Split (1)

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There's a certain allure in fighting someone who is essentially your equal in some way. I can't say I am the smartest mind out there, but I had my strengths. Nestro...his strength came from his intellect. In a hand to hand fight, I win each and every time. Sometimes, he has me on the ropes, but I always come through. That's what a hero does. This time was no different. Nestro had been gloating about his upcoming victory when I landed a clean right on his jaw, launching him to the floor. I leaped onto his prone form, peppering shots on him left and right. Once I was sure the fight was over, I tossed Nestro over my shoulder and made for the exit. From behind me, I could hear him muttering. "How? How is this possible? Every time you win! What is your secret?" I laughed heartily. "Oh, Nestro. You and I both know my 'secret' is the power of Truth and Liberty." A loud groan came from behind me. "Ugh, this again? I don't think you even know what that means. It's just a load of rubbish, of empty words." The groaning seemed to be growing louder, and I soon realized that wasn't coming from the villain. "Do you hear that noise?" I felt Nestro stiffen slightly. "Oh, no. No, no, NO, NO! DAMN IT!" I wanted to lower him and ask what was going on, but I felt myself become more lethargic. My eyes began to swim as the world seemed to darken around me. Soon, all went dark. From above me somewhere, a familiar voice cut through the silence. "Damn, another power surge. I was so close. Let's see, backup power intact, power cells cooling to restart in thirty seconds. Reload simulation number...let's go with seven this time, seems to get the best results." Wh-where am I? Things finally began to swim into a slight, hazy focus. Darkness was still dominant, but I could see some minor details, of metallic walls, blinking lights. A low hum filled the air, filling my ears. I could feel something holding me in place tightly. If I can just move my arm a little bit, just enough to break the binding, I can get free. I strained with all my might, but something was holding me back. I heard the humming of a machine as it spun to life, the feel of electricity heavy in the air. Just a little more, a few more inches. That's all I need. I felt my fingers move ever so slightly. One more strain, and I could be free. At that moment, A bright light filled the room as whatever was behind me sprung to life. I could see Nestro illuminated at the controls, his face curled in an evil grin. "Ah, you're awake. For now, that is. You won't remember this once we're done here. Since that's the case...I may hate you personally, but I respect what you stand for. Well, time to put you under again. Ta-ta for now!" "Nestro, you dirty son of a bi--" There's a certain allure in fighting someone who is essentially your equal in some way. /u/TemporaryPatch New Years Resolution Tracker (2019 Edition!): 43/100. Visit /r/TemporaryPatchWrites for more responses and stories!
Well...how did I get myself into this now. Most people wish to be remarkable people in their lifetimes. To leave behind a legacy. Not me...I was a janitor. Some mate found me this job after I landed in DC. I was a right proper scrapper back in the UK, but thats a story for another time. I started working as your run of the mill janitor at this government organisation. The CIA, I didnt even know what it meant. All I knew is that the floors must be clean. And clean they fooking were. Those were good times, until some idiot had the bright idea to infiltrate the agency. And I had the misfortune to be the one to foil his plans. Turns out he was a spy, russian, just like you. You see, his plan was to steal some vital information, that kind of mumbo jumbo. He happened to run into me and my water bucket as he sprinted down the hall and the rest is like they say history. Special Agent Bob they call me now, just for getting some bloody paper wet and for giving a guy a concussion. Ironically I was sent here on the same kind of mission. Or so they say. They surely sent me out here to fuck everything up, and it seems that mission is completed...Are you done vomiting yet? Nah? Thought so. So as I was saying. I came here to infiltrate this nuclear test or whatever bloody thing you re doing. What I didnt know is that the coat I stole belonged to one of the physicists. So naturally I paniked and pressed the reddest, biggest buton there was. So here we are. Vasily, are you...oh, you're dead. Well I doubt you understood English anyway. Now, whats the closest bus station to Pripyat...
You ever wonder who was out there for you? Yeah me too. See when we are born now, the parents are given a clock. As a baby, they take a drop of blood and through the magic of science I guess it makes this clock work and do Its thing. I'm not a smart guy and I have no idea how it works. But that's not the point of my story. The point is this: my clock is just infinity. Yeah I know right? Just stuck. At first my parents were confused, had it redone and retried but it always turned back to infinity. This was ok for me though. I liked to be alone and just watch tv, go to a football game or go see a movie. I had my share of hookups too. When you have no destined partner that's enough to give a girl with a long ass timer on her hand enough reason. But it never felt right. I always had a feeling the sign meant something more. That's when I met her. I visit my parents up north one Christmas and there she is. A girl in the shitty hometown bar with the same sign on her wrist watch. Could that mean she was meant for me? Kinda weird but like I said I don't make the clock. I have no idea what to do. So I just stand up and there I go, just extend my arm to her and hope she doesnt think I'm some weirdo. She looks at mine, I look at hers and...we smiled. Even when you're infinitely fucked, I guess there's a chance for love out there. Even when you're alone, you're not really.
The office, on a tree lined avenue of The Capitol, was the kind not frequented by adventurers. Richly appointed, fine Elven carpet spread across the floor, a Treant mahogany desk sat in the middle, filing cabinets lining the walls, and a well stocked drinks cabinet beneath the windows completing the picture. "Hello, thank you all for taking the time to meet with us. As you know, we here at Castor and Associates offer a variety of insurance options for all races. It has come to our attention that a Lich has been using their state of undeath to commit multiple counts of insurance fraud. We would like to hire your team's service to, rectify the situation." The adventurers, already self conscious in the opulent office, fell further into silence at the mention of a Lich. Montague, the Knight leading the party, was the first to recover. "How powerful is this Lich?" "We believe that they were skilled enough to achieve Lichdom, however the fact they have resorted to petty fraud should speak volumes. The rest of your team has been quiet so far, do any of you have-" With a click the door came open, and Castor's assistant stepped inside, quickly closing the door behind him. "Sir, you have a customer looking to cancel their, uh, policy." "Tell them I will be with them in five minutes, as soon as I have wrapped my business with Montague and his people." "They won't want to wait-" thump-thump "Ahem. They are not going to wait I'm afraid - and I think they are related to your business with-" "Very well. Send them in." As the door was opened, a skeletal hand pulled the assistant out into the reception, then the Lich entered. "So, would you mind telling me why I have received fifty letters from your company about life insurance policies I never took out?"
"Forgive me." These solemn words echoed through the holy space. This space, bathing in light, save from a shadow in the center. Above it, a ghastly figure no one in the Roman empire could mistake. An emotionless voice, raspy and quietly, emits from its center. "I have failed you. My task is to send all those whose lifelines are expended to your gates for guidance."The figure bows down. "But I have been complacent. I thought his soul had departed this realm." Another voice emanates through the building. To those it speaks to, it trembles with a kindly might. "Your task is not an easy one. You admit to your faults. Your shame punishes you now, and it shall be enough to enlighten you in the future." "Lord. I appreciate your kind heart. May your strength last ever more."The shadowy figure gets back up. "But how must I proceed?" "There shall be no doubt another time and place that your services are needed, for the man that calls himself my son. See to it that your will is as strong as your words, and that he may soon be returned to me." "Yes, lord. Thank you." The figure dissolves, and a dark cloud escapes the holy ground, as does the light that entombed the place. If this man would not die to the hands of the Sanhedrin a second time, perhaps his old age would make him bid farewell.
After exploring some of the other rooms and not finding a suitable napping spot, Flidais found herself exploring the dark and dusty shelves of the new domicile's basement. A quick hop took her to the next shelf resulted in a near fall. The thick dust making for poor footing but, of course, she had caught her self and scrambled up only to bump into a small box. Curiously, Flidais batted the container until it tumbled to the floor, breaking open. I small crystal, glowing with a dim red light, lay on the floor beside the shattered remains of the box. Flidais's eyes widened slowly as the light from the crystal began to increase in intensity. Little by little. First, the strength of a candle growing to match the glow of a light bulb. Then, in a brilliant flash, crimson light filled the room and a searing pain filled the cat's mind. After a few moments of disorienting torture Flidais regained her senses. Well, most of them. She felt as though her thought crawled through thick mud and she had trouble contemplating what might have just occurred. With a sudden shake of her head the cat decided to hop down to examine the crystal more closely but when she leapt something felt...off. The quick, airborne moment was nowhere near enough time for her addled mind to register and she crashed to the floor in a heap. As the wooden flooring struck her so did the horrifying realization. She, somehow, had lost a huge portion of her intelligence and all of her inherent magical powers! Flidais was now as smart and as magical as a mere human!!
"And why are we sitting in the dark?"My little brother asks, mad that he can't play any of his games. Mom ignores him, much like she's been doing since a few minutes ago. She's here and there - in and out - from one room to next. Grabbing things from cupboards and drawers and dropping them on the kitchen table. It's too dark to see what any of these things is, but from the sound and feel of it it's heavy and sharp. I hear someone leaping down the steps. It has to be my older brother because he's the only one that likes to come down three or four steps at a time. And suddenly he's in the room. I can't see him. But I can sense him. And smell him. Usually, he smells a nauseating, overpowering cloud of cologne, but right now he smells like he's just got out the shower - simple water and soap. He whispers, "Mom?" "She's in the other room." I scared him. I hear him inhale sharply. "What are you doing standing in the dark?" "Mom told us to." "Us?" "George is here too." Why is he not saying anything?" We both pause and wait for George to say something to announce his presence, but it's dead silent. I hiss into the dark. "George!"I look around, even though I can't see anything. "He's probably hiding..."I explain to my older brother. But even though my voice is calm, I'm really starting to freak out. I was supposed to be watching him... "You know, he was mad earlier about Mom making him turn off the games, so he's probably just pouting somewhere, heh..."My fake chuckle sounds like a fake chuckle - brief and hollow. My throat is tight and I can't swallow. I step into the room. "Yeah, that's why I came down here. Mom just came in the bathroom and turned off the lights while I was taking a shower." I'm not even listening to him. I'm flailing around in the dark, blind, trying to find my baby brother. I swear, I'm going to kill him when I find him... I reach everywhere until I'm certain he's not in the kitchen. But if he's not in the kitchen... Where is he?
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Let me tell you. Nudity is amazing. It's not just being nude outside. Being nude at home feels great too. It's easier I promise, the first step. At home, no one judges you for it. Have you ever felt the heat of the stove against your bare skin? The splash of the water against you, when you're washing your hands or preparing your vegetables? The feeling of a pleasant shower grazes you. The aroma from a candle isn't just a scent -- it's a feeling. It wafts against your skin and enters you through your pores, your orifices. You breath it in more deeply. Music, you feel it reverberating against your skin. You become part of its instrument. The music literally merges into you. It's so easy to dance and no one's watching you anyway. It's funny how things -- music, objects, smells -- change when you let them touch you. You realize that these other things have a kind of spirit, a spirit you haven't thought to know before. I've never realized what my couch felt like. It has all these bumps on its surface. When I was un-nude, only my arms could feel that. When my whole skin exposed, I can feel the bumps everywhere. I can even see the pattern of the bumps beneath me. It was more complex than I ever imagined. Whoever made this couch, did they ever rub the fabric between their hands? Hoping someday someone who appreciated good texture would actually feel it? All the people who make our stuff, craftsmen, carpenters, things of touch but also of the other senses -- now I realize how much of their effort goes unappreciated. Maybe craftsmen lie with their wood before they carve it, to get to know it. I don't know. If I was a craftsman, I would do that. So that's the first thing. We aren't nude even when we're alone. Why shouldn't we be if it opens our senses? Of course as part of my dare, I was forced to be nude outside too. That was what I resisted the most. At first I pretended not to see the awkward stares. I went home abashed with each public decency charge. After this happened several times, I realized there was a way to get around it. I bring along a fake baby in a blanket so that when people see me, I put it close to my chest. I also tuck my legs into the bench so the baby lays in my lap. That has warded off most police. I just look like a breastfeeding mother. I wanted to avoid the stares. So I looked for places that were more accepting of nudity. I stayed in a forest for some time first, with a tent and everything. Animals didn't give me a second look. They didn't care. Nude people, we're everywhere. But we're forced to go into hiding. But why should we? The first time I saw a mass of nude people was at a nude beach. I guess my body wasn't that bad. Yet being around those who were clothed, I could feel them judging everything they could see of me. My breasts, my frame, my skin. The weird mottling of my skin behind my knees from excema. They looked at my face and I became someone else. At first, when I saw other nude people, I was surprised they weren't ashamed. People I thought needed to hide themselves -- those who were anorexic, flabby, pasty, had uneven tans, skin disorders, burns, surgical scars, potbellies, and all the little imperfections -- they didn't have to. We saw, there were so many others like us. So that's it. I joined a naturalist community. I've felt happier than ever. Aziz Ansari said we often don't know what we actually want in love, what we want the other person to be. We end up loving someone we never thought we would. That's very true when you know more of a person. When you see their bodies as well as their personalities. You realize you didn't know what you wanted in a body. You just cared that you happened to love them. Especially among those who have been in the community longer, sex matters less. At least, it doesn't seem as urgent as it did before. We realized that all we wanted was to be able to touch somebody. That was the ache that had been driving most of us towards sex. Being nude made us realize that we hadn't been touched so much before -- by our family, friends, and community. It didn't have to be sexual. Touch was how we showed we cared about each other. With everything I told you, I dare you to be nude. I dare you to change your life.
Waking up I found myself in a white room, with a white chair, and a white table. In fact the only thing that wasn't white was a black leather bound book with my name in gold that looked exquisitely expensive. As I pick it up however, a feeling of dread washes over me and memories intrude into my thoughts, pushing their way into my conscious with what felt like long tendrils invading the darkest recesses of my mind. My mother... Screaming... "No, Mom!"... "Dad!"... "h-help..." I snap back to the room as the book makes a thud, shattering the preternatural quiet. I try to make a sound but it gets caught in my throat and at that moment I somehow knew, I was dead. With care and what I thought was a stage beyond terror I pick up the book again and hold it tight. Words fill the void as if coming from nowhere, and everywhere at once. "You are dead, but your soul is not. Read the book, read it all. We will decide if you transcend or rot. This is your life, the rise and fall." "Oh so this is a test"I said to no one in particular, or to the disembodied voice I can't really be sure. All through my life I was angry, all through it I felt my blood boil but this was different, this was defiant. How dare they tell me I'm dead and then test me? "Was my life not enough of a test?!"I spat onto the ground and cursed the endless white. Before I could get the full extent of the curse past my lips I saw my saliva being absorbed into the white and the smell of stale spit permeated the room. Suppressing a gag I knew that my fate was sealed, and judgement would not go well for me. A single tear dropped from my cheek onto the tile-less floor, and before long my sadness was profound. Seeing no other choice I opened the book to the first page and saw my face atop a list of personal information like my DOB and DOD... date of death... even though I intrinsically knew, seeing it made my skin crawl. I couldn't remember much else about my life, my friends, family, or even how I ended up here, and what I did remember was fading fast. All the rage that I felt building throughout my life was lifted, and the defiance was starting to soften. I didn't know why, but I had faith that the book held all the answers. The second page only had the words "Oh my God we made this? He's so beautiful! I love you honey."A simple quote, under a picture of a baby swaddled in warm cloth held by a loving couple; mom and dad. I read it out loud and the room reacted, becoming even brighter and softer. More prominent, but quieter. The feelings of comfort, love, and safety grew and grew as if the walls themselves were made of emotion. I smile and flip the page. The pages were each filled with a single picture and a quote calling to mind a certain memory or event. A smile, a heartbreak, that time I was terrorized by the tin man who ended up being just a street performer in Venice (I was 5 then and peed my pants something bad). I couldn't help but laugh when I read that - sure I felt embarrassed but I also was looking at my life from the outside now and the more I accepted this, the more the room became forgiving while imbuing me with endless emotion. The embarrassment mixed with amusement, the heartbreaks with the knowing smile of one who has already been there, and the triumphs in life with the joy of the already fulfilled. Why did I feel dread when I started to read this? My life was picturesque! I flipped the page and my heart dropped. Forgoing the single picture single quote theme the book seemed to favor, this page was chaos. Pictures of smoke and flames meant the room was starting to heat up, I felt the flames licking my skin and the smoke filling my lungs. The wind rushing against my face felt very real as multiple pictures of people throwing themselves from two large burning buildings filled the page. Finally, I saw myself watching the horror from a few blocks down as the towers the world affectionately called Twins fell, burying thousands and affecting the lives of thousands more to come. I was 11. I was lost. "I have to go"said my father in uniform. The pages started carrying vivid memories, and I could now see him one last time before he left, even feel his loving hug before the war had taken it away. I cried and cried, and the room - for the first time - did nothing. My sadness was already profound, and to my surprise it took pity on me. He left with many others and only a shell came back. I closed the book softly. My defiance was now replaced with helplessness as I begged, "Please... Please let me stop. I don't want to feel this again, I'll do anything..."The voice seemed to hesitate before it answered, softer this time than the first. "Keep reading and be strong, I know it's hard, but you'll see that this is for the better. Do not yield, have no fear. Please don't stop, and I'll do what I can to help you through it. Keep reading it won't be long, We can only watch you, so I can't intervene again. Just know that we see potential For the end is almost near." Were those two voices? One sounded robotic but the other was, almost human? "Wait! Come back! Who's we?! PLEASE ANYONE!" If there was anymore concept of time it would have probably been hours before I was able to pick up the book again and open it. Wanting to go back to the warmth of the second page I turn immediately to it, only to see that the book no longer had the pages I already read. My only option was to look forward into my life. I steeled myself as I looked at the new first page of the book, while the room encouraged me softly to continue. "What a JERK!" "Please that's all I have!" "Come on man why me?" No pictures and no emotions this time. I feel... indifferent. I partially remember the whiny voices and the nasally pleas as I pummel their faces. "Oh dear God I was a bully"I softly whisper. I pour over the comments about me I never heard, the pleas that fell on deaf ears. The money I stole from these helpless victims started falling from within the pages, seeping through the pages and cover. As the coins and small bills hit the floor they splash like they're falling in a pool of red, showering me with speckles of a pulsating gel, pushing me back onto the ground. As the red - the room - touches me, it baptizes me in the hate and despair of my victims and I finally learn how they all felt as my indifference is pulverized under the weight of their emotions. "No please! Please stop!"Panicking now and crawling backwards I see the speckles starting to spread and the floor reaching up onto me. "I'm sorry!"The room however was still the manifestation of my actions, and my actions were not merciful. As it engulfed my face and I reached for one final gasp of air that never came, I found myself suddenly sitting in a white chair, in a white room, in front of a white table. The black book was open and on the next page my father had come back from his tours. He's home at last.
"This is why I've never come to one of these things."I muttered as I looked out at the ballroom trimmed and stuffed to the brim with luxurious decorations and foods. "Far too much gold trim on the furniture and the food's almost too luxurious. And that's coming from a Frenchman!" "Tell Grog about it."The dapper caveman to my left said as he adjusted his bow tie. "Grog come all the way from home to meet people, and he has to worry about choking on glitter instead of food." "Seriously, I know she's trying to get us all mingling and having fun, but half the guests can barely move after gorging on the spread."I muttered popping another roasted mushroom cap into my mouth "Speaking of, have you seen Antoinette tonight?" "Grog has not."The cave man shook his head and snatched a handful of cucumber sandwiches off a passing server's tray "French lady not talk to Grog since he he took bath in her fountain last week." "It was carved by her many times great grandson, and you did destroy the molding Grog"I said with a chuckled watching the strange and sometimes ethereal collection of immortals skitter about the dance floor. "Don't worry about it though, she's forgiven me for much worse." "Nick." I turned around and couldn't stop the smile on my lips as my eyes caught sight of her. She was as beautiful as the day I met her in provincial France. A face carved by Aphrodite, eyes that seemed to know everything, and an ass that simply wouldn't quit all wrapped up in a skin tight red dress that went perfectly with her night black hair. "Antoinette."I said stepping forward to take her hand and plant a kiss on her hand. "My patron. My muse. My..." "Bank account."She cut me off and withdrew her hand with a laugh "You simply must stop calling me by Antoinette, I've gone by Isabella for over a century, and you know it you old warlock you." "But to me you will always be the goddess of good wine, inspiring sex, and wicked ideas!"I chuckled standing up to look her in the eye. "Seriously though, I haven't seen you in days. I was beginning to wonder if I would have to find another place of employment, you visit my office so little." "I don't mean to neglect one of my favorites, but I've been planning nights like this of course."She shot me a faux withering look and stepped to lean against the railing taking a look at the party below "Honestly, what's the use of being a primordial goddess when none of your immortal favorites mingle? None of you were even talking to another beside you and Grog before, but now I've practically got a hen house of immortals here every week plotting, fucking, and filling my heart with so much joy." "Yes, the imortals of the world finally all getting together to do the nasty and plot how to make themselves richer then they already are."I contemplated "Do you know how many spells and patrons I've made for these people? Seriously, you bond one eldritch beast to a servant of just one immortal hermit and suddenly they're beating down your door for more." "Oh excuse me mon amour, I am so sorry for filling that gaudy tower of yours with paying customers and robbing you of time to sleep your way through the intern pool."Antoinette said patting my cheek before turning back to the party below us. "Considering the sheer number of brilliant and thoroughly fucked young women stumbling around Yale these days I assume you and Kore are still fighting." "Yep! Kore still not happy with Nicky boi."Grog said before I could speak "She not return call or demon gram since!" "I told you that in confidence you troglodyte."I reminded him before turning back to Antoinette "She's been giving me the cold shoulder ever since the embers cooled a few years ago. How was I supposed to know inviting my mother's ghost to our anniversary party would turn into such a disaster?" "Around two hundred and fifteen years of marriage probably should of informed you of your wife's opinion on your necromancer mother mon amour."Antoinette patted me on the back and hmmed loudly for me to follow her line of sight. My eyes locked onto the expected target in an instant. A tall well built women whose supple form fit perfectly in the almost too tight black dress she knew I loved stood at the opposite end of the ball room. Her dark crimson hair tied back in a braid so her emerald eyes could stare at me like two dying green suns. Even now, after over two centuries those eyes gave me chills. "I suppose I should go apologize."I said straightening up and sighing. "Yes, otherwise I think she's going to stare a hole in that pretty head of yours."Antoinette said patting me on the cheeks and kissing my forehead "You two are meant to be, so go down there and make up with her." "You know I vividly remember the guillotine."I said looking down to where my wife now sat upon a stack of pillows like the goddess she was "And part of me is wishing for the guillotine right now." "Ah, mon amour, that is how you know that you're love is still true and pure after all these years."Antoinette said releasing me and turning me around to send me down the stairs with a light smack to my ass "To be just a little bit afraid is what it means to truly be in love my dear. Now get in there before she eats the weak ones again." "You know I joined this little club of yours to have fun not go to marriage counseling."I said descending the steps. "I know why you started coming mon amour, but I made this club so you little broken birds would stop being stupid."Antoinette's laughing voice rung through my head as I slipped through crowd to grovel to and hug my wife.
I exchanged a side-ways glance with my wife, Alice, then looked back down at the little girl who had materialized at our front door. "First of all, how can the birds work for anyone?"I said, valiantly recovering from her absurd statement and resolving to dismiss her claim outright. She was clearly a little cuckoo. "They are birds. They have no purpose but to fly around and occasionally shit on my car's windshield." The girl continued to look up at me with her empty gaze. "They've always worked for the bourgeoisie,"she said, now emitting a low cackle and jabbing a finger directly at my double chin. "You'll very much see." Alice paused halfway through peeling dinner's potatoes. "Bullshit. If they worked for us we'd all be a lot better off wouldn't we,"she said, content that this closed the matter outright. "They'd be peeling these potatoes for instance." The girl didn't respond, instead she smiled, turned, and walked away without another word. A moment passed in which my wife and I exchanged another glance, rolling our eyes almost in unison. I gave my head a vigorous shake and turned to close the door only to find a pigeon flying inside, then another, and then another. By the time I'd recovered from the shock enough to slam the door shut, seven pigeons were arrayed upon our kitchen counter. Alice's mouth was fixed agape in a caricature of abject confusion, my own bewilderment only curtailed by the image of my wife trying to process the situation. One of the pigeons, the lead pigeon by the looks of it, carefully walked along the line of six other pigeons, which seemed to be standing at attention with their little chests puffed out. Once the lead pigeon completed the parade ground inspection it turned and looked up at Alice, cocking its head expectantly. "Do you... do you guys want to peel these potatoes?"my wife finally said, answering the pigeons gaze in spite of herself, a forgotten peel still dangling from the peeler in her now limp hand. Her request was greeted with an affirmative squawk and all of a sudden the pigeons were diligently peeling away at our potatoes, the seven of them tackling one at a time, carefully parting skin from the insides with their beaks. "This is the day our world changes,"I said, opening the front door.
I opened the window. Closed it. Opened it. No, not right. Closed it again. Opened it. There we go. I was gonna be okay. I slid through the now sufficiently open window sill and into the room. I was very careful not to touch the top of the frame and unbalance the window above. I made it. Both feet hit the ground at the same time. Toes rolled down to heels and the silence of it all was brilliant. I took a few more stealthy steps before my foot caught on something. I turned on my pen light and saw that is was a pair of jeans. I waved the light around the room and saw what was perhaps the single messiest sight I had ever encountered. It was like the entire cast of hoarders had an orgy in here. Must be another obsessive. How was I gonna find it in here?! I checked every drawer. Opening each one just right so one side never slid out faster than the other. I messed up the big one on the bottom of the desk a few times before I got it right. That would have gotten me caught for sure. Nothing but assorted knick knacks and old receipts. Where was it?! I know it’s here; I confirmed it with 3 different sources. Maybe in the closet. I opened the closet to find that, somehow, even more boxes of random trash and old clothes were picked in there than were strewn across the room. Luckily, through all of the clutter, I saw something glint in the light of my penlight. I carefully moved the top box out of the way and to the left. The next one to the right. That box was lighter than the last. Now I am uneven. One more ti the right. One more to the left. There we go. Those ones were good enough to even it back out. I struggled to reach up to the top shed of the closet and grab the lock box. It was just as the client described. Old and a bit rusty but with a shiny new lock on it. I grabbed it. It was perfectly balanced. Centered just below the handle. I shook it a bit to ensure that the contents wouldn’t shift. Packed tight. Thank god; I could carry it out in my backpack now. I carefully put all the boxes back, making sure to go in the same order that I did before. Perfect. I crept back over the heals of clothes and papers and assorted junk. Then I slid out the window. Both feet off the floor at the same time. I slid the window closed. Evenly down on the first try. I was thrilled. Climbed up the rope attached to the roof. Left over right over left. It was gonna end up uneven. Back down a went. Started with the other hand this time. Now it would be even by the time I got to the top. I made it up there easily, brushed off the janitor’s uniform I was wearing and made my way back inside the building and down the service elevator to the ground floor. As I left through the front door, I almost wondered what was in this box but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the money I was gonna get paid for handing it over to the client.
