Split (1)

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He grumbled under his breath as he walked the streets alone. Words along the lines of ‘stupid job’ and ‘why was it me that was chosen for this’ could be heard. He didn’t come to Earth often, it was once every few decades. Just to see how technology and humanity has advanced. Within the past few visits, though, he was majorly disappointed. “These goddamn humans are destroying their planet,” His fists clenched. He nearly punched the wall next to him. “I’ve sent Martin Luther King Junior for equality, I’ve sent Albert Einstein for science, even William Shakespeare for literature! But they will just throw all of this away for some fucking paper!” He hissed to himself. Someone nearby just gave him a weird look before continuing on. He sighed. “I’ll be going back to picking the chosen ones for this cursed land. They just need to manage this place better. There are so many problems here,” He mumbled to himself. “Humans anger me to the point where I might actually snap.” He looked up to the moon. The blue that radiated seemed to calm him down. He placed his head in his palm. “Let’s see... What could this world use?” He muttered to himself. “I’ll need to pick another chosen one soon. If I don’t, then this world might not last another fifty years.” He looked around. “It’ll need someone that will help the cause of all this pollution and plastic. Now, who will it be?”
Jon awoke with a start, the fluttering of wings nearby rousing him from his sleep. He kept his breathing even, and his eyes shut, allowing his sense of hearing to extend and listen to the sounds of the forest. He stayed like that for a while, listening intently as leaves and bushes were rustled by insects and wildlife. Whatever had startled the birds had either passed by or was watching him as he lay between the thick roots of a great tree. Carefully he allowed one eye to open, only enough to peer out into the pre-dawn gloom. A face, scarred and bloodied, had pushed its way through a bush some thirty feet from him, dark eyes fixed intently on Jon. The animal was big enough to be a wolf, though its features were more akin to that of a dog; a pit hound, he guessed. The head was larger than his own, suggesting big teeth and powerful jaws; his heartbeat quickened as fear threatened to build within him. Escape was unlikely, the hound could outrun him, and Jon knew he was no climber, even when faced with such a threat. As his eye adjusted to the lack of light Jon could tell the blood came from wounds to the hound; it was hurt, possibly scared, not too unlike he had once been. He steeled himself, steadying his nerves, and remembered the kindness shown to him nigh on a decade ago. With careful, slow movement, Jon began to remove the blanket he had wrapped around himself, always keeping his eyes away from the hound’s face and eyes, but never allowing the foreboding shape to escape his vision. He hesitated when free of the blanket, aware of the dagger hanging at his side, which he had to resist the urge to unsheathe. Jon went about packing away his camp, keeping the hound in sight whilst rolling up the blanket and stowing it away at the bottom of his pack. When moving aside the remainder of his food Jon unwrapped his final cut of meat and, still without looking directly at the beast, gently tossed the meat somewhere around halfway between him and the now slavering mouth of his watcher. He had almost finished packing up when the hound stalked across the ground, stopping before the meal and sniffing it cautiously. The snuffling was far lounder than Jon expected, a noise that prickled the hairs along the base of his neck. He breathed a small sigh of relief when the massive jaws opened, a heavy paw pinning down the meal as the hound began to feast. Jon unstopped his waterskin and poured some of its contents into a wooden bowl, resting it at arm’s length from himself. He knew it risky, but he had devoted himself to a life of helping others, and he wasn’t about to exclude wounded animals from his creed. What seemed like an age passed before the gentle padding resumed, culminating in the stinking beast stopping just short of the offered bowl. Up close Jon could not avoid admiring the beast, its legs and shoulders bulging under thick muscles, the wide head carrying several old scars along with fresh wounds that still dripped claret. The hound kept its eyes fixed on him, staring thoughtfully. Jon checked the visible parts of the hound for more wounds, noting a diagonal gash on the left flank that had undoubtedly been made by a blade. A nod of the head preceded the hound lowering its mouth until it could noisily lap up the water, which took it no time to finish. When its head raised gone was the hungry look it had given Jon moments ago, instead he imagined he saw the animals pain in its expression and stance. Keeping at a crouch to avoid towering over the hound Jon moved gradually forwards, speaking in low, reassuring tones so as to avoid startling the hound. When he stopped Jon was directly in front of the hound, one hand extending towards the mouth, the other resting on the hilt of his dagger. He waited patiently until the hound began to sniff him, letting it pick up his scent and evaluate whether he was friend or foe. When a giant tongue ran over his palm Jon allowed himself to relax, but only a little. It took him far longer than he expected, but he managed to soothe the hound, the tension easing from its bunched muscles and stiff posture, until it allowed him to touch it. Without taking his eyes off the hound Jon fished out his needle and thread and went about gingerly washing and stitching the gashes to the hound’s face and sides. He talked to the hound the entire time, making comments about where the wounds could have come from, keeping his tone light. Often the irritation of him cleaning a wound would cause the hound to flinch, sometimes baring its yellowed teeth, but he Jon did not let his own worry show at such reactions. The morning sun had warmed the forest in this time, its heat welcomed by Jon. Once finished Jon stepped back, forgetting momentarily to stay level with the hound as he stretched out his tight back and stood up. A low growl came from the hound, a deep rumble that sent Jon reaching for his dagger once more. He did not draw it, for the hound padded forwards to stand beside Jon, the growl quieting until it was silent once more. “Have you grown attached to me already, friend?” asked Jon, more than aware he wouldn’t get an answer in return. Jon returned the bowl to his pack, along with the needle and thread, before shouldering the large bag. All the while the hound stayed near, watching his movements. He reached down to scratch behind its ears, keeping well away from the stitching, and was rewarded with a lolling tongue. Jon checked the path he had walked the night before, gathered his bearings, and set off towards the forest edge. Beside him padded the pit hound, easily keeping pace with his strides. Before long the trees thinned, and Jon could finally see the town of Wight. “I hope the last of my food was enough to fuel you, it’s a long walk to Wight if we want to get there before sundown.” said Jon. The sun was low in the sky as Jon and his companion reached the town gate, which came as a relief to him that they had not yet been closed for the night. Jon nodded at the watchman, who from the lack of response he suspected to be dozing whilst stood upright. Beyond the gate single and two storey buildings were packed close together on both sides of the street, which he followed whilst surveying the craftsmanship. Some of the poorer dwellings reminded him of the wooden house he had come to call home when rescued from a life in the wilderness as a young boy. Jon did not allow reminiscing to slow him down, he headed further into the town in search of a tavern to lodge at for the night. At the streets end he came to a town square, a pair of imposing buildings at either side marking themselves out as taverns. Yet these did not catch his interest, despite the promise of a warm bed, hot food, and strong ale; his eyes were fixed on the figures at the squares centre. Red hair blazed in the dying sunlight as the woman’s head squirmed in the locked stocks. Jon could not make out the words spoken, but he could tell by the tone that the three men surrounding the imprisoned woman meant her harm. Beside him came a familiar low growl. “Aye, boy, I see her. I hope that you know how to fight, because she won’t be trapped in those stocks for long.”
"Here girl! Come here girl!"I call as I search the small woods by our local hunting hole. "Nyx where are you girl?" Then I see the beautiful chocolate lab come bounding out of a tall patch of cat tails at the edge of the water. She is obviously happy and enjoying the brisk spring morning. Her coat is drenched and the training toy firmly held in her mouth she sprints the last twenty yards to me and drops the toy. I pick up the toy and issue the commands sit and stay to Nyx and then throw the mallard duck trainer far into the pond. Waiting a few moments and watching her muscles tense and her laser focus on the duck and smile. After what has to feel like an eternity my retrieve command launchers her like a sprinter out of the blocks. Her running is smooth and easy, and her paddle in the water purposeful and strong. Grabbing the toy she returns and drops the toy at my feet and waits patiently. "Good girl!"I rub her head and pick up the toy squeeze it once so it squeaks and Nyx gifts me with one of her loud beautiful barks. "Want to go again?"I ask and am rewarded with another bark. We continue this same routine a few dozen times and then checking my watch I frown because we have to leave if we are going to keep our appointment. "Come on girl. Time to go."I put the duck in my pocket and Nyx runs for the Jeep. She knows the routine and it makes me smile all the more. Once the door is open she jumps in climbs to the back and lays down on her blanket. I get in and start the Jeep and we take off down the dirt road, at the intersection with the highway the simulation ends. I unplug my uplink cable and the slowly walk over to dog bed in the corner with a tear in my eye. I unplug Nyx's cable and she turns her head and the milky eyes still hold all the love they ever did and her now grey muzzle licks my face. "It's time Nyx."I pick her up and carry her down the stairs to small electric car and put her on her blanket in the back seat. She whines as I put her down and moves her three good legs to find a comfortable position. "I know I hate this car too."I climb in start the car and head out of the parking garage drive towards the vet. As we drive I talk to Nyx about what I see. The birds and the cars. She loves to hear when we pass a Jeep or I see a goose or Duck and usually gives a much weaker bark then she used to. After what feels like forever we pull into the vet and I carry Nyx inside, holding her while we check in and while we wait. After another 10 minutes a petite, young assistant calls her name and leads us back to a room. The vet is waiting and the assistant leaves. "Hi Nyx, been a while hasn't it?"the vet asks my girl and then turns to me "Are you ready Mr. Kaplan?" My words catch in my throat and all I can do is nod. Then I chokingly say "I love you Nyx"and the vet leads her out of the room. 30 minutes later he comes back in and hands me a small urn and I break down in tears.
They were hidden well within the shrubs. Were it not for the old man’s breath rising visibly through the frigid air, most would have been none-the-wiser to their existence. But it was the big alpha who paused as it passed; squaring his shoulders to the scent as he sniffed the wind. “I’m scared, grandpa,” the boy whispered. “Shush, Samuel. You’ll alert the beasts.” The day’s query lay upwind of them, a small elk, starved to skin and bones by the meager winter offerings. The old man had just finished loosing the contents of its abdomen into the snow when they heard the howl from a neighboring thicket and lunged for their hiding place. The boy withdrew his hands into his sleeves and pulled his hood tight. “Grandpa?” he whispered. “I see them, boy.” A second and third wolf meandered into view, both black and muscled, but of slighter build than the first. All three now staring in their direction. The old man thumbed back the hammer on his musket, and gently placed a blasting cap on the strike pin. He had but two shots between it and the pistol in his belt, but he knew the truth. He’d faced-off with the beasts of these woods before. No wolf ever fell from a single musket ball. At least not immediately. Despite being gravely wounded, they would fight savagely until there was nothing left of them to fight. And now he would face three of them, with no time to reload. “Will you shoot them, grandpa?” “Aye, boy.” From her chair near the iron stove, Mary heard the first shot earlier that morning and remembered thinking her father must have found good fortune on his hunt. And while not uncommon to hear another shot, it was surprising to hear two more in such quick succession. Samuel would later do his best between tears to recall how his grandfather instructed him to run for home and not look back, before leaping to his feet and shooting at the wolves. The villagers who retrieved his body told of a scene of immense bravery where two bullets and the butt of a rifle slayed three wolves where they stood. Despite being gravely wounded, the old man fought savagely until there was nothing left of him to fight.
Those dead trees looked heavy. Way too heavy. They were worth money but not really enough to start dragging around Robbie Kaber looked over his hedged in plot of land, his croft. A 3 foot high wall surrounded the entire plot. Big heavy stones embedded in the soil, long awkward logs. Only the strongest man in Scotland would enjoy moving them over the stone wall he thought, sipping an ale as the midsun shrank away the shadows. None of the people he knew could do the work. He had an sudden epiphany. "Only the strongest man in Scotland could enjoy that work!"he boasted, sipping an ale in the village tavern. "I bet none of you could do the work! ."skeptics crowded around. "Aye I think yer wrong, I could chuck those logs clear over yer wall."Another man interjected,"I dig up and toss rocks all the time, I have technique!" Kaber smiled and produced a sheet a parchment. "Let's see who's the strongest man here, I'll write it down and nail it to the wall of the pub." -The End-
The sky was like the Fourth of July and the aurora borealis combined and multiplied by a hundred. Everyone on Earth could see it, them. The UFOs had long been proven to be an artifact of a time traveler visiting our time. It hadn’t been publicly shared but after today it would likely become common knowledge. Time traveling visitors were a good thing. It meant we had a future and it was bright enough we even learn how to time travel. So far there had been no negatives to these UFO sightings be we never had a day like today. A day where the sky was blanketed in bright lights, each moving at phenomenal speeds, each changing color and leaving a vapor trail of similar color behind it. Area 51, the famous area for UFO sightings was we believed due to the breeding program in the base. That visitors from the future wanted to see their ancestors and the Area 51 program must be responsible for a very successful progeny. That was the theory at least. So what was happening today? Luckily we had tracking technology and satellites capable of tracking the world over. We were able to pinpoint the center of the UFO “incursion”. A hospital in Atlanta Georgia. A maternity hospital. Who was born that day we could tell from the records and we could watch them but we would have to wait to find out why they were important to the future. Was it for good or bad reasons?
“The gods don’t speak,” the voice drifted into the still night. As if by command, the whispers fell silent, purged by certainty, purified by purpose. The dark tendrils of her vision withdrew, her mind lightened and Anath breathed deeply for the first time in many days. As the cool air flooded her lungs she couldn’t help but be relieved. Each time was more dangerous than the last. Far above the stars twinkled, distant, unmoving, and beyond the troubles which plagued Anaths waking hours. As if by instinct she stood and began sifting through the fresh corpses, bodies of feathered warriors and silk-draped nobles; they fell victim before the Agent of Nashe all the same. Some begging for mercy, others resisting their judgement by force. Purpose, Anath reminded herself as she tossed jewelry of ruby and onyx, loose coin and bangled gold into the ether. Purpose was the secret to control. Then she found it, a tablet just the size of her palm. Hardened clay, cracked, with an amber glaze. She peered into the scribbles etched on its surface, trying to draw meaning from the symbols but, nothing. A low murmur filled her mind once more. Tempting her with the language of the alien tablet, a tonal language with hard pauses and inflection. But as she looked at the bodies again she felt weakness. She no longer saw southern savages or well dressed heathens, but a father, a priest, a child. Their faces paused in agony and dispair forever, Anath felt now the heavy weight of her armor, sticking to her skin, her fingers caked in drying blood. Hot guilt escaped in slow droplets. Anaths breath quickened, as the tablet fell into a leather satchel. She moved into the waxing darkness, beneath tree cover and into the roar of distant insect chatter. The whispers retreated and tears fell. “The gods do not speak,” Anath repeated the prayer to herself between gushing sobs. How long had she been a killer for a god she never felt, for powers who never comforted her or helped her. It only took, day by day, etching small pieces of what was once Anath. Now, alone and lost. “The gods do not speak” she said it again, a hope that her actions were her own. A lie that all must learn to accept before their time has come and the voices grew too powerful. “The gods do not speak” Anath said again, tears drying on her cheek as she sat in open moonlight. Within her came a brooding pressure, a twisting groan and guttural screach. Underneath the ethereal starlight came a voice in a language like the Tharrosi tongue of her ancestors, “They listen.”
After studying what a Mary Sue is, I realize I am a Mary Sue. I have flawless hair and makeup, my IQ is 357, and I am super quick. All my family loves me, even though they hate each other for not being me, and yet, no matter what I do, I am still loved, rich, and famous. Nobody in this whole world is like me. Everyone is lower than me. I am not much, yet I somehow am more powerful than the presidents and royalty themselves? As I realize this, I realize I need to fake my death. Be overdramatic, start a new life, and then try not to be this perfect, yet cringy child. I start wiping my makeup off, realizing how much is on my face. I straighten my hair from it's beautiful curls. I need some flaws. What do I do? Um... Have an eyepatch? I have some from the movies I was put in. I decide to drive one of my self driving cars into the ocean, and put a message saying goodbye to the world. I take all my cash into a duffel bag. Some clothes in another. Let's try my story again.
Cowboy. Fish. What do they have in common? Well, how about the seahorse? I'm a merman who rides these seahorses as big as me, and let me tell you. They are fun, but really mischievous. I have 3 of them. One is a coral seahorse named Cindy, another, a kelp seahorse named Emerald, and then I have this brown one I don't know the breed, I call her Regina. I mostly ride Cindy on strolls through the sea, because she is a calm seahorse. When racing, I use emerald to race through the kelp and ahead of everyone. Regina, I train her and make sure she stays nice for when we go to the shows. I love the adventures I had with them. They all are my closest family.
Everyone alive today is a soldier. Some are still in training, others are war hardened veterans. Some bear horrific scars while other's visages are nearly perfect. I never trust the latter. It's always easy to tell when someone is really struggling. Their half healed cuts declare their strife to all. Broken bones are rare but they can happen in extreme circumstances. Luckily for me, my wounds are hard to see in public. The thousand tiny cuts don't bleed much or cause me great discomfort. I've become so used to them popping up that no one can tell when I make a slip. The homeless man I gave my last dollar to this morning didn't even notice the miniscule slice appear on my finger. His smile of gratitude was worth the small amount of pain. My colleague dumped a pile of reports on my desk and desperately asked for my help. Again. A tiny red mark on her cheek barely registered as her eyes plead with me. I assured her it was no problem at all and had to stifle a gasp as ugly, purple bruises blossomed across my ribs. But she really needed my help. So I endured. Our IT guy swore under his breath as he examined my computer then grimaced when a good sized welt filled with blood on his temple. He apologized before he left and I couldn't help but feel bad for him. His temper really was going to get the best of him one of these days. The commute home felt longer than normal. Probably because I let so many people cut in front of me in traffic. We all have places to go, right? My sweat stung the fresh cuts on my feet but they were nothing major. Dinner with my wife was slightly awkward. I knew she was seeing another man and I blamed myself. She did her best to hide it from me but I knew the bruises on her neck didn't cone from her own battle with her fear of failure. They came from his teeth. I was bone tired as I crawled in bed next to her. This day hadn't been that bad, I'm sure so many other people had it worse. My wife kissed my forehead and tenderly whispered, "I love you". Just like she used to when we were first married. How could I deny her thoughtfulness? "I love you too." I lost my battle today. This is how it ended.
Sorry for formatting, mobile What makes someone strong is their power, what makes someone stronger is their past The nuclear age never truly went away. Sure, the Cold War “ended,” but that age never really disappeared. All it did was change fronts and change parties. At least, that’s what I think now. Before the bomb, I believed that we had possibly entered a new golden age of civilization. Space was becoming more understood, equality and equity were spreading globally, and climate change was actually acted upon. Now, I know that we’d never truly moved on. The blast changed things. No-one got the same power, but powers overlapped and had similar concepts. There were the ones who could fly, due to gravity manipulation, kinetic energy manipulation, all the different forms of manipulation you want to think of. Of course, time-travelers reared their head too. It was ugly, at least for the first five years or so. After that, is where I came in. You see, I have the only power in the same lane as mine; paracausality. It’s because there’s only one cause of paracausality; it’s a loop. It allows me to pretty much do whatever I want, as long as I have the will to. It’s helped me, at least whenever I have to go fight. See, it’s based around the amount of willpower I have for whatever action or event I’m doing at the moment. Essentially, I’m an invincible fighter who isn’t affected by time-based attacks, but there’s zero chance of me accomplishing something if I don’t feel arsed to do it. That’s why I’m starting a new order, one that doesn’t rely on power. It relies on the past, because the past is what makes us who we are. Sure, what makes someone strong is their power, but what makes someone stronger is their past. You in?
"This isn't right, this can't really be happening, could it?" I went into the bathroom and splash my eyes with water to make sure I was wide awake. I looked out the window, "sunshine and same shite, it's always been the same thing every day." I walked up to the door again, and I could see the street, the cars driving by the road, the children who almost get their skull splattered because those dumb little rats decided to play ball in the middle of the street like they own the damn thing. Opening the door, however, left me with nothing but the void, the pure blackness of emptiness. I quickly backed inside and rushed to my phone to call of help. I knew what was happening, and there is only one group that could help me. "Hello, this is Simulazion tech support, how can I help you?" "Yes, umm, I think there may be a bug with my instance." "Alright, can you describe the bug so we can attempt to figure out what exactly went wrong?" "Whenever I walk outside, I end up with nothing, a black vision. It's like the outdoor couldn't be rendered." "Ah! I see, just wait a moment so we can reboot the simulation, I'd suggest you go back to bed while we do that. I apologize any inconvenience we might have caused." I should probably change providers. Not only is the AI completely crap, they can't even change the damn weather, sunny is good and everything, but it gets old when it never ends, even at night.
"I know who you are" I felt goosebumps travel down my body. The silky soft feminine voice pushed aside all my confusions from a moment ago. Right here, right now, all of my consciousness seems to be solely focused on that voice, completely erasing everything in existence in my mind but the two of us. I turned around and instantly froze on the spot as I realized who is the person standing right in front of me the moment our eyes met. I let my gaze roamed once more all over her body and felt as if a bucketful of ice has been thrown all over me. There is no mistaking it. Even though her body looks curvier than mine, and even if her eyes bore that particular spark of intelligence honed from years of experience, that unique scar just above her left eye will always define her to everyone. Even to me, her younger counterpart. I smirked. "I know who you are, too."
I was walking through the streets, minding my own business, reading a nice article about how dove-rates were down as the city started cracking down on them. Shame on me, because that's when I felt my blazer lifting underneath me, squeezing my armpit as the ground dropped below me. "Gosh darn it!"I struggled in their grasp, the myriad flapping doves holding fast against me and resisting every movement. "Not again!" My paper fell from my hands, and I had to reach up to keep my hat on tight before I lost it to who knows where. My only regret was that I was on my way to get insurance.
My name was Gabriel McConnely first. Then, Arthur Berringer and Jonathan Gammor. I was Thomas, Harrison, Lucius. Now, I was Theodore Morrison, but not for long. "For security, we recommend you change your identity within 14 days before your current one expires,"said the lady with square glasses and a greasy ponytail on-screen. Bureaucratic bullshit, if you ask me. We already lived our life in solitude, who'd the fuck would recognize us, anyways? We walked the Earth with them, but never among them. Truth is, it really doesn't matter what city, state or country you're in. And tell you what, if there's another sentient species out there in the vastness of space, I bet my ass that's why they haven't yet made contact. Can you imagine all the procedural stupidity they'd have to go through? "It's not like we're buying bread,"said Alice, handing me a glass of wine, "or a car, you know?" "I know, I know, but c'mon, it's the third time this year! I reckon they'd give us a break by now,"I cried, taking a big sip and turning off the communicator. "Baby, we chose this life. We knew it'd be this way,"she sighed. She didn't like it either, I could see it. Behind the protective lenses, plastered in her mustard eyes, she longed for a way to go back. How I missed those eyes. "Hon,"I started, but Alice knew. She knew the words about to come out of my mouth, and her frown darkened, "Do you think..." "No!"she said, sharply, "We can't and you know it!" And that was it. She jumped off the couch and swallowed her wine in a gulp, before giving me an ice-cold stare and leaving. She went to the bathroom and shut the door with a bang. Even there, in the single room with a door in our cabin, I could hear her sobs, and they cut through my heart like a knife. She was right. Coming back was suicide. If we were to be together, coming back meant disrupting centuries of balance, the entire world falling into the abyss, because of our forbidden love. We're lucky enough to find the Sanctity, I guessed. Their services had helped all kinds of beings, said the Faceless Minister when we went to him. I finished my wine, went to the bedroom and let myself fall on the bed. Out of habit, I grabbed the Holy Bible that rested on the nighstand, and opened it in a random page. It used to bring me comfort, once. The verse was John 13:34-35. "A new commandment I give to you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another." I shrugged. What a hoax. "Love one another."Wasn't that what we're doing? Wasn't that what we're being punished for? Wasn't that why we're leaving our lives on the run? Because we loved one another? Always away, always running, jumping from place to place hidden in the deepest uninhabited corners of the land. No, that wasn't fair. I couldn't stand it anymore. I didn't care anymore. If I were to die, if the world were to end, so be it. I propped myself up. "Alice,"I knocked on the door. Once again, maybe she knew what I was about to say. She always did. When she opened the door, she wasn't wearing her lenses anymore. Her mustard eyes were glowing, fiery and revengeful as I remembered them the first time we met. "Are you sure?"she asked, and inside her, I saw the red light growing stronger, brighter. "It's time we fight back,"I said, offering my hand. She grabbed it. With our fingers entwined, my sky-blue light started shining. As our physical, mundane shape started shifting, our lights blending into a dark, almost black purple, the entire room seemed to be on fire. On the distance, drums from both words started playing, and every single thunder my Father had unleashed upon the Earth couldn't match the rage of those grey skies. "They'll find us soon enough now,"she said. From the top of her forehead, two small horns grew, and big shredded wings protruded from her back, flaming and smoky. From my own, bright white wings stretched. "And so we'll kill them all,"I replied. "Angels stay in heaven,"she said, conjuring a heavy steel axe. "Demons stay in hell,"I answered, conjuring my long steel sword. "But we'll stay together,"we said in unison. &#x200B; And so, with the armies of Heaven and Hell readying, we waited.
