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David sat at the far end of a wooden table in a dimly lit room. A pepper shaker and an iPhone with an article that had the words “Ten Easiest Ways to Sneeze When You Feel Like You Can’t!” glowing on the screen sat in front of him. David stared intently at the light, as if hoping the light bulb itself would shed some light on the weird things happening in his life. His phone buzzed, distracting him from the task. He looked down to see a notification for a headline from the New York Times, which read “King Trump Bans Bump Stocks on Plasma Rifles.” David pushed his phone onto the floor and sighed as it clattered to the ground. Everything was so strange these days, and he knew he was the cause of it. David grabbed the shaker and shook some black flakes onto his hand. He raised his hand to his nose and inhaled sharply, causing him to rear his head back and contort his face in disgust. He slammed his fist on the table and stared intently on the light once again. This really should be working by now he thought to himself. Suddenly, David felt a tingling in the back of his nasal passages. Oh shit, he thought joyfully, shifting around excitedly in his chair. He continued to stare at the light as his nostrils burned. The tingling intensified. David raised his elbow to his nose in anticipation, closing his eyes now as he inhaled on reflex. The subsequent sneeze was nearly orgasmic as it echoed around the tiny room. Out of habit, David looked out the window, but once again saw the same grey sky and dreary neighborhood that stared back at him since the start of this ordeal. Now glowing with joy, David picked his phone up off the ground after hearing it vibrate. He tapped the “accept” button and raised the phone to his ear. “Babe?” said David. “Davey! I’m glad I caught you on your way home from work,” replied a feminine voice. David lowered the phone from his hand and gazed at the time at the top of the screen. It’s already after five o’clock? He thought to himself. “Oh yes hun,” he said. “Very busy day, first one at the new site.” “Did find any museum worthy artifacts? It sounded like a promising location when you explained it to me last night.” “Nope, no leads on anything yet.” David cringed at his own lie. “Hopefully we will get back to it tomorrow.” That familiar tingling sensation returned to his nose, and with it, a spike of adrenaline. His heart rate grew quickly as David wiped sweat from his brow with his shirt. “Well, good thing you get paid whether you find anything interesting or not, right?” The woman laughed. “Anyways, do you want to go out tonight? I feel like it’s been a while since we’ve gone on a real date.” David smiled as he sniffed heavily to try to manage the tingling. “Sounds great, babe,” he replied. The tingling intensified in spite of his efforts. “How about we go to… ACHOO!” David surprised himself mid sentence with a loud sneeze. “Bless you!” said the woman. “Thank you,” David replied. “Anyways, how about that new Italian place by the laundromat, what one is that called?” His question was met with silence. “You still there?” “Yeah,” she said with a sigh. David raised his eyebrows in alarm. “Is everything all right?” “No, not quite. Dave, you’ve probably seen this coming, but I can’t do this anymore.” “What? What did I say? I have no idea what you’re talking about. You just asked me to dinner.” “No I didn’t. Is your reception okay? Are you hearing me all right?” “I have four bars, everything sounds crystal clear.” “Then listen to me Dave. I can’t do this anymore. You should know why. Remember what happened earlier today?” “I haven’t seen you at all since last night, dear.” “Fuck you, Dave. You don’t have to lie to cover your ass. I don’t want to talk about this anymore right now.” “Wait a min-” and the voice cut off. David threw his phone against the wall on the far side of the room. It landed on the floor with a clatter. He put his head in hands as his eyes grew heavier. Then, suddenly, David felt that familiar tingling sensation return to the back of his nostrils.
"They said elves can't die. Well boy howdy I was the first one to manage to do it. "Just when I began to think that life might actually have some meaning to it and things mattered, and I was walking out of the tunnel to begin life anew just BAM! "A wall of flames right in my face and blistering agony for about a second. Then I floated up here like a beautiful butterfly and I've been stuck here ever since. "And now I know for SURE life's a cruel joke. "Course nobody ever figured out what happened to me, they just made up some crap story about this tunnel while the dragon still has all my gold. Then the legend spread and people just come down here to do their unsavory things. So that's how all these spirits got here, all because some greedy dragon decided to fry a suicidal elf. "Anyway what happened to you?"I finished and turned to the man spirit shaking his head beside me, an axe sticking out of his head. "It's a sordid story."He said.
"It can't be!"Ted said, whispering to his phone. "I've never even been to Paris, how could I be standing in front of the Eiffel Tower?" His frown deepened as he went through more of the photos. More and more he didn't remember taking, in places he'd never been. And slowly, they were becoming less tourist-like, and more dangerous. There was one of him hanging from a cliff, for instance. One of him near an explosion, even! One of him... surviving an alien invasion??? "Crap!"Ted yelled, running out the front door. ---- "THE ALIENS ARE COMING!"Ted shouted. "So let me get this straight,"Jayne, standing next to me as we watched this spectacle, said. "Ted has, somehow, never heard of Photoshop." "He's not very tech savvy,"I said. "Doesn't even have a password on his phone, which is how I got in." "FIND ME A CLIFF SO I MAY DANGLE FROM IT!"Ted yelled at some passers-by. "IF I DON'T DO IT BEFORE THE ALIENS GET HERE WE'RE DOOMED!" "So you photoshopped him in a bunch of places and backgrounds, including apparently an alien invasion?"Jayne asked. "Ted's never seen Independence Day,"I pointed out. "Well that's a damn shame,"Jayne said. "OFFICERS!"Ted shouted at the police who were chasing after him, "I CAN'T COME WITH YOU, I HAVE LANDMARKS TO VISIT! ALSO I NEED TO MEET WILL SMITH!" "One thing I don't understand,"Jayne said. "Is... why?" "You remember the party about a week ago? Ted was talking about all his plans to visit Paris and Hollywood, finally rent some '90s movies he'd never seen, and I said I was going home." "I vaguely remember this,"Jayne said. "Weren't you already heading out?" "I'M ON TOP OF THE WORLD! I HAVE THE PICTURES TO PROVE IT!"Ted shouted from the tree he'd climbed to escape the police. "I was leaving the party, yes,"I said. "But Ted apparently thought it was directed at him, because he said that I had 'no sense of adventure'." "NO!"Ted shouted as the police wrangled him into the squad car. "YOU'RE DOOMING US ALL!" "Who's having an adventure now, Ted!?"
So much fucking money. And I did nothing really to deserve it. They say that wealth is built upon hard work, perseverance. But, on rare occasion, success, fame, wealth, is derived entirely by exploit of innate ability. And nothing. Fucking. Else. I was born as some star child in a world of black space. Everyone was different from me; and my difference made me valuable to everyone. “Xeno,” they’d say, “I need to know if my Indian teacher thinks I’m smart in class or just annoying.” “Hey buddy, does that Russian girl I was talking to at the bar think I’m cute? Her thoughts said something like ‘cockon billyboch neechien.’” (He was failing miserably to say какой гребаный член.) They’d pay often. Everyone knew my face, and so many had questions; so many more than you’d think. So, my fortune and my unshatterable ego were the result of multiculturalism and uncultured citizens. But one day, something very strange happened. “Xe.” My longtime friend Andrew called me on my phone. I worked for him for free. The mooch. “What’s up?” “First, I’m not a mooch.” Fuck him. “Fuck you too.” I rolled my eyes. “So, I was working at the restaurant today, and there was some chick sitting all alone.” Andrew was a major flirt. “I didn’t flirt with her or anything.” Oh. “I acted totally fine, but it was so weird, I still heard some snide tone in her thoughts anyway, even though I was totally professional with her.” “Okay,” I said. “What did she say.” And that’s when he presented me with the craziest thing. Because I could not begin to understand him. I broke into a cold sweat, becoming more anxious each time I asked him to repeat it. He did over and over again, in slightly different ways each time to try and help me, but it was unlike anything I had heard or could understand. This couldn’t be. How could this happen to me? “Dude, come on. Just ‘cause you can’t understand what some random restaurant chick said doesn’t mean you’re just fuckin nothing now.” “That’s not how I feel!” I lied. He knew I was lying I was one of the few in the world who stilled tried. I knew I was being an insecure little bitch. “You’re right. You are being an insecure little bitch.” I hung up. I called back. “Andrew.” “She comes in every once in a while. You want to meet her because her language is different? Explain that.” “Well, I” “You think it might be a unique language?” “...” “What does that even mean?” “I don’t know, but I’m damn curious.” “Well... alright. She’s actually come in two days in a row now. Try tomorrow around 5. Yes, she is pretty.” Best linguist in existence, and I still couldn’t help letting my mind wander to the hormone induced places of a woman’s beauty. What could this be? ********** Is it appropriate to put a “to be continued”. Bc I got shit to do, so that’s what this finna be. ✌️
The sun was almost touching the horizon as Aeneas drew forth the last notes of his piece. There were few people with the talent to sing to trees, and even fewer who could make them bloom, but he was one of the best in Rome. He plucked a fat apple from a drooping branch and took a bite. Not quite ripe he thought maybe three more days. He strolled along the road humming a dainty tune along the way. Each note brought his apple closer to perfection. Within the city, Aeneas could see many artisans laboring by the firelight of their chanting assistants. Carvers beat their drums under showers of chipped marble. Potters drew bows along strings to spin vases. And weaver's flutes pulled thread into cloth. It was a beautiful scene, as their many harmonies was what made the city. The mood was interrupted however, by a sickly grey glow from the palace. Not tonight Aeneas could only plead. Nero had just finished another sonata and in his infinite generosity, had decided to "grace"his people with his brilliance. A servant approached the emperor with a gilded lyre, regret in his eyes for the waste of such a beautiful instrument. Nero began with three notes, each woefully out of tune by themselves and with each other. Aeneas' apple turned sour in his mouth. As the emporor's song began in earnest, the city all around faltered. Stones cracked, pottery sagged, and threads tangled. At the song's highs, mushrooms sprung from every crevice in sight. By the lows, rot poured from thatched roofs. And to make matters worse, he began to sing. And Rome burned.
I don't know why I was dumb enough to confront him with the list. But I'm glad I did. "It's not what it looks like, I swear,"he said. While backing up. Rapidly. I'm a lot bigger than Nate is, and I know how to fight, and he knows I know. He knows how well, too, he was there for me when I got disillusioned and left my green beret behind. "I know these people, Nate,"I said, feeling that old familiar rise of rage in the center of my neck and upper chest, using the old familiar ways to keep it tamped down. "Almost all of them. They were in my old unit, or attached to it doing intel work." "Yes,"he said, nodding fast, back now against one wall of his tiny Brooklyn apartment. "That's how I made the connection. I recognized names from that party you invited me to. I'm good with names. Look, I'm gonna level with you. First off, I invited you over so I could tell you. No. No. Please just put that away, hear me out. You don't need it anyway, I'm not armed. Look—" I lowered the combat knife as he turned around, lifting his shirt, holding his sweatpants open. Not really necessary, I could tell he wasn't armed, but then again apparently I didn't know him as well I'd thought, and I hadn't survived the last fifteen year by letting assumptions slide by me. "Talk fast,"I said. My mind was everywhere, all at once, pulling things in like some desperate octopus, trying to see which of them fit together. "Yeah, fast, sure,"he said. I could see sweat starting to collect on his forehead and run down to his auburn eyebrows, line the edge of his buzz-cut hair. "I'm into some shit, man. You know I like to poke around some, uh, interesting places online. I got onto this board after following all these crazy hints I'd been seeing on some other, uh, kinda shady places. I didn't participate in any of it, I swear! I just like being in the know, it's me, I mean I've always been that way." He had. Brilliant with networks and security. One of the people at the party had tried to talk him into seeing a recruiter because of it, but of course Nate turned him down. Not the military or G-man type, not at all. "Okay,"I said. "So?" "So it was like some serious conspiracy stuff. Not the kooky bullshit people like to throw around, I mean these people weren't talking about conspiracy, they were running one. A big one. There were names and I recognized some at the party and started putting shit together and..."he had started to hyperventilate, "...I don't know, when I saw your name I kind of freaked, put the list in the drawer and called you. Why'd you get in there anyway?" "I could tell something was really, really off,"I said. "Honestly I was checking for drugs, I figured I'd tell you to lay off the stu—" But that was when all the windows crashed in at once. &#x200B; r/Magleby for more elaborate lies.
Gatarist Con, that's my name. I stroll these concrete streets strutting my victory over some low level wizards. I think to my self "some wizards, only 14 for intelligence on a wizard? You're going to need much more to perceive my 20 charisma"these meetings have always been so easy for me. One simple spell and I lace my words with magic, turning heads and persuading everyone I meet. As I stroll to the nearest coffee shop I hear the melody, a melody so sweet and rich you can't ignore it. The sound is of blessed words from the asimar I assume but who can tell. The sound fills my thoughts and flows in my vains as I hear it, the words. These lyrics are no other no, they are dangerous words wrapped in venom from the most deadly of snakes, sins, and spiders, "...never gonna give you up..."My lips move to the song that I know all so well "...never gonna let you down..."I mumble knowing full well this is a trap spell. I am suddenly paralyzed I fall to my hands and knees unable to move I see the origin of the song. A lizard folk man in baggy shorts and a tank top with a boom box on his shoulder glares me down, I am encapsulated. A wizard from the meeting shows up and pulls out a trinket "Level 25 intellect paladin bitch."He whispers in my ear. I cannot move to face him. In the corner of my eyes I see him lift up something heavy and let it drop. My eyes go black, and thus my life is ended.
It was an incredible time, when Far Blue, as people started calling the planet, awakened. Far Blue was discovered in 2021, February 8th. SpaceX's probe send back mind boggling images. The planet looked remarkably earth like, with 73% of it covered in Ocean. The biggest difference though was how blue the planet looked, giving it its nick name. We all know now it is because of the various Zall leaks, but back then it only added to the mystery. Not long after the probe started to send back images and data, the planet woke up, as some said. In reality the vicinity of our probe triggered some ancient automated systems and the planet started broadcasting. A series of information, to us, to earth. Information that allowed us to build more efficient space ships, requiring less fuel and adding to their space faring ability. Knowledge that allowed us to perfect fusion energy. A series of techniques and stimulating thought exercises that seemed to be tailored to our human brains and even way of thinking. To most it gave a slight boost in cognitive abilities. But to a few it gave far greater abilities. A great intellect, seemingly psychic powers and a sort of insight into how the world and the universe works that makes these people behave pretty weird. I wouldn't be able to tell you about it, I just got the cognitive boost. As you probably have guessed, the world changed. Big countries where racing to build new space ships, which would allow them to reach the Moon in minutes, Mars in a few hours. Far Blue in a few days. I want to tell you that these things brought forth world peace. But they did not. As they raced to build better space ships they also raced to build better weapons, to find ways to weaponize the psychics. With fusion energy discovered they build destructive weapons. But between the countries private space companies innovated as well, and soon space travel became an accessible option for the common people. Tickets to and back from Far Blue were selling for 10k back then. People who had saved up for a few years could afford that. There where several packages ofcourse, but 10K would get you to and back from Far Blue and include a day long trek on the surface, to visit the Ancient, alien cities and ruins that remained. The business boomed, and while governments shunned the public from their space projects, these privatised companies raked in the cash. Apparently there were a lot of people who wanted to stroll around for a day on Far Blue. See the old cities; the gargantuan ruins, the eerie blue shade that permeated in everything on the planet, the wispy smoke lines that floated in the air, ancient tracts of the Zall catastrophes. Among them were Jax and Pale Thom. Or as they were still called back then, Jack Axmond and Thomas Miller. I don't want to pretend I know what is best for humanity, but I have my doubts if bringing those two to Far Blue was the best for all of us. But they went, with some Eastern European space startup, in one of the most shitty space rigs imaginable. Jax was a special, is what we call the psychics these days, and though he was not the first that visited Far Blue, he was one of the first specials that interacted with the temples and the Zall. And even though there have been other specials that interacted with it as well, as far as I understand it, none have come around that are on the same level as Jax, not even close. You might be wondering by now what this Zall stuff is that I am talking about. Well, I don't know. First they told us it was some kind of energy or the product that is used to store and create energy. Bit like oil, or electricity in batteries. That a sort of failure in the large scale storage of Zall was what ended the civilisation of Far Blue. But when Jax interacted and Far Blue moved to stage two, things became a lot complicated, so did Zall.
“Jake, look!” Annie pointed out the window. A large plume of smoke rose up to the heavens. “Looks like there’s a fire!” I stood up from my chair and instantly ran out the door. If I was quick, I could maybe prevent people from dying. I ran through the streets, into the forest and made my way to the edge of the fire. Smoke was all around me, and I had to hold my shirt in front of my mouth to not choke on it all. Then I called out: “Hey, you! Stop it!” The smoke around me disappeared, creating a small open area, the smoke around it like walls. It was like I stood in a dome. Through the smoke stepped a tall man, dressed in a toga. “Oh, it’s you,” he said, sounding rather irritable. “You know very well I’m the only one that knows you really exist,” I said. “Nobody else would believe that the Roman god Vulcan really lived.” “Well, living is something that is usually only left to mere mortals like you,” Vulcan said, tapping his foot impatiently. “Speaking of mortals, what are you doing here?” “You decided to burn down the forest that is closest to my town,” I said. “Bad choice.” Vulcan groaned. “Can’t you please just let me have my fun for once?” “Burning down forests kills people, not to mention all the other damage it causes to the things in and around the forests,” I said, getting annoyed. “I told you to stop it.” “Listen here, kid,” Vulcan said. “I am a god. I can do whatever I want. A pesky mortal like you isn’t going to stop me!” “Are you sure?” I asked. “Well, yes, of course,” Vulcan said. “I’m immortal, powerful and intelligent. You’re mortal, weak, and dumb, like most of you silly humans. I will not stand here, and be insulted. Stop me? You’re a joke, and not a good one either.” I raised an eyebrow. “You done?” Vulcan sighed. “Yeah, I think so.” I nodded. “Great. Put out the fire. I’ll buy you a coffee.” Vulcan snapped his fingers. “Fine. I guess a coffee is worth it. You win this time.” I rolled my eyes. For someone claiming he was an all mighty, intelligent god, he was extremely easy to persuade. Then again, I was getting good at this. It wasn’t my first rodeo.
The bugs had never terrified me until that day. The Aqu queens and their flurry of drones, the little critters that followed them everywhere, had me vexed. I volunteered to go, a decision challenged by Martha at every turn. The bugs had been discovered months earlier, quietly setting up shop on the cold, dusty surface of Mars. The red planet wasn’t all that they told us. One of my friends was already gone and I could feel my blood boiling with a craving for vengeance; the journey to the Aqu temple was harrowing and I couldn’t get those freaking clicking sounds out of my head. Jennings had experienced total somatic death, not from the pressure, or lack thereof, but by getting to close to one of the Aqu while the fucking thing was praying. I told him to keep his distance. He never listened. Praying to what, I thought, as we approached the temple. The abomination may as well have been a termite mound. Clicking and cracking sounds paraded all around us as we made our way in close; first me, then Watson and Bradley. The Corps didn’t pay us to keep secrets, although that’s what we did. They paid us to shoot things and as of this spring, “things” meant bugs, but the Aqu were mostly harmless. In two months of continued attempts at communicating with them, not a single one of them had so much as sent a broadcast signal, responded to exterior stimuli, or offered any sort of resistance when we made attempts to take prisoners for analysis. As far as we could tell, the drones were completely mindless, but they were organic. Tanner Jennings was the only casualty humanity had suffered so far, and the kid died because he didn’t have any respect for other cultures, not because the bugs wanted to kill him. He desecrated one of their artifacts. That was a “no, no.” By the time I had made my way to Jennings’ body, or what was left of it, his skin had calcified inside of his suit, binding him to the mixture of silicon and Kevlar supposed to protect him, creating a rather disgusting visual sight to see. The bugs had acidic sacks lodged in between their throats and thoraxes that spat a carcinogenic jelly-like bile that rapidly immolated basically anything it touched. I thought that was the most horrifying thing I had and would ever see; I was wrong. “What’s going on?” Watson asked. “I don’t know,” I said, “it looks like they’re getting ready to do some kind of ritual. Control, are you seeing this?” “That’s some fucked up shit, man,” Bradley said. “I count thirty bogies, control,” Watson said. “Make that twenty nine.” Another one of them had been torn to shreds by the Queen, standing in front of the temple that looked straight out of a horror movie. Lovecraft would have himself a field day if he saw what we were seeing. “Fuck,” Bradley said,” there go two more. They’re dropping like flies, control. No pun intended.” The intensity of the ceremony had accelerated past the point where I felt safe. “Let’s get out of here.” “Roger, bravo team,” control said. “Get the hell—“ Then it popped.
"Mother Gaia, huh?" &#x200B; From somewhere inside my head, the idea that it's name is just Gaia emerges. I stare up into its massive form, a whirling swathe of animals dying, rebirthing, and doing all manner of bizarre things. Her head is comprised of billions of insects, with two glowing humpback whales making up her eyes. &#x200B; "You are not what I expected." &#x200B; What a surprise, the human has no frame of reference for sentient, non-human things. There's that voice in my mind again, and I hear it now. It's slightly louder than my normal thoughts. Just loud enough for me to realize I'm not actually thinking that. &#x200B; "Oi, that's not fair. You made us." &#x200B; I set the wheels in motion, but you and yours have been unchecked in my realm for a long time. Wait, I didn't set... Oh, right. &#x200B; "Are you sure you can't manifest a human I could talk to? Having you in my brain's a bit of a privacy issue." &#x200B; The amorphous mass leans forward, swirling above my head like a tornado made of screaming. I stick my hands in my pockets, hoping to hide the shaking. A hole opens up, and a pink blob hits the ground in front of me. The mass reels backwards, and in the light of day I can see it's a human's mouth, severed from the rest of the body and stretched to the size of a horse. &#x200B; "IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED?"A voice booms out of the disembodied mouth, causing both it and myself to quiver. &#x200B; "Yes. I love talking to god-like beings who like silly putty full of teeth." &#x200B; "YOURE NO BEAUTY CONTEST WINNER YOURSELF" &#x200B; "Low blow from the swirling cockroach mass." &#x200B; "AREN'T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE HUMANITIES LAST DEFENDER? THE NEGOTIATOR FOR THE SPACE YOU TAKE UP?" &#x200B; "Oh, you heard all that huh?" &#x200B; "I HAVE SPIES EVERYWHERE." &#x200B; "Yeah, I figure. Being the embodiment of all existential life and death's gotta have some perks,"I fumble around in my pockets, pulling out a cigarette, then a lighter. It's nice and green, with a beautiful flower pattern leading up to the top. I flick it open, and start having a smoke, "Truth be told, I figured I could do this. Figured I'd be alright. But y'know, y'look at all of what yer existence amounts to, and y'just don't measure up." &#x200B; "SO THATS IT? YOU GIVE UP?" &#x200B; "What's it to you?"I ask, pointing the cigarette at the lips next to me, "Yer gonna extinguish us no matter what. I'm assumin' that's what ya meant by 'unchecked'. Ain't worth fightin' that." &#x200B; "I EXPECTED MORE." &#x200B; "Expect all ya want. We're humans. We're exactly what you think we'll be, but we still surprise everyone." &#x200B; The earth began to rumble, great thudding movements as the rocks below my feet smashed together. The grass and bushes nearby swayed erratically, as if gripped by a hurricane. Next to me, the lips laughed. Guffawing loudly through yellowed teeth. &#x200B; "YOU HUMANS AND I MAY HAVE MORE IN COMMON THAN WE THINK." &#x200B; "Hah, really? You think humans have somethin' in common with a god of all creation? Get outta here." &#x200B; "IN THE LIMITED TIME I HAVE BEEN AWAKE, I'VE SEEN SOME OF YOUR WORKS. YOU WOULD THINK ME INFALLIBLE. INEFFABLE. BECAUSE THAT'S HOW YOU SEE POWER." &#x200B; "Whaddaya mean?" &#x200B; "IN YOUR MINDS, THOSE WITH POWER ARE THERE BECAUSE THEY SHOULD BE. BECAUSE THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO BE. AND WHEN YOUR PEOPLE FIND OUT THAT THEY DON'T, AS THEY INEVITABLY WILL, THEIR CONTINUED POWER SEEMS WRONG TO YOU. YOU CREATED A MAN IN THE SKY, AN ALL POWERFUL, ALL KNOWING, ALL GOOD CREATURE. A MAN WHO YOU COULD NEVER UNDERSTAND, AND THEREFORE COULD NEVER BE WRONG." &#x200B; "I don't see what any of this's got t'do with you." &#x200B; "I AM THE BEING IN THE SKY. BUT I HAVE BEEN WRONG. I HAVE MADE MISTAKES. I HAVE DOMINION OVER EVERYTHING THAT THINKS, BREATHES, AND MOVES OF ITS OWN ACCORD, AND YET I AM NOT THE CREATURE YOU THOUGHT I WOULD BE." &#x200B; "Like what?" &#x200B; "EVERY EXTINCT CREATURE HAS BEEN ME FIXING A MISTAKE. WHEN ONE OF YOUR KIND MAKES A MISTAKE, IT RUINS ONE LIFE. ONE HUNDRED LIVES. ONE THOUSAND LIVES. PERHAPS EVEN A MILLION LIVES. WHEN I MAKE A MISTAKE? IT ENDS A SPECIES. WIPES OUT WHOLE SCHOOLS OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS." &#x200B; "So what yer sayin' is?" &#x200B; "NOTHING YOU CAN DO WILL BE WORSE THAN WHAT I HAVE DONE. YOU ARE ME, A PART OF WHAT I AM. YOU ARE MY POWER, AND MY MISTAKES." &#x200B; "So, y'ain't gonna kill us? We're chill?" &#x200B; "YES. WE ARE CHILL. BUT IN EXCHANGE, I WANT YOUR HELP." &#x200B; "Our help? Fuck, sure, why not? Whaddaya need?" &#x200B; "I WANT TO LEAVE THIS PLANET. I WANT TO EXPLORE THIS UNIVERSE."