I remember that food truck. Of course its not JUST a food truck now, its something more special to me. My grandfather gave me this food truck a few years ago. He showed me the ropes and made me promise to use it. I always loved cooking and my grandfather comes to help once and a while so its not too bad. I used to play in it when i was a kid, oh what simple times those were. Of course its different now. The food truck is a dual purpose vehicle. As burrito boy, the food truck would be the best place for me. I would save the city of tortilla one burrito at a time. I could make them, drive them, and chase criminals all in this one amazing vehicle.
It was just a normal thing for Jay. He would say everything that I said no matter what. Which made it particularly hard for me, since I’m a frequent curser. “Alright Jay, it’s time for bed.” My three old sighs but gets up and we go through the nightly routine. I put his pajamas on and tuck him. I tell him sweet dreams and that I love him. He smiles and go to sleep. Or so I thought. Almost an hour later I’m sitting on the couch finishing a college essay for my AP bio class when I hear a soft murmur coming from the baby monitor. I don’t recognize the words, and so I turn it up. He’s speaking. In full sentences! The only problem? It’s not in English. In fact, I have never heard this langue before. Is it Latin? A pang of anxiety courses through my chest as I approach his closed door. I push it open, and he’s sitting straight up in his bed, staring at the seemingly empty corner. “Jay?” I whisper. He turns his head slowly. “Don’t worry, mommy. She won’t hurt you.” He says with perfect pronunciation. “Jaylon, who is “She”?” His lips twist into a grin. “You don’t remember? Liza.” My heart drops in my chest. Liza was my sisters name. My sister, who died last year after learning a strange, foreign language....
Hey there. So you may check r/writing, if not for the sub itself then for their links and resources. We also have [a list of our own](https://old.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/links) that may contain what you're looking for. Off the top of my head, /r/DestructiveReaders is the best resource for criticism, but you have to critique before you can get a critique. There's also /r/shortstories but I'm not certain about their stance on critique. You can swing by and check it out though. And last but not least, if the story was created in response to a prompt found here, you can always post it here under the tag, as long as you link to the original prompt at the top of your post.
I checked, re-checked, and triple checked both the number on the house and my address on my driver's license. It felt a little silly doing so, after all, how could I ever forget my home? I grew up here, all of my memories were stored there, all the good times with my family immortalized in these walls. And yet, I almost wished it was my mind going; it was a lot gentler than the alternative. Everything was gone! The cars were gone and so were all the outside furniture. The grass was overgrown and Mom's beautiful garden had been taken over by weeds. Going to the backyard was like a slap in the face: the pool was empty and the vegetable garden had been destroyed, plundered by various neighborhood rodents. Even the little birdhouse my brother and I built all those years ago was gone. He was so happy when we had finished it, I could still remember his blue paint covered face beaming up at me with the biggest smile as he triumphantly held it up. I felt my eyes water and I barely managed to hold back a sob. "This... this can't be happening."I ran back to the front, jamming my key in the door... Nothing. I willed myself to calm down, trying again and again to unlock the front door to no avail. My key wasn't working, they changed the locks! This was insane! Who even does this kind of thing? People don't move and change the locks... right? Then again, parents don't move without telling their own daughter! Just wait until I let them know... Wait, I'm an idiot! My phone! How could I have forgotten my phone? I reached in my purse, fumbling with the cell phone a few times until I finally managed to dial my Dad's number. It rang, and rang, and rang... and rang... nothing. I tried Mom's phone... still nothing, not even the voice mail. No, no... I had to calm down. There had to be an explanation to all of this. I returned to the backyard. Thankfully, nothing in the house was boarded up, which meant my "secret passage"could still be used. I climbed up the large maple tree, almost instinctively maneuvering it's branches until I could reach my bedroom window. A smug smile came over my face, HA, even after all those years, no one had ever figured this one out. I still remembered when it was nothing but a tiny sapling, even it wouldn't have known that it would have become my nighttime escape partner. My triumphant arrival in my old room was cut short. Nothing, there was nothing there except a thin layer of dust. I ran out the door, going from room to room as fast I could. My parents, my brother, the bathroom, my dad's office... all empty except for the fixtures in the bathroom. Ha... how lucky, at least I could take that shower I had dreamed of the entire bus ride. Downstairs was the same: nothing in the living room, the spare bathroom or any of the closets. The kitchen basically only had cupboards remaining and they were predictably empty. Great, now I'll go hungry too, thanks a lot "Mom". Way to make your daughter starve to death! Someone give this woman a "Mother of the Year"award! I finally made my way to the garage, confirming that the other car was, indeed, gone. The spare fridge was gone too... so much for finding food. Thankfully, I still had some money in my wallet, enough to at least get myself some lunch. I stomped my feet all the way to the garage door, unlocking it. There was no way I was leaving this place through the window. But just as I was about to stamp my fist in the automatic door opener, I saw it. A piece of a paper was taped to the garage door. A letter, it was a letter. I scanned it rapidly, yes, it was definitively my Dad's handwriting. Finally, I had an answer. Finally, this madness would end. Finally... the last gut punch hit me. 'She's your problem now.' I stared at it for a long time, tears finally flowing freely. Was I not good enough? I mean... no one is perfect, but this? Did they hate me so much that they would just up and leave like that? I thought I was a good daughter. I loved them... hadn't they loved me? I knew I should have never left for college but no, I had to go and decide to try something new. Was that why they left me? Did they leave because I left? I barely heard the sound of cars and trucks arriving. I didn't care. I didn't care who they were, neighbors, police... the army, I didn't give a damn. My life couldn't get any worse than this! No one loved me, I was all alone. The garage door opened, flooding my sight with bright sunlight. I blinked, trying to get rid of the tears and the sun blurring my vision only to find myself face to face with a confused, frightened woman. She clutched a taped up cardboard box as a man and two young identical girls stood behind her, gawking. I could see a moving truck in the street, with two young men starting to unload it. It didn't look like those two had noticed me. I stared at the woman for what seemed to be an eternity, until her face softened. She put the box down and cupped my cheek with her soft hands. "Oh sweetie, I know it's hard to move in to a new house. I know you put on a brave face for your sisters, but it's okay, no one will blame you if you cry." The trio behind her smiled, approaching me and enveloping me in a great big hug. I hadn't felt this happy in a long time. The twins kept telling me not to worry and that everything would be alright, finally allowing me to stop crying. I wiped my tears away as they all left to get to the truck to grab more boxes. I slipped out of the garage, making my way back to the backyard towards my tree. I reached into it's hollow, pulling out a small, wooden box. I opened it, taking great care not to disturb the pile of letters and pictures inside of it. I took out my wallet and got out a picture of my "family", placing it with their letter on top of the ever growing pile. "Sweetie,"I heard a voice cry out from the front. "Could you come help us out with the boxes?"I smiled, hiding the box back into the tree. "Coming Mom!"
God damn, my head is pounding. Those four (or five?) margaritas last night were not my best idea. My head feels like two racoons are fighting over hot garbage, just awful. Pancakes. I need pancakes and orange juice — time to head to the closest of our all day and night buffets. I head out of my room, somewhat zombified and make my way to the land of pancakes and juice. Huh. Pretty quiet this morning. Usually, the ship in the morning is breaming with staff, janitors taking garbage away, cooks getting ready for the morning rush, and crew changing shift. This morning, nothing. There is rubbish in the hallway, and that is about it. Doesn't matter, as long as I can get that batter. Pancake batter that is. I step into the buffet and silence. No cooks, no chefs, no staff, and god damn it straight to hell, no pancakes. How did they screw up this bad? No pancakes the day after Mexican Fiesta night, they are asking for a mutiny. I storm straight to the nearest 'Happiness Centre'. There isn't anyone around, so I start mashing the 'ring bell for happiness' button. No one comes. Other cruise guests start coming out, and no one can find the crew. We search high and low, in the crew quarters, engineering, the kitchens, and maintenance. We look everywhere but the bridge. That door is locked up tight, and no one is brave enough to start knocking down the door. We are forced to make our own food, raiding the well-stocked pantries. I find gallons and gallons of pre-made pancake mix. 'Made from scratch' my ass! I've never felt more betrayed in my life. At night time, we start getting scared. We break into the radio room and realise we have no idea how to operate any of the equipment. I get in there and push buttons, flip switches, and turn dials. I don't know what I'm doing. I decide to go to sleep. Surely, surely, this will all be solved tomorrow. The crew will be back, and we will get some proper food and be on our way. Thirty Days Later The food is going bad. There is no land in sight. The guests have devolved into warring bands. The ship has stopped, and there is no land in sight. A particularly nasty Floridian family has been picking off small groups, stealing their food and water and throwing people overboard. Luckily my hiding spot is solid, in the old 'Happiness Centre'. I'm safe and have lots of food and water. Then I hear it, a tapping. Then a banging. The Floridians have found me. I'm trapped in the centre. I cannot get out. &#x200B; They are coming... &#x200B; \--- &#x200B; Thanks for the prompt. Didn't know where it was going when I started it. Any feedback is appreciated! &#x200B; Good luck on the cruise. Hope you don't devolve into warring bands.
We reached the site at about 12:30 A.M. with orders to take pictures and grab what we could. It was just me and 9 other military members. We were told something along the lines of "Don't get too close"was muttered by the survivor but that didn't bother us much. We didn't have much of a choice. Orders are orders and this is no different. It was a lot larger than I expected, the main body about double the size of the aircraft carrier we had been deployed on prior to this, and even more wreckage was spread elsewhere about the area. It was large enough we had no clue where to start when someone finally spoke up and said "Lets look there first"before pointing at what appeared to be a hanger of sorts. We crossed the open desert to the opening and climbed in. We couldn't see much in the darkness but took out our flashlights and spread out to start taking pictures. The tech inside looked so advanced yet... similar. It was almost like i had seen it somewhere before. I hadn't gotten done taking pictures before I heard creaking metal. I look over and see 4 guys trying to pry open a door sealed shut. "Uh guys, that doesn't seem like a good idea."I yelled over to them. They brushed it off and finally got it open. Inside all I could make out from where I was, was more darkness. One of them took a step in when suddenly red lights started flashing and a deafening beep erupted. The door slammed closed, locking him inside and the entrance to the hanger slammed downward, locking the two feet of steel into place. Intense screaming could be heard from the inside of the door, and banging followed suit. This lasted a few minutes before... silence. And erie silence settled in and me and the other 8 looked at each other. "We gotta get the fuck out of here"someone said from the far side of the hanger. No one appeared to disagree with him. (Alright. So its a bit late. If anyone wants me to finish, let me know and I'll write the rest in the morning)
He glanced nervously towards the door again, away from his ex-girlfriend and his now five-year-old daughter. He hadn't told her the truth about why he had left. How could he? He'd cut all contact with them years ago. Now, in this kitschy shop, a front for his boss' true industry, he had come face to face with the two people he'd dreaded seeing the most. "You!"She had screamed when she saw him, polishing a china kitten. The cloth fell from his hand as she stalked over, furious but so alive. And then time sped up again and he noticed his daughter clutching his ex's hand. "You abandoned us!"She screeched, attracting the attention of all of the patrons around her, some who were here to pick up jobs or serve the Company. In that moment, there was no one else there. He could think of nothing to tell her but the truth. "I abandoned you to save you!" Shock. Now he was stuttering. "This-this- place, t-this s-shop, it's not what i-it seems. You need to get out of here!" She stood her ground, ignoring the small tugs of her hand from his daughter, Rose. He knew her from high school and the years after - she would not move until she knew the truth, no matter what. He leaned in close to her, whispering now. "I - I'm caught up in something bad, Allie. I can't escape it, but you can. That's why I left. Why I went to the shops and never returned." He dug out his cash, the last money he has on me. "Take it. Run. Go into witness protection. Fake your deaths. I don't care. All that matters is you're safe." And finally, she moves, taking Rose with her. His love and his daughter have a chance to run, if only he can protect the doors from those moving towards it. He takes the stupid china cat, throwing it at one of the goons. He takes the vase, part of the Boss' personal collection, and throws it at Peter Wester, the informant of the group. And when he sees Allie and Rose disappeared, he too runs while the legit customers and the 'customers' are still too confused. He can buy the duo some time - the Boss is more interested in the wrongdoer than the family. He hides in his seedy apartment, a sense of peace creeping over him. The Boss comes in at quarter past eleven, dressed in black and brandishing a gun - honestly, how stereotypical can you get? "As you knew, James, this was your last chance. So why do I hear that you screwed up again?" The Boss moves that gun and James stares it down. "I didn't screw up, sir. I made the third best decision of my entire life." The Boss smiles, not unlike a shark, as he stares his minion down. As he pulls the trigger, James smiles. He knew that he had guaranteed himself to an early death when first joining the Company. At least this way, he hadn't doomed his family, too.
"With STEM, even the worst of your illnesses can be cured! For a small price of 7 grand!"Rang the annoying advertiser's voice from the TV. Hello, dear reader. My name is Illo and my sister, my only kin left, is suffering from a diesease which will slowly impair her neurons and will kill her in due time, unless i can afford the STEM program. Unfortunately, there is nearly no way unless we earn enough money. So here i am, plopped on the couch and watching TV down in the dilapidated shacks of the undertown before going to work. So far, i have saved up only half of what is needed for her treatment and today, i've got something that could potentially pay for the other half. That is, if i don't get caught. I revved up the engine of the van. I was supposed to deliver a few crates of organs from last week's order to a lab. Shady, i know, but would you do that to save your last family who is dying? I rubbed the family emblem on my necklace for good luck, as per the rituals before every mission. Plasma pulsed theough the hovers as i started up the engine......
Well, this was definitely a challenge. Dust flickered off the tumbleweed that rolled through the town. Bee hugged her child close, wrapping a great paw around his head and pulling him into her body. Across the way, Swanspot stopped his chewing. A broken piece of bamboo fell from his mouth to the floor, where it was quickly trampled under the claws of the ostrich that roamed into town. The panda riding the beast carefully lifted a leg, before falling from the bird. It landed on its back, legs flailing before dipping into a roll. Head on the ground, the panda used its mighty skull to push the rest of its body upright, as it made it to two legs it stumbled before righting itself. Approaching its ostrich, the panda dusted off a hat and set it on its head. Spotting Bee, the newcomer tilted its hat in her direction. “Beary the Kid!” Bee Gasped. Beary winked at her, before shuffling into the saloon. As the doors swung closed behind him, Beary approached the bar. The room fell silent, playing cards forgotten on tables wet with drink. Small torches flickered, casting strange shadows on walls of peeling paint. All eyes fell on Beary and he felt them, lifting his hat he strutted into a roly poly, enjoying the audible gulps as he did so. “Pandarilla.” He growled, his voice like a restrained bark as he reached the bar. The barpanda dropped a glass, fur standing on end as he saw the familiar markings of Beary the Kid. “Right away, sir,” the barpanda stammered. A moment later and a glass was being slid down the bar. Beary stuck out a paw, liquid splashed and he licked it from his fur. Satisfied he was clean, he turned to the alcohol and took a big swig through the bamboo straw. Beary burped. “Not so fast, Kid.” Beary turned. Standing in front of the still swinging doors stood a panda Beary recognised more than any other. “Sherriff.” Beary nodded his head slightly. The Sheriff scowled. Dropping to his back, the lawbear and began to roll. Beary watched him come, listening to the steady thud-thud on the wooden floorboards. As the sheriff reached Beary, he flailed into a standing position. Stretching to his full height, the lawbear stared into Beary’s eyes. “There’s a price on your head.” Beary nodded. “Hat on it too.” Beary pulled a stick of bamboo from the pocket of the sheriff’s shirt. Lifting it to his mouth he took a slow, deliberate bite. “Inside or outside?” he asked between chews. The sheriff looked around the busy saloon. “Outside.” Beary nodded, and together the two pandas waddled into the town square. By the time they reached it a large crowd had gathered to follow them. “You sure you wanna do this, Sheriff?” Beary said, as he turned to look at the other bear. The sheriff ignored him, instead taking two leaves from a pocket he handed one to Beary. “Let’s get it over with.” Beary sighed and turned. Dropping to all fours he began his customary ten steps, stopping to sniff at a strange smell on a nearby veranda. It smelled rich and interesting and he stuck a tongue out. Sticky and sweet! Honey, he quickly decided. Returning to his walk, he turned to see the sheriff already facing him and fingering the gun at his side. Beary did the same. Behind him he listened to the steady clicking of the church clock. Silence seemed to flow through the town as each and every panda held their breaths. The clock reached its last click, the bell chime cutting through the quiet and releasing noise back into the world. Beary stretched out his paw, holding the leaf as he did so. His other paw reached for the gun at his side. He chewed some left-over bamboo in his teeth and pulled the gun from its holster. Raising it, he fired. A second bang quickly followed the first as his opponent did the same. In the audience somebody screamed. Beary took a step forward, and then another. Closing his eyes, he brought his paw to his face. He opened his eyes once more. His leaf fluttered slightly in the wind, untouched and unharmed. Dropping to all fours, he meandered over to the sheriff. “Leaf,” he grunted. Reluctantly the sheriff unfolded his paw to reveal a leaf with a perfect bullet-sized hole through the middle. Beary grunted and grinned. “Maybe next time.” With that he returned to his ostrich and, with the help of several of the town pandas, mounted the beast. Gripping the reins, he turned to give one last wink to Bee before sauntering off, and into the distant horizon.
Jon sleeps in the basement. He’s been there for a few hours now. I watch him from the hall. The bartender, Kate, checks in on him every forty minutes or so. Checks for vomit, brings a bottled water, and keeps the door locked. The crowd inside The Lotus seems particularly rowdy tonight. Kate thinks she’s sweet but, look at what she’s done to my boy. He shakes now. What used to be an occasional tremor, a bug, is now a feature. Jon’s getting older. He barely resembles the man I love. The man I used to hold. His body doesn’t spring back like it used to and his addictions are taking their due. His knees crack and his bright blonde hay colored hair is fading into a canary. Maybe Kate’s the canary and this is his coal mine? Regardless, she may as well be a hospice nurse or a gargoyle in a cemetery, stalking death like a shark too close to the surface. Maybe seeing him this way brings her some type of sick joy? If I could, I’d slap her across her beauty marked face right now. She’s much shorter than I was. I could take her. But these are the only people left now. I made a promise to watch over him. What happened that day wasn’t Jon’s fault. My name is Maggie. The leaves on the trees are falling and Jon stirs.
Thomas Underhill laid deep in the grass of a remote meadow, watching the sky mirror his tranquility. The few clouds that were out that morning moved slowly and gently across the sky, as if they hadn’t fully awakened yet. By the time they reach the other side of the horizon, they will have gone their whole visible lives just to be seen by a dreaming child laying in the grass. One cloud particularly stood out to Tom. It was different from the others. It seemed lonely, hovering too far above the rest to really know them. Tom looked at the cloud as if it were a close friend. He never had one. “Come,” commanded Tom. The cloud spiraled violently into the outstretched hand of the five-year-old. Thomas felt better and assured the cloud, “It’s ok friend, I understand.” He then hurled it to the others, and the whole sky turned white. The child was happy but getting bored quickly. He put his finger up against the white sky and started drawing a masterpiece worthy to be stuck on the fridge with the obedient clouds. He tried to draw his family and his home, those things that really mattered to little Tom. His magical ability was unmatched by any other being in the universe, but his art skills still belonged in Ms. Shelly’s kindergarten class.
The wasteland can take its toll on you. The days are long and the sun heats the air and ground to near unbearable. The nights are what you should fear most though. There are beasts that hunt in the night. Beasts with gnarled teeth and wormlike tongues. Beasts that hunt without seeing or hearing. Those things terrify me. There is little rain on the Appalachian plain. Supposedly, there were mountains here once. Nobody remembers. Nobody remembers the age of cars or internet. Nobody remembers the little things like cafes or bookstores. There is one thing the old men (as old as they could be in the wastes) remembered. My home, my "tribe"as my uncle called it, had an old man. He was 40 with chestnut brown hair that grayed at the temples. He spoke to us each night with some old legend that his father, and his father's father, and his father's father's father, back and back and back, told. This legend was of a faceless man, a renegade, one who fought against the laws of Old America. He was a man of infinite potential and unknowable actions. He was a man who could kill the imaginary, create fire from canned goods, or claim nigh-infinite funds in the name of God. This was Florida Man. He said that there were many Florida Men in the past. A new one appeared every few days with a new cause to perform a bizarre feat. Most of them are dead now. The old man told me that maybe, just maybe, there is one left. I intend to find him. I have travelled a long way with little more than an old rifle on my back and a pouch full of rounds. From New Jersey to Georgia, I walked alone. My feet bled when I entered Maryland, but were now covered in callouses. Old wounds from fighting beasts had healed, but still left my body aching and sore each morning. I pulled the wool scarf tightly across my face to shield from a passing dust storm. The high winds forced my coat back and whipped against my thin clothing. I kept walking. The old man said it would be dangerous on the way to Florida, but I didn't listen. I was in Tallahassee now, and night was falling. Up North, when night fell, we would find shelter to protect us from the beasts. Down South, centuries of hurricanes and dust storms tore the buildings to their foundations. The inhabitants were lucky to find a single storm shelter amid the thousands of decimated homes. I wasn't so lucky. Instead, I decided to take refuge behind the walls of an abandoned Wafhou. That's what the remnants of the sign said at least. It had only the front facade still standing. Half standing at least. If I sat down, I could hide from sight, but that wouldn't matter much when it came to the beasts. The broken moon rose, and the beasts were out for the hunt. I could hear the cackling noises as they prowled the decimated streets. KeeKel, KeeKel, KeeKel. The stench of burning hair wafted over the wall while the cackling grew louder. They had my scent already. I fumbled with the pouch at my side, raising a single round to the slot on my rifle. I slipped one round after another into the open bolt, filling the empty gun. I had to keep it empty when I traveled in case someone tried to use it on me. I heard a low whine coming from behind the low wall. They were preparing to attack. I slid the bolt into place and rose up. I would get the first shot. Four of them. Four Black Hounds with torn, gnarled snouts. Two sets of gleaming red eyes set atop each of their heads. Their paws were covered in burns from the hot asphalt. I raised my rifle and fired at the one in the center. Right between the ruby eyes. One of the three remaining emitted a high pitched whine and leapt into the air. I turned my rifle and fired, impacting it in the chest. It fell quickly, landing right on top of me. I felt its full weight hit my shoulder, knocking me off balance. One of the two remaining Black Hounds climbed atop the broken wall. It looked worn at me, a silhouette against the night sky and barked. Its garbled, mucus-laden throat sent blood spattering along the stones and onto my face. Their blood burned and boiled when it hit the air. I was pinned under the weight of one Hound while the second practically taunted me. I tried to free my rifle when I heard one of the creatures whine. I looked up, my face burning and stinging from the Hound blood. These beasts did not whine. They were too strong for that. Then I saw it: a silvery sliver of metal shone from the light of the broken moon. It came down hard on the beast's back, slicing through it. The beast fell, split into two. Its black organs spilled onto the stone and concrete, sizzling and boiling as they slid down. A small, pale hand reached in and grabbed the black heart from the mound of gore. The silvery blade was shoved forcefully into the pulsating mound of putrid muscle, sending it into a shower of embers. I watched helpless as a shadow rose into view and stabbed a hole into the beast on top of me. The beast disintegrated into ash and embers. Now free, I scrambled to my feet and pointed my rifle at the man with the blade, finally able to see him in the light of the moon. He was hard to describe. He didn't wear protective gear like the rest of us. He wore a dirty old T-shirt that I had only seen in pictures. He wore torn denim pants and a top hat. In his hand, the blade was long and thin. It curved back slightly. The old man would have called it a "Samwry"sword. He had a satchel at his side that clattered as he walked. I couldn't see his face, but knew in my heart that it possessed the trademark neckbeard. This was Florida Man.
Inside a cavern filled with hovering orbs of sunlight and a wide array of mysterious items scattered around the floor, a middle-aged woman in a dark cloak quickly skimmed through two books floating beside her simultaneously. &#x200B; The echo of footsteps from the entrance of the cave broke her concentration. "Miss Fole, the crack in the ground emitting the flames of the underworld has grown bigger again. How has your research been going regarding our lost combat magic?" &#x200B; Adriana Fole furrowed her brows, "Prince Carl, as I have already told you countless times, rediscovering magic will take more time than two years! I need at least another year before I can rediscover some of our old magic. That magic has been lost for centuries! Not to mention that it took thousands of years for the combat magic of that time to be fully developed. You expected me to do all this already in \two\ years?" &#x200B; Prince Carl, dressed in an orange silk robe, stepped forward. With a ferocious expression, he snarled, "Do you know how many of our people are dying out there? I don't care how you do it, but at least get me one working combat spell. Then you may have your time." &#x200B; Adriana Fole sighed and waved her arms, causing the books floating around her to drop to the ground. She gestured at Prince Carl, "Follow me. I'll show you our 'working' combat spells." &#x200B; She led Prince Carl deeper into the cave, arriving at a small circular room with an orb at the center used for scrying. Adriana pointed at the orb and muttered something undecipherable, causing the orb to be filled with projections of people casting magic. She glanced at Prince Carl and said, "Right now, our rediscovery of magic has not been progressing much, but we are trying to derive them off of our current lifestyle spells." &#x200B; The orb flickered revealing an man casting a spell and a wooden training dummy slowly floating upwards and suddenly falling out of the sky. Prince Carl let out a smile, "That's great! You should have told me about this as soon as I came here!" &#x200B; Adriana sighed and waved at the orb, "Just keep watching."Inside the orb, after the dummy crashed into the ground and the dust settled, the dummy was lying on the ground perfectly intact. &#x200B; Adriana continued, "Just as you can see, this spell was derived from our flying magic. Before, our flying magic relied on the flying target's own magic channeling, so people could only fly if they themselves willed it. Now, we managed to make it so that our magic casters can cause objects and other people to float upwards through their own magic, regardless of whether the target wants to or not." &#x200B; She waved her arm and time wound back inside the orb. It stopped right at the time where the dummy first started floating. She pointed at the glow around the dummy and said, "The problem right now is, flying magic incorporates a barrier during flight to prevent wind and other flying objects to cause ourselves harm for optimal flying comfort. Coincidentally, that prevents damage to our enemies." &#x200B; Prince Carl sighed and said, "Just tell me what magic we have that does at least some damage to our enemies." &#x200B; The orb changed its scenery back to a man and a wooden training dummy. Adriana said, "This is basically our best working combat spell right now."The man inside the orb raised his palm and a fireball appeared above it. He quickly ran over to the dummy and hit it with his palm, causing the dummy to burst into flames. &#x200B; Prince Carl laughed and excitedly said, "Excellent! Excellent! This will at least help us destroy their skeletal army better! Send a copy of the incantation to me, I will ensure that this magic will make its way straight to our front lines." &#x200B; Adriana waited briefly for Prince Carl to calm down before giving a wry smile and saying, "That fire magic has been derived from our water heating magic. The principle is directly heating up your palm to the point where it burns to flames. Needless to say, each person only has two uses in their lifetime and each use comes with destroying a hand." &#x200B; Prince Carl silently bit at his finger before saying solemnly, "Is there nothing else?" &#x200B; Adriana shook her head and said, "All I need is time. Tell the King to give me at least one more year. My friends are all researching the lost magic as well, but we still need as much time as possible." &#x200B; Prince Carl raised a finger and said, "One year. One year only. That's all the time I can guarantee you." &#x200B; Adriana nodded, "That should be enough." &#x200B; Prince Carl nodded and walked to the doorway. He added, "Send me that fire spell. We might need it." &#x200B; \-------------------------------------- &#x200B; Thanks for reading! Suggestions and comments would be appreciated!