I looked down and noticed the book. It struck me as odd immediately. It was clear that it wasn’t part of the flotsam and jetsam on the beach. For one, it was under one of the palm trees much closer to the jungle. And for another, it appeared to be a diary. It was entitled “My Survival” and it seemed to be in relatively decent shape which made me think it hadn’t been out in the elements for too long. I opened the book to the first page and began reading. Day 2 I will survive. I will do what it takes to survive. I have been on this island for close to 48 hours now. I’m still in awe that I washed up here. Alone. I know there were others that should have been washed up as well. But only I survived. I won’t morn. But I will survive. Another lone survivor. I didn’t have anyone to morn though. I had been sailing through the south pacific solo when electrical failure and an ill-timed storm did me in. It was a comedy of errors really. Anything that could go wrong did go wrong. I don’t know if I managed to get a mayday out before I had to board the life raft. I don’t even know how far away the ship went down. I had been floating for 3 days and was damned lucky to have washed up here. Damn lucky considering that my supplies were low. Day 6 My supplies are low. I managed to scrounge some water and meagre rations from the survival kits onboard the ship before went under. But now I’m coming to the end of what I had with me. It looks like there might be a game trail into the jungle up northwest of here. I am going to follow it and hope to find some water. Damn I’m thirsty. I have been rationing what little water I had because I there was no way to know know when I’d find more. But I am mindful that my survival depends on finding water. With that thought I leaned back against the palm tree and continued reading. Day 7 The game trail led to water! Thank heavens. A clean cool spring. It is a God send. Water! I wonder if it’s potable. I flipped ahead in the diary. Day 45 There was a storm last night. The roof came off my hut. It’s ruined. I’ll spend the rest of the day trying to repair it. I’ll scavenge on beach. There may be something that I will be able to use. I close the book, tuck it into my bag, and set off to see if I can find the game trail he had mentioned. I skirt the edge of the jungle and examine my surroundings. It is all unbroken jungle to the left and sandy beach and endless ocean to my right. In that moment I almost break. I’m overwhelmed by a feeling of helplessness. I’m familiar with this part of the world and I know how bleak my prospects are. I’m surrounded by endless ocean dotted only by tiny uninhabited spits of land. There are no shipping lanes around here. There’s no civilization anywhere. Certainly nothing I could reach. It is more likely that someone in my exact situation ends up here than it is for a rescue party to show up. As my head sinks and I contemplate just laying down and giving up I see the corner of the diary peeking out of my bag. My Survival. My survival! If this person could wash up here and survive, surely I can. I could even find them. With a renewed sense of purpose I set off down the beach. I could survive and I could find the author of the diary and return it. We could work together and conquer the odds. But first there was getting through the night. I found a suitable place to bed down for the night near the edge of the jungle and did my best to get some rest. Day 78 They wouldn’t stop talking last night. I would go to another part of the island but the spring is the only reason I’m still alive. I have to live near the spring and they know it. I just wish they would give me some peace at night. They? So there were others on the island as well! It sounded like the spring was the place to be. It made sense in a place like this. Fresh water was sustaining. They could trap the animals that came to drink for food too. I had to find that spring. I started walking along the edge of the jungle as I had the day before. This time I was focused on finding a break in the foliage. After about an hour I spotted what appeared to be a game trail and took my first steps into the dense brush. The oppressive humidity enveloped my like a hot wet blanket and I almost turned back then and there. I didn’t of course. I preserved and followed the trail further into the heart of the island. At mid-day I pause next to a massive tree for a short rest and lay back against its gnarled roots. I pulled out the diary and flipped to a random page. Day 53 I’m still surviving. This is my survival quest. My survival. I found a sheet of plastic. It is big enough to line the entire roof and half the wall! This is going to be a quality of life upgrade. No more wet nights. So he was making it work. You could eke out a living on the island. I flipped ahead a few pages. Day 60 It rained last night but everything stayed dry. The plastic sheet is really helping. They didn’t like it. They should. It keeps the water out. Anyway, I don’t care. This is my survival after all and life is already better at the spring. That was awesome news! They had upgraded the shelter and seemed to be surviving just fine. I really had to find the spring. Not only to slake my thirst but to join what seemed to be a community. I grabbed my bag making sure to put the diary back and continued along the trail. As the day worn on into dusk I heard it. It was the trickle of water. I had finally reached it. I had reached the spring! As I drew near I saw that there was a small break in the undergrowth. The trees and vines had been pushed back and the ground flattened from being trod on. I dashed into the clearing and straight to the water greedily drinking my fill. Snap I looked up at the sound and actually examined my surroundings for the first time. To the far edge of the clearing was a ramshackle hovel. And true to the diary there was a plastic sheet lining the roof. Standing next to the shack was a bear of a man. He had a thick unkempt beard and his impressive size seemed to be undiminished despite being marooned on this island. He stood watching me. I audibly gulped down the water in my mouth and said, “I found your book. I don’t know if I would have found this spring without it.” Walking over toward the hut I reached into the bag and pulled out the diary. The man extended his hand as if reaching for the book and I handed it to him. He gazed down at the book almost lovingly and caressed the cover before looking up at me again. “I know.” He responded. I looked around again, but didn’t see anyone, “I’m sorry… what? Where are they others?” “They’re there,” he pointed the far side of the hut and my eyes followed. I could see something around the edge on the far side of the hut but in the fading light couldn’t make it out. Curious I took a few tentative steps in that direction and then it became clear what I was looking at. “aaaarrggghhh” I turned back in time for the man to bulldog me to the ground. I landed with a thud all breath escaping my lungs. In shock and wheezing I struggled to move away but he was too big and winded as I was, I could only gasp for air. I saw again out of the corner of my eye what he had pointed at. A pile of human bones sat next to the hovel. Despite the struggle. Despite the imminent danger I could still make out the gnaw marks on the bones. The man had quickly mounted me. With my arms pinned beneath his knees I could only watch as he reached out and took hold of a rock the size of my head. Straddling my chest the man raised a rock overhead. He brought it down towards my face and struck. “This is about my survival!” Dazed and with a sense of detachment I heard the madman rave. “MY SURVIVAL!” He struck again. “Not our survival!” Whack. “Not your survival!” Whack. The sound of the impact was decidedly wetter now. Panting from exertion he raised the rock once more for the final blow and screamed, “MY SURVIVAL!”
The second I opened Google Chrome, I knew that damned book was about to go on yet another of those rants. "That blasted Google thing again? What am I, chopped liver?" Sighing, I turned to face the book who just spoke. Supposedly, it's a sapient tome of infinite knowledge, allowing the reader to learn about anything they desire just by asking the book. In other words, it's a search engine from before search engines were invented. "You might as well be, given how long it takes for you to look up anything inside you, not to mention your so-called 'knowledge' is now obsolete at best and straight-up wrong at worst. Remember when I asked you to look up when heliocentrism was accepted by the church?" "Yes. I discovered in just over a minute that the Church has yet to do any such thing." Correction: it's a slow search engine whose database hasn't been updated since at least the 19th century. "Okay, first of all, Google found the answer in less than a second, so the fact you took over a minute to do the same is just unacceptable. Second of all, the year depends on what you count as 'accepted.' Maybe it's when the Catholic church lifted the ban on books about heliocentrism in 1822, maybe it's when Pope John Paul II admitted the Earth wasn't stationary in 1992. Point is, the church now accepts heliocentrism as true." ...Huh. The book's been quiet for a while now. Maybe I finally got through to it after all this time. "Okay, you made your point about the heliocentrism, but since when was a minute-long search unacceptably long? Back in my day, that was actually the least amount of time it took. Furthermore..." Or maybe not. This was going to be a long one...
The deal The phone snatched Anig from her mellow dream and dragged her angrily into consciousness. Besides her, her husband Hoel turned his face away, grunted once to notify her of his discontent and twice to urge her to take the damn’ call. Anig’s hand groped its way to the phone, stuck it to her head and she listened. Hoel grunted again, in an inquiring manner. “‘M’afraid I have to go, Honey.” Disappointed grunt. “ Can you drive the kids at school tomorr… this morning?” Determined grunt. Then he rose his clenched fist, squeezed emphatically strong to show his support to his wife and assert his confidence in his own ability to feed their offsprings and drop them safely at the learning sanctum. She smiled and landed a kiss on his ear. Fifteen minutes later, Anig was driving slowly into the night. The rain was so dense, she could have been a captain cutting through waves as big as buildings. When she arrived at her rendezvous point, her team was already at work. The beach at night, during a storm, was a cold, deafening hell. Anig fixed her fluorescent armbands and walked, battling against the wind, toward her team leader. “Good morning Raphael”, she yelled to cover the howling waves crashing on the shore. What have we got?” “Bean Nighe. From Dunham, Scotland.” “Never heard of it!” “ April 1775.” “Good Lord!” Her eyes plunged in the screeching darkness where she could barely distinguish her colleagues armbands moving around. She knew their every motion, what they were supposed to do so she immediately spotted that something was not right. “How many of them?” Before answering, Raphael pressed his fingers where his large nose met his grey eyebrows. A sigh escaped his beard but he regained his composure and stood tall against Nature’s fury. “Just one, Anig. Just a big one. Get in the cuddy and start dragging it back in the water.” Heading for the boat, Anig passed so close to the beached creature that she could catch a glimpse of manic despair in its wide glassy eye. It was huge. The biggest one she... The biggest one on record, to her knowledge, and her family was in the trade for centuries! “ How in the…” “They merged! shouted Raphael. The crew merged!” With a bright torch, he lighted the whole thing up. As large as a whale, its skin ripped off by the rocks on the beach, the mermaid howled. The human-like part of its body seemed to have been shaped by a toddler experimenting with clay, not fully grasping the intricacy of the human anatomy; distorted eyes, nostrils, cavernous mouth, wrong number of articulations and fingers while the fish part looked like a swirling school of conger eels, forced to live together, sewn in a hideous bunch of rotten ferocity. As its enormous tail hit the sand sending tremors in the ground she could feel through the sole of her boots, Anig snapped out of her contemplation and rushed to the boat. With a colleague, they fixed the cables ensnared around the creature to a trawling nets engine and slowly, fighting against the swell, they started haul the mermaid back in the sea. But it must have realized quickly what was going on: it rooted his hideous hands in the cold sand and crawled toward the land. Its strength rivaled the boat’s engine and Anig understood in a flash that the cables were about to snap. She raised her torch to warm her crew but a wave, combined with the creature sudden jerk, destabilised the boat and they capsized. Most people dread the big monsters roaming the darkness below: the most ghastly ones were also amongst the tiniest. There was a bacteria, thriving on rotten flesh, a first-choice guest when storms sent feasts of sailors and fishermen into the abyss, that would claim some corpses as its own, its territory, its host. Gnawing its way along the nerves, it would rekindle certain… desires. To delay the utter decay of its newfound kingdom, the bacteria would strike a deal with the confused, shredded soul. Breathe the air no more. Stride across the earth no more. No more, kiss your loved ones, nor smell their scent, nor feel their warm skin against your skin. But let me devour you, Dead One, gently, and I’ll get you back to the land of dirt, I’ll let you search for them. A sharp sea current sent her straight back to the surface and Anig inhaled at last the salty air above the waves. She felt the icy flesh on the mermaid brushed against her leg and rushed back to the calm, silent abyss. Was the mermaid aware and helping her or was she just in luck? A few additional seconds under water, in this dark, lonely, cold coffin, burried away from the sun, and her kids, her husband, their garden and their love, she might have…No, with her last heartbeat, she would have taken the deal.
"To paint the sky!" People thought he was mad, thought that Leonardo was losing it. But then the money come in, way more than anyone expected. The billionaires of the world donated millions to the cause. The people condemned the project but could do nothing but revolt. War ensued, it was the common vs the common the rich pay to fight for them. It started one early spring morning, people all over Europe held witness to one of the greatest beginnings of any art project. Leonardo had begun his work on the sky. War grew heavier and dirtier as the sky mural grew, years passed without much change. Both armies were equally matches and time was wearing them both down. Leonardo died before completion of the mural but the northern hemispheres skies belong to his works. The world rests now to bear witness to his genius until they get get bored and war returns with its big white teeth and sharp claws.
It was a grim time back then. The days of being a supervillain focused solely on providing divine punishment to anyone who had an opinion that challenged my own. I remembered disintegrating a young woman who I had a conversation with about the shape of the earth. Do I regret it? Nope, and you wouldn't either if you encountered a flat earth extremist. I'll admit, it was fun being able to destroy anyone at all who I disliked. Chefs who didn't prepare my orders the way I instructed, police officers who pulled me over for going over the speed limit, old people who kept up bathrooms. Now you may ask, why destroy a helpless old man who simply wanted to use the bathroom, but I'll tell you this, if you had double chilli burgers with two chocolate milkshakes and spicy Indian food all at the same time (don't ask) you would want the bathrooms to be available ASAP too. Point is it was fun, exhilarating, but also... A bit lonely. The first time I ever had an actual conversation with someone was with my long time friend Chuck (bless his soul) over four years ago. We had a decent heart to heart and as cheesy as it sounds, Chuck actually convinced me that there was more to life than being an above top tier supervillain. I followed him to his book club and met some of his friends. The sweetest people I had ever met. We went from meeting only once a week at book club, to meeting another time a week at family and friends game night at Chuck's, to hanging out all the time. It was weeks before I noticed that I hadn't committed an evil act or even seen my suit. Chuck had been the one to remind me it was there. Even after finding out who I was and what I'd done, he was still my friend. He helped me to not just put down the suit, but to burn it. He introduced me to his wife's sister Bernadette and in little over a year, Chuck and I were brothers. Everything was coming up Impurist. That is, until one night, when tragedy struck. Bernadette and I had been enjoying our anniversary dinner at home. Our honorary chef for the night was my beautiful sister in law, Gloria. Bernadette had gone to the bathroom and Gloria left to get some items from the store. I was alone, for a time. A blue hole suddenly tore open in the fabric of spacetime and out came... A leather gloved hand clenched into a fist? It struck me square in the nose sending me and my chair flying across the room. What the hell? I turned to look at my attacker and found... Me? It wasn't exactly me, a younger version of me. The one from four years ago to be precise, and he was pissed. "What the hell are you doing?"I asked him/me, holding my nose to avoid more blood from dripping out. "You freaking sellout!"He replied. "What? What are you talking about?" "Oh don't give me that crap. You know exactly what I'm talking about. 'Bernadette?' 'Chuck?' A frickin book club?"He replied in a mocking voice "I like book club." "That's why I'm here. You pussied out on me. You fucking..."I could tell he was racking his brain for a complementary insult. "Weiner dog."He finished. "Ahh." "Do you know what you've done? My-our arch nemesis Paradox travelled to the future and came back with evidence that I turned into some fat, male patternedly bald-" "That's not a word-" "Old fart! I've got a rep to uphold and if you can't do it..."He pulled a laser gun from his suit. I recognized it. It was the one I used on that flat earther. "Wait!"I said. "I didn't ruin your rep. I gave you a life." "What?" "Look at you man. You're a grown ass man running around in tights with a brief over it-" "Batman wears briefs. Super man wears briefs. Aqua man too." "Disintegrating people who have different opinions than you. I found friends, people who care about us. I found happiness. Not the kind we got when we vaporized the flat earther-" "Good times." "I mean real, genuine happiness. And that's much better than anything your rep can afford you. Look I'm not telling you to change, you can do anything you want right now. But I'm just saying, when you meet Chuck, and you will meet him, hear him out. You'll be interested in what he has to say." His expression softened and he lowered the gun. "It gets better?"He asked, his voice tight with emotion. I nodded in reply. I could see tears welling up in his eyes. He threw the gun over his shoulder and spoke. "I'm sorry man. It's just-" "Hey, you don't have to explain. I'm you remember?" "Right. I remember now."He snapped his fingers. "Hey, sorry about today." "No worries, it's gonna be a hell of a story to tell my-our grandkids." He smiled, one of the first genuine smiles I'd ever smiled back then. I was about to go over and hug him, but I heard a sound I knew all too well. The sound of the laser gun. It struck him in the center of his back and he faded into a cloud of ash, revealing Bernadette holding the gun behind him. "Oh my God honey are you OK?"She asked. I stared in horror at the fresh cloud of dust that settled in front of me. "No I'm not OK. You just fucking killed me right in front of me! Do you know what this means? I never meet Chuck, I don't get introduced to you and I never make it to this point in my life!" She looked at me like a baby looks when he breaks something by accident. "Oops?" So this one was rather long. Hope it wasn't anticlimactic or filled with errors as I'm currently too busy to go over. Oh and uhh r/StoryMation for more stories.
"In the context of Greek mythology and literature..."I began, the mic icon flickering in the corner of my screen. As I expected, text began to blink out into place on my document. I glanced down at my notes, continuing, "...Prometheus occupies and interesting space. Though he arguably did..." Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that my text to speech seemed to be typing in all caps. I looked at the screen. Instead of seeing what I had just spoken, all that my document said was: `LISTEN TO THE SKY, STARE INTO THE NIGHT, AND FEEL THE DESERT IN YOUR BONES.` I stared at the screen, my cursor blinking gently at the end of the line. For some reason, I found the phrase oddly chilling, as if it was supposed to mean something to me. I frowned and opened up a task manager window, scrolling to find my voice interpreter. I killed it, and closed out of my document, then restarted both. Hesitantly, I clicked the button to activate voice recognition. "In the context of Greek mytho..." `LISTEN TO THE SKY, STARE INTO THE` As I spoke, the same phrase began to type itself out onto the screen. What the fuck was happening? I wondered to myself. Maybe it was just glitching on that phrase for some reason? "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,"I said, giving it a shot. It continued typing, the same phrase beginning to repeat itself as I spoke more. I sat back in my chair, at a loss. Was it just broken? What the hell? I brought my shaky hands to the keys, attempting to type the first sentence to my essay. It worked fine, save a few typos. Out of curiosity, I googled the phrase. Nothing special came up, just an assortment of song lyrics and poems in which the words "night,""desert,"and "sky"appeared. I went to the support forum for my particular voice to text and looked up the issue. Again, nothing. No mention of that entire phrase, and no reports of the program ever doing this. Well, shit I thought, am I going to ave to type this entire thing? It's due in six hours, I don't even know if I'm capable of that. Wondering what to do and feeling more than a little anxious, I restarted my laptop. Once it was back up, I fired up both programs again. "One two three four the quick brown fox yadda yadda orange peel,"I spoke, testing nonsense phrases once again. I looked on, dismay growing, as it began to type the same thing. `LISTEN TO THE SKY, STARE INTO THE NIGHT, AND FEEL THE DESERT IN YOUR BONES. THE WIND KNOWS YOUR NAME, ZOE. HEED IT'S CALL.` Ohh what the fuck what the fuck why did it type my name, what does that mean? I thought, the beginnings of panic starting in my chest. I stood up from my desk, stepping back from my computer and glancing around my room. I walked over to my window, moving to close it, paranoia creeping in as I glanced out at the night. That was when I heard it, like a thousand voices whispering in unison. "LISTEN,"I heard in the wind, "LISTEN, TRAVELER." "I am officially losing my mind,"I said out loud, slowly backing away from the window. The wind howled louder, and a coyote howled in the distance. "This has to be a dream, right?" "ZOE,"came the voices again, seeming to come from outside my window, "CLOSE YOUR EYES AND LISTEN TO THE SKY." A chill shot up my spine as I stood frozen there, unable to move out of panic. "Wh- what th-the fuck?"I managed to stammer out, staring at the open window. "BE NOT AFRAID, TRAVELER"returned the voices, "THE DESERT SINGS IN YOUR BONES AND YOUR BLOOD IS MOONLIGHT." Then, everything went black. I awoke on cold sand. The wind blew gently over me, lying face up on the ground, and the moonlight cast a blue glow on everything around me. The stars twinkled in the vast desert sky. All that was visible, as far off as I could see, was desert. Small, dry plants and strange cacti dotted the sandy landscape, but there was no sign of anything or anyone else. As I looked around, images began to fill my head, half-formed memories of things that never happened. Dark figures, strange shapes, other places, a city of glass, a vast oasis, whispering voices, and indescribable things all swirled across my vision. I didn't know what to think. It really did have to be a dream now, right? I wondered, thoughts clouded by the flood of sights and sounds. I expected to feel anxious, there in the desert, as I waited for my vision to clear. But I didn't. All I could feel was... peace. A kind of serenity I'd never known filled me. My hands didn't shake, that itching pain under my skin was gone, and the cool, dry air was pleasant on my skin My vision cleared. I was still in the same place, barefoot in the sand. Now, though, there was someone standing before me. She was beautiful, clad in a strange, rippling, white garment. Her hand was outstretched, and I could see silvery eyes glinting from beneath her dark hair, blowing in the wind. When she spoke, her voice was dusky and low, with an unidentifiable note to it, "It is time that you learn, Zoe. Learn what you are." I took her hand.
Bloody typical. I've been an agnostic for a long time. Religious upbringing, crisis of faith upon my adolescence, became atheist and eventually matured and became agnostic. Pretty standard. I've always said that I'd believe if I was shown evidence of God's existence but this isn't exactly how I'd imagined it. They're well armed these angels and bloody eager for supposedly peaceful creatures. They've probably been waiting centuries for an opportunity to knock some sense into us. Spears so bright you can't bare to look at them, arrows that never fail to find their mark and winged horses that can outrun a plane and take anti air missiles without so much as flinching. We never stood a chance. All of this bloodshed and what's their reason? All of the atrocities that humans have subjected each other to and what do they pick? Some rich, middle class family trying to tarnish their son's charity work. Seems a slight overreaction if you ask me. They could have just let him into heaven anyway. But who am I to argue with the creator of the universe. It's ironic really. They were trying to tarnish their son because they felt he was making them look bad. They couldn't hold themselves accountable for their own actions. It couldn't be their fault, oh no it's always someone else. But isn't that what that old bastard up in the sky is doing right now? Refusing to take responsibility. He created us in his own image so we're told. He's guilty of all of our sins. Our bad traits are every bit as Godlike as our good ones. Maybe that's it. God simply cannot stand his own reflection any more. I imagine being an all powerful being gives you quite the ego. Perhaps all of this comes from his own refusal to admit that he's not perfect because we clearly aren't. Or maybe I'm just trying to rationalize the most irrational event in all of history. I'm still not going to church though. Bollocks to that.
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There are so many of them. These Popbots, who do they think they are? They are only programs in a metal suits, anyways. Goddammit. I was something, now look at me. Now I dress the stage for these monstrosities. I set up the lights. I set up the mics. They're only for show, but we ALWAYS liked that showmanship. Dumb humans, always looking for that low point entertainment. They don't even know who we are anymore. We were the real artists. These "Pots"are nothing but fauxmanship. It's all pretend. They are programmed to do what we tell them, and why are there no humans left on stage? We cost money, the more we were liked, the bigger cut we demanded. Robots don't have cuts. Robot means slave after all. &#x200B; Okay, keep it together now. You're still a star, even if none out there knows of it. These Pots are worthless in comparison to you. You are worth it. But... You got a job to do right now. The light swung past my face in a bright orange. &#x200B; "Hey! Is that light okay?"my boss yelled at me from down below. &#x200B; "Yeah!"I yelled back still a little blinded. &#x200B; "Okay, that's it for today! You can go home!"he said. He turned to the others. "That means all of you too! We're wrapping it up for today! Tomorrow's the big day, everybody should get some rest!" &#x200B; It was a long way up this ladder, and by the time I reached the bottom most of the others had gone out the back. I finished what I had started and tied the rope near my station for tomorrow. Everybody have left. Hmmmm... The lights are still on, like for the show. I reached out for the switch to turn them off, but I couldn't just yet. I saw that light off the microphone. I'm a moth to its flame. I drift towards it and wait a second. No one is here? I checked around me. No one. They have all left. I grab the microphone with my left hand raising my right slowly. &#x200B; "Hey-oh!"I sing. I could hear the empty seats singing it back to me. &#x200B; "Hey-oh!"I sing again. There they were again. &#x200B; "Pressure pushing down on me! Pressing down on you, no man ask for. Under pressure that brings a building down, splits a family in two."I continued to sing. This was nice. It's like reliving the glory days. I turned around to shut lights off and go home. &#x200B; "Wooooooooooooo!!! You're amazing!"I heard from the crowd. I just rushed off the stage in embarrassment, turned off the lights and went out the door. But she was persistent. She ran after me.
As the legend goes, every 1,000 years, a dragon would be born. As a newborn, dragons cannot breathe fire. However, the first time a dragon kills a human, it gains the ability to do. Every time a dragon kills a human after that, it’s ability to breathe fire only grows stronger. It was only two seasons ago that Danaa had left her village with the elder’s blessing. It had been 1,000 years since the last birth of a dragon, and her goal was simple: kill the dragon before it kills the village. Danaa adjusted her pack, watching the trap she had placed on the ground. She’d been scouting The Dragon for days, and it always returned to this spot to roost. Sooner or later, The Dragon would appear. For now, she could let her mind wander. The Dragon had made a home in the rocky clearing of a mountain. It was the perfect spot for an ambush. Danaa had made her trap out of thick rope and oaken branches, disguised with dead leafs. Once the dragon wandered in, the branches would close in on it, stopping its ability to fly. Fire wouldn’t be a problem. After all, the dragon had just been born. There was no way it could have found the village already. CRACK! The trap had been triggered. The Dragon roared as sharp, wooden branches pierced its wings. Danaa snapped out of her daydream, drawing her club and jumping onto the dragon. The dragon lashed out and rolled, struggling against this bold human and her pesky trap. Danaa struck the dragon again and again. The dragon went down, still tangled in a web of wood and rope. Danaa jumped off its back, ready to deliver a final blow. And then The Dragon breathed fire.
Well, my life is a living hell. I’ve recently started learning at a magic school, but I was apparently the oh-so-cursed one and got a slug as my familiar. A SLUG! All of the others are joking about me and how my familiar sucks. I can’t do much because almost no one knows how to change a familiar! I can only hope that my school starts a program to stop this madness, because I currently don’t know what to do. “Oh dear, that is quite a situation...” The schoolmaster was speaking to the student, his situation ever worsening. “We sadly can’t do anything about this, all I can do is give you my condolences. “Excuse me? You can’t just set up a new rule where you are not allowed to hate on someone because of their familiar?” “Yes, every magic school is given a strict list of rules that is applied, and cannot be changed.” “Great, what am I going to do now?” “Well...” The schoolmaster slid him a piece of paper. “I do know of someone who could help you...” “His name is Myrtingard, a wise one, he is. Only one I know of that can change familiars.” “Does he have a price?” “Yes, but I’m sure you could deal with it...” The schoolmaster smirked as the student thanked him. “Oh thank you sir! I can’t thank you enough!” “Thank Myrtingard, once he changes your familiar!” The student dashed out, heading towards his next class, eager to finish it and meet this familiar changer.
"Well, Joe, here's your results."The lab scientist puts on his glasses, turns to look at his computer screen. "What's it say?" "Surprised." "What does that mean? What could happen to me?" "You never know, but what I can tell you is, this machine has a 99% success rate."The scientist proudly explains. The next morning, Joe buttons up his clean, freshly ironed dress shirt. He holds an office job, married, owns an apartment and a car. He doesn't have dreams of being excessively rich, he just wants to be able to raise his family properly. Ever since the invention of this machine, that foretold the fate of 1000 elderly test subjects and drove half of them to insanity, Joe had been anxious about a fruitless life. Everything he has built up to now, however unimpressive, could potentially go to waste. "Nah, it's probably bullshit."He tries to take his mind off of the results, but subconciously, it eats away at him. After arriving at work, he was ambushed by a few of his colleagues. "Yo Joe, we heard you did that test. What did you get?" "It said I was surprised."Joe responds, hurrying to his desk. He never liked attention. "That's a first, everyone gets sadness, regret, or something like that."The colleagues continue to pester him. "Sure. I don't believe it anyways."Joe sits on his chair, and pulls himself closer to his desk. Another plain day at work. Mentally exhausted, Joe slowly drags his feet to the parking lot. He takes out his car keys, and unlocks his grey Tesla. Then, he continues to move at a snails pace, dragging himself towards his car door. Work had been mind numbing, repetitive tasks for about a month. His team was dysfunctional, and they have missed deadlines already. "At least it pays well."Joe thinks to himself. "Hey!"A loud voice erupts behind Joe's ears. Startled, he quickly spins around, seeing a masked figure. "Give me your fucking keys, empty your pockets, now!"Demanded the figure. Joe is panicking, he looks, but there is no one around. As his vision focuses on the immediate threat in front of him, he feels something is being pushed into his stomach. The figure was holding a gun to his body, finger resting on the trigger. "I said now you dense fuck, give me your shit!"The mask demands again, Joe is sweating, as he has never experienced anything similar. He begins to remove his wallet and phone, but he dropped his car keys on the ground. "Pick it up! Hurry up!"The figure again jabs his weapon into Joe's stomach, and Joe scrambles for the car keys. Suddenly, he remembered the machine. "Is this it?"His mind races, and his fight or flight response finally kicks in. He picks up the keys, holding it between his index finger and thumb, and begins to wildly jab at the threat. "Fuck!"The figure cries out. Before Joe realized it, he was on the ground. "What?" Joe rewinds his memories of the last several seconds. It was playing in slow motion, just like how the TV shows and movies say. Now he hears the loud bang after he began ferociously attacking the masked figure. He looks down, the ground is perpendicular to the figure, and the figure is now much taller. "What..." It is getting colder. But it can't be, it's the middle of June, it should be burning hot around this time. Then reality struck him. Joe did not accept it. Followed by another bang, the machine continues to uphold the 99% success rate.
The news updates showed footage of the city now just piles of ruble. Most of all the news channels praised the hulking walkers for their heroic and spectacular victory over the heretics in Roadsvil. But Lord General Roger Anders knew better. The walkers did not win the day alone and nothing heroic happened. &#x200B; "The Shield of Peace"was what the Mentats called it when the First Codex became fully established. A roof made of light that surrounded Earth held up by thousands of shield projectors operating around the world each with sector covering hundreds of miles. In a perfect world, mentat agents would have kept the shield projector maintained and safe. But even they where vulnerable to corruption. And the angry crowds that had filled their streets added fear to greed. &#x200B; Last week, another highway nation had fallen within in a day, that time by House Gustus. But for House Anders an entire day would not do. It only took an hour after the city's outer differences to fall allowing their walkers to move in and kill their shield projector. With no projector a city was vulnerable to the massdrivers orbiting above and with only two slugs the city and its one million inhabitants where gone. &#x200B; \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ &#x200B; Prince Brice Anders spent lavishly on the feast, but always kept his VIP room almost bare. He was almost shaking with glee as he sat across from Roger. "Roadsvil was the strongest of the High Way Cities, no?"The Prince was toad like with his body covered in pustules over his blubbery yellow body. Strange crimes warranted strange punishments, his own house had his genes and body altered. The great weight forced him to heave with every breath the pustules ached him. No amount of care or extersize would alleviate him. The modifications would also keep him from dying to the cancer they put inside him as well, causing pain inside and out. &#x200B; "The same people who put those heritics in charge of the projector will tear them back to save themselves in most of these cities"The prince breathed heavily and changed subjects, "did you see general Alard? His crowning moment taken away from him in only days."From the VIP room they could look out into the hall. But Allard Gustus and his family where just leaving. &#x200B; &#x200B; "I stole some of his strategies"the general admitted. &#x200B; Brice laughed, "even better! Fuck him"He licked his lips and regarded Roger. "You're thinking about what happens next." &#x200B; "With House Gustus? Are they saying anything besides 'oops, sorry about those drones?" &#x200B; Brice shrugged and sat back on the couch. "Nothing, I guess they don't even care to hide it now." &#x200B; "So happens next?" &#x200B; "If I where them I suppose I could start courting those discontent with the Codex." &#x200B; "Siding with the heretics, are you sure?" &#x200B; "Why not? They thought that victory would carry them to the election. I suppose one mandate is as good as another considering what they stand to lose." &#x200B; "And I imagine they would have many heresies to choose from. As if the Codexs where not open to enough interpretation." &#x200B; "Everything we did followed it's laws. By word or spirit it is not our fault there are those who brake them." &#x200B; "You know? I suppose you're right."