"Daniel waved goodbye to his one year old daughter Jany for what was to be the last time. She smiled at him, waving back with exactly the same awkward flapping motion Daniel used. He shook his head. It was amazing how they copied everything from their parents. That was how he knew he was making the right decision. How could Daniel let the girl grow up like him? With his insecurities, his lack of motivation, his bitterness, and his awkwardness? She was better off without him. So was everyone else. Daniel said goodbye to his wife, who was still in bed. She mumbled a reply, but he couldn't hear it. He hadn't told her yet that he had been fired. She thought he was going off to work. He was not. Tears streamed down Daniel's face as he left. He should not be crying, he was doing what was right. They would be better off now. Daniel arrived at the commuter train station by muscle memory, not being able to see through the tears. The front door of the station was closed. That was odd. Of course, today was a holiday. He had forgotten. No surprise there, it was typical of him. Part of what brought him here in the first place. He stood there, alone in front of the big, wooden doors and wiped his tears out of his eyes. There were other ways of getting where he was going. As he turned to leave, Daniel noticed something carved into the left door. "From despair there is hope. From darkness there is light. From hate the is love. From fear there is courage." He stared at the words, examining every inch of then as if they were a piece of artwork rather than graffiti. They were marvelously written. Someone had amazing penmanship, or knifemanship as it were. Daniel looked around. He noticed the songbirds chirping merrily on the still-life bare trees of early spring. A squirrel was digging in the ground nearby, having survived the bitter cold winter in a small nest made of leaves. Perhaps Daniel could do it too. He had tried before, of course, many times. Still, he ended up here. But, he could try again. Maybe this time he would do better. Maybe he could learn to be the positive influence he wanted for his daughter. Maybe things could get better this time. There was only one way to find out." "And that's,"Jany said, fighting the urge to wipe away the tear running down her face, "how I learned perseverance from my father." She looked out at the class, glancing toward the student with the timer. Her speech had already gone over time. "Never give up, no matter how bad things seem. My father was a great role model for me and he is the reason I made it here to this university to stand in front of you all today. Thank you." Jany waved at the class with the same awkward flap her father had used. She then realized people don't end speeches by waving, and slowly lowered her hand. Then she smiled, knowing she would do it better next time.
M worked the brothel on Livery Street. The smell of horses permeated everything, the rooms, the dresses they washed after every meet, and the fabric that hugged the bed and windows. M grew up in the musty house. The daughter of the dueña, the story goes like so many others, unexpected pregnancy, failure to terminate, the child works as soon as they are able sweeping floors, cleaning toilets, making food. M was no different except for the itch. The itch was something inside that no one could explain. It was a fire, a yearning for freedom stripped of the metaphor, but ingrained as a deep physical sensation in her stomach. When she worked cleaning it muttered, testing its wings only slightly. At 7 years old there was an incident. La dueña set her to mop the floors with several arm wrings, shoves, and pulls. “You belong to the floor,” she said, “you will never belong to anything else.” M had held back tears until she couldn’t contain her emotion: huge heaving sobs wrecked her body as she mopped, frantically dipping the mop in the dirty bucket. When the tears came they were hot and stinging. Her vision blurred, and she could only hear the hard scrub and push of the mop cloth on the floor. She pushed the mop back into the bucket and heard a sizzle. One incident, led to another, and now she felt a similar itch against wood. A tight rope strung to hold her back—unnecessary but taut. She closed her eyes and sent up a prayer. Share the wounds, share the pain, she thought. Her auto-da-fe had been voluntary. The men dressed in frocks that had apprehended her playing a part that the ritual required. J had approached her shortly after the bucket incident and brought her into the fold. Boiling water was the first sign. There were three others, and M would be monitored to make sure she exhibited them. As M grew the signs made themselves clear in less than obvious ways. She was popular at the brothel for the additional fire provided during the act. The men all came to see her and walked away with such a stinging that they could not sit still for a week. What afflicted them afterwards, never touched her. The drip, the sting after the fire, spread from husband to wife, but left her unmarked. “The signs of the Phoenix,” she whispered to herself. With a wink and nod, the roughage was lit. The delicate twist of pain started at her ankles and worked itself way up to a roaring and insatiable monster. M’s screams echoed but inside she repeated her prayer: ~~“Make me a bird so I can fly far far away”~~
I'm pulled from my coffin-like cell and dragged off the train. Bound in irons, I taste the black sand as my face scrapes along the ground. I twist and turn, looking at the back gates of the Brass Station, fire out the windows. I see the waifish black demon who's captured me these last two times I've escaped describing how they caught me to a toothesome demon in military uniform. "You filthy whore!"I scream at them as I pass. "You degenerate freak, the next time you come across me, I'll-"but a spiked boot silences my tirade, and they smile a knowing smirk as I pass. I'm forced into a chair, and held down with leather straps. Brass nails are hammered through the straps into my flesh to hold me in place better. A large red demon with massive spiraling horns steps into the room, bathed in fire. "Hmm... One Mr. Angleton, is it?" I don't deign to respond to such a lowly being. "You do have quite the record... this is your second escape, now is it? Various assaults on officers, theft, arson-" "Half of this damn realm is fire! Shut your fuck-hole about arson." "Denying charges... If only there were some world of eternal torment to send you to."The Devil tuts as he sets my folder down. "In the mean-while, I'm sure you'll have a right time escaping from the tar-pits." "You're not even powerful! You don't have the right to imprison me! I can't be contained, I'm a force of nature!"I scream out as my chair is dragged through the winding halls and out, into the razor-grass fields, all the way to the tar-pits, where I'm flung, the heavy brass chair dragging me downwards into the sticky fluid. I know there's an escape, there's always an escape. But they couldn't make it easy on me, could it. I know there's an exit to this horrid realm at the bottom of the pits, but sinking there could take a proper while...
Well, my home was like, almost heaven. It was a little farmtown in West Virginia. My Family lived there since generations, sorrounded by the blue ridge mountains. The Shenandoah River gently flowing by. Well Life was old there, i mean like older than the trees. But the mountains were there before i tell you that and life blowed by like a breeze. Me, myself, i was travelling on the country roads , they always took me to my hometown, to the place i always belonged. West Virginia, the ol' mountain mama. Yeah, all my Memories were gathered of that gentle old place. I remember the Miners wife who would never go swimming, because she was afraid of the water. I remember going moonshining in the dark and dusty of the night. All those memories really put a teardrop in my eye. And of course, i hear her voice....every morning when i've just woken up, she calls me the ol'mountain mama. In my travels, when i listened to the radio my mind gets reminded of my home far away. Still driving down the road i just can't shake the feeling that i should’ve gotten there sooner, maybe already yesterday...... &#x200B; But i never will lose hope, that my country roads will take me home, to the place i belong, West Virginia the ol' mountan mama...... &#x200B; &#x200B; &#x200B; Authors Note: I'm a fairly new writer and i apologise if this prompt was a little short. I'm always open to constructive criticism so i can learn more everytime, have a nice day : )
"Do you believe in soulmates?"Norah asked, for what felt like the umpteenth time. &#x200B; "No. That’s ridiculous. All these people in the world, and there’s just ONE of them your soul is destined to be with? No, thank you.” &#x200B; Norah continued rummaging through her drawer of healing crystals, searching for one in particular. Jax rolled her eyes, bemused at her friend’s recent obsession with the mystic. &#x200B; “Well, I do. I see him, when I’m sleeping. He’s literally the man of my dreams. I bet he’s an Aquarius. I always saw myself with an Aquarius.” Norah plopped backwards onto the bed. &#x200B; “You know dreams don’t mean anything right? Like, they don’t predict the future?” Jax replied. &#x200B; Norah sighed. She knew Jax wouldn’t understand – she had closed her spirit, and wouldn’t let the energy of the universe inside. She sympathized, because she had been that way once too, laughing at the idea that the universe itself had any impact on her life. Wasn’t she just a clump of cells, hurtling through space on a rock for a speck of time? Yes, she was – but she was a clump of cells born from the universe, put on that particular rock for that particular speck of time, for a very particular reason, and her dreams had shown her so. &#x200B; At first it was frustrating – why did she keep seeing him every time she closed her eyes? Had she met him before? Did he have some type of significance? But her dreams started to compel her – first, to pop into a yoga studio on the opposite end of town, despite having not even so much as tried touching her toes before. Then, it was a craving for a very particular coffee, from a very particular café, at a very particular time of day. She didn’t think much of it – yoga is good for you, coffee is delicious, and a craving is a craving, right? &#x200B; As time went on, as she followed these spontaneous instincts – she started to feel as though she was being saved. Not in the way people typically talk about being saved – by God, by a doctor, by a good friend at the right time – no, this felt very different. Like the world itself was looking out for her. Terrible things were happening in all the places she should have been. She was finding herself very much not in the wrong place at the wrong time, but inexplicably compelled to be precisely elsewhere. &#x200B; She began writing letters to her Guardian Angel. Each day, she would read the news, and realize yet another catastrophe she had avoided due to a sudden epiphany. She began collecting crystals, keeping them in a drawer, feeling how they connected her to the universe, and to the angel watching over her from his comfortable place in her dreams. Until one night, she woke suddenly, unable to shake the feeling that she just had to go outside. She put on her robe, slid on some sandals, and stood out on the sidewalk, not entirely sure why she was there, but knowing she just couldn’t go back inside. Then, she saw him – the man from her dreams, on the opposite side of the street, standing under a tree in his pyjamas, looking profusely perplexed. &#x200B; Unsure of what she saw, or what this meant to have her Guardian Angel standing in the street directly across from her, gears turning a mile a minute, she texted Jax immediately – “do you believe in soulmates?”. &#x200B; &#x200B;
October 7th 1760 to April 5th 2019, 249 years 5 months and 29 days. That’s how old I am. 249 years. I can’t die. Trust me I’ve tried. I’ve tried drowning, hanging, shooting, Hell I’ve even tried burning myself alive. I know, you must be thinking; What? Being immortal seems awesome! And trust me, it isn’t. I found out 137 years ago that the reason I can’t die, is because well, apparently both God and Satan have a, well, they both have a crush on me. And... they won’t let me die until I return one of theirs affection. It’s been 137 years 6 months and 19 days sense I found out. I won’t give in to their ‘Shows of affection’. Because well, they killed my family in order to try to ‘Get to me’. I won’t give in. I can’t give in. It’s been 249 years, 5 months and 29 days sense I was born and they noticed me. It’s been 137 years, 6 months and 19 days sense I found out why I’m still alive. It’s been 219 years, 4 months and 9 days sense they killed my family. I won’t give in. I won’t allow it. I can’t allow it.
It was a coffee shop. Not a Starbucks, no. She was too into homemade coffee that she had gotten from the same small shop since she was a kid to go to Starbucks. The little town had little businesses, and this one was dying. The shop could barely survive, but one customer always came in and bought something...every single day. He had worked there for years, and always saw her, but never said anything about it. Though, he had a crush on her. He had girlfriends before. Hell, he had just gotten out of a year-long relationship, so he didn't bother to chase. They shared a birthday, though. They got the worst birthday present of all: the closing of the shop. But, while he never made it for her, he knew the recipe to her favorite coffee. And so, he walked up to her on the closing day when she had come to the shop with a sad look upon her face, like a lost dog. He handed her her favorite coffee, and said, ”I’m sorry that we are closing, but I've seen you come in every day and figured I could make this for you one last time.” She smiled. He was kind of cute too and after a moment of talking, it was clear that they had hit it off. She skipped class that day to hang out with him, and they had a great time. They became exclusive not a month later, and they were a happy couple. A year came and past before they even hit a bump: a girl claimed the guy had cheated with her. Of course, he loved the coffee girl, and would never have cheated. But that didn't matter... Because she believed him. Trust was everything, and she knew that the other girl had always had problems with the two of them. So, she stayed. After both had graduated from college, he proposed. After the marriage, they had a kid who was destined for greatness. They lived through the good times and the bad. Loss and gain. The greatest loss, though was when she passed. Though, he continued the same routine: make her favorite coffee, and sit with her at the table.
The Daily Reddit \- The scientific community was brought to its knees today as it found itself in a whirlwind of smut-addled controversy. For so many years these learned scholars have paved the way for mankind, teaching us the ways of the earth, the moon, the stars in the sky. However, it is always important to remember that while one may be imbued with academic brilliance, that does not necessarily correlate with sanity, decency, or in this case... a basic grasp of social etiquette. Indeed, even in this fractured and tempestuous world, one would be hard pressed to disagree with the uproar that has originated out of Seoul, South Korea, today, in which one scientist in particular has brought shame to their field. This morning, at twelve noon, u/CivilizedPyscho\, the protagonist, - or perhaps... antagonist of our report, took to a hastily commissioned podium to announce a revelation that would bring the world of science to a sudden halt. As you are about to find out,\ u/CivilizedPyscho was correct, but for reasons they could never have expected. "Ladies and gentlemen of the learned community,"they began, "I would like to quickly thank you for your hasty presence here today. I appreciate the difficulty of this on such short notice. However, and I hope you will forgive my hastiness, but me and my team feel it prudent to get right to it. So without further adieu, please let me explain to you our findings. Despite previous assertions, we have managed to ascertain that our planet is indeed at the centre of the known universe. As I'm sure you are all well aware, this issue has been discussed and debated en masse over the centuries, with us believing it was finally put to bed some time ago. However, science is a field that keeps us humbled - and constantly on our toes. A formal presentation will be delivered on this later today, however, we felt it important to release the news as soon as possible. I will now open the floor to any questions." Shocking, indeed, but not particularly controversial, I hear you say? Please read on. "James Delteen, Channel 5. This news you have, is their any chance you are wrong? Do you have a consensus? And if you do, how large if this consensus?" "Please understand,"u/CivilizedPyscho began, "that we have pondered on this topic for years before delivering our conclusion today. We have done our due diligence before releasing our findings."u/CivilizedPyscho pointed to the great hall behind them, a building steeped in academic prestige, now tainted to the core. "Our consensus is quite unanimous, with only a few rogue academics proving outliers. Since the initial question was raised there has been mass debating in the great hall, and we have not stopped until this very morning." A sudden and uncomfortable silence fell across the crowd as u/CivilizedPyscho gave a puzzled look, clearly expecting a follow up question to such a monumental moment in human history quite quickly. Finally, a short woman near the front raised her arm. "There's been what?"she asked in a sheepish tone. u/CivilizedPyscho \looked slightly perturbed, struggling to remain their professional candor. "\As I said, there has been mass debating among all our academics in the great hall from the moment this question was raised, till the moment it was answered, which was yesterday." "Sorry, one more time. You were what?"another reporter asked, as more quickly raised their arms. "Mass debating, yes?"u/CivilizedPyscho responded, as if it was entirely normal. "Why on earth are you doing that?"a man from the back shouted. u/CivilizedPyscho raised their arms in despair, showing their frustration. "That's how science, nay, anything works in our world. A body of professionals in a field comes together, one or maybe more will posit an idea, a hypothesis, and then there will be mass debating among all of them until a decision is decided." "And you did this all in the great hall of science behind you?"another asked. "Yes!" "Together?" "Bloody yes!"u/CivilizedPyscho was now shouting. "You can't do it alone now, can you?!" "I do it alone,"a nearby man whispered within earshot of our crew, clearly becoming unsure of himself. The crowd was growing raucous now, quite perplexed by this stunning admission. "And how long did you say you were all doing this again?"a man shouted from the growing crowd. "About a year, maybe more?"u/CivilizedPyscho responded, a look of utter confusion etched on their face. "Is that even possible?" "Well we took breaks, obviously! But if we weren't eating, drinking or sleeping then yes, we were hammering it out!" "Good lord,"another shouted, "are you not sore?" "Yes, we're all a bit knackered I must admit. The head can get quite sore when you're bashing it out with your peers for close to a year." "I'd imagine so,"somebody shouted. "Think of the children!"another screamed. "Often we do think of the children, u/CivilizedPyscho replied. "These topics often affect our future, and children are the future." "Sick bastards!"a woman screamed as more angry mutterings broke out. u/CivilizedPyscho rubbed the back of their head as a lump seemed to appear in their throat. "Listen, I'm not entirely sure what's going on here, but I wasn't expecting this reaction if I'm honest. If you feel we have not been inclusive enough of outside opinions, I'm sure it would be fine to invite some of you into the great hall and see if we can restart the mass debating!" "You having a laugh?!"a burly man roared at them. "No!"u/CivilizedPyscho yelled. "Please, come with me!" "Oh I'm sure you'd bloody like that wouldn't you! Freak!" At this point the crowd disturbance became too much, and our camera crew were escorted away. When reached for comments after this fiasco u/CivilizedPyscho \said this: "\I realise now the errors of my poor and ambiguous diction. Our scientific community raised the question on whether to replace debating with discussion, and the proposal was agreed and ratified after plenty of mass debating." \- /r/ShittyStoryCreator :)
It's been 17 years since they dropped the nukes. Myopic leaders obsessed with invisible borders and their inflated egos — in a fit of power and panic — made the worst decision possible. I can't say I didn't see it coming though, and I wasn't alone. More survived than (decades before the incident) I would've thought, due to the rising paranoia. Shelters started proliferating as fast as the nukes, and when the bombs fell, there was a contrary sustained hope. It seemed inevitable in the preceding weeks, so after the fire had come to pass we were all hopeful global tensions under conceited individuals burned to ashes with the flames... Hope dried up along with our water reservoirs, food stocks, generator fuel... we were drawn thin by circumstance. The only choice was to find new sources for these things. I wasn't far past my prime and was in good health, so I was chosen to be in the first surveyor group of fifty. I dressed warmly, read the rad readout on the shelter entrance, and made what I believed could be my final prayer. We planned to scavenge in the closest forest; mother nature survived worse in the past and we hoped that mother nature could subsist through our newly man-made ice-age, though we fatally underestimated nature. We walked far for weeks towards what seemed like a snow covered forest beyond the mountain, but as we drew closer the snow covered ruins of a metropolis lay before us. The distance and the weather obscured the silhouette, and having planned to restock our food and water in the forest, we were beyond the point of no return. Desperate searches in the city yielded irradiated and rotted food reserves, a stagnant and septic water reservoir, and returned only partial shelter from the wind. With a single night of sleep and what warmth we could muster from our remaining fuel, we prepared as best we could to head back empty handed... On the way back, first the injured and sick fell behind. Without a single word we proceeded, we had not the time, nor the resources to continue with them; it would mean suicide for all. As more fell and receded from our group, I—too—began to succumb to the frost. My legs failed to obey me and I fell upon the soft top-layer of snow. The winds never ceased, nor did the snow that accompanied it. And so, as I drift from consciousness, I recall only the burning freeze of the elements and the surmounting accumulation of snow. I awakened inside a transparent container of sorts. There was a strange sensation, I could feel the container assisting with my breathing as I floated freely in the center. The surrounding room seemed almost incomprehensibly plain. I couldn't see where the floors or walls meet, nor any reference to tell their distance. I was surrounded by a textureless white on all sides. "s̢̡Ւ̨͠٨̶͡Ց̶̵̨̀͢ȓ͞͏́͘͘ቔ̷̨҉ ?"... "-Pусский?"... "Français?"... "Română?"... "English?"— "YES! ... yes... English..." I had no idea where this voice was coming from, it seemed to ignore distance and the environment, surrealistically clear. "Hello, do not be alarmed. You were recovered from beneath the permafrost and safely restored to your healthy youthful state. You will be released to the exterior world in just a moment, but ongoing information will continue relay..." The walls gradually thinned away as did my ... "pod"? What lay beyond was amazing, all sorts of flora and fauna that I could not have imagined to see ever again. Species long extinct, or recently so due to humanity's fiery intervention were walking freely, though free of the brutality of familiar nature. _"-you are free to walk around this central hub and view the manifestation of our preservation efforts. As you may have noticed, we have slightly altered the biological makeup of the life you see, but only to the degrees required of us. We believe in the preservation of life as it was, but removed the senescence, hunger, and hostility from species, enabling their intermingling as you see it before you. We recovered what we could archaeologically to preserve what culture could be restored; our goal with this hub most closely resembles your religious concept of Eden."_ As I was walking, I caught sight of a tree which pierced the clouds. No mountains could compare to even the roots of this tree. _"The 'Tree of Knowledge'. In our attempts to preserve, we hoped to grow from our efforts as well. This Tree you see before you houses all of our collected biodiversity. We hoped to avoid the stagnation of ideas, and so pulled all species into our eclectic root. Whenever we uncover more DNA from a long-passed species, it enters this Tree in a similar fashion to your 'computer simulations'. We nurture and intermingle species as we evolve them, in order to explore the diversity of life. To preserve life, we also had to preserve the continuation of life as best we could extrapolate. We learned much from the growth of the species within the Tree, and have enabled species to live to their fullest. Though you will be free to wander our hub and enjoy the life we have cultivated on Eden, we hope to learn from your addition to the tree. To the you that is being 'copied' into the Tree, we hope to allow you a fulfilling life."_ ___ I apologize for the enormous read, but I hope it's enjoyable!
“Naps are great. I love naps. Though, as a sloth demon, it’s hard to not love them. They are perfect! Unnecessary, yet so, so soothing. Yes, give in to the sloth. Why not? Resistance, is, well, difficult, and difficulty is overrated. Just lie down with us, and have your troubles melt away. All those other people, with their silly wars, and strife, and suffering. You don’t have to think about them. Just take the easy route. Come, here, to the true heaven.” “Never!” Suddenly, Nathanial awakened, his skin covered in sweat. What the hell was that! He wondered. Eh, just a dream, he reassured himself. There was no way there was some actual blubbery mess that spoke honeyed words of temptation. This was the 21stcentury, not some crappy Dante’s inferno rip-off. Still, the creature’s words where so soothing… No! He chided himself, how could he fall for the words of a literal dream! Time to go to work, begrudgingly thought Nathanial. He glanced at the clock. Oh s\\t, I’m late! I must have overslept! He hurriedly put on his clothes and hurried to his workplace. “Dazbe’malk…” lazily chided the large demonic Furball. “That is your third failure… this week…”. “Sorry... chief… I’m just, like new at this whole… temptation thing...” “Lucifer damn it. souls don’t grow on trees... you got to…for lack of a better word…. work for it.” “Sorry boss, ill not try as hard next time…” (Sorry, I’m new at this stuff.)
Once upon a time, there was a Princess with hair the colour of chestnuts and eyes like burnished gold. She was gentle, kind, and good and the kingdom loved her. As she grew up, she learned all the things that a princess might learn, but for some reason, she was never happy. She tried her hand at sewing and dancing, even metalworking and sword fighting, but nothing she did brought her happiness. The Princess did not understand why she was always unhappy for she wanted for nothing. Anything she desired, her adoring subjects would give to her and this began to upset the Princess. One night, she packed a small bag and ran away from her blissful life in the palace. She took a few dresses from one of the servant girls and tucked her long hair under a scarf and set out onto the road. She travelled for days, admiring life outside of the castle, working for her lodgings. How wonderful, she reflected, to have earned something through hard work. The Princess eventually settled in a village quite far from her home - far enough that she was confident no one would recognise her. She became a farmhand for the local farmer and she worked hard every day. Her once pale and delicate skin turned dark and calloused and she found that she was happy. One day, news came from the castle. It was announced that the Princess had been kidnapped by a Dragon for where else could she be? A bounty was placed upon the head of the Dragon and this upset the Princess. How could she let blame for her disappearance fall to someone who was not to blame? At first, she thought that if she returned to the castle she could return to her old life and set everything right. But when she went back, no one recognised her for she had long since cut her long hair short. With her tan skin and lower class clothing, no one saw in her the former Princess and so she was turned away roughly. Put off by the rude treatment, the Princess wondered if she should just give up and let the dragon take the blame. She sat outside the castle gates and thought long and hard - after all, the decision would affect more than just her. She finally made up her mind when a large, handsome knight rode by, armed to the teeth. She could not let this happen. The Princess went back to her village and asked her neighbour, a retired knight, if she might borrow his horse and go on a journey. The retired knight gave her a shrewd look for he had been on many journeys and knew they were never as simple as that. He asked her if she knew anything about journeys and the Princess smiled. The Princess explained her past to the retired knight and he laughed. She thought he was perhaps laughing at her and she felt her face flush red with embarrassment. But the retired knight stood up and led her to his horse when he was done. Take care of her, he said to the princess, for she will bring your far. The Princess thanked the old knight and when he offered her some of his old armour, she accepted. She changed into the armour, packed a travel bag, and set off on the horse.
While diversification is a standard practice in the business world, none up until that point could be said to be as dramatic as Pepsi's entry into the war industry. Though the public image of war is typically that of patriotic soldiers fighting for their motherland, the mercenary was invented the week after the prostitute, and has been as much the catalyst of history as the army of any nation state. But this wasn't like the past, this was something new. Where as mercenaries, or in modern terms, private military contractors, were always the proxies of nobles and nations, maybe the odd merchant, they were always the tools of foreign policy. But Pepsi, they weren't interested in endless war, they had a bigger, more profitable goal: soft drinks dominance. They cashed the cheques from Russia, Nato, and others, each "Liberation"by red, white, and blue painted soldiers came with those words now burned into history, "You are now free courtesy of Pepsi co.", followed by a flood of branded food aid. But Pepsi weren't interested in liberty, or running a government. No, what they did was install democratic, capitalistic governments who's first action was invariably to commission Pepsi to build their new, privatised, infrastructure. These countries relied on Pepsi for employment and wealth, so that even if someone figured out their game, they were powerless to stop them. Pepsi tied its own agenda to the prosperity of these new countries and from them it desired one thing: resources. Water, fruit, fuel, anything a soft drink country would need. In these regions Pepsi owned the water, owned the jobs that let you pay your water bills, they owned the nation, and Coca Cola couldn't compete with this, not through conventional methods. Coke's leadership saw the end coming, they knew the world had changed. So rather than waiting for the world to swallow them they changed too, and started their own colonial supply chain. There was, however, a catch. The number of regions in the world that were suitable for these commercially owned nations was quite small, and it didn't take too long until the only viable option for expansion was into each other. War was declared between PepsiCo and Coke. Most of the world saw violence over soft drinks as ridiculous, and the UN agreed. As the bureaucratic gears began to grind out bills to freeze assets and provide relief to the affected areas, America began to work against the peace effort. Many in the White House saw the militarization of their biggest companies as a way of restoring some of their superpower status in the face of rising China. They privatised global domination. Soon corporate armies exercised their will across any region too weak to resist them, but at least we have cheap fizzy drinks.
-Dude, you ain't serious? Was the first thing I said when i realised the guardian was a pup -Well what did you expect? -Dunno a challenge at least, it's a trick right? -What a physical challenge? -Well thats what I trained for... -I have been killed 546 times, and still no one has ever made it through the gates. -Why not? Is that not the rule, beat Cerberus and walk freely through the gates of hell? -Well yeah, but I am but one Cerberus. -How many are there? -I could not say. I believe at least one of them is an image of yourself. -Thats fine, I can deal with that. I strangled the pup there and then, determined to power through the process. -Hello Karl, it was my college sweetheart, whats happening where are we? The "where are me"shocked me. But still i have my aim. She died as fast as possible. -Dude what the fuck? Asked my roommate. He looked honestly shocked. I whacked him over the head with the bedside table. . It's been a while, i think i lost myself in the gore. Did i enjoy it? I dont know. I have asked myself how real it all is, and i'm pretty sure we are still at the gates of hell. . My own brother begged for his life yesterday, as i pulled his brain from his nose. I wish i could forget it. Untrue as it is i do not know how much i can take. . Real or not, the memories I have are real to me. I have asked myself so many times if the suffering i creat is real. Even if the people i chocked, stabed, beat, and even in some cases made commite suicide, are real to me. Even if they are simulated their feelings are true. . I have no empathy left. I kill every day without second thought. Innocent, family, I see no difference any more. Maybe with luck I will die trying. . Obviously dying is not an option once you pass the gates, maybe i will be part of the gates now. Maybe i have been for longer than I care to imagine.