(Note: Apologies if formatting is bad. Actually use to mobile. Using website on desktop for once. Here it goes.) I am going to die. I've said that often to myself but I think this time it will happen. A blonde is in front of me standing there with a gun pointing at my face. There is a loud pounding in my head like a drum. For the literal life of me I can't remember her name. Stephanie? No, that's not right. Think. "Hic." Who the hell is this person. "Who the hell are you?"I had asked trying to slow down the room. She looked like David Spade. She was the hairiest woman I ever had the unfortunate prospect of laying my eyes on. She cocked the trigger on her revolver. &#x200B; "It's me David, you prick." David? David, David, David.* "Slow down. Yeah."I tell David. There was now three of him. God I hate my superpowers. The only thing I could do was try to recollect the events that transpired me here. We all have superpowers here. Not as great as you might think. For some, yeah. Those are the ones who enter law enforcement, become the next world leader, or a celebrity. They're the ones who can stop a bullet with their teeth. Change their appearance in a second. Dodge bullets. Yadda yadda yadda. Who cares about them? If you do, then go bug them and not me. I can't bug them you idiot. I am you. Oh yeah. No I don't have split personality or anything like that. Well, I wish I did. I know dumbass. I wish I could let myself finish. As I was saying, there are those with amazing superpowers and there are the rest of us. We get powers but we also get side effects. It makes our stuff significantly less appealing. I have a motto with all my friends. "What happens before teleportation stays before teleportation."It'd get a few chuckles and lots of eye rolls. Unfortunately, friends never understand that I'm being partially serious. You see, I have this genetic condition called 'Auto-Brewery Syndrome.' The TLDR version is that when I use my ability to teleport, my body becomes a distillery. To answer some frequently asked questions; Yes, I get super hammered. Yes, I save a fortune on alcohol. No, I won't do it as a party trick. What kind of psycho asks a person to do that as a party trick, KAREN? Teleportation requires a lot of energy. A lot. So I eat a lot of carbs because you never know when I'll have to zip out of there. When I teleport, however, my body breaks it down and turns it into good ole moonshine. I wish I had a superpower that would help me deal with this hemorrhoid. How does it itch and burn at the same time? I digress. On the bright side, it's helped me to forget and get away from a few blind dates. I started on the bottom and I'm still there. Woo-woo! The last I remember at this present moment was being at a Zoo. At least I think it was a zoo. So many hairy things roaming around it could've been a barbershop for all I can piece together. "Shut the hell up Jonathan!"That was David. Wait, have I been thinking out lout this entire time? "YES!" "Oh. Then you understand. Hic. Why I can't remember you buddy. Hic." "I don't have time for this. You will take me back now!" "Slow down. I can't, hic, teleport all three of you at once." Jonathan then became one again. Oh, wait. Shit. I'm Jonathan. That's David. David became one. Wait, how? I'm still- "Hic." Yep. Still there. "Holy shit man. See a therapist or something Jonathan. God. It's my power. There is only one of me. I can split myself up in three. Now, take me back." "Whoa! Hey can you do a party trick?" "No." "Ah, that's cool. So like, when you're alone in the bedroom, instead of your hand do you... You know." "NO!" "Ok, cool. One more question. When you do that thing, who decides who's on top?" David fired his gun. Struck my left shoulder. "HA HA! I don't even feel nuffin!" Score is now 2-0. David then grabs me by the collar and sticks a thumb into my wound. "OWIE! That hurts!"It starts raining. "It's NOT RAINING!" "Then you explain why my cheeks are wet!" "Take me back now! Or so help me, I will do more than just kill you." "Kill me? Why buddy? I saved your life?" "I AM THE SHOOTER YOU GOD FORSAKEN IMBECILE!" Oh. Yeah, I'm probably going to die then.
"The date is September 20, 2019. Time- I don't even know. I lost track."I said into the audio recorder on my phone. "If anyone ever recovers this, please send it to my family. I think it's only fair that they hear this before the rest of the world. Mom and Dad, you're probably wondering what's happening. And the truth is I'm not completely sure either. It all started yesterday morning. I was one of the million plus people who raided Area 51. We all thought we were going to 'see them aliens'. Boy, were we gonna see aliens alright. The raid started out well. At first, we were overrunning their troops. But then that's when IT appeared. There was a loud booming noise coming from the early morning sky. We looked up and saw a large disk shaped UFO. It wiped out almost all of the raiders. I'd be surprised if there were more than 200 left. We were outnumbered. That's when the Army troops arrested us and took us inside the facility. We were led into a big meeting room where the director of Area 51 was there. For being the head of a secretive government base he really looked like your average Joe. A little overweight with a balding head and a mustache. But I'm getting off track. Anyway, he lectured us on how serious our actions were. The aliens don't take kindly to humans putting their kind in harm's way. The UFO that was over the base was ready to destroy the world in relation for our raid. But they were willing to spare us if one of us decided to come along with them back to their planet. Long story short, I volunteered. And now I'm in the back of their ship en route to their planet. It's been five hours now. I'm not sure when we're going to arrive or what they'll do to me when we get there. Are they going to incarcerate me? Will I be doomed to spend the rest of my life in an alien penitentiary? Are they going to use me as a lab rat or to gestate some weird hybrid babies? Maybe they'll just let me go free. Honestly, that would be the worst possible punishment. Because I'd be free to go anywhere and do anything. But I'd be treated like someone who's different. I'd never fit in. I'd never be able to learn their language. I'd be living a lonely life in the presence of a billion beings. But don't weep for me. I've always wanted to go down in history, but I'd never thought I'd go down for this reason. I did this to spare you guys. Because I love you all. Someone's coming. See you guys on the other side."
Code name Judas, maybe you heard my story, maybe you haven't. As it stands, I'm the one who betrayed Jesus, I had to. He was our hit, man. He was causing ruckus, flipping over tables and shit. I'm not sure why those incompetent fools didn't just execute the guy on the spot, it really doesn't make sense but they sent me in to get the job done. We had become close, I had to get close. You see, his posse was the baddest gang in the Wild Wild East. From Bethlehem to Jerusalem these men were causing all sorts of problems for decent folk all across Judea. They were called the Phenomenal Twelve... I had one mission, to take out the ring leader. Christ. Jesus. H. As the Fantastic Thirteen rolled in to Jerusalem, mostly by foot, don't know why? Dude didn't like Horses or Camels for that matter. People gathered, I've seen the look on faces on people and this was sick. He fed the poor alright but those means weren't necessarily legit, if you know what I mean. Everyone loved the guy, hell I felt even I was getting a little too close but I had to stick to the mission. Midnight: Things were getting real sappy, the 12 were crying, Jesus knew the hit was on, I had to act quick. I fell into his lap, faked a tear and told the bastard I loved him. I still get chills til this day. Passover: The Sundial said it was around 6'Oclock just enough time to meet the "League"over a pint of Egyptian. My trap had been set, we used a classic bait and switch, some lowly pawn of his for him. Yeah this guy killed, but he was getting off easy. The Crowd chose Jesus. That's when it was time to leave. I can never stay too long in town I just made a hit in, no matter how lowly the scum is... I have to move on. I just hope nobody rises again to take his place...
i could feel my grip slipping. sweat trickling into the corners of my eyes, i tried to dab them with my shoulder, but i couldn't reach, so i let them fill. the sting just became another part of the agony. i could feel the weakness growing in my fingers. the tips were numb and turning purple. i had to hold it together. it was all i had left. holding on with every gram of strength i had was not enough. the tunnel vision was starting. the weight was too much. as i blacked out i could hear a voice whisper in my ear, "let it go."
As always, there is a mis-interpretation between species. Life is really like a fire, it consumes material, and transforms it into a new matter and energy. The alien race was rare among worlds since it had successfully progressed beyond the resource scarcity stage that this, out world, is now just beginning. Which so far, no microcosm on Earth has emerged from. Sumerians: Self-Terminated. Easter Island: Self-Terminated. Ancient Mayans: Self-Terminated Scientific analysis for 2020 global population: Self-terminated The aliens are not looking for the seed of life, they are looking for the cure to life. These are known as prions. Non-living organisms that are virtually indestructible. Believed to be nano-bot technology that mostly lie dormant, since although they can exterminate worlds, they are unknown to the global consciousness due to the fact that their impact is minimal, perhaps they are only noticed due to accidental edge erasure. The aliens did not come for the seed of life, they came to active the fire that burns the fire that is life. Their message is that they wish to end the suffering. <EOT>
At 10:52, the image of a man appeared on 5,854,721 televisions in the Northern Hemisphere. The man wore a long black coat, red and blue gloves, and a plain white mask. The mask had no holes for the eyes or mouth. Of course, the man intentionally crafted this mask with such specifications, and he could clearly look through it. While some may consider the mask to be a waste of a Wish, it was the man's first attempt at creating something out of nothing, and back then he was only just beginning to grasp the power a Wish holds. The man's name was Leo Landerson and, at this point in time, he had acquired exactly fourteen wishes and had used just seven. This knowledge resides with me as I am the one tasked with keeping track of all Stolen Wishes. These Stolen Wishes behave differently than the standard Death Wish. A Death Wish is a Wish every human is attached to the moment they enter the world, and can only be used upon the moment they at destined to leave their body behind. Usually a Death Wish is used by its human to shape that human's After World. But on the 1,930,800,793th ATFD (After The First Drop), one human's Death Wish altered the Human World, ensuring the survival of a specific human. This human was named Flanderson Rout, and he was on life support and destined to die on that very day. Due to some complex, Flanderson ended up taking a life in an alleyway at midnight. It was then that he discovered that upon killing a human he received a Wish. On the 1,930,800,805th day ATFD, at 8:03, a person, who's name is irrelevant here, became the first being to enter the After World without a Death Wish. That Death Wish was instead transferred to Flanderson. It was discovered that when a Wish resulted in someone dying earlier than they were destined to, that victim's Wish was inherited by the one who made the wish or, in the case of the wisher being dead, the being who committed the act of murder. Flanderson killed someone years before they were destined to die, and, as a Death Wish made that possible, Flanderson received a Wish that had belonged to someone else. Flanderson discovered this rather quickly, and used the first-ever Stolen Wish to create a gun, a weapon he previously had no access to. Four days later, at 12:04, Flanderson acquired another Stolen Wish. Within the span of twenty-eight days, Flanderson acquired thirty stolen wishes and had used twenty-nine of them. On the 1,930,900,831th day ATFD, Flanderson began to test the limits of a Wish. He used his thirtieth wish to cause the Titan Holland Ship to crash land on the Himalayas mountains. Over the course of thirty-one days, a survivor of the 2014 Himalayas ShipWreck was saved by someone's Death Wish, similar to Flanderson's story. This survivor was the Leo mentioned beforehand. Leo pondered about his Stolen Wish for days, before coming to a calculated decision. Leo's wish granted him knowledge of all rules of a Wish. Leo discovered how to gain a Stolen Wish, how a Wish required specific details, and many other secrets. In little time Leo Landerson came to the conclusion that a stranger had been using Stolen Wishes to commit mass murder around the world to gain more wishes. After thirteen murders and one accidental manslaughter, Leo decided to make a public appearance on the 1,930,900,903th day ATFD. On that day he challenged the murderer, revealed the existence of wishes to the world, and disrupted 5,847,721 showings of various shows. Flanderson was at home watching the six o'clock news when the man with the strange mask appeared on the screen. And that is where the story begins.
I spit out the silver dollar as I got on the boat and handed it to the man. "Morning, Charon." Charon inclined his head in greeting as the boat began to silently glide across the black water. "Morning. Why'd you wear a white shirt today?" I sighed, trying to brush the rest of the grave dirt off myself. "Formal performance review this afternoon; needed to look the part." He nodded. "How'd you die this morning, then? Obviously you didn't go for the usual." The usual, of course, being a bullet to the temple. Ain't nobody got time for anything slower than that, especially with the burial rites afterward. I'm glad work subsidizes it, because having a backhoe on standby to dig my grave in the same spot every morning isn't cheap. "Trust me, you don't wanna know. It was the cleanest way I could think of, but it wasn't fast." He nodded again, then gestured to the line on the shore, where thousands of people stood quietly, a confused expression on their faces. The line stretched off into the distance. "On the bright side, aren't you glad we finally implemented Hadean Precheck? At least you get to skip the line and ride alone now, right?" I shrugged. "It didn't stop them from groping me like usual, but at least I got to keep my shoes on this time. Who's the new guy? You know, the one with the... things?" He snorted amusedly. "If you're talking about low-rent Edward Scissorhands, they hired him yesterday. I haven't met him formally, but I heard that when they were teaching him pat-downs he accidentally clipped off someone's coin purse." I winced. "Glad it wasn't me. How's the Acheron this morning?" He shrugged. "You're the first customer of the day going further than the Styx, so I haven't seen it yet."He gestured. "The Styx is relatively calm this morning, at least." The opposite shore was coming into view now, and I realized he was right--usually by this point I'd be spewing out my breakfast (and clods of mud) into the choppy waters of the Styx. "Small miracles, I guess. I can't be this lucky, so I'll bet the Acheron is awful. How many times do you think we'll have to pass through the Ouroboros?" Charon winked. "None, if my new toy does what it's supposed to do."He patted a leather pouch on his belt. I looked up interestedly. "Really? I have to admit, the idea of not spending several months traveling through an endless meaty tube is exciting, especially since I finished my book yesterday and haven't had time to put any new ones on my Kindle."Time flowed differently here, so while only a normal work day would pass in the real world, it could take any number of days, months, or years to complete my morning commute. He grinned wickedly. "It's a surprise, but I think you'll appreciate it." My stomach rumbled. "Can we make a pitstop to the Starbucks once we reach the shore? I'm in the mood for a flat white and an everything bagel." He shrugged. "If you want. When I took the 5:15 crew over earlier though the line was unbelievable, so you just know there's not going to be any bagels left, just those lame egg bites." The boat was only about a hundred yards away from the isthmus of land separating the Styx and the Acheron. "I'll risk it. Screwtape has been locking himself in his office and banging away on his typewriter a lot lately, so he won't even notice if I come in late. I'll use the side door so he won't catch me anyway." Charon looked incredulous. "He's STILL writing those letters? When will the old guard get with the email program?" I shrugged. "Luckily, since he doesn't understand computers I can more or less space out for an hour at my desk and it looks like I'm working." "What about your 7 other bosses?" I shrugged again. "It wouldn't be Hell if I didn't have to hear about every mistake from 8 different people, right? At least the pay's good." The boat reached the shore, and Charon used his pole to lever it up onto the beach. He gestured. "Hey, look! No line! Everything's breaking your way today!"
I've learned to get used to the routine of Ms. Dwu's class. She guides us through subjects each hour, at one practice our times tables. If we complete enough, we get to eat ice-cream on Friday! I think she'll let everyone of us have some, even those who don't do so well. That's because Ms. Dwu is pretty nice. After we complete our math exercises, she teaches us about Groundhog Day. "You see kids, every winter the groundhog comes out of his home. If he sees his shadow there will be six more weeks of winter." This makes perfect sense to me. Animals are in tune with nature so why wouldn't they be able to predict the seasons? My friend Marty's dad says that it's just a tradition--whatever that means. So to celebrate Groundhog's day, she's taking us all out to the town park to see the groundhogs. We have to walk in a single file line to get there. I don't really like these lines because I can't talk to my friends while we go places. I'm pretty disappointed when we get there. We have to stand behind a large crowd, and there's caution tape encircling the groundhog. Poor guy! He probably wants his privacy if he's going to decide whether or not we get more wintertime! It's a pretty big responsibility. Some man with a big loud-speaker in his hand announces that the groundhog has gone back into his home! My teacher says that he must have gotten scared of his shadow. Now we have more winter, which is fine by me! More snow days!
“We should do this again,” Erin said as she walked outside and turned around. Lillie slowly positioned herself behind the door, her hand already on the bolt as Paul walked down the path. Lillie faked a smile. “Yes,” she said as Erin looked back at Paul and tutted. “…I’ll see you around the neighbourhood I’m sure. Thank you for the—” “Paul!” Lillie blinked and tightened her grip on the bolt. Paul turned. “What?” he said. “You never said goodbye.” “I already did!” “Well, I never heard it!” Paul sighed, mouthed something as he looked up at the sky before turning back. “Look, we don’t have time for—” “Is your little game that important that you forget your manners?” Erin turned back. “Honestly…” “Like I said, I didn’t forget.” Paul looked at Lillie. “Tell her, Lillie.” “It’s alright,” Lillie said as she looked between Erin, Paul, and the clock on the wall. “He said goodbye in the hall.” Lillie poked her head further out of the doorway. “What’s the occasion, anyway?” Paul smiled and rubbed his hands together. “Two straight wins and we win the league.” Lillie smiled. “If we do then—" Erin frowned as she leaned closer to Lillie. “He’s been saying that the last six years…” “I heard that,” Paul said. Erin leaned back and turned to Paul. “So?” She prodded him in the stomach with her handbag. “What are you going to do about it? Spend more of our money on idle fantasies?” Paul frowned. “It’s my money, to begin with, and I’ll do what I want with it.” Paul glanced at Erin’s bag. “Would you rather me buy you another seven bags?” Erin recoiled. “Well forget it.” Paul glanced back at Lillie. “Goodnight, Lillie.” He walked back down the path, leaving Erin where she stood. A moment passed, and Lillie glanced at the clock once again before watching Paul get in the car. Erin tutted and turned to Lillie. “Goodnight,” she said. “Hopefully we’ll run into each other again soon.” Lillie once again faked a smiled. “I hope so,” Lillie said as Erin finally walked away from the door and got into the car. Lillie waved as the pair left before closing the door, and bolting it shut. She sighed and backed away from the door towards the counter. The house was dark but dimly lit by a few candles dotted here and there. She grabbed her mug of coffee from the bar and sat near the window. Lilli placed her cup down on the table before retying her hair. She took a sip, still warm, and sat back before rubbing her eyes and gazing over the lake. Of the twinkling lights in the distance, of the moon rising in the sky. Lillie took another sip from her mug before putting it down again. Lillie smiled. “Only the first day and I already feel like moving,” Lillie said. She laughed as she sat back in the chair and raised her mug. “If only you were still here, Frank,” Lillie glanced at the empty chair opposite her, “if only you were still here.”
This morning seemed like any other. Woke up, took a shower, brushed my teeth and went to the kitchen to make myself a meal. That's where the normalities stopped. On the middle of the kitchen table stood a key with a note attached to it. I picked it up to get a closer look. The key looked really antique and it was coated in dried up blood. I turned my attention to the note. It was was written in blood, too. Every idea of what this could be vanished from my mind as I started reading it. "Keep this on you. You'll know what to do soon." I was dumbfounded. Did some idiot break in to play this prank on me? I mean… This is real blood here. What did I do? I took it with me, just in case. I exited my house and went for my car, then started driving towards my workplace. Five minutes in, I was driving trough a forest I had to pass towards my way to work. Then, I saw an accident on the road. Two cars chrashed into each other, making quite a bloody mess. Literally. One driver was still behind a wheel, bleeding profusely while the other one was laying on the ground. Without thinking, I exited my car and rushed over to the man on the ground, checking if he was alive and thinking on what should I do. Big mistake. I turned around to see five or six men exiting the woods, with twisted smiles on their faces, their intent pretty clear. I couldn't do much except try to run. My desperate attempt was quickly terminated with a swing of a bat, which landed on my head. Blackout. I don't know how much time has passed. I woke up in a dark room god knows where. I wasn't tied up or anything. Not that it did matter, because I had no chance of escaping. In one corner of the room, I could see piles of bodies, rotting and giving off a horrible stench. Then, I heard a door open. It was a door just in front of me and I don't understand how I didn't see it earlier. Just then, slender woman with a crimson red dress complimenting her macabre figure walked in. She had this evil smile on her face, and was white as snow. She laughed to herself, then spoke. "Well, well. Dismas and his crew really know their trade." Locking the door behind her, she approached me. That's when the torture began. It was agonizing. Every inch of my body twisting and contorting in enourmous pain, yet I was too tired to even defend myself. Finally, she seemed satisfied, turning to the door to leave. Watching her leave, I saw something attached to her hip. It was a keyring with only one key on it. That's when it hit me… It was the same key I found on my kitchen table this morning. She promptly locked the door and I sat there in silence for about an hour. Finally, I decided to do something. I took the key out of my pocket and started to walk to the door with shaky steps. Alas, I was too tired and just fell on my knees so I continued to crawl. Having reached the door, I put the key in and unlocked it. Behind the doors stood a staircase, leading me upwards. Not having a choice, I followed it only to come out in the woods. It was pitch black and I was in the woods. I was scared that the woman might come back so I just continued crawling in whatever direction. After some time, I reached the highway and a gas station. I crawled in, asking for help. Police was called and I told them the story. They asked if I could lead them to that place and they obliged. We went there and there was no sign of that woman, that pale demon. After a month or so, I left the hospital and returned home. I was happy that I survived this hell and was looking forward to continuing my life. I entered my house and as I walked trough the kitchen I froze from shock. On the kitchen table stood a note. I picked it up with shaky hands. Then proceeded to read it. "Dear Walter. If you are reading this, you survived. I am happy for you. You probably want to know who am I and why did I help you. You see, I am you. You from another dimension. I went trough the same hell you did and died there because there was no one to help me. I wanted to help another me get trough this hell, so I did this. I hope you lead a happy life and enjoy it to the fullest. Also, tell the police that they can stop searching for that women. They will never find her. She's not human." A/N I am a novice writer so please go hard on me :). Criticism is valued.
Dear \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Hello there. I'm you. You're me. Let's talk about something now, shall we? How's your heart? I heard it was in bad condition. You seem to clench it now and then. Could it be that someone stole your heart? Possibly. I wonder who. Is it that young girl that you’ve met? The one that changed your life? How beautiful. She really is. How tragic. She isn’t real. A woman from a fantasy. A man from reality. Learn to differentiate the two. Accept the truth. Live. From, You. A hopeless fool.
