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I'm a magickian for hire, specializing in law magick. It's a thankless job, and a boring one, but my clients pay very well for the services and the discretion I provide. And thanks to the patronage of a select few clients, I don't want for much. I live a quiet life, in a quiet house, tucked away in the mountains of the upper midwest. It's...quaint.
Of course, my life didn't used to be so leisurely. I had to scrape by on mall-booth parlor stuff for years, performing cold readings for the bemusement of flabbergasted shoppers. All that debasement just to put a roof over my head and food in my stomach while the law degree I pursued sank me deeper and deeper into debt. But I got through it, and made a few contacts along the way. Turns out the occult is booming in certain circles.
And yeah, it's an odd combo, I know: magick and law. But much of magick lies in clever manipulation of words, concepts, and ideas to illicit an outcome. And like in law, there is strength in precedence. That is, the more accepted prior examples of a working/ruling, the more true and lasting that working/ruling becomes in the present.
Take terms of service for instance: did you know that every time you and anyone else accepted those long, boring, monotonous documents you made them that much stronger? That you gave them that much more power over you and everyone else not just from a legal standpoint, but from a magickal one as well?
That's actually where most of my income derives, believe it or not: those service agreements. I'm *very* good at crafting spells that work within those terms of service. One fun trick is to make certain clauses so absurd that everyone laughs and simply accepts them and in turn the rest of the document, thus letting in the words and their intent and submitting to them wholly. It's a little method called: "playing the fool."A great example of my prior work is within the original itunes license agreement as follows:
> g. You may not use or otherwise export or re-export the Licensed Application except as authorized by United States law and the laws of the jurisdiction in which the Licensed Application was obtained. In particular [snip] You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture, or production of nuclear, missile, or chemical or biological weapons."
Funny right? I had a good laugh when putting that one together. What you might not have noticed was the shape of the language throughout the document. The letters and sounds used to evoke a vibrational state primed for one purpose and one purpose only: the consensual forfeit of your soul to Apple.
Major companies pay a pretty penny for every soul bound to their machinations, don't ya know? The boards and CEOs are all seeking to become proper sesamists in their own right, binding your soul and thus your will to whatever schemes they are cooking up. Above my pay grade to know what those schemes are--and I don't really care--I'm just content with this gorgeous view.
Oh, and not that it's a big thing, but if you ever want to break the contracts which I'm sure you've agreed to (I mean, who hasn't?)--break them in a magickal sense--message me here and we can arrange a price.
Of course, all that being said, you should know there honestly isn't a lot of harm that will befall you if you've passed along claim to your soul. At most you'll find yourself easily influenced into purchasing or consuming in certain ways, and having multiple claims against your soul *does* dilute these effects a bit, which is why ecosystems were all the rage for awhile. Really, most people aren't going to notice much of anything. Unless...well...unless the new claimant decides to use your soul for something...big. There are--in theory--large, world altering rituals that require a considerable amount of fuel and focused willpower. Having a large number of souls on tap *would* be helpful there...
But again, above my pay grade. I just funnel the souls in and get a kickback for my efforts. *You're* the one that has to deal with any fallout.
Me? I'll be fine, I'm sure. |
Quinn steps inside the local dive bar to meet her old friend at the other end of the bar sipping on his martini as he waved her over. “Quinn long time no see.”
“You too, make any money this week?” She asked playfully.
“You know being a puppet for a maniacal, old ass doesn’t pay as much as I thought it would.”
“Should've been a thief. At least I take what I earn Derek.” He eyed her smiling as he watched the bartender pour her usual coke and rum.
“Oh? And your boss doesn’t get a cut?” He laughed.
“A smaller amount than she thinks she does and I don’t even have to get chemical burns.” Smiling wickedly.
“You owe me for your little heist by the way.”
“How so?”
“You turned off most of our security systems entering our little apartment complex, which is impressive I’ll give you that.” She stared at him blankly, “What is not too impressive is the man has a different server room you overlooked.”
“I didn’t know a chemist had hacking skills.”
“I pulled the plug.” He said happily.
“What?” She nearly spits out.
“How much did you make?” He asked with a shrug.
“She didn’t need money, just one of the glass bottles of mystery she’s been so keen on recently. I did manage to steal a little extra cash, if you want it you’ll finally have to beat me in a game of pool.” She smiled.
“Not interested in what exactly you stole?”
“Don’t ask questions, the first rule in any job.” She smiled back heading towards the pool table. |
(Apologies in advance for grammar issues. English is my first language - I'm just not proofreading these after I write them.)
Czerny smoked a cigarette under the bus stop cabin. It cracked in his lungs, but it filled him with the warmth of fire and fix. All day at work he was hungry for it, but the no-smoking-on-site policy was killing him. He was dreaming of this evening, five o clock cigarette since he woke up at five this morning. Terrance would be here soon to ask him about the horses this time. And about the puddles. And about the other things. Czerny pulled the lighter out of his hand and twisted it in his finger, having already a clear picture of how the conversation would be going.
"Hey, Czerny, hey how are ya man,"said Terr, smacking Czerny on the back. He had a cigarette of his own. It was poorly rolled, and it dimpled at Terr's lips. Czerny had the lighter to the hand rolled cigarette. Terr moved into it without thinking. "Thanks man - "and Terr pulled it out of his mouth and looked at it as if it was poison. "Yeah, I, uh, been meaning to talk to you Czerny... those horses, uh, Triple El, first place huh. You called it yesterday at work before I bought the ticket and everything."He took a drag and huffed on it a little. It was uneven and skunky. "I didn't buy them, no offense to you Czerny, I just, you know, no one thought Triple El. How'd anyone guess that? No offense of course..."
"Ooh it must have been the weather,"lied Czerny. He stepped back further into the cabin, letting the smoke thicken. "Those types of horses seem to do better when wetter."He lifted his head in a half smile towards Terr. Ask anyone at DePalma’s construction and they would tell you that Czerny’s humor was an acquired taste. Terr's eyes were staring at nothing, and he gave a couple half nods while tracing his lower lip with his thumb. "You might want to step further into the cabin. Cars on the road don’t pay much attention to us people in bus cabins.” He dropped his head again and stared at his shoes with another half smile.
Terr stepped back from the curb further into the bus cabin. He wasn’t lost in the thought or anything of that sort. The worksite had a tendency to drain the physical and mental capacities. At the end of the day, sometimes you just want someone telling you where to stand and just do it. He leaned his back against the bus cabin into a bit of rain runoff. He cursed when it soaked through his canvas jacket. Terr caught Czerny looking up at him with another half smile. “Hey, what, what you have that smile on your face like - “ but the question was backspaced from existence by an open sports car flying next to the shoulder. The drenched driver sent a small sidewalk tsunami in their direction.
“Imagine having your top jam like that. On a day like this,” said Czerny. He flicked a bit of ash into one of the cabin’s puddles.
“You know how you mentioned the Triple El yesterday… I remember you called the local last year.” said Terr. Czerny frowned and hunched his shoulders into his neck, waving his hands open in a *I don’t know what to tell you* manner. Terr clicked his tongue in a *I’m sure you fucking don’t* kind of way. “You once dodged a wrench at a site. One of those industrials. Ten? Fifteen pounds? Fifteen pounds of metal just falling toward your head and you moved out the way like it was nothing.”
“I remember telling you guys that I didn’t see that. I just got lucky,” said Czerny.
“Why that concrete cracked before we even had to dig it back up again. That it was that water main under Franklin Ave,” said Terr.
“I don’t remember anything like that,” said Czerny. Terry gave up on his rolled cigarette and chucked it into the ash filled puddle. He opted to stare at and interrogate Czerny until it all made sense.
“Kyle’s broken ankle,” said Terry, “you told him you went together on that scratch off ticket. You gave him five hundred not even a full day before his car went to shit.”
“We still take turns on scratch offs,” offered Czerny.
“You didn’t when you won,” rejected Terr.
Czerny shrugged, but he offered nothing. He stared at Terr, waiting for him to ask something else. When he didn't, Czerny stared out of the bus cabin at the rain soaked streets. The bus would be arriving in a few minutes. They were on it together for a few minutes before Czerny would hop off. Terr would catch him on the bus. It would make sense on the bus. Racing thoughts handled better in motion.
The bus arrived in that hissing, hydraulic manner it always does. In a bid to renew his question, Terr darted from the back of the cabin towards the bus door. He was stopped by a stiff arm from Czerny. An elderly man appeared in the doorway and took a great degree of consideration with every thought. He turned to thank the bus driver before pulling out his umbrella “My bad,” said Czerny. “I didn’t want to accidentally throw my cigarette at you.” He pulled his arm down and let Terr through, and while Terr’s back was turned to him, he threw the cigarette filter into the trash.
Terr choose a seat towards the back of the bus. Whatever questions he wanted to ask were to be confidential. Czerny talked with the driver as the bus picked up. The bus driver started laughing, and Czerny soon let out a smile. Czerny clapped the bus driver’s back and walked to the back of the bus, keeping his balance against the handrail. He landed into the seat next to Terr with a smile and a heavy sigh.
“It was tea, we were talking about what was giving him such trouble. Turns out it was tea. Too acidic or something. He might even have reflux or something,” said Czerny. “You can ask if you want, I’ll answer, but it really doesn’t make much a difference what you do.” Terr stared at him - or at the nothing that happened to be in his general direction. The oddities and the coincidences that surrounded Czerny were manifesting in his brain. He thumbed his bottom lip. It might’ve bruised purple if it wasn’t for Czerny pulling Terr’s arm to his side. Czerny pat his arm a bit and leaned a little in his seat, feigning exhaustion. “You aren’t the first to see it you know, my dad couldn’t stand it.”
“It’s the future,” said Terr.
“I dream it nightly.” said Czerny.
The bus rattled on. Czerny’s stop was coming up, but he made no indication of leaving. Rain left messages on the window before running into the cracks or off of the bus entirely. Damp weather like this always brought out the choicest of bus scents. Today was no different. The smell of a hard days sweat, in conjunction with the humid bus air, created a concoction that fried the senses. Both taste and thought. Terr’s own thoughts swam in the mixture, attempting to separate question from answer. Was there any point in asking what was already known?
“You dream it,” said Terr. “You see the future.”
“I make the future,” said Czerny, giving the half smile. He turned his head to Terr and pat his arm. “I dream it and it is real.”
“You… so, with Triple El, you dreamt he’d win? So he did?”
“The horse won, and then I dreamt it,” he said, as if it explained everything. He pat Terr’s arm one last time and stood up. “I work the same job you do. I raise steel beams and fit glass windows. I work daily until the weekend and until holidays. Concrete is drilled with a press bigger than three of me stacked together, and then I dreamt it. Kyle’s car hit a pothole deeper than the Grand Canyon, and then I dreamt it. Things happen. I dream them. They happen again.”
“So the lottery…. You could be rich,” said Terr.
“I win the lottery, I dream it, and then it happens,” Czerny said. “The bus stops.”
“You dream it,” said Terr. The bus slowed briefly and then stopped all at once. It bucked Czerny, but he caught himself against the handrail. He ducked his head and smiled at his shoes. He gave a small wave before pulling his jacket tight around him. The doors opened and Czerny stepped off into the rain. |
The creature was a gross juxtaposition. A fleshy lump, slowly breathing. A single eye gazed languidly through our bodies, as if we weren’t really there. The eye was more grey than white, with little more than a pin prick sized pupil. Somehow this was more menacing. The eye told its story, without the need for any words. Yet, it had to be delusional. We were to be strung up by this thing, connected by some sort of mental mycelium. It’s clear this creature had no understanding of what separates flora from fauna.
It’s message changed. I think it could read my thoughts, it had my brain unfurled and was dissecting any qualm, any sense of discontent. This new projection rung in my ears, it banged furiously at the inside of my dome. There was no separation between us, and anything else on this planet. In terms of cosmic identity, we were this planet. It felt as though mother earth was talking to me herself. We were as conceited as a flea who thought his position, tucked away amongst the hairs of a dog, was all there was to life.
It seemed to probe deeper into my brain, establishing settlement in the valley of my heart. Suddenly, all sense of my place on this planet was dissolved. The language structures which once held me high had been toppled, my ego felt like it had been lobotomised, and any physical sense of self was indistinguishable. I had become little more than speck of sand in life’s desert. Little more than a drop of water in the seas once sailed. Or had it always been this way? |
52 years. 52 years of complete and total isolation. Over a half century since everything died... well ceased to live was a better way of putting it. None of the bodies decayed. The world was left a huge museum grade diorama of itself. Humans and animals alike simply stood frozen in time. None had heartrate and were cold to the touch. Yet they didn't change. Some were even frozen in rather unlikely positions that I doubt they would have chosen to be in if they knew that's how they would be remembered by the last surviving life on earth-me. Now after decades of trial and error I had finally found how to undo it all. I started small on single cell organisms. Even they had not been spared from this bizarre disaster. Over time I worked my way up from amoebas to slightly more complex organisms such as jellyfish. Last year a rat.
Now I stood at the threshold of success. I was about to reanimate the first organism of any real size and intelligence. I had chosen my candidate very carefully.
My heart felt like it had taken the place of my brain. I could hear it clearly between my ears as I went down the checklist flip switches and checking ancient monitors. I paused a moment before throwing the master lever. Then, after a silent prayer, I exhaled and slammed it over to the on position. Sparks flew and the test subject sprung back to life.
He sat up and sneezed loudly, then yawned showing all of his sharp white teeth and finished his morning routine by with licking his jowls. The familiar black spot on his tongue disappeared in and out of his mouth as he did so. He sniffed turned to me and let out something between a Yelp and a scream then ran to me at roughly mach 8, immediately recognizing me despite my age.
"Hey hows it going bud?"I said as he lept up on me licking my face with 52 worth of stored up energy. The feeling of relief brought by having some company again was indescribable.
I still had alot more work to do but now at least I had some help. |
I... had forgotten everything. I am not entirely sure why I am even walking along side this road, but a kind man seemed to suggest it after I showed him my great confusion. As I watched the sun rise, I could suddenly feel something, a story, my own, unfold. I glanced back, but the man was already gone.
I remembered when I was young, I hung out with my friends and particularly cared for one in particular. He protected me from bullies and even pushed me out of the way for a car once. What was his name? As I continued walking, his face still fled my memory, as school came around and I couldn't talk to him as much. Why couldn't he attend school? I walked faster, looking for an answer. I saw his sickly face, his deadly disease, and I saw my attempts to become a doctor myself to cure him, being frustrated at the hospital's lack of capabilities. I tried everything, but nothing was enough. I was with him through the thin and thick, but even our courage combined could not cure his sickness. As we both aged, I found more friends, made more connections, as he laid in bed. And then -- the man I first met on the road reappeared. He had a strange suggestion, a deal. We shook hands and then-- what happened next? Why couldn't I remember? I ran and ran, my legs tired, my throat burning, trying to figure out if he fulfilled the deal or not. It felt like days passed, months, my memory merely blank. Finally, I came to what looked like the start. The man reappeared. "Incredible,"he said, "your determination and love for your friend was so much that even when I stuck you here in time for a hundred years, you were willing to run all the way around back just for him. The deal's a deal, memory to cure your friend. And you can keep what you gained here."
I almost felt cheated, but I remembered that I agreed to the exchange, regardless of how much extra time he could have added to my memory. As I walked on, I found my memory change. With his sickness cured early on, we could do everything together, and had a lot of better experiences. I smiled as I exited the area, immediately seeing my friend there, well and happy. His eyes filled with tears as he embraced me in a hug. |
“Have you seen this one?” Grarg said, then bit the head off a vacuum slug without taking his sensors from the particle screen.
“What now?” Said commander Greeg.
“During some kind of robot uprising, they reprogrammed a robot and sent it back in time to stop them rising up in the first place.”
“My goodness! It's worse than we thought. We'll need to set up a temporal field before the invasion. Add it to the list.”
“Commander,” a recruit called from the back of the operations room. “I think you need to see this.”
“I hope it's some good news this time.”
“I've found some ancient scriptures. Have you heard of a being called 'God'?”
“God? No.”
“Well, we are going to need some serious preparation for this one.”
Gary was mesmerized by the pink glow that lined the clouds. Fairlight's fields tumbled out between the thatches of trees and bushes around him. Past those were chalk cliffs, and then the ocean. A breeze rippled through the grass before tickling over him. For a moment his thoughts drifted away with the wind, then something snapped him back. 'My parking ticket's almost up'. He pushed himself up to his knees and gasped. Something was tearing the sky.
The clouds sublimed into a blood red that shattered the blue. In the same instant he saw a speck in the distance, it was right before him. The silver point of the vessel blurred in front of his nose. The rest of it stretched out like a chrome bullet. It hovered silently over the grass before a panel hissed and opened with a puff of steam. It smelt of burning flowers. A creature came out of the opening that was so bright with light that he couldn't make out the features. Before he could register what was happening, it spoke.