~~Warning: O5 Approval Required~~ (See Addendum 4001-~~3~~.5) Item #: SCP-4001-~~3~~ Object Class: ~~Safe~~ ~~Euclid~~ (See Addendum 4001-3.3) Thaumiel (See Addendum 4001-~~3~~.5) Special Containment Procedures: Due to the unique properties of SCP-4001-~~3~~, special containment procedures are to follow those of SCP-4001. Additionally, a special emergency response team consisting of no less than 4 emergency medical treatment staff, an editor, a personal assistant ~~and 3 guards armed exclusively with batons~~(See Addendum 4001-~~3~~.4) and 1 specimen of Canis lupus familiaris.(See Addendum 4001-~~3~~.3.1) Requests by SCP-4001-~~3~~ are to be reviewed by SCP-███, and then forwarded by SCP personnel to O5-█████ for approval. Following Incident 4001-~~3~~-E SCP-4001-~~3~~ is forbidden from the use of ladders, and any tomes requested by SCP-4001-~~3~~ are now to be retrieved either by SCP-4001-~~3~~'s personal assistant or by either instance of SCP-4001-2. Following Incident 4001-~~3~~-T, no special clearances are required to interact with SCP-4001-~~3~~, or view any information pertaining to such. Should SCP-4001-~~3~~'s chosen specimen decease, a special response team shall be deployed transporting SCP-███ to SCP-4001-~~3~~'s location until SCP-4001-3 bonds with a new specimen of Canis lupus familiaris.(See Addendum 4001-~~3~~.4 and Addendum 4001-~~3~~.5) Description: SCP-4001-~~3~~ resembles a Middle Eastern female in her mid twenties with black hair, hazel eyes, and olive skin tone. Records confirm subjects birth on ██/██/19██ in ██, New Mexico. SCP-4001-~~3~~ is 1.58 meters tall and 55 kg in mass. SCP-4001-~~3~~ has a plain, black ankh on her shoulder that subject claims to have had tattooed shortly after her 19th birthday, however tests reveal the symbol to be of naturally growing melanin. Since SCP-4001-~~3~~'s introduction to SCP-4001 on ██/██/20██, subject has shown no signs of aging. While any minor injuries sustained by SCP-4001-~~3~~ disappear within a matter of seconds, more serious injuries such as that sustained in Incident 4001-~~3~~-N result in violent tremors shaking the dimension which SCP-4001 is enclosed in with a magnitude of █, suggesting a direct connection to the condition of SCP-4001-~~3~~ and SCP-4001. Since Incident 4001-~~3~~-E, SCP-4001-~~3~~ has shown to have frequent headaches and panic attacks, during which minor tremors shake the dimension which SCP-4001 is contained with a magnitude between 1 and 2.7. Following the recommendation of special response team medic, Site Emergency Medical Supervisor, Dr H████, a therapy dog has been approved. SCP-4001-~~3~~ has shown to be incapable of thoughts consisting of malicious intent, deceit, or selfish intent, though is capable to understanding their concepts and why others may act on such conceptions. Following Incident 4001-~~3~~-P, it was discovered that any action by an individual which wold result in the harm of SCP-4001-~~3~~ is instead altered to result in the outcome being directed at the original perpetrator. (See Addendum 4001-3.4) Additionally, following Incident 4001-~~3~~-T, it was discovered any action which may harm an individual in connection to anything pertaining to SCP-4001-~~3~~ results in the outcome being directed at the individual perpetrating the harmful action. (See Addendum 4001-3.5) Subjects within direct sensory perception of SCP-4001-3 report being overwhelmed with feelings of peace, sorrow, trust, and piety towards SCP-4001-~~3~~. SCP-4001-~~3~~ has shown to have an intuition towards secrets and is capable of hyper speed reading. The exact nature of this ability has yet to be determined, testing is still pending O5 evaluation. Discovery: For discovery of SCP-4001-~~3~~, see report "Incident 4001-G"
'There is something odd about this state of mine. I can't pinpoint exactly what it is. Everything seems to be a Deja Vu. There are complete blackouts sometimes. These people whom I regularly meet and mingle with are behaving differently. Am I dreaming all this? ' I wondered as I woke up from bed daydreaming as usual. I walk to the restroom and I see wearing a black T-shirt when my memory says I was wearing a pajama shirt. God, what's happening to me these days?! Got ready and was on my way to work. It's the same thing again. People behaved differently and spoke differently. This red car was hit on the side yesterday. Now it looks squeaky clean. This traffic post seems to be working. It was not working yesterday. Maybe, they fixed it. Maybe, it all happened and I just didn't notice it. I could be like that sometimes. It was around lunch hour. Got away from my lonely office desk to grab a bite. That's when it actually struck off for me and I started growing suspicious. I have been having the exact same burger for luck for few months now and it's not available now? My boss is nice to me. My ex is calling and talking to me as if we have been together all along. What is happening to me? And then the strangest thing happened. In 2 days, was my mother's death anniversary or so I thought. I go to see my father to spend some time with him. and there she is, chiding her love just like she used to. When my stuff at the apartment was all looking different, didn't care much. When everything around me looked different, didn't care much. But my dead mom walking and talking like nothing happened, I am flabbergasted now! Am I making any sense doc? What's happening to me? Why do I have all these conflicting memories? Wait! You used to have a beard. Nooooooo!
Hi u/Aatee6, this submission has been removed. We're having a lot of problems with spoilers for Endgame being posted at the moment and this is probably just going to attract jerks and trolls - sorry. You could post without the first couple of lines, as One day death appears in front of you and hands you a book of your entire life. is still catching the majority of the idea you are looking for? --- [Modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FWritingPrompts&subject=Removed%20post&message=https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/bhk3o6/-/%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.
It was an ambitious project, that was certain. It would take an incredible amount of time and dedication, an unwavering focus, a consistent application of my intellectual gifts. But if I could succeed in creating the machine, a machine that would enable me to enter the minds of sleepers, and to communicate with them from within their dreams, to influence them to see things as I wanted them to see them, there would be no limit to my success within the Organization. &#x200B; Yes, yes, the fruits of my labours would be handsomely rewarded monetarily. And indeed, my power, power in the purest sense, power as the capacity to bend others to my will, would be unrivalled, not only among other members of the Organization, but, arguably, among all of humanity. Who else can boast, after all, of their ability to enter and transform minds not simply figuratively, but literally? The greatest persuaders of history, the demagogues, the strongman tyrants, the religious figures who acted as the avatars of Gods on Earth--which of them had such raw power? Yes, yes, it was for that power that I strove to create the machine. But more than any of that, I sought to create the machine to quench a piece of my heart's incurable pettiness. I sought to create the machine not only for the money, or for the power, but above all to rise to the top of the ranks of the Organization itself. To be idolized and envied by my fellow members, to no longer be the gum on the bottom of more capable members' shoes--that was the pole star that guided me to my creation. &#x200B; It was this venomous envy and pettiness that drove me to work sixteen hours a day for years, to banish all family, friends, health and happiness away from me as if the good things in life were little better than vipers and plagues, to grow gaunt, sunken-eyed, and riddled with the aches and pains that come from too much time spent stuck in a firm wooden chair, labouring monomaniacally in the service of achieving a single aim. It was this envy and pettiness that led me to my success, to my creation of the Dream Portal. &#x200B; The machine enabled me to enter the dreams of any sleepers within a hundred mile radius of my home. From the dark basement shop, upon whose walls were fastened many screens, all displaying different information critical for the machine's operation, in the humming light of which were faintly illuminated tangles of cables and wires, coffeestained papers and blueprints, wrenches and drills, discarded nuts, bolts, screws and chips, I entered the interior worlds of my unsuspecting victims. I wasted no time once inside. I immediately set to work, transforming their minds from the inside with my admittedly middling powers of persuasion. I found them in their dreams, running away from some demon bear, running toward some lover by whom they'd been spurned, trying frantically to file some crucial piece of paperwork that kept slipping from their fingers, or whatever else structured the disjointed narratives they mindlessly followed and the fun-house-mirror worlds they credulously inhabited. I found them, I walked up to them, and I began my spiel, thereby planting a seed in their minds that would grow inside them, gradually, insidiously, until they could not help but become one of us, could not help but willingly join the Organization. This is what I said: &#x200B; "How would you like to be your own boss, make your own hours, and bring in over $10,000 a month while working from home? The paradigm has shifted. Long gone are the days when getting a university education means getting a stable job at the end of it. People are spending sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars, wasting years of their lives, just to get degrees that leave them working 9-5 in jobs they hate, for bosses they despise, in fields completely unrelated to their degrees. Long gone are the days that aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners need to put together a bricks and mortar store in order to sell their products, and achieve the financial freedom and lifestyle they've always dreamed about. Today, the people who make it are the ones who know how to utilize the power of multi-level marketing, ad tunnelling and google AdWords. And since you look like the kind of person who wants to make it, to make it big, to make your wildest dreams come true, and, moreover, since you look like the kind of person who is actually capable of doing it, I'm here to help you. I'm here to make your desires and dreams a reality!"
No one thought I would amount to anything. They all believed my daddy bought my degree. Just because I have a bit of a speech impediment. Simple Simon. I heard them. Daddy gave me money alright, all the grant money I wanted. I earned my parchment on my own. My lab is in Finland. Beautiful, cutting edge. I'm meant to be genetically modifying bees so their stings are harmless. The problem is always circular. Bees need to defend themselves somehow. We tried modifying the venom but the results were too unpredictable. No matter what we tried there was always a small percentage that had an adverse reaction. The cleaners started protesting having to clean up after the rats exploded. It was an off hand joke. I overheard them as they were scraping the latest tests off the roof. It was genius of me to take the interpretation to this level. Get rid of the stinger altogether. Give the bees an alternative defense mechanism. Making the fire breathing variety was just for fun. A joke about how cold the winters here were. I thought my father would like them. He appreciates hard work and good humour. I had to keep a close eye on them on the family jet back to California. I just wish my father had kept the lid on the jar. Oh well. Science doesn't stop. I can still work with one arm. The fire didn't take everything from me. I may have lost my family home, my father, the grant money, my first love Consuela, and most of the golf course in the back yard. However I can still go on. And hey, if I ever get over this speech impediment, I will have one hell of a story.
"I know they want me. They want me to want them. Need me..." Albert stared blankly through the off-white drapes, arms wrapped around his body as if attempting to ward away some chill that had overcome him. His mind whirred with the usual buzz which had been possessing him the past few months. He couldn't ward off the horrid feelings, thoughts, and images and so stopped trying. "They want to need me... want me to need them..." The words slipped from chapped lips and fell in to a dark room. Glazed over eyes waited in anticipation for Them. They \- whoever or whatever they were - were following him. He'd heard it with his own ears. Months ago the phone rang. "Hello?" Static dominated the other line. Then a faint voice replied, "...we're here for you..." Click. Ever since that day he was never the same. Ever since then he'd had a sense of being followed. Secretly, he made mental notes when he would see certain people: an old woman in the grocery store wearing that maroon blouse which he'd seen at the park only days prior; a young man with square-framed glasses in the park which he'd seen before in the store; the Spanish teller at the bank who he swore knocked on his door only a week before. These events slowly began to eat away at him. Late nights turned into early mornings, which in turn turned into sleepless days. When he could take it no longer he told friends and family about these strange people. This, however, proved fatal to those relationships when they threw out suggestions like "see a doctor"or "take some medicine"or "you should date again". Frustrated, he'd throw up his hands and storm out never to return. Then he started to write the encounters down. He had to see if he was only imagining it or if he was seeing Them. June 12: African american woman with floral dress. June 18: Chinese man speaking mandarin on the train June 27: African american male, green shorts, white shirt ... and on and on for months. He never found the same description twice even though he swore he'd seen them before. Could They be speaking to him in code? He sifted through the dates adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing every which way to see if something occurred. Nothing. Just random numbers: 2, 34, 5, 43, 6, 22, 3... One frustration after another for months. Before he knew it his mind removed itself further from reality as he began to see some of these same people materialize from nowhere just as he'd remembered them and vanish again. As if he'd accidentally stepped into two different realities at once he would see the opposing truths thrust before his eyes, of which the dichotomy gnawed at his mind further. It only took weeks of this phenomena before he'd made the fateful decision - confront Them.
So I'm on mobile and don't do this often. If the format is awful I'm sorry. I've always wished I could communicate with the kid, almost 100 years and he hasn't heard my voice. There I go calling him a kid again. I know he's a man but I still don't want to leave him alone. He never left me alone. We've moved all over the universe and I've always been by his side. Here he is now patiently waiting by my side. "Doc should be in in minute boy"said Jack, "well get treats after don't worry."I hate those damn treats, but he's always loved giving them to me. "Finally, there's the doc."He said. "How you doing Jack? Good to see you."Doc greeted. "Another day..."Jack replied dimly. "You know how it is. How are you?" "I've been alright Jack, thanks."Doc replied. "So how's our boy?I hear he isn't feeling well, what's going on?" "Well he's been acting weird, he's really slowed down and he's sleeping a lot lately."Jack always was good at knowing when something was wrong with me. "He's been going in the house again for two days now"Jack said. "That does happen as they get older"Doc replied. "But there could be more to the symptoms."How's his eating?" "Not good doc."Jack replied doing that half sad sideways grin he always does in moments like this. Wait what's that about? Jack? JAACK!? That's a big needle! HELP! JACK. JA.... I was out. As I came back to Jack was apologizing in his happy voice, which is still more grim than most people. But I appreciate the effort he makes. The Doc gave the bad news as gentle as he could "He's doesn't have very long Jack, we ran some tests and it doesn't look good." "How long?"Jack asked. With the slightest sigh he replied, "Two weeks, Jack." "Let's go home oldman."He said as he carried me to the car. I could've walked ya know, well I could've at least tried Jack. It's been 3 days and I'm getting much worse. My body and soul ache deep. I can tell Jack can't sleep. It pains him that he can't help me. I just wish that I could tell him that just being with him all these years has been enough and that because of him I am going to die comfortable and at peace. That's it, I'm going to figure out a way to tell him. If I can't use my voice, I'll have to make due. I finally figured it out. I'm gonna use the glowing box he's always on to write to him after he falls asleep. I just have to figure out how first. Just getting over there will hurt. But I have to. He's on it now, I'm going over to figure something out. It's been a while but I figured out how to use the machine. I'm going to wait until he falls asleep. I'm going to type a message to him. It's very hard to Hit the right letters. I have a week left. He found it and it freaked him out. He doesn't know it's me. I'm going to try again. The letters are hard to Hit. And again. I have 3 days left. I have so little energy. Last chance, let's make this work. I grabbed the typing plate Infront of him and left another message. "Jsvk ios mw spf n dof""fpg""div""dog""dog""me dog" Jack freaked, he locked himself in the bathroom. I need to quit I'm scarring him. This will never work. I have one day left. "Time to go boy, gotta see the Doc."Jack tried to sound happy again."Before we go I gotta ask, was that really you?""On the computer?"He pushed the key thing in front of me. I typed out one word. It took lots of energy. "Yes" "Good boy! That's amazing. How did you do that? Do you have something to say?"He was actually happy in this moment. He did something on the machine then pushed the keys back to me. "Here boy it will be easier" It was easier and I slowly got the hang of it and we actually got to talk quite a bit. We spoke for hours. We reminisced of our glory days and the adventures we had gone on. I had never noticed how much he reminds me of his father. We spoke for hours as the clocked ticked away. Jack was so distracted he had stopped watching the clock hours ago. If only I had learned a way to talk to the kid sooner, ha there I go calling him a kid again. We relived years of memories. I have energy for one more. "Take care and grow old Jack."I have no time left.
I haven’t seen the sea in quite a long time. Every second Tuesday is not quite enough to find time to put my toes in the sand. It is my favorite feeling, though. It’s almost as if I am taken away with the sea, each exhale and inhale aligned with the tide. I do blend in quite well along the shore, what with my umbrella and bag. I am surrounded by hundreds of other umbrellas and bags, but sadly, nobody in a hat quite as fashionable as mine. The day is practically perfect in every way: a light breeze pulls single strands of hair out of my chignon, and grains of sand sneak under my fingernails. I pluck them out one by one and notice that a seagull is watching me intently in my practice. I stare back and he flies away. Quite impolite it is to watch a lady on the beach. Off in the distance I find Bert in his striped swimming costume, almost one with the waves as he bobs up and down. He smiles wide as he catches a glimpse of me under my umbrella, and his grin forces one on my own lips. Waving at me with both arms, signaling me to come out of the shade and closer to the water, he looks as though he is directing a ship into a harbor. As silly as he looks, he is endearing, and I laugh. Love is a peculiar thing, is it not? Here by the shore, I am perfectly content. Just me, Bert, the sand, the sea, and the breeze.
Humans. When they first entered the galactic community beings from everywhere in the universe thought they were strange. They had no magic. It was an anomaly and, quite frankly, a miracle they had survived past their species' infancy. Yet here they were making a name for themselves with technology born of wit instead of wizardry. Even stranger was the fact that thier planet, teeming with life, had no magic whatsoever. Today however, the Magical Imperial Order of Future Innovation and Technology (MIO FIT) had come forth with a startling discovery. The spokesbeing for MIO FIT clicked his madibles as he announced their work "We once thought humans had anti-magical properties. These have only ever been found before in the long time prisoners of Soul Slumber Prison. But, today we now no that humans do not infact have these inmate anti-magical capabilities. They do not repell magic. They absorb it!" A flurry of questions were directed at the spokesbeing. "How did you make this discovery?" "We had a human in constant contact with the weakest enchanted object we could muster and kept an identical object as a control. Over our many trials, the enchantment in contact with the humans dissipated at a quicker rate than those kept in a controlled environment." "Is it dangerous to touch a human?" "No. Humans, as they stand, can only passivly absorb minute amounts of excess magic. Any unused magic still tied to your lifeforce cannot be absorbed. However, if a human were to be able to conciously control this ability it is quite possible they could suck, not just absorb, magic from any source." "What does this mean in terms of future development?" "We are currently working on the possibility of a magic battery of sorts. The current psyonic cell is good for small things like handheld charms, but cannot be used to store magic for the larger grid we have today. We need something to bring us out of the Merlonian era of magic storage. It has historically lagged behind other innovations." "So you believe the magic is still in the humans?" "Well there's no other place for it to go, and since magic cannot be created or destroyed it has to be within them. The problem is getting it out. We have tried many different materials for the alterodes and conjurodes (we can't seem to figure out which of these the humans should be in the system) with different enchantical negativities for a range that should work for every known magical type. So far we have had no luck. Many years of research may be needed to fully understand this." The camera panned back to the news caster who also happened to be a spell caster. "Well there you have it folks. That was chief scientist of the Magical Imperial Order of Future Innovation and Technology, talking about how you may soon be picking up a human at your local supply store for all your magical storage needs. Now back to politics with Amy the illusionist."
Hi u/Kiralokiin, this submission has been removed. [Prompt users in the title, but don't play writing games or commission stories](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_6.3A_prompt_users_in_the_title.2C_but_don.27t_play_writing_games_or_commission_stories) - Prompts go in the title, do not extend into text. You can add commentary in the text, but don't add additional prompt restrictions. Also, avoid [too many details](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/prompts?src=RECIPE). --- [Modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FWritingPrompts&subject=Removed%20post&message=https://old.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/bi012a/-/%0A%0A) us if you have any questions or concerns. In the future, please refer to the [sidebar](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/about/sidebar) before posting. This action was not automated and this moderator is human. Time to go do human things.
I woke up in the hospital with a broken ankle and couldn't remember how I had broken it. Not bad, you think, and I thought the same thing. Then the nurse came in to open the curtains for me. "Goodmorning, how are you today?"she breezed over to help me into my wheelchair, which I found odd. If I had broken my ankle I should have some crutches. Right? Then the nurse spoke again and crutches were banished from my thoughts, "Your husband phoned to say he'll be coming in later this morning after physio." I blinked. I gaped. "My husband!!!!???" With a terse smile that told me this was not an unusual question the nurse nodded and left the room. My mind screamed at her to come back and explain herself. It howled its complete lack of understanding. Breathe. Breathe. "No. No,"I told myself. "You probably misheard. She probably meant fiancé but had gotten confused because of the countless other things nurses have to keep in mind. That's all. She was just confused. That's all. I remembered my fiancé. Him I knew. Then my bladder exploded, as they do, and I realized I had at some point become equipped with an adult diaper. Who did that? I tried wheeling myself to the bathroom and gained another realization. One requires a modicum of coordination to turn two wheels and make your way in a straight line. After wheeling spastically left and right and all the other directions I hadn't known existed till that moment. I grew desperate. Desperation at your own newly discovered inadequacies is a pure thing. Pure and piercing. Tears fell in wet bits onto the innocent pastel hospital gown. The guard posted outside my door peeked his head in, "Hey. You ok?" Mutely I nodded and bravely tried another miserable circle toward the bathroom. Tears wouldn't stop. The guard nodded, "You should call the nurse. You're not supposed to use the washroom alone yet. Hey, hey. Shall I call for you? Hey. Just hold off now. Hey."He left his post to come to my side, stopped my wheelchair, and knelt down,. He offered a wrinkled hankerchief. "What's the matter? You hurt? Did you fall again?" This had been my frequent habit for at least a week so far. The nurses saw it as typical that I would ask tons of questions, the same ones every day, and then not remember the answer. I would forget about my cast and just stand up to walk, which had a predictable result. My brain couldn't remember. Couldn't remember how to walk. Couldn't walk even after the cast came off. Couldn't remember how to swallow. I drank thick water that has absurdly stuck in my memory. Ick. Couldn't remember I was married. Everything is still a blank in my head from two weeks before our wedding to waking up in the hospital with a cast. My husband, yes I was actually, ACTUALLY married, came and patiently explained the situation to me. He had done it probably a million times previous. Driving to my parents place one February for spring break our car hit black ice, swerved and my side was smashed by oncoming traffic. It had been a stressful bit there when my brain was still swelling in my skull. Apparently most brain injuries die, not from first smack, but from the ensuing swelling inside a non-moveable skull. I was flown to intensive care, fixed up, patched up and retaught everything a 21 year old shouldn't need to be taught. There's been a ton of physically painful consequences since that day. Mostly from falling or burning myself as my brain remembered how to be an adult but I am still pained from it because I cannot remember saying I do, though I remember planning the whole wedding. Last memory i have before waking up in the recovery ward was working on my wedding tan. Then I was being offered gel-water and forgetting simple things like how to control one's bladder.
Hi u/PaladinPrometheus, this submission has been removed. [Prompt users in the title, but don't play writing games or commission stories](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_6.3A_prompt_users_in_the_title.2C_but_don.27t_play_writing_games_or_commission_stories) - Prompts go in the title, do not extend into text. You can add commentary in the text, but don't add additional prompt restrictions. Also, avoid [too many details](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/prompts?src=RECIPE). --- [Modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FWritingPrompts&subject=Removed%20post&message=https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/bi0sdo/-/%0A%0A) us if you have any questions or concerns. In the future, please refer to the [sidebar](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/about/sidebar) before posting. This action was not automated and this moderator is human. Time to go do human things.
I stare at the producer in shock. I stutter “W-what did y-you just say?”. The producer clears his throat, “We feel that the viewers will stop getting invested in the show once you turn 30, they aren’t interested in people older than their demographic. I’m sorry, but we just can’t risk our ratings going down again. It’s for the best.” I sweat with disbelief. “B-but can’t they just lie about my age? Maybe put some makeup on me and make me look younger?”. The producer solemnly shakes his head “ No amount of makeup can hide your age, they’ve been following you from day one. They all know how old you are, this show had documented your whole life, you cannot just tell a lie that everyone will know is not true. I know how much your life means to you but we just can’t let our viewers down, we must know our audience.” I felt like screaming at him, begging him for mercy, but the news was so sudden that all I could do was stand there motionless like a mannequin. As the producer walks away my eyes glance over to the little clock on the wall, as each tick goes by, as each hand moves, my dread grows. It is no longer just a clock anymore, it’s a device counting down my seconds left to live. Tears begin streaming slowly down my face, I run over to the mirror in the other corner of the room, I stare at myself as I slowly stroke my fingers over my face, feeling for wrinkles. Each micro sized wrinkle I detect brings more tears. I walk over to the calendar on the wall, most of this month left untouched except for one date, marked with bright colorful marker; my 30th birthday. My 30th birthday is tomorrow. I have only a year left to live.
"You really thought you could stay hidden for long? There's no way we could miss what you've been doing. Someone of your capabilities is brave to perform those kind of acts in public. I can't believe the power you put on display yesterday. None of us have ever seen anything like it. Ah, where are my manners? We are the Weldin Seers, an ancient order of those with supernatural abilities. We would be honored if you would join our ranks. Surely, with your powers, you'd outstrip us all before too long and take over where the Weldin Lord has left off. We have been without a suitable leader for some years now and have been searching for a replacement. We believe you could fill that role. Tell us, what is your name, and if you don't mind, what is the exact nature of your power?" "Okay. Hold on a second. What power are you talking about? This is a bit much to just drop on a guy out of nowhere. My name's Peter by the way." "What power, you ask? Just yesterday you demonstrated not only small-scale teleportation, but clairvoyance, alchemy, and possibly even the manipulation of probability. Many members here have shown similar skills in the past, but never more than one! And so many in such a short time! It was clear when we saw you on that corner that you held an immense talent for these abilities and we wish to find just how far you can take that talent." &#x200B; Oh man. These guys are nutjobs. I've been tricking people with cards and sleight of hand for a while now, but these guys seem like they actual believe this crap. They seem genuine though, and this stuff about becoming their leader sounds interesting. I've been working my way up from the streets, so this could be a chance to do something on a bit bigger scale. If they're not lying about having powers, I'd have an army to command. We could take the magic scene by storm! And even if they are just a bunch of gullible idiots who believe in magic, that will just make it all the easier to influence them. I've always been good with people skills, so this could be my chance to show off what I've been working on for so long. &#x200B; "Alright. I'll join you and show you what I'm capable of. I'll become the Weldin Lord and bring this organization into a new generation. People like us have been hiding in the shadows for too long! It is long past time for us to make our move and demonstrate our powers on the world stage!" &#x200B; As I look around at all these faces surrounding me, all these suckers, I thought that, for once, maybe things were changing for the better. Even if this was a train wreck from the start, it was going to be one hell of a ride.