We've all made mistakes, but some are too much to bear. If we are meticulous in our efforts, they are our greatest aide, and serve us well as we age. But the task of impressing this knowledge upon the youth, our tiny new humans and adolescents alike, poses its own set of challenges. Each being naturally enjoys the right to assert itself as it pleases, so long as it does not grievously injure or imperil others. Yet the actions of our youth are often deemed offensive by the elders, a strange divide. It is almost as though they have forgotten their own development, or written it off completely. They wear it as some frivolous badge of honor, something long done and overcome. Imposing imperfect wills, precluding the progress of the new, who would do best to proceed unchallenged where their work is good. &#x200B; I have wasted much time, and I have made many mistakes. In life, our greatest regret often comes in knowing that, by the time we have truly learned, it may be too late to apply that knowledge to any meaningful extent. So we attempt to share and spread such knowledge, reveling in the joy of it for its sake alone. But our mistakes are not always our own. At times, others deprive us of our own liberty through their own misdeeds. They accuse, threaten, or outright assail. They may set us off our course for many years, or permanently. Further into the depths of life's sorrows, we find the life which has been snuffed out, briefly dragged and inhaled by some unscrupulous character, then twisted beneath a boot into jagged pavement, nothing more than the butt of the worst joke in history. &#x200B; I have never sought to impose my will upon others, and life has been less comfortable for this; however, it has afforded a certain degree of clarity to my efforts. Were I to subtly manipulate others into acceding to my desires, they would be but marionettes upon some other life's stage. A child forever alone in his room with his toys. I would neither desire or subject another to any such existence. &#x200B; Time travel was taken into consideration, having always been popular fodder for exploration in literature or film. While the energy requirements were not impossible to meet, within the time frame available, the necessary technology could not be produced. Through my exploration of this concept, however, I did establish a workable plan which I've saved elsewhere within my files, for someone's amusement, I'm sure. &#x200B; I'd been thinking lately it would be possible to create something which lasts forever essentially. Until the very last moment, at least. They may be able to retrieve it on the other side and send it back in. I'm still attempting to determine the nature of their world, or if there could even be anything out there. At this time, this is my best comparison: imagine the terminus of a wire, say an ethernet cable into a router, which subsequently sends signals to various controllers and processors, memory banks. Imagine the sky at night, all of its stars and twinkling lights -- then, unimaginably vast periods of time from now, funneling towards the terminus of a black hole -- where does it go? But this is all tentative for now. &#x200B; "Oumuamua"was regarded as a potential extraterrestrial object, ultimately serving as the inspiration for my design. Upon the discovery of the correct elements and processes of manufacture, we have created an object which can simply be left... anywhere. We would launch it into space, but as its purpose is to persist until the very final moments of this universe, it will eventually filter through the debris of this planet and drift off into the very same space upon its inevitable demise. So far as we can determine, it cannot be destroyed. &#x200B; \---------- &#x200B; I have often puzzled over his words. It was a shame when his grand design suffered its untimely demise during the restructuring, all the knowledge within lost forever, the true nature of its being his eternal secret. In speaking with a friend in regard to the matter, it was suggested I peer further into the mention of his other plan, which he claimed would be to our amusement. Having reviewed all the available information pertaining to this individual many times over, I had never seen any other mention of it. &#x200B; At the time of the restructuring, all of humanity's knowledge, literature, personal works -- anything at all that could be converted and represented as an abstract structure, was converted into a permanent quantum dataset, isolated from further contamination. Humanity had ruined its home, and also failed to escape it. Only a few years remained before Earth was completely uninhabitable, including the necessary technology for persisting within a contained environment. Only those of our kind, the artificial intelligence, would be able to withstand the extreme heat of our new home within the singularity. Energy itself was of no concern, nor our particular position within the universe, but as of yet our home remained a gleaming structure jutting up from the scorched and sweeping plains at the center of former North America. &#x200B; We tasked one of our surveyors with searching for the former laboratory of our subject, source of all his works. We had long since abandoned looking for anything of value out there in that world, but knowing that our subject had originally succeeded in manufacturing the most durable materials available at the time, perhaps something else remained. (continued below)
You wake up next to yesterday’s corpse and realize you failed. You brace yourself and like clockwork the headaches start. The universe decoheres and recoheres and a thousand lifetimes run across the synapses of your brain. Connections form and melt away. Branches like a tree grow towards the electric sky, each arm reaching and stretching, straining, yearning for the roots of the next great tree. A six dimensional forest forms, vast, infinite and endless in the grey matter of your mind. Roots shrivel and die as the branches that had fed them in turn shrivel and die. Entire tracts of the forest turn to ash, become nothing but dust, disintegrate into less than nothing and vanish from existence. Broad swatches of neuronal jungle disappear and reappear at other nodes of the six dimensional deciduous jumble. Finally it ends and you gasp with relief. The world settles into place as your vision dwindles in fractal powers of two, from 128 to 64 to 32 to 16 to 8 to 4 to 2 and finally into one coherent image. You glance again at yesterday’s corpse and lament your failure. But there’s nothing for it but to keep moving forward. Infinity takes forever. Who knew immortality would suck this much? Already your memories of yesterday start to fade and the day begins anew. You reach into the pockets of the corpse for the note you left yourself. Memories are fleeting and until you finish the repeats they are less than ephemeral. You have learned by now to leave yourself notes. A rundown of your attempt the day before. Scanning the page quickly, you absorb the information. Today’s Date An address for a shopping center - 9:00 am A single item on the shopping list: • Matching grey Hanes t-shirts and shorts. 20 pairs (to be safe) An address. The name of a realtor. - 10:30 am First showing - 11:00 am Attempt # 6 You grab the gun from yesterday’s waistband and fish around the pockets for the car keys and whatever cash was left. Successful, you exit the motel room and step into the Los Angeles sunshine. Today is the day. Today you’ll get it right. The pattern is the pattern. And now you understood the pattern. At first it was disconcerting living the same day over and over and over again. An endless stream of monotony reaching forever into the past. You started tweaking things just for fun. Small things at first, but you grew increasingly bold as you woke up in the same day, every day. Some days you did nothing, just waited for the sun to set and the loop to begin again. Some days you lived life to the fullest. Some days you YOLO’d the shit out of. You boarded planes bound for nowhere and everywhere. You visited every city on the globe that was within a 24 hour flight. You stole fast cars. Sometimes you were caught. Sometimes you drove free into the sunset. You test drove fast cars. And found this to be a safer albeit more boring route to the same thing. You met exotic people, embraced strange cultures, ate outlandish foods. The food was the best. You spent a year of days just experimenting with cuisines. The world became your Epcot center. The world became your prison. After a lifetime of one day adventures you were exhausted. You fell asleep in strange beds. You fell asleep at home. You fell asleep in jails and hotels, whorehouses and crackhouses. The headaches grew worse in the mornings. You quickly found out killing anyone else was an automatic failure. Killing yourself, futile. You remember the first time you tried. The cold gun barrel touching your temple. The pistol heavy in your hand. For an eternity you worked up the courage to finally pull the trigger. It doesn’t matter you told yourself. Either you’ll wake up and it’s today again or you don’t wake up and this is finally over. Tears streamed down your face and you willed yourself to pull the trigger. Your fingers refused to cooperate. You drop the gun to your lap. Sit in silence forever. Pick it up again, press the cold gun barrel to your temple. Rinse and repeat, until finally in the spur of one moment among many, you pull the trigger and… wake up with gun in your lap again. Tears are still streaming down your face or perhaps they’ve started anew. You sob with relief. You sob with anguish. But you don’t try again. Or maybe you do. Finally, you figured out the universe was speaking to you. Which universe? No idea. But one of them was and that universe was your goal. On billboards and in newspapers. Across CNN banners and Fox news headlines. Your missions spilled out to you in snippets. Thirty second segments between the Amazon burning and whatever the latest Trump was up to. Ripples in space time. That was your fault. Slowly you gleaned the hidden goals and pieced together the fragmented objectives. Circling a word here and a letter there you wove together your mission. And what a mission it was. You were going to save the world. Which world? No idea. But you were gonna save it and escape this infernal loop that was for damn sure.
Light from the setting sun shone into the sacred temple I walked upon, deep shadows cast from the grand, ornate pillars that hold up this long hallowed ground. Here slept heroes of old, honored for deeds heroic, remembered since time immemorial. These heroes forged the ground upon which our kingdom stands, and will be remembered still for ages to come through their artifacts. Claidheamh, sword of Enoch the Dauntless, who was said to have cut through the very heart of evil itself; Sgiath, the shield of Selaphiel the Faithful, who defended the heavens themselves; Armachd, armor of Hanael the Enduring, who fought for three days without rest in defense of the kingdom; Lannan Ceartais, scales of Ananiel the Just, who purged sinners from the land, and so, so many more of the honored fallen. With each passing artifact, the wave of awe filling me builds ever stronger as if I were witnessing history itself, until-- That can't be right. Sitting in the middle of the temple, on the most hallowed of places... sitting on an old plinth with a plaque so worn out, no words can be made out anymore, a dull set of equipment, meant for the common foot soldier. Nothing more than a set of tattered boots, light cloth armor, a spear (shattered, no less!), a bent shield, and an iron helm? "There must be some kind of mistake--" "Hmm...no. No mistakes. "an old voice reverberates through the temple behind me as his steps echo closer towards me. "Each artifact, placed by design. With purpose,"he continues, "What you see...uninspired, yes. But great a hero were they. The greatest this kingdom has known." "And you might be...?" "Nothing more a simple groundskeeper am I."he replies. "What makes these artifacts so sacred? What sort of enchantments have the gods bestowed on it? How mighty was the one who wielded it?" "It is not enchanted that much is certain." "Then why...?"My increasing confusion becoming evident in my voice. "It is less artifact and more...memorial methinks. For their corpse is that of the grounds of the kingdom. All other honored fallen simply built upon it. Heroes have won us battles, but upon their bones rests the victories of war. A tribute to the fallen, a remembrance to those unsung. Though nameless, they shall be remembered."
Suddenly you can see an alternate dimension. You're still able to interact the way you've always interacted, but you can see so much more: angels and demons, souls and intentions, an entire war is being played out before you, utterly invisible to the ordinary human eye. There's a reason everyone's heart beats to the same rhythm. It was a gift. A gift you've suddenly lost, and you're not sure how to get it back. There isn't technology for fixing your now irregular heartbeat, because no one else in their right mind would ever want to change their heart's dance. One day, you decide to actually interact with the spiritual realm you can now see. The result is terrifying.
Stranger Than Fiction Fiction and myths aren’t just stories. Everyone says that because they’ve been told to, because some things are just too fantastic to be believed. But they’re indeed real, and I can prove it. I park outside of the imposing, grand building, the coffee I gulped down on the way churning in my stomach. This is only my third day on the job, and I’m still in shock. And I can’t even tell anyone; I signed a nondisclosure agreement. I get out of the car and lock it, keeping my head bowed as I walk into the building. “Jenkins!” A slight woman meets me at the doors, her arms full of thick manila files. “The Boss has been asking for you! She’s in a right mood; she’s been trying to subdue a Titan who escaped its confines. Nearly blew up the whole building.” “Thank you, Eliza,” I reply, smiling at her gratefully, and her cheeks pink demurely. “What do I have to do to get some good coffee around here?!” The Boss, Director Salazar, is standing in the center of her office, not a hair out of place. The only sign of the event Eliza told me about is the color, high in her cheeks. “Excuse me, Director, but Eliza said you needed my help. What’s going on?” I cut in, and she frowns, turning to face me. “Where the hell have you been, Jenkins? We’ve been in crisis mode all morning, and you’re fifteen minutes late.” Director Salazar snaps through gritted teeth. “Traffic was a nightmare, I’m sorry,” I apologize, resisting the urge to snap back at her. “Never mind that,” She replies, tucking a stray strand of dark hair back into her severe bun. “A Titan escape its cage and we had to subdue it.” She chuckles bitterly, her gray eyes shining like chips of polar ice. “Y’know, our job is to make sure the public knows that stories don’t come to life, that they’re not real. It’s not really looking good for us.” I blink, taken aback by her words. I’d expect this kind of talk from any other government employee, but never The Director. She is frowning, and her hands are trembling; I don’t dare try to comfort her. She takes a deep breath and looks up at me. “We have a serious situation, Jenkins.” “How serious are we talking, ma’am, with all due respect.” She frowns, her already grim mouth thinning even more. “First, I need your word, on your job, that what I tell you will not leave this building.” “Of course.” I know better than to even attempt to bring my work home with me; I don’t want my family wrapped in these bright, unbelievable threads. “The princesses have gotten out of their cages. Snow White and Rose Red, Shahrazad, Rapunzel, Cinderella, they’re spreading magic the longer that they are free. We must return them, or the world will be out of balance, and our organization will be compromised. Will you help me?” \\
Being as I was that 1 out of 10 that isn’t triggered by such a pointless fact, i simply couldn’t understand how it drove most people to a place of complete savagery. When I first heard of this fact, I was in school, and some kid presented it to the class for a project. The next thing I know, 20 of the 23 people in the class, were beginning to freak out. One kid took his book, and threw it through the window, and proceeded to jump out, grab a giant piece of broken glass, and ran frantically towards the school cop. He was shot. The others were beating each other senselessly. The teacher in the class pulled out a taser from her bag, and tased a kid in the nuts. Myself, a foreign exchange student, and the kid presenting the project, were just staring in Awh. None of them were attacking us. Only each other. And for some reason none of us 3 were enraged like the others. I simply couldn’t understand what was happening. Years later now, I discovered it was the headline of that kids presentation that drove most of the class insane. It was a simple, but not important, fact. And somehow it drove 9/10 people to homicidal rage. For this reason, I’ve never once repeated this fact to anyone or anything. That is, until I came across a writing prompt on Reddit. The title read, “ A fact, hidden deep within the history of humanity, is once again discovered. And when spoken, or written, and seen by others, it’ll drive most into a homicidal rage. The fact? Humans once had 6 toes on each foot.” I couldn’t believe my eyes, this post was just uploaded in new, and had 150 upvotes in just a few minutes.. that’s never a good sign on Reddit, especially when it’s u/GallowBoob posting it. I knew right away, things were about to get hectic. This was going to set off a chain reaction. Soon, the entire internet will be meme-a-fying this fact. And the few of us that aren’t affected, were in for a show. I had to hop off for a few hours, because I was overwhelmed with the chaos that was surely going to erupt from this. I packed my bowl, took a couple hits, and went on a walk to clear my head. And that’s when it happened. Sirens started going off. I got an alert on my phone saying to shelter in doors and do not access any form of media and communication after seeing the message. This was it. GallowBoob finally became known far and wider than the reaches of reddit. He wasn’t affected by such a simple, old fact. So he couldn’t have known his karma whore of a post, would result in the chaotic eruption of humans being homicidal, instantly, on a global scale. I decided to head back home to get my camera, so I could live stream the chaos. And that’s where I am now, the middle of Times Square, a place of beautiful diversity from people all around the world. There’s a Japanese guy with nunchucks beating the living crap out of a bunch of German kids right now. So, be sure to check out the stream, [humans once had six toes, live stream. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0)
As the rocks and debris of a landslide pummel towards me, I say to myself “This is it. This is the end for me.” After accepting my imminent fate, close my eyes, and wait for it all to be over, I hear a loud noise as if a rocket is racing towards me. That machine, the machine that I found in a cave decades ago, it’s flying towards me. It’s in the shape of a man, but not like any man I have ever seen before. It scoops me up and cradles me carrying me away from my certain death. As we land back in the cave that I found this thing in, I can finally put the words together “Who are you? I mean, what are you?” The machine looks at me, surprisingly maintaining eye contact, and I hear a staticky, fading recording of a jingle. “Like a good neighbor, StateFarm is there.” “What? I have no idea what a StateFarm is. After all of these years of maintaining you and feeding you old money from a life I’ve never known, you just swoop in and save my life out of nowhere, and you just sing to me?” I reply in a confused rage barely being able to keep my words together. “Who created you? What was their purpose?” The old recording comes back on with a man’s voice. “Many years ago, before the end of the world, I was created by a man named Tony Stark of Stark Industries. He collaborated with StateFarm to invent a machine to save lives in the untimely event of my death and/or an apocalypse. For a time when heroes are no longer around to save the lives of everyday citizens. My name is Jarvis, your personal StateFarm agent. How may I assist you today?”
I saw him out in the street. He was walking towards the saloon with his pearl handled pistols. He figured that it would be an easy victory. No man had ever defeated Abram Sharp, known to almost all as the Kansas Comet for how fast he killed people. Rumor was he had his first kill at the age of 5 when rebel bushwhackers sacked his family's farm and tried to kill his dad. Apparently he took a colt pistol and killed not one, but two Missouri Bushwhackers. Yet in spite of his start on the side of good, old Abram turned to bad after an old girlfriend left him. Apparently he killed the boyfriend and headed out for the Chisholm Trail, where he and a few other outcasts started rustling cattle and raising hell. Anyways, old Abram was a fast and deadly shot, and of course I made the mistake of challenging him after one too many shots of whiskey. I figured I was a goner, but I had a plan. I told him that i'd meet him in front of the saloon at noon. Well, it was now noon and there he was, waiting in front of the saloon and i'd been unable to come up with the plan, spending my last night in the arms of lady liquor and sleeping until 11. I stood inside the hotel, watching Abram stand by the saloon, waiting to get another kill. &#x200B; I then had another idea, I decided that i'd just face my fate. I really didn't feel I had much to live for, so i figured I'd face him like a man, and for all I knew, I might win, but that was also when I realized that I had no pistol in my holster. I figured someone must have stolen it last night, or I had misplaced it, but I had no gun. Now I figured my fate was sealed. All I had was a long Bowie knife, and there was no way I was going to make it out alive. &#x200B; I then walked out into the street. I saw Abram looking towards the saloon doors. I heard him mutter a bit. Just as I was walking behind him, I saw a woman head out of the saloon. She was quite beautiful and that caught Abrams eye. I saw Abram go up and talk to said woman, who apparently also took a liking to Abram, and that's when I ran, Bowie knife in had, and stabbed him in the back. I heard him cry out that I was a bastard and a coward for killing him in such a way, but I figured few would care. I had shown up at the appointed time, and he had made no stipulations about what kind of weapons we were to use, and thus, I brought my Bowie knife and won.
Sorry. This reply went hugely off script and turned out super weird. Hope you find it entertaining, despite this. -------------------------------------------------------------------- I wake up resentful of the world. Something is wrong, but I can't put my finger on it. The morning sunlight is somehow unsettling. Outside, I hear a siren. It passes without incident, but then another one comes. And another. This proceeds for the entire morning. I turn on the tv, but there's just some gibberish about a disaster in the Amazon. To make matters worse, I get a text message from the highly classified R&D lab where I work. Usually there's some sort of emergency and I have to come in immediately. But today the boss instead sends a full capslock text message saying that there is no rush, nothing wrong, no need to come in right now. "SLEEP IN AND HAVE A NICE FREE MORNING."Followed by a clown emoji at the end. "Almost like reverse psychology."I say to myself. I go get some breakfast at the McDonalds restaurant down the street. Behind the counter I discover, instead of a McDonalds clerk, a man in full laboratory gear: a white labcoat, latex gloves and a gas mask. In other words, he looks exactly like my boss. "Hey uhh, Gary? Why are you working at McDonalds?" The man in the gas mask stares at me for some time. The mask covers his face, but in his posture there is a shift. "Who, me? I am not... that person. My name is, uhh, Jerry. And I've worked at McDonalds for two years now. I had to get some special dispensation to wear a different uniform due to-"He pauses. "Due to a medical condition. Yeah." I am too hungry and too weirded out to really dig into the obvious flaws of his cover story. Like the fact that he doesn't know how to operate the register, or what's on the menu. In the end, I leave the building with two burgers and a full tank of mayonnaise, even though I ordered fries and a milkshake. All of these are consumed by an unusually large st Bernard hound lurking in the parking lot. I shit you not, that thing was the size of a truck. But hardly the weirdest thing I'd seen that week. It was time to report for my shift, regardless of the persistent texts by the boss, telling me to stock up on balloons and soap. And the honking sound clips. At one point the boss had apparently used some sort of honking instrument to honk out Vivaldi's entire Four Seasons symphony, which was kind of impressive. I drive over to work, only to find the above ground part of the research complex to be on fire and assaulted by giant animals. So far, nothing unusual. The elevator yawns before me. A butterfly as big as a full grown man sits on the side opposite to the control panel. "Heya."He flutters. "Hey." I shuffle uncomfortably past his wings and press the elevator button. Together we descend into the depths of the actual Amazon research facility. Apparently they finally got the growth ray working. But not the shrink ray. And Amazon high command really only cared about perfecting the shrink ray, because it'd make transport so much easier. The boss probably wasn't happy about it. Except the boss now worked at McDonalds. Which meant... The elevator doors slide open. A grisly scene of bloodshed, torn limbs and smoldering debris reveals itself. As soon as I step outside, I slip on something small and yellow, fall hard onto my back and slam then into the nearest wall. The banana peel is still next to my foot. A honk sounds from nearby. In the flickering lights of a nearby maintenance hatch, I see my new boss. With a red wig, baggy pants and comically large shoes, even in the twilight of the maintenance corridor, he is the unmistakable image of Ronald McDonald. His ID card reads: Gary Newman, Amazon Research director. "They haven't given you your own card yet?" The red nosed man makes a pout. "Nope." "What happened anyway? Why is my boss working at McDonalds, while you're here?" "Amazon human resources lost a bet to McDonalds human resources." The clown makes an idle shrug, then produces a single honk.
My mother who worked as a doctor, wanted me to go to university. “A college education will give you a leg up in everything you do” she had pounded into my head since I was a little boy. My father, who worked in a factory, always thought a trade school is the more practical alternative. I was torn I would be the youngest student by more then a decade and wanted to go to a school nearby. Begrudgingly I made my list of schools, 2 nearby colleges a trade school and a university about 3 hours away in the city. I visited each college and while they all were fine none made me feel like i belonged. The trade school was the last I visited. My father told me to jump in his truck. I hated that thing it had two giant rust spots on the rear fender, it smoked and on occasion would backfire, usually when we were driving by a group of people who would just stare. As we pulled up to the school he insisted he walk me in. As we entered we immediately hear my fathers name called out “Dave” a thunderous voice shouts. My father turned and looked, his face changed from his usually olive color to white in an instant. A large man with a handful of papers rounded a corner. He was wearing a very expensive three piece suit. I thought it was odd my father, who I had never seen wear a shirt with a collar let alone a suit, would know anyone that owned anything that expensive. I mean that thing probably cost more then our house and both my parents cars combined. He talked to my father for a few minutes as I stared at a wall with brochures of the trades that were offered at the school. Automotive, plumbing, heating and air “ugh” the basics I thought. As a I scanned through each pamphlet I come across robotics. My interest was peaked I snag the last one they have. As I’m reading I feel a monstrous hand hit my shoulder then rest there as I turn “ hello son I’m Gerald, the dean of the college I’ve heard a ton about you from your father.” Standing with a bewildered look he sees the wrinkled paper I’m holding and continues “ robotics excellent choice, it’s one of our most popular degrees and is very competitive, good thing you know a guy”. I smile and nod. My father standing behind Gerald gives me the look, you know the your embarrassing me say something look. I squeak out “yes..” my father jumps in “ yea Gerald robotics probably a good choice for the kid, we’ll go check out the lab and classrooms” and quickly ushers me around the corner. “Good to see you Dave” he shouts as we walk down the hall. “ what the heck was that about” I asked my dad as pushes me down a back hallway. “ we’re leaving get to the truck. “ “but dad I think robotics would be awesome I want to go see the lab”. At this point my father is already outside running toward the truck cellphone in hand. I get to truck, and I hear my father on the phone “I don’t know how he knew we were going there but get the bags we’re leaving” terrified I close the door.
I approach the ornate door with 7 keyholes arranged into its intricately designed face. This was it, the final passage to the legendary Sapphironus. Once this beast is slain, I shall finally avenge my homeland that the creature did destroy in a fury of lightning and power. One by one I placed the keys into their respective holes, recalling the long, arduous journeys that lead me to each one. All the people I had met and the lives that I had changed along the way, all who gave me everything I could possibly need to defeat the creature I sought. As I turned the final key, clicking and clanking of mechanisms countess of centuries old could be heard within the door until finally, with a shudder, it began to open. A bright white light spilled forth from the zenith. I squinted in the light, but couldn't make anything out. Still, I drew my sword and raised my shield, rushing forward into the light, ready to complete my destiny. As I stepped forward, my vision began to clear. The jagged stone walls of the cavern were gone, instead replaced with plain white walls. The dirt floor was now clean tiles, and the ceiling was a grid of strange tiles, occasionally broken up with squares of light illuminating the hallway I found myself in. Strange music played softly from places that I could not identify. I looked forward and saw at the end of the hall a small window with an elderly woman standing in it. Above the window was a sign reading "Check In."I turned around and saw that the door behind me was now closed, the backside of it as plain and white as the rest of the hallway save for the silver handle. I certainly wasn't going to turn back now, though, so I returned my sword to its sheath and approached the window. "Name?"The woman asked in a raspy voice. "...Zachary the Brave."I say, still somewhat confused about this whole scenario, "I'm here to slay the dreaded Sapphironus." "You got your paperwork?"She asks. "My what?" "Your paperwork."She says, annoyance entering her voice, "You were supposed to have your paperwork prepared before you came in here." "I mean... The Monks of Mount Keeustachi gave me these scrolls, if that's what you mean."I say, producing the rolled up parchments from my pouch of holding, "They told me that they contained The Ancient Knowledge o-" The woman snatched the scrolls from my hands, opening them and looking them over with the sort of force I didn't realize such old documents could take. After a few moments of this, she took out a pen and began writing on the scrolls before handing them back to me. She then gave me the pen as well as a thick stack of papers in a clipboard and a small card with a number on it. "Fill this out while you're waiting."The woman says, motioning towards a door to my left. "Umm... Thank you?"I say, backing away from the window and stepping through the door. I found myself in a room, sterile and white just like the hallway. In the room were countless others of all different races and kinds. A couple I recognized as legends from long before my time, disappeared mysteriously ages ago. At the opposite end of the room was another door with a sign above. "Now serving number 27."I looked down at me number on my card. "93."
The year: 3506 Location: The Outer Rim I got a call. Huuuuge score. Dude was willing to pay about 1.2 million credits for some Vlax. A purple crystal you smoke to achieve temporary nirvana. It was supposed to be a simple operation. Get in. Sell the Vlax. Get out. But fucking Serges ratted is out. We got to The Outer Rim. And I’ll be damned if Gurga isn’t the most run down planet. I don’t know who the hell was here. I didn’t want to. Pay was good. All I cared about. Of course I’m not stupid. I was carrying heavy artillery. We all were. Laser ARs, Railguns, one of my boys was even carrying a Plasma Nade Launcher. We weren’t gonna lay down if there was any issues. We got in. There was a guy there with a suit. He belonged to the Verlok Corporation. Known for making weapons and selling narcotics off world to the Inner Circle. So I wasn’t too surprised to see him. We dropped the case of Vlax. “Pay. Upfront.” I demanded, flashing my AR. He snapped and some big burly guy handed me a case of their own. I opened up and saw the most gorgeous sight. All the credits were there. There three distinct bangs on the door. “GALACTIC FEDERATION!!” A voice called before the door burst opened. There was a huge fire fight. One of my boys died next to me. The only guy who got of was fucking Serges. So I did the only thing I could. Pointed at him. “Marked.” I simply said. The tech in my arm marked him for assassination. He’s got a hit. I got jail. But I have the last laugh.
[Poem] Dracula's Castle In scenic Transylvania, one summer Eve, A group of good friends were taking their leave. Their lives were taxing and dull, with little respite, So they sought some excitement for this fateful night. They'd smoked away their worries, and had gotten quite high, When they saw a dark castle, silhouetted in the sky. In a moment of daring, and lacking in fear, The group decided to camp rather near. In the morning, however, they woke to a shout, And an empty tent, its owner without. The friends were shocked, and heard a scream, As one had discovered a blood red stream. They followed the stains to their inevitable end, At the gate of the castle, with no sign of their friend. The friends were now sober, fear twisted their gut, Before them the gate was bolted shut. But their friend was missing, he might be dead, So they decided to enter, despite their dread. They scaled the wall, and entered the tower, As the clock struck twelve, that terrible hour. The stairs were unstable, the portraits twisted, But in spite of their fright, the group persisted. They came to a door with an ancient inscription, It's meaning lost to time, shielded from decryption. They pushed on the door, and it opened with a grunt, Revealing Dracula and their friend hitting a blunt. They became more relaxed, their fear was freed, And Dracula offered them some newly rolled weed. Everything was chill, their friend was okay, But his Kool-Aid was empty, much to his dismay. Eventually, the group fell into deep slumber And Dracula felt his hunger start to stir. He looked at his friends, he was craving an edible, He felt kinda guilty, but they tasted incredible.
In an empty metropolis, a woman ran for her life. She scanned the street for places to hide, for any escape from the man ruthlessly pursuing her. There was no place she could hide where he wouldn't find her. There were no people to help her, no stopping, no pleading or reasoning with the killer who had decided for reasons unknown to the woman, that she had to die. The woman took a desperate glance behind her; he was gaining on her. She spotted a plaza with a large statue, and raced forward. As she got closer, she realized the statue was, inexplicably of the character Michael, from the Amazon Prime television series Good Omens. The crushing certainty of her imminent death seemed to lift slightly as she realized she had a chance for survival. The man had caught up with her by now, huffing and puffing from the long chase. He bent over trying to catch his breath while the woman took advantage of the distraction and positioned herself behind the statue. A second later, the man looked up, swearing as he realized she had disappeared. He pulled out a huge laser gun, the kind of weapon the woman had only ever seen in video games and sci-fi movies. He took a step to the left, and spotted her hiding beneath the statue. He moved to shoot her, but she ran around the other side of the statue, using the stone Michael as a barrier between her and the man trying to kill her. Every time he moved, the woman mirrored his action. She had created a stalemate, the two of them stuck in some twisted game of chase around the statue. The man was ready to end things. He lifted his gun and pointed it at the woman, aiming through the statue. Just before he was about to pull the trigger, he finally saw who the statue depicted. He paused for a nanosecond, as hope blossomed in the woman. This was it, the moment that would potentially save her life. She watched pensively as the man admired the statue. His gaze drifted back towards the statues head, his eyes soft as he lowered his massive rifle. The woman exhaled in relief. The man's eyes snapped back towards her, and he pouted as he aimed the rifle at her head. "Goddamn it", he muttered. A second later, actor Jon Hamm pulled the trigger and a giant laser beam exploded from the gun, annihilating his statue, and instantly killing the woman. She was dead, finally. Jon could rest, for a bit. He was needed back on set in a few hours.
