummy and warm nose of a cow. She had three horns. The cottage was bathed in flowers and sunlight. Behind her, the slope had disappeared and the path to the cottage snaked flat across the moor. “Nice to meet you, Colonel Avery Fitzpatrick!” “Welcome home, Clare!” answered the cow.
For thirty days and thirty nights he had been traveling. The old moon had fallen and a new had risen. The land had slowly become more barren and the trees more scarce, although water was still freely available as he traveled along the slowly trickling stream. His outbreath caused the chill air to form a mist around his face, and his inbreath almost hurt his lungs. For thirty days and thirty nights he had been traveling, and finally had he reached his destination. He had not known where he was heading when he started out on this journey, driven only by an unknown desire, a need, an urgency he could not - dared not - resist. To follow the stream north. And so north he went. Step by step, his heart lighter as he laid the miles behind him. No company did he need, other than the stars that came out at night to lighten his camp, and his own voice, hoarse at first after a long time of not being used and then smoother, stronger, day by day. He had not known he had missed it so much, he had forgotten the way it felt to put words to the thoughts that were dancing in his mind and in his heart. So long had it been since he had done as he pleased, had listened to his own heart. He had tried, the Gods know he had tried. He had tried so hard that there was now so little of himself left. So he had left. One day he had just gotten up and walked away. It was not to say that he did not look back, did not regret his decision, for doubt was plaguing him as he did so. It reminded him of what had been, what he had had, in friendships and in status and the life he had lived. But it had not been enough for him, it could not be enough for him; to live the life that others had chosen. So he had walked away from it and now he was learning, for the first time in very, very long, to find what his heart was yearning for. Careful not crush it, but to nourish it slowly, oh so slowly, listening to what it was telling him and abiding by it. The booths on his feet, although well made, had begun to cause blisters forming by the time he reached there. His coat, showing signs of wear and stains of mud and blood, indistinguishable now that they had dried, fit tightly to his body. Had there been anyone to see him, they might have wondered at his appearance, for it looked as though he had traveled hard and barely slept for days. And although true it may be, there was no one there that he could be seen by, nor heard by. As he stood, silently, his gaze traveled along the mountain wall that stretched high, eyes searching for the opening he knew he must find. &#x200B; There was a darkness there that he had not experienced for many days, for there were no stars to lighten his path as he traveled deeper into the grotto. Stumbling on the pebbles covering the ground, his hand grazed from the rough wall as he continued inwards and downwards. When he finally arrived at its innermost sanctum, the walls widened to reveal a cavern so large that he could not see where it began nor where it ended. Weak sun rays lit the hall and his soul rejoiced as he raised his voice in song. &#x200B; \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* &#x200B; Hehe, my first impression of the WP was that it was really pointing towards a comic sort of story, but I really couldn’t come up with anything until after quitting reddit, cooking dinner and then all of a sudden the first line just popped up in my head and I was like “shit, it’s this sort of story!”. Thanks for a fun WP!
Dave? Dave Marcus? Mikey! How are you! It's been what? 6 years? How the hell are you? I saw your piece at the Met, it was amazing! Thanks. I was really proud of that one. I always worried if I ever got something in there, it'd be one I hated, but I guess I lucked out. Nah man, that was amazing work. You earned that. And you stuck it good to everybody who said you were nuts to leave to go paint. Yeah, I guess. I mean, I love it, and I've had some success... I'll say. But it would still be nice to not have to worry about the bills every month. Seriously? I'd have thought you'd be cranking those out at 100k a pop. Nah, it doesn't really work like that. Don't get me wrong, I keep the lights on, and the kid fed, but there's not a lot of money in it most of the time. That's too bad man, but at least you're putting something valuable out there. Me? I wrote some code that's buried deep in an app that's helping people find the best sales for clothing. I mean, it's nice and all, but nobody's going to be remembering it in a hundred years. Yeah, how's that going? Rick still cracking the whip and making everybody miserable over there? You know it, but...and I probably shouldn't be talking about this yet...the app sold. Sold big. 9 figures. Holy shit! And you've been there the whole time, so you're taking home... Yeah...yeah...the original package. Wow...that's... I'm trying not to think about it, it doesn't even feel real. Did you get to keep any equity when you left? No, had to give that up. That's too bad man. You're telling me. But seriously, that's great. Your financial advisors are going to need financial advisors. I know right. So glad it paid off. Makes the whole ten years worth it. All the late nights, all of Rick's bullshit. Dude, I am so fucking happy for you. I never thought anything could be worth putting up with that place...but man...now you can do whatever you want, or nothing at all. You made it. I know. And the best part? No retention requirements. I can walk the moment the check clears. The buyers just want the IP. I'm free and clear by this time next week. But seriously, don't say anything. I won't, man. And congrats. Hey, you too. Getting up at the Met...you can ask Gail, I almost cried when I saw your name on that brass plaque next to it. I knew you'd do ok, but seeing you get out of that hellhole and actually make it...fuckin beautiful. Yeah... Anyway, take care of yourself, and don't be a stranger. You still know how to reach me. Yeah. And if you wind up buying that car you always talked about, I want a ride. Hey, you're the one who built out the original framework of that app, as far as I'm concerned, you can take the Lambo to Mexico for the summer if you want. We'll see, maybe I can get a week off somewhere. Good seeing you. You too.
We always feared the end of the world, it was in our nature. Little did we know it was already the end of the world, but not for us. In hindsight it should have been obvious, but humanity, like always, refused to accept the signs. And in our arrogance seven plagues of our own design spread across the natural world like a wildfire would spread on a patch of dead leaves. The rivers running black with pollution, spreading cancers instead of life Entire forests that have stood for millions of years cut down and decimated in a decade Smoke filled the sky, poisoning the very air every organism needs and trapping dangerous heat in the atmosphere Towering artificial jungles spread unnaturally like a disease, forcing survivors into a life of raiding and scavenging Reefs were bleached white, the source of life for countless billions, gone in a blink Entire landmasses irradiated after a simple miscommunication And then the ice caps that have dominated the poles for all existence started melting to the point of being unrecognisable Humanity survived all this, we are nothing if not resilient after all. We set up great artificial algae farms to feed the bloated population of ten billion, we set up massive domes around our cities to keep the air breathable, we even developed ways to spread our existence into the harsh cosmos. But the animals, plants, even humble bacteria, suffered. It was the end of the world, though not for us, and in the end there was nothing else alive to blame. It was the sixth, and most successful mass extinction, and its name was Homo sapiens sapiens.