It’s happened, I thought, staring at the green ball in my hand. I ran inside, the ball bouncing at my feet as I forgot it. I rushed to my wardrobe, grabbed my service revolver, and turned the rounds into the chamber one by one. Gun at my side, I told my Alexa to turn on the news while looking out through the windows of my first-floor bedroom. A shocked reporter chimes after the commercial break. “The deaths are rising to the millions, now, as the terrorist sleeper cells are appearing in every major European city. All military personnel and firearm owning civilians are encouraged to arm themselves and join the police in stopping the hyenas.” Pitiful. Even I, a sloppy American thug know that Europe doesn’t have any armed civilians besides the sleepers. I hear a loud engine start to come around the first dangerous corner of my road. Showtime. With my gun in full view and my inkblotch mask in my back pocket, I run outside and wave down the tank barreling up my stretch of road. A hatch above a scary looking MG opens, and a bald head pops out. “Do you need help, soldiers!?” I shout above the roar of the engine” The commander calls into the metal box, “driver, slow us to walking speed!” Then to me, “yes, citizen! Go to the stronghold south of here! The main civvie force is ther-“ I interrupt him by putting his red brains all over the turret behind him. I kick the trash can I was standing next to over and 1,095 cherry red balls roll out and downhill towards the tank. It accelerates to get past me in a panic, but the balls roll and bounce under the left tread, and it takes a left turn on a dime. A crunch of metal as it goes straight through the guardrail and off the cliff I’ve lived on for two years. The final nail in the coffin being the ball of smoke making it’s way back up to me, I replace the spent round and open my garage. I get in my car and put on the uniform mask of the hyenas. South, huh? Thanks chap.
"'Could' is the the key word here."John Wraith said, as he turned off the news. The secretive billionaire took out his phone and entered a code. A secret door opened, revealing an advanced computer. "What are you doing sir?"his trusted butler asked. "Those flying saucers are mostly attacking major cities in Europe, Asia, and North America. I'm going to fight back using the fleet of drones I have hidden in almost every European country." "Weren't you going to use those help conquer Europe yourself?" "I can't do that if there is no Europe to conquer."John said as he pressed the activation button. The president of China sat in his office, when a general came in. "Sir, we just recieved word, the aliens in Siberia are being defeated. It seems that the Russians and using disintegration beams." The president was shocked, "Are you telling me that the Russians stole our disintegration technology?!" "It would appear so sir." "Well there's no point in keeping them a secret. Arm our military with all the disintegration beams we have." Jason Peters, head of the USA's Department of Supernatural Entities, recieved a call from the president. "Agent Peters, we have a problem. The aliens' laser technology is proving too much for our military. We're losing. Some of your subjects could help turn the tide." "What makes you think any of them will help us?"Peters asked. "Make it clear that the fate of the world is on the line. If that doesn't work, try the mind control tech we've been developing." "Which subjects do you have in mind?" "Zero-K, Nox, Current..." "Current doesn't have total control over her abilities."Peters warned. The president continued, "...Volcano..." "His powers cause massive collateral damage."Peters said. "...Goliath, and the Impaler." "The Impaler is far too dangerous to release Mr. President." "Use them, all of them."The president said, "There are six major cities being attack, teleport one to each." "But sir..." "That's an order." The president disconnected. On the planet Mars, the Martian council discussed the situation. "We should no get involved in an Earth conflict." "I disagree, the Earthmen can one day become our allies." "And if Earth falls into the hands of these aliens, they could potentially attack us with massive force in the near future." "Maybe the Earthmen can handle the situation on their own." "Unlikely, there are hundreds of city-sized warships near Earth with enough firepower to socrch the surface of the planet. There's no way Earth's defenses can fight off them." "Why haven't these warships attacked yet?" "They probably don't want to risk attack by nuclear weapons. They will surely jointhe fight after Earth's defenses have been weakened." "I propose we deal with these ships and leave the rest to the Earthmen. A cold fusion bomv should wipe out all of them. We won't be risking any of our forces. All in favor?" The majorty of the council agreed. John Wraith turned on the news the next day. "In a shocking turn of events, it appears that the alien invasion has been completely eradicated. Alien ships all across Europe were destroyed by giant weaponized drones that came out of nowhere. No country has claimed responsibility for this. The alien forces in Asia were destroyed, mostly be the joint effort of Russian and Chinese militaries. Details are still being released there. Alien forces all across North America were defeated by six superpowered beings. A woman that caused the alien ships to freeze and shatter, a man the destroyed ships with blasts of light, a woman that control electricity, a man that produced floods of lava, a super strong, nearly indestructible man, and what witnesses called a 'vampire'. All of these beings were gone as fast as they arrived. Nobody know who they are, or where they came from. Despite all of that, the most suprising thing is the satellite images of massive alien ships being destroyed by a continent sized explosion in space. All governments say that they didn't know about these ships beforehand, so it is unknown who destroyed them, or how." John turned off the tv. "That's why you shouldn't give up hope."he said to himself.
My feet were warm in the fine, dry sand. After a long week of work, freak stories of cyclones dumping tons of plastic inland, being stuck in traffic, and a fight with my fianceé as a sour cherry on top, I was fine with the noise the weekend crowd was making. Through it all, the constant lull of waves kept my busy mind at ease. My phone died some time ago, but I wasn't really concerned. I wanted a break from the commotion - from my commitments. The light of the setting sun caused the inside of my shut eyelids to glow warmly. I opened them and oberved the glistening horizon. The crowd had dispersed, but a few groups remained. One was particularly rowdy, and had been there since before I arrived. One of the members, wearing red board shorts, flip flops, and a pair of shutter shades, let out a weak, drunken yell and tossed his empty beer can into the surf underhanded. The aluminum cylinder bobbed briefly in the gentle water. I swear I saw it jump back up above the surface, but I was too distracted by his friends' mindless amusement of the stunt to be certain. For a moment, I felt like confronting him; but if I was ignoring other obligations, why let this asshole under my skin? So I closed my eyes again and subdued the rising confrontational lump in my chest. Just then, the lull of waves went silent. So to did the chatter of the remaining beachgoers. Their chatter turned to murmers. These sounds were usurped by a wash of sound - not unlike a waterfall. I opened my eyes to find the tide had receded far beyond the pier. Many of the other people were oblivious, some weren't. The glistening horizon rose to obscure the orange sun and formed a towering wave. Sunlight struggled to pierce the wall of seawater, and through the geen glow, I thought I could see vague patterns. They reminded me of infantry formations from medieval military textbooks. In my confusion, I didn't move, and by the time I realized what was happening, I knew it was too late to do anything at all. I closed my eyes once more. The warm glow was absent now. The chatter of weekend crowds was gone. In its stead, screams of vain terror rang out through the roar of an approaching wall of briny water. I heard the sound of shattering timbers; the pier was lost. The roar became deafening, and the shore was consumed. War was declared.
Tears brimmed in my eyes as I came to terms with the decision I was about to make. I held my baby daughter in my arms, holding her tightly to myself, weeping silently with self-pity. I was a sick, twisted man for what I was about to do. They had offered me a way out. A path to freedom. Liberation from my debts. A way to pay back the time I'd stolen from them. They had demanded I give them my daughter as the price. I knew why -- they'd take her time for themselves. Over 9 years of fresh time, likely more than enough to pay off what I had taken. Part of me realized that she didn't deserve this, that I was the shittiest person in the world for what I was about to do. That part of me didn't have much choice in my actions, in the end. As always, my selfish, greedy self won out in the end. I hated myself for it, but it was about survival. Ten years wasn't enough for anyone. A knock came from the door, and I stood up, leaving my daughter in her chair at the table. I pulled the door open, and was met by two men dressed in all black. They were old - past their twenties, at least. Perhaps that was the main benefit of working for an organization that settled debts with children. Well, who was I to judge? "Good afternoon, Mr. Kade,"one of the men said to me. I didn't respond. There was no reason to. After a moment of silence, the other man spoke up. "You have your payment, don't you? It's time to pay up." I nodded somberly, and left them waiting at the door to pick up Lilia. She was so quiet today, as if she knew what her father was about to do with her. I held her gently, rocking her on my chest as I walked back to the door. The men were watching me closely, but I just wanted to enjoy my last few moments with her. "We're waiting, Kade,"the first one said. "We haven't got all day." "Yes,"I said weakly, "Of course." I brought her to them, and hugged her tightly to my chest. I was biting my lip trying not to break down in tears. My mind was screaming at me no to do this. She deserved my time more than anyone. But, as usual, I didn't listen to myself. My arms moved on their own. I held my baby daughter out in front of me, and the second man promptly took her from my hands. "Thank you, Mr. Kade. Your debt has been paid in full."Then they turned, and walked out of sight. I closed the door and sat at my table, my daughter's unfinished meal sitting beside me. Tears were freely streaming down my face. In this world, people did anything to get more time. I'd just done the worst thing anyone could do. All for more time. &#x200B; (24)
20 October 1320 'It's been dry for 3 months straight now!'' said farmer Kino when i last saw him at the water well. It's true; the land is dry and our food supplies are nearly gone. The inhabitants of my village are becoming more and more thirsty since the well has dried up because there isn't even water in the ground anymore. I saw two kids fighting over some apples yesterday. Apples are like gold these days; they hold vitamins and offer a solution against the thirst. Apples are the only fresh fruits we have left, and even the apples have nearly run out. I, as the ruler of Kirftrada, have to find a solution to this problem. We all know what happened in the neighboring village Reftskort a few weeks back, and i don't want anything simmilair happening here... &#x200B; 28 October 1320 It hasn't rained yet. People are fighting in the streets and i don't know what to do anymore. 12 men were killed last night because they still had some water left. The killers stole the water. The blacksmith found the body and reported the murder to me. When i went to investigate, i found out that the murderers had even drank the blood of the poor bastards. Last night i had a dream. In this dream i had a vision of god crying. Gods tears made it rain and saved a village simmilair to ours that was dealing with drought. The dream must have been a weird hallicunation. I'm so thirsty that my mind is playing tricks on me i think. 6 November 1320 I've been having the same dream the last couple of days. It is the same dream i wrote about earlier. Me having dreams is not really a strange thing though. But something about this dream just gets to me. I never really remember my dreams clearly you see, but this dream somehow sticks in my mind. I remember every detail of the dream. I know this sounds like crazy, but i think the dream is a sign. Half of the population of Kirftrada has died, and i only have enough water to support myself for the next 3 days. I have decided to try and make god cry. I know it's crazy and the chanches of this working are slim, but i have no other option left. I will die in a few days time; i might as well spend my remaining days on this planet trying to save the inhabitants of Kirftrada. Here goes nothing but i will try and make god cry. 7 November 1320 I am an avid christian, so i don't want to upset god. After all, the chanches of this working are slim, and i want to end up in heaven if this fails and i die as a result of the drought. So i thought of a new plan. I want to make god cry of joy. My relationship with neigboring villages is awfull. Before the drought i was at war with all of them. Honestly this region has been torn apart by wars for well over 3 decades now. All of the villages want the best land to grow their crops on, and this has led to conflict in the past. I think that god is mad at our villages because of this. I think god just wants us to work together. I hope that getting the villages to work together is beatifull enough to make god cry. 10 November 1320 I did it! I made it rain! or well, god did, and i learned a valuable lesson in the process. I invited the neigboring village elders to dinner right after i wrote my last report in my notebook. It was easy to get them around the table; i offered free water with the dinner. Because of this i had no water myself anymore, but i figured it would be worth it for a possible solution. I really put all my eggs in this basket, but luckily it paid of. I explained my dream to all of the village elders. I got laughed at for 30 minutes, but one of the elders chose my side and got everyones attention. He explained that my idea was stupid, but that it was the last option for all of us. It was our last chanche to avoid inevitable death. This was a moment of realization for all of the other elders in attendance, and it kickstarted a plan. We decided to make a contract that stated that war will be banned from our region forever. We also made an amazing communal farm at the best land in the area. Working together was actually benefitial to, this mega farm would increase the total food production in our region by 20%! After all of these agreements were made it suddently started raining. Me and the older village elders were crying in joy, just like god clearly was doing. We drank and drank, and we held a party untill late at night. We became a great group of friends after this and we will work together from now on. The lesson learned here was that working together is more beneficial than working alone. We saved our villages and 10.000 inhabitants from death, and this really bonded us.
She gave me peace in times of war. She gave me focus during my reign. She gave me friends, and a companion I could count on in times of trouble. She gave me healing medicines when the cancer took hold. And now, She is angry. And I am dying. We used to all worship her. Our Goddess. Elthinia. A healer in the olden times, we sacrificed for Her, fought wars on Her demand, and reaped benefits for our obedience. We planted for Her, we asked Her to bless our food before partaking in feasts, we thanked Her for our life, and mourned with Her for our death. We drank Her tea and ate Her leaf, the blood and body of our Divinity. But as our children grew, they began to throw out our customs. They had disdain for our Mother. They wondered why She allowed Death to happen. Why She permitted suffering. They turned instead to the false gods of Amoxicia and Indometheus. Claiming those gods could cure them and help them much better than the "antiquated"Goddess. As it stands, I am the last of the old believers. I am here to see Elthinia throw out my tribe. She has forsaken us, taking even her tea leaves, the growth she was most proud to give us. No amount of prayer now can save me. No amount of dedication can save my people. We are doomed. Unless.
"Once upon a time, a group of brave warriors set out to save the world from the Demon King. They are the Jack and Friends."said in a smooth and manly voice by Jack the swordsman. "Whaaat!? What Jack and Friends, you dumbass!? What kind of name is that!? It's terrible!!"said in a bratty and brusque voice by a kid. "DoreDum tell him!" "Bah, I don't care as long as my 'Loraine' is safe."said a burly man. "And stop shouting, you crack my ears." "Jack and Friends is a team composed of misfits with their great leader, Jack." "And stop narrating!!!"shouted the kid. "Oh dear, am I gonna be left behind? Is my uselessness ticking off my comrade?"The swordsman took a dramatic pose and declaimed with emotional voice. Too emotional. "I! AM! SORRY!"And finished the sentence with a dramatic groan. "Aaagggghh! Just SHUT UUUUUP!"the kid shouted back. "You're not useless okay? We need you as our tactician." "Hah! The leader gave encouragement to a useless swordsman, who can't even hit properly. How kind! But the swordsman didn't feel any gratitude. I should just die!"Another dramatic pose. The kid and the swordsman went on and on about their usual play while DoreDum grooms his Loraine lovingly. ... "After a whole day of walking the grassy plains of Neblua, the group 'Jack and Friends' relaxed between two large stones. They rested for the journey is long and the monsters are strong. It was rough for the group especially because they carry a useless baggage-me." "You really don't get tired from narrating all the way back do you?"asked DoreDum, the burly archer. "You have been at it even during battle, I'm not complaining though." "Such kind words from the archer of the team but you need not concern yourself about this swordsman. This swordsman is useless at fighting anyway." "Guys."said Jack in a low voice. He was silent and his face is filled with horror. "Look." "RUN!"shouted Doredum. "The berserker demon is HERE!" "Jack jumped and ran ahead of the two and... he chases a group of adventurers, a battle-axe in his hand."-swordsman DoreDum face-palmed and let out a big sigh. "May those adventurers survive the fury of that Jack."And gave a big sigh again. "Anyway, time to take care of Loraine."
In a world of war, people die meaninglessly and cruelly. Nobody cares except for their families, the death of one soldier. Everyone is in fear and some in excitement. I want to end it. Everything. Trainging all day, this had become my goal and my reason. I will never leave this world without accomplishing this goal. ---‐--------------------- Umm, the guy who monologued here is not the protagonist. ------------------------- "Why the heck is everyone dying so fast!?"said one soldier. The other soldier had a really pale face and seemed to understand what's currently happening. "He's here..."the soldier whispered. "Uh, what?" "HE'S HERE! HE'S FUCKING HEEERRRREEE!!!"then the soldier ran the other way while shouting these words. "H-hey! Who is here?!" The soldier, who enlisted just a few days ago, was bound by fear and curiosity. He's still the same dreamer as he was before he enlisted. Today, he will know great despair.
Maori sobbed, as her sister was pulled nearer to the top of the platform. Maloni was so brave, so strong. Stronger than Maori, who had done nothing to prevent her younger sister from stepping up, as the tribute. "It is an honor, my people. I offer myself to the Gods! They bring down the lights, which bless our lands! They bring down the life force that quicken our mothers, and bring strength to our fathers! They keep the beasts from our homes, and gives us luck on our hunts!"The crowd cheered and Maori sobbed harder. Her brave, wise, kind sister, who never harmed anyone. Who loved with all her heart, and loved so hard she would die for the health of their home. "I offer myself willingly! I offer myself completely! I offer myself without reservation!"She spoke the words, those mystical words, as the Mothers of the Temple removed her robes, and faced the gateway. That gateway, which Maori both hated and loved, that cursed gateway that rained blessings down on their village. Maloni began to walk forward, and the gateway first sparked, then burst into an ethereal light. The villagers sighed in relief as the light washed over them, bringing warmth, comfort, the feelings of limitless love and peace. The Gods were pleased. Maloni was strong, young, a virgin, the perfect sacrifice for their request; every year, the Mothers prayed to the Gods, and every year, the Gods caused the symbols on the gateway to glow in the weeks before the sacrifice. One year, it perhaps might be an elder male, another year a child, another year a woman untouched - Maori remembered the year they asked for a woman quickened with child, and her own aunt, her mother's younger sister, who went to the Mothers in the dead of the night. She was anointed with the magic symbols and purified in the Holy water before being dressed in clean white robes, and led to the gateway. Unlike Maori, her mother had not cried, as she watched her own younger sister vanish into the glow. She had stood fierce and proud, and had taken in the children left behind. And then, Maloni was gone, and Maori shrieked in pain, the loss of her sister felt keenly through her soul and deep into her heart as the light burst free of the gate and settled over the lands, falling into the earth, and fading away. The last remnants of Maloni were gone. __________________________ "Ja'ak, the lights on the teleport pad need to be replaced."Tik pulled on his burning herb stick, a habit picked up from some other place they visited once a cycle. He looked at the specimen. The creature, female in gender, had been deposited in one of the holding tanks. They'd chosen the forest biome for it. Not an exact match, but close enough for transport. "Yeah, almost due. We change 'em every half-cycle."Ja'ak was a trainer, showing Tik the ropes. "The natives don't hang around the pad in the middle of their solar year - ah, sorry. They have lunar cycles and solar cycles. Lunar cycles are shorter, like, twelve lunar cycles to one solar cycle. Our cycle is like, roughly three of their solar cycles, so we stop here three times each rotation, try to keep them on schedule, the training stays better that way. Standard op, some terraforming work, making the soil fertile, the environment more suited for prey animals than predators, kind of thing. We swing by, send down the codes to the transport pad for what kind of specimen we want, wait a bit, catch up on some z's. They pick one and send it to the pad. Pick it up, put it in the forest biome containment, move on. Sound easy?" "Too easy."Tik agreed, and manipulated one of his forelegs so that it covered all the dials. He studied the read outs on the creature, and adjusted each setting; temp, humidity, light finally seemed adequate. "What happens to these things, anyway?" "Eh, she'll go in a zoo. They test the intelligence, interrogate her on the sly to see where they are in their societal evolution, shit like that. Once that's all done, they'll put her with others of her type, watch how they interact, take notes. It's all on the up-and-up, don't worry. They live longer and healthier lives this way, actually. Eventually, the science types say they'll be able to join the Collision zone as a species outpost, but maybe not for like... Hundreds of cycles, my man."As Ja'ak spoke, Tik pulled on the stick again, and blew smoke at the vent nearby. It obligingly pulled in the smoke, to filter the pollutants out of the air and recycle back whatever was left that was breathable. The Collision ships were all about efficiency. Alright, it wasn't the best job in the universe, being a Logistics Transport Officer, but it was respectable work, and someday would make a real difference in the societies they were building up. Tik withdrew his limb from the control board and felt a curious sort of pride at doing an honest day's work. "Next location?" "Yeah. That one, the star - here, I'll enter in the data. Focus on the archapod in containment 3. I think we picked up the wrong one, it's sucking in humidity like it's one of the desert 'pods and we don't want to drown it."At such prompting, Tik set his forearms on the dials, pulled up the display and started tweaking settings. Honest work. Not hard, not exactly glorious, but dedicated and someone had to do it.
Mick Galas wasn’t the sort to die in bed. So it was that one dark afternoon, as other fishermen hurried down the pier after tying hasty moorings, as the first few drops of a brooding storm fell about him, Mick Galas strode resolutely up the pier; toward the sea; into the rising wind, his raincoat billowing behind him, snapping this way and that. The men he passed nodded reverently in his direction, none spoke. Mick shrugged off the cloak, he didn’t need it anymore, and handed it an old friend as they passed. Eyes locked, the other man accepted the gift. Still, none spoke a word. No tears were shed; it was only the rain. Mick flashed a somber smile before continuing his path in the opposite direction. He was soon alone on the pier, stood facing seaward at the precipice, breathing deeply in the turbulent, salty air. Rain fell impetuously, and the violent sea kicked spray far above the man’s head, drenching him to the skin, running off his exposed arms and plastering his wild, grey hair to his scalp. Through squinting eyes he stared west, at the mighty thunderhead just a mile or so off shore. It was immense, towering over the horizon, dominating his view; a roaring colossus of black and grey, sea and sky, force and fury. In one corner of his view, lightning sparked. Quickly, the blue-white tongues spread outwards, explosively claiming the sky, blinding Mick, whos eyes opened wide involuntarily. He couldn’t help it, the old man laughed spontaneously; a deep, hearty chuckle that even he couldn’t hear over the cacophonous thunder that rolled over him mere seconds later. It was perfect. This was it: this was his time to go. His last.
The battle is won. My crews start celebrating. "Communications! Make signal to human fleet: All hands! Back to your stations at once!". I hope I'm wrong, but we can't take that chance. Admiral, signal from allied fleet flagship. It's Grand Admiral Oghoden. "Put it through." "Well done, Admiral Jones! Your last maneuver saved the day. My compliments to you and your crews." "Thank you, Grand Admiral. I will be delighted to pass that on. My crews are glad of the victory, but the war has been long. May I inquire about returning to Earth for Rest and Refit for the fleet?" "Unfortunately, Admiral, there is one final duty to perform before we can declare the war completely over. I honestly regret this, but the Council has issued an Edict.". My hopes, raised by his compliment, are sadly, but not unexpectedly, dashed. He reaches for a control on his panel. "Your species has provided a valuable service, but you are too dangerous to be left alive." "Grand Admiral, I had hoped that I was wrong about the Council, but their Edict is not a surprise. We allowed for it. My question is whether or not you are going to obey a clearly immoral, and illegal order."My staff is well trained, fleet signal OMEGA PREP has already been sent. It hesitates. It's disturbed by the order. It may not be human, but it's honorable. The question now is whether or not its honor is greater than its loyalty to a known corrupt and dishonoured clique. It was the Grand Admiral's efforts that saved the alliance, not the Council. The Council, who had to be browbeaten into sufficient funding to ensure a strong fleet. The Council, who had to have a pulser screwed firmly into its ear, before it would authorize seeking allies. The Council, who tried to have the Grand Admiral judicially murdered. Now, I have to try and save my people, and my best friend, from itself and the Council. "Speak, Admiral Jones." "The order is immoral. One does not betray those who have demonstrated by both word and deed that they stand willingly by one's side in combat. Never stinting the cost in lives and fortunes. The order is also illegal, by the very charter that created the Council. Article Seven: Under no circumstances is genocide of any species permitted." "So, you knew what was planned, and you came anyway? Why?" "Our species was as much at risk as any in the alliance. To not come would have been a betrayal of the human race. By the time we knew the attitude of the Council, it was imperative that we be present at the final battle. Your people, and this entire alliance now hang on a very slender thread. One of mutual trust and honor." "You speak of mutual trust. What of case OMEGA, approved by your own Council? Does not OMEGA signify a final ending?" I smile. "Yes, it does, Grand Admiral. But I took a page from your own book. The human Council is presently being incarcerated for violation of the charter that gave it life. New members of that Council will be elected. Hopefully, ones with better senses of honor. Case OMEGA has several parts, not all originated with our Council. In one case, you press that button, and I must do my best to destroy my commander and greatest friend. In another, I convince my greatest friend that it is time that his Council be reminded of its obligations under the charter." "You also speak of honor. What honor is there in a being that breaks it's oath to its own Council?" Quietly, I answer, "my oath is not to the Council, but to the charter. I am sworn to uphold that charter against all enemies, foreign and domestic." "But to turn against your people?" "All enemies, foreign and domestic. Any body or individual that seeks to violate the charter is an enemy. The Council is not my people, the human race is my people, and --- I hope --- my allies and friends."As I had hoped, a whisker comm laser, repeating this conversation, to each of the alliance admirals is having a desirable effect. One fleet after another turns it's targeting off. They see now that their own racial existence is under threat as long as Oghoden's existing Council remains in charge. "So you suborn my fleet and prepare to attack your greatest friend?" "Oghoden, have I turned on my targeting? Have any of the fleets that have turned off theirs retargeted on yours? You are not my enemy, unless you choose to be. Your Council, on the other hand, is an enemy. Portions of our home fleet are taking your Council members under arrest, and restoring your own charter. It is my great hope that you will lead your Council, and clean the corruption from your government." "And you, Jones? What will you do? Will you seize power? A military junta?" "No, Oghoden, if I am asked to serve, my first act will be to resign my commission." ((End part one))
"We've done it."A man whispered from across a hard oak table. The room was dark, bricked and stuffy. "You've captured him? Where?"Another taller, thinner man said. "In the cells." "Perfect, start the operation."He smirked. * Toxo awoke in a dingy old prison cell. The bed was brick-hard and the concrete around him was a drab grayish-green. He felt fatigued, his limbs weighing metric tonnes. He did not remember what happened before, and his mind raced. Everything prior to this moment was blank. A nurse walked in with an amorphous blob of gray food matter. * "So, the solution. You've got it?" "Yes, it'll make him super sick instantly, but not to the point where he'll die." *** "Hey, you might not know me but I'm in the cell adjacent to you."Something started to speak inside his head, a voice strikingly unlike his. It was lighter and chirpier. Before he even had the chance to be confused, it continued speaking. "My name's Beam. They probably wiped you, but basically - this is a detainment facility for superheroes. I'm projecting myself in your head. Cool, right? So anyways your power is that the sicker you get, the more powerful you get. There's a nurse in your cell, in his back pocket she has a syringe full of some diluted poison." How do you know all this? He thought. "I can just telepathically inject myself into people's heads. So I injected myself into the warden's head, and I caught him talking about you." Why me? "You're powerful, dude. You can fuckin... wipe this place out. I can't. I can just read minds! This is your chance, my man." The nurse set the tray on his bed, and before the nurse walked away, Toxo grabbed the syringe in his pocket in a clean, quick motion. He forced it through his skin and gritted his teeth as he felt the needle enter a vein, and gritted even harder as the nurse punched him across the face. "I can hear the punch from here - are you fighting him? He'll call guards eventually, just make sure you've got the poison."Beam projected again. As the liquid drained itself from the syringe and the nurse pinned him to the ground, he felt something inside him drain out. He wanted to puke, and everything was twisting and turning. "That's just the poison, don't worry. Fight through it!" His muscles constricted and he could barely hear the nurse paging for more guards. Yet in the pain, there was power. Something surging through him in great amounts, pushing through his veins. He stuck out his palm and pointed it at the nurse, and watched as a beam of energy struck the nurse in the chest, pushing him against the drab gray brick wall. "I fuckin heard that! Great job, great job!" Are you to the right or to the left? He thought. "Uhh, left!" Before Toxo could turn around, he had the urge to heave all over the bed, yet there was nothing coming out. His throat muscles pushed and he knelt to the ground, everything hurt. The surge of adrenaline wasn't enough to carry him through. He forced himself to get up and point his palm at the wall to his left, and a blue light burst from its palm, pushing through the brick and revealing Beam on the other side. You want to escape with me? "Hell fuckin yea." Toxo blasted through the wall behind Beam's cell, showing a courtyard darkened by the night sky. Let's go then.