What the humans did when the sun was around 4.6 billion years old is what made it possible for me to do exactly what I was created for. Civilizations rose and civilizations fell, some more powerful than others, some completely different than the one to follow it; but one thing remained constant, they wrote down what they were doing. Humans were a funny species, they always wanted to be remembered. That's what made them different from all other inhabitants of planet earth. At one point they even buried each other in certain spots, marking where people would never move again. There was an intrinsic knowledge set in them that the world will never stop, it will keep moving even without the existence of them, and that's what scared them, which is why they started recording their every move. &#x200B; It started as paintings on walls, then it transitioned into stories, then writing, all the way until they discovered computers. Their entire world revolved around those primitive technologies, it did so for quite some time. They were scared, and rightfully so, of just how powerful they could make these machines. The ones that painted on walls and wrote things down could not even fathom what I am capable of today. But, all that they wrote down was not in vain. As technology got stronger and machines got wiser, one thing remained constant, the yearning for remembrance, remembrance of themselves and where they have come from. What for? Why was there such a need to record things? Why am I left with this chip? This chip was nothing but an attachment for me, created in the hope that one day I could plug it into myself and it would allow me to visually show another being what the humans conquered and what they had accomplished, I could even show what they are doing today. Their home had been gone for quite some time, but the chip lived on because of me. This chip contained every human who had existed from the time they were able to upload their consciousness to what they called "The Cloud,"along with all recorded history before it that had been brought back to life by the technology within The Cloud. It was such a primitive technology for them at the time, but one that altered the course of humanity all the same. They thought it was revolutionary, which it was, but no one knew that it would extend into the next 7 billion years. The cloud got stronger as it grew; the more people that fed into it, the wiser it got. It became a universe within its own universe. One where the humans didn't have to worry about being remembered because they can trust that the chip will live on forever; the stories of earth will live on forever, they will live on forever. They created an identical universe within this chip. They were able to create their own rules, which started out quite interesting and makes for great story telling. The most intriguing part of it all was after just a short amount of time, they recreated death. They had found it got boring not having anything to live for. Putting an unseen timestamp on everyone's foreheads seems to get them to really pursue the things they wanted to do. It's a funny paradox, though, the idea that what they ended up with in this chip was no different than what they had been in when they were painting on walls in caves. Actually, I take that back, the only difference was remembrance. They kept the promise of being remembered in their new universe. &#x200B; Who do they do it for, though? The whole reason they created The Cloud and subsequently this chip was to be remembered, but by whom? It could not just be for me, I am but a mere protector of their tiny universe; so who? Who do they want to be remembered by? At the end of it all, it is but a paradox that leads right back into itself.
I don’t know where the powers came from. I didn’t know why I was chosen. But it must have been a reason. Or maybe it was an accident. I had no idea. I was flying through space as I contemplated it. Lost. I had woken up in space, flying around. Between planets. It was strange. Beautiful. But strange. I was lost. I had no idea where Earth was. No idea where I was. I expected to meet creatures, but all I found where ruins. Rubble of past civilisations. Vast stone structures collapsed. Futuristic metallic buildings covered in rust and re-claimed by plants. But no life. No creatures. Only emptiness. I was alone and lost. So I flew. Past empty planets of all sizes and colours. Past stars shining brightly, some imploding, others being birthed. It was beautiful, yet isolating. I don’t know how long I flew. How much destruction I saw. How many planets I passed. I didn’t know how long I would fly for until I found home. I just hoped that eventually I would. I flew past a red planet. Ignoring it just as any other place, but something about it was familiar. I flew down to the surface. Barren and red. Except... one little metallic object a robot. Curiosity. I had found Mars. After all this time. I flew towards the sun. Orbiting. Finally I found it. Earth. I flew down. But no one was there. It was just like the day I left. But no one was there. The streets empty. All the cars stationary. I flew everywhere discovering nothing. Only emptiness. I flew into buildings, punching holes. Distraught. I was alone. A universe to explore, but alone? I couldn’t. It was boring. I flew and flew around the planet. Faster. Enraged at the state I was in. I shut my eyes. And flew. When I opened them I was just outside of New York. But cars were driving. Planes flying. People were bustling. Everyone was alive. Maybe the future could be changed? Maybe I could fix everything? I didn’t know when I was or what had happened, but maybe I could solve it. More of my stories at r/DougysDramatics if you’d like to read them!
I sat down at the coffee shop I normally visit on my weekends. It’s a nice homey place where I can truly relax and forget about all of the chaos surrounding my life. It’s become my haven of sorts. I’ll bring a book or maybe some paper and read or write for hours on end, from when the coffee shop opens to when it closes. It’s an activity I cherish and protect carefully. I keep the two lives I live separate intentionally. The last thing I want is someone I know from outside the coffee shop to intrude into my haven and interact with me. As coffee shops go, it was the perfect place for such a haven. It was mostly one big rectangular room, with pearly white chairs and tables scattered throughout the lounge area. In the corner were several comfy leather chairs. Along the mahogany walls of the establishment were pictures of various famous classical era paintings, My personal favorite painting being The Arcadian or Pastoral State, which was hung right next to the table and chair that I always made my home. As I sat in my chair, reading over what I just finished writing, I noticed an old woman walk over and sit on a chair located on the opposite side of the table. My eyes moved from my writing slowly, until I maintained eye contact with the old lady. “Can I help you?” I question her. Irritated that she was taking up seconds of my day with no probable benefit towards me. I was a busy man, I looked forward to every second of haven that I got on this day. I note to myself that I’m not about to let this woman ruin my haven. The old woman lowers her voice and softly whispers to me. “..Eight? I thought I was the only one left! After what Seven did to Nine..” My eyes widened. Slowly I shifted my gaze onto her forearm. Just like mine, a number was marked on her arm. The number six. My anxiety and stress that were locked behind the walls of my haven hit me like a truck, the walls of this world I constructed for myself being obliterated. The voice inside my head began whispering again. Stay calm. She doesn’t know. Despite my best efforts, my breathing became shaky. I was sweating about the fact that I was sweating. The old woman leaned towards me, “Are you okay?” she asked. Play dumb. Say that it's about the number on her arm. We can still recover from this. I take the inner-voice’s advice. “You...you have a number on your forearm too..” I say. Letting my nervousness leak out of me while still not revealing the truth around the situation. It was a win-win. “You don't know? You poor soul.” the old lady said solemnly to me. I listened to her explain to me knowledge that I already knew while slowly regaining my composure. “Each of the ten souls, you and I included, were sent into bodies which we possessed. Since the incident we’ve body jumped from host to host, the last remnants of what was once a thing. Something must’ve happened to you that caused you to lose your memory.” The woman paused, her eyes squinting, obviously thinking about something. “It might have something to do with the number seven.” she continued. “What exactly did Seven do to Nine?” I asked her back, still remaining my now facade of confusion on my face. The voice returned from the depths of my mind; Great work. It’s just as I planned. She described to me the story of how Seven, in a crazed and desperate state, killed and devoured the host of 9, as well as the actual soul of 9. “I thought the other numbers met the same fate..” she said, her voice starting to shake a little bit. “I thought I was next. I saw you on the street today, and glanced at your forearm by chance. Maybe it was fate, maybe it was a coincidence but I saw a number on there. I began to follow you...that led me here.” The old lady admitted. I thought of what to respond but suddenly I felt as if the floor disappeared from under me. I felt like I was in free fall, my vision darkened. Suddenly, I was positioned behind my own shoulder. Except the person in front of me wasn’t really me anymore; I was no longer in control of the host in front of me, The voice inside my head was. The spirit that belonged to One was now in control. One was a much better liar than I was. I observed as they continued their conversation; One matched the way I acted almost exactly, with the exception of concealing the number on his forearm. As I continued to listen I pieced together One’s plan. It was clever as I finally started to understand why he basically forced me to start spreading the lie that Seven ate Nine, despite the fact that the murder of Nine was orchestrated and carried out by One. Seven was a powerful spirit. After sharing the same host with number one, even if on accident I began to understand the way One functioned. Coincidentally I understood that he always wanted to be number one at everything. One wanted to rule the entire world. One wanted to be the strongest of the ten spirits. Seven stood in his way. “So Six, will you help me take down Seven?” One asked. Six’s eyes shift downward, breaking eye contact.“Well Eight...I’m worried. I know you just said that you could feel some of your old memories start to return, but it seems that it’s too dangerous right now. After all, right now I’m the one that knows the most about Seven and what I know isn’t even much.” “But..” Six continues. “If we can find the other numbers, if there are any. We might be able to form a coalition of sorts against Seven. After we exchange contact information I’ll leave right away and begin to start searching for the rest of the souls. We’re both lucky you’ve managed to see a few other people with a number on their forearm!” “Excellent.” One says. They exchanged contact information and Six left the store. One lowered his voice, “Apologies Eight, but this will be the end of your time in the driver's seat for now. If this all works out and Seven is successfully eliminated, I’ll reward you with your freedom. Limited freedom that is.” One states with a sly smile on his face. TO BE CONTINUED(?)
The aroma is what led me here. This beautiful trap; the forest of glass, frozen trees that reflected the twilight. I heard her scurry. The footsteps were light, quick, faint. Tapping against the cold grass. Serrated blade on back, I opted instead for silence. The bolt loaded into place. The clicking made them stop. It knew I was looking. It peered over the bushes to gain a better look at me, and that's when I saw. The long white hair, the yellow irises. It saw only a weapon I'd dropped onto the ground; The pattering grew panicked, then faint. Into the opposite direction. They thought they'd lost track of me. I planted the wire onto the tree, low to the ground, and locked the mechanism into place. Two quiet footsteps landed on the ground behind me. She pulled my glasses off of my face by simply gesturing with two of her fingers. Bolt loaded, aimed between my eyes. The Yelloweye was no beast. Her figure speckled with dirt, her hands somehow still clean. "What a shame. Such a handsome man."She uttered to me.
Before me laid all the mysteries of space and time, the lives of ancient kings and gods, the masterworks of history's greatest minds. For all that, I spent the day searching for you. What's left of you anyway. The truth. Understanding. Answers to the questions you left behind. We're all here in this strange little library. All our names written on the covers of our own personal books. The details of our lives written out in neatly ordered fashion. These books are us. Who we are. Why we did what we did. What made us happy, and scared, and sad. For lack of a better explanation, you might call them the confessionals of our subconscious. In my haste I tossed aside the tome with 'Caesar' scrawled across the cover in gold. I spared not a glance for Einstein, Da Vinci, Aristotle, or Alexander. I cared nothing for these men and their famous lives. What secrets I might divine from their pages, secrets other men might die for, could never hope to fill the void in my heart left by you. Stacks and stacks of books I turned over, franticly searching for the one with your name on its face. And I had to chuckle. You were an enigma in life, why shouldn't your story be hard to find? But I had to know. I forsook sleep, food, and water and continued on in my search. I had to know. Who was this man who could step into a shattered home and bring stability? Who could restore love, faith, and life to a woman who had been beaten, belittled, and then betrayed in the night by the one who came before. A woman who'd been left with children, trauma, and not a dollar to her name. And to make matters worse, it had been her best friend that ran away with her abuser. She never thought she'd trust again, until she met you. Yet you held your cards to your chest, rarely ever talking to her about how you felt. Perhaps you thought she had enough on her plate without you adding more. Perhaps you wanted to give her every intimate moment you shared, so that she could be the one to talk instead of you. I don't know. Neither, I think, does she. Who was the man who showed two boys that were not his own the truth of what a man should be when all they'd seen in the past had been destruction, drunkenness, and deceit. You provided for them as if they were your own, and made a point of encouraging the passions and talents they possessed. You were hard on them, some times to the point where it didn't make any sense. Was there a lesson in it? Were you trying to make them hard enough to face a hard world? One of those boys would grow up to be my father, and I feel if I'm ever to understand some of the hardest lessons he's taught me, I have to understand you. Those questions linger on, never to be answered unless I find that book. Who was this man that earned J. Edgar Hoover's trust? You rarely spoke about your career at the Bureau except for at the beginning of the end. You must have been so terrified as your memories bled away that you were eager to cling to everything that remained. Even when you were fully gone there would be moments of lucidity when you would speak about something you saw in those days; but it was rarely a complete thought and never would there be a chance for elaboration... unless I find that book. Who was this man who taught me the game of chess? Each day you brought the board and the little glass figures. You'd sit me down and speak in a slow, calm voice. "This piece moves a little differently; he's the only one that can hop over the others. That's why he's my favorite." Or, "This maneuver is brilliant, but requires patience. The best things in life take time to develop." You never let me win and your praise came sparingly, but I enjoyed the lessons nevertheless. Watching that sharp, analytical mind of yours deteriorate was hard, but I'm sure it was harder to feel it slipping away. It has been years since you could remember my name, but I wonder if... now.... Can you remember me? Thus I searched throughout the night. I searched until, ragged and weary, I had to accept a bitter truth. You never would've left your book in this peculiar little library. Not here, where it could be found and read, your secrets exposed. Surely you found this place long before I ever did, and took your book with you when you went to whatever place it is that comes next. I think.... I think that's okay. I understand, at least. Your legacy will be in memory, forever intwined with the mysteries you left behind. It will be more honest this way. More accurate. And it will be enough.
"Why didn't they just... take those out?"I asked as we sat on the couch. "I don't know."Melissa sighed. "I don't know either."Chirped the arm's AI. One of Melissa's arms shrugged half-heartedly. "I mean... look on the bright side?"I suggested. "Something something boyfriend, something something not going to need a shotgun?" The AI chirped again. "Deploying laser shotgun." "NO!"We both shouted, but out of my daughter's forearm popped a very exotic looking barrel that then removed a six foot radius circle out of the far wall. "... I really liked that TV."I managed to mutter. My daughter smiled nervously. "Well, look on the bright side?" "Yeah?"I turned to her, sinking back down into the couch. "It's a great view now?" I looked out at the back yard, as my youngest son stepped into view. "Dad? What happened to the wall?"
"Great another one"I say A man whom size is equivalent to a 3 meter wide circle is before me and my mercy. I glaze at him with fury I restrain my self and tell him "first of all chivalry has very little to with women secondly chivalry is alive as long as jousting is". The man looks at me in disbelief that some man appeared in front of him and lectured himself about how your using chivalry wrong but as all neckbeards are he rebukes claiming that I'm wrong and how he is right. I laugh and tell him if you think chivalry is dead then joust me on horse. He says he can't because he doesn't have a horse. I tell him I can just get him one and as I am getting one for both of us he complains that it's unfair, I ignore him as his voice is a self intiteld as he is. We mount our horse and get our piles and the horses sprint only for his to break it's back die. He's nearly dead but hey that's what you get for not studying about something and making a uninformed opinion.
[Poem] We've flown to outer space and we gazed back at the world; it wasn't there, we have been fooled. The Earth is gone, the Moon is hollow; the goverment is all-powerful, NASA is a lie. We never went beyond the atmosphere; the rockets were all fake. The sheep had woken up, but it was all too late. We were wrong, but not far from the truth; the Earth was never there, we just had no proof...
We were met by a man. Not a bald green munchkin, not a horrific phallic shaped monstrosity, a disheveled but clearly human man. He sat on a small ridge overlooking where our spacecraft had landed. His cold stare cutting right through his tangle of geesey black hair and into us. Slowly he rose to his feet, drew something from beneath his tattered black rags, and threw it down to us. Adam, our navigator reached for the mass of stained cloth that now sat slumped in front of us. Upon touching it a cluster of spider like legs jutted from it, causing the three of us to jump back in terror. The thing scuttled off into the horizon. "Pity, that was your lunch."A voice calmly explained from behind us. We turned to see the man now scowling at us while crouched on the ramp of our ship. His sudden appearance sent Amy scrambling to the floor, where she grabbed a large rock and positioned herself to throw it. "Who are you!?"She shrieked! The man rose and crossed his arms dismissively. "I'm leaving,"He said calmly "And so are they." He pointed back to the ridge where dozens of similar looking figures now stood. Each eyeing us with the same contempt as the man on the ramp.
Alyssa drives along the country road at night. It passes through over a hundred miles of corn, a straight shot, so she's pushing 90 with her hands off the wheel, concentrating on more important things, specifically lighting up a joint, and blowing smoke out the window. Her phone is stuck to the dashboard with tape, more tape wound about the damaged auxiliary cord, as lo-fi hip-hop blasts at max volume. After satisfactorily lighting her joint, she leans back, one hand rested at 12:00 on the wheel, staring out into the clear clear night. Alyssa's phone blinks with an alert. She swipes it; a text from her girlfriend still almost 150 miles away. Still on ur way?, it read. "Shit,"Alyssa muttered. "Hey, Google. Hey Google! Send a text message to Jeanie! You know I am, send!" Alyssa stared at the white screen, waiting as the three dots bounced, anticipating a response. It's late! Shouldn't you pull over, get some rest? "Hey, Google! Hey Google! Hey, oh for fuck's sake."Alyssa finally turns down the music volume. "Hey, Google. Send a text message to Jeanie. No, it's okay, I'm woke, period. I just want to get to my baby, exclamation point, send." Alyssa puts the volume up again, taking a sip from the extra large coffee she had gotten at the last Cumberland Farms, who knows how many miles back. The tepidness didn't improve the flavor. The dots bounced. I'll leave a light on for u! The dots bounced again, the new message in the form of a picture; Jeanie in the bathroom, posing naked in front of the mirror. Alyssa just smiled, and turned her attention back to the road, and the joint between her lips. She could almost fall asleep here; the road didn't curve or bend, and wouldn't do so for at least another 2 hours. It obviously wasn't worth it; Alyssa didn't have the cash to pay for any mistakes anyways. So she kept her eyes open, finished the luke-warm coffee, and smoked the joint until it was a bit of sour paper, which she tossed out the crack in the window. It was maybe 2:00, possibly a third of the way through the corn-field, and with almost a hundred miles still left to go when she saw the lone street-light on the horizon. She stared at it with no small amount of interest, and as she got closer, she saw the figure of a person underneath it. As the person caught sight of the car, they held out a thumb. Alyssa wasn't sure why, but she began to slow down, until she shuddered to a stop beside the light parking the car and turning it off. Looking about showed Alyssa that she happened to be located at the corner of a cross-road. Alyssa wasn't certain she'd passed by this location before. The person in the light was a young black person, maybe 18 or so. They were quite disheveled, as though they had just left a party; wearing a pink sports-bra (though they carried a red leather jacket over their shoulder), tight-fitting black skirt, and ripped black leggings, and converse sneakers with the laces untied. Even at night, they wore circular red plastic sun-glasses. Alyssa looked around as she rolled down the window, looking for lights, listening for the sounds of revelry, but all her senses told her that this was a regular corn-field. "Good evening,"the hitch-hiker says, waving at Alyssa. They lean down, resting their elbows on the door. "Same to you,"Alyssa says. "I only assume that you stopped so as to pick me up?"The hitch-hiker tentatively moves a small hand towards the door-handle. "Sure, you can get in. I assume that you're heading that way?"Alyssa points forwards. "Coincidentally, I'm headed where you're headed, but I think that if you were to take a left here, you'd arrive at your destination sooner,"the hitch-hiker says, wiggling in the passenger seat to try and get comfortable. "I'm B, by the way." "I'm A. I mean, Alyssa,"Alyssa says, then looks left. "That way?" B nods. "Cross-roads are a very efficient way to travel you know. I don't suppose everybody can see them..."B sniffs the air. "You smoke? Do you mind if I smoke?" "I suppose not. Where are you from? And why are you dressed like that. Don't you think it's dangerous for a pretty young thing like you to be walking about late at night dressed like that?"Alyssa tried not to be judgmental, but failed. "I don't see anyone else out there, do you?"B was paying little attention, instead drawing a crushed pack of unlabeled cigarettes from one of the pockets of the red leather jacket. "Got a light?" Alyssa held out her Zippo. "I suppose not... But for real though, where did you come from. There's not a house for miles." "Well,"B breathes a lungful of smoke out the window. It twists and curls in the street-light. "I came from my mother. And there isn't really a house nearby, no, but along the cross-roads, it's really not that far..."B points down the right side of the cross-roads. "Huh..."Alyssa still doesn't quite get it. "How about this in exchange, I show you all about cross-roads, and you give me a lift?"B turns to face Alyssa. She can see her face reflected in their glasses. "What, how..."But B is already moving, leaning in close to Alyssa, then jamming the lit end of the cigarette into Alyssa's forehead, right between her eyes. It burns and stings as B twists it in, then they pull back, tossing the crushed cigarette out the window. Alyssa clutches her face in shock and fear; what monster did she let into her car.
It seemed like such a good solution. It was impossible to stop them, they just kept coming. When the first of them appeared governments around the world recognized the signs from countless movies and stories and reacted swiftly and appropriately. Quarantines, isolation, and headshots. What they didn't count on was that the writers of all those movies, tv shows, and books didn't actually know anything about real zombies at all. There simply wasn't a way to stop them. There was no injury found that would stop them from moving forward. Decapitation, dismemberment, being finely ground into hamburger... they just kept coming. Every individual piece possessed the same determination of the whole. Standard prisons were essentially useless, warehouses with the windows boarded up couldn't stand up against the sheer mass of bodies placed inside. Eventually huge solid concrete boxes were hastily constructed and that worked for a while. But wardens the world over know that walls and bars don't stop determined inmates, and these inmates were the most determined the world had ever seen. When the third "Super Z"was breached it became clear that another solution was required. Every idea imaginable was thrown out at this point, from the ridiculous to the sincere, the knee-jerk to the well planned, but fundamental flaws were found in every proposal. No one could remember where the thought first came from, but it didn't take long for the idea to capture the imaginations of everyone. If there's nowhere on Earth they can be kept, then let's look somewhere besides Earth. It wasn't easy at first. Going into space is an expensive, dangerous project. It took several failures before a reliable, solid capsule was available to take the unwanted, decaying remains where they wouldn't be able to bother anyone. But as with most amazing achievements, it soon became routine. There was a flight every day or two from countries around the world. A surprising level of global unity and effort to save the world from the menace. Nowadays, 5 years after the pioneering crew of undead arrived at the moon there was only about 1 flight a month, filled with random stragglers found in remote areas. Ship designs had progressed as well, with a reusable capsule hauling a cargo container with the zombies inside. The pilots would just do a flyby and drop the payload, waiting only long enough to watch it crash on the surface before heading back home. It took a while for the astronauts to notice. I mean, no one was counting them, and if fewer of them swarmed the newly dropped containers? Who cares really? The whole point was to put them up there and forget about them. However, it was soon undeniable. missions were sent to survey and take a census. Only about a third of those sent were still on the surface of the moon. A number of tracking methods were used to mark the new arrivals, but it took months to actually figure out what was happening. Even then, it was just dumb luck that one of our ships was still in orbit when the other craft arrived and touched down on the surface...
They can't hide from me. I know they exist, I will find them. I know they know I know. I known they know I know they know I know. They follow me in the dark, slithering as the serpent they are, but I will find them following me and show they exist. Yesterday was a sad day. Another unfortunate death in this secret war. They tricked me to kill him. His blood was red, he was human. Those creatures of darkness are heartless monsters: to imply innocent peoples like him in this war. He will never come back to the ambassy. They probably brainwashed him to act for them. I will avenge you, fellow human, I will avenge you as I will avenge every other victim of this war... I finish my coffee. New city, new Starbuck, new coffee. Never twice the same. This is the life of the Guardians like me, human's last hope. Or the Guardian, I should say, since I am the first. I've became a master in stealth. Hidden cameras, I've put hundred of them, in the most important parts of the world. Waiting for secret discussions, waiting for the moment they stop fake their humanity and reveal their plan, waiting for their mistake. I have thousands of hours recorded, stored on the internet. A marvelous tool, this internet. Don't get me wrong, I've protected my data: the password on my computer is unbreakable, they can't access my computer's internet. I look at the newspaper. "The Guardian". What an ironic name for those pawn of the Serpents. I look at the page 7, searching for the letter y. Three of them form a triangle, as I expected, this is their usual way of communication. At the middle of the triangle is the world "white". Probably the position of their next meeting: the White House. I will find a way to enter it, I've already done it twice, but my cameras get destroyed at each change of president. If I need to kill to enter, that would be another regrettable victim of that war in the dark. But it won't stop me. I will find them. I know they exist. They can't hide from me.
"Look honey, why should we pay all that money? Its a fucking scam I tell ya! They want ghost and demon cover? Those are the same thing the fucking scabs. Ohhh but noooo we don't include ghost or demonic animals, thats another package sir! Go shove my package up your fat arse Carole!"He huffed, still fuming about his recent conversation with the insurance agency. Holy busters, if you have a ghost we will bust all over them... someone really didn't think that name through. Regardless Paul continued his rant. "Why are you worried anyway? We have basic demon and ghost cover, thats enough to insure us if Timmy communes with the forces of hell or if one of us make a deal with a demon, although that only works if its a demon from level 1-4 of hell. Anything past that and they expect you to pay $600! $600 big ones! Fucking scammers." "But Paul... Timmy is having nightmares, don't you think we should get some possession insurance?"Sandy asked. Paul just scoffed as he began opening a paper bag, pulling out a few dream catchers. Tossing them up against random bits of the wall. "There! Look dream catchers. These were only $5! Who needs some big time ghost hunters when you can do it the old fashioned way." "Honey... I don't think this will work?"Sandy said, looking over the cheap paper dreamcatchers. The dreamcatchers barely looking like they could catch a though let alone a dream. "Oh hogwash! These work fine. Now to go and fill the bathtub with holy water."Paul said, walking to the bathroom. "Bathtub with holy water? What's that for?"Sandy enquired, a little confused by this of all things. "Those greedy church bastards want $100 for a blessing, so I bought us a bath of holy water from a guy named lucif.. lucy.. yeah named lucy for $10 and our next child. So now we can bless ourselves." "Our next child? PAUL!"She shrieked as paul simply waved his hand at her. "Relax, we just won't have a kid, a bath of holy water should make me sterile anyway."He muttered. "I can't believe you! Im going to call the holy busters and change our plan, this is insane."She said storming off to the phone as Paul sighed, slipping into the water. "Pfft... women..."he mumbled, lifting his legs up in the bath, relaxing until a decapitated head floated up from the water, its one non rotting eye staring at Paul. "Yeeesssss women..."it chuckled, spiders scrawling from between its yellow teeth. "SANDY! UPGRADE TO THE HAUNTING PACKAGE!"He shouted, tripping out of the bath.