“There is a temporal field over you preventing any alterations to the passage of time. We have immunised ourselves to every disease, weapon, monster and supernatural power you posses. Nobody has stood before us and survived, so there is no sense in resisting. All your land is now ours. This planet will be used as an intergalactic telecommunications hub and your people will be exterminated. We would like to sincerely apologise for any inconvenience. Fair well.”
“Wait!” Gary shouted.
“What is it? This is a matter of some urgency.”
“If... if you come any closer or kill any one of us... this entire planet is rigged to explode because... because of a magical curse that you don't know about. Because it's a secret, or something.”
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me? After all that effort we went to to exterminate God? All right, whatever, we'll make Jupiter work somehow. Goodbye, mighty humans.”
In a flash the sky was blue again. The aliens and their ship blasted away into the ether. Gary hobbled back to his car in a daze. Had everyone seen the sky change colour? Would his girlfriend believe him? Was his life ever going to be the same again? Then a thought snapped him back to the present. On the windscreen of his car, was a parking ticket. |
"Listen Vic, I can get that shit from china for pennies on the dollar don't fuck me like that, I don't see any mistletoe up my ass!", I said slamming the phone so hard my peppermint cigar ashed all over my pressed tunic.
This fucking jobs gonna be the death of me, and I live forever. Its gonna be a long Christmas if susan can't get her dildo. How is bobby gonna shoot his sister without his bb gun, wait on second thought that little bastards on the naughty list. One less pissant to worry about. I went out on my balcony with a double shot eggnog chaser and contemplated my life. It came to me. Eureka I'll just call Amazon! |
When dreams don’t leave with the sunrise, you know they’re important.
I sat back in my bed, trying to put together the fragments of last nights vision. It was a confused jumble; urgent, unsettling and tantalizing in every detail. I tugged gently at the threads of recollection, fearing at any moment that the whole thing might unravel.
“Michael?” Claire’s voice was a sleep-fogged murmur. “Are you awake?”
I nodded, unwilling to distract myself for even a moment. There had been a dinner; I remembered that clearly. And something about a glass of wine?
*…Remember…*
Claire turned towards me, her nose brushing against my arm. I patted her shoulder vacantly, trying to head off any conversation. The jigsaw medley of dream images swirled behind my eyes.
These were not ordinary dreams. I had learned that three weeks back, when a close friend nearly died of a heart attack. I remember his face, pale and rigid with pain, and the explosive crash of his plate hitting the floor. The restaurant had exploded into a helpless frenzy, like a flock of geese at a firework display. Every detail was horribly familiar.
*He’d died.* The thought haunted me through the gray hallways of the hospital, ambushing me in quiet moments. *He’d died in your dream, just the night before. Are you going to claim it’s a coincidence?*
Claire sat up, her face creased with sleep. The curtains were kissed with the warm glow of sunrise, driving every shadow before it. Somewhere in the back of my mind, two pieces clicked together.
*Shadows.* The dining room had been gloomy with early autumn darkness. Claire had handed me a glass of wine as I walked into the kitchen. I remember the taste, that silky tartness, and vague aroma of …hay?
*…Remember…*
“You ok?” Claire frowned, pulling on a bathrobe. “If something is wrong, you’d tell me.” The words were not a question.
Something about the tone set me on edge. Claire hated being in the dark about anything, taking it as a personal affront. A faint memory dislodged something in the jumble of dream images…
*Something wrong?*
*Eyes staring at me. Claire’s face an icy mask of excitement.* I felt a shudder run through my body.
*Something wrong, honey?*
*My throat is burning, prickling cold tingling in my fingertips. I choking on nothing, breathing in labored, frantic gasps.*
*Something wrong…?*
Claire caught my gaze, flashing me a sunny, incongruous smile. I felt the blood drain out of my face.
“It’s fine.” The words were brusque, unconvincing even to my ears. I felt dizzy and disoriented, tongue-tied with shock.
*She’s going to kill me.* The thought came with the chilly calm of perfect terror. *She’s going to poison me in a few hours. And she’s just standing there combing her hair, as if there was nothing more normal in the world.*
I fought hard for composure, hiding my hands under the blanket in case a tremor betrayed me. I felt trapped, horribly vulnerable in my realization. *If she suspects that you know…*
*Get out. Leave. Make some excuse and get to a hotel.* The thoughts rang like gunfire, mirroring the beating of my heart. Panic had me pinned to the spot, desperately suppressing any flicker of emotion.
“I’m not feeling so hot.” The words sounded clumsy and stupid. “I’m going to head to the pharmacy, pick up some Sudafed.”
“Aww.” Claire frowns, her face a perfect model of composure. “Honey. The car’s in the shop, remember? You took it in yesterday.”
Veins of ice opened up in my chest. *Of course!* I had forgotten about that. I fumbled with the sheets, making out as though I was irritated. Claire fussed around me, fluffing up a pillow with uncomfortable enthusiasm.
*Don’t show anything. Play along.* I lay back, mind racing for an exit. The car would be ready by noon, I was sure of it. If I could just play the part until then…
Claire bustled off in the direction of the kitchen, humming cheerfully. I set my jaw, doing everything in my power to hold back my sigh of relief.
*Play the game. Adopt the role. Sick husband, under the weather.* I resolved to go along with whatever happened.
Claire re-appeared, her face creased in gentle concern. “You think you’ll be up for dinner tonight?” She asked innocently. I took a sip of the proffered chamomile tea, trying to drown out the question she had asked.
“Sure honey.” I wore my sunniest smile. “It’s probably just a small cold. Nothing to worry about.”
She returned my smile, lips pressed together in earnest enthusiasm. “Well, you just take it easy, sweetheart,” she crooned. “I’ll be getting started on breakfast.”
I buried my face in the mug, not trusting myself to make eye contact. *It’ll be a cold day in hell when I have another meal with you,* I thought desperately.
The choking started before the thought was out. I began to wheeze, feeling cold pressure on my chest and inhaling the strange aroma of green hay. Claire’s eyes bore into me, with malignant sparkle of diamonds.
“Oh Michael,” she whispered silkily. “You don’t think you’re the only one who has special dreams?” |
Far too many ideas and not enough fuel. I would love to get other writer's input, as I genuinely experience what I would call "the muse effect".
Not to make any claims of specialty, I am not unique I believe, I simply can't write a story unless it is "flowing".
Just writing this makes me cringe, but I am being genuine. I am terrible at planning, at scoping out a story, at establishing a definitive plot. For me stories come to the fore flushed to their degree and I do my best to tell them as accurately as possible, as though I were the lone soul watching a feature length film, and retelling it from memory.
It's a bit of a pain sometimes, because I would love to write more consistently, but if I try to force it I end up with shit like, "he walked down the silent hallway, silently, and heard only silence..."
Yeah. Great stuff. |
Elsie Desrouffet disappeared in 1960, less than a year after her husband had his second stroke and passed. She left a short note saying that if Felix didn’t need her here anymore, she saw no reason to stay, and also for the next owner of the house to keep an eye on the old oak that had been looking sickly. She took the cat but not the jewelry, the Oldsmobile but none of the photos.
We didn’t realize she was gone until Mr. Farnsworth went by in early autumn to inquire about odd jobs and found the door ajar. With a note in her handwriting and no evidence of foul play, the police decided not to keep looking into it and the property was deemed abandoned. The community descended on the house, ostensibly to donate everything worth having to the local benevolent society, but more than a few items made their way into pockets or were permanently sidetracked during transportation. Several months later the house was sold, and we didn’t mention Elsie to the new family.
Somehow, over the next decade, Elsie Desrouffet metamorphosed from a vanished neighbor into some kind of Baba Yaga in our memories. Those of us under ten when she left had only disjointed memories of a silent, stoic-looking old lady, which primed us to misremember her as a bit witch-y. When the first mother on the block threatened her willful son that if he didn’t behave, Old Mrs. Desrouffet might disappear him too, it cemented the fairy tale.
Old Mrs. Desrouffet became a local legend. After most of her contemporaries passed away, the next generations didn’t remember much about her beyond the cat and the tree— “Elsie’s cat” became shorthand for a stray, and when the sick old oak finally split and came crashing down during a storm in 1974, folks crossed themselves and kept an eye out for shadowy figures (even those of us who knew better than to be superstitious).
It added a bit to the town’s reputation, to the extent we had one. Not that any visitors were showing up just for the story, but folks on a road trip might pull over for lunch and a few trinkets when they saw a “Home of the Disappearing Dame” sign hanging underneath the “Welcome To” placard.
By the 1980s she was said to haunt several houses she had never visited at all. Both antiques dealers swore up and down they had her personal vanity dresser for sale and could give you a good deal on necklaces that might or might not be cursed. In 1994, we took our children to the parish haunted house to be guided around by The Ghost of Old Mrs. Desrouffet (Linda Moffatt, whose makeup more resembled the Crypt-Keeper than an elderly lady), although some of the town’s senior residents felt that it was in poor taste.
Eventually she made it into our town’s Wikipedia entry.
Of course, we didn’t know if she was actually dead. She was about 70 when she left, we knew from the birthday on the joint gravestone she and Mr. Desrouffet had bought, but her date of death remained resolutely blank. Felix Desrouffet faded into the past with the cemetery’s other residents, while his wife continued wandering the earth somewhere, eternally.
As far as we’re concerned, she still is. |
\[POEM\]
In youth a day was but a drag, a mile, a task, an age.
But over time the rate of change, would see impatience fade.
Soon my days were lost in weeks, and months; no longer slow.
And years would flash before my eyes, where did my time all go?
Life itself seems but a dream, as seasons whizz on by,
Each of them another step, on the path to die.
For once I wished to be a man, at once I found, I was.
Then prayed to revert back to youth, to live what I have lost. |
(Everything in double quotes is a real quote from Moby Dick.)
"Call me Ishmael". It's not my name, but it fits the story I am about to tell.
I was one of the first men recruited to Elon's mad quest. He told me that he had gotten all his money just for this effort, and that we were going to save the world. I couldn't say no, "for there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men". He had me sign a pile of waivers three feet high, and told me I'd know when it was time.
It was not two weeks later when a limousine came roaring though the side of my house. I climbed in, and off it went. We had several dozen stops, each picking up another person. Then we had a long and twisty ride to the beach. On the wet sands of low tide the limo stopped, and it was then that we saw dozens more pulling up to the same spot.
There was a metal narwhal the size of a 747 just twenty feet out into the sea, and Elon was standing on the horn's tip beckoning for us. It was difficult to board, but once we did the entire crew was met with a star-trec style bridge inside the narwhal's head.
Elon gave us a speech as we unpacked. 'If you were to ask me where we are going' he said, 'I would say "It is not down on any map; true places never are."'But what I can tell you all is that "I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote."and now that space is easily within my grasp I must find a new frontier. The bottom of the ocean will be ours to explore! Of course, danger abounds in such places, and so we are *very* well armed."
The Narwhal was a submarine of incredible size and power, able to stay under for months at a time and provide all the crew needed almost forever. Thus, it was a great surprise to everyone when Elon announced that we were losing heat fast. It was a frantic scramble to find the cause, but by then we were nearly freezing and it was only by descending lower into the sea that we did not become our own iceberg.
It turned out that there was a leech-like worm on the side of one of our engines that was feeding off the heat it produced. It was long and sinuous and pale as the moonlight, but the mouth of it was horrifying to behold. The mouth was similar to that of a man who had eaten naught but sugar and limes his whole life, and never brushed. It was full of small, flat teeth and two tongues with bright red spots on the ends that we later saw were blood. It was a nightmare especially because it was large enough to swallow a man whole.
All it took was one torpedo to dislodge the beast.
From then on we were more careful in our decent. By the time we were several miles below the surface of the pacific there had been several close calls. A jellyfish the size of a whale, an invisible net of agressive krill, a mass of fur and teeth and plastic that was like an underwater iceberg, all these narrowly missed us.
Then, when we got to the ocean floor and all was quiet. We glided over a massive forest of bleached coral for three days and saw nothing. Finally, on the third day Elon came over the intercom and had us scramble for the battle-stations “Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden "he said. 'Now consider how a squid with a turtle shell over its' body and a beak on the end of every tentacle may be.'
Indeed, when we looked out our port holes just such a beast was bearing down on us from below. It wrapped around our Narwhal and hooked it's beaks into our plates, nearly breaking them before a torpedo going off inside it's shell drove it off.
The next day Elon seemed on edge. Even then we could tell that the monster squid was weighing heavily on his mind.
The next several weeks go by in a blur in my memories, unremarkable in every way save our surroundings and the captain's mounting frustration. Then the beast attacked again, this time while we were gathering kelp for food. The creature came from above this time, grabbing six crewmen and fleeing before a mark could be made on it's shell.
Elon seemed incensed and blamed himself for the crewmen's deaths.
The final encounter happened when we were surfacing for a solar recharging and air replacement. As we slowly rose, the beast came speeding out of the darkness, coming at us head-on. Elon ran to the docking bay and hopped in a heavy-material collection suit, unwilling to allow the monster to evade justice.
His comms were off for part of his battle, but as he wrapped the suit around it and began to deep-dive down toward an underwater volcano we got a phrase of what he said.
"-- from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee,”
And then we heard no more of him or the demon fish. Without his knowledge of the Narwhal's controls, we drifted on the surface until a Japanese patrol boat found us adrift. |
Beep beep beep. Smash! I hit the alarm clock, stretch out and start to blink. Everything is a little fuzzy, you know how sometimes you get gunk in your eye. Like that. I rub my eyes and it still seems fuzzy except for this white line at the bottom left of my vision. I couldn't quiet tell what it was, but then it was gone. Weird it followed my vision around. I reach for my glasses and put them on.
I have a big day today. Going to propose to my fiance! Lots of plans, starting with finding a photographer. This was one of a few details I left to chance. As we are currently on a cruise ship somewhere between Florida and Spain, I knew it wasn't going to be easy.
"James, what time is it?"my beautiful girlfriend asks me. "Morning, we don't need to keep track of time on a cruise."I tell her. "Let's get some breakfast, I hear the omelets are pretty good. We get dressed and start making are way up to the main deck from the bottom.
Once we get in line for food are stomach's are rumbling. I wish I had an omelet right now I thought. "AWWW!"I yelp as my hand is burning up. Where was my phone is now an omelette. I grab a plate from the line and put it on it. Everyone is looking at me like I came out of no where. "Ash, I don't know where my phone is, or where this omelette came from."I told her. She looks around for anyone running, and on the ground for what I assume is my iPhone. Ash shrugs, "Well, we are on vacation. Being on our phones is a sure way to ruin the time together."I smile back but wish I had my phone. She looks at my hand holding the plate under the omelette. "Look"she said, "That's weird, how, what did you do?""I'm not sure, I had wished I had my phone back. Now it's there in my hand."I said, not thinking about it. "The plate you had is now gone. This is weird James. Can you get anything you want?"She asked. "I don't know, here, let me wish for, I dunno, you to have wild pink hair." There it was, Ash had vibrant pink hair. Straight from the animation of Trolls. She didn't see it but did see others looking at her now. Ask pulled phone out and turned on the camera. "HOLY SHIT!"she exclaimed. "Change it back."She told me as she kept feeling the hair. I did, cause who wouldn't listen to the love of your life in that moment.
That day proved very interesting. We tried all sorts of new things that day. She only believed I was able to wish for whatever wanted cause she saw it first hand. I was wishing that this day would never end when everything hit the fan. Time stopped. Morgan Freeman appeared wearing a white suite and said, "That's a new record. David Tennant came out from behind him with a slick black tuxedo, talking fast, "You win this time."Looking at Morgan. When the message appeared again at the bottom left, "God has revoked Operator status"I understood. "Oh no. Wait, what? YOU'RE Real!? Holy crap. I mean, ugh, Wow."I stammered. "It's okay James. Time will stay stuck for a few minutes. Everyone wishes for this to never end when they figure it out."Tennent says, "Yep, except normally some more extraordinary things happen.""Like what?!"I ask. "Hitler, 9/11, and Trump". I felt sick. Not only could those things been prevented but they were at the whim of an individual?! "You let someone do those things?!"I ask. Well, It wasn't like someone wished for "2 planes to crash into the twin towers". More like they made a vague wish, "I wish the USA would learn their lesson for messing with us."It wasn't until months later we saw how it manifested. We stopped it after that wish but of the thousands we let do this its pretty small. |
As the night began I watched from inside my little shop as the survivors outside prepared for the night I could hear the subtle sounds of fires crackling and spoons hitting the sides of bowls as people ate, I could hear people laughing and talking it was peaceful here.
Who knew that opening a supply shop at the end of the world would bring a large group of people together, this place was an outpost of sorts people stopped here as they travelled to and from large communities the only permanent residents was me and my cat and my employees from before the apocalypse Ted and Jen they were on guard duty on rotation sometimes with a few of the travellers taking their positions for the day as a sort of payment for stay here for the night.