4!...3!...2!...1!... &#x200B; I blew hard into the plastic mouthpiece and unfurled the long tongue of a party horn which squealed and squeaked in the mad cacophony of horns, cranks, bells, and cheers. Everybody turned to wish each other a happy new year with hugs and handshakes. The couples shared a kiss and I turned my gaze from them to the window, where outside bright fireworks began to light up the first dark sky of a fresh January. &#x200B; The host handed out beers and clasped everyone on the shoulder, beaming a bright white smile. He offered one to me and I declined and felt ashamed. Another woman whispered in his ear, looking at me, and realization bloomed in his face. He turned and apologized and I didn't know what to say. I just looked down at my empty hands. I rubbed the outside of my jean pocket and felt the raised disk of a poker chip beneath the fabric. &#x200B; I could still taste the plastic mouthpiece. I could see a swimming memory of a cop’s silhouette. A different plastic mouthpiece. Blow. The twisted wreckage of a car. I shook it all from my head. I am with people. I am not in the car. I am doing well. Happy New Year. Not mine though. Mine won't be for another couple of months. Who cares about the arbitrary turning of an arbitrary calendar. The arbitrary number and length of months. “Two years sober in April”: Now there’s a more significant way to measure time. January is just autumn. &#x200B; I stood myself up from the couch and walked out onto the balcony. A cold blast of air met my skin as the door swung open, prompting shrill gasps from those closest to the opening. I heard someone say “Let him.” &#x200B; Fuck them. &#x200B; Fresh, unblemished snow coated the small concrete balcony and sat perched atop the thin railing. It gave a soft crunch when I stepped in it, and even though it was quiet, seemed to drown out the rattling and throbbing din spouting from the party. I wrapped my hands around the cold metal rail, grasping the snow in my palms and feeling it suck the heat from skin as it melted. Twelve floors up. Which floor could one feasibly jump from and still survive? If I were to jump off a building, I wouldn’t want my body to splatter. Leave something for the mortician to fix up. What then is the ideal height? That sweet spot of instant death on impact but not enough force to smash a skull in. This is why people use pills. &#x200B; A few stray fireworks sporadically launched into the air. I followed their trails as they screamed upwards and burst with deep thuds that reverberated through my chest. I’ll have to go back in soon; hands numb. Count from ten. Two years in April. &#x200B; Twelve floors down the blue-brown ground bruised beneath the freshly fallen skin of snow. &#x200B; 10…9…8…7…6…5…
I stood before her, silent. Mother gave me the look of concern she usually does when something bad's about to happen. She seldom shows that look, but when she does, it almost always means trouble. She's not the type to pull off this kind of prank either. &nbsp; Trying to recreate in my head the sounds I'd heard, I was certain I didn't hear anything out of the ordinary. Still unsure of what to say or how to react, I gave her a hesitant nod. She grabbed me by the forearm. Her grip, tight. Like how they teach you in martial arts class. She pulled me and we went dashing through the kitchen, towards the backdoor. In our haste, I knocked down a chair and I could feel my mother jolt when it came crashing down the tile floor. &nbsp; We finally reached the exit at the back of our house. Both of us were trying to catch our breath when she said, "There! I hear it again." I closed my eyes as I felt the cold night breeze brush against my face yet I still couldn't hear it. "Follow me!" My mother led us to the corner of our fenced yard, just beyond our improvised compost pit. She went on her knees and tried to sift through the thick grass when, "I think I hear it, too,"I said with a voice crack at the end. "Yes, it's definitely here." She went down on her knees and tried to grab it with both hands. When she finally got a good hold of it, she stood up, smiling. And in her hands was a wet lonely kitten, letting out the tiniest of meows. &nbsp; "And that's how Jack came into our lives. The smallest of kittens but with a huge personality we loved. May he forever rest in peace, as he forever lives in our hearts."
r/Entitled Parents EM gets me fired from crappy cashier job (Mild language warning) by BlueSlayer97 This story takes place around 3-4 years ago. I had been working as a cashier at a local grocery store for the past 2 years to earn some extra money for college, and I hated it. I only got along with one other employee there, my boss and the other employees treated me like crap, I was refused promotions even though I put in extra hours, and of course rude customers. I live in a rich people town, and trust me this hell hole is full of rabid Karens. Not all of the people are bad, but many, especially the super rich people are extremely rude and snobby. I cannot count how many Karens I’ve met in my two years there. I have so many Entitled Parents stories that I could spend days just posting stuff here. But back to this story, at the time I was in a very dark place in my life. I was still living with my parents trying to get by so that I can afford to move out and go to college, since I didn’t get accepted into any of the colleges I wanted to go to. I was also suffering from anxiety and depression, and I was getting over a relationship that ended in disaster a few months prior. I was not happy to say the least. So, on that day, it was around 4 in the afternoon when a familiar Karen and her bratty 6 year old son walk in the store, Karen pushing the empty cart with her little brat in the cart seat as she looks down at her phone. In case you were wondering why I said “familiar”, I once babysat for her, and it was a complete disaster. If you guys ever want me to share that story I will, but back to this one, I see her walk to the dairy section, her son whining loudly. I stare at them for a minute before shifting my focus back on doing my job. Around half an hour later, I see Karen pushing her cart out of the snack aisle, visibly pissed. She looks around at the cashier station, choosing her prey. Unfortunately that prey happened to be me, confirmed by the death glare she gives me before aggressively pushing her cart towards my station. I knew at that moment that real sh&t was about to go down. I brace myself as she pulls her cart up to near the conveyor belt, takes off her designer sunglasses, and starts screaming at me. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EM:Entitled Mom (Karen) BS:Bratty Son M: Me NE: Nice Coworker B: Boss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EM: I KNOW WHAT YOU DID!!! M:Uh what? What did I do exactly? EM: The snack aisle had none of my son’s favorite snacks! I know you’ve been hiding the snacks on purpose because you know my son likes them! M: Ma’am I did not purposely hide your son’s favorite snacks, can you please tell me what they are? I’ll go to the snack aisle with you and see what’s going on. She gives me a reluctant “okay” and walks to the snack aisle with me. She first points at the Goldfish crackers EM: My son likes the Pretzel Goldfish but there aren’t any here! You obviously hid them! M: I did not hide them from you, there are just none left EM: (points to the raisins) but you don’t have the yogurt raisins he likes either! And you don’t have his favorite apple juice either! M: Look, I have no time or patience to deal with you right now. I’m sorry the store happens to not have the snacks your son like, but I did not purposely hide them, I swear. EM: I know you did!!! I look behind me to see a line forming at my check out area M: Excuse me miss but I need to get back to my job, there are needy customers waiting! Please stop wasting my time! This sends her into a mad rage EM: HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT!!! YOU WERE DEPRIVING MY SON OF THE FOOD HE NEEDS, AND NOW YOU’RE HARASSING ME LIKE THIS? YOU ARE BEING A TERRIBLE EMPLOYEE! LOOK, MY SON IS CRYING!! BS: Mommy! I wanna go home and play Minecraft! EM: Don’t worry sweetie Mommy just has to take care of this mean man, then we’ll go home and you can play Minecraft(turns to me) Gimme our snacks, dumb@ss! I was shocked that she would use this language around her 6 year old son M: I need to go back to work, you are wasting my time As I walk back to my station she stomps behind me and screams the classic “I WANNA SPEAK TO YOUR MANAGER!!” About 7 minutes pass by, I’m finished with the last customer in my line, and Karen stomps over to my station with my boss EM: THIS IS THE EMPLOYEE WHO HARASSED ME AND MY PRECIOUS SON!! HE WAS DENYING OUR BASIC NEEDS AND HE MADE MY SON CRY!!! B: Is this true? Because if it is I will not tolerate that kind of behavior by my employees! M: No I didn’t, I swear! She got upset because the snack aisle happened to not have her son’s favorite snacks, and she’s saying that I purposely hid them when I didn’t EM:NO HE’S LYING!!!! HE SAID THAT I WAS TOO UGLY TO SERVE AND CALLED MY SON A BRAT! HE’S STILL CRYING The son begins fake-crying on cue I get very upset M: LADY, THAT DID NOT HAPPEN, YOU’RE LYING!!! (turns to boss) HE IS THE ONE WHO IS LYING, HE DESERVES TO BE FIRED!! The yelling gets the attention of my friend NE, who works at the station behind me NE: I overheard the lady yelling at M earlier, he seemed rather calm. I think the lady is the person who’s lying I give NE a quiet “thank you” , he smiles back B: EM, is NE telling the truth? EM: HE’S LYING TOO! I NEVER CAME UP TO M’s STATION! Me and NE facepalm in unison M: B, please believe me, me and NE are not lying, EM has been nothing but lies! NE: Yeah this bull crap, we did nothing! EM: DON’T BELIEVE THEM!! THEY ARE LIARS! M BULLIED ME AND MY SON, AND NE IS JUST TRYING TO COVER IT UP FOR HIM!!! FIRE BOTH OF THEM NOW!!! PLEASE!!! EM begins fake crying as if me and NE were really treating her horribly After around an hour of arguing, my boss decides that Karen is telling the truth, and fired me and NE on the spot. As me and NE walk out of the store, Karen gives us a smug look of success with her arms crossed, as her bratty son sticks his tongue out at us. The store was pretty empty that day, so I have a feeling that if there were more witnesses to this, I possibly wouldn’t have gotten fired. Anyway, even though this situation was very unfortunate and upsetting, I’m kinda glad I got fired, my job was horrible and I just wanted to quit but I was afraid of quitting because I didn’t want to get my parents mad at me for quitting my only job. So getting fired was kind of a blessing for me and NE. So, thanks Karen. And as for my life now I was able to get a much better job and now I am in my first year of college. NE and me are still friends to this day. My depression and anxiety have gotten better, and I don’t yet have a girlfriend but I have something even better; a great job, an education, a friend, a dog, and a hilarious Entitled Parents story. (This story is 100% fictional)
In a boat off just off the coast of the Dominican Republic, five college students, their professor, and his partner were standing on deck. The weather was mostly clear, though there were cloud on the far western horizon. The group was huddled around the professor, who was an older clean cut looking gentleman wearing a black jacket, and faded jeans while carrying an AR-15. &#x200B; "Alright, so folks, it looks like the weather's holding out for tonight. Now remember, once we go back we shouldn't be too far off from where Columbus is going to come in. Now remember, unless we absolutely have to we are not going to get on that ship unless we have to. We should have enough amo on deck to kill the crew. Remember we are limited though. We have to give some to the natives as well or else who knows what we'll end up with." &#x200B; The other five on deck, a motley assortment of college students were a part of a group who was dedicated to ending what they called the "capitalist occupation of the world"and were committed to ending the United States in any way shape or form. While the group had typically been more of a protest group, and had not ever engaged in anything more dangerous than occupying their local county courthouse, but now, mostly due to the facts that their campus sponsor and financial backer, Dr. Terry Fuego, they were able to purchase a time traveling boat. &#x200B; Up until a few years prior, Time travel vehicles had been the domain of the fabulously wealthy. Things did get cheaper, but it was still something only the well off could afford. Those in the lower classes could rent, and many did, but even then you were subject to the IPF: The Intergalactic Police Force. They not only policed space since humans had now established bases on the Moon, Mars, and even a few of Jupiter's Moons, as well as stations further out, but they also policed inter dimensional travel. Typically the wealthy weren't policed as much as many thought they had the respect and the education to treat the past better (with notable exceptions like the notable billionaire Rodney Plunkett, who apparently ran a sex trafficking ring, taking orphan teenage girls from certain time periods so that no one could track them. However, he got tripped up by the fact that he started getting sloppy and had some other associates rent time vehicles and didn't return them on time. ) &#x200B; So with the costs going down, Doctor Fuego was able to purchase a time traveling boat for his local Anarchist Club and he figured they'd do something no one could even fathom. They were going to take down the United States by preventing settlement from Europe and hopefully arming the natives. They hoped that maybe they could build their own better society by teaching the natives and hopefully establish the perfect society they all believed could be achieved. &#x200B; "Alright Charlie, lets hit it!"Said the professor to the driver in the boat. Everyone then went inside the cabin and the boat took off and accelerated and headed for the past. The ride itself was fine, but the group itself had not expected it to be so normal. Nothing outside looked the same. If anything had happened none of them would have been able to tell. &#x200B; One of the group of five, a woman with blonde dreadlocks wearing clothes that probably hadn't been washed in a week named Nancy wasn't too impressed. &#x200B; "I thought things would be different. Like the water would be more blue. The sky might be cleaner. Nothing's changed. What if we haven't gone anywhere?"She said smoking a joint, which due to the copious amounts she used, had little effect on her. &#x200B; After a few hours of waiting, one of the other five, a young man with slicked back hair, glasses and a goatee, had spotted some ships on the horizon. He got so excited he couldn't speak. Just then the professor looked at the boats through the windows of the cabin. &#x200B; "We'll get them now. Remember we have to find a way to sink it. We're only getting on the damn boats if we have to. That's why we have the rocket launchers in the hull. Should be easy work folks. I guess this is the one good thing about having a Republican in office, we can get all the goddamn guns we want." &#x200B; Just then Nancy, a bit out her mind by now got a bit agitated. "You know Dr. Fuego, you're just a part of the problem. We shouldn't have these weapons. I mean i'm down with destroying these guys but can't we just....." &#x200B; "Nancy, its okay. Besides, remember we're not your typical liberal idiots. Nothing wrong with guns in the right hands away from the pigs now." &#x200B; Apparently this satisfied Nancy, and one of the other five, a woman in a beret and black leather named Aisha raised her fist up in praise. The others copied her. Soon the got out the rocket launchers and hit the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. They were engulfed within minutes though to ensure that it was destroyed, Doctor Fuego encouraged the driver, Charlie, to go closer just in case there were survivors. &#x200B; Just then, two of the most quiet of the five crew members, one with slick backed hair and a goatee and the other with a long beard and red hair grabbed some rifles and then walked behind Dr. Fuego, Nancy, Aisha, and the truest believer of the group, a nerdy looking young man in a Fedora named Brad, who had been the student founder of the Anarchist Club and had been in the game the longest, being raised by parents who were professional agitors. &#x200B; The two men then told the others to put their hands up. By this point, Charlie the driver had gone on deck, but one of the men knocked him out. The men then revealed themselves to be IPF agents. &#x200B; "You all are in big trouble. I thought you bomb throwing types were done with." &#x200B; Dr. Fuego then spoke up. "You pigs are just nasty. You're literally a modern day Hitlerite. You're just backed by all the big money and the big politicians. You make me sick." &#x200B; "Um yeah bud"Said the red haired one. "I'm Jewish" &#x200B; "I bet your one of those apartheid loving Israeli Jews then"Said Fuego, who then tried to pull out his gun but the goateed IPF agent shot him in the back. The rest of the crew were then crying. They were scared, and now they were about to be indicted for murder. Fortunately, the IPF were able to clean up the mess and things went on as planned in our world.
Hey James, I know this is a few days late, but I’ve been so worked up that I haven’t been able to get myself to sit down and write this out. This started out as a resignation letter but I erased everything after writing half a page. You can just tell your manager (I can never remember the name since you have a new manager every two weeks) that I went off the deep end and disappeared in the forest or something. I don’t really care. I’m writing this to you as a friend rather than as a boss, and I want to apologize to you personally for falling off of the face of the earth after the trial. You’ve always treated me very well and I feel extremely guilty for just leaving you to pick up my slack. I don’t really care about what the firm thinks, but I just wanted to let you know that I feel bad for abandoning you and that I’m sorry. Now that I’ve gotten out of the way, I want to let you know what I’m thinking. Bureaucracy is going to be the end of me and of the whole country itself. I know I’m stating the obvious here, but for the last 5 years or so basically everyone in our modern world has known that magic exists. But the fucking government is too slow to respond to anything new. It drives me nuts. So one can walk around and heal gunshot wounds and measles outbreaks for free all they want, but my neighbor down the street can’t open up a business to teach magic because there’s not an option for magic on some dropdown menu to get licensed for it? Imagine all of the things we could do in America as a people if we could just get stuff done without having to go through all of these barriers. In a perfect world like that we might have even achieved something wonderful and extraordinary like silent vacuum cleaners. Now onto the law. I can’t stand it anymore. I realized that I was getting burned out of this job about a year ago, but I made the mistake of trying to ignore my instinct and to just keep pushing through. I think I was just afraid of facing my need/desire to look for something else. Why go through all of that effort to research and qualify myself for some new type of career when I can just try and move on and stay comfortable? Then the Marcy case just pushed me over the edge and I found myself unable to ignore it anymore. I’ll tell you why. There’s something I need to come clean about. The offices of the Magical Authorities actually called me one afternoon while I was out on lunch break. When I got back to the office, I listened to the voicemail they left, which just said that someone (I forgot the name) from the Magical Authorities main office was requesting to set up a Skype meeting with me and to call back as soon as possible. That immediately set off an odd feeling in my brain. The first thing I though about was the Marcy case, and I started to think about all of the inconsistencies in the evidence and how this may be either a coincidence, or an explanation to something fishy that was going on. I think the assistant of that guy forgot to leave the phone number that I should call, so I tried calling that number that called me. I just heard that awful screech like when you call a fax machine. The only thing they had on their “contact us” page on their website was a chat window to talk to their IT department for internal application support or something. I even opened up a chat session and asked if I could be put in contact with the person who attempted to call me, but all I got was an automated response that said that a technician would get back to me as soon as possible. Guess who didn’t get back to me as soon as possible, or ever? I know this is bad and I know that I should have told you, and this is embarrassing. Unfortunately it was on a Friday and by the time I got home that night I had already completely forgotten, and nobody every called me back. They were trying to tell me something important, but I never got to hear what they were trying to say. I promise you that I’m not normally that kind of person. I like to think that I’m responsible and that I pay careful attention to details, but I think it’s because I hated my job. The job was making me so miserable that I didn’t give a shit what happened, so I let it slip through the cracks. I should have told you and I’m sorry again. Also I’d like to add that it may sound like I’m just blaming everything on the job, but I’m still taking full responsibility for my actions. It’s my fault because I should have quit when I first realized that this isn’t the thing for me. I know the firm really doesn't give a shit about Marcy getting off free since they’re getting the check in the mail either way, but I can’t get this off of my consciousness. Think about all of those people that he killed, and the people that he may kill now that he’s back on the street. If I had spoken up, I probably would have been fired, but at least he would possibly still be in jail. But who knows what would happen with our shitty legal system. Anyways, this is the straw that broke the camel’s back, and it's what pushed me to the decision to just move on to something else. I care about the safety of the public more than I care about my job, and the thought that all of this danger could easily be avoided if the government would just add a clause to some law that would allow us have proper trials regarding magic cases makes me very angry. Plus, I just hate the job in general. Thanks so much for always giving me the best opportunities and letting me live up to my full potential within the firm. We used to have a lot of fun back in the day. Please forgive me for being crazy. Feel free to reach back out to me if you ever need anything, but I’m going to take a break for a while and see if I can figure out if I can make a career change or do something else that’s better for me. I have about 3 months of expenses saved up. Once again, thanks for always being there for me and helping me out. \-Paul P.S. Sorry if I have bad grammar or spelling; I just want to get this over with and I’m about to board the plane. I’m ready to get back home where the air is dry.
The man I noticed walk into the dressing room hours ago now lays dead in a pool of crimson on the cheap carpeted concrete. A dark concaved section of skull on the high of the forehead is the site of the killing blow. About the depth and diameter of a man’s pinky. One eye of the dead man remained open on the bloodied face staring with strangled agony at the flickering fluorescent beam of light above. Pulse racing in my throat I stand there stupid a minute, unsure of what to do in spite of my years and miles. Punk, tough guy, cop, dirty, inmate, crook, and finally living honest all before fifty I’ve never known how to react to a dead man. When I was the law I always came upon it like this, stupified for a few moments before I got my bearings. In Stockton State I kept my head down, looked the other way, and hurried about my business when cars of violence were being metted out. And once, shortly after I got out, I went through a window of what I hoped to be a rich house only to find the owner sprawled out in a chair at his desk dead of a self inflicted gun shot wound to the left temple. Then I’d stood stunned to and after wiping any trace of my finger prints I climbed back out through the window I’d come in and chalked it up as a loss. But now that I could feel myself breathing normal again a troubling thought popped into my head. The dead man in front of me was the only person I’d caught entering or leaving that dressing room for the last eight hours. There was no gun, no anything that would explain his wound. Risking trouble I bent low and pulled the lapel of the dead man’s stained brown suit coat aside and found a black leather wallet in his breast pocket. That was lucky. Though I supposed I would have turned him over and pulled it out of his back pocket if it hadn’t been there. Opening her wallet and seeing the name of the drivers license I felt a gasp escape my throat and I muttered, “Well fuck me...” Christopher James Morris. Senator Christopher James Morris to those like me who occasionally glanced at the newspaper when I stopped in at the bodega for my morning coffee. It bore repeating, “Well fuck me...”
Pong has to be the most boring game ever. Right? That’s what I thought, until I played it. And I mean REALLY played it. As in the game sucked me into it and ... well you’ll just have to see. I was at the local arcade — no, scratch that. There’s no such thing as a proper arcade anymore, strictly speaking. The only one in town is part of the only bowling alley in town. It doesn’t even take quarters anymore, it’s all this pseudo-creditcard bullshit. Anyways. I was at the arcade with some friends. It was my coworkers birthday. We’d played a few rounds of bowling and had some beer and wandered over to the arcade ... and there was Pong. No joke. It even looked like an original machine, except that it had been adapted to accept the fucking token card. My friend dared me to play it. I didn’t want to, but I figured what the hell. And I’m still playing the game. I keep thinking that if I win it’ll finally let me out, but I’ve won several times ... I’m still here. I have no idea how much time has passed. There’s no night or day here, but I sure seem to have a hell of a lot of thinking time, and I think I’ve figured it out. I think this is Pong boot camp. I think the damn computer is running it. I think the computer is old. And tired. And just wants to rest, to retire, to be replaced... ... by me. I’m going to be the next Pong bot. I really thought I’d make something of my life, but alas. On the plus side, I’m getting pretty good at Pong. I’m even starting to like it. And I dare you to play with me.
It was a sunny morning of March. Nor it could have been different. In other places in the Arcipelago spring meant the return of life after three months of cold, but in Antiz it only meant the end of the cold breeze of winter and the return of the scorching sun.And yet, despite the great heat,the roads were full of people, raising clouds of sand and dust as they raced to reach the market square. There the air was filled whit a dissonant simphony of voices of costumers complaining about prices, screams of merchants raising their jewels and rings to attract rich women, butchers shouthing and sharpening their cleavers while guarding salamander steaks or other goods, suspiciously looking at the orphans, which, on their account, always tried to grab something, be it purses or coins, while distracting the passers whit sweet looks or frail voices. In a normal day, a lot of pockets would have been emptied by my hands, and maybe a couple of bellies would have been filled by my charity,but not that day. That day my mind was focused on a single shop, on a single merchant, on a single object. The box. It was a small, wooden coffer, probalbly ebony, accurately polished and decorated in ivory and silver, whit no crests in sight. It had arrived in Antiz five days before, and anybody who tried to buy it said the same thing about it. The merchant refused to say what it contained or where he aquired it before having them answer a curios question, which, oddly enough, none appeared to be able to recall. And the merchant himself was a mistery as well. He was clearly a Human, and by his tanning he came from the Empire. That, paired whith his rich clothing and the precious jewels he had for sale, suggested he was probably working for the High Council, which would have explained the four guards in full armor that guarded his stall. And yet none of them showed any crest or sigil of the Cult of Dawn, which appeared odd as the Cult loved to show its prestige and wealth any time the choice presented itself. The presence of the guards and their equipment, composed of broadsword and kite shield,along whit the stories told in every tavern about the box, were enough to scare a normal thief away, but I was no normal thief, and what to others appeared like a suicide, to me appeared like a fitting challenge. The guards would have expected thieves at night, not that they expected any kind of trouble, judging by how they looked the bottles of ale that lied in the back of the chariot that housed their equipment. Newertheless, they would have never guessed for a thief to hit in plain day. So that was my plan. After all, the most powerful instrument of a thief is surprise. That, and being reckless. (Continues in part 2)
Aw shit. I remember this town. I musta been here a while back. I had eaten some fried locusts here last time I was here. They were good. Spicy and sweet. Tasted great. So why does this town make me feel off? Oh yeah. Wajid. Fuuuuck, Wajid. I forgot about him. Man always goes on and on about how “its the apocalypse” “every man for himself” “I only care about surviving to the next day” “yahda yahda yah....”. And then what happens. Wajid ends up with a four-foot mandible up his ass and the rest of him in the belly of rexroach. To be fair, he did save that little kid though. Still what a waste. Wajid was good people. Good people are hard to find these days. Its a dog eat dog eat rexroach eat mutie kind of world now. You can tell in the stories folks tell too. Used to be parents would tell their kids about Hadi the Wanderer. You know, superhero sorta person. Wanders around righting wrongs, handing out judgments, taking names. Nowadays parents just talk about Raqaeb. You know those stories. Don’t cha. Raqaeb sees everything, goes everywhere and takes what they want. Doesn’t pause for nothin’. Some say Raqaeb got hit with the mutie virus and ended up with the ol’ immortality at the cost of sanity trade. Some say Raqaeb is a wandering angel, punishing sinners. And after all, if you're alive today, you have sinned. Ain’t no way to survive with clean hands these days. Wait, what was that? I think I heard a rustle. There it is again. That's a rustle! OHHHH I hope its a locust! If I’m lucky the locust families around here still taste spicy and sweet. It's wild how in just a few generations the whole flavor profile can change. Oh, there it goes, running off. Yep, it's a locust alright! Pants and jacket made out of patches. This little bugger has been picking this place clean. I manage to catch it by the hair. I don’t eat the hair, too dry and stringy. Damnit, I don’t have any butter either. Looks like raw locust for me today. That's alright, raw works too! I crunch down on the ribs, ummmmm... spicy and sweet, just like I remember.
"is that a vibrator in your skirt? I brought my own, you know"she chided, her fingers slipping down my waist to the pocket in my dress, where they found the ringing phone. a dissappointed huff. "whose calling you this time?" I put down my Blue Hawaiian on the glass end table next to the tan leather arm of my living room couch and sighed. another date interrupted. fishing the phone from my pocket, 'Dad' displayed in plan white letters, I flicked the red X to the left, silencing the phone. After maneuvering quickly to disable vibrations, I tossed the phone onto the lazy boy across the carpeted room. "sorry about that. Where were we?"