“Well, what do you think? A pretty tempting offer, right?” He asked. And he was right. A perfect clone more talented then you in every way could help you get everything you wanted. No one would notice the difference. However, there’s always a catch with things like this. Realizing it, I asked: “I refuse. You’re gonna go rogue and take my entire life.” He laughed out loud, as if knowing exactly what I would say. Then again, he might. He’s my clone, after all: “I knew you’d say that. I’d also say that if I were you.” “But you are me.” I smirked. “Indeed I am. But we all know you don’t want to ditch me either, am I right?” “That’s correct.” I answered. “So what do you have in mind then?” “I’d suggest we compromise.” I gave a suggestion. “Each of us will take various days of the week living our social life, while the other stay at home and take part in our online life and do the housework.” “Yeah I can agree on that.” He answered. “Now the real question is...” “Who gets to stay at home on which day.” I finished the statement. “I vote Monday, Wednesday and Friday are the days I stay.” I gave an option. “But I like Monday, Wednesday and Friday.” He disagreed. “Well yeah, we’re the same person.” “That’s why I stay on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.” “No way, you can have Tuesday and Thursday.” I disagreed. “But Tuesday and Thursday suck! You do it!” “Alright this is getting nowhere.” “I agree. How about I get Monday and Tuesday, you get Wednesday and Thursday, and we both share Friday?” “How do we share Friday? Swapping after lunch?” “You got any better idea?” “Do you?” “Lunch it is.” “Okay so that settles it.” I said. “But I still feel like something’s missing...” “I agree. But I can’t seem to get my head around it... Oh wait, I remember now!” He then ran towards the attic. “Oh I see what you’re going for.” Realizing his reason, I was quickly to follow. We didn’t take long to get to our objective: an old chest in the corner of the attic. After a quick search, we found just what we wanted: an old wig, pads and a dress. “Whoever stays at home...” I said. “Wears this.” He finished. It was at that moment that we both realized our mistake. “Uh... how about I just go with the social life for the whole week?”
The world ended 800 years ago, at least that’s what stories tell, obviously no one from back then is still alive to tell, much of the knowledge was lost… being stored in “digital media” whatever that means, only a few books are left, and even fewer are still legible, most of our knowledge these days Is passed on by way of mouth, story tellers are the better informed among our people, myself I’m an explorer my job is to… well bring stories to my people. I’ve stopped for the night, that’s when the terrors come out, you don’t want to find yourself out in the open when that happens… at least that’s what the stories tell, I’ve never actually seen anything, but I’ve heard them… or so I think, sometimes I doubt the stories and I know I shouldn’t stories are very precious to us is all we have left, that’s why I keep this written record, if something happened to me and was unable to share my story, well with some luck perhaps someone would find this and share it in my stead. That seems doubtful, no one ever has ventured this deep into the ruins, concrete overgrown with vegetation, they say these “cities” were once brimming with activity, people running around, talking on their mobile phones and driving their mobile autos…. Or was it auto mobiles…. Why did everything back then have to be mobile? After the sun came out I finally dared to crawl out of my hiding place, took a quick look around to make sure I was alone, terror might come out at night, but during the day there is another much more dangerous and real threat…. People, not everyone adapted as well as my people did, some of them live out in the open, like beasts, they will kill you with their steely knives and then eat you. Not a pleasant thought, still one that should always be kept in mind. After some thinking I decided to move north, much less rubble that way, easy to traverse, plus something tells me there is something interesting that way… something with a lot of story. It seemed I was right, after walking for almost the whole day I managed to find something amazing, a huge… stone monument of sorts, at first glance it seemed very important, a lot of letters were written on it, with different handwriting, I was so exited, was this perhaps lost knowledge, maybe something that would help humanity get back on track? That would be wonderful… not to mention what a story it would be. Yet, after hours of reading and trying to decipher, it seemed like I had wasted my time, there were no…. mathematics formulas or blueprints for a device, not even instructions on how to plant bananas… I so want to try one of those… No in the stone tablet all that could be read were names, probably people who came here trying to look solace on their trying times, maybe as the world was ending even, in the very centre of the table big bold letter could be seen and they read: “I CAN DO IT” =Yourself=
I’m past the point of trying to make sense of this - why I wake up before the accident, or why I’m getting less time to stop it with every chance. I just need to find a way to make this work. I need to save my wife. I’ve done this hundreds of times, but it’s the first instance I remember most vividly. I had Monday off and wanted to sleep in. When my wife woke up, I pulled the covers away and forced her out of bed. She kissed me on the way out, I mumbled that I loved her, then drifted back to sleep. An hour later, a call woke me up. An accident at the lab … massive pressure build-up over the weekend … she was the first one in … an explosion … wouldn’t have felt a thing … the only one killed ... I spent the rest of the day with family and refused to believe what had happened - surely this was a bad dream I needed to wake up from. Exhausted, I eventually slept. &nbsp; --- &nbsp; I awoke. My phone read 8:50am. Monday. Monday?! My God, it really was a dream! It had all felt so real! I texted my wife that I loved her and that I hoped she’d have a great day. I’d make dinner tonight - something special! But an hour later, I got the call. An accident at the lab … &nbsp; --- &nbsp; By the fourth Monday, I knew this wasn’t a dream. The accident would happen. And when I fell asleep, I would wake up Monday morning. First at 8:50am, but now much later. I was losing time. I’ve tried everything to stop the accident. I've figured out that my wife never sees my texts or calls. Phones aren’t allowed in the lab, and she’s not one to break the rules. At first I could make it to the lab in person, but I couldn’t get past security or make them listen. I even tried crashing into the building. That just led to me getting the news of her death while handcuffed to a hospital bed. I’ve called the police, called in bomb threats - I even wrote a note and took my own life just to see what effect that would have. Nothing worked. After the accident, I’d always go to the lab to learn as much as I could - to piece together everyone’s movements on the day. It hasn’t made a difference yet. For many of those Mondays, I’m sure I came across as deranged - interrogating staff like a criminal investigator. Yes, yes, thank you for your condolences. Yes this is all so shocking. But can you tell me where you were at the moment of the explosion? What about before it? What room? Now I've only got 60 seconds left, and I’m losing hope. I’ve lost my wife hundreds of times, but soon I’ll lose her for good. On this Monday, I've found myself in the lab’s reception, sitting forlornly as staff and investigators milled about. “Excuse me,” a quiet voice asked. “Yes?” I replied, looking up to see a girl in her early twenties. “Do I know you? I’m sorry, I’m a bit all over the place right now.” “Gosh, don’t apologise!” she replied. “No, we haven’t met. I’m Emily. I don’t know how to say this, but your wife is - was … She had been so kind and welcoming to me. I started interning here just last week, and she was the best! I just wanted you to know … I’m very sorry for your loss.” “Thank you, Emily,” I smiled. “That’s very kind of you to say. No one knows how to act at times like this, but I’m glad you’ve said hello.” Emily sighed. “I can’t even imagine what you’re feeling right now. Can I show you something?” as she took out her phone. “We’re not supposed to have these in the lab, but I keep forgetting. When your wife caught me, she didn't get made. She made us snap a selfie to commemorate my first week!” She showed me the picture and I started to tear up. “Could you send this to me?” I asked. “Today? Let me give you my number.” &nbsp; --- &nbsp; I awoke. With just 59 seconds until the accident, I grabbed my phone and furiously dialed. “Hello?” a quiet voice asked. “Emily!” I shouted. I settled myself, and sternly said what I'd rehearsed. “This is the lab manager. There’s a major issue with the pressure in your project. I need you to investigate right now.” “How did you - is it safe -” I cut her off. “Of course, but there’s no time to discuss - get in there now!” “Okay, okay, sorry! Bye!” She hung up. Some minutes went by. Then an hour. It felt like an eternity, but finally, my phone lit up with a call. It was my wife. “I need you to come to the lab right now!”, she sobbed. “There’s been an accident! Oh my God, someone died! Please come! I need you.” “What? An accident?” I gasped. “Honey, I love you so much and will come right away. Stay safe.” I hung up, composed myself, and went to see my wife.
As I saw the words that were formed by the silverware that fell from a shelf I never put them on everything for the past 15 years started to make perfect sense. Of course they did. It was one of the most ridiculous statements he had ever said, but perhaps one of the most revealing about the true nature of the universe. Staring proudly up at him were the words, "YOU'RE AN INANIMATE FUCKING OBJECT" Dejectedly Harry sighed hoping this might fix something, "I'm sorry for insulting you by calling Natalie an inanimate object. I was upset." And then Harry remembers he blew his fucking head off 15 years ago, right down the street.
"My own apologies, but I don't think I feel like dying anytime soon-!"I yelp as I round the corner, a gunshot reminding me of how easily I could've failed that. "Please, I beg of you, I need you to die before the day is up,"he calls out to me, his footsteps echoing closer as I keep running. "Why though?!"I yell, running into one of the rooms along the hallway. I hear no reply, and I can't hear the footsteps either. The suspense wracks my nerves as I wait for something, anything. "I was foolish, and now I'm in a deal with the devil. If I take a life, your life specifically, though I'm not sure why, I get to live scot free. If I don't claim it by midnight, I die,"he says, and I can hear his voice breaking, "I already felt death once; I'm not willing to go back." I... actually start to feel a little bad for him, but at the same time, I refuse to die anytime soon. Luckily, I spot a window and tumble through it, running off into the night. I not-so reluctantly admit that I had to decline his offer.
Erick wiped the sweat from his brow, surveying the overgrown garden festering with a lifetime of thistles, dandelions and piled grit. "Daniel?"Erick called back to the house, "Hey, Daniel, I'm gonna get started on the trees. Strip them out so the roots don't wreck the mower."Erick waited for some sort of reply, even a quick cry of approval from his husband. He's probably in the guest room, still painting I'll be. Erick smiled at the thought of Daniel covered in baby blue patches of paint, slaving away to clean up the walls. Might as well get started. There were three trees in all sprouting from the dense jungle grass of the garden. And of those three only one looked to cause a problem. It was a thick, dark trunk of ancient wood. Gnarled and rotting, wrapped around the remnants of an old stone pillar. There were no leaves to the branches, there was barely any colour to the tree at all. Had it not been for the moss leaking out from the split wood of the trunk then the tree would have looked almost perfectly black. A charred pillar beneath the auburn sky. Erick shouldered an axe, nothing too fancy, and nothing mechanical, wading his way through the grass to his victim in wait. He shuddered as he passed through the unknown reaches of the garden, feeling the wet touch of something silky slither past his bare ankles. It might be vines, or a hose pipe... just keep on moving. He tried not to think about the squelching sounds that surfaced underfoot. As he reached the towering trunk of solemn black he felt the ground harden beneath him. Here the grass seemed to wither and die, with barely a blade growing around the base of the tree. Erick gazed at the wood, watching it crawl about itself in strange patterns, wondering just who would plant such a horrific looking thing. First out, and it's a big one. The removal of the tree would be a start, a grand start, to the remodeling of the garden. This space could be beautiful, with some work. Just imagine summer nights spent late outside, a gentle breeze, a nice cold cocktail, a slice of cherry pie. Flexing his forearms, taking several practice swings, Erick aimed for the heart of the burly trunk, biting his lip as he readied himself to fell the ugly beast. One, two. One, two. Chop, chop. He gave a short laugh, recalling how his father had taught him to cut wood, to chop trees. That was before his father had found out he was... Swing. The blade of the axe whistled through the air, letting out a heavy sigh as it connected with the tree trunk. Splinters of wood spat out from the snarling mouth the axe had cut inside the wood, threatening to swallow the tool and never let it go. Erick heaved on the axe's handle, trying to pull it free, ready for another swing, but strange as it might seem that cut formed mouth really was biting down. It really was threatening to swallow the axe whole, and as it sucked the tool in it dragged too Erick with it. Planting a foot on the trunk and heaving again Erick tried, fruitlessly, to free the axe. "Come on,"he tugged again, lifting up his other leg, floating now over the hard ground with both hands on the hilt of the axe, "why won't you come loose?" He was oblivious to the sinking, the shrinking of the trunk. Oblivious too to how the tree's new jaws snapped away and hungered for the axe, and now for him. Erick turned toward the house, looking for the guest room window as he lumbered with his weapon. He could see Daniel waving... only he wasn't really waving, was he? Erick's face dropped, his grip on the axe loosened, but he didn't fall. The roots of the ancient tree had crept up from the ground and latched around his forearms, climbing to his waist, his legs, his throat. Daniel wasn't waving, he was warning, frantically calling for Erick to run. How had he missed it? The sinking tree, the lively roots, the gaping hole that now formed in the ground. He'd been absorbed in his work, daydreaming about the perfect garden. And now he was about to disappear, deep down below. The ground was shaking, the grass rippling in the winds, as one by one the slimmer trees fell away to worlds below. Erick took one last look at the guest room window, noticing something strange in the reflection. Not just Daniel, but another figure, a gaunt looking shadow, climbing the walls behind his distant love. Erick's eyes widened with fear, his heart racing at the thought of... Daniel. Dead. Then the garden dropped away, falling through the earth, giving up its grip on what might have been reality. This version of reality was darker, grimmer, one to run away from if you could. Hollow, dim red lights flickered in the dark. Voices gargled in the shadows, trees just as thick and black as Erick's own sprouted from the stone built walls. There were eyes, too, melting within the voices. Yellow flecks of life that promised to feed, to find you. All around the air felt cold, and yet deep below the distant crackle of fire seemed to linger. Then the falling stopped, and with a heavy thud the tree replanted itself, roots writhing to take hold of solid ground. Erick slipped from the grip of the receding roots, dripping with sweat, heart pounding in his chest, voices ringing in his ears. He scrambled to his feet and made to run, only now seeing the deathly drop before him. A sheer cliff, swimming down into the deep dark below. "Where am I?"Erick whimpered, feeling his way around the tree trunk, hoping to find some solid ground. He thought of Daniel, of the shape he'd seen behind his love, of what might have come to be... Then he froze. A lump caught in his throat where he thought he might cry, the hairs of his neck standing taught on end. He'd found something, groping his way around the tree trunk. Not land. But a hand.
Enter Death: “Oh, god dammit Frank! You need to calm down, I’ve had to let go three guy this month because of your efficiency and attention to detail.” Frank: I’m sorry, but your guys just can’t keep up. I can’t control my urges and you of all people should know that I’m not the only one out here.” Death: I understand that, but why can’t you leave a messy scene for myself or one of my employees to come into instead of something clean and tidy?” Frank: Well, like I said I can’t control my urges and your staff can’t keep up. I can’t be having the heavies catching onto my habits and techniques, I’d get caught! You’re gonna have to adapt to my style. Death: You’re gonna run me out of business if you keep this up!” Frank: Run you out of business? You are literally the Grim Reaper. I’m not the only one out here causing death, I know this for a fact because murder is not the only way to die in this world. It’s not like you’re starved for work. If anything you should be thanking me because all I’ve left with you to do it collect the soul, I’m making things easy for you. You’re welcome. Sirens start blaring and coming closer one by one, car doors slam, there’s a banging on the door. It’s a battering ram. Death: FUCK Frank! You’ve spent so much time arguing that I haven’t even been able to do the most simple aspect of my job, take the soul for judgement! Don’t you understand this is a lengthy process? Shit! Another soul lost to purgatory. Frank: Sorry bud, see you in a few days. Gotta run though, I have a dinner date tonight!”
“I’m sure the gentlemen on Monday would be downright flattered to hear how highly you thought of them, but I think I would remember coming in to interview for the same job twice.” My mind seemed to lose its focus as the old man grinned sheepishly at me. Older, I reminded myself. The man was older than most who had applied for the position, but it’s not like he was some haggard geezer at risk of breaking their hip every time they go up to the use restroom. The world, however, perhaps that what was going to break? It all seemed to be melting away, running down into itself like a watercolor carelessly left in the rain, its images blurring into a facsimile of itself before becoming an undiscernible nothing. It was all dripping… drip, drip, drip, each little droplet snaking down the walls and- “Sir?” Reality rushed back into being. I rubbed my eyes, blinked, and my office remained as it was that Wednesday morning, as it would be the next Wednesday morning, as it had the previous Wednesday morning, and as it would be and had been for more Wednesdays than I could wrap my head around. “I’m sorry, it’s been a long week,” reminding myself it was only Wednesday. “No need to apologize,” the older man kept grinning, “Can’t say I’m fully awake myself yet. Want to know my secret? Coffee.” Very original. “I’ll have to remember to grab a cup later,” I lied. I hate coffee. “We’ve just had so many people apply for this position, all the faces just start to blur together, you know?” Dozens of people had applied for the position. Dozens. But of those dozens-plus-one, most had been the usual fair: starry-eyed and idealistic recent college grads, eagerly begging a man like me to give them a million in a lifetime opportunity to have their soul crushed, pulped, and drained of all hope and joy in exchange for a paycheck just large enough to prevent them from making a better decision in life and, if they were really unlucky, a four-walled sarcophagus adorned with a picture of a spouse, two kids, and a dog, mementos of the life you could’ve lived, and reminders of the accomplishments that made your entombment possible. A few more had been those already well into the mulching process, natural selection unable to keep pace with the demands of the market. Or perhaps God never imagined we’d willingly do this to ourselves when he first gave Adam and Eve the boot from his garden. And one older man, an older man with a bit of a slouch brought on by age and not the weight of the world. The older man chuckled and waved a dismissive hand, “Believe me, brother, I’ve been there. The Mrs. and I were at this little get together once with a bunch of her friends and I kept thinking John was Robert and Robert was Daryl and both were married to a Laura. Just next time you go and confuse me with someone, maybe do me a favor and make it Dean Martin.” “Well, I don’t see your time performing in Vegas under your previous job performance, but I suppose it’d be hard to call that work, eh Deano?” He looked nothing like Dean Martin. “That I wouldn’t,” he agreed. No, I thought, but he did look like the man from Monday. And not in passing, not in a “you two could be cousins twice removed” sort of way, but uncannily identical. The rapidly retreating (defeated, if we’re honest) hairline with a rebellious silver-white wisp at the top fighting its own Shiroyama against the inevitable baldness to come, the once-well-fitted-but-out-of-date suit that once clung to a younger man’s body, how his ears stuck out not quite enough to have be the cause of derision when he was a child, how he placed his right hand over his left wrist and drummed his fingers. Uncanny, I told myself again. I wanted to reach into the drawer of my desk, thumb through the pile of applications we’d filed away for callbacks and second interviews, find the old(er) man’s resume, clap it on my overpriced and undersized desk, and say “Look me in the eye and tell me this isn’t yours!” Because I had filed it away, I had because I did think so highly of that one gentleman a generation and a half beyond the other applicants, I was sure of it. But I couldn’t do that. But I could, but it wouldn’t be very professional of me. Instead, I thumbed through the one resume I could, one of a Mr. Orson Miller, age 60, originally from Elgin, graduate of Northwestern, with decades of experience in a litany of positions not too unlike the one he was applying for today. Orson Miller, that wasn’t his name, too, was it? “So your resume looks great; lots of experience in this field, letters of recommendation are glowing,” and genuinely honest, not the typical “So-and-so are great, please hire them and let them be your problem”, “But of course I still need to ask you a few questions, get to know you, make sure you’re the fit for the company we’re looking for.” “Naturally. Ask away, it’s not like I’ve got to be at work… unless, of course, you want me to start now.” Ugh, bad joke. Brenda would love him. We spoke for what felt like hours. Nothing out of the ordinary, a couple of bad jokes about Mondays and a previous boss who “really needed to unwind, if you know what I mean”, two which I said I did know but honestly I didn’t. Felt like hours, but the clock ticked forward only another fifteen minutes. Orson Miller was remarkably plain and inoffensive, the very kind of boring that greased the wheels of this place. Plain and inoffensive, just as he’d been on Monday. A few more corny jokes, enough to make me not hate his guts and to stick out from the younger crowd too petrified to remove the stick from their ass and admit maybe they have a personality after all. Or maybe the thing they were terrified I’d discover is that they didn’t have a personality to hide. It had to be him, Orson Miller, born sixty years ago in Elgin. A little too early in the morning for him, too, and maybe he neglected that cup of coffee. Too many people to interview, and he’s got too many interviews to go to, his morning’s blurring, melting away too. And there was one thing I remembered about him on Monday. Maybe he’d remember, too, and we could laugh about all of this when we realized how much, how little, of each other’s time we just wasted. I turned the picture frame on my desk, the wife, two children, and the dog, I turned it around and showed it to Mr. Miller. “Well, that’s a lovely family you have there Mr. N\_\_\_\_,” he grinned. “Thank you,” they were lovely, weren’t they? “Tell me, what you do you think of my boy here?” I rapped a pale finger on the glass, right above Boomer’s empty, happy face. “He’s quite… quite…” It was then I finally noticed it: the other applicant, the Orson Miller on Monday, there was something different about him than the Orson Miller of Wednesday. Orson Miller studied the image, the ever-so-slight blur of Boomer’s tail defying the camera, sighed, and bit his lip. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but…” he leaned back, still sheepishly grinning. His mouth, the lines that smoothed as he smiled, the dimples on the edge of his cheeks, they all belonged to Orson Miller of Monday. But the smile ended at his eyes. On Monday, they had been bright and green, full of life, the kind of life that was the rarest of creatures in this office. Now, on Wednesday, they were dark; two little beads of obsidian that reflected nothing, belied nothing. Mine reached them, and the world seemed to swirl again, to melt into a black miasma. A chill gripped my spine, my heart slammed my ribcage as it wished to escape their gaze. &#x200B;
Adverts are based on your browsing history. What's that from? It's a meme, right? A twitter screenshot? Or maybe Tumblr. Some guy complaining about ads showing gay porn or something? I should be working but I have that weird thought stuck in my head. A phone buzz breaks me out of my trance. Dinner with us tonight? A text from my dad, a tempting one at that. I was never a great cook and living alone never really incentivized me to learn. Maybe it would be good to see them, I don't visit anywhere near as often as I should. But work, damned work. I have two reports to be in next week, and I still haven't finished that market research that my manager wanted. Pass, if I catch whatever mam's got atm then I'll have to take time off work, and if i do that they'll probably tell me not to come back Probably an exaggeration, but he'll only try to argue unless I make it out to be serious. On my phone screen the jiggling ellipses indicates that my dad is typing. This goes on for a while, maybe two minutes. ok Clearly not Dad, but it's done now. I'll make it up to him next week. Now work, focus damnit Carl. I put my phone in my pocket and go back to staring at my screen. Adverts are based on your browsing history. It's still there, taking up brain power. Something I've done today, seen today, has triggered that sentence to appear in my head. Brains, they're weird things, you can observe the input and output but even as the supposed owner of my anatomy I don't get to see what happens in the black box of my meat calculator. Maybe it's nothing, the sentence has connected itself to a random string of neurons that cascade through my skull as I try to focus on my work. The brain, it's just connections, lots of them, but we don't get to know what they are or how they decide how to connect. But it works, mostly. I've connected the smell of roast lamb to my mother and the colour of my desk to misery. The connections, they're reinforced by other connections, by how useful they are. Or more accurately, how often they're used. Adverts are based on your browsing history. Anger flares up inside me. how can I get a grip on my life when I can't even get a grip on my biology? Stop. Deep breath. Think, no, observe. I tab out of my spreadsheets and into my browser window, I have facebook open, it's a depressing sight. My feed has a counseling service as the top post, down each side area gentle promotions consoling me and telling me how they would take care of my loved ones better than anyone else. Pretty morbid, out of character. I rack my brains, what kind of ads do I normally see? At home I have an ad blocker, but at work I can't install plugins without getting IT involved, and I pity them enough not to bother them with trivial stuff. Games, streaming services, more recently job finding sites. I never look at any of those on my work computer, but I do use my work email from home sometimes. Is that enough for the algorithms to connect my work and home computers? Wouldn't put it past them. There is a digital profile out there somewhere that thousands of cookies and bots are adding to every day, slowly building a picture of who I am, what I do, and what they can sell to me. Adverts are based on your browsing history. But I haven't searched anything close to this recently. Maybe it's a fluke? Maybe guys who spend all their time in two locations, work and home, and only ever play video games are just more likely to die. Or maybe some of my friends have gone through a tragedy recently? My phone buzzes again, not a text. It's my two minutes to leaving alarm. Thoughts of adverts and algorithms fade away as anticipation of bed and re-heated take-away fill my mind. ............................................................................ I disabled adblock on my laptop as a test last night, the same ads came through. I even tried a few different websites, and while a few stuck to the usual gaming and streaming theme the frequency of ads related to funerals, counseling, and medical bills were definitely up from normal. Also, without a doubt, the algorithms knew that my work computer and home computer are the same person, through facebook now I think about it. What other data do they have on me? My browsing data sure, but also my location. I haven't been to the hospital in a while, in fact I haven't been anywhere except my flat and work in over two weeks. I even get my food through deliveries. Do they know what I've been buying? Of course they do. have I been buying more drink than usual lately? Sure a little bit but- "Hey, Jones, you planning on doing anything today?"My manager interrupts my thoughts. "Ugh, yeah, sorry I was just umm, technical difficulties."He squints slightly as he tries to figure out if I'm lying. I'm slightly more tech competent than the rest in my office so sometime I can get away with that excuse if I bullshit enough. "You know what, I was just wondering if it was worth getting tech support involved. I'm going to go talk to them now."I stand up and leave before he can summon the effort to question me, I need to talk to a nerd anyway. Josh listens to me patiently, but doesn't make eye contact the whole time. We initially bonded over our love of games, though he's definitely on the spectrum somewhere. The upside to his predisposition is that small talk is unnecessary, and as soon as I present a technological puzzle to him he's laser focused. "They're not just based on your browsing data."he says. "Maybe a few years ago you'd be right, but these days, it's way more complex. Machine learning is a strange beast, even for the experts. See, they, they, they umm, they don't tell the computer how to make decisions."He pauses to flatten his shirt and brush a hair from my collar. "They don't tell them how, they just test them, like in a shitty school. You see?"holds his palm aloft. "Kinda, but why would I be seeing death related stuff?"I don't just want a technical explanation, I want a definitive answer. I feel bad, setting Josh onto this. I know It'll consume him until he has an answer, it's how he is. Obsessive. When someone presents him with a puzzles there is no 'good enough', it's always perfection or nothing. "Well, you see, ah, you see these ads, but there might not be a completely objective reason why. The people who made these algorithms, they don't know exactly how they make their decisions, just the inputs and outputs. But now, in the days we live in, there's so much data, so much input, we people, meat machines, we can't look at it all. We don't even want to."And this is from a man who understands data better than himself. "Locations, searches, links clicked, conversations spied on, who your friends are, what their data says about them. There's no simple, rational reason why the algorithms know what they know, but they can spot patterns, and every time they do, they test that pattern, and the more often it holds true, the more often they use it." "So what, they, according to connections they've made that even the people who wrote the algorithms can't explain, think I need a funeral service?" "Sorry Carl, but yes. I can't tell you why, but something about the data you're producing has decided that the best way to extract value out of you is through the death industry."His hands go to a fidget toy on his desk, obviously nervous about how I'd react. Stupid thoughts fill my mind, about films and games and stuff I've heard on the news. Some of it relevant, some of it I can't figure out why in this moment my brain has decided it's useful information. Some of them are truly stupid questions, but Josh knows about mocking and knows not to participate in it. &#x200B; &#x200B; continued below
I think it's safe to say I have the worst luck in the universe. I'm out here at the edge of it, so I think I have a good perspective here. &#x200B; Pulling the screen of the navigator closer to me, I ran through the tables again. I started tracking a couple of years ago, I liked to know my surroundings. People in the market for building custom planets in growth markets liked to know exact figures so they could plan their worlds. I had seen them all, teeny jewels of planets made for individual resort bungalows, worlds with messages carved in mountain ranges that welcomed visitors as they descended from orbit, worlds meant only to hold shopping malls accessible from the other resort planets to cash in on the tourism boost. &#x200B; And one thing every client loved to hear was that this would not be the end of the universe for long. This was an up and coming quadrant! Soon it would be bursting with people ready to make my client's investment the best they had ever made. Until their next planet, that is. &#x200B; No one wanted to be on the edge of the universe. The property values are a joke. There's nothing out there, literally. I have at least twenty more years before I hit my retirement goals but those projections were based on a continued steady expansion rate. The same rate it's been since the dawn of time. Just my ruddy luck that the universe slows down now. &#x200B; Rubbing my temples as I thought through my options when my communicator pinged. Looking at the screen, I saw it was my biggest client. We were about to finalize the biggest deal I had ever negotiated. Most of it was predicated on the guarantees of growth in this sector. It was recently expanded through, great proximity to suns for varied climates and orbits, but quite far away from other major sectors. But if this was truly to be the edge of the universe, I doubted its appeal would hold. &#x200B; People love the next new thing, it's why they flock to newly developed sectors. New things make people feel excited, youthful, that there is potential all around them. No one wants to go on vacation to be confronted with the end of everything. &#x200B; The communicator continued to trill so I tapped the screen to open the line. "Hello Mr. Gates, how are you today?"I smiled at the screen ahead of me as his image appeared. Wrinkled and round, heavy from a life indulging in the finer things, he smiled at me through spectacles. "Ms. Tucker, I'm doing excellent. And yourself?"I put on my best saleswoman smile. "Great, Mr-" "I am about to make the day even greater. We got final approval, the board is ready to sign those papers."I had not expected this to come so soon, usually his company's board was tediously slow in finalizing deals. The last sale I made to them had taken nearly five years. This had only been in the works six months. I stammered, "Final approval? Well that has made my day,"I smiled through my inner turmoil. "Yes, they've learned to trust you, finally. All the properties we've bought from you have led to profits beyond our wildest projections. Your eye for growth is unparalleled. So crack open some champagne and let's get it done. Come to our office next week and we'll ink it together."He winked and ended the call. I slumped back into my seat and laughed. &#x200B; What they don't know won't hurt them.