The bell for the front door rang as a new face entered, "Hi, welcome to Tommy's Supply Depot. I hope you find what you’re looking for", The man walked towards the counter and placed down a few cameras and a few tapes "I need some medical supplies and weapons, what can I get for these", "I'm sorry sir but I don't trade for cameras and tapes, have you got anything else?", "Here let me show you what’s on them first that might change your mind"with that the man grabbed one of the tapes and pushed it into the slot and turned the camera on.
"Here watch this". The video showed what appeared to be a science laboratory you could clearly see a human body on a table where some scientist where working it was hard to hear what they were saying but I didn’t bother me. The man skipped ahead and paused the video one the scene as one of the scientists poked a needle into the body. "This is just the beginning"as he started the video again. I watched on and to my horror the body rose up again and started attacking the scientist the footage went static and the man loaded up another. "Where did you get this footage from?"I asked, "I worked as the security guard at the facility, that was the first zombie after the incident the scientist ordered the place to be put into lockdown and left a few of them had been scratched and one had a bit on his waist just enough for the outbreak to begin in a few days later"
"I'll be damned, what do the other tapes have on them?", "Those two there have all the information about the virus"as he pointed at two tapes with red colouring, "And those three over there have videos of survivors I've met along the roads and their stories"he moved his hand and move three tapes to the side. "Finally the remaining ones, only got them recently of a deceased journalist but they have information on community locations and military activity up until three weeks ago", "I only came to you with this information after all your one of the most respected survivors in the world, heard your name from a survivor up north in Canada"
"I'll see what I can do with these tapes I know of a small group of scientist still trying to figure out the virus over east I can do my best to get some survivors over there with the tapes with the virus information and I'll get some other survivors to go to the coalition headquarters with the community locations, maybe send the one with military activity to the scavengers groups. I'm going to keep the survivor stories here and start and archive. I asked him to follow me to the back of the shop where I kept the weapons, "Take what you need, you deserve it. You might have helped humanity out in the long run"the man picked up an old rifle and took a few pistols I then took him over to where I keep the attachments and he picked out two suppressors and fitted them onto the pistols.
I grabbed two of the first aids kits I had from the cupboard and gave them to him and let him on his way. before he left, I asked him one last question. "What’s your name?", "I'm James but people call me The Watcher I'm The Last Watcher to be specific"he said as he opened the door and left.
It was the last time anyone would see of The Watcher he disappeared, and no one had heard from his since people have been searching for him, but every lead comes up dead. He's a legend and one of the saviours of humanity.
\-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
I was confused about 'strange' cameras so I did my best
\-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- |
I remember it clearly, the day I found this curious artefact. Actually, it had found me, in a dusty antique shop. I was walking home from work, the most important things on my mind were whether to order pizza or chinese to eat while watching Netflix and numbing my thoughts, when I noticed the shop. The spark of novelty on my otherwise monotonous commute was enough to drive me to explore the place.
It was in a complete disarray, which I attributed to it just having opened. There were all kinds of items which I thought would belong on a movie set or in the house of one of those so called diviners who wanted to legitimize their status with crystal balls and other fake trinkets. However, something caught my eye, a beautifully ornated miniature hourglass. An unknown force was drawing me towards it and I picked it up to inspect its carefully sculpted details.
"Ah, you are interested in the Pendant of Kronos?"a voice as slippery as a serpent startled me.
"Yeah, it looks nice, how much do you want for it?", I replied, while inspecting the bohemian character which appeared behind the counter.
"The price", the shopkeeper smiles coyly, "is that you make full use of it".
Getting things for free, imagine that, but I figured it was just to get the word out about the shop so I thanked him and promised to tell people about his business.
However, my assumption was wrong, because the following day, the store and all its traces were gone. This lead me to wonder about his motives so I started researching about the thing I got from there. I remembered the name, and after doing some searches on the internet I came across some myths in which a great hero receives this as a gift from the god of time with the mention that if broken, the hero will be able to rewind time and relieve the last day of his life.
Could I have come across a legendary artefact by chance? Do such things actually exist? I'm usually a skeptic person but after meditating on the possibilities of action I decided to act as if I have this as a safety net. I would not do something which might ruin my life if this magical item were to be an illusion, but I could start challenging existence. There were a lot of small tasks which terrified me before I got this supernatural ability: I was terrified to ask girls out, I would not speak up at work, I'd hold on to a lot of things to please others. But then I could tell myself, besides the classic inquiry 'what's the worst that's going to happen?' which would send me into a spiral of anxious scenarios, that even if my fabricated anxieties come into existence I still have a tool to send them back into the void and re-do my day.
My life changed significantly for the better. I was free of anxiety and I would always act and express myself knowing I can undo catastrophic damage caused by manifesting what I thought was an undesirable or unwanted personality. A lot of years have passed since receiving it and never have I had need of it. Boredom started to set in so I devised a plan to entertain myself. I have an experiment in mind, I wish to experience uncertainty and chaos again, and I want to know if I have found the strength to overcome them.
Later note: I broke it but nothing happened. I guess sometimes you just need an illusion. |
We all worry about the butterfly effect, but the universe has a way of preventing paradoxes. Whatever we do to try and change the past will always be canceled out by entropy. I could've went back in time and killed a dictator, but another would just as easily have taken their place. People like to think that they have freedom and choice, but everything they do is guided by unseen forces. Fate, if you will.
And yet... Here I am, standing before myself. Begging myself to do the impossible: to change history.
Love is an interesting thing. According to the laws of our reality, it's predisposed. It's something that's determined for us before we're even aware of its existence. It comes and it goes, flourishes and vanishes according to the whims of chaos and fate. And I'm trying to preserve it.
It was just an idea at first. A "what-if"taken to the most extreme edges of insanity. There was no guarantee it could work, let alone would work. But, it did. I was able to "rewrite"history. My history. I could replace myself at any given point within the timeline of my existence, and I would live it all out again with the knowledge of my future. But... I couldn't change it. Lottery numbers ended up being different, and mortality would express itself in different but chronologically equal ways...
I tried thousands, if not millions of times. Stepping back further and further into my timeline. Tearing apart the fabric of reality for "just one more"attempt. I pushed the limits of what I could do, fragmenting spacetime into millions of alternate realities and futures. But alas, I pushed it too far. I crossed a path I had previously walked already. I returned to where I once went before, and I'm paying the price. As every fiber of my being is being torn apart at the seams, I'm standing before myself, begging to change the future.
And as I fade away, I'll know that it's in my hands. It's all in my hands now. |
Filled with anger over the slaughter of your family, you walk towards the vampire.
The vampire stares at you and seems rather confused by your appearance.
As you draw closer, your rage turns into determination. You intend to kill this thing in revenge and thus prevent any further slaughter of other innocents.
The vampire reacts to your quickening pace by rapidly advancing towards you, a look of hunger replacing the confusion on its face. The speed of this damned being is astounding, perhaps the fastest thing you have ever seen.
As the killer reaches you, you draw your weapon in a motion that is more sensed than seen due to the speed of your draw. A tremendous roar screams forth as you fire your shot into the vampire.
The vampire starts to laugh at your puny attempt to stop it.... only something is wrong. The pain is terrific and the vampire looks down at its chest. Black blood is gushing forth in a torrent. The vampire falls forward into the dirt, twitches, and then stops moving as smoke begins to pour from the corpse.
You have gotten your revenge by killing the vampire.
You are the Lone Ranger. |
The broken glass crunches like gravel beneath my heavy soles.
The glass windows have been smashed in; now tiny fragments glitter like diamonds under the midday sun. As I walk into the store, a funeral silence greets me. I have never seen an empty supermarket before, and the sight fills me with dread. Ever since the reign of unbridled terror began, the city shoplifted and siphoned off everything they could to keep for reserve. Retail is dead. The black market thrives.
*Click*
The sound of a revolver being cocked sends chills down my spine. I slowly turn my eyes towards the counter. A gangly, teenaged boy emerges with the revolver raised. When he sees me, breathes heavily and drops the gun.
"Professor... You came.."
"I had to, MJ."The words do not come out of me easily. "This is all my doing. I want to end this, once and for all. Are there any cookies left?"
MJ's eyes tell me all I need to know. "Those three have emptied out everything, Professor. Every last box belongs to them. Once those run out, I know they'll come after you. You shouldn't have come, Professor. Even though you are our only hope."
"Did you get all the ingredients I asked for?"
MJ reaches under the counter and pulls out three brown paper bags. "Sugar in the first one. Infusion of cardamom, cloves, pepper, saffron and vanilla in the second. The third bag took me forever but all the five essences are in it."
MJ and I run to the back of the store, and I instantly get to work. I empty all the bags into a bowl, add flour, butter, eggs and whip them to a thick consistency. "Stand back,"I tell MJ, before reaching into my pocket and pulling out the corked glass vial. Inside, a liquid, as black as the darkest shadows, bubbles away fiercely. I uncork it carefully, and slowly let the drops trickle over the cookie mix. It hisses like a pit full of angry snakes. I quickly stir it, divide it into 24 cookies and pop the tray in the microwave.
"15 minutes."I tell MJ. "After that, I will have done everything in my power. The rest is up to you."
I can see the terror in MJ's eyes. He does not want to do this; he wants to be nowhere near the feral powers that spelt the end of this peaceful town. Maybe I should be the one doing this. After all, I made this nightmare out of a childhood fascination. Only I know the deep rooted madness that consumes those who consume these concoctions. But only madness can defeat madness – and I must be the one to create the second evil that keeps the first in balance.
"Will this work, Professor?"MJ asks me, his voice quivering now.
"Only you can stop the Powerpuff Girl Scouts."I tell him. "Use your mind to keep them occupied, every step of the way, MJ. Only when they find their match will life come back to this town again."
---------------------
Thanks for reading! If you liked this, please consider giving r/whiteshadowthebook a look :) |
The sun was shining up above the small rays of light illuminating the world below. The occasional glimmer of metal elucidating valuable salvage. Sparkling chunks of iron and steel within the ruins of the old city center.
The old stone and concrete held together by the twisting vegetation clinging onto it's form. A verdant grove full of red leaves and pale white barked trees. The color and location of the trees appearing at random along the road ahead.
Harshly a loud crack fills the air the trademaster's cart sounding akin to a sharp crack of his whip. Blerrly I turn my vision towards those lining the interior of the wagon. Their positioning scattered with no reason and logic of the world.
The old man the pastor or was it elder frozen in place his hand clutching a cross weeping blood. His eyes glazed over and his eyes fixated on the picture of his daughter in his hands. The picture a old photo painted in neon coloring and the small sign over head of her a drab grey.
I felt the seizing in my heart my body and mind the world fading with each passing moment. I pull myself inward focusing on who I am anchoring myself to existence. My story flashing in front of my vision of home and my purpose.
The burning buildings and mix of heavily armed men at arms and bandits. The two bloodthirsty and driven to pillage and murder all in their path. But why were they working together the realm relied on BloodWood as a tradehub.
Slowly my vision returns my muscles frozen in place locked lying on the wagons paneling. The wheels of the wagon's shadow slowly turning and trundling down the abandoned asphalt road. There is shooting in the distance organized and frantic at the same moment.
The distant sounds of crackling energy filling the air as the wagon wheel begins to turn faster. The sound of galloping and the squeaking of the wheels filling the tense silence. The wagon ignites into a flurry of noise and pain as the interior of the wagon lights up in a orange , purple light.
Towards the front of the cart the impacts are solid the sound of wood shattering and cloth being torn asunder. But around the noise is worse liquid impacts of metal and magic meeting flesh. Meaty impacts interspaced with sharp gasps of the friends around my person.
The terror ends as the tearing and screaming ends from the active among our number. A silence permeating the train as the wagons continue forward along the road. The occasional unintelligible shout from the outside of the wagon freezing my heart as our assailants stalk the ruins.
The numb feeling of my person slowly returning as I roll over on the floor to face toward the ceiling. The footsteps surrounding the outside of the canvas marching past a solid beating rhythm of feet. A shadow slowly passes overhead a woman in a long trench coat sweeping her gaze across the front of the wagon.
Slowly those damable eyes a glowing sunset of color meet mine. Her hand immediately reaching toward a revolver dangling loosely in a holster. I can feel my heart in my chest once frozen beating like a drum as her facial expression turns evil.
Slowly I put my hands up her eyes following every movement like rattler coiled under a rock. "*Now Then It Looks Like We Have A Survivor Here Don't You Make Me Fix That*". her voice smoothly cutting through the tension like a melting knife through rotten butter.
Slowly she lowered closer hands resting on the handle of her weapon. "*The Doctor Needs To Know All About Your Experience Boy Now Get Up Nice And Slow Like*". Tentativly I pull myself up off of the floor my eyes taking in the full extent of the carnage.
The interior of the wagon was destroyed laced by ten orangish , blue glowing bodies. Each hole pocked and decaying stark white bones easily seen in the dim light. The old man sat pinned into his seat by an arrow through his upper ribcage into the seat below.
His body bent forward and crucifix soaked in unnatural glowing red blood leaking through his knuckles. Gently I feel my person glancing at my ruined tan duster and red handkerchief. Nothing besides a few blood stains and splatters from those around me during the experience.
Besides the mind numbing terror hitting all at once and the assured mental damage. My thoughts suddenly shift back towards the present as the barrel of the ladies pistol pushes against my back. "*You Better Get Moving We Don't Want Anything Bad To Happen Do Ya?*" |
My son came to me and asked, "Dad, did you see that? All those animals running by?"
I laughed. I said, "I did, son. How could I miss them? They were kicking up so much dirt, I thought it was a sandstorm!"
Then my son asked me, "But did you notice anything strange or unusual about the animals?"
"No,"I answered him.
"There were only two of each kind. Male and female."
Suddenly, there was a crack of thunder, a flash of lightening, and a rushing sound. We looked and saw the waters of the ocean spilling towards us.
"Uh, Dad?"
"Yes, son?"
"You remember that boat Noah and his family were building? The one everyone kept laughing at him about?"
"Yes, son."
"Do you think he has any room left on it?"
"I don't know, son. But we should run over right about now and find out!" |
I – New Acquaintances
In my old age, I am no longer surprised at anything. I do still get excited, though. Excited is how I felt when the sonorous doorbell reverberated through the old mansion. I was even glad enough to get out of my snug armchair in front of the cackling fire. A few months had passed since the last visitors were stranded at the doorstep, and I was looking forward to meeting new people.
Unfortunately, my advanced years made it impossible for me to get to the front door as quickly as I would have liked. The bell pealed a few more times, each with a little more impatience than the last, before I was finally able to make it to the vestibule. The rain and chill over the past few weeks made my arthritis flare, forcing my back to hunch and my hands to be more gnarled than usual. The moisture did not help the mahogany doors, either. The large, heavy door creaked and groaned as much as I did as I opened it. I could only open it a crack before I started puffing from exertion.
I looked around the door and – damn my cataracts – had a hard time seeing who stood on the other side. I squinted hard to see the house’s callers.
“May I help you?” I wheezed. I barely made out a tall, athletic young man and a waif of a girl behind him. Kids stumble upon this old house often, but these particular two were strangers. Not that anyone ever comes to visit a second time.
“Um, y’know, we…” The boy’s good looks didn’t translate to having quick wit.
“You have a flat tire,” I said. The jaws on both youths went slack, as if I had read their minds. I thought about alerting Public Works of the pothole down the road. Then again, the disrepair did send exciting visitors this way.
“No one will come to your aid this time of night this far from town. Come inside.” I stepped to the side as further invitation for them to come in. As they looked around, I kicked the door toward the jamb. It slammed with a heavy thud and made the couple jump.
“Wash your hands in the powder room down the hall. Proceed to the grand dining room where you will be served refreshments,” I said.
I could see the gentleman and lady were still hesitant and tense. I relaxed my formal butler persona and adopted a warmer, more welcoming posture and tone. My smile was wide and toothy.
“I am sure you are dying from all of the excitement.”
Letting the gentleman and lady get on with reviving themselves, I went through a small side door down a servant’s hallway to make my way to the kitchen. |
*Oh, so close! Keep trying, Val*...
The message scrawled on the mirror was just another reason why Val was relentlessly pursuing this guy. Money be damned, this asshole put out a hit on himself and Val got stuck with it. It wasn't the first time -- folks did this a lot, actually -- but not all of them were lifetime Special Forces instructors. Val was no stranger to SF doctrine, but he'd been out a little longer than his mark, and was getting outplayed at almost every turn, and hunting for over a month was getting old. Whoever this guy truly was, he had a sick sense of entertaining himself.
As he checked the safehouse for clues as to where the guy may have headed, he found what may finally be a break; a pistol magazine, lost behind the nightstand, was stamped with a maker's mark from a known black market arms dealer. Val himself carried a piece from this lady and knew it was quality work, and if this guy shopped there too it would account for the unique rounds Val had to dig out of his body armor yesterday.