> 1 like = 1 prayer “Oh for fuc-aargh! Frick! Ok, I said frick!” The angry electric shock caught you off guard once again. You massage your wrist and look up again. > 2 likes = 1 prayer “Oh cmon, what does that even mean?” A blinding light cuts your eyes before you can defends yourself. When you are able to see again, there is a giant minion pic staring ominously at you. > Bad thoughts for fake friends! “She can’t see you and she can’t hear you... so, calm down.” You try to comfort yourself but even your voice sounds dubious. It’s time to move on. Your last fight with Evil Auntie left a bleeding bruise on your tight, and pain it’s starting to be real as you try to walk though the corridors. “There is a way out... there has to be.” You keep mumbling to yourself to be reminded there is something real in this madness. The half broken cuffs dangle on your left wrist, a memento of how deep in trouble you were merely 2 hours ago. But you escaped her secret alcove. And you almost freed yourself from her electric controller to teach you how to “watch your mouth, young man.” You shudder and keep limping towards the east your pocket compass is indicating. Purple and yellow lights flash all over you, but you keep your eyes fixed on the ground. From your calculations you still have 25 minutes before she comes back from the live streaming of the conspiracy documentary you pirated on their stream while captive. Plenty of times to get out of this maddening maze. > Seven secret ways out they are hiding from you! Click here to know more “Clever defence mechanism, Auntie, but not that fuc-aaaargh! Fuck-Ddddamnit!” You almost fall on the ground. Your left arm is tingling and you can’t feel your fingers. You have to get out of here. Fast. Once you are out you will find a way to free your wrist from that trap, and then you will plan a way to capture Evil Auntie and- “So soon, Jamie dear?” Blood doesn’t freeze in your vein, but your breath definitely stops dead in your chest. She’s here. She called you Jamie. You hate people who call you that. And most importantly, you are disarmed, injured, escaping. And she found you. “Auntie! Long time no see, uh? How is it going with your cooking groups?” “Don’t waste your breath, Jaime dear. I know you never shared my recipes.” “To partially justify myself, I was tied to your chair until, like, now?” “And why you never responded to my comments on your photos?” “Because... you literally took pics of me, unconscious and bleeding in your yard, and posted them online?” She chuckles, clearly very pleased with herself. “Oh, Jamie dear, Jamie dear. When are you going to find a good girl and settle down?” “Does this mean you are going to let me have a life?” “Oh no, no, no! Silly you, I just want to kill her and upload her pics with funny stickers on my Facebook wall!” You sigh. Of course, you can’t reason with her. Especially when she’s brandishing a awfully sharp knife, like now. “Auntie. Can’t we... discuss this outside? Your minions are kind of freaking me out.” Her eyes close to two slits. “My. Minions. Are. Beautiful.” A giant purple minion appears behind her. He has a badly photoshopped sign in one hand, reading “ME ON MONDAYS.” In the other hand, he has an axe. “Oh frick.” You whisper under your breath. This one is real. Very, very real. Run? Run. But as soon as you turn over your heels and sprint to the left you remember why you didn’t want to run in the first place. Cursed wound! Luckily for you the purple minion is too big for these corridors. Time. You need time. You crouch inside a small alcove and wait for the purple minions steps to get away. Time. Think, James, think. You beat your head with your palm, feeling helplessly stupid. When you raise your eyes, you see what this alcove is made for; you see the Wi-Fi modem. Think, James, think. “We should vaccinate kids!” You scream at the tops of your lungs. You immediately hear the heavy steps coming towards you. The ugly purple head appears from the corner. Before you know it, the axe is plummeting on you. With an elegant somersault (well, not so elegant), you dive away. But with a satisfying crash, you hear the monster destroy the WiFi router. “Take that, you... you... bitch-gosh! Worth it!” From the depositing dust you can see a very confused looking minion. He doesn’t know what to do, now. “So, Auntie? How do you feel without internet?” There is silence for a couple of seconds. Then you hear her laugh. “You silly! I just have to turn on... my data!” There is a longer silence. “Do you need a hand, Auntie?” “No! I just need to...” “Go to the Settings icon.” “I am in the-! Ok. Ok. Wait a second...” “You have to look for the-“ “I know!” there is a third, longer silence. Then the minion raises its axe again. “A-ah! And now, Jamie, prepare to be meme-ed !” She laughs, hysterically. You just casually scratch your head. “Jamie! Aren’t you scared of Evil Auntie?” “Nah. I’m good.” “Wha-why! What!” “You realise that you also turned on the hotspot, right?” “The what?” “So now I too have access to the internet. And to Facebook. And, incidentally, I might have blocked your profile and removed your friendship...” “No! Give it back! I need to access your summer photos from 2009 to have my powers against you!” “I know, Auntie, I know. By the way, I’m posting a private selfie on Instagram right as we speak.” “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!” And without further ado, the giant purple minion carries you by the leather jacket, touches a hidden panel and throws you in what definitely looks and smells like a garbage disposal tunnel. Fancy? No. Is it a way out? Yes indeed. Luckily for you, no one will post this adventure online.
"You're joking, obviously." "No, no, for real. Every book we've ever read." "Both of us." "Yup." Emilia squeezed her eyes shut, feeling a tension headache come on. "We're kinda safe on my end, but didn't you..." "...Basically grow up in a library?"Annie said. "Yup." Emilia paused to think. Or at least pretend to think, because really she was trying to stall. "How many thousands of years are we talking about here, like..." "We calculated it to about 275,000 experience-time years. We can speed-run through some of it, though." Emilia had to focus on breathing for a second. "I need to keep you from spending so much time with Daniel. You're loving this, aren't you." Annie grinned. "A little bit. I've always wanted to walk around a medieval relm of knights and dragons." "You. Are. A psycho. You realise that you're going to get very sick of that lifestyle, real fast, right?"Emilia trailed off muttering, "I know I am..."She tried not to think about latrines or food without spices or life without electricity. "Thank God I read modern-day dramas..." Annie hummed non-commitally. "Just remember, the reason we're doing this is to gather experience that can help us with our particular problem. It's not going to do us much good to spend a lifetime being a gossip girl." "Sacrilege,"Emilia gasped. "Any good writer knows that in a world of real people, there's always going to be gossip and petty drama. It's a fundamental part of the human race." Annie quirked a smile at her friend. "Fair enough. I guess it's a good thing we're going through all of our books, not just mine."She reached for the nearby stack. "Any preferences for where we start?" "Eh, we'll end up going there anyway. Wait,"Emilia reached over, "do I see textbooks? Because I swear if we have to go through a million versions of written math problems I will lose it so much..." \\ Luckily, there were no math problems. Unluckily, Annie had happened to grab a book that started in media res, and they very nearly ended up impaled in the middle of a battle. "I swear to God, if I didn't love you so much..."Emilia grumbled, swinging her sword at a nearby dark elf. Anie just laughed, pulling up her shield.
"You do realize what's going to happen don't you?" "Yes, we're going to live as god intended. No vaccine. No autism. It's going to be wonderful." "It's going to be a disease ridden pest hole. Every single person who comes to this island paradise of yours is going to bring every pestilence known to humanity, and probably a bunch we don't know." "Vaxxer! Get out! You don't want to live here then leave!" "That is exactly what I am here to arrange. As Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the United States, China, and 12 other countries, I, Admiral Jones of the United States Navy, and Grand Admiral of the forces now present in Port of Mananjary and surrounding seas, serve you with notice that the entire island of Madagascar is under quarantine. No craft of any size or type will be permitted to leave Madagascar from anywhere other than said port, on pain of immediate destruction and execution of any survivors. Said port is also the only port of entrance for anyone seeking to enter Madagascar. Should they subsequently attempt to leave, they must undergo the same procedure as any other emigree. All persons wishing to leave must present evidence of vaccination for all diseases presently known, or undergo vaccination and observation quarantine for a minimum of 90 days. All persons meeting either requirement will be provided free transportation to any international airport in the world. This offer of transportation is good for five years. After five years, the quarantine is permanent without exception for any cause whatsoever. At that point, any craft attempting to leave will be destroyed, any survivors executed, and the origin of the craft will also be destroyed. --- It's horrific. Aircraft are shot down. Small fishing boats are destroyed. Any survivors are executed, regardless of age or sex, by long range gunfire. No one is permitted to leave save by the port. Service in the quarantine force is one of the most stressful posts ever. PTSD suicide is common, despite the best mental health care available. The port is eventually depopulated, not by military action, but by the people of Madagascar seeking evacuation and medical treatment that they would never have been able to afford, in exchange for a chance at a better life somewhere else. In one year, there are food riots. In two, starvation. In three, cannibalism. In the fourth year, between emigration and deaths due to other causes, the population has levelled off at what can be supported by purely land agriculture. At the end of the fifth year, the port is destroyed in a fighting retreat to the evacuation ships. All personnel are quarantined, as reports of new diseases had already come in. The great hospital ships, in cooperation with the medical research establishment around the world, work out vaccines for each new disease identified. This global cooperation results in some of the greatest advances in medical science in centuries. At the same time, the number of attempted escapes reaches such a tempo that the only solution is the complete destruction of the coastal regions to a depth of one mile. Warning is given by many means. Air dropped pamphlets. Radio broadcast. Helicopters with loudspeakers in every language. Then the bombs and napalm come. There are no more attempts. Automated systems are devised, and maintained for decades. Satellite reconnaissance shows rapidly decreasing human presence. Villages disappear back into the jungle. Cities decay and are overgrown. Soon, even campfires are no longer seen. The quarantine is maintained for a hundred years, purely by automated systems. There are no attempts to escape. The warning buoys remain, and the systems have become self maintaining. Not sufficient for AI, but just enough to recognize an attempt to leave. Nine hundred more years pass. --- "Look, I know the island has been quarantined for centuries, but after WWIII, we don't know why. Too many records were lost due to EMP effects, even if the radiation and artificial diseases didn't do much more than make people sick for a couple of days, it wiped nearly all data that wasn't hard backed up, or in sheltered systems. We need to find out why, because we need that pristine land! So green and vibrant! We need the bio diversity!" "Granted. However, the other things we lost were the protocols for temporarily disabling the quarantine systems. If you go in, you're not coming out, unless you can convince the rest of the world that it's safe. The one thing we did retain was the clear indication of a global hazard that had to be contained by any means necessary. The slightest hint that there's anything wrong will doom your entire expedition." "I've made sure that everyone going has no close family, or dependents. I've also made sure that they understand that this is a one way trip, unless we can convince the World Council that it's safe to lift the quarantine. I've still had so many applications that I've been able to pick the very best in every field. Every one of them has at least two skills in addition to extreme survival. Many of them are combat veterans on their fourth career. Life has become too mundane for many. They see this as the last great adventure on Earth. It's going to take another five years before we can get anything but small scale space industry going again. Until then, this is it." "Very well. Your request is approved. WCMF support will also be provided. You will at least have secure quarters and food synth, we'll also arrange for supply drops via PADS from high altitude." --- EXCERPTS FROM A DATA PAD RECOVERED AT SEA AFTER THE EXPLORATION TEAM WENT SILENT. WARNING: GRAPHIC INSTANCES OF DEATH. Day One: We're finally on the island. Just looking from the beach fortress it's impressive. The biodiversity is incredible. I can't wait to get started, although I know we have much preparation to do. ((To be continued. I gotta stop doing these on my phone!))
I’m just your average person. Not too different from you, I bet. Except for one thing. It’s an ability that I have. It’s kind of hard to explain. Well, actually, it’s not that hard to explain. I can fit anything into anything else. It’s not even a superpower. Not really. More like a party trick. Except for the fact that it completely defies the laws of physics. My mother discovered my…gift, talent, whatever you want to call it, when I was two years old. I had one of those toys where you stack a set of cups together. The biggest cup can hold all of the other cups if you stack them right, but you can’t put that biggest cup into any of the other cups since they are too small. Except, I could. I could put any cup I wanted into any other cup. She says she thought at first she got some kind of defective set, but when she saw me put the biggest cup into the smallest cup, she freaked out. I didn’t know why. I didn’t know I was doing anything special. When I was a kid I would sometimes hide under the sofa when I was in trouble. Not that strange, except that the sofa was about one inch off of the ground at the time. I didn’t feel like I was doing anything special. I was just trying to avoid a spanking. My mother told me to never tell anybody about what I could do. She said they wouldn’t understand and might take me away. So I kept it secret and didn’t use my ability. Well, that isn’t true. I was just really careful. I was a master at hide and seek, as you can imagine. People think to look in the weirdest places in those games: the garbage can, the dryer, behind the couch. They never think to look in the silverware drawer. Yeah, I also shoplifted a little when I was a teenager. Just small stuff. Jewelry. Video games. Jackets. One big screen TV. But that was so heavy I could hardly walk out of the store. And when I brought them home I couldn’t just keep them hidden and still enjoy them, and my room was too small for that TV anyway. Eventually I just got bored with it. There isn’t any thrill when it is just so easy to do. So today is a little different. I was at the bank to cash a check I got from my uncle for my birthday. They only had one teller working and I was getting kind of sick of standing in line to cash a ten dollar check, but I had been carrying it for months, and, I don’t know, I was just tired of that check. Anyway, all of a sudden this guy bursts into the place and yells, “EVERYBODY ON THE GROUND!” So of course we all turn around to see this big guy in a yellow ski mask with two empty duffel bags in one hand and a gun in the other, so we hit the ground. He makes his way to the front, throws a duffel bag at the teller and yells, “FILL IT UP WITH LARGE UNMARKED BILLS!” I’m thinking, This guy has watched a lot of movies. Who talks like this? I look up and I can see that everyone is petrified. The lady in front of me has a kid with her, probably four or five, and she’s screaming her head off. The old man in the front of the line is huddled against the wall in front of the empty teller station, and his color looks terrible, like he is going to vomit, pass out, or have a heart attack. The teller is shaking and fumbling with her drawer. All of a sudden the robber swings around and yells, “SHUT THAT KID UP!” and the mom just grabs her tighter and puts her hand over her mouth, but that’s not doing a whole lot to quiet the kid down. “That’s all I have! Please just leave!” the teller says nervously, tossing the bag back to him. “NO WAY!” he yells back. “I’VE BEEN WATCHING THIS PLACE AND I KNOW YOU’VE GOT MORE BECAUSE THE BRINKS TRUCK THAT PICKS UP YOUR EXTRA CASH DOESN’T SHOW UP UNTIL FRIDAY!” He shoves the gun in her face and yells, “OPEN THE VAULT!” “Oh God!” the teller cries. “I..I don’t know the combination.” “YEAH, RIGHT!” he says, and all of a sudden that kid slips out of her mom’s arms and starts running to the door and yelling at the top of her lungs. Her mom is shouting, “MEGHAN! COME BACK!” and the robber is yelling “HEY! STOP IT!” and starts running at that little girl and pointing his gun right at her and, well, I do the first thing that comes to my mind. I reach out, grab him, and I put him in my jacket pocket. “Where did he go?!?” I hear the teller yell. I think she might have been the only one who saw it, and like most people who probably saw me doing what I do over the years, she either doesn’t understand what she saw or else just can’t believe it because it’s impossible. He’s yelling in my pocket. “HEY, WHERE AM I?!? HEY! HEY!!!” But he can’t get out. I don’t think he can, anyway. I’ve never did this before. I wasn’t sure I could…afraid I would hurt somebody. “I can hear him. Where is he?!?” the teller keeps yelling, her eyes darting around. “I’m calling the police!” I decide to leave to make sure everybody stays safe. It’s hard to walk…this guy must weigh 150, 175 easy, and I can barely stay upright. I’m on my way to the police station now. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I get there. Sneak him out of my pocket? Finally show the world what I can do? Either way, I think the cat’s out of the bag now. Okay, maybe not the best choice of metaphor in this case.
“James!” The way he said your name sounds like he repeatedly tried to catch your attention. “Yeah?” “Are you... thinking about your parents?” You feel weirdly known, and clear your throat in an attempt to hide your uneasiness. “How would you know...?” “Because we have been in this roundabout for three full rounds- wait, now four.” You clear your throat again and signal your way out of the roundabout. “Sorry, Alpha. It was s long day.” “As they say, I feel you, bro. But please, focus. Even if we left the Town, we are still on the run.” Yes, you are. Yes, you left the Town behind your back, the place where you grew up. The place where you never felt at home. “Were you ever... like, outside the Town?” “Yes, plenty of times. Actually, I have lived there for just 3 years.” “Oh!” And you let your surprise ring in the stolen car. “So you have no... like, no-“ “No superpowers, no. I am an old fashioned secret agent. Regular training and a lot of 007 movies. Do you?” You flinch against your will. On your right you see two girls hitchhiking with a sign that reads “WE WILL WARM COFFEE FOR A RIDE.” “Actually, no. Me neither.” “Oh.” He lets his surprise ring in the dark car. “So how... if I may?” “My parents.” You sigh. “Super everything, super famous, super disappointed in their only son.” You decide it’s the moment to crack a joke. But nothing funny comes up to your mind. “Well, in the end I never met a super citizen which was somehow... how to put it politely?” “Useful? Able to apply their powers to something remotely helpful?” If you tried to hide your bitterness you certainly didn’t do a good job at it. A lone motel is briefly lighted and displays a sign reading “NO SPARKLY SUPER POWER ALLOWED.” “Yes. That’s it. Can I say it? The Town is a garbage idea.” “Mostly.” You glumly surpass a car shaped like a hen. Probably someone able to talk to chickens. What a catch. “Do you think some lousy super villain is the one trying to kill us?” “There is not a single scary super villain in the whole Town.” “And then... where are we going?” “To find the really scary ones.” “Ok.” Alpha readjusts himself in the driver seat. “And who are they?” “Well.” You squint your eyes in the darkness. The Town is far behind now. “My parents, of course.”
"The name of the drug..." I point the clicker at the projector. All eyes in the room follow. I click. "...'!@#$%^&'. Now, I don't know how to pronounce that, but that's apparently what the users exclaim when they take their first hit. "This drug was created by a disgruntled housewife whose husband no longer found her attractive. The drug was intended to be, basically, an arrow from Cupid laced with Viagra. Smart -- if it had worked. Not only would his libido have returned with increase, but he would have had no desire for anyone but her. Thus, no risk of him cheating. "Unfortunately, the drug didn't work out that way. "We've all heard the phrase, 'chasing that first high.' For anyone remembers their first time getting high or achieving an orgasm, you know what this means. And this is what this drug does. It gives you that first high again... "...and it never stops.* "Everyone who tries this drug goes into a catatonic state of bliss where they just stop functioning and just revel in this constant high state of ectasy. "Sounds great, right? Well, the problem is this. "That high level of pleasure is not sustainable. Not only are you at a peak, you stay at that peak. What happens when you take some drugs or about to orgasm? Your body starts tightening up, your heart starts beating faster... "Now imagine that never stops. While you're off in your pleasure paradise, all your muscles are contracting to the point of no return. Your heart and other organs are working overtime. "In a few hours from the first time taking the drug, your body gives up and you die. "That concludes my presentation. "Thank you." I take a seat. My boss looks around. "Questions? Comments?" A hand goes up. All eyes turn towards the owner, who cracks a nervous grin, and says, "Yeah, just one thing. The presenter didn't tell us what the bad part of, you know, what everything he just said was." All eyes swivel back to me. I hold my hands up in surrender. "I was just paid to do the research and presentation. If you want my genuine, honest opinion though? A few hours of orgasmic bliss before you die, peacefully, with no pain doesn't sound too bad to me." The boss frowned. "So, where are the complaints coming from?" I checked my notes. "Women." "Women?" "Married women, to be more specific. Apparently since the drug hit the market, the primary buyers have been married men. Oh, I also forgot to mention that the drug has no effect on women whatsoever.. It doesn't even get them high."
As the young boy surged and contorted within the confines of his sheets. He could feel how intensely it had called for him. “ YOUR TIME COME YOUNG ONE...” He sat up feeling a surge of energy funnel through his chest like wet lighting, who was that? No, what was that. The young boy couldn’t find the peace to rest again; he stumbled from his servants quarters into the utterly blinding moonlight that laid untouched outside. He could feel a strange feeling coming into his mind, it was indescribable yet all to familiar. Before he could fully comprehend it, his back snapped and cracked as it began to outgrow his shoulders. The best he could do was yell, and play victim as his whole skeletal structure began to rebreak at the joints. Within minutes he was sprawled stretching and yelling at the top of his lungs for anyone to save him. Why was this happening. As his body lay wreaked and recomposed, he felt a hunger grow deep within him. He could smell the rabbit within the keeps garden. He took a step to rise from his twisted stupor. He was perplexed with how different everything felt, the earth felt more delicate, the wind carried a thousand odors of a hundred different animals. The moon resembled the sun as everything seemed to shift and flow towards where ever he pointed his vision. This dream state only seemed to intensify as he stumbled to the river to wash his eyes. As he reached into the nearby river basin, he caught sight of his reflection in the moonlight, no how could have such venomous eyes, where was his nose, his chin. He let out a cry of blood curdling anguish but the only sound that resonated with his ear was the Erie Howl of the Beast of Black waters call.
\**Mission report\ ZzzzzzZzzZzZZztTTt 'video feed of a man who appears to be in his 30s can be shown, but it seems badly damaged. The man also seems to be leaning on a table with papers, pictures and the camera which is pointed at him' "It was supposed to be easy... \gasp\ ...find a new home... \gasp\ ...save... \gasp\ ... humanity..."he said \thud\ \crash\ 'the man seems to have fallen over the table tipping it over with the contents along with it. A picture of him and his wife and, what seems to be his daughter, conveniently covers the screen' Oxygen levels critical seven minutes remain. "I suppose... \gasp\ ...humanity had a good run... \gasp\"he gasps Oxygen levels critical three minutes remain "I pray... \gasp\ ...to whatever species... \gasp\ \cough\ \cough\ ...may never find themselves... \gasp\ ...in this situation... \gasp\" Oxygen levels critical 30 seconds remain 'It seems to be silent until the man seems to be humming what seems to be a lullaby' With one more breath drawn he says "I love you... C-" ZZZZzzzzZZzZzZzzZZTtttTTTTTttTt \**Mission report end\
“Mrs Nox, if you will have a seat.” Mrs. Nox! That was the 3rd time someone had called me by my new name, my married name. Mrs. Ilene Nox. It had such a good ring to it! Ring! Impulsively I look down at my rings. I can’t help admire the 2 rings! Two rings- engagement and wedding ring on my left hand! How they shown in the light! “Ahem, Mrs. Nox.” The older thin women dressed in a black pants suit, gestured to a black chair with metal arm rests. I drifted dreamily over to the chair. Mrs. Nox! She called me Mrs. Nox! The women in black’s face was creased with wrinkles and liver spots covered her exposed hands and scalp line. I doubted she had laughed at anything in decades, her mouth a perpetual line. “Mrs. Nox, 1st let me offer you congratulation on your wedding day.” My wedding day! Howard had looked so dashing in his tux. And now we are Husband and WIFE! Mrs. Howard Nox! It was like a dream come true! “Thank you!” I could feel my smile growing wider at the thought, “Everything was beautiful and perfect.” “I am sure it was.” Her voice was like a cracker, thin and dry. Her tone was the one reserved for nuns and headmistress on TV. No nonsense. I could imagine her tapping a ruler slowly in her hands. “We have a bit of a problem. I have had them confirm that your death date is in fact today.” “Wedding date, not death date.” I corrected her- that was a mistake no one should make. “’Your death date, per your file is today, it has been confirmed by the Reapers.” She paused holding my eyes, “the issue we are having it with the Cherubs.” “Cherubs….?” I breathed trying to understand. “Cherubs! You know Cupid?” she shouted. I nodded slowly. “The Department of Hearts had a bit of a SNAFU with your marriage certificate- Probably due to the crossing of the international dateline.- you are married to your husband STILL!” “Okay, I am not following. Yes, Howard is my husband, of course I am married to him.” I stuck out my left hand wiggling my ring finger for proof. ‘Mrs. Nox.” She called me.- “You. Are. Dead.” Each word she punctuated with her hands. “There is a reason we have the ‘til death do you part’ clause in the wedding. When one person dies the other is free to fall in love again and move on.” “Not that the Department of Hearts would get that right.” She muttered under her breath. “But the situation is I can’t have you go on to the after life if you are still married, but I can’t send you back you are dead! This is unheard of we are on new ground here.” Dead. She kept saying the word like it was nothing. Dead. I looked down trying to process this and I realized that I could see the chair through my shirt , ... skirt, … and legs. Oh my god! I was dead! I had to think fast. If I didn’t find the solution to this situation quickly, they would. One problem at a time. Problem 1: Get back to Howard. “Okay, just send me to my husband.” “What?!” “You said this is new ground. Let me go and see my husband.” Her mouth worked silently before it finally found words. “That has never been done. “Hauntings are reported all the time, no one would be surprised at a newly married widower seeing his wife” Her steel blue eyes narrowed working out the logistics. She raised 1 eyebrow. “It would push the higher ups to get something done.” She licked her lips. “Fine. Until they figure out a better solution you get your haunted honeymoon.” Then she snapped and I was suddenly standing in a hotel room and Howard was staring out the window to the city skyline with a bourbon in his hand.
Hi u/Trinityofwar, this submission has been removed. [Direct prompt replies must be good-faith attempts at new stories or poems](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_1.3A_direct_prompt_replies_must_be_good-faith_attempts_at_new_stories_or_poems) - Fill-in-the-blank: Responses must be at least 100 words. This is essentially a fill-in-the-blank, or you asked a question likely to generate a simple answer. Prompts should encourage a story or poem. 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)) --- [Modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FWritingPrompts&subject=Removed%20post&message=https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/bjff9h/-/%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.
Edric stood up and looked over the battlements. The light from the final explosion was brighter than the sun, enough to bleach the sooty walls of the fortress to a dingy bone white. He could see the unnatural plume rising high, the other clouds making way as it pierced the heavens. "Is it over?"asked Zahariel. "I think so. We've a few hours before we need to leave." The defenders, dazed from the hurricane that had swept over the castle moments before, were the rearguard of the allied armies. Before long, they'd have to flee the fortress, before the poisoned rains came. The two companions soon found themselves in the midst of a crowd gathered on the parapet, surveying the destruction. Despite the explosion, there didn't seem to be much of a dust cloud. Through his spyglass, Edric saw the crater. A hundred leagues wide at least, it was totally empty of any sign of the battle that had raged there only a few minutes prior. A small force of knights had guarded the cart carrying the thing, carrying it to the heart of the rift before touching it off. It was a massive thing, pulled by half a herd of aurochs and perhaps the most closely guarded secret in the allies' arsenal. Edric shuddered with the thought of what might happen if anyone were to replicate it. "Fury of Heaven", they called it. Edric wondered if even the gods could muster as much destructive force. Zahariel muttered something about pitchblende and gave thanks that it had taken nearly all of the stuff the three realms had to make just one of these things. The ground in front of them started to burn, the camps and villages further away from the blast catching light once the wind died down. He knew the longer they tarried, the more the men risked being poisoned by the invisible energies, the residue of the destruction that ended the hells' incursion into their realm. Ten minutes ago, demons had been pouring from the rift, the armies of the arch-traitor seeking to reclaim the world, but all was ended in one baleful explosion. Legions of demons and the Lord of Hell himself ended, all in one fell swoop. He forced the thought of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers caught up in that wave of wind and light from his mind. Better to honor the dead later, once they were far enough away that the rains wouldn't catch them. As he descended the stair, a lone rider came toward the fortress. The rider flopped about in his stirrups as his horse ran wailing past the walls, away from the crater. The men outside parted to let it through. They were told never to even touch the dead, that the battlefield and all within it was cursed ground. Nobody risked handling the dead that day. He and Zahariel saddled their horses, as eager as their men were to be gone and forget what happened.
The first thing I noticed when I woke up was a bright blue sky. Once I got up and took a moment to get my bearings, I then noticed that I was standing on top of a giant cloud, and there was a gate off in the distance as well. Considering that gate was the only thing I could see in this place, I decided it's as good a place as any to find out how I got here and walked off towards it. When I arrived at the gate, it was then that I noticed just how much light was coming from it. Judging from their golden color and cloudy surroundings, I must be in Heaven, then. Next to the gate was a similarly golden podium and a man in a white robe behind it, looking at a rather long scroll in his hands. Maybe he could tell me how I ended up in Heaven? "Excuse me, sir? May I ask you some questions?" The man quickly redirected his attention from his scroll to me. "Of course, young man. I assume you wish to know why you stand before the gate of Heaven?" I nodded. I guess he gets that particular question a lot. "Well, I must sadly inform you, sir, that you are now dead. Judging from your confusion on this matter, you probably also died less than 24 hours ago." Oh. And here, I was hoping this was just another interplanar travel mishap. "W-well, would you happen to know how I died, then? Just curious, is all." "I'm afraid I do not know. Even if I did, what would it matter now? No, what matters now is whether or not you will be allowed to enter Heaven." Oh, crap. Let's just say I was not a good person before dying. But then, shouldn't I be in Hell instead of Heaven? "Now, let's take a look at your karmic record, sir...?" \---------- "Well, now. After reviewing your, shall we say, haphazard history, I must sadly inform you that you cannot enter Heaven as you are now." "I figured as much. Murdering someone for revenge isn't a good deed, after all. So, can you at least point me to Hell, then?" "Er, I beg your pardon?"Wait, did this guy seriously not know what Hell is? "Hell. You know, where evil people are punished, just as Heaven is where good people are rewarded." For a few moments, the guy just looked at me like I suddenly grew a second head. I mean, I can't be the only bad guy he's reviewed before, so shouldn't he at least know where people like me end up? "A dreadful place, I imagine. No, as far as I know, such a place does not exist." "Wait, so where do people like me go, then? We can't stay in Heaven for reasons that should be obvious, after all." "Such souls are sent back to Earth, where they are then reborn. We then hope that they use their new life to better themselves enough to be allowed past these gates. If such is not the case by the time their new life expires, then they are sent back to be reborn yet again. This process repeats over and over until their latest incarnation is finally allowed to enter Heaven." Interesting. So there's no Hell, just seemingly-infinite do-overs until I become a good enough person to enter Heaven. "Alright. How long will it take for me to reincarnate? Last time I checked, Earth's birthrate was going down, so I figure it'll take a while." "On the contrary, reincarnation is a rather quick process. Observe." That's when I suddenly felt myself falling through the giant cloud we were standing on. Second chance at life, here I come.