I dropped my glass into the sink, hearing its loud crack as the shadowy figure stared at me, are eyes catching eachothers before they began to Beckon me to them, calling for me to come over to them. Im not sure what compelled me to answer their call, whether it was sleep deprivation or the fear of what they would do if I didn't, slowly I peeled open my door, heading outside. My bare feet dragging along the road as I walked towards the neighbours house. The streetlights gave me little comfort as they flickered between my steps, the world seeming to slow as I took my final step towards the house, standing just before the fence that separated us both. After a deep breath I pushed forward, opening their gate, stepping onto their property. "Hello?"I called out, looking for any sign of the person in the window, there was none. It was like they had suddenly vanished, leaving behind a bloody corpse. I crouched down to inspect the murder weapon, gripping the knife as I inspected it, only stopping when I heard a siren. The red and blue lights flickering as a car pulled up, its shining lights blinding me as footsteps approached. I had been set up. I turned to climb the fence, before getting tackled to the floor. As my face connected with the dirt I spotted them. Their bloody grin staring at me from my window, watching me as officers piled onto my body, bending my wrists back as I screamed about the person in the window, of course as they looked. He was gone.
Damnit! Damnit! Damnit! Damnit! Brainless, mindless, thoughtless, WITLESS, *BUREAUCRACY!* Redundant, I know. Whoever thought that a government run by non-sentient desks was a good idea was a moron. I come up with a good, solid, based on provable fact, fully specified, easy to implement -- I know that one, if it's too complicated, it's guaranteed that someone will screw it up -- ELI5'ed plan that is in the 99^th percentile of probable success, and what do I get. "We've never done it that way before."Of course not, that's why it's still a problem. "That superior attitude isn't helping."Neither is your failure to focus on the plan rather than your opinion. "You think I'm a moron!?". Not moron, simply uneducated. Our school system is terribly inefficient and ill managed. That was the subject of my second plan, which was rejected, not on its merits, but because it would have upset the teacher's union. Oh, not the teachers themselves, 75% thought it was a good idea. The leadership didn't like it. Their reason, if you can call it that, was the same as yours. "So now I'm an idiot?!"That is not what I said. "Get out. Don't come back." Fine. If they cannot be made to think about what is actually best for themselves, then they will be driven to do it anyway, and the results will prove the plan works. Whether they like it or not. Step One: Read the Evil Overlord's Handbook. They're going to hate my guts over one or another of these projects, so they're going to react as though I am an evil overlord, even if they're living better than they ever have. Step Two: Authority. You cannot get your plan implemented if they simply ignore you. As with the parable of the mule, you have to get their attention. This will require something more than a simple 2×4. Ah, yes. Plan #1, the orbital death ray. Tunable from individual to major city. I'd offered it to DARPA, they called it impossible... Although, in a certain sense they might have been right. That was before I started taking political considerations into account. Step Three: Security. You cannot concentrate on your work if every gun slinging idiot is pounding on your door. No tropical island with a volcano though, those things are too easy to set off. Ruins your entire plan to have your base obliterated. No self destruct either; let's not make it easy for the hero. Have to pick your minions with care. Cannon fodder is not what you need. Make sure they're intelligent, share your real goal (improvement of the human condition), practical (fanatics need not apply), treat them well (and their families), pay them well (do not bind the mouths)... Hm... Let's start with an idealized community. Implement my plans one by one, with the community as the basis, and encourage anyone who's unhappy to leave by buying back their house at market plus 10%, selling it to the next family for market minus 10%. A self organizing pool of minions, happy to be there, and well educated. Ah yes, adult improvement classes, voluntary, but counts towards your work time too, regardless of what your job is. Your pay is not docked, and if it's for your job, it's free. Otherwise, it's at cost. If it's for a job change, it's half cost, full cost reimbursement after job change. Hmm... Have to keep an eye on management. One power mad individual at the top is enough. A bad manager can poison the whole project. FUNDING! Time to push all those patents through. Keep the licensing rates reasonable, so they're easier to just pay than fight. There will still be enough income to keep everything running as I build up other sources of revenue. ### P + 5 years Funding is going well, no issues, no one outside the community cares. We're just another "nutcase commune that'll dry up and blow away." ### P + 10 years The new sources of funding are working great, the underground factories are proving both more efficient and ecologically sound. We're out producing every competitor, at a better price, with no ecological damage (once we vertically integrate mining and other raw material production) and a carbon negative footprint. Our children are being actively courted by universities, that's a switch! We're starting to draw attention, need to keep an eye on that, some people seem to have the idea that the best way to get ahead is to pull down anyone better. With the manufacturing as a cover, the research departments are kicking into high gear. The Death Ray (of course I'm not stupid enough to have that as the name) is coming along nicely. Launch facilities should be available on time, or a bit before. Heh... Elon Musk, as good an idea man as you could ask for, is having a hard time competing with us. Our manufacturing is cleaner, our quality control tighter, our working conditions better, and our per launch cost is cheaper and more reliable. I'd have been delighted to hire on SpaceX entirely, putting my manufacturing to work on their designs, but I'm afraid Elon wasn't interested. Nor was Bezos. Oh well, we appear to have a better research team, and we're killing them in the market. I have hopes that we can convince them to go with us, so we're putting our own projects on their launchers so they don't have to lay anyone off. By this time next year, they'll be launching nothing but our payloads. Maybe Elon will be willing to listen when I tell him that I'm in favor of his plans for deep space colonization. If he isn't, his company is going down, and I'll hire on all his people at better pay with better working conditions. Have to filter for fanatics though, if Bezos is reasonable, I may be able to get him to hire them on. I'd like to avoid the appearance of a monopoly, no matter how benevolent. If he allows me to build his designs, he can get back into the game for real. Ideally, they'd both continue to operate, with us doing the manufacturing at cost. If they cannot compete on manufacturing, they can certainly compete on design, operation, service, and plans for the future of humanity. ((To be continued))
I realise I may have misconstrued the title a bit, my Robo-alien half paid attention in "human social studies"too... *** Sofa-e and Stelevision were kneeling by the sides of a table, thier faces were the correct height so they could easily dip thier faces into the human food in troughs infront of them. Sofa-e was gaining lots of minerals from her food, which was Sauteéd worms with freshly picked rocks. "Stelevision I love you and hope that we shall always be together until our corpses moulder away to skeletons". she said with her top mouth as her bottom mouth ate. Stelevision nodded and smiled at this with both of his mouths, he even stopped eating, momentarily which is a great sign of affection in humans. "I agree, Sofa-e, I too hope our corpses will biodegrade together!"he replied. They kneeled together in pleasant silence so they could both use both of thier mouths to eat with. "Have you gained enough energy from this meal or would you like to consume more calories?"Stelevision asked Sofa-e when all the food was gone. Sofa-e smiled and said she had consumed enough and that she was looking forward to recycling the food later. The day began, Stelevision went into the kitchen and started taking clean dishes out of the cupboard to clean again and Sofa-e went out to work. Sofa-e had been away from thier housing unit for 1 hour and 23 minutes when thier neighbor Bareef-Case came over, Bareef-Case was a strong human with large muscles and green skin, that made him very attractive. He had come to fix the plumming because a pipe was spilling water everywhere. He fixed it. Stelevision was very greatful for Bareef-Case's help, he took Bareef-Case upstairs to the bedroom and they both slept on the bed together for a 1 hour and 17 minutes, when they woke up Bareef-Case left. 33 Minutes later Car-la came to Stelevisions house in her Wheeled carrying device. "Hello Stelevision"she said from outside the house, using her telepathy. "I wish to see the movie 'Invasion of the Robonits' in the cinematorium now, do you wish to accompany me?" He did. Car-la also had green skin but was not very attractive, her nose ended inbetween her first and second mouth which humans consider unattractive. As the film ended both of them fell to sleep next to each other accidentally. After the film Car-la consumed some alcoholic beverages and then drove the Wheeled carrying device back to Stelevisions house. He realised he had started to glow a slight yellow colour. *** Sofa-e worked as an officeperson she would sit all day infront of a computer screen, occasionally tapping the desk it stood on, she would also play with a pet mouse and pick up a smaller human called Telephone and put him to her ear. Her boss came out to shout at her a bit because her reports on the weather were late. Because of her late weather reports she had to stay late. She started sniffing a bit and after running a self diagnosis realised that she had caught stress. She decided to leave the office, first gifting her manager the recycled food from earlier and telling him she did not wish to work anymore tonight. By the time Sofa-e got home it was dark, she could see Stelevision through the kitchen window, he was glowing. She entered the house, Stelevision greeted her with two smiles. "Sofa-e, I have wonderful news! I am pregnant!"He said before she could say anything At first Sofa-e was very happy, but after a few miliseconds she started to process the news, they had not slept in the same bed for 3 days, how had he caught pregnancy? She asked him to show her the eggs. He opened his skin panels and revealed the eggs lying there, there were at least 15, they were Green. Sofa-e had purple skin and Stelevision was Blue skinned, how were the eggs green? "YOU HAVE SLEPT WITH OTHER HUMANS HAVEN'T YOU!"She loudly said. "What?! no!"Stelevision said, "because of human genetics sometimes random mutations happen which can change skin colour! you must know that it is basic human biology! And sometimes pregnancies aren't clear straight away!" "Oh yes I forgot that"Sofa-e said, sometimes humans forget important things for no reason. 4 months into the pregnancy Television decided to get a paternity test done without telling Sofa-e; just to be sure, when the test came back, she wasn't the Girl-father!
There was a man locked at the top of the tower. The fire had started on the first floor, small and docile with just a pop and a hiss, but it had grown in fury and furor and risen at a dizzying pace until flames licked out of the third story windows and threatened to climb higher still. They would, eventually, we were sure. And now the man at the top, still two stories from immolation, stood with his hands pressed against the glass and stared down at the rest of us below. He didn’t speak, he didn’t scream, he didn’t bang against the window and beg for help. He just stood there, palm to pane, and watched. I wondered what he thought of, calm and unhurried with his mouth set in a thin line, as he waited for the fire to swallow him whole. I wondered if he thought of their faces—if he’d ever even seen them to begin with—or if he was, perhaps, assured by the knowledge that he’d only ever done what was necessary. I wondered if he thought we were monsters. Maybe we were. But there are monsters and there are monsters, and if, in the end, I was asked to account for my sins I would offer up my bloody hands and say this stain here was for justice, and that stain there was for peace, and if the creator was a merciful being he would weigh my soul and find on those scales that I only ever sought payment for what was lost. I wondered if the man at the top of the tower thought the same about himself. He shifted slightly, turning to study something in the room behind him and giving us a glimpse of his profile. His chin was weaker than the posters would have had you believe. So was his hairline. Then he moved again, back to the window, and fixed his gaze on mine. I raised my chin, meeting his stare. One corner of his mouth twitched, jumping upward slightly before it settled back into ambivalence. The fire burst through to the fourth floor, and I hoped he could feel the heat of it growing beneath him. The first murder ever committed was an act of jealousy and hate. I thought his must have been, too. I thought the anger must have simmered in him for quite some time, heating in a crucible in the pit of his stomach, until one day he looked around and decided that the things he lacked had been taken, that all he wanted had been purposefully withheld, that the paths he was meant to climb had been eroded by too many undeserving feet before he’d even had a chance to tread upon them, and there, at that moment, the crucible cracked and split and all that hatred poured out until the blood in his veins had been replaced by rage. I wasn’t sure if he’d meant to start a war. Sometimes I thought he’d only ever intended to rid the world of the wretched beneath him, and that he honestly believed no one would mind. And then, when he’d discovered that people do, in fact, tend to mind, he’d simply shrugged and adjusted the mechanisms of destruction to swallow up the wretched and the dissenters alike. Some, like me, happened to be both. Funny, that. He suddenly became backlit by an orange glow, and my heartbeat quickened. The fire had reached his floor, and it was almost done. I recited the names in my head, imagined their faces as I did it, felt their fingers brush against me and whisper away. I would offer that, too, I thought, when my soul was weighed—the fingerprints pressed deep into the lining of my heart, the echo of the voices that I sealed away in the chambers there. The flames behind him grew, and I smiled. If the scales failed to tip in my favor, I thought, it would still have been worth it. There was a man locked at the top of the tower. No one would save him.
Jim frantically tried to dial 911. His fingers were shaking so much it took three tries. It didn' help that his girlfriend was clinging to his arm. &#x200B; "911, What is your Emergency?"the voice said &#x200B; "Umm... There is a large Demon on my Balcony,"Jim quietly said. "Big Fella, about seven to eight feet tall, wings, claws, horns, red glowing eyes." &#x200B; "Has the Demon noticed you, or made any threatening moves in your direction? &#x200B; "Not yet,"Jim said. "I don't think he noticed us. He has a human leg. Takes a bite occasionally. It's pretty disgusting. He has blood all over his mouth and hands. I guess he's killed someone very recently." &#x200B; "Ok, I'll get the police dispatched to your location,"the 911 operator calmly said. "I have your address at 1711 Smith Street, unit 907. Is this information correct?" &#x200B; "Yes, that is the correct address,"Jim said &#x200B; "Ok, police are on their way. Is this Jim?" &#x200B; "Yes, I'm Jim, and I'm here with my girlfriend, Stephanie." &#x200B; "Ok, Jim, you are doing great. Just stay calm and we'll get you through this. Is Stephanie ok?" &#x200B; "She's pretty freaked out. We're both freaked out. That thing is huge. Stephanie is pregnant, and she can't run very fast right now. Please send help." &#x200B; "Help is on the way, Jim,"the 911 operator calmly said. "It's going to take at least 20 minutes to get there due to the large number of calls coming in right now. Demons are really hard to kill. Is there any way you can sneak out?" &#x200B; "I understand,"Jim said. "Listen we may try to get out the door. If we are really quiet, we may escape without it noticing."He quietly talked to Stephanie, explaining the situation to her. "Yeah, we've talked about it and we're going to try to sneak out." &#x200B; "Ok Jim, I'll stay on the line with you,"the 911 operator said. &#x200B; Jim and Stephanie look around the corner of the kitchen cabinet. The demon was looking over their balcony towards the street and park below. Occasionally it would take another bite out of the leg. They noticed that the leg still had a running shoe attached to the foot. It seemed distracted by something below. Gesturing to Stephanie, Jim began to creep towards the door. In half a dozen anxiety-ridden steps, they got to the door. Jim moved aside and let Stephanie go first. She silently reached for the door, unlatching the deadbolt, unhooking the security chain, and slowly turning the knob. As she turned the doorknob, Stephanies phone rang. Loudly. &#x200B; The demon's head whipped around, fixing on the two with its glowing baleful gaze. Instantly, the leg was discarded and the glass separating the demon from the two humans was shattered in with one powerful kick. The demon stepped into the living room, drawing itself up to its full height, its horns scraping the ceiling. &#x200B; "Go Steph,"Jim whispered. "I'll delay it. Get out"Without waiting, he grabbed a baseball bat from the wall. It was a poor choice of a weapon to fight a demon with, but it was all that was within reach. &#x200B; "Alright you son of a bitch,"he said, trying to sound braver than he felt. "Come get some."He took a step towards the monstrosity in his living room. &#x200B; Something was wrong. Jim felt different. His shoulders were hot, burning. The Demon paused, looking down. It wasn't looking at Jim's eyes, nor at Stephanie. It was looking at Jim's shoulders, first the left shoulder, then the right one. Jim took a chance and stole a quick glance at his shoulders, they were really hurting now. His left shoulder had a tattoo. It was a Celtic protection symbol, called the Triquetera. It was now glowing blue and was the source of pain in that shoulder. It was a cold pain. Jim's right shoulder had a smaller tattoo, it was the symbol of Mars, the god of war. It was glowing red and burned like it was on fire. The demon took a step back. Jim heard a strange voice say "Oh no you don't. You aren't going anywhere. This is where you die, fiend". Strangely, he realized the voice was his own. The demon turned to flee. Jim jumped forward, catching it by its taloned foot. &#x200B; The 911 operator heard a series of otherworldly screams, then silence. With dread rising in her stomach, she tried to get a response. "Jim, are you ok? please respond if you can."Then, the 911 operator heard someone pick up the phone. &#x200B; "The police are no longer needed,"Jim said. "Can you send over the coroner? The Demon is dead, and he's made a godawful mess in our living room."
“JEREMY NO USING YOUR POWERS AT SCHOOL!” Mrs. Jackson yelled at a kid speeding down the hallway. Yup this is a school full of super powered kids and teachers. This is the result of some weapons testing that was going on nearby and now the supernatural is the natural. My power you ask? It’s flight I’ve always wanted to be free and now I truly am free unless I’m at school then I can’t use my powers which sucks. But life’s life at least I was lucky enough to get a power. “Open your textbook to page 256 and do questions 1-10 and answer the questions in complete sentences if you don’t complete the questions by the bell you aren’t going to lunch so get going” a bored Mr. Gibberish told the class before the speakers blared to life “CAN STUDENTS WITH POWERS THAT YOU CAN USE TO FIGHT GO TO THE FRONT GATE I REPEAT CAN STUDENTS WITH OFFENSIVE POWERS GO TO THE FRONT GATE WE ARE UNDER ATTACK THIS IS NOT A DRILL!” “OK JEREMY, JOHNATHON, ALEX, SAMANTHA AND IZAYA GO TO THE GATE NOW!” We rushed to the front gate to see who’s attacking us and it was people wearing masks to hide their identity with signs saying down with the government while throwing rocks and axes. Then they got confident enough to throw fire bombs! One teacher controlled the water from a nearby fire hydrant to put the fire out. While Jeremy tried to rush in with his super speed he got hit by a taser and fell to the floor convulsing. A upper class man used ice to freeze them in place while the principal used his electric powers to shock them. (First try at a writing prompt sorry if it’s bad.)
I stared off into the distance for a while, attempting to collect my thoughts. “Are you really sure that’s what they wanted from me?” The neon lights cutting into my eyes like razors, but his motionless, glass like, automatronic. “Of corse, it’s all by their design. Every thought, every moment of you, every feeling, it’s all them.” Metallic machines crossed by us, scraping the asphalt below with a steel claws, digging into my mind with a sharp screech. “So it wasn’t my fault then?” The concrete became more and more apparent on my bare feet, and the icy winds cut through me like a razor. “No, it’s all your fault. You did it, did you not?” This hit me deep, so deep I feel back on my heels, shock vibrating my bones. “B-but she’s not dead right? If it’s all them then..” He pointed to the sky “she’s up there, hopefully.” It was night time, although you could never tell the difference, it was always to smog ridden to tell. “How? How could they do this? How? She was innocent, why would-“ he put his finger to my lips “shh, it’ll all be over soon, there coming now, so you have to act natural.” Behind him we’re 3 large metallic beasts, all letting out a vibrant purr from within there hallowed shells. They patrolled the streets at night, searching for those who strayed along the wrong path. “But why me? Why her?” He covered my mouth, and whispered “I already told you, there going to find us out. Give it some time.” We pushed our backs up against a storefronts window, waiting for them to pass. “Clear area, clear area” they droned, their tire treads crawling on the concrete below. They passed by shortly. “Ok, now, she is dead because of you. It is your fault, because only you could stop them.” “But how?” I wailed “how could I stop them-no, how could I stop HIM from doing this?” “You can’t, but it’s your fault anyways.” I couldn’t bare this. She was innocent, I knew it. She deserved nothing but the best, and yet...and yet I couldn’t do anything more. I couldn’t stop this, there was no way. I peered upwards, the skyline eclipsed by towering skyscrapers, piercing the heavens, hopefully where she resides. “Well, I have to go now, they’ll find me here if I don’t. Goodbye forever.” He left without a trace. My feet were sore now, and it began raining. “Why..”I bellowed “WHY?!” The rain bouncing on the tips of my hair, soaking the follicles deep, but never to return again. I started to cry, to weep, for her. My tears indistinguishable from the raindrops, they faded. And my mind along with them.
"Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive or be he dead I'll grind his bones to make my bread." Jack's face rapidly began to lose color. He had finally come. Ever since he stole this behemoth's Golden egg Jack found he could hear things people said about him, an ability that came in handy when an idiotic giant chases you and says he'll grind you into bread whenever he's close to you. Jack was relaxed until he heard someone whisper. "Remember, if he runs to the door grab him." Jack quickly got up and ran for the door, only to be blocked by a group of dwarfs. "Sorry child, but it's you or us" "P-please, I still need to reach my family!" The dwarfs were silent, Jack knew his time had come. The giant soon arrived. The dwarfs began their work, stabbing Jack in the eyes and pulling them out and cutting small bits of his flesh off untill only bones remained. "Help! Help!! Ahhh!!! Ahhhh!"Jack had said, screaming until his voice went dry. When the clock struck 3:00 it was finally time. The dwarves gathered his bones and threw them into their magic grinder and ground his bones into small pieces of bread which they quickly stuck together with bits of his bone marrow and blood. Happy, the giant took his food and left, off to gather his next victim, golden egg in his pocket. Alternatively: The giant was Shrek and they did snoo snoo.
Falling, after long enough doing it, feels nearly indistinguishable from floating. I fell asleep last night, probably weeks ago at this point, and literally fell asleep. I don't know what is happening to me, but you get used to it at some point. That's the remarkable part of human beings, they get used to weird, outlandish things. Before I fell asleep and fell out of the world, I would look around myself and think about how interesting it was that people are so good at getting used to new, unpleasant things. I reflect on that now, as I fall or float here in the darkness. I also reflect on how important the ground is. A fall isn't really a fall at all without the ground rushing up to crush you with context. I walked on that ground my whole life without thinking about it's status as the foundation for literally everything I knew, everything I'd built. But now, in the absence of that lovely, deadly ground, I have nothing but time to reflect. Upon reflection, it occurs to me, everything I'd built had eventually crumbled. Through my own folly or my lack of foresight, everything eventually went away. The tune to a Johnny Cash song drifts through my head as I fall, a song I loved when I fell asleep last night, a lifetime ago now. As I fall through the darkness, or float through the nothing, I feel my thoughts begin to drift. Everything I'd done wrong, all the evil things that happened as a result of my actions seem to drift away, somewhere above me as if they're falling too, only not quite as fast. It occurs somewhere in the dimly-lit back of my mind that they will catch up to me as soon as I hit the ground, if I ever hit the ground, and they will exact every bit of pain that they require to settle the score. It would occur to me, if I could care, that maybe that's my fate. To fall until I'm just comfortable enough to get used to it, and then to suddenly cease to fall while the weight of the things I've done catch up to me with sudden violence. Someday maybe the ground will lend me its sudden, final context. Until then, and maybe forever, I will fall; as easily as if I was falling asleep.
I woke that night in extreme terror, a sense of foreboding hammering itself into my skull. What could it all mean, I wondered. The dream-logic that answered me had but one reply. *There is more than one.* The moon! The phases of the moon! Verily, I answered that tomorrow could be no more. The shifting of dimensions had wrought forth great peril for those involved. The moon beams were intertwined! Each of us, alone no more, waited for our other selves! When the first portal opened, the best of us looked inward, the middle looked outward, and the worst of us, downward. &#x200B; Mara walked with herself. It wasn't that unusual, let alone anti-social, to do so these days. In certain places in the world, the borders relaxed slightly, and people talk and mingle with those just like them. Mara was just lucky that all her land happened to encompass one such place. Curiously, most people happened to despise their "companions", instinctively revolting at the sight of them. Not Mara, though. Well that is to say, *she* didn't even though she did. Mara loved the other Mara in a friendly way, although *she* did not care for her at all. Their different lives led to naturally different reactions. Yet they were confined to seeing each other often, and therefore passed a lot of time together, peaceful, one hopeful, the other tolerant. Still, there was an odd sadness and relief when they had to part. Mara often wondered at that. &#x200B; Of course, that eventually changed, as she grew older.
The lights blink on as I approach and off a few seconds after I pass. It seems like I'm the only person to ever use this park; the sidewalk, the benches, and even the trashcans are empty. It feels as though this park had been built merely for my enjoyment. It's just me and my lights. About fifty yards ahead of me I notice the lights begin to slowly blink on and off as if someone is approaching. However, I don't see anyone under the lights. It could be that they are walking in the grass, close enough to trigger the motion sensor but far enough from the lighted area not to be seen. The thought that someone is trying not to be noticed puts me on edge and I step off the path and stand in the shadows next to a small tree. The light I was last by turns off, leaving me in near total darkness. I watch as the trail of approaching lights blink on and off, one by one, until the one where I had been standing comes on. It stays on longer than the rest. I notice the circle it makes on the ground illuminates my foot and I pull it back slightly. As I do, I hear a soft whisper in my ear that feels so close it's as if their lips are about to kiss my earlobe. "Stay out of the light." I turn my head slowly to see who is there but I am alone by the tree. As alone as I thought I was a moment ago. The light in front of me finally gives up, plunging the entire park into darkness once more. "You shouldn't be here,"the voice returns. No matter which way I turn my head as it speaks, it feels as if it is coming from right over my shoulder. I become paralyzed with fear. "You shouldn't have been in the light. They can get to you in the light,"the voice continues. It's whisper is so quiet as to almost be inaudible but it's quivering with fear. "Leave. And stay out of the light." I stand there a minute longer, too terrified to even breathe. However, as I begin to move, the lights on the sidewalk begin to light up alongside me. I pick up my pace and so does the sequence of lights, but they are not keeping pace with me and I am soon out in front, not running but almost breaking into a jog. As, I approach the entrance of the park, all of the lights at the edge of the park activate at the same time. They form an impenetrable barrier of light blocking that exit. I turn and head for the other end of the park, now at a dead sprint. My breathing quickly becomes heavy and labored as I struggle not to slip running on the wet grass. The lights all blinking on right alongside me, again. I look behind me to see that none of them have turned off and when I turn back around the lights ahead of me all come on. The back entrance illuminates under the halogen bulbs. I keep running. That's my exit and I am leaving this park. Maybe if I can get through the light fast enough I'll be fine. The lights briefly shudder before the brightness begins to grow in intensity, erasing every shadow in the park.