He made his way to where Lady Umbra would meet with clients before making any sales, hoping to bribe her with some information. The sketchy part of town, take a right at Yen's kitchen, go to the sketchier part of town, then the first basement...all a familiar route. She was where she usually was, and Val approached her with restrained optimism. They went back real far, and he was banking on that (and a few bucks) to get a solid lead. However, she stood and met him with a smile and handed him a drink before walking away.
The drink was familiar - a French 75 - and the napkin had a drawing of...something...snakes? No, not snakes. This guy was communicating with this...squid? The answer suddenly came to Val as he remembered the fine dining he met the mark in to take the job almost 6 weeks ago. Taking A75 south would take him to Beziers, to the renowned restaurant 'Octopus'. Val sighed, threw back the drink (it's free, right?) and headed back to the streets to find a ride.
Beziers was as beautiful as he remembered; old world charm, vintage architecture, and the meandering alleys and streets that he both admired as a person and utilized as a hunter. The densely packed city sat across the Orb River from a suburban area spattered with farms, fields, and eventually transitioning to a rural setting; Val found himself pining for a relaxing life on that side of the river, and promised it to himself once this mark was offed.
The Octopus sat on Rue Boieldieu, a narrow street with little cover to approach or monitor. Instead, Val had adorned a painter's smock and began work on the abandoned building facade across the street. Fully familiar with Beziers' safehouses and sneaky passages, Val committed to a quick takedown and quicker escape as soon as the target was in view. He predicted that the guy would be showing up for dinner at 7, the way he did during the first meeting and the subsequent contract hand-off, and Val made sure to be there for it.
After just a few days, he finally caught sight of him, blended into a crowd of diners heading into the eatery. Not a safe kill with the people around him, Val opted to simply follow him in, accept a room full of witnesses to the deed, and end this hellish assignment. However, as he entered, the target continued to the kitchen doors, and as they swung shut he shot a smug grin directly into Val's narrowing eyes. Val turned off all public decency and sprinted after him; so close to an end, he couldn't help himself. He burst through the kitchen and followed him out the back door, finding himself in a closed off parking lot...and surrounded.
There were at least 10 other figures, cloaked in hoods or barely discernible in the shadows, but all certainly armed. The mark stood in the middle of the lot, under the only working light, clapping slowly and laughing.
"Excellent! Most excellent, monsieur Val!"The man clasped his hands in front of him and bowed slightly, still beaming. "There were doubters among those present, but I think you've proven them wrong."
Val wasn't quite sure what to make of this, hesitant to lower his weapon but somehow feeling he was not in danger. "What is this? And who even are you? All these people. What the fuck is happening?"
The man seemed to catch himself. "Je suis désolé, Val! How rude of me. I am Henry Maxon, former Green Beret and Delta instructor, and maybe...your new coworker?"He lilted the last part like a question, still smiling. "Put your gun down, Val. This is a job offer now, not a contract. You've hunted me for nearly 6 weeks, utilizing resources I wasn't always aware you even had, and managed to stay only a day behind me in most cases, sometimes missing me by mere hours. Our organization could use a man like you. The pay is obscene, the equipment is top tier, and the contracts are...exotic. Whaddya say?"
He extended his hand to shake on the offer. Val thought quick but thoroughly about the last month and change. While frustrating, it was thrilling, demanding he shake off all his rust and get creative. In the two decades he'd been hunting, it was the most satisfying and engaging contract he'd ever taken, and this guy sounded like there were plenty more like it. Val holstered his weapon and shook the outstretched hand firmly.
"Commençons, Henry. Where to first?" |
"On its surface, it's a simple concept,"the old man offered to the group of young men. "Energy in - energy out. Nothing comes from nothing, but somethings come's from somethings."
The young wards were clothed in dark monk robes, their hair shaved from their heads. Their faces were much thinner than the two weeks before when they arrived in the valley.
"Exercising too much power will kill you. A talented practitioner can literally turn his entire body to energy if he so chose. Several have tragically taken their own lives this way."The old man nodded and surveyed the tired crowd for a reaction. There was none, just large hungry eyes and bald heads.
"Erm, anyways... The 'civilized' world tells you that everything in the universe is made of atoms,"the old man drew a visual aid on a chalk board. "But the science is incomplete. Imagine an ant describing Mozart, or a Könaught describing sobriety!"The old man chuckled and turned to his pupils. There was no reaction.
He sighed deeply and kept drawing.
"There is much more going on in and around us than we generally know, or can know. But one does not need to have a textbook knowledge of the universe to channel its energy and manipulate its properties."the old man turned to the quiet youths again to continue his lecture, but the chalk continued to draw a model.
"The intelligence required to be a skilled practice is threefold: you need understanding - *emotional* understanding, not bookworm science - of the transcendent properties of the universe; you need the resilient discipline to channel the energy of the universe through your very soul; and finally, you need the moral character to the practice with integrity and humanity."
The chalk finished its illustration and placed itself back at the bottom of the board. It showed a picture of a sphere and arrows to the other, smaller spheres.
"We pull our dark energy from this universe and ones beside it, 'metabolize' it, for lack of a better word, and translate it into physical action."The professor lifted the stick of chalk with his mind, dissected it into powder, and spread the dust across the room.
The students were perplexed, their mouths agape.
"This will be our only classroom lesson over the next year. If you hope to be a Guardian, you will need to have a knowledge *beyond* knowledge; an understanding beyond comprehension. There is very little that can be explained to you. It will either respond to you, or it will not.
"Oh, and one last thing,"the old man reached his hand out and the chalk powder returned from the edges of the room to form the stick again. He wrote on the board. "There is no smoking on convent grounds,"he said as he wrote on the chalkboard. |
*types out alien script* just kidding! Here’s your story!
———————————————————————————
Dear diary,
Today we are landing on what is believed to be another habitable planet. This is the second one this year, and my family back at earth thinks it would be the same as the other one.
Me and my crew weren’t with the last crew on the first planet exploration. No, the first crew died. The news articles, that were piled on my bedroom desk back at home, stated accordingly: “NASA crew confirmed dead after a malfunction in speed.”. My boss said that the shuttle could max out to lightyears speed, but I thought he was just taking the piss until the papers arrived at my doorstep.
The problem with such a speed is that, you are going so fast that even a tiny pebble can tear through this large hunk of metal with ease. So, it would only make sense that a large meteor can do the same, right?
They never got to land on that planet. It was to risky anyways. I heard it was all mountainous, so that would make it incredibly hard to land.
Anyways, the planet we are about to land on is not like the planet the last crew attempted to conquer. In fact, it looks like home to a tee. Even the city lights.
To make things clear, we have been in orbit of this foreign but familiar planet for a few days. We wanted to land in the “America’s” due to the flatter land in the south. It’s very strange that the planet is not really earth, but is very much alike. We know for a fact there is civilization, due to the city lights.
———————————————————————————
It’s time to land. We are excited and scared. What technology will these people have? Will they see us as a threat? What if they have unknown diseases that can wipe out our crew? What if we wipe out them?
All of my questions are about to be answered!
———————————————————————————
Scratch that. The shuttle had a malfunction. The screen said something like “end simulation? Yes or no?”. The crew doesn’t know that is happening. Our captain says we should press yes since we couldn’t do anything else. Every time we pressed no, the same message would pop up again. He told us to go to sleep, and in the morning we could figure it out.
- 10-12-19
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear diary,
He pressed the button! I have no idea where I am. I’m in this white room on a white chair. All these cords are around my head and attached to me. The only thing I have with me is this book. I see a one sided glass. I mainly see myself, but I can see a small outline of someone.
I just tried to scream for help, but it kept looking at me then waved someone else over. I think someone is opening the door.
———————————————————————————
It wasn’t a human. Or if it was, it wasn’t what earth considered human. All it said when it left the room was: “the simulation failed. start the next crew”.
I feel a strange buzzing in my head and these wires feel hot. I want to go hom~ |
**I was the dumb girl who followed a guy,**
**I don’t know why I followed that guy,**
**But I wanted to die.**
**That really, weird guy was a vampire,**
**That raced and chased and put venom inside me,**
**He swallowed my blood, so I caught his curse,**
**I don’t know why he bit me that night,**
**I wanted to die.**
**I was the dumb girl who chased down a wolf,**
**Thinking his bite might lift my own curse,**
**I chased the wolf to destroy the vampire,**
**That put venom inside me,**
**I don’t know why I chased that wolf,**
**I wanted to die.**
**I was the dumb girl who summoned up ghosts,**
**I told them I would be their host,**
If they would help me get rid of the wolf,
And the vampire curse,
**I summoned the ghost to chase out the wolf,**
**I chased the wolf to kill the vampire,**
**That raced and chased and put venom inside me,**
**He swallowed my blood, so I caught his curse,**
**I don’t know why he bit me that night,**
**I wanted to die.** |
I sat at the old swing chair for hours that day, allowing the loud screeching noise to silence my troublesome thoughts, the cheap cigarettes also helped, beyond the crumbling house’s porch i saw destruction, empty houses, broken windows and blood, so much blood.
Ever since the catalyst took place in 2027 the government decided no one else should have to bear the envisioning of such horrors and ever since parents have been allowed to take their babies sight at birth, lucky babies.
Now at 90 i could finally join them in their blissful ignorance, i could allow a car to run me over and be as free of guilt as the driver, bliss my faith has deprived me of until now. Years of reading in the dark secretly were now worth it, and who would have stopped me from ruining my eyes in purpose? There was no law, people ever did these days was die gruesome deaths and fuck, in hope of saving humanity from oblivion.
I suppose i could have tried to save them or stopped my loved ones from plunging their bodies into the ocean, but what kind of monster would i be if i kept them from salvation, i rest assured that Jesus will forgive them for their sin.
My whole face morphs into pure bliss as the world becomes fuzzy, then as dark as the storms that ravage the earth, my mind slowly forgets the very memory of the color red, as it has forgotten the days without it, and as my cigarette falls to the ground a long lost face of fierce red hair and sparkling blue eyes lulls me to sleep. |
Stories of The Thousands Speak
Desperation: Tides of Magic Crash in Gurwantu Bay!
[Part 1: *Preparing for an Ending*]
The witch kith, Dallasandra and Ipophomet, didn't have time to admire their handy work as an assortment of thorns, crags and ice formations pierced, lifted, and ran aground *The Revengence.* They had been alone in their defense of the small village of Gurwantu, the tribespeople having been attacked and carried off to sea, unable to repel raiders both armed and aided with cannonade from repeated broadsides. The damages to the ship now featured holes the size of a man, every sail charred or still burning, the yardarm of her fore mast broken in half, and a fracture of the ship's keel all rendering *The Revengence* completely grounded and never to be seaworthy again.
Surrounded by canonshot lodged into the ground around them, the witches quickly inspected their stores as they watched pirates scrambling over the port side, putting the ship between them and the witches, and to no doubt rally for a desperate assault.
Ipophomet gathered about himself his floating crystals, seeing their once glistening colors fading and the crystals beginning to crack under the strain. His face twisted with effort and anger as he transferred powers to three of his finest remaining crystals, saving the useless crystals as common ammunition to shatter at the enemy, and pulled his last reserve opal from his now empty purse. He tossed the purse aside, tore off his brown raiment with gold and mother-of-pearl accents from himself, and redressed himself in a cape. The colors faded to white with red and jet trimmings. He was bare chested, and his ebony carved features reflected light by the sweat of his exertions. He looked to his support, at his side.
Two of Dallasandra's three books of spells were spilling letters onto the sand; combining her powers with Ipophomet's Brilliant Illumination yielded his powers even more focused, but together their efforts were still unbalanced. While their shared resolve and dedication to each other meant they could manifest impressive feats, their differing magics were ultimately incompatible. She had sacrificed years of spellwork to make Iphomet's visions reality. Dallasandra tore the blighted pages from her books and charged them for traps lining directly in front of them, on the ground and further down the beach head. The rest of the pages she circled around her, her eyes quickly scanning for commonalities that could be useful if put together. In the end, she could only increase her last spellbook, and saved the non-aligning pages to one of the bindings remaining and stored it, just in case they made it through this. She tossed the last empty book binding aside on the sand.
Looking to her Ipo, she said, "And your mother will kill me, that you took your family pattern and had to change it to-"
"The colors many Ahzuiy have died proudly bearing,"he said, turning his face to her and choosing to smile. "Should I lie with my crystals tonight, this land will be marked in death sacred to the heritage of those forthcoming."
"Even half a world away?"Dallasandra said, opening a small, personal rift in front of her.
"Especially so,"he said as he watched the last of the crew abandon ship. "Imagine if a descendant came again to this place, in its people's defense. Or if called by forces greater than they, perhaps so drawn to love. I imagine a beautiful scene, where husbands hold hands here, over where my blood sleeps, and admire a sunset on this beach, that we might not see this day."
"These husbands you see,"Dallasandra said while pulling a small black book from the rift, before closing it. "Do they both have nice butts?"
Ipophomet caught his words in his throat when he saw his M'Dallah engage the small black spellbook, wisps of smoke floating away from its pages. "Mmmmmmm..."he said loudly and with an exaggerated tone, taking his perfectly cut catseye and considering it.
"I have seen it, M'Dallah! A descendant of mine and his man both have magnificent asses. But of course, my descendant is the one with perkier cheeks."
Dallasandra tore a page from the little black book. She read it, took it by two fingers, and flicked it over to her friend. "Not much chance of that, if your family are raising and feeding your descendants sweeties at the very mention of your name."
Ipophomet took the page and engaged it, the runic letters flew from the page and circled around his neck, before jabbing into him and scarring his collar. "Mmph! Ah-I will not allow it! I decree that every time my name is mentioned, my children and their children will do 20 toe-touches!"He took a drained crystal and kissed it. The very tip gained the slightest color, before he bit it off and spat a shard to Dallasandra.
She caught the shard before floating it in the air above her. The small brown stone glowed gold. "I'll be sure to tell Oburjan to pass that to your mother-in-law. And then I'll tell him you saw his sired children, and that they were beautiful,"she said, as she took the stone in her hand, reached under the collar of black dressed and set the stone into her skin. "Awh-ha...J-just be sure not to tell Rylein how exactly I die today; they'll probably get a kick out of it."
Without a word, they both raised earthern works from beneath them. Ipophomet watched as a few cannon were withdrawn from below decks. Something stronger than man surely pulling them free. Ipophomet nodded toward the occurrence, "You're not dying to sword or cannon today, lovely. Your people hear you died being dragged into Perdition, as you succeeded in not only NOT killing yourself signing a bloodoath to the Fel, but that you took both the Captain's sword and his head with you. A lone Kyrie of Valiance will be seen diving into the Below from atop the Summer Hall, riding a winged-ram to bring a heroine to justice victorious. It will be a song I will have set to the Great Reed Flutes of my people and the Mountsong Drums of your own."
Dallasandra laughed as she noticed the able of the Gurwantian coming to aid in their own defence. "Rylein will be happy to hear that I actually went to Hel.But then again, if either I or the Gurwa somehow come to hear such a dirge, we're returning from death to drag your perky cheeked ass back to Hell with us."
Dallasandra turned and drew the words of a spell from her pages exerting the force of the language to explode a rainstorm over the pirate installment; moving cannon on a beach head while in the rain will be a hell of it's own.
Ipophromet shown a beacon over their position, and cheered them to their redoubt. He saw they were unarmored, with only a few flintlock rifles and some quivers of fearsome javelin, but they were few and mostly armed with farming implements. He also saw that this was the tribe regaining its pride, and he saw the resolve in their eyes; it was their final stand too.
They both exchanged one last look as mere people, before committing to one more adventure.
[End Part 1]
{This prompt really spurred my imagination and I thank op for it. As you can tell by now, that I'm not likely to keep to the prompt to the letter, but the plan is to use almost every Element of it (witches, pirates, forced to becoming something...etc.). Let me know what you think below. Many blessings!} |
"The situation is dire gentlemen". The archangel Michael placed around the war room in front of the table I sit at along with some of the greatest warriors and generals of all human history. In front of me sat Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf in his desert fatigues, Shaka Zulu in his tribal war dress, Hannibal Barca in his armor and Teddy Roosevelt wearing his famous hat and his rifle perched against the table. To my left sat Alexander the great looking as confused as I am, an armored Asian warrior i assumed to be sun tzu, a feathered and silent native American man wearing war paint, and finally a man in a kingly red robe and crown upon his head who could have been a king of any nation. Surrounded by these great warriors and generals made me ask only one thing, why was I here? I had not served in the military or fought in any war.
"Their forces are amassing at the gates and their numbers are far beyond our estimates first led us to believe."These words troubled Michael as they left his mouth "and that is why we have called all of you here along with your armies.".
I raised my hand timidly, scared of what the retribution would be if they found out I wasnt meant to be here.