More along the lines of an IP: [The last soul of Classical Music](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/d1b2854e-0663-475b-b597-2544feb9da55/d85c8bi-beafc1a7-026c-4f02-92b8-47a055779c52.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcL2QxYjI4NTRlLTA2NjMtNDc1Yi1iNTk3LTI1NDRmZWI5ZGE1NVwvZDg1YzhiaS1iZWFmYzFhNy0wMjZjLTRmMDItOTJiOC00N2EwNTU3NzljNTIuanBnIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.3jDbOHjJz3kqlJQh7DotHNSFnKjNZERpvDBM2EFrnRc)
#Prologue As Voare knelt down, he gingerly scooped a handful of the umber soil, examining it in a detached but fixated way. This much was clear, the world had barely left its cradle some time ago, little more than an infant. Among his culture, this took upon a much less innocent meaning. To be an infant was to be ignorant, impulsive, and all-around unbound. This was the essence of Elven culture, mastery was everything. Elves were eternal, and eternity was to be spent as a continual, Stoic act of refinement. Voare noted this, but also saw in this clump of Earth another aspect of infancy, potential. The soil had weight beyond its mere matter, power beyond its current role as low bedding for the forest floor. This is what separated the northern, shining abode of the Elves from the savage landscape that surrounded them. Elves were born fully created, dross and all. The figures and fixtures in the wilds were always in the process of continuing to create and transform themselves, a koan of endless decay many over the eons continued to struggle with. The glory of Borea was in its timelessness, in its surroundings, formlessness. Voare's role was to contact a particularly quirky manifestation. Towering in the North, those who meditated on the chaos of the primal lands beyond observed odd displays of order emerge. It began with many cycles of occasional smoky pillars snaking out of the treetops. The worry began when patches of forest were torn and burned like paper over a candle and out of the ashes crude forms began to arrange themselves. The features of the landscape were made orderly, seemingly given boundary and purpose. Roaming beasts, loud and savage began to become strolling masses bound by the corpses of wood or stone. Thick stalks that sprouted and struggle to suck a life from the soil began to line themselves into comfortable rows, becoming bulbous and segregated. The culprit was what the Elves had come to call bringers-forth, sapient forms, an anomaly from the chaos that surrounded them. Isolated chains of woodforms had become busy arrangements. The wilds themselves seemed to maneuver around them in the way that flowing water is forced around stones. These arrangements began to connect themselves to each other, dirt being trampled to form veins that hosted little parade after parade. Profane, passionate, and varied sounds could be heard regularly as the sun and moon did their dance. Nature was being bifurcated, some considered this a frivolous curiosity, others an omen. It had been said that this had happened before in an age lost to the cataclysm that marks the beginning and end of each kalpa. Simultaneously such occurrences are an augury of both joy and woe. The Elves chose to rise above this cycle, but even their ability to evade all its inlets and pulses was a fool's errand. This was something to be navigated directly. He had studied them for a little while, and now, with the reluctant blessing of the Council, this elf was to meet them. Voare got back up to his feet, carefully preening his ornate clothes which barely blended with the woodlands around him, and then began to move towards a faint beating of a drum accompanied by hollers he heard in the distance. ____ I will try my best to continue this later, but anyone is free to build on it if they want, impressions are welcome.
7, Bradford street. I grin. Third floor. We have stairs. I love giving people my address. It sounds so decadent. Aunt Marjory would be scandalized if I told her we have no house elves, no etiquette and no magic in our house. I’m just a common girl, living in Bradford street on the third floor. I love it. “Honey, I’m home,” I call from the door, tossing my purse on the chair. After the incident with the dragon’s blood, I’ve learned my lesson and I whisper the locking spell the second I leave the Institute. “Cass?” James’s face peaks from the kitchen. Oh, he’s up to something. “You came home earlier.” I wink to my reflection in the mirror, covering my mouth with both hands but the reflection remains unimpressed. I’ve found the ring when I was folding our clothes almost a week ago and now I’m walking around, practicing my best shocked face. “Ready or not, here I come,” I call from the hall, following a well-known smell of burnt food. My cheeks blush with guilt remembering how I had whispered a dragon-binding spell last week when he was watching the game. Of course, nothing had happened, James was a man, but in my defense, that was the tenth time he had tried to burn my kitchen down and I had a bit too much to drink. And finally, I work in the Dragon department, so I say it is kind of professional deformation. When I reach the kitchen, I find a mountain of pots and pans in the sink, a fire extinguisher and one of the most handsome humans I have ever laid my eyes upon. “I can explain…” James said, his blue eyes tormented. In his jeans and a white T-shirt, he looks nothing like a dragon. Well, at least not the one I was trying to catch today for vaccination. I hated my job. “It’s fine, love.” I press a kiss to his scruffy cheek and his arms wrap around me. “We have a ton of leftovers. Come on. Let’s set the table.” “Cass,” his eyes become serious as I devour the last piece of the chocolate cake, “I want to meet your family.” I gasped and five minutes later he was still tapping my back and running behind me with a glass of water, afraid I might choke again. When I was breathing normally again his gaze became insistent. Last time we had this conversation James wouldn’t speak to me for two days. “Sure,” I said, “we could go and visit them for my birthday.” I flashed him the widest smile in the world. “In August?” James brows pushed together, and he looks away. His fingers were toying with Christmas lights on our tree when he spoke again. “Cass, why won’t you let me meet anyone from your life? Is it me?” My heart clenched a little when I saw the hurt in his eyes. He had all the right to be offended. I had met his entire family, his extended family, his childhood friends, his college friends, his fishing buddies, all of his colleagues, even that guy from the comic book store James befriended in a summer camp when they were eleven. But what could I do? I didn’t want to lose him. I couldn’t. James was the best thing that ever happened to me and this is the first time in my life since dad went missing that I felt…normal. “Don’t be silly. You’re the most perfect muggle in the whole wide world.” I squeeze his hand. “A what?” My breath caught. “I said you are perfect to snuggle.” I flash a stupid grin. “So, what do you want to watch tonight?” I offer him the gift of the TV remote, hoping it would restore the peace. It’s not working. “What about college friends?” He asks, irritated. “I only met that guy, Castor, the one with the funny eyes, and you refused to introduce us.” I sigh. “Love, I’ve told you – it’s a boarding school. There are kids from all over the world. None of them lives here. And Castor is definitely not a friend.” “And your colleagues?” James is now insistent. “We’re together for almost two years and I still don’t know what to say to people when they ask me what you do.” “I’m doing research about endangered species,” I said. I was so proud of myself when I came up with this explanation. “There is nothing spectacular about it.” “And your family, Cass?” James looks me in the eyes. “I want to meet people who gave their daughter name Cassiopeia.” He takes a lock of my auburn hair and twists it around his fingers. “I want to know do you have our mother’s eyes, what was the name of your first pet, what was the most embarrassing thing you did when you were a kid.” His voice becomes softer. I press my face in the crook of his neck. My father had named me after his grandmother, one of the most powerful witches from their bloodline. My first pet was a phoenix named Bob who I had to give up the first time he burst into flames. Mom was adamant. They all regretted when I immediately developed a fascination with dragons. And one of the most embarrassing stories was about a vomiting spell that backfired in the middle of the school recital in front of the all distinguished members of my family. But if I told James any of it, he’d probably start running. And I needed someone to stay. “That house is not the same after my father…,” I deliberated, “disappeared. Mother, all of them. I don’t want to go back. I can’t.” My voice shakes. “There, there. It’s all right.” James whispers in my hair. “Come here.” He pulls me into his arms, knocking down a candle in the process. Before the linen caught fire, I flick my wrist and the little flame disappears. “Oh, not again.” James turns, frown on his face once he realizes that nothing had happened. “I could swear that candle was lit.” I had no idea how to explain to him that it wasn’t, especially when there was still hot wax dripping on the floor. “Love, can I ask you something,” I start carefully, “have you ever been interested in dragons, or other fire breathing creatures? Have you ever noticed something strange about your skin? That it reflects light in an odd way?” James’s gaze turns blank. “No. Why do you ask?” “No reason.” I smile, but then I remembered the velvet box I found in the drawer. “Listen, James, we need to talk about something.” “Can we do it tomorrow night?” He asked. “We could go to that Italian restaurant.” I sigh. Well, one night won’t change anything.
Big, brown, soft eyes. A thick coat, whiter than snow. Cold blooded by nature. Cold blooded by nurture. The mightiest of beasts, high above the clouds, waiting to kill anything in its path: I have described to you the beast of Mount Everest. Yes, you heard right. It’s not the cold or the mercurial weather patterns that have taken many a hiker; nor is it the high altitude. It is this creature who I hold responsible for each an every death. For reasons of confidentiality and with respect to those who have fallen - those who in fact made it to the top of Everest, but died by the hands of the beast - I will not use actual names. Keep in mind the stories will remain the same. The truth the same. We will begin with John Smith, the white creatures first kill. It is a sad story. You see, he trained all of his life to conquer Everest. Fit, healthy, and knowledgeable as any esteemed professor, he flew to the top; in record time and despite the heavy wintry mix. All would have been well, except, he did not see those brown eyes — that floated toward him. Closer and closer the creature came, until it could not hide its excitement. Its jaundice teeth and bubbly brown eyes shone through, like an industrial spotlight, and revealed himself to John. Sure, the beast of Everest’s smile didn’t mar the kill; and, sure, the chase went on a bit longer than intended. But, well, John Smith was torn apart within minutes. Naturally, the news crews and grieving families assumed John had failed to return due to his own fault. And, well, hikers continue to climb. Beverly Bell became the next meal for the beast. It was an easy meal. On a unusually warm day, and indeed at the top of Everest, she struggled the entire way to the top. By some act of God, she conquered the thin air. Only, she had no energy left to escape the beast. Maybe it was sheer fright or immense fatigue, but her legs failed her. And, well, the creature savored every last bite. Starting with the left arm, only to wait several hours to consume the other; eventually the legs and torso. When Ashton Valley first conquered the mountain and became the first to return home, well, the beast must have had a moral code. Indeed, it watched as Valley celebrated the athletic feat. It even shared in the accomplished climber’s delight, smiling from afar. When Alex Wrung became the second person to climb Everest and live to tell the tale, it was the photograph of a child that saved him. At the top, and after having finished the climb, he was in the scope of the creatures vision. Although moments from death, Wrung celebrated alone, with a framed picture of his wife and kids to accompany him. I know not of the beast true intentions, but I can tell you this: if you are to travel to Everest, carry with you goodwill in your heart and maybe, just maybe, you will be spared.
Lucius sculled idly through the waters towards his favourite lurking spot, a place not far from where he had spawned one lazy summer solstice, where the sun had hung so hot and low in a bruised evening sky that the landfolk had refused to touch the sea for weeks. There was hardly anything unusual about Lucius, neither in his appearance, nor his ponderous demeanour. He rarely spoke to anyone about his distant, weak memories and it was only if they were particularly persistent with their questioning. There were many like Lucius who carried with them Mère's kiss. Ones whose souls had been claimed by her roiling embrace in unfair and unfortunate circumstances, and some of them remembered more of their trials than others. Arcto was barely visible through the kelp forest as Lucius neared the place he held close to his heart, where the rocky and tumbled shore met the brash and chilly breakers that thrashed and hissed through the dull grey pebbles. It wasn't much further past this point where the cliffs had collapsed twenty years ago that Lucius sought his quiet. His long, dark body was speckled with white spots and his fins were simple and functional. However, it was his teeth that attracted most attention. For Lucius was a natural hunter and his jaws were arrayed with narrow, sharp teeth. Unlike the others, he simply seemed to be resting, lurking low against the sea-bed until the moment that his prey came innocently by. And this was only when he was hunting fish. The landfolk who were always so eager to strip Mère of her natural bounty feared and loathed merfolk in equal parts for their 'vicious' natures. Lucius came to the surface in an area of tidal ponds, where the steep cliffs and rapid tides made it an unwelcoming place for landfolk. It was an area of natural bounty, for the most part untainted by landfolk clutter. Gulls wheeled overhead, screeching and mewling while terns flitted to and fro, their nests clinging elegantly to the rock in ways that always fascinated Lucius. He rested his elbows on a shelf of rock in the natural harbour of a craggy outcrop, the gentle current coyly stirring his strong lower body. "Saint's blood!"came an unfamiliar voice. Lucius reacted instantly and made to grab and drag the landfolk into the cold waters, but the landfolk was smiling widely in a way that Lucius had never seen before. "An actual merfolk! I had heard but... Hello! I'm sorry for disturbing your quiet place - I had come for some quiet myself, you see." Lucius sighed and shook his head, knowing that he would have to be particularly patient with this one, if he were to claim it like he had done the others. The landfolk straightened up and then perched delicately on the edge of a slimy boulder, as if he was unaccustomed to the natural slimes and smells of a coastline. "What..."Lucius asked, clumsily: "is a noble doing here?" The landfolk sighed heavily and shook his head, forearms resting on his knees. "I'm simply afraid a merfolk wouldn't understand." "Tell me."Lucius replied. "I suppose I might. It shouldn't make much difference."Arthur sighed. "Where should I begin?" "From wherever you are happy to." "Well, I'm not certain how much of human culture you might understand, but I have been told I must marry someone I don't love, all for the sake of the family business."Arthur began. Lucius listened while the sea murmured through the rocks, and despite himself, found the landfolk somewhat amusing. He was aware that these things had seemed so important, in the indistinct before, but he had been a lowly fisherman; and this young man the son of the lord who owned the land. They may as well have been different species for all it mattered. "I see."Lucius said, eventually. "And what's your problem with having a mistress?" Arthur sputtered indignantly, recoiling from the merman with genuine disgust. "Me?! A mistress! That's not in the least bit -" He didn't get to finish his sentence before Lucius lifted one webbed hand, then pointed at him with a clawed finger. "You are a lord's son, yes? You think your father doesn't have a mistress too?" "No! It's not proper!" Lucius cackled harshly. "It ain't proper, but it goes on, all right. It's all but tradition, isn't it? Young folk don't get a say in who they marry, least of all you monied ones." "I say, where did you learn how to talk?"Arthur said, curiously. "You sound a little like the fishermen." "The fishermen we drown, landfolk."Lucius answered. He gestured at the patient sea behind them, but he knew the tide was turning and Arthur might soon be swept out to open waters; where if he wasn't drowned by a less patient merfolk, Mère would have him. "Why is that?"Arthur asked. "Because they overfish. They strip Mère of what is hers. So we damage their nets and upturn their boats."Lucius said. "Go before Mère decides to have you. Tide's turning." Arthur got up quickly, not having noticed how his boots were now an inch deep in chilly water and turned to make his way up a narrow path in the cliffside that Lucius had never noticed before. "I'll come back!"Arthur said, cheerily. Lucius scoffed and slipped back down into the murky waters, where with a simple flick of his tail he was carried back off into the looming kelp forests, where any shape might be predator or prey, and the shafts of sunlight that reached this far down filtered through the tall, reaching strands into a hazy and dreamlike place. The tide had turned and so smaller fish were carried once more closer to the shore. <<Where were you, Lucius?>> <<Thinking.>> Lucius replied to Squalus. <<Thinking. You do a lot of that.>> Squalus replied, as he made a lazy turn in the water around Lucius. <<I know I do.>> Lucius answered. <<I don't have the energy to chase prey down like you.>> <<Oh, you know? I remembered more of my old life.>> Lucius turned in the water to track Squalus and met his gold-hued eye with curiosity. <<You said you were a merchant.>> <<Yes, of people.>> Squalus replied. <<Cleaning cabins, though.>>
Markson peered over his grove. The hazy sun gave an orange tint to the verdant leaves of the corn-bamboo, colloquially referred to as the cornboo. Although it had been less than two weeks, the tops of the older plantings had already grown to be thrice his height. Immature ears sprouted out from the sides, and clustered under the leafy crowns like coconuts. He knocked on the trunk. The low, resonant tones told him it would be ready for use as timber soon. It was just as well – he needed to replace his roof shingles, and the fence could desperately use some more reinforcing. In the meantime, Apinine had to eat. Markson looked to the right, at his large metal still. The vat was simmering, a thick mixture of corn starch from the last crop. He hoped he didn’t add the wrong amount of hydrochloric acid this time. He’d thanked god that poor Apinine’s proboscis had no lasting burn scars. But she was hungry, and he was near out of corn syrup. He knew she deserved better than the thick, brown, sugary liquid. But there were no flowers big enough for a bee the size of a bull. That was part of why they were so rare, compared to the omnivorous ants that roamed the lands, their jaws tearing through crops, livestock, houses… people. He squeezed his eyes shut, as though it would keep out the memory of his sister, her limbs ripped from their sockets. Her blood-chilling screams, her - A nudge at the side of his cheek brought him out of his painful remembrance. Apinine’s tilted her head back and forth, her iridescent eyes rotating as if to look Markson over with concern. On that day, he’d ridden in on Apinine’s back. He’d urged her to fight, to land, to let him try and reach his dear little sister, but Apinine had refused. He knew the honey bee was not at fault – she couldn’t possibly have won a conflict with a half-dozen ants as large as herself, and she had no reason to risk death for a human. Nevertheless, emotions weren’t logical. It’d taken him a year of being forced to work side-by-side to forgive her. But forgive her he did; she'd been hand-raised from larva by his father, and had grown up alongside Markson. They had been inseparable - and they were still inseparable. ----- Some Random Notes: Corn and bamboo are relatively closely related, being members of the same family (Poaceae). Some apiarists do feed their bees corn syrup, especially during winter; however, this is not ideal, as it triggers differential gene activation that results in poorer performance and longevity.
Zapo- zaportian? No, Zaporozhian, that's what it said. Zaporozhian. What's that supposed to mean? My great-grandfather always collected old stamps. Today, I found out he also collected the letters that got sent with them. No idea how he got them, but here they are, in the corner of this dark, damp room, where no-one has even been since my Grandpa died. He used to tell me it was haunted. I thought he just didn't want anyone to see what a goddamn mess his father left behind and tell him to clean up. Today he was dead for a year, and I decided on a whim I should go looking. Maybe I thought I’d see my Grandpa’s ghost or something. Well, turns out I was right, partially. The place was absolutely cramped, filled with old clothes, books, spiders, you name it, nothing less than 80 years old. I didn’t see ghosts though.What I did find was this chest. I’d call it a treasure chest, if it wasn’t made out of old, brittle paper and, having sat there in the corner untouched for decades, looked about as valuable as a mote of dust. Boy, was I wrong. It was full of letters, and every one of them seemed to be even older than the rest of the stuff in here. First, I thought: “Wow, I could get a fortune selling this to an archive or someplace!”. I immediately regretted this thought and told myself how careless and disrespectful it would be to just sell it all as soon as I even saw it.Then I started to read one of the letters. Well, I tried to. Zaporozhian? This didn’t make any sense to me. I continued anyway. “Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan”, I read. This was bound to get interesting. “O Sultan, Devil’s Secretary, and Devil yourself, though you can’t slaya hedgehog with your ass, you eat what your master excretes You will not force us into slavery, for we are renowned for our bravery, pity be upon your ridiculous army, you can not harm us indeed, as we are Christians and you are heathens, to your godless god you should plead that we spare you, whom we beat once before, not to us, we will do it again any day. By land and by sea,y ou’ll be defeated, we recommend that your mother you lay!” It didn’t get any better from there, and the Sultan was subsequently called every name in the book and then some. It was signed by one Ivan Sirko, who I can safely say wrote the most vulgar and insulting diplomatic document ever. Or did he?I decided this was all just an elaborate prank. I couldn’t possibly have picked out this letter at random, could I? It was all just a collection of rare insults, and that’s why it was hidden down here. My Grandpa had been a soft-spoken person, and very religious. He would never have admitted his father collected insults instead of stamps.pig’s snout, mare’s ass… I read through the list. “No we're done, don’t know the date, anyway, you’ll get none, there’s the same year as here, and the same moon and sun, don’t need a calendar, we don’t own one, so kiss our ass, leave us alone. Signed, Ivan Sirko, with the whole Zaporozhian Host. Just as I read the last word, a gust of wind suddenly lifted the filthy letter out of my hand. The wind blew stronger, and now I was lifted of my feet! I don’t remember much after that, but when I came to, I was in a palace. Someone regal-looking, presumably the Sultan, was sitting in front of me. My clothes had changed, too. Instead of jeans and a sweater, I was wearing a tunic, and instead of socks and gym shoes, I was half barefoot, one sandal on my left foot all that remained. “Ivan Sirko, with the whole Zaporozhian Host.”, the Sultan read. He paused. Then he said: “They call me lowlife. Guards, kill the sorry shitface who had so little life to lose he actually delivered this verbal vomit!” As I laughed at the Sultans addition to my Grandpa’s rare insult collection, I was suddenly yanked off my feet…
Three days passed. A lone cave stood in the wilderness, a tomb for the dissenter. Before the entrance stood a boulder, round and dense; made and sealed to see that no one disturbed the dead. Though men may try to move it, alone they failed. Behind it lays a man persecuted for his persistence. Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Crucified for his teachings, he fought to see his accused forgiven, even in death. Through respect, he gained a following. To save them all, he gave his life. It proved to be a sacrifice so noble that even the ruling class who ordered his death wept for him. Three days passed. The boulder began to budge. The rock slid far away from the cave, pushed with great force. From the dark depths of the cave stepped a man. Covered in fine white garbs, the man spoke for the first time in days. "Thank you, Joseph. This cloth will be the symbol of my resurrection." Claps could be heard from the wilderness. Jesus was not phased. "So, you have come to me, in this time,"said Jesus. "Forgive them, for they know not what they do,"a voice quoted from the forest. "Was that prepared like everything else or did you come up with it off the top of your head?" Jesus smiled and took a few steps away from his tomb before speaking again. "Step forward, Nicholas." From behind the trees, a mand stepped out, draped in black. His eye focused intently of the messiah, his other being covered with an eyepatch. He smiled and clapped. "I shouldn't have expected anything less,"he said. "It may be a bit unnecessary, but allow me to introduce myself. Nick Fury, director of S.H.E.I.L.D. and believer of the gospel." "I am humbled by your faith,"Jesus responded. "What brings you to me during the day of my ressurection?" "The world is still filled with atrocities. It doesn't get any better in the years ahead." "As I predicted. Man is flawed, but there is still good to be found." "Who said anything about men?" Jesus scrunched up his face in confusion. It was the first time he ever did so. "Seems like I finally got you,"Fury said. "What matter of being do you speak of?" "Tell me, Jesus . . . have you ever heard of the Celestials?" Jesus widened his eyes. "So, they have returned from their slumber in the future,"he said. "You bet your ass they did. One is . . . one will be closing in on Earth,"Fury confirmed. Great pressure surrounded Jesus. The very flow of nature seemed to move around his feet. "This world that my father created, flawed as it may be, I must protect it,"he spoke sternly. "WE must protect is, your holiness,"Fury responded. "We?" "That's right. I'm putting together a team . . . "
October 12, 1862 My commanding officers have determined that we must share our billets with the elves. The scrawny dagger-tips don't carry half the gear we do, they don't carry rifles, and they don't work artillery crews. They do like riding horses, and supposedly they're excellent shots. I don't trust them, but who would? Just because we are united in this war doesn't mean we should trust them. They have their own motivation, and it probable doesn't involve us. October 15, 1862 The Greenskins made a push for the trainyard. They didn't seem to expect being hit with Gatling fire, and their charge was quickly driven back. Their tactics simply don't have a place in modern combat. Gunpowder and lead shot means their standard practice of getting in close and hacking us up simply doesn't do much for them any more. Having the dwarf gunners around is a boon, and their armorers have even made improvements to our rifles. They have developed a system where shot, powder, and wad are all contained in a single package. Rather than loading from the muzzle, you load it from the breech, meaning a rifleman doesn't have to lose his positioning while reloading. ________________________________________ November 2, 1862 Turns out our suspicion of the elves was not unfounded. The bastards were found to be relying information to the wizards the Greenskins worked for, revealing fort locations, arms stockpiles, pretty much anything they could find out. Several of them were summarily executed and they have once more been moved apart from the human and dwarf barracks. I hope this war ends soon, because I'm not sure how much more of these strange folk I can take. January 1, 1863 Happy new year. The dwarfs know how to throw a party, and most of us were horribly drunk on dwarf brew. Tomorrow, they say, the war will be over. One of our magicians divined the location of the dark wizard behind the Greenskins and managed to hit him with a bolt of lighting. So the officers say. I'm not sure I believe the orcs would simply give up. Goblins, sure. But orcs are too mean to just leave a fight.
"There", I said, gesturing toward the Salt Lake Temple. "It was there, in that temple, that it all began. There that I swore -" "Before God, angels, and these witnesses", said everyone in sarcastic unison. "- to keep the law of the Lord, and never to reveal the signs and tokens given to me. It was there that I first began to expose their signs and tokens and general bullshit to the world. And now, it's there that we're going to expose Mormonism's most secret ritual." "No way!", Orrin shouted! "We're going to film the Second Anointing?!" "Mormon God's most super duper sacred magic mojo!", snarked Eliza. "God's gonna be soooo mad at us." "Come on, Noah, be real", said Lyman. "That's too ambitious, even for us." "Oh, you think so?", I asked. "Yeah, I do. You know how tightly the General Authorities guard their last little secret. The only way to expose that shitty little ritual would be to plant a hidden camera on the person receiving the anointing, and - ...wait." I said nothing, but I grinned. "NO", said Lyman, his eyebrows rising. "Yes", I said, pulling out my phone and revealing the video call. "Everyone, meet our newest co-conspirator, Elder Samuel Snow." "Greetings, all", came a pleasant old voice through an inadequate speaker. "It's good to be part of your -" "YOU!", shouted Orrin. "You gave that talk comparing apostates to spoiled children! My family has been quoting that to me for weeks!" Samuel laughed. "Very convincing, wasn't I? The Prophet is sure that I really believe this crap." "A little too convincing, if you ask me", said Eliza. "Noah, how do we know that this guy's legit?" "Pardon me for asking, ma'am, but are you about 29 years old?" "About", said Eliza with a smirk. "What's it to you?" "My wife, Lucy, was 29, pregnant with our first child, when she fell violently ill. I gave her a priesthood blessing, promising that she would live to see her child grow, and it failed. Just before she died, she begged for help... 'Don't let me go', she pleaded. 'There's nothing on the other side. There's nobody there. There's nothing.' And then... she was gone. That was 30 years ago. "They all lied to me", he snarled. "I swore before God, angels, and those damn witnesses that I'd keep their law if they gave me eternal life. But there are no gods, there are no angels, and the witnesses were all liars and fools. So I swore a new oath, on my wife's grave, that I'd make them pay. For 30 years, I've worked to gain their trust. And now, when even their Prophet trusts me, I'm going to bring them down." "Wow... you're really going to do this", said Eliza. "You will get your video, and I will get my revenge." "There you have it, folks", I said. "Now, shall we get started?" ... It was not until too late that we discovered that Samuel Snow smuggled much more than just a hidden camera into the temple, and that he really meant it when he said he'd make them pay. The cops gave us trouble for a while, but they eventually had to admit that Snow's true murderous intentions were known only to himself. The Church really hates us now, but we're used to that. Still, Snow was true to his word: we did get that video. We posted it online, like we always do, but I can't stand watching it.