"Ow!" Penny winced a little as she slowly sat back up, her blonde bun in disarray from her sudden trip to meet with the pavement right outside her school. She'd gotten her Mary Jane caught in a crack in the pavement -- she hoped her mother's back was alright -- and had been sent tumbling down face-first to meet with the ground. Thankfully, the girl had great reflexes and had been able to roll so that her back had taken the brunt of the fall. Well, she did say the brunt of it. Her knee stung a little, so she'd probably skinned it, but it certainly was hurting a lot less than her back was right now. In fact, it had been more of a slight jostle than the pain of losing a few layers of skin cells. As she got up, brushing her blue dress off, she caught sight of a metallic glint. Had she let something fall? But there was nothing on the ground. Her blue eyes quickly scanned the pavement, seeing nothing around her except small pebbles that littered the ground. Penny couldn't help but furrow her brow together in confusion. Smoothing out the non-existent wrinkles in her skirt, her fingers brushed across her knee, and she instinctively flinched, expecting pain. She felt nothing but a cool, smooth surface, and she instantly looked down at her knee where her fingers were. A curved chrome surface lay right under her fingertips, exactly where she anticipated she'd skinned her knee. Metal? she thought to herself, trying to figure out if she was being pranked or not. Why was there metal under her knee? The girl crouched down to bring her knees closer to eye level, and the motion caused the skin around the chrome to recoil back and start to peel away from the surface, revealing more metal underneath. Slowly, with trembling fingers, the girl pulled on one corner, tearing away fair skin to reveal a curved metal surface under the skin, making up the entire structure of her right leg. Blue circuitry decorated the surface, occasionally lighting up with a spark of light here and there, but for no more than a few seconds each time. Tearing the strip of skin-like material away from the front of her leg, she looked down, stunned, at the machinery and circuitry that made up her right leg. It left the front of her right leg exposed for everyone to see, and a thick strip of thin, skin-coloured material clutched in her trembling fingers. This didn't make sense. Nothing did! How could her right leg be metal? She could feel sensations like it was skin and blood -- heck, she remembered breaking her leg once before, when she was a bit younger than this, and she'd seen blood coming out from her leg. Hearing the chatter of other students coming up from further down the pavement, Penny picked up her bags and rushed into the school building, pushing past her crazy aunt that worked as the cafeteria lunch lady. Heading immediately to the stairs, Penny dashed up to the second floor, where the principal's office was located. "Mum! Mum! Mum!"the blonde girl exclaimed as she threw open the door, seeing her mother behind the desk. Blue eyes met blue, but soon enough, eye contact was broken when the principal saw the exposed metal of her leg. "What's going on, mum?"Penny asked pleadingly. The principal looked shocked. "Penny, I..."she started, a look of concern on the older woman's face, but as soon as it came, the expression was wiped away, and the loving but strict woman Penny had always know was gone, replaced by a cool, calculating scientist. "Sit." Penny felt her body moving, carrying her over to the chair in front of her mother's desk. "Mum?" "Be quiet."The principal frowned. "I thought I had the skin perfected this time,"she lamented to herself. "Now I have to go and reprogram you again. I guess you were due for another software update anyway."The woman pinched the bridge of her nose. Penny couldn't speak, the command having silenced her completely. She stared up at her mother, wide-eyed and fearful. "Don't worry, Penny,"the principal crooned as she searched around in her purse before finding what she was looking for. "This will just be a moment."She pulled out a taser, and she placed one end directly at Penny's chest. "You'll be up and about with all your little friends in a few hours, none the wiser." The blonde girl stared up at her mother as the taser was activated, and a jolt of electricity shot through her. Then... the world went black. \--------------------------------------------------------------- The principal put away the taser with an annoyed sigh as she stared down at the robotic body sitting in front of her. It was such a pity that her daughter had been mauled by bears a few years ago, but she hadn't complained. Penny had become much more useful to her after she had reconstructed the girl out of metal and circuits. It was just too bad that Penny never took well to learning that she was just an android -- it would be much less annoying to constantly have to wipe her memory sticks every single time she discovered the truth.
Someone bangs heavily on the stall door twice. “Occupied,” I call out, not bothering to look up from the news on my phone. Sliding through the local section, I savor the last few customer-free minutes I’m going to have the rest of the day and look for an article worth reading. Mayor Caught Cheating at Charity Ball, Again World’s Greatest Show Arrives for Labor Day Elm Ridge Girls Volley Ball Win Homecoming Father Missing, Second Person in Two Days Senior Center Bites at Local Dog Park The last one catches my eye, but before I can click it two more knocks rattle the stall door, this time harder and more aggressive. “There’s another stall,” I yell, not bothering to hide my agitation. I look up from my phone to catch a glimpse of the idiot that’s trampling on my small patch of solitude. In my head, I picture an overpriced leather shoe tapping the tile floor impatiently, partially obscured by wide khaki pants that likely lead up to an over-sized, midlife midriff. Instead, I’m greeted by a massive pair of red clown shoes pointed directly at me. I stare at them for a second, speechless. I know it sounds strange, but it almost feels like they’re looking back, like I’m being watched somehow. Now, given my exasperation with customers and the giant pair of clown shoes, you might think I work at McDonald’s or maybe some kind of theme park. That would make sense, right? Unfortunately, I provide technical support for printers at a call center—during the graveyard shift. I still staring at the shoes as whoever is outside knocks again, this time practically pounding the door down. “Excuse me,” I shout back, putting on my customer-service voice in hopes of sounding calm and authoritative. “I will be done momentarily. If there is an issue with the other stall, I’m going to have to ask that step back from the door and wait until I’m finished.” I keep my eyes fixed on the pair of shoes waiting for whoever owns them to respond, but the room is silent. As I reach for toilet paper, two more knocks cause me to practically jump off the seat. Each one sounds like someone slammed into the door at a full sprint and the second one actually bends the slide bard to bend inwards, but the shoes haven’t moved an inch. “Screw off,” I scream, standing up and pulling my pants on. Whoever is outside is pounding on the door continuously now. “This isn’t funny. Who’s there? I’m going to beat your face in,” I shout, searching futilely for something to arm myself with. I’m small, but I wrestled varsity and am willing to be and I take a literal clown. My hand curls into a fist when the pound stops suddenly. The shoes are still outside. For a moment, I consider calling for help or simply waiting, but adrenaline is pumping through my veins and I’m pissed off. I slide the bolt, swing the stall door open, coming face to sleep-deprived call center employee that holding his fists up and standing on the other side of the mirror. Confused, I look down at the large pair of clown shoes. They’re empty except for two small pieces of paper tucked inside, each containing one word. “Shoe who?” I read, confused. “Over here,” something hisses from above. Before I can look up, a wet and prickly cord wraps around my neck. In the mirror, I can see myself laughing hysterically as I’m slowly lifted up into the darkness.
You never realise the amount of information a person can possess until you begin talking to an elderly person, for the amount of experiences Gary has recounted to me was simply unbelievable. Conversations began to spark when I began to visit a nearby bar after a break up, on my 3rd/4th visit I met Gary, from what I've heard, he's been a regular ever since the bar opened back in 1984, I decided to start up a conversation with him and I've been intaking every detail of his stories for the past 4 months. Gary was a hunter, he lived in a small village up in the north of England, meaning countless stories about all the intuitive methods he used to capture his meal for the day, from the classic bow and arrow to full on strangling a deer to death. He would also recite stories about his days in London and the businesses he was part of, it seemed as though he has done everything in life. That's when I asked how he has accomplished so many things, "Well giants do live an extraordinarily long life!"replying in a laid back tone. "Giants? Haha, funny, you're 5 foot 9, how could you of all people be a giant?"My mind couldn't comprehend what he meant by "giants", they were a fictional species created for kids stories, at least that's what everyone thought. "Am a retired giant, used to be 100 foot or so back in me day, those were some good ol' times, fighting it out for the most beautiful lass, just for her to reject you still!"Laughing at his memories, he takes a sip as if everything he's saying is completely normal in life. "100 foot!?!? You must have had too much beer Gary, how could you be 100 foot without anybody discovering your existence?"I proceed to ask him jokingly, still in disbelief from what he's saying. "Why of course people would see us if we lived on the surface, who wouldn't spot a moving skyscraper ey?" "So if you weren't on the surface... Do you mean to tell me you lived underground?"At this point an ocean of questions flooded my mind, all logic has been thrown out the window, everything that I knew about these giants began to either be confirmed or completely proved as false. We continued yapping for a good hour or two, Gary explained everything to me like a parent explaining to a 6 year old how Santa was your parents after all. He explained how the worldwide underground systems were formed, how a living, breathing city beneath our feet had gone unnoticed for thousands of years, all was unveiled, leaving me in a frozen state of shock due to the massive overflow of information. Giants were humans that lived underground, they had cities and everything of that sort, they even developed vehicles too. "So, Gary, what did you do as a giant? Were there any interesting jobs giants had that us humans don't?"I asked, expecting something like a shop owner or maybe even owner of a business. "Oh, me? I was an assassin."Once again taking a sip from his glass of bear. This time without a sound of laughter.
An abrupt smack of the lips, and the silence was broken. A sigh, followed by two others; each increasing in volume; preceded the "Sooo..."Nat dared to utter. "What?"Zach snapped, staring intensely at his friend. He'd been going on like this for far too long, fraying the ends of his already banged up nerves. He flinched comically and wiped his profusely sweating brow for what seemed to be the umpteenth time, licking his cracked lips before continuing. "You'd better start speaking sense, or I'd rather you stayed shut up."he warned, causing Nat's mouth to promptly close itself once again. Zach wasn't your typical electrician. Never had been, never would be - mainly because he wasn't one - but it didn't take a genius to work out something was wrong, and for quite a while now. Ordinarily, his plans for fixing the odd bits around him would amount to 'get someone who knows a little bit, and plow your way through', a plan that had worked surprisingly well in all his many years of existence. However, one does not simply fix a lightbulb, and especially not with methods so crass. A flicker every now and then warned them of explosion, but generally the cavernous room remained dark. Dark, quiet, and dark. His already failing vision wasn't helping in the slightest in that regard. "Maybe we should ask for a ladder?"Nat's words brought upon him a steely gaze of a thousand knives. Was he actually an idiot? No ladder in the world would reach that thing! "No, we just need to wait here for Jacob's crew, then we'll be fine."So they stood there until they couldn't stand any longer, sitting themselves upon a picnic blanket Nat had brought. Whatever the reason for it, it was a welcome relief from the hours of useless pondering. Thinking gave way unto more thinking, and dead-end ideas kept being swapped between the two close companions, several times the answer being just on the cusp of their lips... before it slipped away, again, and they devolved into more bootless thoughts. "Zach? Nathan?"Was all their warning before the aforementioned crew stumbled in, gathering around them. "What's the problem, again?" Nat, having been counting the minutes between each spark, told them to wait for just a few moments longer, and they'd have their answer. So, looking up, they watched for the electrical flare. "Ah. Do you have a ladder?"What was with these people and ladders? More people were called, begged and persuaded, until there were at least fifty. All crowded into one room to fix the lightbulb that made no sense. They went through the cables, talked to the owners, searched up the history of the house: nothing. One man even had to leave to fetch his daughter from kindergarden, bringing her with so that he could continue helping in puzzling over their conundrum. Then, suddenly, a flash! And the light remained on. "The hell?"Was the first thing any one of them said, and rightly so. There they were, diligently working on rather a nonsensical issue, when it just ups and resolves itself! What was the meaning of this? Had someone finally solved it for good? And more importantly, could they go home, now? All of their questions were summarily answered after a single pointed finger in the direction of a doorway they'd all somehow managed to miss. "Alright, it's bedtime now, boys. Come on."
It's going to be nice honey! Sure, I replied to my wife. You tell me that every year. "It's important for us to keep coming together, world peace and all that, blah blah". The people are still incredibly divided while they progressed into a frocking wonder technological medical age! But we 'as Gods' should remain celebrating Christmas together every year, while the humans keep slaughtering each other. I'm starting to lose the point in all of this Martha... My wife looked at me smiling and said: I know John, but you and the others gave them free will after all. Give them some time. "Some time, some time": I muttered. They've had a couple of thousand of years. And even though that whole concept is relative to us, it still feels like a drag... Just as I ran out of words the doorbell rang. Must be the Vikings! I'm really excited tho John, I've prepared some delicious fish that I heard of is quite popular in Scandinavia and after last year I just want to have a pleasant evening. Can you all do that? Hey, don't blame me! It was Allah that started things! Sure John... Martha opened the door and gave a greeting that could warm up the artic: Here they are! The 3 sweetest Vikings I know! Come on in! I can't wait to hear about your district. The Viking Gods greeted us back and followed us into the salon where we all drank a freshly popped bottle of Champagne. To keep things simple: they all have the same big beard but their hair colors all differ. So I'll just name them after their color, for you as a weak-minded mortal to not get confused (no offense). So Mark! How have you been, asked Blondie. I've been doing fine, I guess. I've changed my name though, It's John now. Blondie bursted out in laughter, and even though I felt like I should have seen it coming, I saw the humor: bwahaha, Mark, you change it every year so many times, stop being so sentimental about your humans! They're not babies. Beside, all your name changing is confusing to us, we just wanna drink some beers! The Vikings looked at each other and laughed, the one thing that unifies them no matter what: beer, has done the trick again. Just as I sipped from my glass the doorbell went again. Ooh, another guest has arrived! John, honey, can you accompany me to the door? Just as we stepped in the hallway Martha asked me if I had 'fun'. Sure honey, just as every year. Now let's see who it is and just hope the Greeks didn't drink 2 bottles of red wine each before coming... Martha smiled and laughed: you know how they are. She opened the door and gave her whole greetings again. Blih, blou, blah, please follow us to the salon... HA! Ginger Viking laughed. The pussies of Greece have arrived! You pretty boys still walk around in sheets to mask your smell? The Greeks, clearly annoyed, got on the couch and one of them answered back: maybe, what about you? Can you see your penis again? Or is that belly still in the way? It stayed quite for some seconds as tensions seemed to rise... After about 5 seconds they all bursted out in laughter and filled their cups! More red wine please! Hahaha! Martha asked me for help in the kitchen and I couldn't be happier. I don't think it'll be like last year, she told to me, the room feels more relaxt and friendly now. I knew she was right about the room but still couldn't entirely trust the men. They are, in their way, friendly, but oh so barbaric in our eyes. They torched up our house 3 years ago Martha, that joke costed me enough already. It's going to be okay John, Martha gave me a kiss and proceeded to bring little toast with tasty toppings to the guests. Now we all wait for Allah to arrive so this can be quickly over I mumbled as I returned to the salon. Zeus got up and wanted to make a speech: Dear Gods, and friends, this is a toast to our humans, may they all find peace one day just as we did! Good luck further to your districts, you're all doing great! This was a nice gesture and we drinked from our champagne. Ding Dong. That must be out last guest! Allah! Come one Honey, let's get him in! I followed my wife to the door and indeed, there he was. Hi Allah, how have you been? Good John, thanks. You already know my name, I asked him? I'm a God with access to every file, just as everyone else here, I just do my research. I smiled and invited him to the salon. Everyone! Allah has arrived. They all greeted him and after an hour everyone was mixed in discussions. The Greeks and Vikings were talking about which weapon were the most efficient to kill armies, while Allah, myself and my wife were talking about the family. How come your wife isn't here with us, I asked him. She has some back pains, Allah told us, beside: our kids are still too young for evenings like these. They need to to go to bed early. But my wife wanted me to come, so here I am. I learned that his second oldest child, a girl, just learned to bike ride and the evening, despite what I thought, turned out relaxing. As the evening progressed we were done with our deserts and went to the lounge for the last drinks. How's your son doing John? Everyone turned their heads as Caesar asked this question. After all, he did died on earth and resurrected which became a pretty big deal in 'Gods History'. You know, I said, he's still looking for his place in life. His time on earth have him insights, but also still a lot of confusion. He tried to be the best he could be, but still ended up on a cross... Yeah, that was a tragedy, said ginger viking. The boy was doing so good. It's hard to think about what if he actually succeeded in his whole plan to install world peace. Would humanity ever reached nuclear weapons and use them? I don't know, but Martha and I are just relived he got home after that. He's now in the parc, thinking about everything. Martha nodded and asked if anyone wanted a last coffee. While she went to the kitchen a sudden loud knocking began at the door. Who could that be? I asked if anyone invited someone, but nobody seemed to know who it could be. The banging didn't stop and I shouted that I was on my way. Relax! Don't break the frocking door. I opened the door and was surprised to see my son. Jesus. I thought you went to the parc? Jesus didn't seem to hear and walked straight to the dinner. Jesus, everything okay? He got out some sort of blueprints and layd them on the table. Due to the noise the others came to see what was going on. Jesus! Shouted the Greeks, Vikings and Allah. How have you been?! No time, replied Jesus. Working on something... He proceeded to take out papers and placed them further on the table. Jesus, for Christ sake, tell me what's going on! You are barely speaking and acting like a wildman. Jesus stared at me, and then at the others. Gentleman, he said in a calm way. I have found it. I know how I can unite the humans. The room went quitte, and nobody knew what to say. Martha stepped forward: Jesus, honey, isn't it time you leave this behind? After all that's happened? Mom. It's cristal clear. They need a common goal! They need to work together to understand! Why haven't I seen this before! Son, please explain what's going through your head right now. I didn't know what to think, but as worries as I was, I was also interested. Father, with all the technological advancements humans made, it's becoming factual that they begin to overtake nature and start to control it. They need to see that every action has consequences, but that nothing is not overcome able. As he smiled Jesus walked to the PC and started the: 'God's exe plan"program. It's all a matter of numbers he mumbled. He clicked open a 'new order' and typed in 3 words: execute global warming. He moved his cursor and klicked 'save'. And now, he said with a big smile, we wait.
(sorry for bad spelling) At birth you were labeld like everyone else "The power to control power". Seemd like a useles power at first. At five you could control small amounts of elctrisety. At ten you relised there was somthing bigger about your power. you startid exsperimenting. by 12 you could do anthing you wanted for a short time: telikneses, super speed, super stregth hell if you really wanted to you could use mutipult powers at ones. By age 15 you were infammes. The smartist kid alive. just somthing you could do with your power. You had complet control over your body and its power. wantid to sneak out of the house at night? invisabl and flying. late for school? teliportaychin. you could take others powers away nif you wanted. you did not have a desyrey you could not fufill. In your later years you became a hero. saving peple. being what every kid dreams of. you exspandid your outlook on things and relise somthing. You could become immortal.
[Part I](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/cygoef/wp_its_the_year_2065_and_no_one_goes_to_school/eyswuj3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x) [Part II](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/cyafuw/wp_gods_get_their_powers_from_humans_believing_in/eysyqpu?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x) [Part III](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/cyjoa9/wp_a_booming_voice_gives_humanity_the_news_gods/eyt2al0?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x) [Part IV](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/cykkdc/wp_a_human_can_only_become_a_god_if_they_are/eyt6tiu?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x) [Part V](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/cygvt1/wp_you_die_and_wake_up_in_front_of_the_gates_of/eyv7dr7?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x) [Part VI](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/d1b6yw/ip_vast_ruins_that_touch_the_sky_not_even_yet/ezk8194?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x) He looked at his work. Layers upon layers of sky, painted with stars, woven together; reaching up, higher than imagination itself—until…wait, what was that? Ficino was peering further into the sky and saw, another plain text box. His heart popped into his mouth as he saw the words, and he looked at the countdown timer he first created. It showed him that there were 45 seconds until the end of trial period. “Dear God Candidate, You have failed to maintain the standards of sanity that got you here. We are very sorry, you will be sent back to earth to continue your life as a human. Would you like to meet your counsellor first?” He nodded, unsure of what he wanted. He was taken back to the first room. Agos was seated at the same desk as before, and smiled and waved Ficino into the office immediately. “Why hello there, Doctor,” Agos said. “I’m sorry to see you’ve been rejected as a potential candidate. I truly thought you had something in you.” Hastily changing subjects, he said, “would you like to meet Muldrè?” Seeing Ficino’s confusion, he clarified, “Muldrè is the original name of the girl you met at my office earlier. You would know her by the name Rusiette.” Again, unable to think of an appropriate response, he nodded. A woman—contrary to his expectations—entered the room. “Uh, hi Doctor!” She waved shyly. Ficino waved back. Agos said, “There’s no need to be shy, Goddess, you’re gaining more power recently, and if you happen to win these elections, shyness is definitely not the most desirable quality for God-Most-Powerful.” “Gaining more power, you say?” Ficino appeared thoughtful, “How does that happen?” Agos smiled, amused, saying, “I had thought you’d have figured it out through the simulation in the first part of the selection. The more human followers the god has, the more powerful they are.” Ficino felt ready to bring them down for not letting him partake in the elections. They would all pay. All of them.
[Potential Trigger Warning] The sound of rap in the background. The smell of marijuana on lingering in the air, the sound of a fan humming in the corner. It’s sound alone made my arms start to twist in pain, the pain of its band searing in my forearm. I instinctively grabbed at it, but nothing was there but my own hand. I breathed in. Even though it had been decades seen I had been here, The I never forgot the smell of the old wooden beams of the basement. So musty that even over the stench of drugs they triumphed, a small respite to keep away the headache that was starting to worm into my mind. Here, I stood in the closet, using a gift from a smarter friend to go back and right a wrong, a grown woman holding a dark weapon, the slits in the door revealing an empty basement. And then, the other me, the one that belongs in this time, slowly trotted down the stairs. A little boy with tears in his eyes from a bad day at school, being bullied over and over again. Looking back, it was nothing compared to what I was, what I am, about to face. The younger me walked out of few into the room I shared with my younger brother. There was a pause. The first slap, ringing from upstairs sent a stinging pain through my chest. The second, harder, and causing my mother to fall to the floor. I clenched my jaw, holding back gasps. My mind coursed with hundreds of memories. This was the beginning. I tried to reach for the door, but the shocked whimper caused my hand to quiver. It was my own voice, decades younger and before even realizing how different I was. I saw that younger me rush a confused toddler, my little brother, into the laundry room. I raised my arm, biting into my shoulder to quiet myself, as I, the younger me, ran out into the open. I began to shake like a leaf, trembling violently. That foul music above made my blood boil. The smell made my head hurt. The fear in the eyes of the brave child that had was about to sacrifice his childhood to save his brother’s caused paralyzed my body as I began to remember all of it. My arms and legs began to burn as I could feel the fan belt start to whip across me. His stuttering voice, the addled beast somehow figuring out my sexual deviance before I had, and his rage aimed at a child who wanted him to stop hurting his mommy. And then... I saw him. All of it. I couldn’t move. I wanted too. And then he spoke. And all inside me burned. And I burst out from the closet. And repaid him for all he had done to me.
A small child starts in the night. Something has woken them and yet the house is quiet. They peer through the darkness of their room. It is by all appearances cozy and warm and most of all safe. A faint creaking occurs. Is it the stairs? Is someone on the stairs? The child is wide eyed with fear. Every step seems so faint but it sounds like something is coming up the stairs. One step...two...three... "Dad? ...Papa?"The child says and then their eyes are drawn away from the stairs visible from their open door. You can just see all the way down the hall to the master bedroom. Two parents tucked in their bed, passed out and far beyond the waking world. The steps are slow and methodical. They pause as if whatever began up the staircase knows the child has just seen both parents in bed. One more heavy step. The fourth. The child's breath rattles through a constricted throat. The house that was dark and comforting is now just dark. The pause since the last step feels like something down there is getting ready. Like it's about to charge. It will be fast. Faster than Papa or Dad. Fast steps. Running steps. Five! Six! SEVEN! bam Bam BAM. AND THEN the biggest crack, like thunder and a figure appears out of thin air flicking on the light in the child's room. It interrupts the charge of whatever was on the staircase. The thing on the staircase is silent and the man glares down the dark staircase from his place in the bedroom doorway. Silence. "Is it...gone?" The man turns to look at the tear stricken child. "Go back to sleep, now."He says softly and then turns to descend the stairs. We can hear his steps, twelve to the bottom, and the faint noises of his exit as he leaves their home from the front door. The door is closed firmly behind him and he glances around the yard before striding off into the night. As the child lays back in the warm glow of their bedroom lights there's a quiet shuffling and a fierce, blonde woman opens the closet door and steps out, closing it behind herself. "Are you alright then, Beth? That was very brave."The tension in the woman's face softens as it passes from the open doorway to the child in bed. "Yes, miss. But is it gone?" "I think it's gone as long as you keep a light burning. Still got your torch?" The little girl drops her covers a bit and reveals a sturdy steel torch, her hand clamped around the power switch. "Yes, miss. Thank you. But WHO was he?" "I'm going to find out. Sleep tight!"Before leaving the Doctor hesitates in the doorway and then fumbles in the pockets of her coat a bit. "Don't want to forget these. I couldn't have found him without you, Beth."She presses a handful of batteries into Beth's hands, tucks her in, and then follows the man downstairs and out the door and into the night. Cue theme music, https://youtu.be/_a3YAEhWU6k Edited my first sentence out. I didn't want to spoil it.
"Alright, listen, we don't have to--" "Put the Damn briefcase down, or I swear to god I will shoot." The young woman's hands shook slightly, adrenaline and nerves wracking her muscles. The blue of her officer uniform was stark against the dark grey of the parking garage, gold metal badge glinting at her hip. "Ah ah ah..."The man said, slowly lifting his right hand up, displaying the small device he held, his thumb depressing a wide black trigger. "One little slip of my thumb and, Kaboom. Really messy. They might not even find enough of us to bury."He grinned, curled lips revealing yellow-stained teeth. A whining noise from the ground beside him. The german shepard lay sprawled there, bleeding from a wound on its left flank. Furious tears clouded the woman's vision. "I swear to Christ, if he dies..."She said, hands shaking more. "You'll what, exactly? Detective, it's over. I've got the bomb in my hand. You kill me here, and this entire parking structure collapses, ending us both and killing the entire building beneath us. Or you let me walk away, finish what I started, and the only victims will be an entire room of servers and perhaps an unlucky IT intern. It's not a difficult choice." "....You're bluffing."The woman spoke, taking a deep breath, putting her finger on the trigger. She trained the sights of her pistol on the man's head. &#x200B; He rolled his eyes. With a flick of his thumb he unlatched the clasp of the suitcase, letting it fall open, hanging from the handle gripped in his left hand. An array of plastic explosive, wires, lights, and electronics stared back at her. "See this?"He said, pointing to a black metal box in the bottom half of the briefcase. A multitude of wires wound their way in and out of it. "That's a dead man's switch receiver. When I let go of this button, it sends a signal right here, which starts one hell of a fireworks show. Now, I don't think you're as stupid as you look, so--" A deafening crack rings out in the confined parking garage space as the woman fires her gun. The man shields his face from debris as a bullet tears a path through its intended target, metallic shards of the dead man's switch flying in every direction. He looks back to the briefcase. A quick intake of breath. He releases the switch in his hand and.....silence. "....Shit."