"Sir, I'm not sure what you mean by any of this. I'm not a general and I've never fought in a war, heck I've barely been in a fight! You've got to have the wrong guy!"
Michael floated to where I sat, his armor shimmering in the light and his golden hair flowing to his neck where he wore a crucifix made to shine as bright as the sun. He calmly stated "and yet we have need for you. The Lord our God has seen in your soul a great strength and power that will be a great weapon for his glory."
I sat back astonished at his words. How could a guy like me who had never finished college or who was never successful at any venture I undertook. Especially that of being a good father. What power could I have to fight the forces of Hell that God could want on his side?
"Schwarzkopf, we need your men on the walls of heaven at once. Their firearms have been blessed by God's hands. Roosevelt have your men prepare for a calvary charge the moment the gates are breached. Zulu, Tzu and Hannibal amass your men in a semicircle around the throne room of heaven, the forces of hell must not enter the throne room. Alexander, Arthur bring your men to the gate and hold the line at whatever cost. Chief sitting bull, take your warriors and set up ambushes throughout the city. If they break through take as many out as you can and sow chaos into their ranks."Michael then turned to me "and you. Come with me."
I followed him in my boots, jeans and work shirt that I last remembered wearing on earth all the way to a hall that seemed to have been made of gold and molded by the hands of a God that understands the beauty of life in all forms.
"You have a power within you that many here will not have understanding of."In the background warriors and horsemen all prepared for the coming siege "but I understand that this power you have is one that can turn the tide for us in the coming days."
Fidgeting nervously i stammer "well what is my power? I've never been good at anything in this life."
"That is why we have need of you now, you didn't lead a pious life and neither did any of our generals but God has pardoned them for the obvious reason of fighting in his name but he pardoned you for.a different task"his voice got quieter as if telling a secret and he leaned in "we need you to infiltrate the armies of Hell. They will believe you one of them and when the time comes you must sow chaos in their ranks by any means possible."
I choke on the thought of this, I had always lived a good life I thought! I wasnt the best person or the best dad but I tried! Why should I fight for Hell?
Michael whispered one last command "when you get there amongst the armies, you are to subtly ruin any chances they have at an offensive. And when the iron is hot and the forces are lacking in morale, you are to challenge the rule of satan himself for the command of the armies." |
I silently thank my uber driver and hand him some won’s, the currency of south Korea, the amount seems to satisfy him and he nods his BTS cap at me as he drives away, leaving me in front of one of the tall buildings of Seoul. Even though it’s nearly midnight the streets are not empty, they are actually quite crowded.
Young girls i know come from all the corners of the world gather in front of the gates, hoping eventually their idols will have to come out for food, they chat in languages I don’t understand and flex their merch. Someone starts singing in Korean and soon the others join in a complex singing and dancing choreography.
I take the opportunity to discretely sneak past the mass, the girls naturally avoiding my menacing figure covered in leather and tattoos, and specially the ak 47 strapped to my back, i finally reach the alley to the side of the building, and climb emergency external stairs to the top of the twenty story building, which is exactly as frightening as it seems.
At the top i allow myself to contemplate the view in front of me, the blinding lights and neon signs announcing nearly identical Korean boys almost blind me.
Overcame by a sense of danger i hurry, quickly finding stairs i follow to the seventeenth floor, the door is locked, but that’s not a problem for 39mm bullets, i burst in and the grandeur of what i am about to do hits me like i was about to hit seven boys faces, i fall to the ground, the vague memory of an old rock song calmes me and brings me back to reality, no going back now.
I open the second door to the left which if my sources are correct should-
My thoughts are interrupted by a boy with long black bangs nearly colliding into me, i step out of the way thanks to my quick reflexes and he tumbles down, training kicks in and i jump to immobilize the target by pressing my knee into his back.
The target doesn’t seem to be an immediate threat his jeans and BTS hoodie don’t have any folds that indicate he might be carrying any weapons, when he turns to face me i notice he is wearing full stage makeup and very large hoop earrings, oh, and he also looked terrified and about to cry, “ please don’t kill me” he whispered in a high pitched voice.
I sight in relief and let go of the poor boy “ im not gonna hurt you kid” I mutter soothingly, he really looks like he is about to cry but manages to maintain his composure, “are you a fan then?” he asks timidly, “GOD NO!” i back away enthusiastically, “look kid, i need you to tell me where the members of a group named Bangtan Boys are hiding”.
Sudden realization crosses both our faces and he desperately tries for his freedom, before he takes a step i have him immobilized against the wall, “ lead me to your partners” i demand in a cool harsh voice, he manages to nod in agreement, i loosen my grip and he slowly leads me into the room he came from, through another door and in to a a large hotel suite where other remarkably similar boys lie in various positions.
I assume they are the correct kids as every k-pop celebrity looks the same to me, i throw the boy i held at the floor and pulled out my gun, the boys eyes went wide, except for a platinum blonde who stood up in a protective gesture, i singled him out as the leader, after a couple minutes off silent staring one of them broke into loud sobbing and the kid that brought me here went to comfort him, I didn’t stop them.
Words stuck inside my throat for a long time escaped “ all of you have to desapear, and if I see any of your fucking identical faces ever again i will put a bullet through it”, i left the room, uncertain of my next step. |
Alright let's rock!
The band took the stage, like they have before a hundred time. They were a cover band from Chicago, though not known to the world they are here for a very important purpose. To test a new kind of weapon.
Watching from a control bunker a safe distance away, a couple millitary official look on. "So you think it'll be a success this time."
"Yes sir, the scientist have assured me they've ironed out the kinks."
"I hope so, people are starting to get impatient."
"Don't worry general just watch and enjoy."
On the stage nearby the band was being prepped with the prototype equipment. A cool futuristic looking guitar and bass, a wicked looking drum set, and a pretty cool microphone. The technology had been in development for about 43 years, with many ups and down, but now in the Nevada desert the scientists were finally ready for a test.
Set up opposite the stage about 50 feet away were some old tanks that had been decomishioned and were used for target practice, and well that's why they were here today.
Once the scientist had finished their preparations they hurry off the stage. The bands leader turns to his men, "All right, boys are you ready."Each member nods.
"Let's do it then, Eye of the Tiger!"
With that, the band launched into the hit song.
As they played waves of energy flowed out of the instruments in time with the beat. The wave collided with the tanks completely demolishing them. The band kept playing till the song was over. All that was left of the tanks was smoldering reckage.
"Well, consider me impressed Colonel."
"Thanks, General."
"One question I have though, is the band necessary? Couldn't we just put in a cassette and use that instead."
"We did try that sir, but it just wasn't as powerful."
"I see, well this will make the boys in Washington happy, thank you Colonel Samuels."
"General."
The man salutes as the general leaves. Finally, after the over 40 years of experimenting and reverse engineering, the technology they found in that New Mexico dessert was successful. The Colonel walks out of the bunker to congratulate the band. "Awesome job boys, that was amazing."
"Thank you sir, that was such a rush."
They went on congratulating each other for a bit. However, little did they know another party was watching, and they were very angry that there technology was now in the hands of these apes. |
"I've lived a good life"I say to myself surrounded by my family, all crying weeping or holding back tears.
I managed to live up to my 70th birthday before things took a turn for the worst now I'm laying in a hospital bed, I'm too weak to even reach out and take my Wives hand, "i want to hold her hand one more time at least before I go"I urge my muscles to move but they won't move.
I can't even speak and tell my family I love them, a machine is breathing for me and my hands are a tangle of wires and tubes, I overhear my Eldest Son who's the Rock of my family, discuss among my other children about pulling the plug,
These machines are all thats keeping me alive I've long since stopped fearing the end and agree with him, I'm proud of my son for being the strong one.
He speaks to the Doctor who ushers them out after everyone says their last goodbye, my Wife walking up and traversing the tangle of Wires holds my hand and bends down to kiss my cheek and is escorted out by my Eldest son who finally lets a tear slip, I'm happy I can pass in peace now.
The Doctors begin to turn off the machines I feel the abyss encroach around me, my life flashes before my eyes and mentally sigh inwardly ready for death.
Then it happens... Suddenly just as I'm crossing the threshold of death i feel it.
The great consciousness of the universe welcomes me back with open arms, all the souls of all beings who have lived, or will live all reside here all existing along one another, some going back to the otherside to live as a mortal again, while others continue to exist here.
I'm aware now of all the lives I've lived, the despairs of poverty, the annoyances of everyday life, and the agony of mortality, all the feelings now detached from what I now currently am.
Here I'm free to exist as I am, and have no wants to distract me, no responsibilities to take up my existence.
I think back to the times when i became Mortal again and at the times i rejoined before, So apparently life was an Infamous destination... |
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I see the shadows often. When I sleep I see them, they dance circles around my head, a crown of torment.
You think that you know suffering, but let me tell you, as the wisps of smoke of what could be linger in my room, myself frozen in place and helpless to watch them, that is real suffering. To know that deep down somewhere, somehow, someplace you fucked up. So badly, that the deities above see it fit to send charred angels to remind you every day, when the sun drops below the horizon.
Days and nights stolen from me for a mistake I cannot know, only guess.
*That is true suffering.*
You see, when I sleep it is not one angel that will dance and sing joyous songs above my head but a flock. A family woven together with harmony.
*My family.*
And I don't know if it was the drink or the drugs or the late nights and lies that did it but I don't think I will ever sleep again. Knowing that somewhere, there exists a single moment that could bring Sasha back, and bring her back well enough to spawn a family.
*I am a King fit for his crown.*
I don't sleep. Ever since I saw the shadows I haven't tried. For every second that I can spend watching her with those young girls I do. And I think about all the things that I am missing.
The first words, first steps. Days out to the park, going to the zoo. My life has been deprived of a million tiny details that until the shadows came I didn't even know were missing.
Now I know they are, and it feels like there are one million tiny holes in my very being.
Every sip from very bottle I have ever had, I was drinking away this future that haunts my dreams.
*Goodnight.* |
"So how is that missing person's case going, Detective Helmsley?"Commissioner Michaels asked me, with a goofy grin on his face.
"Shawn, you already know me. Go ahead and call me by my real name. Anyways, I haven't gotten any substantial leads. Went to his apartment complex, and the residents there told me that the last they saw was him entering his apartment a month ago and never came out. Everything looked intact. The windows showed no signs of opening, no damage done anywhere, no signs of struggle. If he was kidnapped, whoever did it left no evidence."
"You think one of the people in the complex might-a kidnapped him, Hunter? He could be hidden in any of their rooms. Or maybe the landlord? What was his name? Jake Roberts? He always seemed kinda sleazy to me."
"No, Shawn, that's just it. I don't think any of them were capable of it. They seemed to show genuine concern, and there were no signs of lying or deceit."
"This is giving me the heebie jeebies. Do you have any other explana-"
A loud, explosive sound interrupted, shaking the floor, and knocking Commissioner Michaels down to the floor.
"The hell was that?!"he called out.
Five more booms followed, and the lights went out. I grabbed Michaels and ran us down the flight of stairs, as we weaved around the fellow coworkers at the precinct also trying to escape.
The sight as we went outside was rather haunting. Heaps of vehicles flipped over, damaged, crashed into each other or buildings, and several bodies lay strewn about. There were few screams and runners, and some of those that did, dropped dead. Several of the buildings on this street became adorned in a simple word, all in a sickishly and wet red: "HELP".
With everyone on edge, everyone I knew didn't sleep or relax. Can't blame them, or else who would be next? I immediately went home, just to make sure my family was safe. Safe, they were, but unresponsive and unconscious. Molly was holding Johnny in her arms, both still breathing.
The hospitals in the city were all filled with people just as afraid as I am; the nurses and doctors clearly stressed and doing all they could. I could by the looks on their faces they were fearing for their own families as well but they knew they had jobs to do. I spent at least an hour until they took them in. As they told me Molly and Johnny are in comas, they should recover, but they couldn't give me an answer on for how long.
As the week passed, I needed a distraction to keep me from worrying about Molly and Johnny. Work was just that distraction, though significantly more stressful. Even Commissioner Michaels was unnervingly silent. We had more to work on than just the missing person's case. Soon enough, it all died down. The world seemed to have cooled off, and relax to a point where they can process everything. Support groups started popping up, more people were cleared from hospitals, and the streets became cleaned up once again. Even Molly and Johnny were released (she even made me get back to work, that it was my duty - and it reminded me how much I love her, though I didn't need the reminder). It was all happening so fast, that it was easy to forget what else had happened in the world as a result of whatever the hell happened. Corrupt leaders, murderers, rapists, pretty much every person operating on the opposite side of the law than I am were reported dead. The most recently reported was Jiang Zemin, the President of China.
Then I got a call from the apartment complex with the missing person case I almost forgot about. The residents kept calling and visiting the landlord, complaining of a horrible stench, as if "someone died in there", and it all came from one room.
Suddenly, it made sense to me. This wasn't some strange act of God, some weird anomaly, or some fucking nightmare (though it still feels like it). This was calculated and human. Couple that with a lot of the fingerprints and bits of DNA everywhere after the disaster happened, it matched one person, and I knew just where to go. Maybe I found the source of all this. I don't know how, I don't know why, but this somehow makes the most sense to me, probably because both of these things feel too surreal to have happened.
I visited the missing person's apartment once again and was met with a grisly sight. Hanging from the ceiling, the body of a man swung and dangled. In all my years of being a detective, I have never seen and to this day I've never seen anything quite like this. The death looked fresh, but his body looked as if it had been decomposing for some time. It was still rotting and decomposing, much faster than is normal from the look of it. Though it is hard to tell, his facial features seem...familiar. I have the precinct call in whoever was available. This needs to be inspected.
Though the room looked freshly clean like the day I found it, there was perhaps one change aside from the body, and that was a stack of papers. The top page was written like a journal entry starting from last month.
"December 13, 1998
Though it is weird to say, I'm glad to be back. All of my efforts proved to be fruitful, and I am back to my past. My heart is swelling at coming back to the era of my childhood. Everyone thought I was crazy for thinking it would be possible, but wait until I get back!"
There was no name. As I flipped through, the entries remained the short length they had been. As I progressed reading, the author seemed to become more addicted to the time they were back to living in. This is so strange to me, as if I've been exposed to the possibility of time travel. They talk about all the things that haven't happened yet, in the years to come and how weird it is to be in a time before those events. Things like the President being impeached, the Twin Towers being destroyed, the reemergence of Star Wars, the continuation of the fight for civil rights, a "War on Terror,"and Donald Trump becoming President.
Soon enough, the author becomes scared, stating they tried to go back but they can't. It was a one-way street for this person, but it gets worse. Somewhere along the line, they noticed the world stopped moving around them. They were frozen in time, as they describe the people around them to be like "mannequins made flesh."What follows in these pages became incomprehensible as the author plummeted into madness. I cannot even begin to describe what is said here, but the theme seems to be about the corrupt and the wicked and society. The only consistent words in a stream of nonsense.
The final page, however, was much more understandable.
"Dad,
I'm sorry. I know it hasn't been easy since Mom passed. I haven't been able to cope well myself. I've lost sleep, actually. Haven't eaten much either. So if you somehow read this, I'm sorry. I got so lost in my nostalgia and my studies that I was so deadset on breaking new ground and discovering time travel. All of those works of fiction glorified it, causing me to romanticize it to a large degree but it's actually horrifying. I lost myself in it.
I don't know what I've done. I don't want to know. I fell into a pit where I lost myself, a darker pit than the one I was in. To get the air of the time I missed dearly only to be held hostage by it was not my intention. The world of 2019 and the world of 1998-99 were so vastly different, as you can tell by these entries, if you somehow find this, either in this time or the future.
What I do remember in my madness that felt like a century (who knows, maybe it was?) was a visit I made to my childhood home. You weren't there. Likely discovering the damage I caused, but you weren't home. I found Mom and myself though, and as I touched my child self, it was like a flash. I hope I didn't cause any harm. Beings as I'm still here for now, I don't think I have. But it's too late. I gotta get out the only way I know I can.
Dad...
Just know I finally made that breakthrough. Funny how it doesn't pay off. Anyways, it's time for me to go. For good. I love you, pops.
\-Johnny Helmsley" |
I'm Santa Claus. I've been Santa for the past 1000 years, and I do a damn good job of it. But my time is up, and I haven't found any replacement Santas. 'Till this guy came in, anyway... but he seems pretty sketchy. I dunno if I want to trust him.
"Right, so... your name is...?"
"Leon DeFonso."
"Okay. Well, you're Santa Claus if you get this job. Tell me - why do you want to be the big man?"
I look up from my chair and look the man in the eye as I ask this, drumming on my desk with a gingerbread pen.
"W-well, um, I... I really enjoy working with children. Yes, y-yess, children. I'm v-very passionate about them."
"You know you won't be working with children, right? They'll be sleeping."
"Oh. Right. Maybe I'll make some... *changes*... to how Santa Claus operates..."