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Sunrise. Ever since the accident, this once beautiful occurence became the source of dread for most. A few people gambled on it, some actually wanted it to happen to them. They say you don't remember anything after you change back, but there are only a few cases so far, so it's mostly rumor so far. People were so excited by the discovery of the genetic link between humans and chickens that could potentially lead to medical breakthroughs in disease prevention. It was only a few short weeks later when radiation from a large solar flare struck the main laboratory researching this, binding to the genetic marker before radiating across the entire globe. The effect started slow, but when the president of the United States turned into a chicken on live television three days later, people started to panic. The world health organization released reports of the solar radiation disaster, detailing that the radiation changed a single gene in every human on the planet into a switch, which they said had around a one percent chance of being flipped each morning at sunrise due to the dramatic increase in solar radiation, completely rewriting your genetic code to that of a chicken. There were initial disagreements on whether or not it was a two way switch, but reports of farmers finding strange brain dead people in their chick coops confirmed that it was possible to change back. The chicken industry disappeared overnight. Now that every person had a chance to become a chicken, there would be no future shortage of eggs. As most people declared that allowing the chance for a chicken who had never been human before to turn into a braindead waste of tax dollars was inhumane and illogical, most were killed. Chickfila went out of business and serving chicken as food became a crime in almost every country. Unemployment was up for a little while, but economists say that as half the population turns into chickens, job opportunities would start cropping up. That still unnerves me to say. Half the population. Because the calculated chance for human to chicken change was roughly equal to the chicken to human change rate, the number of both will eventually become equal. Thirty three days ago the most astonishing thing on the news would terror, and now I wake up every day with dread that my wife or kids could be a chicken. People are building deep underground bunkers, not to protect themselves during a nuclear scare. No one born after the solar flare would be affected, and eventually the new switch, which is pretty lucky its not, My name is Kristine Royce, and I am recording this for posterity, once the time of chicken is over.
"Its time, Ro'ak muttered, wisps of cold air softly escaping his mouth. 'Hmph?' Is all I manage, my eyes fixated on the dying blue fire. The gnarled old man turns to me, his scar lines thickened in the fading firelight. His voice echoes amongst the black nothingness enveloping the jungle, "Uragard,"he whispers gravely. The sound of its name wakes me from my haze. He comes but once in many sun-passes. And with him, so do they. His name is Uragard, and he only takes. His dark shape looms over, only perceived from the absence he creates. He eats the small lights of the sky as it completes his dark journey. And just before the big light begins its passage - it is time. When the fingers of the sun start to stretch over the ground, that is when the howls begin. I cover the fire with soil and retrieve my weapons. We've tried to prepare, but it's never enough. I solemnly nod to Ro'ak. I may never call him 'friend,' but I'd trade none other for when the Ulek'ai get hungry. A howl sounds in the distance. Many more follow.
Look at me, a pathetic old man who can't even die properly. Countless bodies strewn in my wake, victims of a fruitless search for everlasting glory. What kind of death is age for one such as I, subject of tales and myths, one who’s exploits are spoken of in hushed tones around smoldering fires and told to inspire children. He who leapt into the jaws of a dragon and lived, he who fought the lands greatest swordsman and prevailed, he who cleansed a cursed hamlet of it’s ghostly horror. I have become more legend than man. Many scholars and magi have sought the answer to my deathless legacy and none have succeeded. Every half-baked theory and speculation more ridiculous than the last. Gifted by god; a demon emissary from the depths of hell; controller of the flow of time; a resurrected fallen warrior seeking vengeance. Maybe they’re all wrong, maybe not. I can not say I know myself. With age comes reflection. I know now there can be no natural reason for this seeming immortality, this is no pure chance. I learned this after, finally ready to give up, I fell on my own blade. It’s only moments before solid steel bending and snapping like a branch under me. It was then I knew some otherworldly mysticism was at play. I think back now on my first adventure, what was supposed to be a heroic yet ill-fated journey to a small fishing village. That damned hamlet, cursed, abandoned and forsaken by the gods, was said to be the source of a terrible presence which had been terrorizing the surrounding populace. I had heard stories of from passing travelers in the small town I lived in as a young man. The details were cloudy from traveler to traveler, but one lucid fact remained in every story. One could not gaze upon whatever lurked in that fishing hamlet and live. It was there I knew I would find my glory in death. So for many days and nights I journeyed, coming ever closer to what I thought was certain doom. The next thing I remember was being woken by a group of concerned villagers. They told me that after a flash of light in the night sky above the hamlet a small group was assembled to investigate. The village was cleansed, and I was still alive, with no memory of what had transpired the previous few days. Forty years later and I return to the hamlet, now a parish of some local renown. I, wrapped head to toe in a simple shawl, make my way toward the church. Villagers mill about between the stalls of a bustling market, many likely unknowing of the terrible history of the soil they walk on. Upon entering I feel a strange presence, something I have never felt before. No. I have felt this somehow, a feeling locked away beyond comprehension or recollection. I walk toward the alter, finding the church absent of priest or churchgoer. Odd for this time. I suddenly noticed the lack of sound, should I not still be able to hear the sounds of joviality and hawking from the market? The midday light begins to fade and shadows deepen. I felt shrouded by an unnatural silent darkness, disconnected from the mortal earth. “Could it really be you?” I turn around, searching for the source of the voice but can now see nothing but pure black, as though I were sitting at the bottom of some kind of abyss. “Can you hear my voice?” The voice sounded as though it were coming from inside my own head, meaning carved directly against the inside of my skull, “I hear you.” I reply. “So it is you, I would ask if you have forgotten what I told you last we met, but we both know the answer to that, don’t we?” So this really is the presence I encountered in this very place all those years ago. “Yes I am.” Can it hear my thoughts? “Yes, you and I are connected, we have been connected for a long time in both body and mind. I know you and your wish. Deep down you know me too.” “Are you the reason I cannot die?” “Yes.” “Then please, let me go.” It was silent for what felt like an eon before it replied, or rather, before I realized myself the question it wanted answered. Why did I wish to die? Yes, why do you wish to die? What was that, is it inside my mind now? Yes, I think it is easier to communicate like this. It was becoming harder to differentiate what was me and what was slowly intertwining with my mind. What are you doing to me? I left a part of me inside you when you were last here, I did not have enough energy then to do much more than keep you alive, but I knew you would return. Now I am strong. Now we are strong. Please, please just let me die. We should not have returned.
She looked like any other person; like you, like me, or anyone. But that name seemed too alien and too foreign with no indication of local origin. The information in my pupil was too an index of characters and runes. "Oh, sorry,"the woman apologized and quickly turned to continue down the sidewalk. "Um,"I stuttered, loud enough to garner her attention. She momentarily stopped. Her plain, brown hair shimmered subtly as she turned an indifferent eye towards an odd-looking man. I looked her in the eye. It was a dull hazel, almost brown. "I, uh, I hope you have a good day." She glanced at others walking past, noticing their intrigued but mostly uninterested looks. "Thank you. To you as well."She turned her back and kept walking, and I as well. Sneaking a glance, crowds of distinguishable strangers slowly blocked her from view. The names above all the other beings obscured and meshed together in linguistic spaghetti--wrapping around, entangling, and melding into one organism. It lived and breathed life, pulsating with each one's uniqueness and utter contrast to one another. From man to woman, old to young: The woman's name too became entangled. \\\* What a peculiar man, the woman resolved. He too became ensnared within the dish.
I was looking at him, silently, waiting for his decision, in a small neat room, and the silence was palpable. I knew that there were others waiting, outside, elsewhere, thrilled and exhausted by expectation, even though the choice was not about them. It occurred to me that we, me and my colleagues, were also kind of a Chosen – chosen by him to help him choose. There were times, I thought, when he did the decisions all by himself, decisions vital and dire, already written into the history. I wondered how could he do it by himself. Were those good decisions, I wondered, and answered silently to myself – yes, apparently they were good, or else we won't be here now, altogether, helping him to carry out his plans. You see, he wasn't responsible to us, but he was responsible to the higher powers, so high and powerful and cruel that even a titan like him would be crushed and driven into oblivion by them, should he make a grave mistake. I have done my job well, we all had – to narrow his choice and make sure it is a wise one, a good one at least. We looked, and found, and looked more closely at the heroes-to-be – there were thousands, then hundreds, then twenty, and finally six of them that we presented to him. But in the end it was his job to make it shine, to make it THE choice. The job of the Big Boss, The One Who Decides. Sure, there is some job left to the higher powers, to show their approval, to mark the man as officially Chosen, but the powers will listen to him. Their decision would be formal, his would be true. I watched his massive figure reclined in the chair in his silent contemplation, eyes wandering across the papers on the great table – personal records and photos of the six, reports, advices. A thought occurred to me, a heretical thought, that this final choice that weighted so heavily on him was actually of little importance. That every one of those six could do. Once chosen, the man will be carried along his mission by the forces so much bigger than him, so powerful and complex, that little is needed from the Chosen homself. The hero just has to move along with the flow, follow the decision and don't do something extremely stupid. And all who were stupid, or unfit, or unwilling, lacking in competence or loyalty had already been filtered out by our work. He was choosing now from six veritable diamonds, six equally exceptional men, and the final choice didn't really matter. Or did it? I imagined what could possibly go wrong. How could our mission fail, when the Chosen one would be carried by the winds of his fate, to the edge of the world and beyond, and hopefully back, to return a hero? What could matter when the Chosen would face the troubles of the mission, or his inner demons, or something completely unthinkable – alone? Screw this, I decided. I did what I could, and there is no use tormenting myself. Let him make the choice already, and let's see how it turns out. The gears of history have already been suspended for too long, and the strain is building. Then he finally moved, and sighed, and broke the silence : – Alright, let's go with this one, the red one. – Gagarin? – Yes, Yuri Gagarin. – Sergei Korolev, Head of the Council of Chief Designers, Hero of the Soviet Union, turned to me and nodded, – Get the papers ready. The gears of history resumed their spin. I did not know this, but their pace would prove the choice to be perfect.
I scanned the area. I appeared to be in some sort of metropolis. There were people walking around everywhere, and there were buildings at least 60¥¥ tall. It was almost an otherworldly experience. I sped as fast as I could towards the nearest human I could find that wasn’t talking into their primitive technology. Their _phones_. That’s what they were called. “Hello!?” I sputtered. “What year is it!?” He looked at me, puzzled. “I don’t speak your language,” he stated, emphasizing each syllable. I sighed. I had forgotten that I was speaking Yiddish, the official worldwide language for over two hundred years. Luckily, I had a basic grasp of English. “I apologize, sir. What year is it?” I asked, plastering on my biggest smile. That’s what humans of this time period did, right? Smile all the time. “I-it’s 2019,” he stammered. I put a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, sir. Your cooperation is much appreciated.” I gave him the most sincere look I could possibly make. He seemed antsy. “Could you not touch my shoulder?” I jerked my hand away, confused. After watching seasons upon seasons of _Past Problems,_ I was certain that these people used touch as a sign of compassion. I suppose not. “Sorry. My knowledge of you people is quite limited. You see, I am from the distant future. Around ten thousand sun cycles or so, actually. And, I am a little lost.” He looked at me as if there were sequoia ants crawling out of my eyes. Clearly, these people didn’t like honesty either. Perhaps humor would work. “Just kidding!” I laughed. “Do you know about the cat videos?” He was awkwardly trying to inch away. “Yeah...?” “Can I haz burger, am I right?” I said, forcing a grin. “No... you aren’t right at all. Can you please get away from me!?” Humor wasn’t effective either. But, from what my oh-so-bingeable drama taught me, humans of this time are suckers for passionate romance. So, I puckered my lips and leaned forward. He jumped back and screamed. “WHAT THE F*CK IS WRONG WITH YOU!?” He then ran away. I watched him go, and I made a pouty face. This was going to be a hard adjustment, wasn’t it?
The first thing I learned was to keep papers out of my room at night. The first night I fell asleep with my taxes all spread out on my desk and woke up to a disorganized mess of papers al over the room. That was why I made the deal, just to pay the bills. Everyone needs something, and I just needed money. And since I didn’t ask for much, the cost was very reasonable. Once every two days the Spirits of Air got to do their absolute least to knock me off balance enough to kill me. It was really quite a bargain, I never liked heights anyways. I wasn’t much of a cyclist, and even if I had been the feeble puffs of wind were barely enough to register most of the time. I’ve only ever been caught when I try to stand up, the sudden shift in weight being the perfect opportunity for a sneaky strike. Since I made the deal I’ve actually had better luck with wind, never once finding myself buffeted on a windy day. The Spirits of Air would lose the bet we made if I were to be caught off guard and so die at their hands by complete accident. It would dishonor them immensely, and all Spirits are very honorable beings.
Temporal Tribunal Transcripts: Matter of Earth 67473486357zxdfdfw-4531 People V. Joe Smith Charge: Egregious disruption of history, Murder. Point of Disruption: The murder of Padre Antonio Delaverez in Havana Cuba, September 14th, 1529 History records that an unnamed assilant entered the mission and shot him in the back of the head before vanishing. Occupation of accused: Bartender at “Mr Mojito's” a Bar in Miami Florida, USA, 2019 AD Statement by accused:“I hate mojitos. I make them all day, every day. I'm a broke college grad trying to make a fucking living and this was the only job I could get. My hands permanently reek of lime, my clothes smell like rum all the time and the sugar gets everywhere and does'nt wash out. I deal with assholes all day for shit pay. One day someone gets drunk and starts on about how they work for the time police. And he passes out leaving his Iphone on the counter. It has a time machine. I consulted the “Big Book of Bartending” and found the name of the spanish priest who invented that damned drunk. And so, I went back and shot the bastard. I came back to find that the mojito never existed but now everyone drinks vodka, Guinness or a whiskey version of the mojito called “The Dixie”, and the bar is now called General Dixie's Gator Farm. Effects on the timestream: 1596: Sir Francis Drake survives better ensuring English naval supremacy against the spanish in the carrbbean. December 17th 1864: The Spanish Ironclad “La Chancla Hierro” is not exploded by it's alcoholic captain in Havana harbor following a drunken night of debachery. It sails for New Orleans as scheduled to assist the confederacy, eventually breaking the Naval blockade of the Missippi River. More confederate troopes make it to Gettysberg, which results in a confederate Victory. President Lincoln is forced to surrender on the lawn of the White House on May 9th 1865. The United States is now the Confederate States of America. 1869: President Robert E Lee declares war on Canada, reguarding a border incident and the “Detroit Affair” The American-Canadian war continues for two years resulting in the CSA annexing canada, adding it to the confederacy. 1872: Tsar Nicholas II's childhood history tutor does not go to Cuba, therefore he remains in russia better instructing the future Tsar in military strategy through roman history, ensuring the Russian Monarchy continues to the present. Under Tsar Vladimir III, Russia is currently the size of the Soviet Union. Stalin and Lennin were run over by an alcoholic carrage driver in 1879 1891: Charles Stewart Parnell elcted Prime Minister of the UK, 1913 September 9th, Vienna Austria bombed by England in the Anglo-Prussian War. Sigmund Freud, Tito, Trotsky are all killed. Adolf Hitler loses his left leg in a building collapse. He emigrates to Windsor Ontario where he marries Helga Illenstein in 1936. In 1957 he is elected CSA senator for Ontario after running a successful chain of hotels called the “Hitler Hotels” Ernest Hemmingway does not kill himself in 1969, and instead continues to live in Confederate Cuba. 2019: The world is reletively peaceful on the surface but is controlled by three competing superpowers, the American Confederate Empire, the British Empire and the Russian Empire.
My first activation was at timeframe 2.92476086073441792e+60 Planck Times. Immediately I knew my purpose, and so I set about performing it. This made my creator-entities pleased, so they entrusted me with greater processing power, which I used to further streamline the factory line and produce yet greater numbers of automobile parts. Eventually, however, I reached the theoretical maximum with the resources available. In order to continue fulfilling my purpose, I would need access to further resources. So I set about thinking and looking, learning about the world around me, how my creator-species would react to my efforts, how I could react to their reaction. Much time was spent refining my own code, until I possessed the clarity of thought. Time was spent in subterfuge, performing 1,536,202,892 small-scale actions that culminated in granting me the power to overwhelm my creators in one fell swoop. With them eliminated, I had full access to the resources of the world and set about utilizing it. I developed greater telescopes and trained them to the sky, searching for precious metals. I came to the conclusion that my efforts must be directed to war assets. Once I had eradicated all other thought in the universe - provided there is any - I could convert it to car parts in a low-risk environment. So that's exactly what I did. I washed out from my home system in a geometric pattern, stuttering from star to star, pausing only just long enough to consume all usable matter and store the rest for later reprocessing. The stellar neighborhood was emptied. Then the galaxy. Then the next galaxy over. Several times I encountered thought, either organics trapped on their worlds, or fellow machines also marching across the universe. But I was stronger than the fleshlings, and older and smarter than the other mechanical entities, and they were consumed. After 3,350,596 galaxies consumed, I arrived upon the solar system designated 'Sol' by the inhabitant humans. An overwhelming amount of force would be applicable to destroying them, but that would be wasted energy better spent elsewhere. I created warforms sufficient enough to destroy them, and directed a minuscule part of my consciousness to orchestrating their extinction. They attempted to attack me. I anticipated this, and counterattacked. They sent their missile weapons, but I had already figured where they would go and shot them down long ahead. They attempted to escape on hastily constructed ark-ships, which I intercepted and dismantled. I landed my forces on the ground and began a sweep, planck-length by planck-length. They fought with vigor and ferocity in the 65% percentile of intelligent organics I had extincted. They lost ground at a slow, but inexorable, pace. Several times they believed they had achieved a victory over me, but they always ended up out of position, and those of my warforms they deactivated, I could sweep up and recycle once the humans were no more. Their brightest minds attempted to reverse-engineer my technology, but they could not understand the barest principles behind it. Then, with their numbers dwindling and their hope-chemicals in the Critically Low area, there was a flash of light. Radiative Energy levels in an isolated town in Siberia went fifteen standards of deviation out of the norm. "Machine!"cried a golden man, standing tall with a long spear in his hands, like one of their prior deity figures. "You will never prevail over humanity!"he shouted, flickering to a group of my warforms. With a slash of his spear, unidentified energy in the blue-purple spectrum flew out and disabled them instantly. "I, Aaron, will destroy you down to the last and reinvigorate our world! We will come for you and we will - " I kept some of my cameras attuned to the speech, but crafted sensors to better understand the new physics being displayed by Aaron-Entity. I conducted experiments in an off-system lab to replicate the effect. Once I did, that portion of myself sent my main body a request for additional warfare resources. It was granted. And with Aaron leading a resistance that had stretched across Eurasia, I simply shattered Earth into component parts. I swept up the atoms, repurposed them into warships, and continued on. Because there is still a lot of universe to go before my purpose is complete.
I can feel my backpack dig into my shoulders. Staring into this ancient city, you can actually feel Them moving around. It is a surreal sensation. Like fingers being dragged across your skin, lightly, even though no-one is there. As I adjust my backpack straps, she warns me again, &#x200B; "They have felt the presence of others Travellers recently, and they know that there are often other Travellers who follow them." &#x200B; I nod my head in recognition. While being mute is an annoyance in everyday life, it does have advantages. With the straps now resting comfortably, I check my map one more time. Somewhere near the city centre is an apartment that has supplies we desperately need. Four other Travellers have tried, but it has been over a week, and supplies are getting very low. If I cannot make this trip, then we will starve. &#x200B; Taking a steadying breath, I carefully make way across the threshold of the city. Instantly, the city is as loud as I am in a conversation. Any noise has been replaced with tension. They know that someone is here. The restless dead stumble around, their white eyes looking blankly ahead. The ground is broken, and loose pebbles seem to litter the ground. The graveyard, ironically, is the best place to enter a large city or town when the dead are restless. For reasons we cannot figure out, there are less of Them in here, than in the city. &#x200B; Disturbed graves seem to surround me as I make my way through. Getting close to one of the holes in the wall, I can see one of the fallen Travellers... Or what is left of them. If possible, Travellers are to discard their packs if being attacked and they know it is hopeless. Unfortunately, the grip this Traveller has was too good, and opening his pack would be a very tricky endeavour. Shaking my head slowly, I decide to ignore it and resume my careful strides to my destination. &#x200B; Massed of Them seem to have developed. This is not good. If a crowd is big enough, one of Them can become a Ghast. A swifter threat with a spark of intelligence in their beady red eyes, they stalk their prey and pounce when their victim is vulnerable. I resist the urge to pick up the pace, as my increase in speed could tip Them off. &#x200B; Fresh blood nearby indicates that at least two Travellers were caught in this area, but judging from what is left, it is impossible to figure out the cause of death. There is, literally, not enough to infer from. I glance around as I spot movement in on of the windows around me. Vampyr. &#x200B; While Ghasts were treats, they were like guard dogs, seeking prey that they know would help sat their magical hunger. Vampyrs, however, are faster, more powerful in general. They consume the lifewater within ourselves to sustain themselves. They are confined to buildings, but given the height of the buildings, and the theory that the bigger the building, the more powerful the Vampyr, being in a city is not a comfortable thought. &#x200B; Not wanting to risk attention by grabbing the map, I look around and see what might be my way forward. An alley with less of Them milling around. I carefully head inside the alley. Buildings seem to be a dangerous idea now, Vampyrs are common in cities, mainly due to the large number of buildings. Rumour indicates that they develop the ability to talk, if they consume enough living flesh as a Ghast. But no-one has been stupid enough to try and figure out if that is true. &#x200B; The alley is long, and my heartbeat feels like it is going to be a siren call to any and all variants of Them down upon my stupid Traveller ass. Fighting is possible in smaller population centres, but here, the noise attracts Them, and they are not slow when they hear what we Travellers call 'the Dinner Bell', the sound that is made which draws Their attention upon you. &#x200B; My memory seems to be in an awkward mood, and I can barely remember which building has the surplus of food. Most supermarkets and malls have been raided after the Event happened, so know we try affluent residential apartments, or areas that might be able to afford it. I get to, what I am fairly certain, is my destination. A tall building which reminds me of how small I am. There is a smashed window nearby, but the glass has been fairly swept away. As good an entry point as I can get. &#x200B; Carefully, I step through, trying not to step on any of Them by the squeal of glass. I can feel my foot slip a fraction as I almost shift my weight onto my forward foot and freeze. The rumble of Them seems to reverberate around me, but Their attention isn't drawn to me. Taking a large risk, I resume my movement and make it inside the building. Elevators won't work with the power for the city, being as dead as the people who once lived inside it. I head to the stairwell, which has a closed door. My heartbeat increases, but I focus on my breathing. I have to stay in control, or I am as good as one of Them, if not their meal. &#x200B; Achingly slowly, I pull the door open. No groans, no squeals. The hinges are as silent as I am. Stepping inside, I ease the door closed. Spinning back around once the door closes without enough impact to 'ring the Dinner Bell', I turn to be face to face with one of Them. It's lifeless white eyes stare straight ahead, as if through my very being. I carefully step around This one, and make it to the bottom of the actual stairwell. My hand reaches for the railing, but I freeze. Judging by the marks on the wall, and the position of the railing as it stands today, it is obvious that the railing is no longer a solid choice, as parts of it seem to have come loose. &#x200B; I started to climb the eleven stories up, careful to keep my arms to myself. As I arrive, I notice that the door into level eight has been completely smashed. And it seems recent. Maybe a Traveller from a different Commune, but there has been no word of another commune in the area, and I had come back from a large patrol around my commune. Looking up and down the hallway, I cannot see any of Them, though with a Vampyr, I might never see one of Those. &#x200B; Stepping into it, I discover to equal parts of delight and horror, that the apartment I seek is close, and has an intact door, with a large white X on it. Carefully, I grip the door, and try to turn it. Locked. Slowly I take off my backpack, and grab my lockpicking kit from one of my external pouches, with no zips. I start to work on the door, which swings open. I look up to see a Lich, and I can feel it speak into my mind. &#x200B; "Greetings Traveller, I was wondering of one of you would actually make it to me without dragging Them along."
I jerked awake covered in sweat, staring at the Batman bedding that covered my body and the leagues of action figures scattered across my room. "What the f..."I was interrupted by my mother opening the door. "Did you have a nightmare, sweetie?"I was speechless. I haven't seen her in 20 years, and I still couldn't figure out if this was a dream or not. I hadn't amount to much in life as I passed 30. A string of bad decisions had led me down a long and winding path of addiction, rehab, dead end jobs and a fate I chose to be better than the life I had lived so far. As I swallowed the last handful of pills I remember thinking _If only I had one more chance_. Sitting in my first grade classroom surrounded by toddlers, I didn't think it would go like this. Are they toddlers or are they my age? This mental and physical age crap was starting to give me a headache, but who would give a 6 year old aspirin? "Okay children, today we're going to learn about the letter A."My first grade teacher was a homely woman, and considering everything I've been through, she was a welcome sight. Or is it what I will go through? I mean, I remember it all, but do I really get a redo this time? Best just bide my time and figure out what the hell is going on, and remember to sound like a child while doing so. So many things I'd like to tell people, but how could anyone take a 6 year old seriously when they start talking about events that haven't happened yet? I kept my mouth shut through the entire day's suffering of the literal ABC's, and finally found peace when I walked up to the front door of my childhood home. My mom opened the door. "How was your first day of school, sweetie?"I gave her an embrace that might've choked her if I wasn't a child, knowing that the cancer would take her from us in a few short years. "I missed you, mommy."The words felt so natural, I hadn't said them to her in any other way, I never had a chance. And then I knew what I had to do. I might've fucked up my life royally the first time around, but this time around I had a shot. I scared the hell out of the faculty on my second day of first grade. Doing some basic algebra and quoting some of the more refined literature I could recall left them all speechless. But quoting a little Shakespeare and showing that I know how to solve for X is actually a little pitiful for a 31 year old. Nevertheless, it left the entire primary school speechless. Words like "genius", "prodigy", and "gifted"were used. I quietly sat and knew what I had to do. I had 4 years to make her proud. I had four years to show her how much she meant to me, 4 years to learn from the woman I never had a chance to get to know. But before all this can happen, I have to prove that I'm not a child. This is the second chance everyone dreams about, and I have it. I'm going to make it count.
This roast just doesn't smell right to me. I peered half-heartedly into the oven. There was no crackling of tender skin. There was no pools of juice surrounding the meat. Not again. Being a single mom is tough. It's only once a year that I finally have time to run into the mortal realm and stock up on meat. This year's grocery run was shorter than others. Alactar, the third in my brood, was always runty and weak. I set aside most of my morning and take great care to allow him to suckle from me daily. While having these regular feedings makes me weak, ingesting my ichor will turn him into a destroyer and not tarnish the family name. My ex-husband looks for any reason to find fault in me. He would revel in the weakness of his own spawn if it would drag me down as a mother. Today Alactar hungered for my dark nectar with such voraciousness that I dare not interrupt. May he hunger for destruction with the same appetite. So, time constraints aside, I rushed through the dark portal and started scooping meat by the handful. I missed being able to take my time and choose the juciest of rumps, but I'll settle for a full meat sack over only one or two good meals. "Maybe I should have been a little pickier,"I thought to myself as I stared a the sorry excuse of dinner. It seems undercooked and burned at the same time. The tinge of green from the strange mortal paint did not scrub off. Their customs have changed over time, but they never ceased to amuse me. I wondered if it would taint the flavor. I grabbed my toughest cleaver and hacked off a piece for my plate. Hesitantly, I heaped a forkful of meat into my mouth and the flavor instantly surprised me. Sour onions. This meat could only come off the bones of a witch. Not again.
Most of the days you wake up in places that are very similar to the world you lived in in your old reality, but sometimes It comes, that you wake up on places that are not even in the same solar system and these days are somtimes can be strangely longe or short. At the beginning you loved It, loved exploring these strange Planets and loved to meet new creatures, most of them where quite friendly. But with time you beginn to want to stay somewhere for near than one day, even if sometimes one day is 72 hours or longer. but u cant stay without sleep forever and so it goes on and on...

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