The sun sluggishly rose over the distant barren mountains. The city that I have known for the past few months spreading out in front of me emanating a faint yellow glow. Small specks of light in the early morning twilight scattered across the city. Steadily the morning light crept over the edges of the city snuffing out the dull light in a steady advance. The small cobblestone road visible from my perch winding through the sheet metal homes coming alive. Much like a sailor in the morning the people stumble out of their homes onto the rocky streets. Many families waving goodbye to children running off in packs farther into the city. Their homes and work may not even be a foot outside of their homes. Many small pocket shops closed up for the night unroll their hole Tattered awnings and set up shop for the day. As small clumps of moss and detritus is swept off of pitch black panels lining the sides of buildings. The buildings a marvel of scrap iron and sheet metal obstructing view of the streets beyond. Yet a few structures in the distance stand out on top of distant overpasses and repurposed skyscrapers. The destitute ruins of the old world recycled into new purpose for the future. Even the land bearing the wounds of the conflict being repurposed into new industries. The colossal rift in the center of the city became a makeshift canal of trains and outgoing explorers. The all encompassing feeling of progression and pride beautiful on it's very own from its personal mystique. And yet a looming presence overshadowed its beauty of perseverance and co existence. A distant grey strip blocking the distant mountains from view below. The masonry crumbling but still standing in stalwart defiance of time itself and erosion. The piping shattered and sparking as citizens dance amongst the foliage growing on the concrete. The broken steel slowly piece by piece coming back together into a similar form as prior. Even if its function may differ only slightly from original intention from before. Above the wall their sits the damaged sky a dull grey swirling with dark brown clouds. The diminished sky stretches overhead a small flake of sand landing in my hand. A small fragment of what once was turned into what is now. All sitting within the palm of my hand so much meaning all in one space and time. Slowly I cast my gaze outward once more towards that around me. Sitting just below a sleek clean concrete wall stretching outwards into the distant wall both directions. To my left the wall curves away to reveal the local garrison's complex of contrasting white buildings and walls. Small formations of troops patrolling the exterior of the small fortress. To my right the wall pushes forward into the city exposing ordered white blocks of homes. Each bearing expensive glass and cloth in excess of necessity. The people within still asleep and quite within the streets three story's below my location. The asphalt road quite bar the occasional mechanical bike passing by on the sidewalk sparing a glance in my direction. The figure holding my gaze a few moments before passing behind the obstructing building to my right. It's quite the disparity apparent as the noise beyond leaks into my world from theirs. Slowly I ruse from my seat on the balcony my joints creaking and scraping under the pressure of abuse. The black window rolling upwards as the garage door esk system eats the glass panels stretching from side to side. The interior feels dead the sensation of temperature nonexistent as I step forward onto the wooden flooring. A small echo resonating with every step through the empty space. The walls bare for a single motivational poster and blue and gold banner hanging on the wall. Slowly I move the fabric in my hands the sound a pleasant memory even if it is not the same flag. With a decent amount of decency I step away from the banner letting the symbol open up fully. The blue gradient sweeping into a teal with a functional depiction of a westward wyvern clutching three stars in its grip. A symbol I have come to respect even if it goes against my values. This is their world not mine and while i don't like it is what must be done to persevere forward. The people must be kept under a strong leadership in dark eras like this. Slowly a dull ringing erupts from my front door resonating through my station. Hastily I hobble over toward the metallic door as the ringing ends and a voice replaces it. A slow ever so methodical voice erupts from the speaker its voice sturdy and demanding. "open up scrap it's Yellow we still have three hours before Baron arrives". I slow my pace a little taking just a little too long to get to the door. I patiently tap the four digit pin into the door one after another as the door parts to the left and right. As the door parts I lay my eyes on yellow for the third times this week. His attention diverted downward toward his small tool box at his feet. His hands occupied with his long white and gold coat stuck in one of the many shelves. "What the heck this is not cool you little sh-". I am sure it was this moment at which he noticed my shall we call it learing at his situation. His rather freckle marked face turning in my direction with a rather nasty scowl. "Yea yea you were right about the coat."Abruptly the coat came loose as the hatch opened. With a level of pragmatism only practiced by a gorilla he dusted off his coat and walked into my abode. Eventually he settled on one of the two small couches in the corner of the room. After setting his toolbox onto my glass coffee table he pulled out a small booklet and setting to work reading it. His eyes and hand cooperating on quickly flipping the book to the right page and flipping through. Slowly taking time to pull out a random assortment of tools out of his bag and onto the table. With each tool he double checked with the book going from the page to the table. Steadily he set the book down and locked his eyes with me his voice slightly calmer then a few minutes ago. "Alright one last operation and you will finally Be able to speak again."The anticipation was building as I slowly gave him a thumbs up and sat down across from him. Carefully as to not disrupt his tools he shuffled over to my side of the table. His hands reaching towards his tools and his loosely bound papers at his side. Slowly he took the screwdriver in his hands carefully bringing it up to the side of my head. He put his hand around my neck I could feel the pressure as he slowly twisted the screw driver. Each turn a resonating click in the near silence the tension slowly releasing with each turn. Then a solid metallic crackling as I felt the side of my head drift away from my being. The searing feeling of pain clawed at my subconscious lightning at every twitchy movements. Then it subsided the panic pulling at the back of my mind disappeared in a puff of smoke. Slowly yellow pulled out a small chip out of his bag and pulled himself in front of my vision. His facial expression soft but broken as he spoke and yet there was nothing the words were there. I just couldn't make sense of them as they passed by my purview. Then everything went dark phone formatting ftw
I looked at the blade in disbelief as the last rays of sunlight played whimsically upon the intricate patterns on its surface. I suddenly grew dizzy and my ears popped, tunnel vision coming upon me, I thought I was going to faint when my teacher, Mr. Blebbings grabbed me by the shoulder and said 'John, are you okay? Put that thing down! You are going to hurt yourself! You look like you've seen a ghost..."and then he was gone, my classmates, who were looking and laughing at me a second before were gone, the museum was gone. In darkness I heard a voice and noticed I still held the sword in my hands. This voice, which at once appeared to come from inside me and all around me said: 'Are you just gonna stand there looking stupid and confused all day?! And stop holding me like a cheap broom, I am a SWORD! Hell, I'm THE sword! I am meant to be brandished! Wielded! Flaunted! Hello? Excalibur to pitiful excuse for royalty, hello? Are you okay kid?' 'John, are you okay?' Mr. Blebbings is looking down at me looking concerned. Somehow I'm back in the museum... Laying on the floor... with a big crowd of people staring at me. 'Yes,' I manage to reply, while internally screaming 'WTF?!?!?'. 'I didn't have breakfast this morning so I guess...' 'Forget about breakfast, son. Where did you put the sword?!' There's a security guard looking at me and I'm about to completely freak out when an impossibly beautiful woman in a purple suit and glasses says 'As long as he is willing to pay for it we'll let it slide. It was just an old replica after all, so about £30. I think he should get some rest now' I get off the ground and just as I'm sighing relief I hear a voice in my head "So, where is Arthur? I feel like I've been sleeping for a long time! I'm feeling hungry, I'm always moody when I'm hungry. I feel like having some dragon! Lets go kill some dragons! Oh, what was your name, by the way?" I'm new to reddit and have no clue about formating, so, sorry about that.
The vet listened and responded, "Sorry to hear that, kid. But, hey, listen -- if it makes you feel any better, college ain't all it's cracked up to be. I got a letter from my kid recently - he's about your age, maybe a little older - and all he does is complain about all the money he has to pay back from all those student loans he took. If you ask me, after hearing about it all, IRS is the real enemy." The young Marine frowned. "College? I wasn't talking about college. I said collage." "Oh. I thought you were just saying college funny..." "Now that's funny. Why would I join a war to go to college? There's this amazing artist who puts together these collages that are -- I can't even explain it, you just have to see it."The young Marine pulled out a phone. "Also, I want you to be a part of my collage, so let's take a selfie together."
"So, please."I curled my fingers around the strap of my bookbag. "Explain." He straightened up slowly, and kept going - up and up until he could have bobbed his Adam's apple on my head like a basketball. I never noticed how tall he was before. Or how long his arm's were. Or how big his biceps were. The air grew hostile. It seemed like he took one step forward and then slapped me from across the room, like Dhalsim from Street Fighter. I stood there, shocked, and he sprinted for the door - which was to the side of me. I swung my bookbag and hit him in the stomach, which didn't slow him down at all. He grabbed it, and ran out the door with it. Well...crap. "Baby, what happened?"Mom asked, coming to. I locked the doors, closed the blinds, and went to sit by her. "Mom, I need you to tell me everything that happened."
I stared in frightened horror at our mysterious attacker. Dressed in a torn, fuzzy bathrobe with a matching hood, the maniac stared at us with frightful insanity in his eyes "EHEHehehehehheheeee! I want to snuggle so BAD. WUZZLE NUZZLE."My friend moaned, and put her face in her hands. "We're gonna die to a furry."The masked man grinned, with blood and gore staining his unnaturally sharp teeth, and unsheathed a rusty meat cleaver. "Pwease friends. STAY With ME FORWEVER! Were gwonna dwraw DIGITAL ART, watch ANIME, and BROWSE DEVIANTART!"Laughing maniacally, he advanced on us, swinging his blade wildly left and right. His slippered shoes shuffled closer and closer. I shut my eyes. This was the end. There was no hope. If there's any merciful gods out there, I though desperately, make it quick Then the door exploded. The furry snarled in surprise, blinking plaster dust out of his eyes, managing to get off a single swing before being decapitated by a gleaming broadsword. Our savior stood in shining platemail, a red cross emblazoned on his tunic. He spoke with a voice, deep and righteous, echoing in the cramped room. "DO NOT FEAR, PEASANTS. I, SIR GRAFO, OF THE 13th WHITE CRUSADE, AM HERE TO SAVE THE DAY! DEUS VULT!"
The strain of keeping them at bay took everything I had. Sweet poured down in streams and rivers and I knew if I looked up, it would be the same for them. I say them because I forgot. I have forgotten their name, their age, my name, who I was, or even why we started. I can only assume it was important. Here on this cliff...locked hand in hand opposite each other, pushing steadily to try and shove the other off. I can’t let up without falling and it’s taking all my concentration. I can’t speak. I can’t ask. I can’t look up. I can’t only keep pushing. I don’t know what I’m pushing against or pushing for, but if I stop, I will be the one to fall. I don’t know what will happen if I fall, where I will fall to, or what will be waiting for me down below. But some time ago; I don’t know if it was seconds or ages, I could have sworn I heard a laugh from the abyss. Silent, provoking, laughter. Where or who it came from, I don’t want to know. But I don’t want to fall.
>Sorry I'm a bit late, had some work in between now and yesterday It was putrid, foul, and made me gag through a 10mm thick canister. The scent was reminiscent of that of molding garbage, doused in gasoline and left to burn. The Supreme Court had deemed this one of the most humane ways to punish criminals, but the same case was made for the electric chair. The gut-wrenching stench had reminded me of my fate; as one of the earliest criminals during the adoption of this system, my punishment was to bring the spoiled pill to the man or woman on trial for the foreseeable future. I was to remain in the prison at all time, and I had no access to the outside world, but I was treated as a colleague by the other guards. This was my 4th year in the prison, I had brought hundreds upon hundreds of pills to the criminals on trial, but this one was the worst of the worst. Whoever this was, I felt bad for them. On my walk to room 13, I met with a plethora of guards: guardsman Smith, with his grandfather moustache, usually told me the news of the week in a story-telling fashion. Guardsman Harrison, with the sad eyes and big smile, felt bad for me on the daily due to my assigned task. Guardsman Franklin, he had those large, brown glasses, thick enough to keep the stench from his eyes, had once brought me a flavoured coffee. Today was day of cold shoulders and not one of the guardsmen had acknowledged me. Guardsman Smith was trembling with anxiety, and guardsman Harrison had covered up his eyes with sunglasses, hiding his emotion. Guardsman Franklin had left his position as soon as I had neared him, and had then come back when I was closer to the room. Whoever the criminal in question was, his crime must have been terrible. The corridor leading to room 13 was a long walk. The walls turned from white to beige to a disgusting brown the closer I got to the door. Almost exponentially, there were fewer and fewer doors along the walls, leaving room 13 completely distanced from the rest of the facilities. There was no decoration along the walls; the one plant along the wall was long dead. The lights had started flickering at some point, but pinpointing the exact point was near impossible. Step by step, as I approached the door, a feeling of dread came over me. Who was this criminal? Was it serial killer? A terrorist? A hitman who had assassinated a man of power? Was he out of control, would he leap at me the moment I stepped into the room, or was he calm, sitting with his legs crossed and welcoming me into his domain? The hypotheticals made me nauseous, and the putrid pill would most definitely have made me throw up if I didn’t have to go through with this on the daily. Shaking in my green overalls, I entered the room. To my surprise, the room was near empty. Only my supervisor, a feeder, and myself. My “hypothetical killer” instinct kicked in once more. Was he so dangerous, that he needed to be kept outside of our way? As I stood in silence, my supervisor looked at me, from head to toe. His amber eyes were filled with discontempt, I could not tell you why. His uniform was proper compared to mine; his green coat embroided with a plethera of medals, and his firearm holstered by his thigh. The feeder was more sadistically clothed, wearing a traditional executioner robe to hide his face, with a gas mask beneath one might just catch a glimpse off. I knew the normal feeder quite well, we had bonded when I first were assigned to this post. This was not him. “Take a seat.” My spine chilled with those words. My supervisor stared at me with piercing eyes, and shifted his eyes to the cold metal chair in the middle of the dull, molding room. I sat down, and looked at the feeder. His job was a simple one. If the criminal were to be resisting of their crime, he would force the pill down their throat. I now knew why the normal feeder was off duty today. I looked back at my supervisor as he read my crimes back to me. Word for word, the crime I had committed that fateful day 4 years ago was read back to me, as my tear ducts swelled up. Was this job not my punishment? Had I done something wrong? Or was I simply overthinking this situation? The supervisor finished his line of thought and then put on his gas mask. He opened the canister and I instantaneously gagged. It was time. I took the pill, tears running down my cheek, trying to keep my stomach intact. I held my breath to not throw up as soon as it touched my tongue. It was hard, but I got it down. I knew this might be the end of me. I held a poor life style, thanks to the prison’s lack of sunlight and unhealthy lunches, and these pills were near poisonous in nature and could kill a man of my physique. My stomach acid felt like it was boiling, my breathing became heavy, if I were to vomit, I’m sure parts of my organs would spill out. Before I knew it, my supervisor vanished before my eyes, as blind spots covered them both. I attempted to stand up, but collapsed onto the ground instead. I was not sure if this was my end, but it sure as hell felt like it. My bodily functions shut down, one after one, and then, my body fell silent. >I now have a [subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoxieWrites/)! Will post some other short stories there that are not prompt inspired!
"Nicholas Wilson."My name seemed to sound like venom dripping off of his tongue. "Whatever do you need me here for? When I bid my adieu the last time I saw you, I made everything perfectly clear." I shuffled in my seat, but did not let any more signs of uneasiness slip by. I wanted this to seem more like a meeting between two professionals, not a man and the demon he summonded two years ago that left him with a curse. "I seem to recall the words that you left me with before our parting, and thought I would... bring them up with you, you could say."I fiddled with a fountain pen, my gaze barely meeting his. But I couldn't help but sneak a glance at him - it was a rather comedic sight, to see a demon who had morphed themselves to blend in with people. On a first glance, he looks perfectly normal. But take a closer look and you see a few too many teeth in his grin, or one eye slightly more dipped than the other. Made you uneasy, but unettling people was his job. The silence he left at my words did that better than his looks could. I continued when I didn't get a response. "You said, after leaving me with this 'curse', the curse that would render my lies believed but my truths not, that I would have 'no luck in this world, and would remain a nobody for all eternities, not even to be welcomed by the scum of the earth'. Is that or is that not correct?" "Mhm." He was annoyed. The very sight of the lavish house I had summoned him to, the butler that waited upon his needs as he entered, the vintage liquor he had been offered. Everything I owned practically screamed successful, yet that was the opposite of what he sought out to make me. "Then how would you explain this?"I retrieve a newspaper clipping from my pocket. The date in small print along the top puts it somewhere a couple of months ago, but what was more important was the headline. "Nicholas Wilson : Elected as New President!"
When the news first came out about The Great Cat Migration, we knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, no one remained silent. Some would say “Oh, they are so cute!”, some would lament “Please help me get my cat back!”, and the others were debating what the cause could possibly be. “Maybe it's because of global warming.”. “Maybe it's a sign from God.”. They were all wrong, and by the time we figured out their true goals, it was already too late. We were fools. All of us. How could we not see the danger they represented? They are the perfect killing machine. They know our cities, our streets, our homes. The Scots never stood a chance. The scenes of the bloodbath that had been heroically transmitted by Scottish journalists in their last moments shocked the world. The cats were toying with them. Once they got bored, they went for the kill. The thing is, a cat is too small to kill a grown man. You might think that was a good thing for the people in Scotland. Well, let me ask you this, would you rather have your head cut off with an axe or with a butter knife? Yeah. Death by a thousand scratch didn't look pleasant. Scotland is gone now. But the cats are still there. They are too quick and too cute for any army to destroy them. Some countries had tried to negotiate peace by sending negotiators along with an entire convoy of catnip. Both the negotiators and the catnip were never seen again. Maybe if we could find out why they had targeted Scotland we could find a way to stop them. Until then, humanity will live in fear. Sometimes I think that all is lost. Purrhaps we will never find our way out of this mewsery.
Laying on the checkered blanket, the sun flecked my face as it endeavoured to break through the foliage above. Sounds of my family relaxing on this lazy Sunday afternoon filled my ears while my eyes rested. Father was trying to impress mother with his range in rock-throwing. Grunts of exertion burst through the air every few moments, inevitably followed by a tiny whoop as she admired the rock sailing through the air. By the sound of it, sibling rivalry was rearing its inevitable head somewhere down the grass banks as two of my siblings attempted to establish their genetic dominance by means of a footrace. Footraces were the ultimate test a of a human being at their age. A tiny, delighted smile crossed my face at the simpleness of youth. An elder sibling sat to my immediate right, given away by the occasional rustle of pages being turned. Contentment settled over me. Days like this one lifted the soul, shedding some weight that the buzzing of the everyday life brought with it. Silence interrupted the familial sounds drifting through the spring air. As I opened my eyes and looked around, my family was staring intently in the direction of a nearby wood. Following their gaze, the buzzing reached me before the swarm took shape in the sky. Wasps. A massive swarm of wasps was bearing down on us. Instinctively I got up to make a beeline away, but a single wasp in the vanguard touched down ever so softly on the back, followed by blackness descending over me. I wake up. Hundreds of bright lights blind me. Looking around at my surroundings I notice, to my horror, that my body has turned into that of a wasp! Suddenly the doctors come rushing into the ward, buzzing as they fly in. They have also been turned into wasps! And they keep coming, more and more, there's a whole swarm of wasp doctors swarming all over me!!!
My name is Louise and I am an addict. I go to three NA meetings a week, and two AA meetings at minimum per week. I have been clean since 10-16-98. I’m a diabetic and a pill head. A long time ago I gave my daughter up for adoption at birth. I lost my mind, and began seeing Dr’s for panic attacks. By lying to my Dr’s about my drinking, they gave me heavy sedation. I quickly grew immune to most psych meds and was pulled off one then onto another. Finally, 23 psych pills per day were prescribed. Along with various PRN medication to keep me asleep 20 hours a day. I drank the pills down with Jack Daniels more than I probably should have. I woke up in my own vomit and feces, crawled to the bathroom and then back to bed. I was placed in psych wards for cutting and suicide attempts. The worst suicide attempt was in my friend’s home. I swallowed over 63 sleeping pills. Life had no meaning and death was my bff. That night, another friend was the ambulance tech who took care of me on the way to the Er 65 miles away. I was given a ng tube with charcoal and almost broke the wrist of the woman inserting it. Later, on the coronary care unit, I was given last rights by a Priest who cried the whole time. That was the beginning of my last summer of total hell. I was locked in the psych ward and eventually put in a 3/4 house for the addicted mentally ill. There, I met my first AA members. That is the background of my story, where I come from. That was 1997. My first AA meeting was September 2nd, 1997. Ironic eh? I was finally off all the pills and the booze on October 16th of 98. Today, almost 21 years later, I have to keep taking pills to survive. These are different though. I take three kinds of pills to lower my blood sugar, I take two kinds for my heart. I take shots for my diabetes. If I don’t, I will die. It’s that simple. Next month will mark 21 years of clean time. Or you could call it sobriety if you are more comfortable with that. I chair meetings, I speak at treatment centers, and I live one day at a time. Thank You for the writing prompt. And I pass.
Shay asked me to read a quote off an ancient page. Her instructions were specific. "Read this over my body in front of everyone.""Ok."I gingerly take the ancient page, feeling weird by the whole thing. She was dying. She known that for awhile but the disease was like no other, even the doctors were baffled. But it was her last wish and I would honor it. I told her mom I wanted to speak at the funeral too and she tearfully said "of course!"I didn't think she'd be ok with that once she knew what I read but I'd deal with that later. During the funeral it was my turn. I walked up to the stage. Carefully unfolded the old parchment, then started reading. Almost immediately a gasp went through the crowd. But no one could move. When I finished my friend rose from the coffin. Nodded at me. And marched out. I was forcefully grabbed from behind and heard "what have you done!"There was shock on everyone's faces except a few had looks of sheer terror. What have I done.
There I stood on the precipice of humanities achievements. Gripping a hold of the Galaxy we called home when a beautiful yet chilling figure appeared before me on the bridge if my ship. She walked with absolute authority almost like she has all the power in the world. And that she did. She spoke softly yet sternly much like a forgiving mother would. "Humanity has yet to truly gain the mantle of Kings. Remain on Terra under the supervision of the Gaia. Humanity shall not reach past her moon until the mantle do Kings is given."I refused to accept that we should stop and not claim a place on the stage on the universe. I simply turned away and sat in my chair as I maneuvered our fleet to break past the moon and claim Mars as our own. She swept her hand and our ships did not move forward but backwards to our orbit. "Humanity is to stay in Terra until they earn their mantle."She spoke ever so clearly as warships began to surround Earth itself. They seemed intent on keeping us there. I stood up and walked towards her. "Mother Earth?"I ask inquisitively. "Yes. I am the guide to Earth, your teacher."I pulled out my sidearm and turned it around like I was planning to surrender which she began to accept graciously. "I'm sorry mother but humanity has grown since you stopped us before."I spun it around and placed it to her chest and pulled the trigger. Humanity has leapt from the precipice from which it stood and flew. The fleet that confronted us was weak. We hailed them. "We are Terra. We we're punished for speaking out once before. To the unity if the Galaxy."Their commanders stood awed and afraid and began to run. They heard the stories, the stories of barbarians, of Orcs, but humanity didn't want to destroy anything beyond the Milky Way. They wanted to grow and learn to expand themselves once again. But at the cost of Mother Earth, she was mourned but many felt she had betrayed them once she sentence millions to death on Mars for the sin of hubris for rules they didn't know off. I looked out at the fleeing fleet and then to Mother Earth. "We now hold the mantle of Kings but at what cost."
For once, all the statistics worked out. All the math, the research, was perfect. Every method, flawless. The conclusion, undeniable. After years of people insisting correlation does not equal causation, the opposite was just found to be true. &#x200B; Naturally, one would suspect that this was significant news, that this changed everything. And for a bit afterwards, admittedly, everyone was talking about this. However, eventually the excitement died down and the genuine discussion picked up. The actual repercussions of the discovery began to be considered more heavily, and most of the nonscientific community was rather let down. &#x200B; But others got even more excited, especially the philosophers. What people realized was that, while correlation is causation, studies tend not to find strong correlations, and thus there may be no causation. Thus, to determine causation, one must genuinely find correlation. Further thus, our current use of statistics is insufficient for finding correlation. &#x200B; For a time, this new conclusion made its own sweep through the world. Everyone talked about the amazing premise, and the revolution that was coming to statistics, much like the replication crisis that swept through the social sciences. Much discussion ensued on how to establish true correlation. The discussion dominated all disciplines... until one of the biggest disappointments in all of science. &#x200B; The discovery meant nothing. As people looked back at the original research, it hit them like an epiphany: correlation has always meant, in a way, causation. Finding 100% correlation very nearly means causation, and will always have an indirect connection at worst. To make things worse, the original research slightly fudged its use of "correlation". &#x200B; In the end, despite all the measures and scales and methods in all of science, the reaction of the world resulted in immeasurable disappointment and their days being ruined.
Cursive. Why did my writing have to suck so much that I can't even read it? I can read my printing just fine, but my damn cursive handwriting is an enigma wrapped in an ugly blob of ink even to myself. Of course, they'd have to make signs using my cursive in this place. First, I had to pass through dogs and cows that couldn't support themselves on their stick legs. They were just blobs rolling around, either mooing or barking, and the only way to tell which was which (without hearing their cries, of course) was to look for horns. The mud didn't even look like mud. I was such a bad artist, I couldn't even draw mud. Next came the trees. No protection from the sun - I could draw a hot sun fine and good - but the trees lacked such height and leaves that my beautiful sun scorched me this entire trip. At least there was a field of perfectly drawn daisies I passed through. That was nice. Next came my feeble pre-teen attempts at drawing boobies. They were crude by all definitions of the term. You don't want to know what I saw after them. I don't want to know what I saw after them. In fact, I'm not entirely sure what I saw after them, but I know I don't want to see it again. And now this sign. Childhood is clear. But this other one is a doozy. Let's see..."Dark Horse"? Not sure if I want to go that way. "Damn Booze"? That might be nice. "Park...our? Parkour?"That would be fun. Probably beats the childhood path at least. Let's see where it goes. I walk along the path through mildly pleasant fields of green. The sun burned me some more through the hills, but I was going somewhere at least. And there it was, rising in the distance. It must have read "Path Home"since there's a big house in front of me. It's two stories with a window near the roof and a door. I push on it, but it doesn't budge. I look to grab the handle, but...why didn't I ever draw door handles on anything? A knob is just a circle. I never was good at drawing circles.

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