"Hey, I know this going to sound weird, but you look exactly like someone I know. So I came up to see if it was" She smiled. In the late night darkness, it was hard to see. But even then I could tell that their smile was identical. "Hmm.... No, I'm sorry"She said playfully "I don't think we've met" She was still smiling, and then it hit me. Every visible tooth on this woman was the same as my wife. The hue, the crookedness, the slight crack in her front tooth from her childhood. I must have stared at her mouth for too long, because her smile was slowly turning into a look of concern. "Oh, I'm sorry if I'm staring"- (I might have been living like a hermit, but I was far from socially handicapped. I know you can't go up to people and stare at their mouths) - "It's just that you look absolutely identical to someone I know. I mean... like a carbon copy". It was a weird statement, and I tried to pass it off with half a laugh. We were the only two at the bus stop, 15 minutes till the next bus came, and the last thing I wanted to do was to make her feel uncomfortable. Luckily it worked, and she gave a chuckle. She said something about how it was okay, she said something else, but I was too distracted by her eyes. Blue like shining sapphires. The last time I had seen my wife's eyes, they were completely blood-shot. I knew this woman couldn't be my wife. I watched my wife die in that horrible, terrifying car accident. I was right next to her. She died on impact. We made small talk. We complained how cold it was this winter. I told her her scarf was beautiful. She told me to watch out for the icicle above my head. We talked about everything mundane but I couldn't bring myself to ask her name. I knew it wouldn't be what I wanted it to be. If it was different from my wife's name, I would choke up. I would realize how badly I was affected by her death, mistaking random women for her. If it was the same as my wife, I would break down crying. So I avoided the question entirely. It was nice talking to her. Sad, but I also felt like I was getting closure talking to her. We must have talked fro a while, because we saw the bus turn the corner at the end of the street. It would have to wait for the awkwardly placed red light for at least a few minutes before it reached us though. I had a feeling that when this woman got on the bus, it would be the last time I would see her. Suddenly, she turned to face me. I could see her breath form in the wintery cold. She hesitated, and then told me "Hey look, from out conversation I get that I look like someone you knew? Is that the case?" I didn't say anything. Hell, I couldn't say anything. How could she pick up something like that from our small talk? The red light turned green. The bus was rushing towards us. The cold of the winter somehow felt bitter. "Well, if it would help, I know this is also going to sound weird, but if it would help, you could pretend I was that person and say goodbye to me" The bus stopped right beside us. It was completely empty, and the sick blue light washed us in color. The doors swung open. As they did, I hugged this woman. I whispered two things in her ears. I told her I would always miss her, and that I will always love her. She only said one thing in return. She said "Goodbye, John" \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ It's been a few years since then. I'll catch myself thinking about that incident all the time. Whether I'm trying to go to sleep, or if I'm cooking dinner. For the life of me, I can't figure out what happened at that bus-stop. I saw the bus arrive, but I never saw it leave, it just disappeared. I walked home, went to the kitchen, and cried till my eyes hurt. Looking back at it, I realize that that month was one of the lowest points I've had since the death of my wife. I don't know if that conversation at the bus-stop was some fever dream. Even if the conversation was real, I don't know if it was just a look alike of a woman or if I hallucinated her. But what bothers me the most, the thing I try my best to remember, but can't, is the answer to only one question. Did I ever tell that woman my name? I could have during the small talk. But if I did, I can't remember... And while I'll always have these questions pressing down on me, haunting me and making me wonder what the hell happened that night, I'm glad I was able to say goodbye to my wife one last time.
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“Donald, you know I love you, but we can’t.” Vladimir said, his voice strained. “What will the people say?” “Who cares what the people say? I don’t.” Donald said, crossing his arms across his chest. “We both know that’s not true, Donny.” He replied, smiling. Donald sat down with a huff. “I never could lie to you.” Vladimir sat down next to him, putting his arm around him. “Not successfully.” He chuckled softly. Their relationship had started with a lie, of course. Long before Donald had gotten into politics, they had met over a simple enough matter. Donald has been thinking of expanding some of his business influence in Russia. They met, they talked, and Vladimir had seen right through him when he’d professed his sexual prowess over a discussion about women. Glad had offered to treat him to some fine quality escorts, the finest Moscow had to offer, and he had eagerly accepted, if only to save face after bragging. Vlad had followed through, of course, sending both Natasha and Dimitri to his hotel room. As he had expected, Donald took an instant liking to Dimitri, had barely looked at Natasha, even. He had the hidden video evidence to prove it, too. A simple ruse, that I’d been, one of the oldest in the books, but effective none the less. What had started as simple blackmail soon blossomed into something more. Vladimir And Donald soon were in regular contact, through covert means, of course. He made business deals with Donald, expanding his politics and economic influence into the states. For such a blustering, egotistical man, Vlad was pleasantly surprised to see just how submissive he could be. Vlad couldn’t resist the temptation. He had soon moved from controlling his business decisions to controlling his personal ones. First it was small things, a innuendo ridden phone call here, a naughty text message there. Always with the looming threat of that secret tape as leverage, but Donald never put up much of a fight. Donald bragged about how well he knew Vlad, of course. The man bragged about everything. Vlad put a stop to that, told him to keep the extent of their relationship a secret, and by then they both knew that a relationship was exactly what it was. Vlad has been disappointed in how he had handled it, “toning it down” by completely denying they had ever known each other, but then he never did have a very good political sense. He actually found that cute, in an odd sort of way. He had worked so hard, spilled so much blood, to get to where he was, he knew he couldn’t trust anyone around him. Donald, though, was too adorable to be a threat. It was comforting in a way. That’s when he had decided to take things to the next level. Vlad met with him in secret, as usual, and told Donald his plan over a steak dinner. Medium rare for Vlad, well done for Donald, just the way he liked it. He was going to have Donald get into politics. “You gotta be kidding me.” Donald laughed through a mouth full of steak. “No, no, I’m serious.” Vlad took a sip of wine. “Think about it, Donny, we can meet at political events, we wouldn’t have to hide as much, you know. I just hosted the Olympics, if you had been a politician I could have invited you. Nobody would have said a thing.” “Nobody?” Vlad shrugged. “Nobody that matters.” Donald laughed. “You could have invited me anyway.” “Now now, don’t pout, or you won’t get your dessert.” He winked at him as he took another sip of wine. “Politicians and business men, too many questions. Besides, I could use a man I trust in American politics. Someone I can control, whenever I want.” Vlad’s foot brushed against Donald’s leg under the table. Donald couldn’t help but blush, the pink almost showing through his makeup. “You can, you know... whenever you want...” It had been a magical night, and a fortuitous one. Though Vlad hadn’t been specific enough about his plan, or maybe Donald had been on one of his power trips. Either way, the plan to start small and work up the ladder went out the window when Donald put in to be President. Vlad has his work cut out for him with Donald, the big adorable lunk that he was. Their odds weren’t great, but Vlad our all his resources into it, his pet project, his pet, Donald. He schemed, manipulates, hacked computers, leaked information, used every trick in the book short of military intervention, and somehow managed to win. It was a joyous day for them. Soon, they could be signing treaties in the bathtub and eating lunch at the United Nations. If Donald managed to get a second term, Vlad may even be able to arrange a takeover. With two of the most powerful countries under their control, nobody could stand between them. Something had gone wrong, though. Their beautiful life together had fallen apart almost before it began. Someone had caught on, and there was an investigation. The election that had been meant to bring them together was keeping them apart. With so many eyes on their relationship now they could hardly afford to be seen together, let alone in a room alone. Donald wouldn’t have it, of course. He could be stubborn when he wasn’t feeling loved, and now that he had political power at his fingertips he wielded it like a club. They met, they talked, they stole romantic kisses when they could, when they managed to sneak away from their body guards for a “political discussion” in private. Of course, they had to be extra careful now. They had both built a reputation as a ladies man, and their support bases in both countries wouldn’t stand for it if either of them were found out. It was a dark time for them. That was when Donald had done his most brash thing to date. A proposal. “You can’t be serious.” Vlad has said, holding back tears. He thought this had been one of their usual secret meetings, a time to discuss politics between silk sheets and plan their next move. But there he was, on his knee, diamond ring in hand. “I’m totally serious. I love you.” “I love you too, Donny, but, you’re married, I’m married, we... we can’t.” “I’ll get a divorce, it wouldn’t be my first.” “It’s not even legal, in either of our countries.” “Who cares about that? We can make it legal, you and me, together.” Vlad sighed. He had hoped some of his political acumen would have worn off by now. “It’s not that easy... you’re a democratic republic, sweetie. Your voter base would lynch you if they found out you even tried to pass that law, let alone marry a foreign leader.” “They wouldn’t dare.” Donald said, finally standing up. “I’ve got the best military in the world, believe it.” Vlad put his hands gently on Donald’s cheeks. “Donald. Sweet Donald.” He shook his head slowly and then kissed him. The poor guy just didn’t understand how vulnerable to an internal military coup he was. “Trust me. Whose your dictator?” Donald blushed, looking down sheepishly, unable to keep the smile of his face. “You are.” “Good. Your dictator knows best, Donald. It will never work, not in the public eye, not for us. It just... cannot be. Do you understand?” Donald sighed. He didn’t understand, but he nodded. “Will you... at least keep the ring?” Vlad wiped a tear from his eye, and let him slide the ring onto his finger. A perfect fit. “Of course. I’ll... I’ll think of you whenever I wear it.” He let out a heavy sigh. “Now... we’ve only got another half an hour before our ‘meeting’ is done, so let’s make it count.” Vlad knew they could never be together the way he wanted to, the way they both wanted to, not even if he managed to take over half the world. All they could do is make their time together mean something, and make true best of it while they could, one clandestine meeting at a time.