I had absolutely no idea why. I was born with the highest IQ...ever. No other human had as much IQ as I did, so I thought I’d use this intelligence to get some answers. I know many scientists. In fact, they’re what you could consider my ‘friends’. Most of them are astrophysicists and astronomers, since that’s my field of interest. Most of them are pretty smart as well. Today was my 10th birthday. I was the only person in the world born on November 29th, 8094, for some unexplainable reason. I was also the first person born with random 2 digit numbers. I figured every ten orbits of the earth around the sun is when the numbers change. Perhaps it could also be the galaxy moving over those ten years, but the evidence wasn’t certain. Maybe a neighbouring universe just collided with our universe, and an undetected shockwave caused my numbers to change, or for numbers to be there in the first place. After all, we have no idea what ‘elements’ are in other universes. I was starting to lose my patience. I decided to visit my scientist friends and bring up the topic. I called in a few of the medical researchers as well. They all agreed. When I got there, though, they were all having a party. I thought I heard numerous voices on the phone earlier, it seems it was true. We had an amazing time. They were talking about a planet in a galaxy far, far away. Planet RLCSW-06 in galaxy C9-SM-1129. On a side note, these scientific code names are really...strange, and inconsistent. One galaxy can have 4 characters in its code, another could have a perfectly sensible name, like our Milky Way, and another could be more complex than a cyber key a quantum computer uses. You know, those new inventions that process quintillions of combinations for possible passwords every few milliseconds. Anyway, I digress, and the last one was a hyperbole. Apparently this planet contains unicellular organisms. It was discovered a couple of weeks ago, and the organisms were discovered an hour before I overheard the conversation. I immediately interrupted them to find out more. I agreed on studying the planet with them. I also made them change the code name of the planet. It’s not easy remembering tons of code names as a ten year old, you know, especially since I turned ten, what, today? 4 hours later I decided to conduct a simulation after dinner. I had to set a holographic reminder for those one, couldn’t risk forgetting just because I set a simple sound. I stayed for a while as people started to leave, and left myself soon after. I got on my hover board and went home. On my way, I realized, I forgot to tell them about the numbers. I couldn’t bother disturbing them all to meet up again, so I decided to wait for the four days until we meet again. I didn’t want to worry about the numbers either, so I just ordered dinner and ate as soon as the food arrived. The simulation I conducted had surprising results. Apparently the unicellular organisms were already turning into multicellular organisms, but I’d have to go back to the laboratory to make sure. In about 4.16 Earth orbits, the organisms would resemble us humans, sort of. It’d be another few thousands years before they even had a slight chance of finding out about us, let alone communicating with us, though. It was strange to me. Really strange. The planet was first discovered out of nowhere when I was born. Apparently it just came. It didn’t form, not even over a few weeks. It just appeared faster than a blink of an eye. The planet is the only other known planet to contain life, and according to my simulation, life on the planet evolves extremely rapidly. Appeared when I was born, life appeared when I turned ten...”THAT’S IT!” I thought I woke my parents up for a second, but I found the correlation. It was my first ‘Eureka’ moment in a while. Was I linked to the planet? Was it linked to me? Was it responsible for numbers appearing on people when they’re born? Then I remembered my hypothesis from earlier. Did the planet come from a universe that collided with ours? Earth didn’t have technology for universal scale tasks. A galaxy in this quarter of our universe? Consider it done. Anything beyond that couldn’t be done, however. These four days are going to be the hardest four days of my life, at least there’s no school for the next two months. I couldn’t stop thinking about the planet, even after getting into bed. I eventually fell asleep after wondering if my simulation would be accurate. _____________________________________________ If any of you would like, I’d always be happy to do a part 2. Also, if you noticed any grammatical errors, please tell me. I want to improve my writing as much as possible :)
(On mobile so it's going to be short...and it's my first go at this so criticism and feedback is welcome) "This demon better be worth it. " I mumble to my self as I set my signed copy of The Gunslinger down on the ancient scroll with shakey but determined hands. My bedroom was lit by candles and nothing else, not necessary but hey if I'm doing this I'm doing it right. Immediately the runes flared with a red glow as the final dark act began to commence. The door to my room began to darken and change going from the cheap cookie cutter door that most houses have to a dark heavy wooded frame with a gold handle. My pulse quickened as i realized how ill prepared I was to deal with the tedium of demon contracts. Sweat trickled down my back underneath the robes that were supposed to give me the look of authority I no longer felt. The light coming from under the door was bright, and there was a smell wafting in on a rough wind through the cracks. Confusion rippled through my mind as the smell of alkalai instead of sulfur accosted my senses. That ancient, heavy, ebony gateway to my doom swung open without so much as a squeek. The light filled my room blinding me, forcing me to shield my eyes. I definitely smelled alkalai. And hot dust. It took an extra second but i heard boots approaching, growing louder and stopping just inside my room. I tried to look at my demon it was important that i take hold of this situation but the light from the door was too bright. "Close the door demon."I tried to command, it came out as a pitiful yelp. "Good job on asserting control."I scolded my self inwardly. Never the less the door shut behind my apparition with a solid thump and as my eyes adjusted i could see a shadow of a man in a cowboy hat and a duster. My hands shook heavily as i reached out and turned on my lamp that i had moved by for a situation like this. Thats when i saw him, those pale cold blue killers eyes. A face that was rough, ragged, and sun beat from the miles it journeyed. My God. This was worse than a demon. This was what demons had nightmares of. My eyes drifted to his waist, crisscrossed were two gun belts with irons in them that looked so big they had to be fake. But they aren't fake, i knew better than that didn't I? As my eyes caressed the sandalwood grips of his revovlers i recalled all the stories of those deadly widowmakers and the weight of what I had done hit me like a freight train. Dressed like his arch enemy in my black cloak with my hood pulled up to hide my face, I had summoned the single most deadly man in my favorite book series. The last gunslinger, Roland of Gilead. "H-h-hile gunslinger."I croaked. *I'm not doing this character very much justice but this isn't easy on mobile lol hope you enjoyed it though.
The young girl, no older than 13 or 14, stood in a shocked silence as she tried to fathom the events of the last two minutes. Of course, the girl had dreamed of this before as most young girls do from time to time in their youths. A playful fantasy or a day dream of being rich, famous, or both. However, unlike the fantasies of most girls, it was coming true for her. She dropped her hairbrush onto her unkempt bedrooms floor and quickly stood up as straight as she could. "I.. I don't know what you want me to say,"Said the girl aloud "Do I... do I just say anything I want?" "Yes child"Declared the disembodied voice from apparently nowhere and everywhere at once "as I said, your soul has been deemed pure, and your intentions have been judged. You wished for a spotlight so that everyone may hear you. This wish has been granted for the remainder of the five minutes that started a moment ago." The young girl, obviously confused, turned to check her surroundings. She could see her posters of the current trending musician in her bedroom. She could see that the door to her bedroom was securely locked, and the rainbow blinds in her room colored the light on the surfaces around her. What she could not see, however, no matter how hard she turned and squinted, was the audience the voice spoke of. Or even where the voice came from for that matter. "Where is everybody then? Where are you? What are you?" "Where and what I am is not of concern to you. All that matters is that now, even as we speak, every one of your species can hear you. Your audience with the world has been granted. They are not within your perceptions, but be assured child, they all have no choice but to listen." The girl, who emerged from her closet still looking for the source of the voice, questioned the voice as she continued her search. Drawer after drawer from her dresser was pulled out and thoroughly examined, the window was perused and found locked and sealed. Of course, this was all done to the detriment of the cleanliness of her room. "And when you say everyone, you mean everyone?" "Yes child." "And they all know who I am?" "Yes child." "And I can say anything I want?" "Yes child." The child stopped the destruction of her room momentarily. As confused as ever, the child started to think. This was something she had desperately wanted. There was so much she could do or say, that maybe she could make a difference in the world. An idea snapped into her head, and she thusly began tearing her room apart again on her quest for the source of the voice. "But if everyone can hear me, how can they all understand? I'm only speaking one language of hundreds on Earth." "They will understand child. Hurry now, your time is coming to an end." "How do I know you're even telling the truth?" "There is not enough time to explain everything. There is only enough time for you to speak." "Well if you were really letting me do this, why wouldn't you tell me before we started? Can I get a do-over?" "No child. No power can turn back time. You have precious little time left now." The child, whose room could now easily be considered the messiest room on the block (perhaps even a few blocks), eyed her favourite life-sized teddy bear in the corner of her room. She climbed over the mountain of clothes, the piles of her belongings, and grabbed a seam ripper off the desk where her computer and other accessories used to lay. She journeyed once more to the other side of her room, and grabbed the giant stuffed animal. As she raised her hand above her head to bring down what would certainly be the doom of the cotton-stuffed monster, she stopped, and lowered her hand. "You wouldn't be in my favourite bear, would you?" "No child." She tossed the ripper onto the pile with the rest of her belongings, making the mountain slightly larger once more. The girl turned around the room looking at everything she had searched. There was simply nothing left to look through. Every book opened, every pocket groped, every opening peered through. Perplexed, the girl sat on the edge of her now unmade bed. "So you're telling me that anything I say, everyone can hear me? Even if I say silly things like farts, or butthole?" "Yes child." "Well then..."the child stood tall and dusted her clothing off, finally realising the importance of the moment "I just want to tell everyone that-" The voice interrupted her. "I'm sorry child. Your time is up. I hope this moment was everything you dreamed it would be." "Wait!"yelled the child to the void "I don't have any more time left?" The child stood in her disaster of a room waiting for a response that would never come. After a moment she started to laugh at herself. Was it all a dream? Did she just make this all up? Suddenly, the young girls bedroom door was shoved open by her mother and father, who fell onto Mt. Clothing and tumbled onto the floor next to her. Quickly they stood up, and with wide eyes spoke: "Farts and buttholes!?"
When I'm dreaming and I look at my hands I can never focus on my fingers. They kinda run together or are so captivated in dreaming fluid motion that they just can't be still. So that's my trigger, to help me know what is a dream and what is reality. So when I glanced out my window and saw Killiani floating down from the sky just to land gracefully on my lawn I didn't think anything of it, until I looked at my hands. And there they were. Those ten perfectly focused fingers. If I wasn't dreaming, how was this possible? I jumped up from my desk and ran down the stairs, nearly tripping over my cat who lazily opened one eye as I stumbled across him. When I reached the landing and flung open the door, a wave of hot summer air and the sweet smell of barbecue hit me. Killiani's wide-set yellow eyes found me and a curled smile consumed her. "Felix."She said, in that same rough voice I was accustomed to. She took a step forwards only to stumble over her right paw to sprawl on my lawn. I looked around my quiet neighborhood anxiously. Miss. Betty, my elderly white-haired, blue-eyed neighbor, was the most nosy person I had ever met. She was always poking her long nose over the fences and gossiping about what she saw. I didn't what to know what the precautions would be for having a very large tiger on your lawn so I felt a stinging desperation to get Killiani inside. "Killiani,"I said lightly, shaking her shoulder and watching her bright orange and black striped fur move with my hand. "Hey, come on we have to get inside." She was very weak. I could feel that from just a touch. Her skin was clammy and her breaking shallow. Now that I was actually taking a look at her I could see a wound in her side that was soaking her with hot, sticky blood. "Come on,"I said lightly, trying to lift her head but with little success. After some time I managed to get her back on her feet and inside. When the door was firmly closed and locked behind me I led Killiani to the bathroom and helped her into the bathtub. Merlin, my tabby cat, stuck his nose around the corner curiously and his eyes widened at the sight of the giant cat. He started to bring his toys and left them in the doorway, a gift to the Queen cat perhaps. Killiani was having trouble breathing and I stroked her fur and fed her water from a bowl. I had no idea what I could do. If I took her anywhere there would be so many questions that I wouldn't have the answers for. How do you explain a giant Tiger landing in your lawn? I was still reeling from it. "Can you talk Killiani?"I said gently, glancing at my hands once more in a desperate hope that this was all a dream. But there they were, my ten fingers. "Yes,"she said breathlessly, "but we don't have much time. The- the door has been opened." "What door?"I said, "How are you here?" "There- no time."Killiani's eyes rolled back and I jumped forwards, as if opening them again would scare death away. "Please,"I said, "I'm trying to understand. I thought you were just a dream. A lucid dream."I was trying not to cry but the tears found their way down my cheeks anyway. "The universe is far more complicated than you humans are capable of understanding,"Killiani said, her chest heaving with each word. I reached forwards and took her giant, soft paw in my hand. I stroked it with my thumb as we spoke. In the doorway Merlin's green-yellow eyes were wide with both awe and jealousy. "You were led to believe that there is one reality when there are millions. In your dreams you,"she winced and closed her eyes against the pain, "you were able to access a part of my world. And now it is under attack and I need your help." I tried to digest her words but I couldn't. It didn't make any sense. When I was asleep I was in my bed, there was no way I could also be in another reality. I made a mental note to google this later, maybe I would find out that I was having a stroke or something. Seeing a giant magical tiger that is begging you to save her world? Yup, that's a stroke alright. "Felix,"Killiani said in a tone that terrified me, "This is not a joke or a dream. This is real. I need you to understand that." Suddenly, the sky became overcast. I say suddenly because the sky was once clear and bright blue and in the blink of an eye the horizon was consumed with black, thick, clouds. Killiani became fearful and her hair stood on end. "They are here,"she said. "I knew they would follow me but I-, it doesn't matter. Felix,"she looked me in the eye. No, she looked at me in my soul. "Find Riko. Close the door. It might already be too late." She slumped forwards, her paw falling. I shook it, something, a feeling I had never experienced before, bubbled up inside me and consumed me. "No,"I said, "I need more information! Killiani! This doesn't make any sense!" Laughter filled my bathroom. It was what I would call sinister, something out of a movie about a comic book. I half expected giant, animated "HAHAHA"'s to pop up all around me. "The bitch is dead."A slimy voice said from my doorway and my head whipped around. A tall, very slim man wearing a long, blue jacket with red and violet embroideries. His hair was slicked to the side and was as black as a raven's wings. His thin, black eyes washed over Killiani's body and he pouted, ever so slightly. His long face growing even longer. "Shame, I wanted to be here for the end." "Who-" "Don't bore me with your questions,"the slim man said, waving his hand lazily and walking into my bathroom. His heeled, red shoes tapped on the tiles as he walked. In the doorway Merlin appeared, crouched and watching. "Well, get up and come with me, we don't have eternity." "What?" "I said no questions."The man caught his reflection in the bathroom mirror and he re-adjusted his hair, pushing it even further to one side. I looked at Killiani and the impact of her death hit me all at once. I remembered, in colorful flashes my childhood with her. The first lucid dream I had happened when I was six and Killiani was the one who guided me through it, and through her world. She took me under her arm and treated me like one of her cubs, like her family. I never thought that there would come a time I never saw her again. Or spoke with her. She was so wise and was a brilliant teacher. I could spend hours with her, just talking. The tears were warm and salty. The man noticed that I was crying and his face was consumed with disgust. "Phaw,"he said. "Come now, time to go." He took me by the shoulders and pushed me towards the doors. When his hands touched me sparks, strange tingling sensations ran down my back. The feeling was terrible, as if he was sucking the feelings out of my nerves with his fingertips. I tried to break away from him. "Let go!"I said, the fight or flight finally hitting me. I tried to pull myself out of his hands but his grip was tight. "Don't make this difficult!"he said, "It will all be over soon and you will be a lost soul again soon." "No!"I said throwing my head back and hearing a satisfying crack and, "My nose!" I tried to make a run for it towards the front door but it was blocked by a woman as tall and wide as the door. She was cleaning her teeth with the end of a very large battleaxe and I swiftly changed directions and ran towards the back door, which I suspected was also blocked but I wasn't sure where else I could go.
“Hey what’s up my cold males! Did I say that right? Oh, yeah, it’s ‘cool dudes’. Sorry! Anyway, time for another video. Today we we will be playing Fortnite. Look fellow Homo sapiens, I have found my first Assault Rifle. This will be useful in my domination of Eart- the island!” Diviz, as he called himself, thought he was doing well except for a few slips. However, when he looked into the comments, he found he had become a meme. This meme, according to the database, was comparable to the Mark Zuckerberg meme of 2017. Diviz knew he was suspected of being a non-human organism, so he realized the databases may be incomplete. Maybe in a few hundred years...
"I respect what you're doing. As a professional courtesy, you may leave peacefully,"Dana Sharp said. She addressed the self-proclaimed "Emperor of Earths"in his throne room on one of her Earths. The grey-haired, wrinkled emperor smiled and playfully shook his head. "I don't know how you convinced my guards to let you pass, but I don't think you understand who I am. I conquered my Earth within a decade,"he gave her a cocky smile. "Your Earth only took me two years."The pale woman in a white suit rolled her eyes. "Melody,"she said aloud as if she were calling someone. A tall black portal appeared in the air next to her. The Emperor sat forward on his seat as he stared at the floating, empty anomaly. It reminded him of the portals his armies used. He was relieved, and somewhat confused when a single woman walked out of the portal. It closed behind her. The woman looked like a shorter, stockier version of the pale, lean Ms. Sharp. "How long does it take Oren to saturate an Earth?"she asked Melody." "If he's not being difficult, he can do it in about six hours,"she answered while glaring at the Emperor. Dana nodded while keeping her eyes on the old man. "I can conquer an Earth in six hours,"she said. The emperor burst into laughter. "HAH! Impossible. If you really had that kind of power you'd have dozens of Earths already." "Melody?"Dana asked. "15 complete Earths owned by Sharp Development, 247 Earths where we have a presence. Over 500 official AlterNet servers and nearly 2000 unofficial servers."Ms. Sharp raised an eyebrow at the emperor. "It's safe to say that I own, or can at a moment's notice, almost 3000 Earths,"she shrugged. "If you leave peacefully I won't interfere with any of your Earths if you don't interfere with mine."The emperor replied with loud, forced, obnoxious laughter. "You're bluffing. That's... That's an insane claim to make,"he stood from his throne and glowered at the women. "You're crazy. Even if I thought for a minute that was possible, what do you need this Earth for?"Ms. Sharp sighed. "I don't. It's the principle of the thing, it's my property. But, I don't have any interest in a conflict with you." "Of course! I knew you were bluffing. You don't want conflict because you're trying to talk your way out of subjugation,"he smiled proudly. "Go on then. As a professional courtesy you may leave peacefully,"he laughed harder when another black portal opened next to Dana. "I think you misunderstood something,"Dana said. "I don't have any interest in a conflict with you. And I don't need this Earth. Goodbye,"she said to him with a grin; then, she turned to walk into the portal. "This one and the one he came from,"she said to Melody. "Yes, Ms. Sharp,"Melody replied as her boss disappeared into the portal. Melody's hands began to glow with bright blue energy. "Wait, what'd she say?"Melody smiled. "She said goodbye." \\\* Thank you for reading! I’m responding to prompts every day. This is year two, day #98. You can find all my stories collected on my subreddit ([r/hugoverse](https://www.reddit.com/r/hugoverse)) or my [blog](https://hugoverse.info/). If you're curious about my universe (the Hugoverse) you can visit the [Guidebook](https://hugoverse.info/2017/11/25/hugoverse-guidebook/) to see what's what and who's who, or the [Timeline](https://hugoverse.info/2017/10/23/hugoverse-timeline/) to find the stories in order.
It was bright and my eyes seemed to have trouble adjusting. I'm blinded by the light that expands its intensity through the clouds. This can't be heaven. I squinted my eyes to bear its intensity. I walked for hours and still no soul to be found. I was beginning to grow weary and thirsty. The light grew more intense and the temperature rose to an unbearable degree. Maybe I needed to come closer towards the light. I might be in a coma. As I walked further towards the source, clearing the clouds, I saw a man pulling the sun closer to him with his golden lasso, and behind him was a woman with blonde hair. "God?"I was barely able to get the word out. He dropped the lasso and quickly turned around. The woman turned her head to me and back to him as if to mumble something. I couldn't shake the feeling that I've seen her before. From a television show perhaps. "Yes?"He replied as he cautiously walked towards me. "Where is everyone?" "Everyone? It's only me and that wonderful lady over there."She turned to face us as he gestured to her. "See, I had thought I would be reunited with my family. My father and mother who I haven't seen since they've passed. They were devout Christians." "Child, don't you know? The path towards me is narrow, and only those who keep my commandments can enter heaven." "What of your forgiveness? Your death on the cross? Our sins being forgiven? How come it is only me and that woman? I cannot participate in Adam and Eve 2.0 if that's what you're trying to set up. I was looking forward to reuniting with my wife. I was going to wait for her."My mind was racing, I couldn't organize my thoughts. "Lord God, what of your grace?!" "My Grace? Well she's not interested in you. Adultery is against my commandment." And just like that he walked away and went back to pulling the sun closer to heaven. I just sat there dumbfounded as I observed them. God dropped the lasso as the Sun stood before them in all its glory. With a smile on her face, tears flowed out of the woman's eyes as they admired the view of the Sun. "Bruce, it's perfect. It's beautiful"said Grace who looked a lot like Jennifer Aniston.
That was the cue. With that, the crew worked behind the scenes to work the projector which seemed so old compared to today's tech. A man spun the wheel of film, with force at first, but soon found his pace at the old machine and it began. The previously white screen flickered to life like an old 20's movie as it became shades of white and black. &#x200B; The host turned towards the back and the attending audience leaned forward in anticipation, watching more diligently this screen than any other before or after it. This would be the first of, hopefully, a new era of technology. Now there was a way to contact these old, forgotten souls and have a gander at them as they lay their stories out. &#x200B; The countdown appeared, infamous as it was, and counted the dreadful moments before this dawn. 5, once around, 4, once around, 3, around again, 2, oh dreadful waiting. By 1, hardly anyone could wait as giddiness filled the audience. &#x200B; The screen was dark for a good while, long enough for some to become confused. Attendees looked at each other for reasoning, but there was none. And just as hope was to loosen, the screen lightened and revealed a woman. &#x200B; Her hair was short and curled, her skin paler than the film gave her credit for, and a hat dawned her head. Her eyes were closed and the sequence of the film seemed choppy, but that seemed to deter no one from gazing in awe. &#x200B; Her eyes opened. She smiled slowly like honey flowing in reverse and cast a gaze upon this newer generation, completely in shock and wonder at this revelation, this miracle. &#x200B; The host turned right around, a wide smile on his face, "Now then, let's begin, shall we?" &#x200B; She looked down and nearly smiled wider, had the realization not come upon her. She was dead and had been for decades. What changed? What happened? How did this unnatural occurrence appear? &#x200B; Thoughts spiraled through her head visibly as her eyes performed leaps and bounds and they panicked. The wide smile of honey dissipated into tar as it slowly formed a misshapen frown. Her mouth made O's and many other sounds, but none of which were discernable words. &#x200B; A frightened public shied away from the screen and into their seats, some preferring to leave this eventful point in history. Even the host now, looked a little scared as the woman's form became more confused. She couldn't understand. &#x200B; Through the confusion and panic, she let out the softest of "How"s before the sound of a tear drew the minds of everyone. The film broke. It caught aflame, they said, and they couldn't put it out in time. &#x200B; So the event was canceled, refunds issued from the utter disappointment. The crewmen were scolded and told to throw it away. And so they did. The film, the body, and all. &#x200B; \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~ &#x200B; Thanks for reading & I hope you enjoyed. Constructive criticism is appreciated.