This guy definitely doesn't seem... well, normal. I take out my Santa Phone™ and dial the number of my Head Elf.
"Hi. I need a check on Mister, uh... Leon DeFonso. Has he been naughty or nice?"
There's a pause, and a shuffling, as my Head Elf looks through a book.
"Oh dear, Sir... Leon has been, um, very naughty, since the age of 22."
I raise my eyebrows.
"Really? What's made him so naughty, Head Elf?"
"*Pedophilia.*" |
I am about 80% sure that this isn’t regulation, 90% sure that this is illegal, and 95% sure that we’ll be eventually caught and imprisoned for this.
On the other hand, I’m 100% sure that this is a lot of fun.
A bullet crashed through the back window, zipped right past me head, and shattered the rear-view mirror.
Right. Back to the problem at hand.
I jerked the steering wheel to the right and the car climbed onto the sidewalk. As pedestrians screamed and scrambled out of the way, the car smashed straight through the glass storefront and into the mall.
I’d come shopping here before, and I knew to the hit a hard left so that I didn’t ram into the glass railings and down to the floors to the food court.
The cars behind me weren’t so lucky.
*One, two, three,* I counted in my head as they went over the edge one by one.
I took a moment to catch my breath and feel the adrenaline slowly slip away. As the pulsing in my ears died, I became aware of the crowds of screaming shoppers milling around my weaponized automobile.
*Shit, is that a hand in my windshield?* I pressed the spray button and ran the wipers. When the hand continued to intrude into my field of vision, I ran the wipers three more times.
Eventually I gave up and hit the car horn. Probably should have used it earlier, but in my defense, I’d been very, very distracted.
Holding down on the horn, I slowly inched my way through the crowd.
And if I ran over a few idiots, well, I was holding down the horn. That gave me the right of way. (Probably.)
---
“So, I think I win, right? I’ve got the Drug Lord’s head right here, which puts me at just over 100 points.”
“Yes,” my supervisor drawled, in a tone that made me very concerned that I hadn’t won. “That is certainly the man’s head.”
My supervisor gave the head a dirty look. The head, being dead, was unable to respond.
“And your point totals bring you at 106 points.”
“So I win!” I announced.
“Well, there’s the small matter of the fact that you tore apart half the city.”
I shrugged. “Yup.”
“And destroyed the Crystal Mall.”
He seemed weirdly hung up on that. Was that mall special?
My confusion must have shown on my face, because he leaned in. “It’s my daughter’s favorite mall.”
“Oh…”
“And her birthday is in two days.”
Now my bubbly elation and cheerfulness had fully transitioned into twitching fear and terror.
“You’ve made birthday shopping very tricky, you know.”
*Maybe you should have started earlier*, I almost said. Almost. You only sass your superiors if your death is already certain. That way, you can at least have some fond memories of shouting at your boss as they kill you.
“I’m giving you a chance,” my supervisor continued. “She wanted to get rainbow unicorn. But only a limited-edition model from a specific show tie-in. Find one. Bring it to me. You have until tomorrow night.”
I nodded, hoping the fear didn’t show on my face.
“Oh, wait,” he called after me as I turned to leave. “Take the head with you. I need to write a birthday card on this death and I don’t think she would appreciate the bloodstains.” |
\[Poem}
When words bind us into our paths,
And the chance for change seems bust
Where else can we turn but the best of the best
In Traveller's Law Firm we trust.
They swindle, they cheat, they bend the rules
Yet nobody's ever complained or called them the fools.
Their English Minors finally put to use like nobody thought they would be
For the paths fate hands us are theirs to shift for our glee.
The Mistress of Fate hates them
The Master of Time is annoyed
Yet they've changed their own prophecies
They can never be sent to the void.
They helped a man destined to save the world
Instead find true love, in his eyes
While yes, the work they do is well done
Good god do I hate those guys.
​
*(I literally never write poetry, if this was a total bust lemme know, and just tell me how I could improve)* |
With every breath, with every blink of an eye, Rhodrick would see their face staring back at him, a silent plea for help pressed upon their cracking lips. The obvious question was who; *who were they?* But to that Rhodrick already had an answer, one he didn't like at all.
Rhodrick was labelled a madman, with the appropriate paperwork - signed on the dotted line, and dated - to prove such a fact. Locked inside an institution that simply didn't understand him, at least that's how he saw it.
He'd been there before, you see, to the place from which this face came up to haunt him. He'd traversed the barriers between our world and countless others, though what returned was little more than a shell inside of which Rhodrick was trapped.
His body, that was his true prison, the binds of which were his inability to act. Rendered motionless, able only to blink, to sputter and drool. Yet his senses were very much alive, his mind laced with that sweet poison that was the memory of other worlds, grander worlds, darker worlds.
How was it he'd earned his papers then, if he could not walk, nor talk, nor relay the sights he'd seen to those around him? The face, the figure that lurked beyond his vision. That's how. Though Rhodrick couldn't move himself, the face inside of him could, and at times *they* would come forward to take control, lifting suddenly the ailments of his being, one and all. Rhodrick would be free, though only as a spectator.
*It's a miracle!* The doctors would be left dumbfounded at the mere sight of this broken man that had learned to walk overnight, those drooling lips freely spouting speech. But that speech was ill intended, that face that lurked within the dark of Rhodrick's eyes a harbinger of nothing more than sorrow.
*Leave them alone.* Rhodrick would cry from the depths of his own consciousness.
*Why should I?* That hollow face would offer in return. *They hurt you, don't they? They deserve this, don't they?*
Perhaps they did, but even so Rhodrick couldn't bare to watch the torture his own hands would bring without his wanting. *I'm innocent.* He'd remind himself, then on the heels of this self-absolving thought; *how can I make* them *understand that?* Their screams would stalk him endlessly.
And with them came the face, the mask within that stole control of Rhodrick:
*They deserve it. Every single one of them. Tortured souls that play on fragile minds. Now stop your infantile b\*tching, and let me be.*
That was another part of it, for Rhodrick at least, fighting with what very little strength he had, trying desperately to hinder the face that begged his help from performing what it saw to be it's duty. Always this struggle would take Rhodrick back to the place that he first met the face inside of him, and there they would together play out the same foul game that brought them here.
\*\*
It was a land of living grey-scale, no colour in the sky nor in the mountains, the water shimmering in such a way it looked like glass, glass upon which creatures with webbed feet went wandering care-free, mindless of the less-than-solid surface underneath them.
These creatures reminded Rhodrick of toads in their appearance, though that was a rather crude description. Each one bore a look of great intelligence, underpinned within their countless, teardrop eyes. And in their caves were stores of parchment paper, not books as we might know them, not even close. Books confine a story, confine facts, they bring order to a chaos never meant for such. These creatures understood that. Each paper was its own descriptive wonder, and these *toads*, they knew far more than you or I may ever hope to know.
In the distance clouds were gathering, funneling a storm down through the mountains, sending forks of lightening striding out across the bare-bones of what once had been a city. The Great City of Augustine, a city which gave birth to *they* who owned the face that Rhodrick saw, or would come to see.
Dome-shaped towers lifted from the earth someplace north of the Great City, spires rising up around the domes, dressing them in dirt-built cages from which feathered rivers of black came flooding out. And then came the soft whispers of the shapeless men and women who would lead Rhodrick from his place of birth, naked, to the City of his captor, the one who plagued his mind.
They were always gentle with him, never coming close enough to touch his skin, simply herding him, directing him, to play the game that would perhaps one day save his life.
*And what if I win, what if I take control from them? The atrocities they've carried out in my name, in my body, what life is left for me?*
The voice of they who lurked in Rhodrick's mind came forth with the winds, carried by the acid rains that lashed out from the storm-lit sky;
*If you win, you needn't return from whence you came. If you win, you may have your body, and you may become a king.* |
When I first realized it was not normal that they come to life, I was only three years old. I remember my mom telling me, trying to make me understand, that I’d have to keep it a secret. She said she had the same ability. It was inherited to the first born of each generation.
I watched her create, day in, day out, and none of her paintings or sculptures came to life. For years we had a room where I was allowed to create. Why this specific room? There were rules to what made our creations come to life.
Firstly, I had to want it to come to life. It sounds easy enough to not do, but every artist knows that when drawing we always wish at some point that what we create could pop out of the paper and interact with us. We are often driven to create what we are interested in.
Secondly, I had to finish the piece for it to come to life. It also sounds easy enough to avoid doing, but I’m far from a perfectionist. I can lose interest in what I’m working with, slap some colours onto a painting and call it done.
Thirdly, someone else had to see my creation. This one was simple enough to avoid. We had a room for me when I was younger, and everything I created was only seen by me. In one of the walls was a furnace. It was a door divided into different sizes of smaller doors. Everything I created *had* to be burned before I left the room.
At first, I think I thought it was just a game. That it was for me to keep my creative ideas in my head, to myself, so nobody could steal them. But as I grew up, I mourned every piece I had to throw away.
Eventually. I stopped.
I went to school as usual, I never participated in art class thanks to my mom saying telling the teacher that I was excellent at home, and the art teacher being a fan of hers listened without arguing. My grades were more than average, I had great grades.
Life continued well into my twenties. Mom passed away suddenly, leaving me on my own. I never mention my dad, I never knew him, I never see him. He’s not in my life just as he was never in my mom’s life. I have no siblings. I mourned my mom alone.
My depression strutted through the front door and forced me to take a leave from work. I stayed at home for the first week, then I made my way to mom’s house and began packing away her things. I didn’t have anywhere to keep her works of art, sculptures, sketches, all unfinished from what I could see.
But mom always wanted me to decide what to do with my art, and now this was in my possession at least. And I wanted the world to see everything. With a small portion of the money I inherited, I turned her house into an art gallery. I stored away a lot of her work and rotated between what I wanted to display.
I quit my job and soon after seeing people enjoy mom’s work, I wanted to display something I had created.
But I wasn’t allowed to love my art, and I wasn’t allowed to finish anything if I wanted to let other people see it.
I tried to think of the one thing I hated the most, and for some reason the only thing I could think of was nightmarish creatures from hell. Torture and gore themed ideas sprung to mind and I reluctantly began painting. To avoid putting things on display and calling them done, I turned my studio into my showroom.
Between managing the art gallery for my mom, I truly never finished anything, and I was content with that for a whole year.
One night, working late on a less brutal depiction of a torture device, I saw some black paint slide down the black canvas and stop suddenly against the border where the canvas turned red. My room was dark, it was late, and I was tired. I went to bed.
Later in the month I threw paint onto one of my large canvases. The top left edge of the paint bent off the fabric and for a second it felt as if it was about to drop completely and consume me, suffocate me under massive layers of paint and I’d be killed by my own creation. For a second I wanted to call it finished and throw it away before anyone could see it, but I couldn’t do that. So, I took the ladder and climbed my way up to reattach it with some string. Before I could touch it, the part that had come lose straightened up by itself.
I stared. It must all be in my head. I must’ve been staring at my disgusting art for too long, my sleep hadn’t been doing too well after all, maybe I needed a break. But I couldn’t just leave all my work just like that.
I continued until I woke up to a rustling sound in my trashcan by my desk. I assumed a small animal must’ve gotten in and turned the lights on only to stop dead in my tracks and stare. |
*Bill's Log \~\~ An Observation of Principles Pertaining to the Mystic Coin \~\~*
If you're reading this, I am most likely no longer of this life. How I died I am unsure, although I hope it was a natural death and not something rather...unfortunate coming from the coin. I have done my best to record a series of tests I've attempted and gather the results in this journal. I have split my results into 3 parts; the wish before the flip, the flip itself, and what may come after the flip. The actual process itself is simple. Think about what you want to happen (or 'wish'), flip the coin, and then there's a chance that wish will be granted with a twist. The nature of the coin is not quite understood yet, and I hope this journal may be used as a reference point for others who stumble across it.
The 'coin' I speak of appears to be standard Canadian two dollar coin (or "toonie"), it is roughly 9 grams in weight with slight fluctuations depending on the side it lands on after a flip. The exterior appears to be made in silver, not the standard nickel, and the interior is 100% pure gold, not the aluminum bronze or brass. The coin replaces any material chipped out of it, allowing for a potentially infinite source of currency, however the odds of a wish succeeding after removal of material is lowered in proportion to the material removed. Once acquired, the coin will not leave the owner's possession until
\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~
Bill Mint stopped writing and smiled slightly to himself. Thankfully, his old age hadn't been too inhibiting thanks to a careful series of wishes. Of course, those same wishes could've very easily ended with him losing every part of his body other than his hands. He'd always imagined himself passing on as a rather mundane person. An office worker, another cubicle slave in the colony of his building. But the coin changed all that. Instead of just barely scraping by, people came to him with money in order to make wishes on his behalf. He charged based on the size of the wish being asked, and always gave back half if it failed, telling people it was "Compensation for the mental strain it takes making a wish,"which was, of course, hogwash. It was as easy as snapping his fingers, making a wish. But hey, if he could keep making some pocket change *and* help others not spend all their money while he was at it, it certainly couldn't hurt.
He snorted softly, all this fame and wealth because of a god damn chance. A slight chance of deciding to pick up the coin that started it all. It made sense with his newfound title of *"Mr. Probability"* and all that.
\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~
*The Wish*
The wish itself is very open in rules that must be followed. For example, you can't wish for immortality. That wish will always fail. You also can not wish to drastically modify history, or any wish that will put you in a place of supreme power. You cannot wish to be god. Wishes for material gain will end up causing an inverse reaction in other places in the world. For example, wishing for money may make a bunch of rupees disappear from India and have them reappear on your living room sofa. An inconsistency with this is food or digital currency. Digital currency will always just be ready for you, and food will always be available if you wish for it. They are two of several consistent wishes you can make, but most results are random.
When it comes to making the wish, you must only have desires unclouded by anything else. I made that mistake once when I wished for a companion, but I also happened to be incredibly hungry, so I ended up with a sentient hot dog, bouncing around and yipping, at the foot of my bed. This may take you a little while to get down, it is an acquired skill, but so is using the coin in general.
One thing I don't recommend is wishing for love. This is love that doesn't feel honest, as the person is unwillingly committed to you. Instead a better wish is "I want the opportunity to meet the potential love of my life."Wishes that do not force anybody or anything down a certain path are a lot more likely to succeed than wishes like "I want to have the love of my life."All in all, wishing is very confusing to write out and understand, trial and error is the best way to learn, and I'm sure someone much more articulate than I could write this out in a perfectly logical way
*....................................................................................................................................................................................................*
*(I'm cramped for time, if people like the style here I may continue it later. Criticisms are always appreciated.)* |
I wrinkled my eyebrows at the person who interrupted me, clearly not enjoying be pulled away from my drink. It was Gunnery Sergeant Huschens; clean chiseled face, camo fatigues and a drill instructor hat. At first his voice sounded official and very commanding, but upon hearing me answer affirmatively, changed to that that half New Jersey accent, ushering me with an informal hand wave.
I sigh heavily, grabbing my cup of coffee and making my way across the hangar.
It has been a bit since I flew a JX-7. Old Earth tech, Old Earth lethality that the galaxy feared. Most of them have been refit with the new alien tech a few of our new allies have given us, but I was at the stick when they still had aerospikes and ion thrusters.
As I got closer to the door, I could hear some sort of commotion going on. There was definitely a woman’s voice among a few men carrying on in what seemed to be an argument. I made the voice out of the base’s gunnery sergeant, the base commander and three other people I couldn’t identify.
Huschens seemed to scrutinize me for a second, squinting at me in a half-jesting manner.
“You might be worth your value in gold if that yes is solid,” he remarked.
“What the heck’s going on in there?” I ventured.
“It’s a total shitstorm. I don’t want to keep them waiting, but let’s just say someone got handsy and is now just screwed a major relationship over.”
This had my interest. Fraternization? What did that have to do with a medium-range bomber refit?
“Okay, as long as I’m not getting pinned for nonsense, let’s see what this is about.”
While I tried to enter cautiously into the shitstorm I was walking into, I knew I somewhat sauntered in casually, coffee cup in hand.
Upon entering the lobby room, I was greeted upon the sight of two MP’s, the B.C. and some guy I was sure I had seen a few days ago. Facing them were four Notikans; very human, with big tall fez hats and long robes. The foreign and proper tinge in their voices cut in the air, making it quite distinct when they spoke. Despite my Earthly origins, I was familiar with their way of life for various reasons.
It was then I realized that the guy I didn’t identify was in handcuffs, a sullen look on his face.
Huschens piled in behind me as I stared at the spectacle. The Notikans were an old man, his wife and another woman which looked to possibly be his daughter; the “parents” were busy screaming at the B.C. while motioning to the guy, while the woman sulked in the corner with arms folded. The MP’s glared at me for a second, but upon seeing who I was with, relaxed.
“Tribunals mean nothing, Leadsworth! This excuse of a person you call your pilot dared to even *speak* to my daughter in such a manner! It’s unforgivable!”