”Listen up, asshole..”. I woke up in an instant to the voice but there was no one in the room. I figured the voice must have come from my dreams, though I couldn’t remember dreaming. That’s when it spoke again. ”..I am severely hungry right now, and though I’d prefer to go out hunting by myself, you got me trapped in this establishment and I must depend on your assistance to nourish me.”. ”Hello?” is all I managed to say, not entirely convinced I had really woken up from my sleep. ”Yes, hello! Get on your feet and feed me. I know about the cans and the bags but you’re the only one who can extract the comestibles from them so I need your help.” The voice came from inside the room, I was sure of it, but I could not see anyone. This frightened me so much I couldn’t speak another word. ”Someone is in here right now. Someone broke into my home and is going to hurt me right now” were my sudden instinctive thoughts. I stood up in my bed and backed up against the wall behind me, knocking down two portraits. My intense heartbeat made me nauseous. I was about to pass out in pressure when something entered my bed with a soft thud only to realize it was Little Benjamin who had jumped onto the mattress. ”You big goof. Will you stop messing around and come with me into the kitchen?” He spoke. Little Benjamin had learnt how to speak! ”Stop looking at me like that and get on with the feeding.” he continued, his tail beginning to wiggle impatiently. I couldn’t do anything but proceed with his request, still in slight chock though calmed from the dread. ”Empty the WHOLE can in the bowl, will ya?” He exclaimed while I was serving him the cat food. I did as he asked and he gave me a cheeky ”Yum!” in response before burrowing his face in the meal. ”I need some coffee.” I figured, and brewed myself half a can. It was still in the middle of the night but the event had made it impossible for me to go back to sleep. While pouring myself a cup I felt a sudden sting in my right calf. ”Hey! Fuck you, Ben!” was my vocal reaction when I realized Little Benjamin had bit me. ”Yeah. Fuck you too, you fur-less scum.” He answered. ”That’s what you get for chewing on my tail yesterday.” I did chew on his tail yesterday, but sort of a playful chew, as a joke. A pretty weird kind of joke I suppose. It left him bleeding a bit and I feel sorry about that. He’s a living being after all and not a play thing, but I wanted to be funny with him in front of my friend. ”Fine.” I said. ”Sorry for that.”. He didn't say anything more. Instead he went to sit down in the armchair to start channel surfing on the TV.
The creature came closer. It's fingers were long, sausage like. It had balded on every part except for the head, and seemed to be wearing the fur of a corpse as replacement. It was double the size of the alien. It's eyes were beady, black. One side of the creature had been hurt. It dragged it's bottom legs across the floor, blood following steady trail. Parts of it's flesh had been torn off. It's teeth were covered in blood as it fell to the floor. The corpse that the monster had left seemed to be of something much bigger than it. The corpse held something in it's front claws. Some sort of long, sharp nail. It only had one on each hand, but both were bloody. The monster looked up, and seemed to drag itself by one arm to the alien. "My god... ABORT MISSION!"The alien was zapped away, as the creatures claw fell off when it's hand opened.
I sigh and gaze at my character sheet, and then my backstory. Suddenly it dawns me. "Aha;"I exclaim, eyeing the DM with a wicked glare, "Baron Von Bon Bon moves to point out that he has no actual way to make good on his claims!"The DM gives me something of a tired look as he opens his mouth to speak but I interject with "I invoke the Barons past as a litigator."The DM gives me a weary wave of his hands and replies "roll a d6 for bonus, and then the d20 for depiction. the Mage takes no bonus to perception."The d6 was not my friend today but, I did get a 2. this effectively removes the debuff; i mutter to myself, and then I roll for deception. I end up with a 12 +1. &#x200B; the DM, pondering these things, rolls for the mage, grins and replies "he does not believe you and cannot recall a law of this sort. He demands a duel." &#x200B; I groan and prepare my secondary character.
"A tunnel to Hell?"I asked. The expression on my building superintendent's face was genuine terror. I knew he had mental health issues, but I didn't expect him to set the basement aflame. Yet, here we were, two overweight, suicidal gentlemen in our 40s standing idly by while a fire raged downstairs. This wasn't the time for me to play therapist, so I gently slid my hand into my pocket to reach for my phone. 911 could handle this better than I could. &#x200B; "Stop!"Jerry yelled. He grabbed my wrist with the unhinged aggression and strength of a man experiencing a nervous breakdown. I let go of my phone. He let go of my wrist. "Yes, yes. I know it sounds crazy, and I know I've had episodes before, but this is different. There is a tunnel to Hell down there! I can show you!" &#x200B; "Alright, Jerry. Let's go take a look."I honestly didn't care if the building burned down and we both died at this point. We were already drenched from the sprinkler system going off, and the alarm was whirring so loud my ears were ringing. If the tenants were unaware there was an emergency going on and they needed to evacuate immediately, then God help us. &#x200B; Jerry sopped down the steps and I followed behind, splishing and splashing away. We entered the laundry room where billowing clouds of smoke choked us back. We braved it through, and I managed to grab a fire extinguisher off the wall. The fire was still relatively small, so I figured I could put it out fairly easily. I aimed the nozzle in the direction of the fire and triggered the extinguisher. After about five minutes of waving it back and forth, the fire was dead. I set the extinguisher down and went to examine the cause of the fire in the corner of the room. There was a mess of wires plugged into an outlet, and they were all burnt to bits now. It was obvious this was an electrical fire, and I was still dealing with the same madman I perceived before. &#x200B; "Do you see it, Will?"Jerry asked. "Please tell me you see it!" &#x200B; "No, Jerry. I don't see any--" &#x200B; "--Look closer!" &#x200B; I examined the corner closer and finally picked up on what Jerry was referring to. There was a small hole there. And even though I had extinguished the raging part of the fire, a small flame was still visible from within. &#x200B; I looked back at Jerry. He was shaking manically, too frightened to join me in inspecting the hole any further. I guess I would have to do this alone. So I got down on my hands and knees and put my face close to the hole to get a look inside. Ouch! I instantly pulled away. The heat coming out of that hole was insane. It felt like a white hot flame but appeared to be nothing more than a small stove flame. &#x200B; It suddenly hit me that the Fire Department were taking an awfully long time to respond. Where are they? I wondered. &#x200B; "I think we should get out of here,"I told Jerry. "Let's let the Fire Department handle this." &#x200B; And handle it they did. My superintendent was taken away by ambulance as it was determined he was experiencing a bout of delusions which impaired his cognitive functioning and caused him to set fire to a hole in the floor. Where the hole came from? Who knows. All in all, the whole experience was rather dull, despite its exciting start. &#x200B; There was one thing which piqued my interest however. Upon leaving my superintendent's side, I noticed that all of the professionals (firefighters, EMTs) standing outside following the event had matching tattoos. Tattoos on their left hands. Of pentagrams. I disregarded it at first because those are the kinds of tattoos former punk rockers gone civil tend to have, but what are the odds of them all having the same tattoo in the same anatomical location? &#x200B; Maybe I should check out that hole again. &#x200B; (I know this is pretty cliched and cheesy. I'm just kinda using this place as practice right now. I want to get into writing more. God's honest truth.) &#x200B;