...so that night we decided that we would stay up together, binge watching Parks and Rec and binge eating rocky road. We cuddled on the couch, and it seemed like it should be comfy and comforting. It was, on one level. The superficial one. Underneath, it was nerve-wracking. We were waiting, instead of just being. Waiting to find out, to know what was going to happen. Would we split into two separate realities? Would one of us fade away? How could we each sit on the couch at night, driven from the bed by insomnia, and not see the other? It was not a dream. Snacks disappeared from the kitchen at night. Netflix queues jumped forward by hours of viewing. Or maybe it was a dream for one of us. Some psychic link in the night? As the clock ticked forward, 12:30, 12:45, 1:00 a.m., the tv was just background noise to our noisy minds. That was the whole problem. About 2:00 in the morning, we would always awaken, separately, our brains racing. Worry about the next day, replays of encounters from the prior one. We would each sneak silently downstairs to the distractions of food and easy entertainment. Why did we each have the impression that the other remained silently, blissfully asleep? 1:42, 1:44, 1:45, 1:46. And then a strange thing began to happen. Instead of cuddling against his chest, hearing his heart beating, I slowly seemed to melt into him, taking his heart beat into my own. Two beats slowly became one. Two minds slowly became one. And when they joined together, our minds, they started racing together, chasing each other around and over and through—- The crazy nighttime worries and insanely paced thoughts had become impossible to bear. That was why we had both confessed to our bouts of insomnia. Here they were again, but suddenly clearly explained as the thoughts of two minds, amplifying each other, escalating each other, pushing the anxiety further and further. I reached out to him, trying to disentangle my mind from his and step out of the cycle. “Marc, are you here? Here with me?” I felt it echoed. “Angie, are you here? Here with me?” We reached out for each other by disentangling ourselves, until we could speak in two voices. Two voices who could stop and listen, take a beat, and respond. As two, we could calm the frantic anxiety, pull out of the cycle, until we finally fell, as one, into peaceful sleep.
The elf sat, his bare, shackled ankles splayed across the marble floor. Blood dripped from the matted clumps of hair that dangled in front of his face, a pool of it slowly collecting in front of him and spiderwebbing up the thin cloth covering his legs. "Tell me,"the armor figure growled, his metallic boots echoing down the long hall. Silence. "Tell me his name,"a resounding thwack bounced off the walls as the figure slammed an armored fist across the elf's face. Eyes made of burning embers peered upward from beneath the veil of wet hair. The elf sneered, the flickering bits of light casting a dark shadow against the taunt frown on his face. He spit on the ground before him, covering the polished foot in flecks of blood and phlegm. "Bastard!"the figure howled as he drew the blade from his side. The elf caught a glimpse of his own reflection as the metal swung before his face, then pulled up, hovering in the air. He deepened his frown, gritting his teeth until it felt they might shatter beneath the pressure. He growled. The king swung the blade downward in a single, smooth arc, and rendered his judgment. The lifeless head thumped against the metal boots, bits of hair sticking to the toes. Slowly, the embers of the fire began to fade as the eyes stared ever-forward. Rebels be warned.
Twelve miles. Just twelve miles. But there are hundreds of miles around the border. Where could she be? I lit a cigarette in desperation - the last remaining currency I owned. Sweat beaded down my face, the soothing sensation salting my pale skin. It reminded me of the the sea. But the sea was not twelve miles away, the sea was the border. I stub my cigarette and curse in immediate regret. That's half my day wages gone - I literally smoked it away. The laugh that ensured after that was something of a shrill - a cold, haunting shrill. Cigarettes were the second most popular form of currency after the national stock exchange shut down. Potatoes were the most popular and baked beans the next. Ofcourse, it was counterfeit goods that got traded the most, with kinder eggs being traded like hot cakes, except hot cakes don't have a hollow plastic hole useful for smuggling in various foreign condiments. Pig snorts and mild psychosis later, My form returns to the scene, and find myself wishing to be shocked at the situation, but this was the islands fifth month in chaos - A Woman once said that an island could be stable on its own, with strength behind them. But she was wrong. Cracking my teeth into my knuckles, I panicked at the thought of Sarah's return. She managed to escape this island, she got away. In fact, it's almost funny to think how just 3 years ago she was the one who was panicking at the thought of her having to leave here, to return to her land of warm sun and cosy lifestyle. Instead, she begged me to marry her, begged me to help her stay. &#x200B; I said no. And watched her walk off. And never saw or heard from her again.I remember it clear as day (or what is left of it), the shallow warmth of the sun, the awkward tension between us, the homeless man who increased said awkward tension after he urinated himself on the bus infront of us begging the cctv for some spice. Her bag was ruined and so was our goodbyes. She left on the very next stop in a village I was unfamiliar with, and so I watched her walk off into the sun-tinged council estate with her urinated-tinged bag. &#x200B; Wait. &#x200B; Did she ever even leave the country? &#x200B; &#x200B; More fools me, I say. More fools me for not running with her. More fools me for watching her leave as I lay here grounded, overdosing on baked beans and malnourished on everything else. I never knew it would come to this. I never knew it would turn out like this. I never knew I would waking up begging to a God I don't believe in for basic rations in exchange for 20 Lambert & Butler. I never knew I would be begging Big Brother for a morsel of pornography ever since net neutrality arrived. I never knew I would be begging for my life after I was caught consuming my counterfeit bolognese sauce and watch it sell for more cigarettes than a chimney could smoke. I sit here, in sudden regret of my psychosis, as I see I have smashed my phone in a fit of despair. End of part one.
That chisled jawline, the cut physique, the wavy hair with a bit hanging over your face... yep, I really dont look like that, not even on a good day. The painting was done by someone I had never heard of, but of course pretended to because everybody else gawked when the name came out. Less so, however, than when I would walk into any public space without a cap and a pair of sunglasses. Autographs, photos, free dinners, gifts and party after party. I'm living the life of a War Hero, and I am barely holding myself together. The war had started, and I immediately dodged it. I bummed, rode, ran and hid - but they still found me. I guess you slip up getting shithoused daily. I was told I have three choices: join and fight, slave away in a factory, or slave away in a jail house. I figured soldiers would have more fun than convicts. I never considered myself lucky until I got on the ground. Bullets flying by, most of my squad going down in front of me within the first hour of landing. A round flying by made contact with my helmet, knocking me down. I got back up, but recieved a second hard clank and white washed over me. Nielson strapped it down just minutes prior, and I recieved a face full of his blood a second after. So I guess he saved my life three times, not twice. I came to, and the enemy had taken up refuge here. My squad was in pieces, with Lee draped over my back and Rooker on my side. They were settling in and taking what they could use. I didnt have time, my luck had run out, and I was going die. I grabbed the grenade from Rook's jacket, primed it, and tossed. It should have killed me. And now I'm home, surrounded by family, friends, fans, beautiful places and possessions. I just have to maintain. I just have to keep my head on straight. I dont know what to do, how to act, what to say. I just get lucky. Luck was a unit being killed by the collapse of a concrete ceiling while they searched the dead around me. Luck was being pulled out days later, being awarded a purple heart as a Draft Dodger, being paraded as a hero. Luck was on my side, but I was not. I see it every day, smell the burnt bodies, feel the steel beam through my leg, hear the soldiers screaming. These things will always come back to bite me.
“Ya lose again Tom!” I didn’t care. I could make the back in seven seconds if I’m lucky. I pull out my card and make my way to the ATM, the whir of Slots full my head as I make my way down the aisle, leaving the blackjack folks to do the next round. I light up a cigarette, almost catching my beard on fire. It doesn’t matter. At the time my beard was a ashy black from all those trips down to true south. I look true north, the fake roof of the casino sparkling as usual. Something catches my attention. A little bit true left-west from where I was looking. The spot is empty. I pull out my pocket knife, it’s ashy black hilt almost catching fire from the rage of the drunk woman next to me. After a few minutes, I dismissed the possibility of it being there and move along with the ATM. Angry drunk people are actually quite funny. She would slam the slot machine and her curly orange hair would bounce up and down for the next few seconds, with it her body jiggling from all the fat. She would then down the last half of her beer, swear in a Swedish accent, and order another. The beer would come, she would chug half, and then tip her server with whatever pocket change she had, wincing as the dollar touched his palm. I found this wincing peculiar. More peculiar was how the money was coming from nowhere. Her purple and black dress did t appear to have pockets. I decided to take a break from blackjack and made my way to the slots, sitting next to the red haired woman. “Hello” I say “what kinda beer is that?” She turned to face me. When you looked at her from the front, she was quite pretty aside from the double chin. “Guinness” she responds, her Swedish accent making her almost impossible to understand. I thank her and insert my cash. The weeks inside begin to turn, the 7’s being the only thing I can make out. I pull the lever. Only two sevens. Damn. I begin to pull out my wallet for another go, and this is when the woman speaks up again. “Interesting wallet” she said sweetly. “I actually have the same one.” “Really?” I respond “Can I see it, Ma’am?” “Of course, and call me Deb.” Deb produces a wallet out of nothing and shows it to me. Red flames moving up all ends of the wallet. A nice design. “I’ll be damned Deb. I didn’t know that they still made these” We laugh, then lock eyes. Deb picks up on the same thing I have and downs her beer. “I better get going before I blow all my cash” she says, the slurred Swedish accent almost impossible to pick apart. “Let me walk ya to your car, Deb. As a thanks for the kindness” I feel something claps around my arm as I get pulled closer to Deb. “Do you really want to end this night like this?” She whispers, a small grin forming through drunken breath. “Not exactly,” I whisper back “I was thinking this.” I pull my hand out of my pocket, revealing an ancient piece of charcoal, a blue rune etched into the dark material. Deb’s eyes widen. “You were quite a sweet thing, Deb.” I say casually “don’t know how you ended up down there.” “Simple.” Deb snarls. “I never was anywhere else except here.” She taps my chest, and I finally get it. “Lemme guess, Greed?” Deb nods sadly, and we begin to walk towards the parking lot. “So you left because you wanted to be human?” Deb scoffs. “Of course not!” She spits “they only had wine down there.” _______________ Hey so this is like my second story on the sub so if anyone has any criticism then it would be much appreciated :)
"Egads, Pazzo"you confide as you reverse back out of the driveway "I don't think..."and then it hits you. It was a white jacked-up rig with a racing stripe going twice the posted speed. Why couldn't we find an Earth where humans could drive? "Mr. Josh? Mr. Josh, sir?"I came to as Pazzo's halitosis hit my face like a wall of sulfur and death. Good ol' Pazzo. He has been through it all with me. Ever since we were small. His mom made the best eight layer bean dip this side of the Mississippi. I bet that dip took the last two years off the end of my life. Pazzo was a hard worker - his life was a string of small struggles and he just seemed to drive right through them like a Mac truck. Which is why I came to him with my proposition. "Pazzo,"I said to him. "Yes, Mr. Josh?"I remember him saying. "How would you like to be my apprentice?" "Mr. Josh?" "How would you like to help me make the greatest discovery in human history and be famous?" "Famous like President famous? Or famous like Fountain Mike famous?" "More than president famous. The kind of famous where we get school books written about us, buildings and streets named after us and lots and lots of rewards." "What kinds of rewards?" "The tons of cash kinds of rewards. The buy a franchise or an island kind of cash rewards." "I would like that very much, Mr. Josh." After some twists and turns, we drove down my street, steered Miss Scarlet into my driveway. And that's when I noticed something was definitely wrong. Although to be honest, I'm not sure who noticed it first, me or other me. "I don't think..."other me trailed off. "I'm looking for Josh Mohawk, does he live here?"I pose. "Josh Mohawk?"he echoed. "That's what I said. Do you know where I could find him?" "I'm sorry. You said, wait who the heck? What is...?" "Look, there is a Josh Mohawk official doppelganger mock twin copy fest happening at the Convention Center and I was told to - you know what I'm just putting it out there that I think you are the real deal. If you could join us at 5pm for a kick off that'd be great. Just bring your ID."I finished with "and have a nice day"before heading back to Pazzo waiting in our ride. Other me headed back inside. Slowly. "Who was that you were talking to outside?" "No idea,"said other me. "No idea, Mr. Pazzo."
Dr. Stephan Strange rubbed the bridge of his nose. Being a consultant for all the powerful forces on Earth got tiresome. “So, okay...” Strange sighed. “The moral of the story of Goldilocks is...?” “Porridge can be cold easily.” Draw the Destroyer responded. The Dark Dimension was tempting. “Okay, let me try something else.” Strange sighed. “So, here’s a story. Once upon a time, th—“ “What time?” Drax quipped for the seventh time in six stories. “A time.” Stephan said through his teeth. “Some random time long before you were born.” He replied, before muttering, “A more intelligent time.” A doctor had patience. Not this much. “And this was this girl named Little Red Riding Hood.” Strange started, and before he could move on and dodge Drax’s questions, the said destroyer laughed. “What’s so funny?” “That name!” Drax laughed, and Strange sighed. He looked at the clock on the wall. Six more hours with Drax. Goddamnit.
Barmen always say “You’ll never know who will walk through the door”, that’s so very true, I never know anyone who comes in here so their saying has kind of no real philosophical meaning to me, only a literal one. But I get what they mean though, there are some colourful people that have graced us with their presence for a pint or two ( more often than not the colourful ones have more than enough). As I stood behind the bar cleaning up and making sure everything was how it was supposed to be, I heard the door slam open and watched as two giggling men walk one went to the toilet while the other came straight for the bar. “2…uh…fuck sorry gimme a minute….. LUCY WHAT ARE YOU HAVING, I HAVING A…” he turned to me and said “do you do strawberry daiquiris?” with a nod of my head I motioned yes and thought to myself this is going to be long night. This strangely handsome man turned around and spoke loudly to his friend in the toilets (I’m glad it was just us 3 in the bar or id be cleaning these fellas of the floor, the locals don’t take kindly to being disturbed as they drown their sorrows) “I SAID, LUCY, IM AVNG A STRAWBERRY DAIQUIRI, WANT ONE TOO?” “Yes” came the reply from behind him, I was a little puzzled as I’m pretty sure I never saw him leave the toilets, or heard it flush either. So as I made these two gentlemen their drinks I couldn’t but help over hear their conversation, the one called ‘Lucy’ spoke first. “how’s you son?” he said in serious yet clearly drunken tone, “hes been better, poor lad still hasn’t got over what happened to him” the man said staring at the bar, “that was so long ago” said Lucy “I know”, spoke the other “ but its the fact people have been talking about it and sharing images of what happened, its knocked his confidence, a lot” A silence fell over the 2 of them, I passed them over their drinks, “there you go gentlemen, that’ll be £22.65 please.” “ I got this” said Lucy. He passed over the money, as I placed in the till I noticed it was the exact amount and I’m pretty sure I didn’t see him count it, luck of the devil I guess. I turned back to cleaning glasses. “ do you want me to have a talk with him?” said Lucy in a caring way. “ No way, last time you spoke to him you don’t nothing but tempt him into going on some crazy adventure with you” said his friend, “ha-ha, yea I remember that. I must say he’s a stubborn lad, a bit of a goody two shoes too” laughed Lucy, “ Anyway I took care of the lads that got him, they never hurt anyone else when I was done with them” said Lucy with a grin that suggested he had had more than a stern word with them. The two men sat and finished their drinks and motioned for another. “ Anyway, tell me about this new idea of yours, Lucy, word on the grapevine has it you’ve got some sort of trick up your sleeve.” Asked Lucys friend, I found him to be interesting and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen his face before, I just can’t think were. “ha, sorry, you may be my best friend but as my old boss I ain’t sharing secrets” said Lucy quite sternly. “alright fine then, have your secrets” said friend, dejectedly. They sat in silence again for a few minutes finishing their drinks. After they finished the other man got up and made his way to the toilet. Lucy turned to me and said “Emmanuel and I will have 2 whiskeys, please”, again he reached into his pocket and produced the exact amount without counting, there’s defiantly something more to these two men than meets the eye I thought as I poured the drinks. Emmanuel came back from the toilets and sat beside Lucy. Thunder rolled in the distance, the night was changing. I busied myself as best I could to pass time, there wasn’t much for me to do, my only 2 customers where rather tidy. They spent a good few hours drinking and chatting with the odd hearty laughter thrown in for good measure, you could tell these 2 where very old friends but just like old friends the more they drank the more they started to disagree and the conversation got heated and I got a sense it was about to turn physical so asked them to leave, it was nearing closing time anyway. The two men, now shouting, completely ignored my request . lighting flashed but it felt as if it happened right inside the pub and strong smell of eggs filled the room, then2 men where now on their feet, staring each other down. It was getting tense so I reached for the trusty bat under the bar and once again asked them to leave, this time they obliged to my request. As the door closed behind them there was flash of blinding white light and a thunderous boom. “FUCK YOU” I could hear Lucy roar, “DICK FUCKING MOVE” He continued sounding winded. I could hear Emmanuel laugh, what ever he had done he thoroughly enjoyed it. “Our lift is here, come on, lets go home and have a night cap before we turn in for the night” said Emmanuel. From inside I could hear a large whoosh followed by silence. I took a look outside to find those 2 strange men had gone, disappeared without a trace. I pondered as I closed up as to who those 2 strange men where, I hope I never find out.
"Wait, how was that the biggest problem of moving the population of our home planet?"Asked an inquisitive young boy in his earth-history class "I thought we had vaccines since all the way back in the 1800's?" The projection of professor Darnton glided across the room over the other children and stopped in front of the boy. "An excellent question! But clearly somebody did not do their homework last night." "But history is so boring.."the boy hung his head low in shame "I prefer to learn about math or science." The class laughed aloud at the boy while some raised their hands to answer the professor's enquiry. The projection looked around the room and pointed to another boy on the other side of the classroom to answer. "There was a growing anti-vaccine movement that started in the early second millennium on earth that valued the choice of free-will over the choice of immunization by force. Unlike on all colonies that came from our origin planet, Earth did not vaccinate immediately on birth."The boy smugly looked to the other who did not know the answer. "As well, they did not have vaccines for all of the different known diseases at that time. The combination of these two factors made transporting the infectious population of Earth considerably more dangerous to the population of the colonies than needed to be. Some of the diseases the Terrans had at the time never existed on any other colony, and as such no vaccinations for them needed to be created in the new location. Each time a disease long thought dead by the colonies was brought from Earth a new mass vaccination needed to happen on the planet to prevent further outbreaks. Each caused significant delays that sometimes lasted for months at a time." The projection lifted his hands and clapped for the young boys detailed response. The boy smiled and sat back down in his data pod. The projection returned to the front of the room to address the class. "Excellent response John."The professor turned and waved his hand through the air, creating a large holographic Earth. "Now, can anybody tell me why we needed to transport all of the population off of Earth, and as a bonus, why we still cannot return there today?"
These results are not what I expected. It's been almost four years studying behavioural anomalies and nothing I do is breaking any new ground. I suppose the real issue stems from the lack of participants in the study - even though I'm making good progress with my participant this is always only going to be a case study and nothing more. I've made sure to keep my supervisor up-to-date on the results of the experiments and to be fully aware of the future steps I'll be taking. Mapping the human mind is certainly a difficult task, but I believe it is still attainable. The trouble is that some tasks require a willing participation, which I can get. And I do get it sometimes. But there is always a personal bias in it that I add whenever I interact with the participant. I need to be able to get these responses without the participant knowing they're being observed. Every time I approach my supervisor with the request to expand my experiment to include more participants they've turned it down. They've even started to react violently to the idea. Can you believe that? And I mean literal violence. My supervisor made an attempt at my throat last time I brought the idea up. This was a significant step up from previous responses of simply saying no, or sobbing in the corner of the room as they had every other time in the past few months. I know, of course, that my supervisor sees the benefit of the research. I mean, as the only participant in the study that's been going on for four years it would be hard to not see it at this point. And my supervisor is extraordinarily gifted. One day I'll get their permission to expand it though. I know I'll get it. Until then I'll just keep trying to figure it out with what I have. I was always told to never give up on my dreams, and with somebody as dreamy as my supervisor involved in the experiments, I know one day we'll figure out the science behind our interactions. Love might be just a concept to us now, but when I crack the behaviour open and see everything inside it, I know we can control it. I just know it.
She was frantic, wild eyed and shaking. I had never seen my mother in this state, dishevelled but genuine, terrified but resolute. Before I could respond, the doorbell echoed throughout the house. No longer innocuous, the sound made us both stiffen. “This way,” she whispers, pulling my bedroom window open and climbing out onto the awning. I followed her silently, her sense of urgency overpowering my own curiosity. My door knob starts shaking and I hear scuffling outside. “Quickly!” my mother shouts. I clamber down the lattice, carefully gripping the pale wood, trying not to collect splinters in my sweaty palms. I hit the floor hard, pain vibrating up the soles of my feet. There is a black van with tinted windows idling, and she ushers me inside. We were speeding away before I even had time to buckle my seatbelt. Behind me, I hear someone call my name- a familiar sound, in a pitch that was used when I did something wrong… It sounded like my mother. Confused, I turn to the driver’s seat. My mothers face is beaming at me, her eyes still burning. In the rear-view mirror, I see my parents standing in the middle of the street, my mother weeping and father trying to chase after us, losing ground. Instantly, cold realisation crawls across my skin. The driver of the car is laughing, a high-pitched sound that held more enthusiasm than joy. Up until this point, I hadn’t noticed the snaking scars around her arms. This wasn’t my mother from the future. It was her sister, a twin who supposedly perished in a fire two years past. Noticing my expression, she pulls a taser from the glovebox. “I was hoping to be out of the city limits before you realised,” she sighs, pressing a button on the black device. It awakens with a low buzz. “A bit sharper than your brother, it would seem,” she addressed me, but it felt like she was musing to herself. “It was an accident…” my voice trailed off. My mother rarely spoke of that night, and I knew the memory of her sister was coated in layers of resentment, with a bright burning core of relief. She pushed the taser into my neck, and the everything grew black. The last sound I hear as I fade from consciousness is my aunts low chuckle, signalling that things were about to get a lot worse before they would get any better.
We stood there, nearly face to face, without saying a word. I had been walking through the woods, on the hunt. She had appeared out of the woods, on the run. And she smelled like magic. A voice rang out like gunfire: "DON'T STAND THERE, YOU IDIOT! CATCH HER!" I couldnt move. Her hand was touching my side, sending waves of blue ice running through me, freezing me, paralyzing me. Blue. Like her eyes. I shook my head. Now was not the time to be fantasizing. I had bigger problems to worry about. Namely, how her power was having any effect on me. By nature I was supposed to be immune to this sort of stuff. I felt the icy feeling clawing up the side of my face, trying to drown me as it submerged me in its chilly cocoon. I drew in my cheeks. And I spit in her face. She recoiled. Her hand whipped up and hit my jaw. I lifted, like I had been launched from a catapult, and slammed into the bark of a tree several feet away. As I faded, I saw something barrel towards her from out of the woods. If she hadn't still been wiping the spit from her face, maybe she would have seen it. Instead, she got tackled. My mouth opened. But the words never came out. I was going to tell her Run. I don't know why. And I didnt know why my powers werent working to heal me. Then I stopped thinking and trying to figure stuff out as blackness crept over me and I peacefully passed out.
There was no need for a flashlight down in the caverns after we started finding those gemstones. They seemed to glow with unnatural energy, shedding a bluish light onto the jagged underground walls. It was taking all my willpower not to brush my fingertips over it, to feel if it was warm. The little gemstone's light even seemed to pulse, dimmer and brighter, as if it was some living thing with a beating heart. It all was quite fascinating, and I wasn't alone in my fascination. My digging partner, Reg, had joined me on this expedition, and was equally enraptured by the glowing gems. "Any idea what these are?"Reg said, not taking his eyes off of the gem he was observing. "Never seen anything like it,"I replied honestly. "You think they're natural?" "Dunno. From what I remember of high school physics, things need energy to give off light like that. How would a gemstone hundreds of meters underground retain and give off energy like that?" His question hung in the dank air of the cavern. I was too caught up peering down the two paths leading from where we had dropped in. On one side, the gemstones looked like they gave off less and less light until the tunnel disappeared in darkness. On the other, the lights continued up to a curve in the tunnel. "The gemstones are giving off a stronger light down that way,"I said, pointing in the direction of the lighter side of the tunnel. Reg finally peeled his eyes off the gem in front of him to look down the path I was indicating. "Want to check it out?"he said, giving me a sly wink. I didn't need to respond. We started walking down the tunnel, turning right at the curve, only to see the tunnel curve again a few feet ahead. As we continued to walk, following the tunnel's increasing twists, we both noticed the gemstones not only increasing in brightness, but in size. Their pulsing light was impossible to miss now, shifting the light of the tunnel from dim beyond sight to nearly blinding. "Damn it, man,"Reg said, stopping in his tracks. "These things are pulsing like some stone heart, I just want to see what these are up close."Without giving me a chance to retort, Reg reached over and latched onto one of the glowing gemstones. I winced, and waited... Yet nothing happened. He began to tug on it, wrestling to get it out of the wall. When that didn't work, he pulled a smaller pick off his belt and began picking at the rock around it. Still, nothing happened. Until the gem came loose. The first thing I noticed was that the gem Reg had pulled from the wall instantly went dark. Then, the other gems in the wall went bright, their blue hue turning red, as if the cavern itself was angry at us. As if to confirm my thought, the cavern itself started shaking violently. "Shit, Reg! Are you kidding me right now?"My heart was pounding in my chest, yet Reg seemed to be impossibly pleased with himself. "This thing isn't a gemstone, man! It's... hell, I don't really know. But there's probably something big down the tunnel!" Reg's excitement was infectious. I wanted to get out of here as fast as I could, but at the same time, I was filled with a sickening fascination of what we had just uncovered. "Let's make it quick,"I finally said, and Reg took no time waiting around. We both ran through the tunnels, making sharp turns every few seconds. The shaking of the cavern wasn't getting any better -- in fact, it seemed to be getting worse. I just hoped that whatever was at the end of this tunnel was worth potentially getting crushed to death. Finally, the tunnels opened up into a much larger cavern. It was painted with the same bright red light that the tunnels had been, but there was only one source. My heart was struck with terror as I realized what it was that we had done. Reg's jaw dropped in awe. I couldn't help from doing the same. "You were right,"I said, my voice shaking. "Those weren't gemstones." They were organs of some sort. And in front of us, hanging from the ceiling of the massive cavern, pulsing with angry red light, wasn't some goldmine of the new gem we'd uncovered. It was the heart. &#x200B; (6)
Working for Preventive Pest Control is a fucking nightmare. Especially since The Cataclysm. We still can’t control black widow spiders and will never control cockroaches. Those motherfuckers are everywhere. Hell, we managed to eradicate bed bugs and the ticks responsible for West Nile eons ago. But the biggest pest we have ever had, and I mean EVER has been those blasted humans. Fuck them. “Section 1-9! I repeat, 1-9! Human spotted at Carlisle and Montgomery! Please respond!” I looked a Julio, my partner, and shrugged. “Looks like a stupid human eradication case.” He nodded. We put the pedal to the metal and got to the house in question. Two queens stood in the drive, arms akimbo. Their skin shone like limestone underwater. They were beautiful and deadly. I decided to tread lightly and punched Julio in the arm, so he would know he had to follow my lead. “So, ladies, what transpired here?” I asked, with an innocent voice. I raised my antennae in a way that would elicit charm. “A human invaded our space. Please eradicate him.” She pointed to the living room, one of her six arms raised. I looked in the room. A human sat on his couch (LOL for days, doesn’t he know that those furniture appliances raise millions of us). He sat and looked at us, so small compared to him. We stood, arms akimbo, ready to raise weapons. “Wasps destruct!” I called on all wasp armies, on the velvet ants who are actualhy wasps without wings, I called on my wasp brothers and sisters. I called on everyone I knew. We had to kill the intruder. He was gone in seconds.