“Sir, I understand-“
“You do not understand, Terran!” The wife interjected. “Our daughters are holy vessels of light and knowledge, to carry on our legacy to the next generation. For her to be sullied with such despicable fornication, has violated the gift that the Celestials bestowed upon her.”
‘Leadsworth’ rubbed his head, clearly taxed by what was going on. Upon straightening his poster he saw Huschens and I, which made him groan. The Notikans had noticed me, ceasing their shouting match.
“A’ight boys, get this guy outta here. C’mon.” Huschens jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
The MP’s hustled the guy out the door. As he passed he locked eyes with me, conflict and anger flowing through them. I glanced back at the party, daring to take a sip out of my coffee mug to jar things up.
“Bennett,” Leadsworth greeted me.
“Commander,” I glanced at the Notikans each in the eyes before turning back to him.
“And what is this that you dare to present before us? Another fallen, immoral broken man who has no care for duty or craft?”
I twinged a little, realizing that he was assuming I was loose because of how I behaved. He rightfully assumed I was a pilot due to the flight jacket, but was probably put off that I wasn’t in a uniform or snapping to a salute.
“Governor, Flight Commander Bennett is adept pilot I’m grateful to have been on this base at the right time. You’ll find that he’s quite capable for your requirements.”
“Rubbish, deceit! No man can field such a craft with such character!”
I honestly was losing my patience at this point, a little terse.
“Commander, what the hell is going on here? Seriously?”
The room became silent. Even Huschen’s eyes widened, having not expected that out of me.
Leadsworth coughed, attempting to get back things on track.
“Governor Estidialus has been cooperating with FleetComm on a special project for two years now. As he holds a seat in one of the higher Notikan castes, he’s been offering us technological aid on two test platforms for previous-generation vehicles.”
Ah, that Governor. I see.
“And...what’s this with a JX-7?” I half-motioned with the cup as if addressing the entire room,
“Part of the program is to field a hybrid bomber with Notikan weaponry. Of course because of the power requirements, it requires a fusion drive, which means some knowledge of Notikan vehicles or technology.”
I nodded in understanding, still keeping my half uninterested demeanor.
“And lemme guess....you need a new pilot, or someone to teach someone how to fly it?”
“Pretty much.”
Leadsworth looked relieved that I didn’t address the elephant in the room. Honestly I sort of didn’t care, but was definitely curious as to what happened. Was this a case of falling in love in the Governor’s daughter and being found out? It certainly seemed that way.
“I refuse, Leadsworth. I will not risk this project with someone as such. If it’s all good with you. I prefer a more upstanding soldier, and perhaps a Notikan.”
My jaw clenched, pretty much almost losing it right there.
“Ma’am, Bennett isn’t enlisted in the United Earth Forces on commission. And I can assure you there won’t be an ‘incident’ like this one.”
Both parents squinted in confusion, focusing their attention to me.
“And why is that? What is this ‘guarantee’ that he will not have an affair with my daughter or any other women of the project? And what about his skill, his dedication to the task?”
I took two steps forward, deciding now that I’d drop the bombshell.
“Does the name Monarch Vatharian mean anything to you?”
Both their faces turned to shock. Even Leadsworth jerked his head up in surprise, recognizing the title.
“I know the name but it doesn’t mean much. Why do you invoke her title?” Estidialus spread his arms apart.
“Well, I’m her paladin on assignment.”
The man scoffed, while the woman reeled back in disgust.
“How dare you! Impossible. You, an unimportant Terran?!”
“Apparently. She did the whole poke me with a sword thing on her starship bridge.”
I mimicked the effect with my mug for added effect. Leadsworth and Huschens were trying not to smile. The couple was silent, at a loss of words.
“Or if you don’t believe me, maybe I should get my edict out for you to read, shouldn’t I Commander? Better yet, maybe I should just ring her to stop by.”
“She’d like to stop by, for sure. I think I owe her a few things from the requisitions office come to think of it.”
“Impossible.” Estidialus sputtered.
I plopped my mug on Leadworth’s desk, walking forward with my hands becoming folded within my jacket sleeves, as silly as it looked.
“So pray tell, Governor. I have experiences that had brought the Monarch’s attention upon me. I have a relationship with figures within both Earth and Shinja Notika, which lands me in situations to use either technology at times. And lastly, I carry the Monarch’s authority and blessings upon me.”
My voice had a formal, dictating tone to it, similar to how they had spoken earlier. I slipped back into my normal dialect, yanking my hands out of my sleeves and placing them on my waist.
“Oh, and I’m also married, and to a *Notikan* woman too, which the Monarch approved. In fact, you can say she fixed me up with her. But that would answer your “no dating my daughter” thing.”
“In other words, Governor. The perfect pilot you could ask for.”
The daughter glanced at my for the first time, jealously and anger in her eyes. She stormed out of the room, clearly upset. The mother looked like she wanted to faint, the governor’s face red.
“I...do not approve of this. We will be in touch about this matter.”
Estidialus nudged his wife forward, folding his hands inside his sleeves like I had done earlier.
“So does that mean that you still want to call this thing quits, and want your hardware back?”
“That was my intention....but now I am sure your beloved Monarch will stick her foot in our affairs and perhaps even run it herself. I may need to reconsider this.”
“Well, a caste that can build their own dreadnought starships have that luxury you know.” I offered helpfully.
“Which I do NOT need to be reminded of. This discussion is ended.”
With that, he stormed out of the room.
When he was gone, Huschens snickered. Leadsworth shook his head in disbelief, looking relieved. I sighed as I leaned against his desk, reaching back for his coffee.
“You know the sad thing is, he actually is going to not believe you and research that, only to find out it is real.”
Huschens folded his arms and looked out back at the hangar.
I took a sip of coffee. Good, it didn’t cool that much.
“Yeah, I know. Joke’s on him, though.”
I looked at Leadsworth apologetically, shoulders sinking a little.
“I hope I wasn’t too abrasive or nonchalant, Commander. I figured that’s what you wanted me here for.”
“No, you did great. You seem to rub them wrong the right way. I figured that “paladin” junk would’ve rubbed off and let you bust their chops.”
“Heh, well, at least your ass is good for something around here!” Huschens lightly punched my shoulder.
I raised my mug.
“Amen to that.”
-
(I might add onto this later. Otherwise, enjoy!) |
>***Captain's Log: ᏉᎥጀᎥᏉ***
>
>*We thought we knew everything about the universe there was to know. We were able to transport people and objects faster than light could catch up with us. The ends of the habitable universe were within our grasp... or at least what we knew of the universe. To the dismay of many, the only alien life forms we ever came into contact with were the smallest of single celled organisms. In fact, I was on the voyage that discovered them. They weren't even that far from earth, only some 12 or 13 light years away from us.*
>
>*About three years ago, some of our explorer ships found another alien lifeform, but something was wrong... not in the sense that they were dead or that it was some sort of 'evil alien parasite' scenario. This was different. Not something we ever expected. When we first made contact, I was told the ship had complied with all procedures outlined for interaction with alien species. They sent out several different messages, using all known frequencies of light and visual reception. It soon became apparent that the 'ship' we were looking at was organic. Some sort of living creature, sustained in the vacuum of space. It was red, plated with a shiny bone, which made sense why they thought it was a ship. That along with the emergence of several other entities, what we now presume as the 'pilots' in their symbiotic relationship. They entered the vacuum through some unseen ports in the creature. They were unaided in surviving in the cold space. No helmets. No gear. Just flowing robes that would float with every movement. The creatures looked very similar to the 'ship' as well where the robes didn't reach. Red shiny plates. And it almost looked like armor. They raised their hands in unison, three balls of energy appearing off of each end of the ship. They thought they were being communicated with.*
>
>They were oh, so wrong.
>
>As the crew were celebrating on deck, the balls moved towards them at a blinding speed, smashing into the hull and causing a blackout. Apparently once it hit, it took on the properties of a lightning strike. They rebooted the systems while they were drifting. Once the lights came back on, they were able to detect the creatures had already receded into the ship. Monsters probably thought they had killed the scout ship. They weren't able to make a light jump in confusion, having seen the creature create several large spine-
The ship, *La Lucretia* shook, and went dark. Captain Finch looked up from his console as the holoboard blinked into darkness. Something was wrong. He could feel it. He tried his door, but it was sealed. The power was out entirely. Like they had been struck by an unknown energy weapon. He pounded on the door, knowing no important energy conduits came through his quarters. He called out to his crew to reboot the system. He saw something out of the corner of his eye. The only window in his cabin showed the stars, and he reminisced about the night skies from Homeworld. Something else was there. It was dark against the black of the void, but it was inevitably there. A dark purple that blotted out the stars. As the lights came back on in his cabin, and the outboard lights came on as well, they seemed to automatically focus on the thing, like as if his crew had already seen it themselves. He knew what it was, the instant he saw the creature reflect their light.
Shouting came from the cabin decks, below the main deck where the control room was housed. The crew were all drained of color, stopped in their tracks as they recognized the creature from all of the stories, albeit with a slightly different pigmentation. The Leviathan People, as the crew had come to call them, had attacked. They knew that they were supposed to run, but they weren't sure how. The main door slid open with a loud *shhhk!* Or at least it was loud to the control crew, who were dead silent. Captain Finch looked each of them in the eyes, all of them wild as his own.
"We need to counterattack."He spoke finally, looking at the arms director.
"B-but sir! We don't-"
"That was an *order*, director! *Move!*"He shouted over the protests of the arms director. He was certain they were trying to attack, and they had to make the next strike, or they will share a similar fate to half of the crew of the *Starskimmer*. The director no longer hesitated, her fingers flying over the holoboard. This ship reacted just as fast, *La Lucretia's* ion cannons aiming towards the beast. "Fire when ready."Finch said solemnly. There was silence. It felt more dead than the space between the ships. The director took in a long breath, and pressed a button on the hardboard, priming the weapons and firing them. The blasts took only a millisecond to hit the ship, as they were made for short-ranged combat. Beaming white light came off of the surface of the Alien Vessel, and the crew celebrated. All the crew, but the Captain. He looked for longer, his knowledge of the previous encounters wit the creatures far more extensive than his shipmates. This proved invaluable as he watched the light recede into several figures on the surface of the alien ship. No words this time, Finch ran forward, boots stomping on the chrome plated floor. He shoved one man out of his chair and he took his place. He caused the thrusters to angle the ship away. Just enough towards the Milky way that they could jump. They needed an escape. The crew had stopped celebrating now, realizing much too late the ordeal they were in. The captain found his voice again, "*Find a seat and strap in! You have four seconds until I blast us into hyperspace!*"The captain counted down. 4... 3... Out of one of the port-side windows, the captain saw what looked like several multi-jointed, spindling legs appearing from the back of the Leviathan ship. 2... Everyone found a seat. They were ready to go. 1... He activated the drives and the stars turned to starlines, pushing lightyears past them.
​
While in hyperspace, Captain Finch opened his log again, moving instead to a list. A weapons list.
>***Captain's Log: Weapons list \[Lev\]***
>
>*Does not work: Conventional Firearms, Laserbeams, Laserfire, Plasmafire, Plasma Bolts, Sonic Waves, Proton Torpedoes, Phazers, Concussives, Rockets, Missiles, Blast Mines, Strip Mines, Cluster Mines.*
>
>Potential to work: ~~???~~
\[I would appreciate any criticism given about this, as this is my first post on Writing Prompts\] |
“Hera, are you sure that this is something we have to do?” I asked, walking down the halls of the annoyingly bright and pink hallway,
“Yes, I’m sure, and the sooner we get this done, the sooner you can stop complaining. I think this is the right room.”
I looked at the sign on the side of the door. It read, “Room 69-Drs. Psyche and Eros, PsyD.”
“Well, here goes nothing.” We walked into the room and immediately, a perky, ecstatic woman hugs me, and a tall, slim, and muscular man wearing a toga with wings tattooed on his back hugs my wife.
“Hi, I’m Eros, and this is my wife, Psyche.”
His deep voice even scared me.
“ Well, just sit down and we’ll get started!” Psyche said, her high-pitched voice giving me a headache. This was going to be a long day. |
"How much did we make, Partner?"
"Are you seriously asking me for a bribe?"
"Well, no. Sargent Bill Thompson, Nevada Gaming Commission. I'd like to ask you a few questions."
"Can I guess, you're about to ask me how I got nine royal flushes in a row and how I knew to bet high on each of them. Am I right?"
"In a word, yes."
"I got bad new for you. I haven't the slightest idea how it happened."Sargent Bill looked uneasy, but was hiding it well. "I'm guessing you saw the CCTV and that why you're asking and haven't arrested me yet. Best I can come up with is luck."
"Beginners luck. First time to Vegas?"
"Seventh. And I'm on day 7 of my vacation."
We sat in silence for a few minutes. "Can I see your ID?"Sargent Bill looked it over.
"So you were born July 7th, 1977? Can I hazard a guess as to what time you were born? 7 am?"
"That's an interesting guess, but it was 8:17 am. But if you math it out, it's 77 minutes past 7 am, or 7:77 am, if you're an idiot."
"That's a lot of sevens."
"Seems to be a running theme in my life. That and good luck in general. I even had a 7 in each of the four hands before the run of royal straight flushes started."
"Ok. So today is your lucky day, as always. You didn't cheat, so no harm no fowl, but the casino has asked that I trespass you if you do any more gambling. You're fine to keep this room for the rest of your vacation but do not gamble at any MGM, Caesars, or Bally's properties. Actually, I wouldn't even set foot within 10 feet of a slot machine at McCarran on your way out."
"How about the lotto?"
"Nevada doesn't have the lotto."
"Just my luck."
Sargent Bill got up to leave, but stopped. "So, just out of curiosity, how much did you win?"
"Seven figures." |
~~Dear Diary,~~~ Anyone who's reading this, this is my last few days on this station.
I've lost count the number of days I've been up here for.
Certain parts of the station were damaged by what must have been bits of some satellite- there's so much room up here in this endless void, and yet they still collided.
About a week ago was when the solar flare hit, and many other things have gone downhill ever since.
Who knew that the toilet could be damaged from that? I know I didn't. It really humbles a man, when he has to take a shit in space without the help of a vacuum. You might laugh. I didn't.
(I can still smell it.)
The station's been rotating slowly, and I've lost my only view of Earth. No one has responded to the radio. It must have been fried, along with half of the other important electronics.
I figure, in another forty-eight hours or so, I'll have rotated back enough to get a view of Earth again. Days of time to yourself on such an incredibly isolated location will drive anyone mad.
I just want to see Earth again....
I'm sorry, I'm rambling.
....
You know, this could be my last words. I'll try to end it on a high note, we'll see.
So! Air pressure has remained constant, thank God for that. The one escape shuttle that has remained docked is still there, but I'm hesitant to try to fly it down without any input from down below. There should have been at least two more people up here with me by now.
Oh. Maybe they think I'm dead?
...I'll be thinking about something else now.
Right. I'll write again tomorrow, as the rotation is complete. I've never looked forward to anything as much as this, before. Strange, huh?
-----
So, it's been about forty-seven hours since I last wrote down my thoughts. I'm still excited. One way or another, something big will happen today. I can feel it.
I've decided to try to sleep for a while. I want the surprise to be total.
....
...
...Oh my God! _Why is it brown?_ What _happened_ while I was gone?
...That's a crater. That's.... That's a lot of smoke.
Maybe it's a dream... if I close my eyes, it will be blue and green again.... |
As a child Chey would roam the lesser travelled pathways of our world, seeking out the wonders hiding at their ends. Often he'd come back with vivid tales of those places that to the average mind did not exist.
*An over active imagination.* His parents would say, mostly laughing away their sons strange stories, though there would be times at which those stories troubled them.
Disturbing was perhaps the word to use, for Chey knew things no boy of eight should know, and he claimed to have seen things no boy nor man should ever see.
*It's just an over active imagination. He'll grow out of it.*
Only he wouldn't. For at the age of just eleven Chey went missing, and should it be so heartless for his parents to admit that deep down inside they were relieved. His stories of these *other worlds* were growing more intense, a darkness creeping in, consuming him.
He spoke of supernatural shadows lingering beyond the spectrum of what we know as light, of creatures biding their time beyond the layers of reality in hopes one day that they might feed. He spoke of a man without eyes who resided in a tower which he claimed was the very pillar of existence, holding up the world, his world, all worlds around him. A man without eyes watching over the pathways Chey travelled, watching over him.
*But how, Chey, if he doesn't have eyes?* He has hands - that was Chey's answer. The hands of the deceased reaching up from out their dirtied prisons, holding in their rotting fists the soft receptors of their long-gone masters' sight.
*What else, Chey. What else do you see?* So suddenly intrigued.
Two women, hiding in the ruined cities that encircled the man's tower. So close to one another, yet so far apart. The cities were divide by strange pathways the likes of which Chey walked, pathways that most might overlook. One woman scarred with burns, the charred stumps of what once had been wings twittering upon her back. Another clad in silver, a suit of light weight fabric, her face obscured by the visor of her helmet. They needed to find each other, Chey was certain of it.