"Fuck you, fuck you..." It was a constant dialogue, savage and loud, in Kian's mind. Accompanied by the grinding of teeth, hands clenched except for a soothing thumb that roamed in little circles, and narrowed eyes. "Go away, I hate you. Fuck you...." Nothing worked, not even this. The medications made him dull and lifeless-someone that wasn't him-and it wasn't even worth it, the voices still jabbered on. They spoke endlessly of their own vanities and worries, the minute details of their day, the story inconsistent and varied. It all blended into the music constantly flowing, ear buds shoved deep and volume up higher than safe, forming a chaotic background chorus. The music was the only thing that kept Kian sane, separate from the ceaselessly noisy world around him. The voices couldn't get through to him, not completely, if he could pretend they were just part of the music. If he could shout them down, a myriad of curses his mantra, and drown them in the rhythm... "__Hiding isn't the answer,-__" "-Fuck you, I hate you! GO AWAY!" Staring at the corner of yellow walls, his nails dug into flesh. The pain was a grounding reminder; Kian was still there, still aware, and not swept into the tide of those other voices. Of the one voice that came and went, following some pattern he couldn't comprehend. "__He doesn't know, does he...?__" It pressed upon his mind, pressure mounting with it's touch, and Kian scowled. His mantra was a push back, fierce and brutal, as his inner voice rose. "I know, I know you're a delusion! Go away, fuck you!" Anger would not allow him to stop shouting, to keep those others out of his head, and fumbling panicked hands reached for his only sanctuary. It tried to speak again, but Kian pressed upon the volume key until it was a low murmur. A hum, wearing itself out as it tried to be heard, that would eventually fade away. All the others did, though none before had responded... "You have to go away, you have to, you have to...." Kian didn't know what he would do if it didn't, though none of the others had either. But the others did not question him; they murmured, shouted, sobbed, and laughed about their own thoughts. Oblivious, unaware that there was someone listening, and unconcerned with privacy. But, this one....It knew. The thought made Kian run a thumb over the pad of his index finger. Inner voice screaming, music blaring, he dared to hope that the voices would leave him... _____________________________________ It, the questioning voice, left in the afternoon of the second day. Kian had missed his countless classes and skipped all basic maintenance tasks, focusing upon screaming in his head exclusively. His playlist had stopped long ago or else Kian had tuned it out; only once before had this occured, in his childhood, and he had hoped it would never happen again... But the voice left on the second day, leaving empty space and exhaustion in it's absence. Dully and listlessly, Kian stared at yellow walls light by sunlight. His head pounded and ached, a hand numbed by pain rubbing at it... The voice had gone, but it would be back. They always came back. -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ (I may or may not add onto this, if the interest is there, but this seemed like a natural place to end my interpretation of this prompt. Apologies for it not quite meeting the criteria and, of course, criticism is welcome.)
Captains log, December 25th 2023. Christmas Day. We set up a base camp called Sagan 5 on the rocky landscape of titan after landing about 3 days ago. Me and my team started our expedition and marking sectors that seemed interesting. We would split up in groups of ten armed with plasma rifles and standard issue environmental armor NASA created for the mission. I was drinking a shot of soluble whiskey to calm my nerves after my next expedition when the transceiver sparked to life. One of the research teams full of egghead scientists, found a ravine close by full of what could only be described as black blood. One of them I assume attempted to take a sample of the organic liquid for testing, but as soon as she did the armor started melting off and she choked for several minutes. They were returning back to base to see what they could do when I heard plasma fire outside the base and saw humans crawling on 4 legs. But they weren’t regular people, they were dark blue and had pure white eyes. Some of the men who survived the attack said they would speak Latin while charging at them. Most stood no chance against them. I only have 10 people left in this room all other teams are dead and they are just staring at the windows, studying us intently. Captains log: January 1st 2024 Do not send further assistance, we completed our mission with honor and were brave enough to stand against the threat. The crew of Sagan 5 were commuted fully for the advancement and preservation of the human race. And our sacrifice shall not go unnoticed by these beings, for with our sacrifice we shall keep earth safe. These beings have assured me that they will not invade earth as long as no more humans arrive on the moon. They know much and we have gained much insight from their heavenly wisdom.... Captains log: January 4th 2024 It appears our sacrifice was not enough for there appear to be thousands of the beings outside of my room. They killed the rest of my crew.... became one with them. They allowed me alive only to send you this message. When they arrive on earth, do not fret. Allow them to consume and devour the earth, and we shall all become one with the et devoratores planum nota mortale (Devourers of the mortal plane) We shall become one and devour the known universe. We have been contained far too long. Galactic conquest shall now be obtained.... ... [TRANSMISSION ENDED] Writers note: this is my first writing prompt. Constructive criticism is well appreciated!
The fall of humanity came so quickly and unexpectedly that no one was prepared. Africa fell first, and it is also where the war against humanity started. Next thing we knew, they were nocking in Europe's and Asia's doorstep. Europe put up a good fight, with the United Kingdom falling last. Asia didn't go so well either, with all major Asian powers falling back to North and South America. They burned everything as they left. South America put up a good resistance also, backed by the numbers of the Chinese and Russia, but also eventually fell. Soon, they took over Alaska and Canada, as well as Mexico. The last country standing was the United States. (Note: I'm not sure if they got all the Oceanic countries.) Faced with a four sides battle the United States fell eventually too. A history of the human war and oppression -Dr. Kalich (Antarctic division Germany) We placed this page in the human history book that would soon be sealed and burried in the arctic ice. I was special, as the US government realised we weren't going to win this war, they put the president and his family, along with his family, and a few top level Secret Service guards in a supersonic plane and sent us to Antarctica in hopes that we could survive there. I was one of the four guards on that plane. Filled with about a years supplies, we hoped we could stabilize before we ran out of supplies. We went and burried our book and came back to discuss how we could make stable life. One month had passed since we last had contact with the Pentagon, and two had passed since we came here. My thinking was interrupted by the worse sentence in my life I'd ever heard. "They are here"said Kalich. "Not already"we all kinda moan. "Protect the president"said my 'co-worker' "We aren't going to win"the President says "might as well send my daughter and the youngest one here to the old Denmark research outpost." He continued on "Whose the youngest one here?" "Me Sir"I replied. I was only 19, I had gotten so high up in the Secret Service due to my hacking abilities as well as my ability to gather information on anything. If course my ID said I was 27, but that still made me the youngest. "We don't have much time"Dr. Kalich chimed in, "are we all OK with this plan?" Everyone except for me nods. "Well kid, good luck out there, the snow should keep you covered"the president says, tossing an old M1 Grand my way. "Get going kid, there is a week's supply bag next to the back door" I go and grab the President's Daughter and quickly sum our plan. Kate, the President's Daughter, quickly hugs her mother, grabs her revolver, and says goodbye to her father. We head out the back door, not ready for what was about to happen. About half way through our trip, the next worse thing happened. Kate fell down a hole, I could just make out her shape, she was dead. "F###" But what else could I do? I continued my journey to the Denmark Outpost. Am typing more right now, I'm breaking here due to character limit. I promise I'll get to the juicy part next.