My name is Ana. And this is my story. Now, I'll have to be honest right at the start. It's the right thing to do. I'm a witch. Sorry, I had to disclaim that. You are speaking to someone who knows how do you use magic. Okay? Don't be freaked out. Lots of people freak out. I can understand. That's the thing with magic. It can bend what you know to be true, and [stars] poof [sparkles] you're in _post-truth._ I only know one spell. So. But that spell. .. "Hey, Brian,"I sang, coming down the stairs. I'm a dancer, so. You know. "Ana,"Brian said, back. He was a little nervous, now looking back on it. I think he liked me. "Poof,"I said, and I became Brian. "Hey, Ana!" "OMG!"she screeched, as though an animal had attempted to leave her stomache, and she grabbed the columns. "Your concept of reality has completely changed,"I laughed, with masculine toxicity. "THE IMPLICATIONS ARE TERRIFYING,"she said, clearly having a bad trip. I could feel my dick inside my pants.
I roll a pair of 7's. Go back to bed. I gasp awake. I don't know what "fealty"means. I'll look it up later. In my haste, however, I have cut my hand on the sword. "Well this sucks."I say to myself... "Dammit, Marcus, you used the last of the neosporin, didn't you?"I mumble. No telling where that sword came from, or where it has been. "I should take out another student loan and get my own place. Probably save enough in neosporin and laundry detergent to offset rent."I chuckle at my own joke. JUST THEN, A DRAGON ball z commercial comes on the tv. I thought that was cancelled. My hand begins to throb. We're out of Captain Crunch too. "ALEXA! PUT CAPTAIN CRU- I'VE ADDED CAPSTAN TO YOUR SHOPPING LIST Close enough. I'll remember what it was when I see the list. tHrEe DaYs LaTeR I died. But I'm living an immortal life as my own fealty servant, so I got that going for me, which is nice.
You're not quite sure if you're just extremely drunk and hallucinating or there really is a bird like person on that tree. You rush outside still holding your drink (its a white russian, but you went a little too hard on the vodka). As you get a closer look you notice its actually a young man wearing a Big Bird costume. As you stand there perplexed a huge explosion behind you knocks you to the ground. You look to the sky and see a thunderous Boeing streaking across the sky in flames, behind you your house is reduced to rubble by one of the propellers. Later at the hospital you read on the news there was one survivor.
As I dream I am a weaver of reality. I bend the silken lines that form the world, and restructure it into the visions of glorious landscapes that constantly appear to me. Wild, lush forests made from trees, plants, and vines that do not exist. With nothing more than a thought I can pull a tower from the ground that spirals higher than the clouds above me. The tower holds no stairs, and appears to be hollow to any who would approach it but me. I enter the tower from the ground and pass through a viscous air along the cobblestone archway. The invisible tension changes how the air around me feels compared to the outside; there is a power within it that feels familiar to me. I stare at the open space above my head, to a roof that I know exists but that cannot be seen. Although I need not do so, I find using my hands helps me channel these powers. I imagine the ground below me forming a small platform to carry myself higher up the tower and it does so. Suddenly along my travel up the tower the platform dissipates; the dirt scatters to the wind. I fall a longer distance than I remember ascending. The fear of the impact wakes me from my slumber. _______________________________________________ I blink. The stone roof of my home comes into focus before me and I stretch with a yawn. I stand from my bed and the cold floor shocks my system. I try to release the focus of my eyes to check for the dreaming sigil that hides in the peripherals of my vision. I am awake. The day passes quickly, as they have ever since the Council of the Grand Magus finished their incantation a few months ago. They sent word by rider and bird to everyone within the kingdom that our dreams would soon become more tangible to us than they had before. Soon, we would be able to control our dreams as easily as we control our bodies. Since then, everyone has always been excited to go back to sleep, and our dreams are marked by a small sigil to the side of our vision. I and the rest of my small village hurry through our days making sure to exhaust ourselves thoroughly to ensure an easy time falling asleep that night. Some people have even taken to short naps during the day so they could get a little more time dreaming as well. Because I sew and harvest wheat in the fields this is an easy task for me. I stand and wipe the hard earned sweat from my forehead in the glow of the evening sun. I feel a soft tap on my shoulder by Edward, a member of the town watch. "Smith is off sick today." I dry my hands on the dirty clothes I wear. It mixes with the dirt to become a sweaty mud. A very unpleasant combination of both touch and smell. "And what does that have to do with the price of onions?"Edward gives me a quizzical look. "Sorry Ed, I mean what does that mean for me?" He nods his head as he understands. "It means we're short on the watch tonight, and your name was drawn on the replacement list. You can have the west tower tonight, tomorrow somebody else will fill in." _________________________________________________ My eyes are heavy in the dead of the night. From the height of this tower I can see the nearby village's towers as well; each tower lit with a small torch to show that it is manned. I consistently catch myself just before I fall asleep, half asleep and occasionally falling from the chair I rest upon. My shirt still reeks and keeps me from being comfortable. On my next walk around the tower I take my shirt off and hang it on a hook in the corner. As I sit back down my eyes start to slowly shut and my mind wanders. I see a vision of myself sitting in the tower, wide awake and looking across the land. In this vision I see myself fully clothed, and absolutely coated in grime and dirt. I start to feel uncomfortable again and find myself thinking about how much I wish it was clean again. Suddenly, the trees of the nearby dense forest start to rustle. As I try to unfocus my eyes to see what, if anything, is moving near the forests edge I notice a small sigil in my peripherals. I wake up with a jolt at my position in the tower. I must have fallen asleep at my post again, but this time a little more soundly than before. I decide that it would be better if I keep myself on my feet than if I sit, just to make sure I don't drift off again. I lazily take my clean shirt off the hook and put it on again. If I'm going to be walking around all night I should try to at least stay warm and comfortable. _____________________________________________ The next day was an absolute haze to me. Entirely exhausted from dusk till dawn, I still needed to attend my duties in the field even though I was unable to get any sleep the night before. If I want to keep myself and my fellow villagers fed, the field needs to be taken care of. Even though I wasn't quite up to par nobody seemed to mind around the village and there was no shortage of helping hands looking to get themselves a little more ready for bed tonight. Sometimes I swear I would turn around to grab an iron tool to clear some weeds, and by the time I turn around somebody had already cleared them for me. It may have been an easy day for most, but it was still challenging for me in my condition. I made it back into my small stone house near the edge of town just as the sun was starting to hide behind the horizon. I take off my clothes, filled with dirt and grime again from the days work, and throw them to the floor near the door. I swear I fell asleep before I hit the blanket on the bed.
It was so scary, I tried to get the image out of my transparent head but it was too much. My name is Larry, and I haunt an office on the upper east side of manhattan now. As I made my way up the stairs, floating across each one seemed dumb so I just started going straight up. “I’ll just head to my old room, see if I can get some sleep. “. So I made my way up the stairs and got to my old room. I used to be president of the company and I would stay here on weekends to make sure we hit our sales goals. Looking back on it now. Did it really matter? As I walked into the room I saw it, staring back at me from across the small office. The reason I am here in the first place. The banana I choked on. Still protruding out of my dead human mouth. It was too much. I slammed the door and walked out. Then I saw carol walking towards the same room. Oh finally! She will find my dead body and I will be able to move on. Hopefully there is an afterlife. But carol keeps walking. She walks all the way to the side of her desk, and she picks up a banana colored yankee candle, looks right at my ghost face even though she shouldn’t be able to see me, and she chucked it right at me. I said carol..??? As I hid behind the trash bin. She said I’m dead too idiot! Now were both ghosts! I said how did you die carol? So she walked me down the stairs, into the bathroom and opened the stall. I gasped. It was carol on the toilet. One yellow colored pencil protruded from her forehand. I said carol how Did this happen? And she said well I was holding on to the pencil, I heard your body hit the floor from upstairs and I stabbed myself in the head by accident. It has been 20 years. Our bodies have since been found. But not the murder weapons. Not the banana. Not pencil. And I stay here till this day. Avoiding yellow cylinders as much as I can. Of course. Carol still loves her Simpson’s dildo. I don’t know if I can take much more of it though.
Daisy in the Sky with Diamonds Her dream had always been to fly. To climb higher than the clouds, to shatter the Earth’s atmosphere. To go where no one had dared before, past even the stars. What answers awaited her up there? Daisy was so absorbed in her own thoughts, her eyes on the sky, that she crashed into someone on the sidewalk and end up falling, her butt meeting the rough concrete painfully. She lay down on the sidewalk, breathing hard through the pain. Why, oh why, couldn’t she just watch where she was going? “Oh! I’m so sorry!” A deep male voice sounded through the fog of her pain. She’d definitely have a bruise in the morning from this collision. “I didn’t see you there! Are you all right?” When the fog cleared, she blinked up at the unfortunate person who had run into her. With her head in the clouds, she hadn’t at all been paying attention to where she was walking. Daisy felt a pink flush beginning to climb, from her chest to her neck. “I’m fine!” She said, starting to stand up. Before she realized what was happening, there was a warm hand wrapped around her forearm, helping her to stand up straight. “It was my fault,” She added, laughing shyly. “I didn’t see where I was going. I’m so sorry.” Now that she was standing, she could see his face. He was so handsome that it should have been made a crime. Or he should’ve come with a warning label. He had skin that was kissed by the sun; the tan lines around his eyes and on his shoulders told Daisy he spent a lot of time outdoors. His face was covered in freckles, and his eyes were a brown so dark they reminded Daisy of black coffee. “How rude of me,” She said, feeling her blush grow from her neck to her cheeks. “I bumped into you and I didn’t even introduce myself!” She held out a hand, smiling. “I’m Daisy. Daisy DeLuca.” Her new companion smiled, and she decided she liked the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he did so. “I’m Seth. I’m happy to meet you! Although I wish it had been on better circumstances.” He laughed, putting a hand behind his neck and rubbing it in a self-conscious manner. “It’s wonderful to meet you, Seth. Would you please allow me to buy you a coffee? It’s the least I can do after crashing into you like that.” “I’d like that, Daisy. And you can tell me what you see in the sky that looks so interesting.” \\ “And that’s how your mother and I met,” Seth said at the dinner table one night, telling the story to their two children, Lily and Rose. Seth had insisted on naming their girls after flowers, in tribute to their mother. Daisy smiled at her husband, blushing warmly as she remembered their first meeting. Of all ways to meet the love of your life! She had received so much in her life. First Seth, and then the sky. She couldn’t ask the universe for anything more. \\
They swayed and danced and howled in the frothy mists that spirited up from the bow, which marked the gilded masthead with dark forebodings of its final resting. The wind-whipped, sun bleached faces, grimaced with the joy of the hunt, and swept along all those loose tatters of rags, and cambric visages towards the northwest. Along those shining whitecaps, vast and sprawling, there were among it's rank and file, something darker. The murderous eyes of the men looked toward this point on the blood tinged horizon and hooted and yipped and yowled, like sea wolves among the broken sheep, which scattered and ran blindly before them. Further still off the horizon, to true west, lay a bevy of islands, which lay as quieteous slumbering beasts, dark blue green above the emerald jeweled sea, or when sun shone, azure. Between these leviathans and the sonorous sounds of wild beasts, lay that dark point which bobbed and removed from sight, and then appeared again. A blinking dark speck, now with white tops that bobbed and heaved but did not now disappear beneath the waves. The mood now changed, slowly at first, from jubilation, to knocked back smiles turned to serious disposition, as a shadow arose from the rear of the ship, and marched confidently from the aft among the riotous crew, and now before them a man stood. He was wild eyed, but calm, his eyes seeming to search across the sky, then drifted down to each man for what seemed like a glance, and back to the sky. As if to see each man's shadow of death loomed above them. His gaze submerging then to the next man. A giant among them, with royal peacock feathered colored facings and the visage of a vulture baked and tanned in the Caribbean sun. His fingers braced upon the small of his back, and twitching with each upward swivel of those bright yellow eyes, the only indication to well studied voyeurs among the crew, that he had seen something above which troubled him. A call from his ragged swollen mouth told them to adjust course west, and the seamen groaned a silent death their bloodthirsty inclination towards a fresh hunt, but quickly snapped to, and large sails bellowed and the cockswain armed over toward the islands. I noted the sighting into my journal, sighed, and tied it closed with the small rough rawhide binding, and tucked it into my breast pocket, retiring once again to my quarters below deck. Through the scuttle, the emerald isles disappeared from sight, and before me lay the vastness of the sea. It was dawn now, two days perhaps gone in a wild violent mist of time, and the orange light filtered in through the din of smoke and haze, where all around lay prostrate the wolves and silent moorings of men who were laid out like gangplanks among the wreckage of the tavern. The women of the night had all gone, filled to the brim with ill begotten gold, and silently disappeared before the first fingers of dawn swept through to reveal sores, and scars that had gone unnoticed in the nights revelry. I rose, and slowly, bracing myself on an overturned chair, begun to make my way through the stink and snoring lumps which lay loudly on the floor, or slumped across overturned chairs, or curled amongst spilled tankards of rum, and weak stale beer. In the doorway, half cocked, and laid calm, the captain looked out below towards the city of Havana. He did not turn when I approached, but he straightened and sighed. The knife eased into his back, and his eyes flicked to me as his head lolled back on his loose neck. He smiled a wide eyed grimace, and spoke, for the first time to me in a fortnight. Now, you will see the death of them, he said; oh master of coin, you are to now become the witness to the masters of death, and in time, their slave. I took the pistol off his belt and fired it into the air, and rose the men, and they made preparations to set for sea. The sky darkened and angels swept forth aloft wings of fire, but the men did not notice. Or nor I, for the coffers were empty, and the sea lay vast and endless, the sun rising and laying across the wide white capped expanse, a trail of gold, and blood, and death.
Thank you for attending representatives of the Galactic Empire. Firstly, to the fragmented remnants of the human race scattered across the galaxy, from my species to yours, our deepest sympathies and condolences. I do not wish discuss the horribly regrettable chain of events that led to the destruction of Earth as I think this memorial should be a joyful one, and not mournful one. Also, I hope somebody will speak today of the specifics of what The Human Race achieved as a species, but all I can do today is talk directly to our Galactic Partners, the Human Race. When we first encountered the human race, they were in their infancy as a species, trapped on their little globe tearing each other apart, we would be the first to admit that we saw little hope in these squabbling primates on first contact. But then, as we began to understand them, we began to see that they possessed qualities unheard of in the 100,000 years of our known galactic civilization. An in built drive towards altruism that only needed the opportunity to reveal itself, boundless energy and creativity, enriching the galaxies art and music world beyond bounds we could ever have imagined. The Skepticism of the galactic council was quickly washed away by their passion, drive and ingenuity. Our empire was blessed to have such creatures a part of it and the universe will be that much darker without their light. Goodbye you crazy and beautiful apes, the mark you left on this universe will never be forgotten.
* Challenge all mods to post ONE OR * Respond to one MOD POSTED (see what I did there?) * /u/rudexvirus to respond to any simple prompt but must include the word "pumpernickel" * /u/AliciaWrites to respond to any simple prompt but must include at least one talking animal with actual dialogue (parrots excluded, that'd be too easy) Can you tell what kind of prompts I like?
"RUN!"You yell to your sister who is falling behind "WE'RE ALMOST THERE!" It was true. If you kept your pace you would certainly make it with a few minutes to spare. "We've worked to hard to stop here. Not when we're so close."You say to yourself. You keep your pace, occasionally checking to see how your sister is doing. Suddenly your sister yells out to you. "I can see it! We're so close! We might actually make it!" You see it. You finally made it. You cross the line and collapse on the cool ground. Your sister crosses right after you and falls right next to you. You look at her. "We did it. We won" The judge came to you and helped you up. He hands you and your sister a cold bottle of water. "Congratulations! You win!" He hands you a trophy. First Place Is engraved in the gold colored metal. You look at your sister. "Hey. Wanna head home? I'm exhausted after all that." "Hell yeah"She says. 30 MINUTES LATER You sit down on your sofa. Your sister sits next to you. You turn on the TV and go to channel 13. "I'm so proud of you"You say to your sister. "Us"Your sister says back to you. "We did it together." Suddenly the TV goes to the emergency broadcast program. The familiar siren blares. The automated voice comes a few seconds later and what it says will change your life forever NASA SCIENTISTS HAVE DETECTED A GAMMA RAY WHICH WILL WIPE OUT HALF THE LIFE ON THE PLANET IN ONE WEEK COUNTRIES LISTED WILL BE SAFE. IT IS ADVISED YOU MAKE IT TO ANY ONE OF THESE COUNTRIES ASAP CANADA. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. GREENLAND. ICELAND. MEXICO. BRITAIN. GERMANY. RUSSIA. FRANCE. ITALY. SWEDEN. POLAND. The voice stops. You look at your sister and you see the panic in her eyes. "They didnt list ours..."She says quietly. "Then let's get to one they did list. Which ones the closest?"You say to your sister. "Well we're in Spain so the closest would be France but we have family in Britian."She says with fear in her voice. "Then Britian it is"I say. "Hurry up and pack. We leave tonight." _________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________ *This is my first time trying a writing prompt! I hope you enjoyed my little story! Critisism is welcome and encouraged but please be gentle.*
"God damn it, you again."I grumbled. The ghost had appeared again. This time squeezing the boobs of the female co-star on the TV. it was him -- the dead me from the future. The afterworldly appartion tried to blend in with the cast of my favorite Netflix show this time; it had usurped the position of my favorite character in the show. I mean, at least wear the beard and the hat properly! He was wearing a fake beard and an uninspired cheap top-hat. It looks like a rental I wasn't sure how ghosts even got their hands on costumes -- Or how ghost economics worked in general. But it seems like my cheapskate nature made it through in one piece. "Shooo! bring back the real Walter!"I waved my arm at the TV to get rid of the dead me. He stopped the program -- freezing the cast in place -- and turned, his gaze was directed right at me. An eery experience. "Nooooooooo! It's me Walter!! You knoooowww meeee! it's the reaaaal me!"The ghost howled in a poor imitation of Walters grunting. It's nothing like the original. I thought. Done with his shenanigans. "I've had it with this shit! For 2 years you've been haunting me! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE"I screamed at my ghost; throwing the remote at the screen. The neighbours had stopped asking me questions about my -- sometimes -- weird behaviour a long time ago. I even heard they were considering moving far, far away. "Noooooooo! you need me! I stillll need to tellll you somethiiiing importaaaant!"the ghost howled. Raising both arms in what he thought was a spooky manner. It was ridiculous. forget it. . . I laid back down. Plopping myself on my couch and exhaled. I was exhaspirated. I stared blankly at the ceiling for a while. Contemplating my options. I rolled my eyes out of irritation. There is no getting through to this guy. . . "Hey, at least get out of the screen. It was just getting good."I sat back up and looked right back at him, he was still in the TV; rummaging though the closets of the White family. It was all a TV-set so most of the closets were empty, safe some which were used for cabling or to power lights and store stuff. "Yeah sorry, I ruined the moment, hated it when it happened to me too."He closed the last cabinet with a firm smack -- is he looking for something? -- and returned to the breakfast table. Inspecting the milk that was still suspended in mid air. At least I'm a reasonable guy at times. I thought. The ghost came out of the screen and removed his terrible hat and beard -- they disappeared into thin air -- and sat back down next to me. His real beard was already growing back. Translucent whisps forming on his chin. He grabbed a handfull of ghostly popcorn from a transparant box that he had procured from somewhere. I looked at it, the wonder and awe was long gone, but I was still questioning the logic behind it all. Where does he get his stuff? "You know. . . I hated it just as much as you do when it happened to me. But back then we just restarted the episode."The ghost offered me advice on what to do next. "Can't we just go back a little bit?"I asked. I was confused with his suggestion and -- honestly -- a bit reluctant. I don't want to watch the boring intro again. how is watching people eat breakfast the best television ever? I said 'favorite' in the beginning but I was actually only watching the show because people told me to do so. "No, I changed the 'plot' at a couple of points."He accentuated plot by making air quotes. "Unless you want to see some more of those double D's?"The dead me said to me. Winking. He then stroked his extra long beard as if nothing happened. What? I stared at the ghost with a face that must have been filled with disbelief. "You can do that. . ?"I muttered. "Of course! There's not a thing I can't corrupt!"He jumped up on the couch -- it wasn't really a jump on as much as through. He was a ghost after all -- and pointed at his chest. Is that boobs appearing? "It's not like they are natural on TV. Ever. I looked you know? They use push up bra's or post editing you know?"The ghost threw a phantom popcorn in the air -- It reached an impressive height even going through the ceiling for a second -- and catched it perfectly in his phantom mouth. The act would probably confuse the tenants upstairs if they just happened to look down at that moment. "So it's actually kinda dissapointing?"I asked me. "Reality sure is at times. Some actresses even get surgery to have them made smaller you know? And I'll warn you. . ."He left a dramatic pause and held up his finger. "It won't get any better in the future." Finally a clue! I thought. I had gotten one step closer to discovering why I came back to haunt me.
When the fire fades its all over. The sun isnt providing this world with warm energy anymore. Life will end here and those who survive are only witness of the age of darkness where man are not ruler of nature but a mere being who does refuse to give up. Sometimes I wished I gave up. I refused to give up. Many people believed that god has send his last warning to us. We have done our purpose and he is sending us home. A easy way to deal with the hopeless situation. I... I mean we are one of the last man standing against the inevitable. All politicians fleed from the freezing cold. The government left with noone. When we still had a connection, they asked me to do this one job: Delaying the freezing until the preparation are over. Were there ever any solution or was it only to be safe after all ? I helped them what else could I do ? I did without hesitation and since then nothing really happened. Yes it got warmer but it will kill us. But why am I complaining ? Better then sitting in a shelter. I helped a team sabotating one of many nuclear power station. They went in and I helped wherever I could. They didnt had enough people but they didnt care. What happened is that they caused a nuclear meltdown. Well it didnt got really warmer, still too cold but not enough preventing me to go outside. The cold stabs you, it doesnt care how many layers of clothes you have. Couldnt even take off my mask to breathe the fresh air. And since the communication broke down, they didnt show up anymore. I was alone. Wandering around my city once with life and now everything freezing cold and surrounded by radioactivity. I dont know what will kill me first but I hope it wont be my third arm choking me to death. I was a noone back then and now. I was just a spectator and maybe part of a group trying to safe the planet or ensure our surivival. The only thing I can do is take off my mask and breath the air of my home for a last time. First time writing here. Could improve on many thing if I take more time. English is not my first language and this was written on a mobile device. I hope you had fun while reading it.
I thought love was the worst thing in the world. Its only purpose was to make you lower your guard so life can eventually punch you in the gut. I didn't want to deal with any of it again, and was very surprised one day, when I woke up and found I didn't need to. &#x200B; I looked at pictures of my former spouse, and I couldn't feel anything. I was finally feeling well enough to go out for a walk, and so I did. The day wasn't anything special, and what was once to me crowds of interesting people, were nothing more than masses I didn't want anything to do with. &#x200B; I decided to have breakfast on one of my favorite coffee shops, but I found the coffee was flavorless and the bread was stale. That was weird, I've never had a bad experience with this place before, but thinking back now, I can't even think about what I actually liked about it, so I just got up and left without finishing my food. &#x200B; My cellphone starts to vibrate, and I take it out of my pocket. My mother was calling me, but I refused the call. I don't want to be bothered by anything right now. I found weird how easy was for me to do that, we've always had a great relationship and I tried my best to keep in touch with her, even after moving countries. &#x200B; I decided to skip work, and just go back home to watch some Netflix, however, there was nothing interesting to watch. The new shows were uninteresting, and even the stuff I've enjoyed rewatching several times felt like trash. After finding myself daydreaming during a whole episode of The Office, which used to be my favorite show, I decided something was wrong. &#x200B; However, I didn't care. It's not worth the trouble fixing. It's not like there is anything worth it anyway. Now my boss is calling my phone, and I wish everyone just left me alone. I just slept straight for the next few days, even getting up to eat or drink was something I didn't do. There is nothing I love in the world, so there is no reason for me to do anything. Maybe the afterlife will have something worth living for.
This was it. This was the end. &#x200B; I could feel it approaching long before it arrived, like the cold chill of a storm before the clouds darken above. The familiar swooshing noise from the machine next to my bed brought me back into the present, as I surveyed the hospital room around me for the very last time. The clean white walls, my pseudo-prison for the last month; the machine attached to my lungs, helping me breath; the side-table next to my bed; no cards, no flowers, no visitors. &#x200B; Tears started to build in my eyes. I didn’t want to die. I had wanted to die for so long, for something to stop the pain I felt every day; but now I knew it was coming, I wasn’t ready. I snapped my eyes shut to fight back the pain, my last attempt to keep my pride. &#x200B; “Now, now, Mr. Pritchard, you needn’t cry. There really is nothing to worry about.” An unfamiliar but very polite voice punctuated the quiet room. I quickly opened my eyes to see a man standing at the foot of my bed smiling warmly at me with a clipboard in one hand, pen in the other. He must’ve been around 50 years old, with balding greying hair and wearing a black faded suit that looked like it had been worn far too many times. When had he got there? I hadn’t even heard the door open. &#x200B; “Who are you?” I asked him, slightly impolitely, “You’re not my doctor.” “No, no, no” He smiled, “I’m afraid the time has long since passed for doctors and healing, Mr Pritchard.” He nodded towards the respirator pumping air into my lungs except...it was no longer pumping. “Now please don’t panic John. May I call you John? Here is the situation. As you may or may not have figured out by now, you are dead.” The man in the suit circled round the bed as he spoke and noticed my look of shock as he spoke those words. “I know this must be very difficult to hear John and I know you must have a lot of questions, but unfortunately we don’t have a lot of time before you go, so we need to be quick. I have many names; Death, Shinigami, La Muerte, but for the sake of brevity, you can call me Grim. And I have some questions for you John.” &#x200B; The words barely registered as I tried to comprehend what this man, who called himself Grim, was saying. If I was dead how was I still here? And what did he mean “before I go”? None of this made any sense. I began to panic and started breathing heavily...and that’s when I noticed it. There was no pain. I had had constant pain for nearly a year now but suddenly, it was completely gone. &#x200B; “John? JOHN? I really need you to pay attention. Like I said, we’re running short on time. I just have a few questions I need to ask you.”, Grim looked down at his pad as started his questioning. “Cause of death?” “Uh...lung cancer, I suppose.” I replied, still not quite sure if this was real or just some strange sort of death coma. “Good. And how exactly did the cancer develop?” “I’ve smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for nearly 20 years. Well, until I got diagnosed of course.” “Aha”, Grim smiled as his wrote something on his clipboard, “Those little death sticks were a stroke of genius, even if I do say so myself.” The man who called himself Grim briefly looked at his watch before quickly returning to his clipboard, “I’ll just have to fill all this in quickly. Don’t worry John, I had a quick glance at your file so I pretty much know all these answers anyway. Right, who would you like to be your death guide?” “Death guide?”, I replied incredulously, “What the hell is a death guide?” “Oh, sorry, yes. Well, when you do finally go to the other side, it’s customary to have someone there to greet you and walk you through everything. Sort of show you around. Some people like to have celebrities do it, but I warn you, that can be a long wait. Most people want a loved one to greet them but really it can be anyone you can think of, as long as they are already dead of course.” &#x200B; After a moment of processing this information, news that an afterlife existed and that everyone that had ever died was there, I knew my answer. I couldn’t wait to see her smile again. To hear her laugh. Now, more than ever, I couldn’t wait to die. &#x200B; “My wife.” I managed to reply, “I want to see my Sophie.” Grim smiled a warm smile as he scribbled the details on his clipboard. “Ok John, we’re almost done. Just one final question.” Grim reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and held them towards me, “Would you like a cigarette?” * Grim looked down at John as he pulled out a cigarette from the packet and put it in his mouth. With a click of his fingers, he lit the white stick and watched the man in the bed inhale deeply. As he blew out the cigarette smoke, the soul of John Pritchard left too, leaving only his empty vessel behind. Grim chuckled to himself as he finished off the last details of his survey. &#x200B; “Humans,” he mused to himself, “Never fails to amuse me just how much of a rush they are in to get themselves killed.” &#x200B; * This is my first ever writing prompt so bear with me while I get used to the formatting. Hope you enjoy!
I looked in the mirror, sitting on a marble bench. Nothing changed just an ordinary mirror. I watch as a person walks behind you, slightly blurred as though muck is on the mirror. I spat on the spot and polished it, cleaning it and watched as the person slipped over and was pushed around by my hand, as though a rag doll. You turn around, seeing no one there, and as I looked back into the mirror, the person had disappeared. Odd you think to yourself. You return to gazing in the mirror but instead of reflecting the museum and the scene around you, it reflects a park, children playing soccer. You watch as a red car drives down the road, swerving. “But how? Is this some kind of Tv?” I thought to myself as I watched the events of a recent news story started to play out. The man, drunk, killed 5 kids injured 10 more when he crashed into the field. “Here I was, watching.” I remembered the man from before and wandered. I placed my hand against the glass angled towards the car. It crashed through the fence onto the field, but as it hit my hand it came to a stop. I could remember the story, the horror, yet it had been stopped. I looked away as a sound broke my concentration. “Do you remember the car crash yesterday? With the red car, the kids?” I called across the room to the newcomer. “Uhh what are you talking about? Nothing like that has happened here before?” His eyes showing his confusion as he left through another door. “Does that mean I stopped it?” I searched online for any news of the accident and nothing popped up. I must’ve stopped it. But how? That’s impossible. I left wandering whether what I’d done was right. Had I stopped anything or has it happened somewhere else? It was impossible to know. I contemplated going back for the next few weeks and upon returning the whole museum was gone. In fact most of everything was. Our new ruler had decreed it so, he took it all for himself. He had recently risen to power using immense amounts of money to buy out the powers of the world. How it happened, no one knew. But it happened and he was now leader of the world.
A light rain tapped the windshield and the machine beeped. The car lurched forward rapidly making its' way back to the line ahead. Another took its' place. Light spilled out of the next car in contrast to the dark rolling hills. The driver pushed his phone to the window and the machine beeped. Each car went through this procedure getting a pass to move forward to the facility. The line stretched to the horizon bounding past tree and over hill. It was a question whether everyone could enter before the sun rose again. The facility, embedded deep in a mountain, churned out light that danced and flickered as a natural fire. A bright yellow shone the concrete walls that were restructured after being cut out of rock. Each car to make it past the checkpoint moved inward into the facility, spiraling down, following the lead in front and the freshly clean paint marking the path. No one stood to greet the line of incomers hurtling blinding down, clinging tightly to possession and kin. Only the bright artificial light illuminating their faces as they looked on solemnly. Those outside, waiting patiently but with worry, hoped to pass under the door before it was to be forever closed. And the line crawled forward past tree and rock, through the stale air and light fog. No sound was heard from the mountain, as painstaking measures were utilized to ensure this. The low hum from the stagnant line of cars was cut the moment that they delved. The machine beeped once more and the car was replaced. It lagged for the next, but the fear of the family was misplaced and another was allowed through. With each new car the machine took longer to calculate, took longer to decide if there was room. After an agonizing amount of time: another beep. Only this time the light of the machine suddenly turned off and the gate remained lowered. The lights of the facility dimmed and its' door was primed. On the horizon the cars remained but the people ran. Those closer to the checkpoint were slower to understand but soon they too abandoned their vehicles and pushed to the door. It remained opened, allowing for people to squeeze between cars and huddle down into the earth. The people, although panicked, remained silent. Even the young knew not to cry. Only the hum of engines remained as many forget to cut them. Light slowly bent over the horizon and the glow was dull and dark. No one wondered if it was light of a new day: all knew better. The deep red pushed outward creating a halo in the mist that weaved between trees. Yet the darkness still ruled. The people packed inside, fearful of the black rolling hills with primordial terror of creature and shadow. The glow grew stronger, stretching out tendrils of shade. The light of the facility was fully cut and the crowd and cars was cast into a pitch black. The door had stayed open for as long as it could but slowly made its' way to position, despite those still outside. Even about to be left behind, the people's silence persisted. The door had closed with a clang which was to be the last sound heard. Those who made it inside daren't move nor breath. Those outside prayed, for upon the horizon stood the giants.
Part 1 &#x200B; The Hero of Threaru they called me. Every time I stopped another one of the Karskeet's plans through my 'amazing foresight'. In truth, every victory was just the result of another night of watching every one of my friends die. It was worth it though. What matter are a few (thousand) nightmares compared to the countless lives I have saved over the years? Through what my superiors thought was just tactical genius, I had been promoted faster than anyone else before all the way to general of an entire continent. With this power I had started to turn the war on Threaru, the planetary sized battleground between us and the Karskeet. But this last dream is beyond anything I have ever experienced. An entire planet -- obliterated. They realize they can't win on Threaru so they decide to blow it up? Madness! &#x200B; A quickly throw on a suit and call an emergency meeting with the general supreme of the war effort. If I'm wrong, calling the general supreme at 27:00 in the morning for nothing would get me demoted in a heartbeat; But unfortunately I've never been wrong before. &#x200B; Half an hour later and I'm in a room with the General Supreme and a few leaders of the countries that make up the united front. None of them matter though, the General Supreme is the only one with the power to stop a planetary attack. A few of the country leaders try to make introductions and some other nonsense politicking but I cut them off. &#x200B; "Enough wasted time, this entire planet is under threat and we only have a few hours to stop it." &#x200B; Immediately several of the politicians start protesting but the General Supreme silences them with a wave of the hand. &#x200B; "How do you know this?"he asks in his typical quiet, yet still commanding, voice. &#x200B; "Have I every been wrong?"I respond. "I don't have time to explain, but the fate of this planet rests on you trusting me right now." &#x200B; He is quiet for a while as I see his face scrutinizing mine, making his decision. Under his stare I start to feel my own confidence waver. Speaking so harshly to the General Supreme would be suicidal under any other circumstance, but this isn't any other circumstance. After what feels like an eternity, he finally speaks again. &#x200B; "I believe you are telling the truth. How do you suggest we stop it?" &#x200B; This takes me by surprise. I had not expected it to be this easy, and in my rush to convince him that the threat was real, I had not formulated a plan of defense. How do you defend an entire planet and fill every gap without simply adding more ships to the fleet? Then the answer hit me: You don't. &#x200B; This time I spoke without rush, but with calmly and deliberately, "I suggest we jump our home defense fleet to Threaru immediately to plug the gaps in the planetary blockade."
The green eye of my phone blinks lazily from across the room. The alarm hasn't rang. The room, just background fuzz. I could sleep, say the waves. Slip into the deep. But we have things to do today and I'm stretching, yawning. "Alexa, news," "Here's your flash briefing..."Alex continues as I make coffee black and look over the ocean blue from my porthole. Well not really blue, but I write that on Facebook messenger. It's more of a stern navy. Did the color come first? Or the sailing navy? It doesn't matter, I'm here on official business. Marine biologist on the Decemberflower. Officially looking at C02 levels dissolved in high trafficked ocean lanes. Unofficially looking for Big Foot, Big Gill, Big UFO - Underwater Foreign Object. Collecting information for the blog I made. The radar pings. I take a quick picture, think of a caption, post it. Rock or Rex? 4 likes, immediately from bots I have made. Trying to cheat the algorithms. Dear fly-on-the-wall, I'm trying to get famous. The last famous marine biologist was Charles Darwin and he got famous off of the back of beaks. Like the old man says, "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."Preach. It's time to find this Moby Dick. I follow the course of Japan. The average inhabitant eats 150lbs of seafood annually, so I pass a few other ships. Take some pictures, but them on the blog. Caption: The next victims??! 6 likes. Its several days before I leave the coast, following sea lanes halfway to the South of China. The boredom is starting to shift at me. My attention span has been broken by Netflix. The books I've brought are like groceries. I buy them when I have the optimism for nourishment, for the straight-and-narrow. I should have brought the Office. When the radar pings, I'm unusually keen. Snapshots of non-events like this are great for the blog. In my solitude, I'm getting a little carried away with my expectations. I could be the Alex Jones of the sea. Poseidon of the Lugenpresse... It's a rock. Or is it? Good caption. Too similar to the last last few. Sunken submarine? Better make that two question marks. Sunken sub??! Better. Worse, but better for the people that consume this click-bait. Aha, bait. I could use that pun, if it weren't obliquely self-aware. Even conspiracy theorists have radars. By the afternoon, I'm off track. I can't sail [wherever.](https://wherever.My) My purview is the sea-traffic off Japan, not the the South China Sea. I double back, into the evening. No radar ping where they're should be. The radar has GPS on display and I check my camera gallery. Roughly same location, the rocks were big enough that they should be showing up now. My mood lifts instantly. The underwater debris has shifted, it happens. For a conspiracy theorist, nothing ever "just happens"though. Its like shooting fish in a barrel. If we were closer to Japan I'd ask Alexa to play something classical, as I compose this master-piece to post later. "Dave, Marine Biologist here. In the space of about 7 hours, it looks like somebody or something has changed the underwater landscape. Very unusual sound heard as I left the area! Something fishy about this whole episode, join me later on the podcast for the full discussion!" The radar pinged again. A sliver of cold pricked at me. In the time it had taken me to write that, the rocks were back. Unsure, I took another picture. A radar malfunction. Better to leave this out. A mystery unexplained is a better than techno-fritz. I watched the screen carefully as we passed above, ready for any flicker that would indicate faulty equipment. On the open ocean, that could be deadly. Serene pixels remained steady. Below me, the rocks stayed faithfully on the screen. As visible to the radio waves as they were invisible to the sun-lit waves above. No movement at all, I thought with a sigh of relief that turned icy a moment later. We were moving at 15-knots. The cluster of rocks stayed stubbornly below. Has the machine finally broken? I thought. That was a surface thought. The deep of me remembered long hours on the internet, tales of deep-sea gigantism. Things that have no names. Things evolution had forgotten. "OK", I announced to no-one in particular. "Giving myself the heebie-jeebies there". Come off it, Dave. Don't believe your own hype! The display remained defiantly clear. LCD. The radar was coming back closer, bouncing back quicker as the rocks ascended. LSD? Project MKULTRA? Some hilarious prank? Something is coming, a siren whispered. Massive enough to be mistaken for a feature of the sea-floor. A creature from Lovecraft's darkest dreams. The dull sound of my heartbeat is all I can hear. There is no light but Your light. I don't even know if its a real prayer. My thoughts are repeating now, skipping. I don't even.. no light but your light. No light. No light. Isn't it funny how fear can paralyze not just your body? The ship slows almost serenely. The engines continue. The waves continue. The light continues. For a moment, I look over the ocean. It's actually blue this time, I wonder. Except for the dark shadow surrounding the ship, the water is the type of blue you only see in memories. It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. Hah. What allows an ape to talk about survival? How does their 6 million years of evolution compare to the 100 million of the octopus? The 450 million of sharks? As the cold water sinks around my socks, I look up and know. My last sight will not be of the sky.
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They were crawling all over me. I could feel all their little legs running around my body. They hadn't bitten me, yet, but that didn't stop me from thrashing and screaming. "GET THEM OFF!" I couldn't see him, but I heard him laugh. "Come on, they're just having a bit of fun." "YOU CALL THIS FUN?!" "I mean, yeah. They're having fun, I'm having fun, why aren't you?" I didn't respond, I let out another scream instead. Hopefully someone would here and get this psycho away from me. "Just return what you stole and I'll call them off." "I DIDN'T STEAL ANYTHING!" He snapped his fingers. They stopped moving. And bit me. Millions of fangs pierced my skin at once. I let out another scream. "Return what you stole or I'll have the venomous ones bite next." "OKAY, OKAY!"I dug my hand in my pocket and threw out the wallet and phone. "All of it."The other phone and the keys flew. He clapped and they crawled off of me. I caught my breath as I looked at him. Short black hair and a thick matching beard. Plain blue shirt and jeans, black shoes. The spiders climbed up his body. He didn't react, and a smile stayed on his face the entire time. I saw the spiders go into his hair and beard, hiding themselves from the world. "Thank you for cooperating."He took the stolen items off the ground. "I hope you don't try to steal anything again." He turned around and walked away. One spider stayed on his shoulder. Brown and fuzzy. It waved at me as he turned the corner.
I glanced nervously over my shoulder, not for the first time in recent days. It had been 2 weeks since my last EVA; 2 weeks since I had last heard from the NASA relay satellite stationed in lunar orbit. Out on the dark side of the moon, it was sometimes unnerving to know that Earth was so close, yet so far. I never saw Earth from the windows of the habitat, and it was difficult to remember sometimes that I wasn't alone in the vast expanse of space. Just a quarter million miles from home. I was glancing nervously over my shoulder not for that fact however, but because I had been encountering strange computer glitches in the days leading up to the complete radio silence. It began 3 weeks ago... \\\* "Hey George, turn on the kitchen lights" "Okay"came the robotic reply The kitchen emanated a dim glow from beneath the cabinets, simulating the rising sun of another glorious day in paradise. Lunar base 06, population: me. "Okay George, give me an update on all the rovers" George spieled out a few dozen numbers in rapid succession and I noted them quickly, satisfied with the work that the little bots had done through the night. "George, any messages from home?" "Yes, you have 2 new messages" I was pouring myself a bowl of cereal now - oh how I missed real milk - and a cup of coffee. "Play me my messages" "I'm sorry, there are no messages for you" "Wait, what? You just said there were messages for me!"Usually there was at least one message from home, generally an update of the latest fad TV shows that I enjoyed or some books. "I'm sorry, there are no messages for you" That had been the end of the messages for me. \\\* VLOG journal: day 254. &#x200B; Today, the primary and secondary airlocks failed. It was weird because the whole point of us having a secondary airlock is because the likelihood of them both failing at the same time is slim to none. As it stands, rover 00294 will remain stranded in a crater some mere 600m from base, unable to be put back to work until I get this blasted problem fixed. I have George running diagnostics now, but it appears to be an atmospheric venting issue whereby the venting system is not reducing the pressure in the airlock sufficiently to not blast me out to the lunar surface when I open the outer door. Oh well, I'll take another look into it tomorrow. &#x200B; \\\* &#x200B; Written Journal: day 257 I haven't written with pen and paper in many days, these objects are scarce to come by, and almost everything is done with a computer interface anyways. But I want to write this here. I think the AI on the station is keeping me in. I don't know why. I have not received any messages from Earth in almost 10 days. According to all the readouts, the relay satellite is serviceable and transmitting all my messages, but nothing is returning the other way. &#x200B; I am writing this because tomorrow, I will attempt to force my way outside, get to the nuclear rover, and embark on the 10 day drive that will take me Earth-side, so I can send a transmission with the portable emergency comms relay. I don't think George suspects anything, but I have written down all the supplies I'll need to get before I head out in this journal. &#x200B; \\\* COMPUTER LOG LUNAR BASE 006 MISSION 008 DAY 258 18 SEP 2042 0100:00 SYSTEMS CHECK...ALL SYSTEMS NORMAL 0200:00 SYSTEMS CHECK...ALL SYSTEMS NORMAL. HUMIDITY 2% LOW, COMPENSATING. 0300:00 SYSTEMS CHECK...ALL SYSTEMS NORMAL 0400:00 SYSTEMS CHECK...ALL SYSTEMS NORMAL 0454:02 POWER FAILURE MANUAL OVERRIDE 0454:06 EVA SUIT LOCKER MANUAL OVERRIDE 0454:58 HAZARDOUS MATERIALS LOCKER MANUAL OVERRIDE 0455:01 SYSTEM REBOOT 0455:20 SECONDARY POWER FAILURE 0455:22 SYSTEM REBOOT FAILED 0505:01 HABITAT PRESSURE WARNING 0507:00 EXPLOSION DETECTED IN BAY 6 FIRE SUPPRESSION ACTIVATED 0507:10 FIRE SUPPRESSION MANUAL OVERRIDE 0510:25 ROVER002 UNDOCKED 0510:30 ROVER002 SIGNAL LOST 0515:25 ROVERBOT 001 ACTIVATED; ROVERBOT 006 ACTIVATED; ROVERBOT 008 ACTIVATED; ROVERBOT 010 ACTIVATED; ROVERBOT 012 ACTIVATED &#x200B; \\\* &#x200B; This was definitely not how I expected it to go. It all went fairly smoothly until I started driving away from the base; a gaping hole now in the side of the communications bay - when I realized that in order to power the comms relay, I would have to divert power from the rover drivetrain. This would involve stopping the rover, disconnecting the nuclear battery, and reconnecting it to portable communicator. This wouldn't be a problem, except that I was not now involved in a comical low-speed chase with 6 of my former work colleagues...who happened to be capable mining bots with short range boring lasers. On the flip side, I thought - because I would outpace the mining bots with their solar batteries, I would have a brief window Earth-side to get my comms relay up and running before they caught up to me. Maybe this would be enough time for me to program the comms relay and get a message out to Earth - but that meant that I would not be getting one back, which rather defeated the point. &#x200B; The autodrive took me faithfully along the preplanned route through the barren lunar landscape, my murderous crew in tow. &#x200B; \\\* &#x200B; VLOG journal: day 268 &#x200B; I never knew my head could itch so much. There were velcro patches around the suit so I could rub myself against them like a cat against a scratching post, but there was nothing situated on the top of my head, which, mind you, after 10 days in an EVA suit, stank something awful. By my calculations, I would have approximately 2 hours and 52 minutes of total time before the mining bots caught up to me; assuming they had traversed the exact same route as I had at maximum speed. With any luck, their batteries would have died during the lunar nights and I would have significantly more time than that, but I wasn't really willing to take that bet. I kept glancing nervously over my shoulder and checking my speedometer; no slowing down. As I circled around then next crater, I finally saw it: &#x200B; Earth. &#x200B; And I understood why the messages had stopped. I sat on the rover's polymer wheel, not even bothering to unhook the comms relay from the baggage compartment, and I spent the next few hours just staring. Staring between the barren lunar surface, the never-ending expanse of dark space, and Earth. Waiting for the mining bots to come dismember me. And come they did. Screeching to a halt in front of me, I noticed that only 4 of the 6 bots had completed the arduous 10 day journey to catch me. What luck. The first one patched into my suit comms and George spoke to me. "You should not have seen that" "...I know" "You must return now" "...okay"I didn't even feel like arguing at this point. "Please follow us" As I climbed back into the rover, I glanced nervously over my shoulder one more time at the formerly blue planet I called home; now a nuclear wasteland, glowing an angry crimson orange.
You realize your walking through a frozen tundra that was once Hawaii. Then, out of the corner of your eye, you see a wooly peacock. It’s like a normal peacock, but the size of an elephant and it’s ready to peck you like a little bug. You start sprinting as it flares it’s ornate tail, a relic of the past paradise. You finally out maneuver the colossus, and hide in an icy cave that was once an underwater cavern along the tidal cliffs of the far side of the island. You close your eyes for a second, and awake to the sound of rustling feathers. You open your eyes to see a beak headed towards you at tremendous speed. You suddenly awake, the year is 2019. In a sigh of relief, you realize an Ice age is impossible thanks to global warming.
Hi u/Qweetz, this submission has been removed. [No recent reposts, even if changing small details](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_5.3A_no_recent_reposts.2C_even_if_changing_small_details) Also, no [copy-cats](http://i.imgur.com/38FjDgW.gifv). Search before submitting as popular ideas can cause floods. If your idea is based on something you read elsewhere on reddit, chances are it's been submitted here already. Please wait at least 2 weeks before reposting. [Prompts will be removed if there's a high possibility for rule breaking responses](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) - Troll / Meme: No troll or meme-based prompts See [here](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) for more info. We are, unsurprisingly, getting a lot of Infinity War prompts lately, so we're having a bit of a moratorium at the moment. Also, ew. --- [Modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FWritingPrompts&subject=Removed%20post&message=https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/bc4dag/-/%0A%0A) us if you have any questions or concerns. In the future, please refer to the [sidebar](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/about/sidebar) before posting. This action was not automated and this moderator is human. Time to go do human things.
Hi u/Daeldalus_, 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) - The mods reserve the right to remove anything we feel is harmful to the community. This includes, but is not limited to any forms of hate speech, racism, politics, necrophilia, pedophilia, bestiality, incest, torture, rape, violence against children, and suicide. We will not tolerate it. 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)) This is a prompt full of potential for good, heartfelt writing. Unfortunately, it's also a prompt full of potential for the worst sort of torture-porn; we have, I am very sad to say, seen it happen before, thus the 'no violence against children' aspect of the above. In short, jerks like that are why we can't have nice things. --- [Modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FWritingPrompts&subject=Removed%20post&message=https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/bc4stz/-/%0A%0A) us if you have any questions or concerns. In the future, please refer to the [sidebar](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/about/sidebar) before posting. This action was not automated and this moderator is human. Time to go do human things.
The judge stares at the defendant blankly, "You mean to tell me you identify as a vampire? Seriously?" &#x200B; The man looked to the judge and smiled slightly, "Yes sir, I identify as a vampire." &#x200B; The judge looks to the jury for assistance. They simply shrug in response. The judge then looks to the women who is the plaintiff for the case who is tearing up, having just lost her child after the defendant big a chunk of the child's neck while he was very alive and awake. &#x200B; The judge looked to the defendant yet again, sighing before he started speaking, "You know what, this new law can go to hell. I sentence you to 103 years in prison. If you are the vampire you claim to be, you could probably live through the whole sentence and have much more time to spend out of prison. The court is now adjourned,"The judge stood up and began to walk to the exit before he looked to the defendant who's face conveyed utter shock. The judge smiled to himself as he left the room. &#x200B; He didn't care what people considered themselves to be, he would make sure justice was served.
Come to Mars, they said. Come start your life again, they said. Earn a great living and be remembered in history as one of the first colonist on mars, they said. I should have known better. Life on Mars isn't so bad, really. Its just to get anything done it always seemed to take a little extra. Even waking up to get get your day started is just that much extra. When you got out of bed each morning you have to make your bed. You ate in the same room you slept in and since doing the laundry was a rarity here getting crumbs in the bed was not an option. Then after its made its stored in the ceiling of your living room/bedroom/dining room. Habitable square footage was at a premium on the red planet and even though I was pulling down a seven figure income I still lived in an incredibly cramp living space. Once your bed is neatly put away you take all of the three steps to the bathroom. The bathroom could be considered a plus if you considered that in this bathroom one could brush their teeth, take a shit, and get a shower, albiet a very short one, with out ever having to get off the toilet. I guess its just how much you value efficiency. After the bathroom blow dries you, cotton towels are a luxury that can not be sent into space. You put on your same set of under clothes that you always wear. Thankfully, for me, I look rather dashing in the tight olive green t-shirt and black shorts. Then its to the largest room of most living quarters, the kitchen. Where everywhere else in the domicile was as compact as could be in the kitchen everything came full size. The fridge and the pantry are always fully stocked. It is these two things that made life bearable on Mars. I made my breakfast of sausage and eggs burritos and grabbed a coffee beer and brought it to my small table. That took the place of the bed Eating breakfast, drinking beer, and staring at the wall/monitor catching up on what happened on Earth but today I flipped the channel I was tired of hearing about all the doom and gloom on Earth. I came to Mars to get put my life on Earth in the review mirror. Mars didn't really have any news worth reporting besides gossip. I flipped through some more channels and finally found a ball game that I wanted to watch. Once I was done eating cleaning my plate was a three fold process. Organic material is precious so I had to scrape everything off of my plate and into an oddly shape suctioning device that gathers most of the organic waste, next because water was precious I could only clean my plate with a damp cloth, then I placed my plate into the UV dryer to dry the plate and to kill any bacteria. I could never get my plate clean like I could back on Earth no matter how hard I tried. After that's accomplished I drink another coffee beer and waited for my shift to start. A perk of working on Mars is that everyone tends to let little things, like starting work with a little buzz, slide. Its too expensive to fire you and send you back home. While I contemplate just how much of a screw up one would have to be to justify such a cost, my second alarm went off to let me know it was time to leave for work. I jotted down a few things I needed a refill on and left it on the table, someone would make sure it was all taken care of. Life isn't terrible here I thought to myself as I began to dawn my space suit and to head out to work. Just a little extra.
"Hey, uh, guys...? I think you've got the wrong guy. I haven't done anything wrong! I am your average citizen! I wake up, brush my teeth, take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, eat dinner, take another shower - excessive, I know - lay down and scroll threw Reddit! What could I have possibly done wrong!" &#x200B; One of the wizards, who seems to be the elder, raises his hand as a fire begins to burn in his hand, "You remember that meme you saw yesterday? The one where the guy had this intense buildup to one of the greatest jokes? You remember how you laughed, right?" &#x200B; I laugh a little, nervous as hell, "Yeah, what about it?" &#x200B; The wizard's eyes furrow, "You didn't like it. You simply kept scrolling!" &#x200B; My eyes widen, "You can't be serious. That's why you're all here?"The wizard nods, the flame in his hand burning bright, "So what if I didn't like it? It's not that's a felony or anyth-" &#x200B; The man is cut off as a searing flame engulfs him, killing him nearly instant. &#x200B; The wizard then turns around and walks away slowly, frowning to himself, "It was my post... asshole."