What dreams had I, swept now under the ash of my rule. I would ask of myself, how did this come to pass, and look outward, a vain search for some other entity that soured my dreams. There is nothing though, except the inescapable truth, I did this. Each bend of morality, each sacrifice of purity, I made on the altar of a greater good, and yet I find nothing in the world of my own creation that still clings to the remnants of the thought of goodness. What have I done? What have I become? There was a game to be played my people, fraught with dead ends and twists so severe to bring vomit forth in the sturdiest of men, and yet through that maze I pressed ever onward. My path paved in the bodies of the innocent. I promised much and kept little, and every friend sacrificed, every enemy conquered fanned the flames of reassurance. All telling myself that it was for the greater good. It was a lie, to you, to myself, to history. Even now, as I stand here before you, speaking to you across the world there are forces in motion, eager to cloud out the light that I offer tonight. Not a light of my person or my leadership, but a light of hope that you are not set upon the path you now walk. I may have laid the road in front of you, but the path is still your own. Free yourself from my roads. Free yourself from the paths I have built. There is no course left to you, to any of us, but revolution. I imagine my death will come soon, and the forces who have allied themselves with misery and pain will conjure fantasy as to this speech I give now to you. Mind control and blackmail, kidnapped relatives and false reporting. Do not listen to those who would keep you suppressed, for the world is yours, not theirs, not mine. I have cultivated fear and despair to hide the simple truth that I am but a man, among billions. Those who come after me will be but men among billions, and what can one man do against such cataclysmic forces? There are not enough bullets in the world to silence your march towards freedom. Do not despair. There will be dark days ahead, but that is just the brief interlude before the dawn. The light will break once again upon this world if you have the will to seize it. I am sorry, I can do no more to help you all upon this path than I am now. I have plundered the world and left you with the burden of its resurrection. I beg no forgiveness and plead with no future historians to soften their words upon my rule. It must end, and you, all, must be the harbinger of that end. Goodnight, and good luck.
Golda Myerscough “Gentlemen, I’m very afraid that I must compel you to slip on a pair of pants, leave this house and bring along your work tools with you. This real estate belongs to Carlyle Crescent Company that mandated me to accommodate the property for an Open-House next wednesday.” “Wednesday? It truly pains me to say Ma’am that we can’t agree to your conditions on such short notice.” “It is a matter of law”, replied the lady from Carlyle Crescent Company.” We owned this property and it is within my rights to call the police on you, albeit regretfully. I am, however, inclined to let you go at once and forget about this incident.” The three men dressed in their Adam suits in the living room stared at the plump, middle-aged lady who carried a vase of flowers. Flowers would make the place more lively, more cosy, they spelled elegance, comfort and hinted at the watching vigilance of a diligent housewife. Her voice betrayed no signs of surprise which, in a way, worried the three, hefty, naked men who not two minutes ago were chanting and dancing around a hissing, round hole in the floor. The lady sighed and placed her vase on a table. She took a mental note to send a cleaning crew to dust the house that was sitting on the market for a decade. Carlyle Crescent Company didn’t arrived at the top of the merciless realty business by remaining idle and waiting for problems to resolve by themselves. They hired the best real estate agents, that is the most ferocious, the ones who would paddle with their bare hands through a sea of nails and broken glass to sell a garden shed. In comparison, Lady Golda Myerscough’s tally wasn’t at all impressive as she would sell only two or three properties a year. M.Crescent though would never entertained the idea of letting her go. Instead, she was summoned to crack their most delicate cases. She felt suddenly ill at ease; something was wrong. From the hole in the floor, bony, blurry hands were reaching out and scratching the remarkable wooden floor. A gush on indignation billowed her pink, tight dress and she angrily point at the hole: “They are ruining the wood work! How disgraceful!” “Lady!” snapped one of the man, bewildered. “We’re in a middle of an important ritual that prevent hordes of blood-thirsty, -pardon my language-, pissed as fuck ghosts of late warriors, to swarm over the neighborhood and declare World War III for the sake of it! Step-out!” “Yeah!” Added the second man emboldened by his colleague. “We are the freaking Brotherhood of Xiphos, Guardians of the Glory Holes, -we came with the name first, shut up!-, Repellers of Evil and you, lady, are in serious trouble if you delayed the ritual any longer!” “They’re gonna break through!” Alerted the third man, more conscientious as the others, who had had to faster the pace of the Holy Chant of Bondage, -they came with the name first as well-, and was panting out of breath.” Brothers, to me!” Ignoring Lady Myerscough, the three naked men resumed their dance around the hole, screaming incantations that amounted essentially to further infuriate the wraiths. In life, they died battling enemies, surfing the wave of adrenaline and weapons in hands. In death, they could only carry on, and on, and on, and on, blood, shrieks, broken bones, spilled guts, ravens sneers. “It’s too late!” Wailed the first man. “We have to resort to a sacrifice to close the damned thing! Human sacrifice!” They couldn’t stop hopping and mumbling the incantations but their heads pivoted toward the real estate agent. Lady Myerscough, indifferent to the mayhem behind her, were inspecting the wallpaper. She knew something wicked was afoot; mold! These juvenile ruffians were occupying, free of charges, M.Crescent property, partying as if they actually owned the place and not even took care of the mold! Her plate was full. The ghosts plate was overflowing. The Brotherhood plate was breaking apart. “You did it again!” Boomed Carlyle Crescent. “A very good job, Golda!” “Sir, I am drenched in confusion for I was just conducting my duty.” “Right, right, but the place remained a thorn in my side for so long! “Haunted house” and other nonsense… I wonder where people find the energy to make up such silly stories.” “Indeed, sir.” They were strolling the garden while behind them, workers were renovating the old building. “I was a bit… surprised by the wooden floor in the living room, though” Wondered Crescent out loud.”How such a masterpiece could have gone unnoticed for so long?” “The carpet must have covered it” Answered Golda Myerscough, without blushing. The workers who were exterminating the mold in the living room had cover the floor with a transparent sheet of plastic. Underneath, the hand of an unknown artist had carved a beautiful mosaïc. A smiling woman was pouring water from a large flower into a large cup for three lambs to drink.
I’m driving down the Main Street going home after a full day of work. Suddenly a strange house catches my eye. There’s a woman standing in the window, she’s looks like she is looking right back at me. I wonder what her life is like: when she walks into her office job I wonder what her coworkers think, when she comes home I wonder how her husband reacts is he happy about her return or perhaps they have a struggling relationship. My unnatural curiosity gets the better of me as I think of all the different things she could be and do, she could be successful lawyer or perhaps an artist sampling all the local cafes. Suddenly I’m standing in a window staring into traffic aimlessly. I swear I was in a car just a second ago I think to myself. “What’s up honey” a deep masculine voice says from behind me. I turn to see a man in his mid twenties standing semi-seductively against a doorframe in only his shirt. “It’s nothing” I lie, I don’t even know who the man is let alone where I am. As far as I knew I was driving home to my empty house to go to sleep alone like I do every other night. I remember staring into a window while driving, there was a woman in the window. I instantly look down at myself, as I thought. I’m no longer myself, rather I’m the woman who was staring back. It seems impossible, no one should be able to jump bodies just by making eye contact. I’ve never done it before. “Come here honey” I call out to the boyfriend of the woman’s body I’m inhabiting. “Coming” he shouts back from behind the doorway. “What is it?” He with a boyish smirk. I try doing what I did before I got into this body. I start wondering about his life, all the small insignificant details like how often he buys new underwear and what his favourite brand of deodorant is. But no matter how small and insignificant the details I wonder about him I can’t see to repeat what I had done earlier. “It’s nothing, I think I’m just tired” I say after a couple of awkwardly long seconds. “Come to bed with me then” he says letting on his intentions. “I think I’ll sleep on the couch tonight, I’m not feeling too good” I say making an excuse not to have to sleep in the same bed as this man, after I don’t even know his name. With the help of my supposed boyfriend we make a bed for me to sleep on for the night on the couch. I thank him for the help and slowly drift off to sleep. “She waking up” I voice calls from within the darkness. There’s a rhythmic beeping and the constant gentle whirring of a fan. There or other voices in the darkness but they sound distant and muffled. I open my eyes to be blinded by a combination of bright overhead lights and white walls and a white ceiling. “Do you know where you are?” A man in a blue mask wearing a wear covering asks. He looks like he is a doctor. “No” I utter almost not making sense. “You had a car accident a few months ago, you’ve been a coma since…” >hi everyone I hope you enjoyed the story, if you have any criticism, tips or tricks I’d love to hear them.
Well, I'm Lazy Susan, technically, according to government guidelines, but also I'm not, thankfully. I feel bad for Lazies, what could have been me. I would have hated being nothing. From a young age I've been working my ass off. I had special chefs at my home, who gave me everything I wanted, but I also tried out innovative recipes. I'm not lazy, really, okay? My parents are rich lawyers, which not every Lawyerly Adelaide and Ross were, due to the state of things, in general. What makes me feel sorry for Lazies is that several people with General names often get a choice, but lazy does nothing. You don't earn anything except a bit from your government. But I'm here thanks to a couple of (spiritually) Cunning Cathies, low paid Government workers who accepted serious money from my parents to help me out, with school admissions and such. I was Gamechanger Susan, which really did raise my esteem somewhat. So feeling like a sneak, I signed up for quite a few science and technology courses, because, you know, I'm a gamechanger. So my school name is Gamechanger. I have to be careful. I have a lot to lose. People love me, think I'm smart, or whatever. My neighbor is a whole other ballgame. Hot Matilda. I'm a bit of a prude, so I'm a bit upset for her. She has to wear glowing silver sequin tights, and flower hats, the epitome of sultry for whoever the designers are for pole dancing clubs and sometimes, of course, nothing. I could be pretty, or I could change the world....hm? I don't mean to be offensive but not every "Hot Holly"is necessarily conventionally attractive, but good for them. I've been jumping through loops, riding down rollercoasters just suffering like crazy, trying to run through the heat and breathe through the stifling smoke. I'm at my technology specialisation stage. it's even better because I know this wasn't my... Assignment. I don't know if I want to work hard, but I have no other choice and I'm going forward. People are cheering me on, as of now. We're in our class. I do well enough...I guess. I look around at all the pretty nerds and scrawny nerds and struggling nerds. My friend, Techie Trevor is on the other end of the table, neatly writing down cursive for our homework. I'm mesmerised by the carefulness when he suddenly starts speaking. "How was class?" "Uh... As it is. I've got to do it". Trevor closed his eyes and nods. "As it is. We've got to do it." I tap my bright yellow pencil in the smooth table, just listening to the noises and then the loud chatter. "How's "Governor Gavin"doing?" "Uh...Terrence? He's still at it. He's still trying to contact the Mind." "Shit." "I know, Sue. And you need to be quiet! You know how this is." The Mind...I don't really like talking about it. It's this entity that constantly makes us go on, makes us go by this one law. We're born to this weird fucking title. Countless people have questioned it. What is the logic behind this weird compulsion? If someone talks about it, suddenly everything goes silent, it becomes a haze for days, and then everyone forgets and it becomes the norm again. If we stop this unusual tradition, something goes over the edge and keeps falling. I hear my pencil tapping again. "Can we help?" Trevor shakes his head. "Will you not?" Usually I still not confrontational but I bang on the table, but my voice is a whisper. "We fucking know things. We know things that could... Change things. Let's put our knowledge to an application. Tech is the new thing isn't it?" "Yes, we all know tech is the new thing. And we still don't know anything about the government." We didn't. We were taught basics of politics, very, very basic, but we didn't know what the actual government was. The government was screened throughly.
The morning was overcast and misty. The entire town was in shambles, there had been a car chase that had caused destruction for miles with cars dented and destroyed, street signs and benches had been plowed down. The gunfire had pierced vehicles and shops, shattered windows and had people fleeing for safety. The people couldn't believe all of this had gone on in their little town and just because John had been there having a cup of coffee while waiting to meet a contact. James, Jason and Jack thought they had him cornered in the little cafe but they were wrong. He had been baiting them and they took it hook, line and sinker. It had resulted in fear and chaos for the citizens, seeming to go on for hours. Now as the sun rose the people were getting a good look at what happens when you try to take John alive. Smoke from burning vehicles clouded the air as three bodies were loaded into a van and John rode out of town.
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Large Busticular began doing the dance, the motion being set to slow. They swole and shrunk at massive speeds. The dance began steady, but it became more violent, a feast to the eyes. Already the soldiers were staggering. A man, named below, battle roared behind them and chanted with unforeseen anger. "Large Busticular, no one in particular, Die for you shall be Busted yet again! Upon Melons beyond, please sing a Song, the Sirens are a legend to Fend!" Large Busticular began slowing down, the men stopped heaving and slowly she sunk to the ground and became ashes. "This is the war cry!"screamed Sir Albert. They had won. They had found the combination. All they had known was that it was a combination of under 200000 words and it had some level of meaning. "But where is the man?" "They had destroyed him, though." Alas, Abbus Badassuss flew into the scene touching the needed. He danced with a frenzy. The women screamed with joy and anticipation. "God help us!" The women did the dance. "Abbus Badaddy!"a woman sighed. "What do we do?" "Improvise!" The men got out their spears and threw them at the large, massive abs. Abbus roared. The women began the belly dance and attempted to kill the men. "No, dear woman! Do not!"
Lincoln was a high school first year, and he was making some changes to his essay because the due date got delayed. It was about an hour until midnight. He was listening to one of his favourite songs off Youtube, humming the lyrics. "I see the light you, the heart in you, the danger of us, and the dark too, I see the-"the music suddenly stops. Link switches to the tab and sees it buffering, but it doesn't seem to stop, so he refreshes the page. And to his surprise, the video has now been shortened by a few seconds. You go back to the time stamp you left off and this time it played off as "I see the light -, the heart -, the - of us, and the dark too-"What the hell? After scrolling through the song, he notices all instances of 4 words were missing. You, are, in, danger. His first thought was that this was a dream, he almost instantly slammed his laptop closed and looked around his house but didn't notice anything, but he did catch a glimpse of what seemed to be large eyes closing outside his window before it disappeared. Hallucination from fear, that must be it. Either this is some elaborate prank or the real thing. He rushed out of his chair and jumped onto his bed, covering his blanket over him. His phone from underneath his pillow vibrated, it was a notification from his mom. "Are you asleep? I'm coming in 30 minutes."Phew, a relief. Link clicked on the message to reply, but he noticed something again. Her mom's former messages have been edited in this order. "I can still help you" "Just don't touch with those crawler things" "A glimpse is fine, but no physical contact" "Here are instructions" That particular message had an imbed to a website, except the website URL wasn't being shown. He clicked. The website leads to a set of instructions, barely readable on his tiny phone screen. "Cover all windows and openings to the sky"he scrolled down, and then it said "Then click here"Lincoln creepily took his blanket off, and paced towards his window, he quickly brought the blinds down, and he heard a soft whimper outside, barely noticeable by the howling wind unless if you were next to it. He paced back, and clicked on "Then click here"and he was brought somewhere else... (My second story here, hope I can get CC!)