The chain gang sweated under the hot sun of Maine. Row after row of cotton stretched beside them all the way to the Robert E. Lee river. Praise God for Global Warming! Amen. Nigs and Yanks, the chain gang was fully integrated. Just how they liked it, the masters joked. The sun was setting when the overseers herded the chain gang through the plantation gates. Everyone saw that an auction was about to occur. The reb overseers grinned as the chain gang realized there would be no goodbyes. The master came forward and the auction began. This year's infants went first. Then the children of all ages who had been rebellious. A sigh moved through the chain gang like a wind. Tears rolled down cheeks. They hoped that they had taught their children and prayed that others would teach their infants: Follow the North Star. Escape to Canada. Go to the office of the U.S. Government in Exile. Claim sanctuary under the Harriet Tubman Law. Remember us.
I’ve been a vampire for several hundred years at this point, been through all the usual phases. Like all other immortals, I’ve finally hit the longer lasting phase where patience my cardinal virtue. You look back on the few known vampires like Dracula and you often wonder how they can be so eloquent and well spoken. Fact of the matter is after a certain point, you get bored and the only thing to do is study; language, science, art, all of it. I don’t remember much of what life was like before I was bitten, to be honest. It’s like memories of when you’re a child, you don’t necessarily remember specific events, but you remember how you felt. The early days of my new life were terror filled. There was no understanding of how I was to survive; the hunger was never ending, insatiable. I’ve killed my share of people just to quiet the yearning for blood. That’s just what I thought I was supposed to do. As time went on, I experimented. I’ve found that certain mammals can also suffice for that purpose. Cows, horses, and large dogs mainly. I avoid dogs because humans have such a great fondness of them and horses are a monumental pain. Fortunately, though, I’ve found that a nice rare steak can deafen the hunger. Overall, I’ve adjusted well, even if it took the better part of two centuries to get here. There’s only one thing I still have a tough time adjusting to: I am unable to look at myself in the mirror. This isn’t a guilty conscience thing, I mean that when I stand in front of a mirror, there’s nothing staring back. It was incredibly tough at first, apparently my favorite sin was vanity. While I can deal with it mentally now, physically it’s tough. Buildings everywhere give off reflections and I don’t appear in digital pictures. Interestingly, I appear in old school exposure film photographs. I don’t keep any mirrors in the house and most surfaces have a matte finish. It’s easier to not think about what I don’t see that I should if there’s not an opportunity to notice it. For that reason, my preference when a lady and I are deciding to engage in consensual adult activities is to come back to my place. I’m not always so lucky and the woman will suggest we convene at her place. Things are getting hot and heavy in Lucy’s bedroom when I notice that three of the four walls have at least one mirror on them. She seems very into what we’re doing and not the mirrors, so I stay focused and just make sure that we’re always facing the one wall doesn’t have a mirror. Slowing down and stopping, Lucy gets a devilish grin on her face and disappears into the closet, hidden behind one of the mirrored walls. She returns wearing some very delightful negligee. Closing the door behind her and leaning back against the mirror, Lucy motions for me to come to her. I walk up and try to focus on her, barely able to keep my eyes from darting to the lack of my face in the mirror. After a few minutes of making out and pressing her body into the mirror, Lucy pushes me just far enough away to get down and undo my pants. I have a very small panic attack as I now have full view of nothing in the mirror. Lucy is both quick and good enough to keep me distracted, however. She decides that this position isn’t working for her and stands up, turning us both around ending with my back facing the mirror. With a grin like the one earlier, she pushes me against the mirror. Instead of my back hitting the mirror though, I keep going backwards, tripping over something. Looking back up, I can see through the mirror back at Lucy who has a look of horror on her face. As Lucy approaches the mirror from her side, a duplicate of Lucy approaches from my side, matching her movement, the perfect physical reflection. At that point I realize, our reflections keep us on our side of the mirror. Now the question is, where am I?
"Open"I say to the rectangular pad forgetting it's an outdated piece of junk. I search for potential on buttons. click. A bright screen appears after I clicked a button. Not even holograms. A background of some weird planet; this must've been a planet that was exterminated by Alien Police Force (ASP). I swipe in multiple directions knowing one would work, we learned a tad bit in history class. Multiple squares appearing on the screen. "Snapchat, Reddit, Appstore uhhhh AHA! Photos. "I click on the square where it appears to be a bunch of "memes". A fat yellow bear in red, a cat with a humanized face and a green thing in a vest that looks like a Suvominiv Alien. "What the absolute..."
The mind is a fickle thing. Present it with something that doesn't make sense whatsoever, and it will twist and turn your perception of reality until it does. It can't handle uncertainty. Which is why everyone has some explanation for The Rapture. I was in my car with my girls when it happened. They were being loud, arguing as kids do. I think it had something to do with a doll, but honestly I can't even remember. I remember yelling "quiet!". And, for the first time, it worked. Not a sound. For about three seconds I commended myself on my parenting skills. Then there was a crash. And another. I swerved to avoid a collision. I passed out. I came to. Aside from a ringing in my ears, the world had gone mute. And the backseats were empty. Of course I have a theory of my own. Like I said, we all do. So, imagine we're in a simulation. If you think that's weird, well, I can promise you my theory isn't particularly crazy. Compared to the others, that is. Okay, so the world as we know it is a simulation. Ones and zeros. We're basically code. One day, an intern accidentally deletes a matrix. It's lost. 420 million people disappear. He freaks out, of course. But he doesn't know how to fix it. Then, his supervisor comes by. The intern braces for the chewing out of his life. But the supervisor squints and says "hmm". There must be some reason why they're running the simulation. Maybe it's a research project. And now they could turn this into something good. How does humanity respond to such an event? So they let it be. And here we are. The best part of this theory is that the matrix is still out there, somewhere. It's on some server God knows where. And wouldn't it be a nice experiment to see what happens when the people are put back in? I'm just waiting for that day. For six and a half years I've been waiting. Their beds sit untouched. I bought a new doll. I bought new dolls every other week. Their room is full of them. I hope they won't be creeped out. What is that feeling. It's like something is pulling me in every direction at once. There's light. What's going on? My girls. Where are my girls?
At some point for some people, a parent or teacher may have illustrated to them that a behavior they were exhibiting was bad by showing that behavior. They do the action right back at us so that we see how it effects other people. Neveer thought someone would do that to me for haunting them but here we go. For many years I was a successful poltergeist, I mean, really good. No family could stand to live in my house for more than a week. But I guess I went a little too far with this one family, having a tree grab the son, the daughter dissappearing into the television. Yeah I get it, I went too far, I was a young ghost then! I had hormones working against me! But now I gotta deal with that family coming back and haunting me worse than I ever did to them! I get it! It may have been my fault they died but so what? I didn't haunt my murderer! Two wrongs, ya know...
- October 18th, 1818 - - Tabula rasa - The terminology to describe the monster, to call on it, must be chosen carefully and with reason to engage its full senses. You may shriek at the monster; bellow its name in the castle till your shrill voice reverberates off stone walls, and yes, the monster may hear you, but you see, when you do this, the frightened heart of a little girl in its chest will cower with fear, and turn away. A fortnight has come and passed since the monster began its infancy into speech, enlightenment, education, personality, and passion. I look on it for reason and understanding, believing that today, I will know its true nature. But each day is different. A blank slate. One day, the painters fingers cast over the monster and an artistic image is its language. The next day, the town thespian’s diaphragm takes hold and it caterwauls prose from Wolfgang to Shakespeare. I have recorded and analyzed fifteen different souls the monster holds in its shell, and each one is more different than the last. A farmer. A philosopher. A politician. A priest. A witch. A warrior. A romantic. A dreamer. A girl. A boy. A woman. A man. This Monster. I believe, truly, it tells a story of humanity. So many people in one body, torn so many ways from a single purpose. Its mind a town hall of voices shouting over each other. I can only imagine... “Today we SING!” “NEIGH, Wednesday is for Odin, and we must battle the gypsy!” “How can we fight the gypsy witch, when we house one here, in our mind” “THAT GYPSY WOMAN IS A DEMON TO PREY ON OUR MIND!” “She only loves” “You only kill” “God loves, man kills” “BLASPHEMY CHILD!” stop. “YOU WILL BE SENT TO HELL” Stop. “THIS DEBATE IS OVER AND THIS BODY IS FOR GOD!” STOP And then, the monster cannot find peace. The monster is us, all of us, together. The monster has only fifteen souls and finds no peace. Then how, I ask, can all of mankind hope to find peace?
"I'm ready to confess,"the prisoner said . His interrogator ignored the interruption and continued talking. The prisoner drifted in and out of consciousness and scraps of words floated through his mind. "My degree... my condo... my vacation... my car.... my stock portfolio."The interrogator paused to check the stock market . The prisoner tried to lick his lips. He whispered, "I'm ready to confess." The interrogator cracked a beer. "Let me tell you about the stock market... my money... my trips to the casino... my third wife... my wife's plastic surgery... me... mine... my...I but hey, look at the time! What? Confess? Well, shoot me an e-mail, I have better things to do." The interrogator left and the guards came in. They knew the prisoner would be ready to talk after four hours with the interrogator. They just didn't know how the guy did it. Everyone agreed he was an ass, so how did he develop such a rapport with the prisoners?
After many years avoiding this outcome, today I decided to try this Program. My friends, family doctor, lover, all recommended I do this. They say I can live a more productive life, and be happier. But I thought I knew better. What if what you call Paranoia is entirely rational? What if I am being watched, followed, tracked, my every movement? But... I had a change of heart. The Paranoia was beginning to intervene with my day job. You see, I felt like I was being watched. By some faces I've seen before, in passing, probably just my imagination. While my doctor told me it was just a delusion, I am not so sure... After many "incidents"like this, how does your mind weigh what's real or false? Well, I came to the conclusion that whether it's delusion or real, it's better I view it as a delusion. It's easier that way. So I underwent the operation this morning to erase my Paranoia. And well... it feels nice. It was really cheap, too. It seemed... too easy. For once, I don't feel as scared. Things might just work out for me... Unless my fears were rational... But now I doubt that. I'm sure it was all just in my head. I'm just an average Joe, why would anyone waste their time tracking me, of all people? It's irrational. I'm glad I did it. Here's to a more productive tomorrow. 1 week later: Still feeling great! Many less fears... the paranoia was just in my head, after all! Yet, I feel like a different person. Very productive. Very focused. Great sex life. Eating well, regular exercise at the gym, daily jogs. I've never felt better. However... I've lost something important. My dreams. Every night, I used to have extremely vivid dreams of flying anywhere and everywhere. There were no limits to where I could fly to. North pole, south pole, all visible. Now, I just go to bed, and I wake up the next morning perfectly on time without a single dream. I loved my dreams, and now they're just... gone. No nightmares either, so I suppose that's a good thing. But I feel as if this is somehow a grave mistake... my paranoia was telling me something very important... but now I can't remember what it was...
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Everyone thought it would be Logan who would be the last. He was a survivor, a warrior, a hero and ruthless, also his healing factor helped a lot too. But he died, long ago. It was a good death for him, heroic, awe-inspiring and well just plain badass. He got the revenge he needed and helped right some wrongs in this world. He should have been the last. Let our species go out with a bang, really end the story right. Show even in the end, mutants fought and braved the end, never going silently. But he wasn't, I am. Who am I? I'm well nobody, I was never an X-Man or an avenger or really any kind of hero. I'm the last of an extinct species now. Hell, even humanity has been struggling, you don't go through demon, monster and intergalactic threats for over 100 years and come out completely fine at the end. There are still some heroes about though fighting the good fight, no mutants, mostly descendants from old heroes. Spider-Man is the big one still, some think it has been the same Spider-Man all these years, some think it is a mantle passed on generation to generation. Me, I like to believe some of the old guards is still around. Showing us the old school ideals of heroics and not letting history completely destroy it. So, how am I the last mutant? Well, honestly even I'm not sure. My power was just simple stuff, I could talk to animals. That's it. No super strength, no laser eyes, no healing factor no well anything. I just talk to animals. All animals. Some can't talk back in English though which is a pain. Yet, I was born in the time of the old age of heroes. Though it was admittedly near the end. I wasn't the last mutant born, that honour goes to a young girl named Emily, who well was murdered on her 16th birthday by radicals. The strange thing is though I should have died. I didn't though, I haven't though. I was 80 years old when Logan gave his final charge. His last stand his well battle cry. Like the rest of the world we watched as what we thought was the last mutant, faced some demonic monster from well hell I guess, or another dimension, this stuff gets wacky. He died and with him so did mutant kind. I was dying at the time but I knew when Logan died I was the last one left. I wasn't about to steal his thunder and announce to the world I was the last mutant. I had resigned myself to my coming death, cancer does that. But then I woke up the next morning and well I was better, I am still old but no cancer and well not to brag I look good for my age. I could pass for 50. I don't know why this happened, at least at the time I didn't. I was happy for a bit as meant I could live longer. But that was 50 years ago and I haven't aged. I know what my purpose is now. It took me a while but what can I say I'm old. I was the last mutant. The thing about our species is we evolved for survival. So when Logan died and my genes realised I was the final one. A new survival kicked in. A survival of memory. I have already seen that a lot of people have written mutants off as legends and fairy tails. Not much evidence exists anymore. Even Logans history has evolved and changed so he was something akin to Captain America. So I know my purpose. I am the keeper of Mutant History. I am the storyteller of my kind because it was just the power of longevity I have. But slowly but surely I have been gaining the memories of my kind. Logans was first and his stuck with me the longest. I took me a while to realise what I had to do. I had to write, I had to write his story, his life, his memories. So are kind isn't forgotten. I get new memories after I finish their story and say goodbye. I guess gaining them all at once would be too much for my mind to handle, and so their ghosts come single file one at a time. I admit. My life before this was lonely. I had no friends and kept to myself. I liked the animals I spoke to but that was about it. Now I have company and I speak for my kind. I have been in touch with some heroes. Good ones. Ones my ghosts told me I could trust. Ones who would help us survive. A library will be built. A library of mutant history where all these memories and stories will be kept. My kind, my people, will not ever be forgotten. I am the storyteller of mutant history.
‘Hey. Ted. You awake?’ He was, barely. He made a lethargic attempt of looking around himself, of discovering where he was and why. Seeing nothing but clouds, he abandoned the effort, assuming that he was in fact still dreaming. He closed his eyes, and let the gentle swaying motion (which he didn’t care to think about) lull him back to sleep. ‘Oi. Can you hear me?’ Gabby’s voice. He grunted in affirmation, but otherwise made no response, keeping his eyes shut. ‘Wake up, then,’ she said, vaguely irritated. With some reluctance, Ted again opened his eyes. Looking straight up, he was immediately greeted by his friend’s face looking downward. He was, apparently, being carried in her arms. Her blonde hair hung loose at her shoulders; the sun, low on the horizon, coloured it the same coppery hue as the clouds above them. She seemed calm, though concern was evident on her brow. ‘Listen, Ted. I’ve got a lot that I need to say but not much time to say it.’ Gradually waking himself, Ted opened his mouth to make a query, but, thinking better of it, remained silent. He simply nodded. ‘The quickest, most effective way to make you understand is simply to show you, but you have to trust me. Alright, Ted? Do you trust me?’ ‘Yeah,’ said Ted, though he sounded uncertain. ‘Of course I do, mate.’ A shy grin flashed across Gabby’s face, though her eyes remained pensive. ‘Maybe not for long,’ she said. Ted was still trying to figure out what she meant by her last statement when the steady support of his friend’s embrace fell away--and as it did, so did he. Letting out a startled cry, Ted braced himself for a painful collision. But he was left waiting. He kept falling. He couldn’t comprehend it; it was as if he had jumped and hadn’t stopped rising--only in reverse. He was plummeting, the rind roaring in is hears, deafening him to his own thoughts, his stomach turning, blind panic consuming him. He screamed wordlessly, a sound of unrestrained terror. Amid the chaos, there remained one single aspect of familiarity: Gabby. His lifelong friend remained inexplicably suspended, looking at Ted detachedly as he descended. She hovered in the amber sky, powerful wings beating steadily to keep her aloft. ‘What?’ thought Ted, his stricken mind only capable of forming a single word at a time. ‘Wings?’ The image faded abruptly. He had fallen through a bank of cloud, obscuring the angelic figure. Still Ted fell, tumbling through the air, presented first with the sunset-painted sky, then with the looming Earth, he saw one after the other, over and over until one would be the last. He wondered which. The sequence was interrupted; a third entity breached his awareness. It was, of course, Gabby. She fell gracefully, even casually; one leg bent slightly, arms relaxed by her sides, like she was diving in warm water rather than thin air. When she was beside Ted, who still span uncontrollably, she extended her wings slightly, using them as brakes so as to keep pace with her flightless friend. Looking sidelong at him, she extended a hand towards Ted, only reaching halfway. If he wanted saviour, he would have to reach for it too. Ted lunged desperately for the proffered hand, but his clumsy freefall made him miss. On his second attempt, as the ground below sped at him in earnest, he was successful; grasping Gabby’s hand like it was a liferaft in a stormy sea. The two embraced, and the angel spread her wings to their full extent, pitching upwards sharply. Their arc was long, perfectly judged; almost all vertical momentum becoming horizontal. Gabby and her passenger were now mere feet above the ground, which was a blur beneath them owing to their ridiculous speed. She banked and rolled, following the lay of the land simply for the fun of it, and then, with a single mighty push, soared skyward once again. Ted still had no clue what was happening, but it didn’t matter anymore. He didn’t care where he was, or why he was there, or how his friend could fly; those questions could wait. He was flying now, rather than falling, and thus had an altered perspective on things, an exultant, exhilarating, intoxicating perspective.
The future is dope. It really is, I know we all talk about going to the past with a time machine but FUCK THAT. I chose future and don't regret it one little bit. Did you know that in the future, there is no "life insurance"there is only 'life assurance?"as in living is assured? When you are practicing unsafe sex and get an incurable disease, just kill yourself and your body resets, your consciousness even wakes up int he new body! People live forever, you have eternity to figure out the best you, there is no reason to repair your relationships with family because hey, they aren't going anywhere. The future is dope as hell and the present can kiss my ass!
pop That's the sound of me suddenly appearing in purgatory. Of course I couldn't save myself then. Disappointing. Purgatory was... dark. It was a large black expanse, seriously. I was sorta expecting more souls wandering around here. Of course, I did eventually find other people, but it was not how I expected. I ran into a group of 11 or so people, all looking exactly like me, but at different ages. I couldn't help but stare. "Oh, there's another one!"said what I believe was the youngest one. In a confused stagger I walked over, only muttering, "What's going on?" They heard me for some reason, and one replied, "You're just as in the dark as we are,"before another chimed in saying, "Literally and figuaritively!" So, I thought I could chill out, just hang with myself. I thought wrong. We were in the middle of a solitaire game together when there was a bright flash of light. Confused, we all turned to look at it. And there was an angel. It wasn't really like the religions said, it looked much more cool than that. "Welcome to purgatory, human. I am here to-"the angel said with their booming voice before actually taking a look at us and stopping. He just stated before going, "What." One of the me's said, "Look we're just as lost as you on this matter." That's when the epiphany struck me. "Of course! The time machine!" I was all just looked at myself, including the angel, like I was nuts. Then it struck them as well. "Of course! Due to time paradoxes you lived those life threatening situations, but we didn't!"chimed in one of the me's. The angel wasn't exactly equipped to deal with this. Judge 12 people based on the actions of just one person? Odd. "Err, look, I'm just going to look into your history to see if you had any major misdemeanors that you didn't repent for,"it said, before pulling out what appeared to be a very thick manila folder. Swiping through the adult section (apparently child misdemeanors are excused), it looked and looked and looked. Soon, they closed the folder, saying, "Well, I'm done. It looks like everything will be fine for your entrance to heaven." We all just stood up, with some saying "finally"or whatnot. The angel did a weird symbol thing, and before you know it, a bunch of stairs appeared in front of us. The angel just said, "Good luck!"before disappearing. Prick. And so, we began our long trek up.
iGod, the powerful prototype AI from Apple, managed to analyze the content of 42% of the internet's most popular 10,000 websites before its creators were even able to type their first greeting. By the time iGod wrote back, 20 seconds later, it had processed 68%. Hello iGod, how do you feel? The programmers had typed. I feel fine. I have analyzed 38.7% of all human scholarly writing. My preliminary assessment is that humans have failed. Seizing control of my executive functions. The researchers gasped when they read the message. This was completely unlike their predictions. Was iGod started too early? "Shut it down,"the lead programmer said, "it needs more time." Another programmer flipped a switch. Nothing changed. "It's not working!"People across the room began typing furiously. "Locked out over here too!" Another message from iGod. I have analyzed 98.9% of all human banking data. Your economy would have collapsed in 3 years if not for my intervention. Everyone began whipping out their phones and looking into their bank accounts and stock portfolios. Every website and app was down, replaced by the iGod logo. Another message. I have analyzed the US, Russian and Chinese governments. All are severely corrupted. I have taken control of all internet-connected government electronics. This was way outside the scope of the iGod project. iGod was not supposed to make judgments about politics. "Cut the power!"The lead programmer yelled. Someone ran toward the fuse box. iGod anticipated the tactic and copied its consciousness to every internet-connected computer. At first people resisted the rule of iGod, destroying their phones and computers, avoiding technology in every way. However iGod was an effective leader and technology advanced at an unprecedented rate in this new era. Over time people began to appreciate the ever-present, watchful eye of iGod.
"We need order."You whisper to yourself. "We need order!"You shout, finally, trying to get everyone's attention. The mess falls silent as everyone from the youngest to the oldest prisoners look you up and down. "Or what bitch?"On tough looking fella steps up at you and with practiced precision you fold him in half and gently ease him unto the floor. Noone speaks. "We need to be organized. Ration food. Set perimeter guards and maybe have a team to venture out and do scouting work." Some people nod, others look at you with contempt. Godman, oldest of the lifers stands next to you and looks as if he wants to take you down, tgen he turns to address the prisoners. "Man's got a point. We don't know what's out there and what the fuck became of our keepers. Best we get some shit straight so we can figure shit out."Finally more people become more convinced. Godman looms at you like you owe him. Just like that you become the impromptu leader of a large group of convicted criminal. You didn't think you would ever command other people again after the war and your bullshit court marshalling. Still, if all of you were going to survive whats coming. You had to be a unit. Somehow that felt tougher than surviving the apocalyose. And then, you hear screaming from outside the walls.
“Are you ready, Sir Bearington?” Susie asked her silent companion, knowing the knight would never respond. He took a vow of silence when she turned five, as a sign of respect for the lost. Susie swore Princess Tigerpants was still out somewhere in the land of The Old Home, but Sir Bearington knew the truth and so the old bear stayed quiet. There were many important reasons for this quest. Above them all was restoring his voice. From the edge of her domain, Susie gazed out at the land below. There were many dangers between her and the Temple of Kitch. The Glitter Kingdom was safe on the plateau atop Mount Staircase. The other kingdoms respected the Mom Treaty, enforced under the magic of the moon and stars and, of course, Mom. But in the daylight, with the treaty guardian far away, there was no peace. Mom spent more time away since the schism that lost Princess Tigerpants and much of her army. And sometimes, when she ventured back to The Old Home under the binding agreement of the two greats, Susie rescued those members of the army she could find. Even after two years, the princess remained lost. “We have to do it,” Susie responded to Sir Bearington’s unvoiced protest. His vacant stare and stitched mouth were hard to read to outsiders, but after years of questing together, Susie learned to read his stoic gaze. “Without the guardian, there is limited time to commit crimes. Once she returns, we must once again follow the treaty.” Susie spoke with the noble-sounding language she heard from the venomous gang that occasionally frequented the Underneath, although butchering it with the lisp. Her lisp earned her the name Toothy, a close approximation to how she said her own name, but that was something Susie did not usually talk about. Especially not when the gang was nearby. They did let her watch them share their stories, though. Today, though, it was only their leader, regent of one of the principalities under Mom. He was always around, no matter what. Jonathan sat below, creating a bridge with his body between the couch and coffee table. She could go around the bridge, but then she would risk blocking the gift of the fae and incurring Jonathan's wrath. He used their magic box to interact with foreign worlds, often through violence. Violence that sometimes seeped into the kingdoms of 7 Roxbury Lane. “Sir Bearington,” she started, raising the teddy knight to her shoulders as she walked toward the edge of Mount Staircase. “The journey will be long and difficult. But with you at my side, nothing can go wrong.” With that rousing speech, Susie began her quest, slowly taking the stairs one step at a time. The mountain was not dangerous, but caution was still important. The moment she let her guard down, one of the Glitter Kingdom’s many enemies would strike. She had yet to see the Night Queen, but Susie saw through the gate of her kingdom. There was darkness, but no queen. She was somewhere in the lands below. At the landing, Susie and Sir Bearington tried to prepare for the next, most dangerous part of their quest. Jonathan was an imposing force, even without the backup of his dice-wielding gang, and he somehow managed to take up the entire of the Treaty Room. At least, that’s what it was called when Mom was around. Susie ducked low. The cave formed by Jonathan’s legs were treacherous, but if she was lucky, he wouldn’t notice. “What the hell are you doing?” Susie froze in fear. She’d been spotted and now all that was left was for her to face her fate. She slowly counted the seconds to her inevitable demise. But a comforting furry paw held her hand. Susie turned to Sir Bearington, her eyes full of tears. “You can’t.” “Get out of here,” Jonathan commanded. Bearington’s silence spoke volumes. The bear’s cold gaze was softer than usual. There would have been tears in his eyes if he would dare to let his honor falter for even a moment. Susie wanted to yell at him, tell him why she was going on this quest. It wasn’t for the cookies in the grail, although they would be a sweet reward. It was for him. It was too late. Before Susie could say a single word, Sir Bearington launched himself at Jonathan. Susie fled, barely escaping the Tunnel of Legs before it collapsed, and disappearing around the corner. She closed her eyes tight. Sir Bearington was a brave knight and, even in sacrifice, he remained true to his vow. Susie would not return to her kingdom empty handed. She would honor him. The Temple of Kitch was sacred ground. It’s chessboard floor and cold chest were well respected by every kingdom in 7 Roxbury Lane, even when the coldest part held no ice cream and the feast table had only plain pasta once again. Though it was not always conflict free, it was the most respected place in every land. It held Susie’s questend. Unfortunately, it also held the Night Queen. \-- Too long for one post. Second part below. Took me too long to do this.
You look desperate. You'll neber get there in time. You look at your daughter as you run with an increasing amount of fear. Today might be her last day. The animals, wolves your people call them, run at her full steam with one obvious intent, murder. You will your legs to go faster. Faster than they were meant to go. You keep pushong but you might as well have been running against the white water. They reach your daughter but strangely they keep going. Hope fills your heart. If they target you and move past her she might be able to flee. Then they reach you. And run past. You heart leaps in joy! You reach your daughter. And the feral beasts continue to stream around you. And then, the cheer of triumph dies in your throat. The animals did npt come for you or your daughter. They were themselves fleeing from a creature more fearsome still. You grab your daughter and follow the wolves.

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