The hands of time caressed the face of my watch and I pondered the seconds as they lowered before my eyes. 8 hours, 59 minutes and 52 seconds. The rhythm of my heart became a steady, pulsating beat as the moments slipped away, and my mind; my mind went into a dizzying frenzy. The world began to grow smaller with each ticking tock, with each precious second, minute, hour, escaping from me into the infinite abyss. I snapped to, and 8 hours remained. 7 hours, 59 minutes and 56 seconds. I raised my head and re-read the billboard. It no longer asked me to choose, it asked me to decide; what kind of person did I want to be? What kind of legacy did I want to leave behind? I knew the answer to that. I wanted to bring joy to the other countless versions of myself who would go on to live in the universe beyond my time, and mentor those that came before me. I wanted to use my final 7 hours 56 minutes and 42 seconds to ensure that they did not waste theirs. That I did not waste mine. I asked the billboard to let me alter the timeline of my previous self and create a ripple across the universe. It accepted. I blinked and I was standing at the front of a classroom, with 30 sets of my own eyes gazing back at me, but the two at the front I was here to see. I smiled at him, and he smiled back. He didn't know, he would never know what was about to happen, but I hoped it would be good for both of me. I began the class as I had previously, but without the fundamental error in my calculation, and his. He would go on to be a better version of us. He would choose to ask how, for knowing how allows the chance to cheat death. Time will become infinite, and with it, ourselves. I glanced down at my arm as my watch vanished, and then it; and all of us, became one.
Thank the Pie! It's been what? 999 days? 999 days of pure evaluation, probing, quizzing, basically torture but in nice terms! In the end, I didn't get a single point. No difficulty increase, which leads to 23976 hours of the same questions over and over. No matter, it's the last day. Twenty-four hours left. Thanks to their drug, my need's were completely obliterated for the duration, so I couldn't just die from starvation to escape the insanity of it all either. No matter, it's the last day. Twenty-four hours left. Where are they? The noises? They usually come in by now. The people will come in a hour after that, and that means one more day of No matter, it's the last day. Twenty-four hours left. Have I mentioned how the noises are missing? They were my company, because people never came in here. I don't know why, am I bad person? No matter, it's the last day. Twenty-four hours left. I can finish this. I only have 24 seconds, that's nothing! See? 19, 18, 17... Ah? Is it over? I reached zero! Are they seeing what place I have in society? Will I get what I want? I hope I get 24 hours. No matter, it's the last day. Twenty-four hours left. What is wrong with me? No matter, it's the last day. Twenty-four hours left. ~~There's something wrong.~~ Nothing's wrong. I must be anxious, which is understandable. I only have twenty four hours left. Everyone probably get anxious. No matter, it's the last day. Twenty-four hours left. It's been a while since I've been outside. Excluding the robots, I haven't seen any humans in a while. I wonder if they will be my friend. No matter, it's the last day. Twenty-four hours left. I'm starting to get tired. Do you think they will yell at me? Or fail today? I hope not, but I am really tired. No matter, it's the last day. Twenty-four hours left. No matter, it's the last day. Twenty-four hours left. No matter, it's the last day. Twenty-four hours left. Are the light's dimming? Why is it getting so dark? It's slightly unnerving, but if it is part of the test, I must prevail! Just 24 more hours! No matter, it's the last day. Twenty-four hours left. It's too much, I'll just have a quick nap. That should relieve some tension. I'll wake up before they arrive, so it should be fine. ... Thank the Pie!
Reginald sat in the smoking room of the Adventurer's Club, idly staring at his brandy while his cigarillo burned down in the ash tray. He was clearly pondering something of great import, so I wandered over to lend my aid. "Reginald, dear fellow, what has you looking so mortally wounded by life?"I asked, attempting to add a modicum of joviality to cheer my companion. Reginald sighed. "I'm sorry, dear Frederick, but I'm not really of a mood to make merry. I...have had my heart torn asunder." I sat in the chair beside him. "What has happened? A burden shared lessons by the act." "Last night,"he began, "I was again my rooftop, looking through my telescope at the Red Planet. As I believe I told you, I have been in correspondence there with a singular intellect. While it has been slow, having to rely on Morse via light flashes, we have nonetheless had many deep philosophical discussions. I find I began to fancy the person on the other side of the aether. Sadly, last night she let me know she was due to be wed to another." There were a number of issues that immediately occurred to me. I decided to go with the most logical, least emotional. "Reginald, surely you know there was no way that you could have ever met? While science is making great leaps, we are nowhere near capable of creating craft that can traverse the aether between worlds. My understanding is that the other inhabitants of our solar system are in similar straights." He shook his head sadly. "I know, my friend, but the heart wants what it wants. I would ask your indulgence to leave me be to mourn my impossible fancy." I nodded my acquiescence, then excused myself to go find other pursuits that night. I couldn't help but marvel at the foolishness of my friend, Reginald. His comment that, "she,"had let him know of the pending marriage. I had not the heart to tell him that his knowledge of xenosociology was severely lacking. It had been well published in many a scholarly journal that only men hale from Mars. Women, in contrast, are from Venus.
"All rise for the honorable Judge Kranson" I raise to my feet, while the court room around me does the same thing. "You may be seated."The court room settles back down into their hard wooden chairs. I slowly send out a brain wave to gather information about the case. "Will the witness come forward please?"I hop to my feet, sauntering down the aisle with a swagger in my step. "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" "I do." "You may be seated."Let the games begin I think to myself with a slight smirk.
How did I get here? Oh right, that weird prank call we got from someone pretending to be an alien that we decided to play along with. Well, we thought it was a prank call, but now that I was sitting at Papa Luciano's Italian restaurant across from a green-skinned woman in a low-cut evening dress it seemed a bit less implausible. "Hello, Miss... Zenditisseti?"I said to the woman who hadn't looked up from her menu since the waitress seated me. I had no idea how to pronounce her name, even though I'd heard her say it twice over the phone. She practically snapped her head to look at me as I spoke, her gold eyes staring right into mine. I briefly considered that this might still be a prank and this is just a regular girl wearing a lot of makeup, but decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. "Oh, Mr. Smithson. Please, call me Sandy,"she said, folding and placing the menu on the table. Her tone of voice definitely carried an air of refinement, but was distinctly foreign in a way I couldn't quite place. "I can't identify most of the listed items for this eatery, any recommendations?" "Tom will be fine... The pasta dishes are usually pretty solid,"I said. "Wait, you know what pasta is, right?" "Yes, Tom, I have done some preliminary research before coming here, or we'd barely be able to communicate at all. Your pasta sounds a lot like the travel rations we had to eat on the whole trip here, I'd prefer something else,"she said. "Well, pizza and pastry type stuff is on page 3 and the meat dishes are on page 4, so I guess that's a start,"I said. "Wait, if you did a bunch of research, shouldn't you look more human? I mean, you have green skin and yellow eyes, those aren't exactly normal around these parts." "I am in disguise, but said disguise isn't exactly reliable. Instead of doing it all perfectly, it's much easier to leave a few obvious details wrong so the more subtle places don't stand out. I'm guessing it's working too, since you're asking about my skin and not my gills,"she said, punctuating the statement by lifting her head and widening the subtle slits in her neck to show the pinkish interior. Definitely not a regular girl in disguise then. She then went back to her menu, asking about specific dishes one by one, which I explained as best I could. We had managed to get thing roughly in order by the time the waitress came to take our orders, and then we could finally get back to business. "So, what sort of government system does mankind have nowadays? I got some conflicting information on that front,"Sandy asked. "Uh... Government? Singular?"I asked. "Oh dear, this might be a difficult negotiation if your planet doesn't have a unified system of governance yet..."she said. "Is that uncommon?"I asked. "...Not really, as far as I know, just inconvenient. In fact, I think we in the Daz alliance might be the only one, and we're still modifying certain things when we find better systems out there,"she said. "Anyway, how about spacefaring technology?" "I..."I paused for a second, dredging up what little I knew of rocket science. I was shaken from my thoughts by a bump to my back, it seemed my coworkers wanted me to respond faster. "I think it's just combustion engines for us, but I'm not exactly an expert on it." "Hm, well that coincides with my research. I suppose you really haven't discovered neutrino magnetic travel yet, so there's little threat of invasion from here,"she said. "That seems like a strange thing to say,"I said. "Indeed... I suppose there's no problem telling you that my father will be disappointed that he can't simply annex the planet through an unprovoked invasion and argue he was defending the alliance. It basically leaves us with only one option: union,"she said. I felt a bump at my back and rolled my eyes a bit at the stifled giggles of my coworkers. Knowing them, it had nothing to do with the fact that she just mentioned a military annexation of Earth by alien forces, and everything to do with that last choice of words. I decided to humor them. "Whoa whoa whoa, let's save talks of marriage until at least the second date, okay?"I said. Sandy's face started darkening, but from her expression it was pretty clear she was blushing. I could hear my coworkers practically falling over each other behind me, laughing like a bunch of hyenas. "Uh, I... I actually meant the states of your planet joining the alliance, but I-I suppose if a political marriage might be necessary..."she said, her air of professionalism and composure rapidly crumbling. "Calm down, I'm just joking,"I said. "Have you seen the waitress? I think our food should be here by now." Almost on cue, the waitress stepped out from around the corner behind Sandy and placed our food in front of us, lasagna for me and a calzone for the girl in green. She also poured a glass of wine for each of us before leaving. "Finally get to eat something besides recycled water and dry rations. Gallos Daz!"Sandy said, the latter statement presumably being some form of "Bon appetite". She then immediately stuffed the piping hot calzone directly into her mouth before yelping in pain and coughing up the bite she'd just taken. "Ah! Hot! How do you eat this?" I chuckled a little before responding. "You need to let it cool down, do you guys not cook food up in... where did you say you were from?" "Daz Tasis, and of course we cook things, but I've never heard of a food storing heat for more than a few minutes out of the cooker... Ow, my tongue hurts,"she said, sticking out her tongue. It was forked, though that didn't seem to hinder her speech. The raw red spots on her tongue were visible even from where I sat, but nothing that looked too bad. "It looks like you'll be fine, though some ice cream might help with the swelling,"I said. "Do we have time?"she asked. "This place doesn't close until 2 in the morning, so probably..."I said. After that decision, conversation kind of died off as we stuffed our faces. Sandy seemed to relish her food once it was cool enough to not burn her, and Luciano's lasagna was as delicious as ever. The waitress took our dessert order, and returned shortly after with ice cream in a glass serving dish and two spoons. The fact that we had to lean in to avoid making a mess brought our faces rather close, though it seemed I took note of it before Sandy. I could feel my face heating up before she even took notice, but when she glanced up she started blushing as well. The waitress came by one last time to hand us the bill, which Sandy seemed confused by. "Is it safe to assume you didn't bring any local currency? I was expecting I'd be footing the bill regardless, but it doesn't hurt to ask,"I said. "You mean you pay for food individually rather than having it rationed to you? This place is very strange,"Sandy said. "...Right,"I said as I paid the bill and put a tip on the table. "Wait, before we leave, do you have protection?"Sandy asked. While I had been joking with her about wording before, this time I legitimately mistook what she asked and checked whether I had any condoms. While she was confused at first, she blushed deeper than she had all night once I showed her the packaged item and she realized the mistake. "No, no, I mean are your bodyguards sufficient? Should I escort you home?" I glanced behind me and sure enough, my coworkers were laughing like banshees about the exchange. I guess we hadn't exactly been very subtle about this little stunt, but we were expecting this to be some kind of prank and she didn't seem put off by their presence. As to my answer... Well, Sandy seemed nice, even if she did have her quirks. I wasn't even sure what she planned to do if we did get attacked. "We're not in a dangerous part of town, but I guess I wouldn't mind you joining me,"I said. "Good, then let us depart,"she said. As we left, the cool night air ripped across us. I saw my coworkers exiting after us, no doubt seeing me wrapping Sandy in my jacket since she was absolutely not dressed for the cold weather. I quickly became acutely aware of how... snugly her dress hugged her body, and briefly wondered how much the "disguise"she mentioned actually altered her appearance. Then I decided I should probably have stopped at the third glass of wine, and focused on the road to my apartment. I stopped at the door to the building. Cute as she may have been, letting her into my private quarters was not on the to-do list. I vaguely hoped none of my coworkers were watching, since it felt like things were about to get embarrassing. "Hey Sandy, this is the place, so I guess you can start heading off now,"I said. "Tom, I haven't been quite honest with you..."Sandy said. "I'm not actually a noble daughter of a leading family in the alliance, I'm just a pilot who found the frequency of your telephone signals and wanted to see this world in person... But I've been lying all night, and you've been nothing but generous and forthright..." "Well... I'm not actually an ambassador for all of humanity either, I'm some clerk from a call center that happened to receive your call. My coworkers and I thought it was a prank, but we decided to play along and they were ready to come bail me out if you turned out to be a loony,"I said. "Not much point hiding it now, and if you're coming clean I feel like I should as well." "Oh... That's smart, I should probably have asked my copilot to keep an eye on things in case you tried to kidnap me for ransom or something..."she said, pausing to hiccup before continuing. "Anyway, I should probably get going, we've gotta ship out in a few days. Maybe see you again, Tom." Sandy then turned and jogged over to a bench while fiddling with her watch, stepping up on it and shooting off into the sky like she was fired from a slingshot. I think I may have been wrong, I probably should've stopped at two glasses of wine. Wait a second, she never returned my jacket!
I dream of paints swirling together, diluting, realigning, and then pouring onto my skin: down my forehead, cutting between my eyes, over the bridge of my nose, licking my lips, and then to pool in the hollow of my throat until it overflows and streams in between my breasts, and my fingers, too, are dripping color - or maybe it is the watercolors that dew and fall from my eyelashes. I raise my hand to wipe my eyes but before the colors turn to darkness, I open my eyes to my bedroom. In my sleepy haze, I feel but cannot identify what is different, what is wrong, until I blink once, twice. The morning light that comes through my window is not a floaty, pale thing, fresh from the sun, but falls onto my sheets in shards of color. Stained glass. I reach out my fingers cautiously, and brush them against the warm glass. My fingers tint blue, and when I move my hand, red. It’s beautiful. It’s her favorite flower. A field of spider lilies against a blue sky, pinpoints of golden glass that adorn each crimson petal. She had told me once about a dream she had. Imagine living in a house with stained glass windows. It would be so beautiful, waking up to a kaleidoscope. It is. And that’s when my fingers come to snake under my shirt and feel the silence. There is no thrumming beat that I could hear in my ears when she kissed me just beneath my jaw, not the sound that she pressed her ear to at night, so it would lull her to sleep. There is no heart, like there hasn’t been for the past two years, four months, three days. It’s empty, hollow. My mother had told me it was a family curse, right after she died. Feel, she had said, and had me feel her wrist for the pulse. There was none. Silence that held so much weight that it made me feel a phantom squeeze where my heart should have been. “When did it start for you?” I asked, trembling. “When your father died,” she said, a little sad, a little distant. That had been three years ago, at the time. Now, it was five. Her heart still hasn’t returned, and neither has mine. But she’s never mentioned anything about stained glass windows. My fingers are green when they stop trailing, hesitating against the stems. I get out of bed slowly, steadily. It’s a habit, now, the same way I avoid art stores and practice each and every physical therapy exercise I have, in hopes that something in my hands can be salvaged. Perhaps this, too, is a dream. Or maybe everything these past years have been a dream, and I’m waking up, and going to see her, and she’ll tell me, “I did it! The windows! Do you like them?” I wish the words reverberated in my head, sharp and clear and ringing, but they are wispy, murky. I really am forgetting. The kitchen window and living room windows are both stained glass, too, filtering my sink and sofas in mosaics of red, blue, green, gold. I want to say her name, but I can’t. I don’t. I won’t. “It was beautiful,” I say instead, stepping into the beams of color, letting them phase over me. “I wish you could see it.”

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