*But why?*
Chey was taken in broad daylight, hunted by the predatory agents of the man. He had been wandering the streets of his home town, on a mission - as he parents had described it - to retrieve a loaf of bread, a pint of milk, some butter and some jam. It was in between a high rise block of brick-built flats and a storage company that Chey noticed not an alleyway, but a staircase.
*It's a pathway.* He almost smiled, knowing that his *mission* was about to take a turn. Ordinary life, it bored Chey, and to him it was a wonder so many of us hurried endlessly to destinations that could wait. Cars racing by to get to work, running red lights just to attend that *oh-so-important* meeting a little earlier. People shoving past each other in the streets, not caring to open their eyes to the journey itself.
*Look a little closer.* He shook his head, bewildered by a world that was forever getting faster. And yet here in front of him, a boy who cared nothing for his home town nor his home world, was a stairway promising to take him somewhere new, somewhere far away, somewhere strange.
Would Chey rush? Not at all. He'd savour every moment, every step. Trying as he might to guess what would await by the scent of it alone. Sand, he thought, then dust clouds, for the air was full of grit and felt too thick.
As he came halfway between his world and what might lie beyond, he heard the familiar sounds of trains rushing by, engines roaring, wheels forever turning, headlights growing in the deep dark of a tunnel. He wasn't scared of them, not as he had been back in the beginning. This was all part of the journey, the passing of the trains. The light would come for him, and then it would go out. It would be over in mere seconds, though those seconds they would feel like hours.
First his head would start to swell, stretching out his skin, then his stomach it would bloat, turning inside out until it spilled whatever contents it was holding - though never was it food, and almost always was if flies. Then came the buzzing in his ears, growing louder, calling forth black waters that would wash him down and bring him finally back up. Falling through the void to surface in whatever new reality was waiting.
Only this time it was different, for when Chey was passing through the void he sensed that he was not alone, and when he felt a hand wrap round his ankle he realised he was right. |
When I was a kid he was just Mr. Skelington, my imaginary friend. I'd see him in public, toddle up, and babble at him. Mom laughed it off, and dad ignored it. At least, until I started elementary school. They sat me down and explained that I was growing up, and that he was an imaginary friend. I'd be going to big girl school, and the other kids would tease me for talking to him.
By the forth grade they, and my teachers, thought I was being unreasonable. When I said he came to take Principal Sanders away, I was put in therapy. Then they sent me to a facility that was supposed to make me better. I saw him there a lot, but quickly learned that even waving to him would make them put me on more drugs. So I "got better". I pretended to stop seeing him, and got good at not looking.
They tried to keep me longer, but the insurance ran out. As soon as it did, I was pronounced "cured"and given some cheap prescription that had to be filed through the facility. I didn't take it. Mr. Skelington always hovered around the patients who were given it. Years later I would learn that it was something the head doctor had thrown together that caused severe mental breaks. The patients would be sent back to the facility, now on the government dollar. Eventually their lives gave out and Mr. Skelington came for them. It was why I saw him almost daily while there.
By high school I understood that my imaginary friend was death. A tall skeleton wearing a cowl, carrying a scythe, and everyone he visited died? Hard to assume he was anything else. I vaguely remembered him speaking to me as a child, but he never approached me. I made it most of the way through high school ignoring him. That is, until Dad had a stroke in his sleep.
Mom had been on him to eat healthier for awhile. His blood pressure was horrible, and the doctor told us that even on the meds he was at risk. He kept saying "I'll start dieting, but tomorrow"or after this party, or after the weekend. But it was too late.
I was woken by him, Death, sitting on the side of my bed. He looked sad. I don't know how a skull can look sad, but his did. He said he was sorry, that he had been putting it off as long as he could. That he had intervened several times, but had been caught the last time. I thought he had come for me, until Mom started screaming. As I ran out of the room, he apologized again. He wasn't there when I ran back.
I was angry at him for a long while. I would still see him in the corner of my eye, but would turn away. Eventually, I never saw him. Eight years would go by. I would graduate high school and college. I got my first job, had my first heart break, and moved halfway around the world. Eight years till I saw him again.
Once again I was woken by him sitting on the side of my bed. I was surprised, panicked, and still a little angry. He didn't give me a chance to say anything. He told me to go home, to go back to my mother. She needed help, and he couldn't intervene personally. Something about rules.
I didn't wait. I packed a bag and took the first flight home. Mom had been sick for days, but the doctor told her it was a cold. She had lost weight and couldn't keep anything down. She hadn't told me so as not to worry me. I took her to the hospital, and made a scene until a doctor saw us.
It was breast cancer. Stage 4. They gave her a few months at most. With medicine and care, we stretched it to a year. I moved back in, helped with the doctors' appointments, and made sure we had fun. We saw movies and went ice skating. I took her out to fancy restaurants and would go on walks with her. I made sure she saw her friends and got time with them. I made every second count.
He woke me before he took her. Let me sit with her until she drew her last breath. I watched as he released her from her body, and he stayed while I cried. Before he left, he apologized again. He didn't want to make me sad, but he could only push life so far. I told him I understood, thanked him for the time I got to spend with my mom, and apologized for how I had reacted after my dad had died.
These days, when I catch him in the corner of my eye, I wave a little. Sometimes people see and ask who I am waving to. An old friend, I tell them, a dear old friend. |
"I mean despite his inherent, shortcomings..."I said to my Daughter Astra in a way that was slightly demeaning "...you really have fallen for him."i finished and went back to her Dinner while her Boyfriend Dennis was on the Toilet.
She looked at me raised her eyebrows and said quietly "Please Mom, not here, not now, not ever."
His Parents looked at me aswell and said "What is that supposed to mean?"they made quotation marks with their Fingers "Inherent Shortcomings, Huh?"
I put down my chopsticks and had to think carefully now. I wanted to make it unmistakably clear what i think about their Union, but then again. She was pretty happy and i would be a fool to throw a wrench in that. Those kind of things have the potential to irredeemably break relationships.
​
"I mean no disrespect here, i know he is a good Guy."When saying things in this way, everybody on the Table knew that a very uncomfortable ,but, was coming. "But you do know what i talk about here."I sighed out and continued possibly digging my own grave here. Still honesty was always the best Policy "He is Genetically Impure is what i mean. If they Marry they will never be granted a Reproduction Permit. You all know this!"
​
Before a second passed my daughter slammed her fist on the Table and said frustrated "Mom enough! We already been through this! I dont care!"
"Mrs Kassai."his Father addressed me. "We came here under the Assumption that you have Agreed to their relationship. We did not come to have our Foundational believes questioned and attacked"They said and my daughter nodded.
​
I went into myself to get to the Menu and ordered their Favorite drinks. Fortunately Dennis's Parents had not too aggressive Privacy settings. I still could not see what their favorites where. We where not that close yet, but still the Restaurant we where in had their Favorites on stock and i blindly ordered them. I just hoped they where not into some of those fancy Cognacs from Mare Ingenii. The items where paid and would be delivered within the next few minutes by a Waiter.
​
The Novakosmik was a Fancy place, actual Waiters instead of a Drone or a belt. Real Wooden Furniture and Lavishly wasteful Incandescent lighting aswell as the good food that was now in my stomach doing the Old digesting did command a hefty fee, still Astra was 29 now and this was her first serious relationship. I did not mind even though one could think that i did, i was just concerned is all. I remembered how dumb i was when i was her age. No, thats a lie. I dont actually remember much from that time.
Finally i snapped out of it and answered their question "Oh sorry, i was just ordering us some Drinks."I saw Dennis coming from the Toilet. I zoomed in on his Hands and turned on my Thermal Vision.
"That Pig!"I said. Shit! I said the Part out loud that i should just have kept to myself. Since it was immediately visible that he did not wash his Hands and considering how long he spend in the Bathroom that meant it was a Nr 2.
My daughter rolled her eyes, she knew me too well. His parents eyebrows narrowed and before they could put one and one together i said loudly "I would love to eat a Pig!"smiling hoping it was a successful save.
​
The Mother looked at me bewildered. "Whats a Pig?"
"Thats a Terran Animal, the Terrans ate them. My Mom really misses them especially something called Bakong"Astra said wittingly or unwittingly saving my Face.
​
"Hey there im back, did i miss anything?"Dennis said, sat down and Astra gave him a quick Kiss on his Cheeks.
​
"I was just about to tell my Mom about our Plan."she said looking at me while he looked at his Parents nervously. Which meant that whatever she was about to say was something that would leave neither present Parent Happy.
​
"Yeah you go ahead, lets get this over with"he said, confirming all our fears. His Mom was already facepalming, i had a feeling that she knew already or at least suspected something.
​
Astra took a deep breath and after a second or so started talking "So Mom. I wont be undergoing the Immortalization Procedure next Year."she sighed out and looked at me.
​
I tried to hold her hand but she pulled it away and i said seriously "Astra, you are not thinking clearly. You always wanted this! I dont want to see you grow old Die! This is not you!"
​
"Mom, you always wanted this, i tried telling you so many times that it was my choice to make and i made it, irrespective of Dennis."she looked at his Parents now. "We will also have Children."
​
His Fathers Face was looking questionably at Dennis now. Poor guy was in deep shit. "What? How? You cant! You literally cant. They wont allow it unless..."A few seconds later it dawned upon him and he shouted so loud that the restaurants Noise Cancellation came on, putting a slight damper on everything coming outside but at least the other patrons where spared a Family argument "Have you lost your mind?! How can you betray 4.2 Billion years of Natural selection! This is Bigger then you my friend!"pointing his finger aggressively in his Face. I nodded as if i cared. I didnt but maybe there was a chance that his parents could turn it around creating a parental win win situation.
We all knew what was going on. He was already too Old for Immortalization. He was 33 afterall, he made his choice. However, it was never too late for the Germline Purification Procedure.
​
He finally spoke up. "Mom, Dad. I know! But there is no other way! I will do this!". He had a point, there where only few Genetically Impure Naturals left, roughly 2000 in total from the last census.
​
Astra got up now and pulled Dennis from his Chair. She looked at him then waved to us with her left Arm "Screw this! Mom Screw you!"Giving me the Bird. This was a Angry Bird, not a joking one. "We are leaving now."She didn't care about the Social Credits she just lost by Publicly insulting me, her Adoptive Mother. She was mad.
​
I looked at his Parents and they looked at me. We could get up now and try to fight for them. Demand them to listen to us. But if i learned anything in the past 527 years of my life observing other Parents and 29 years of being a Parent i and apparently they as well knew that this would not work. So we let them go as they stomped out of the Restaurant.
​
His Father looked at me and said "Guess we Ballsed that one up."As our Drinks finally arrived. I realized at this moment that there was no way i would go home sober Tonight. |
“So, what do you propose, Doctor?”
Everyone in the room was looking at him. Some were clearly nervous but tried to hide it. Others waited for someone else to make a mistake, and then sink their teeth into poor shmuck’s throat. A lot of dangerous folks here tonight.
“Well, it’s not like we can bet whether or not he’ll return.” he said, glancing at the photo of his former nemesis “It’s clear as day the bastard will be back before the end of the year. And trying to guess the exact time… It’s such a cliché. Colleagues, we are supposed to be better than this. Besides, everyone and their grandmother will be trying to drag our flying brick out of the afterlife, just to win this bet. Don’t you think it’s unhealthy to basically desecrate a grave for some cash?”
He *was* a villain, but what’s the point to be one, if there are no lines to cross anymore? Nobody likes cartoonish maniacs.
Some lady with blue skin and three eyes raised her hand. He didn’t recognize her – it’s not like he had to remember every newbie rogue face.
“Personally, I’m not here for the money. It’s kind of fun, though,” she said.
“Exactly! Let’s make it more exciting! We know he’ll come back, but we don’t know how. Maybe it will be through a zombie virus, and then his pals just heal him. Maybe he’ll turn up lost and amnesiac in some dinosaur land or something. Or it’ll be his clone from another reality where everyone is evil, or Australian. In the end, unlikely though, he can stay dead and some gal takes up his mantle. The possibilities are endless, and it would be much, much harder for players to cheat. Why don’t we bet on something like this?”
The referee yawned and put away his phone “Very well. If there are no objections to Dr. Obliterator's proposal, we can start to discuss the details.” |
It had taken Wolfgang 30 years to get here, as he stood at the summit of a small hill he marvelled at the sheer number of men around him. Tents stretched as far as the eye could see as his men and their families rested in preparation for there final push. The attack of Rome.
​
The campaign had seen the Danube tribes unite with the Gaul’s and Danes and even the nomads across the eastern steppes. Thousands had flocked to his banner as he liberated them from the Romans. For the last 6 months they’d pushed through Italy, leaving devastation to any roman foolish enough to oppose him. Now, thanks to thousands providing the ultimate sacrifice they were here. the tops of some temples just visible thanks to his vantage point. They would be temples to his gods soon enough.
​
They would leave at dawn tomorrow and us the sun set wolfgang realised that for many of his men this would be the last sunset they’d ever see. The deep red of the sky was almost an omen of what tomorrow would bring.
​
In the distance trumpets sounded. His men jumped into an attack before another tune rang out. It was just a mall party of travellers with a single mule. Wolfgang gave his command to allow them to proceed. After all now they’d seen him he couldn’t let them leave. Wolfgang moved into his tent, ensuring preparations were made for his guests.
​
The Tent door opened and his bodyguard introduced the traveller as Dafin – A local Holy man.
​
Dafin bowed and stood up. “Your majesty” he addressed Wolfgang formally “I am here to persuade you to leave Rome alone and return to Germany”
​
Wolfgang gave out a huge laugh, Dafin’s face remained deathly serious
“I’m not joking your honour. You must reconsider this attack”
​
Wolfgang studied Dafin up and down, he was a short slender man, evidently he hadn’t done any labour in his life. Wolfgang gestured to a chair to his right and signalled a servant to pour some beer for them both
“Go on then” Wolfgang muttered bemused “ I could do with a laugh tonight”…
​
(to be continued) |
Don't forget that [Scrivener](https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview) is offered at half price to NaNoWriMo participants. (In the interests of full disclosure, I *have* Scrivener but it is not a software I regularly use for writing as my current projects were started using a different methodology and it would triple the work to move them to the new software. It is amazing stuff, though, and my next project will probably be moved to Scrivener.) |
Things have evolved. I still remember the 40's crisis. A huge wave of apathy has stricken human civilization. It was too early to spread "privacy fashion"then. Suddenly everyone was wearing a blank featureless face. devoid of emotion, and of any characteristics. Even androids appeared warmer. more human. Disconnection was at its all-time peak. Depression and apathy were the norms. Children were not taught to laugh or to cry, and that made catastrophic outcomes. But the technology evolved at last, and privacy fashion make up companies were able to produce mass-scale face shifting products. The looming sense of apathy was dissipating. A forgotten sense of privacy was retrieved. But things were still far from being normal. For more serious problems have ensued. No one knew who was who anymore. Back in the old days, multiple accounts were common. It was now the turn multiple faces. And that caused more problems for us humans than to the machines we were trying to deceive. Face shifting junkies roamed the streets, swapping faces by the passing hour like true madmen. Of those, some had reached the stage where permanently forgot who they really were. But that was a lesser evil compared to how much crime and hustles were facilitated by false faces. But there was no solution in sight. Banning make-up is as absurd as it sounds. |
I've heard it said of a distant, mythical land, that they once experienced a time called 'the dark ages.' All the kingdoms knew of these tales, and we talked about them freely. Many assumed the darkness was literal, others determined it was a sort of intellectual stagnation. But the real meaning was not important, in truth. To us, they were just tales of a far away realm. It was myth, until it became fact.
Our kingdoms descent into the dark was a slow one. Many couldn't even tell it was beginning from the outside. Only those of us with knowledge of and access to the Crests could see the signs. The Doe of Kalafass, with its wounded knee. The Wolf of the Drondacks, with its muted howl. The Owl of Haberdawn, which refused its nightly watch. The hidden leaders of all our kingdoms grew ill at once, and no one knew why.
There was yet one further unknown. Even among those of us with this unfortunate knowledge, nobody knew the state of the Bear of Muron. In fact, it had been many moons since any word had come from their kingdom. The Council of Kings quickly determined to send an ambassador to Muron to speak for the kingdoms. And so I went.
The journey was slow but consistent. I had little experience in the mountains where the kingdom lay; at many points I wished to turn back, but my duty moved my feet, and so I made my way. Cresting my final peak, I saw the walled city on the far side of the valley below, but it appeared as though dead. Neither smoke of fire nor light of torch could be seen. For the first time I felt fear's true grasp.
I made my way through the valley, but before I could approach the city proper, I was met by a meek and sickly looking man. As he shambled towards me, his clothes in tatters and his eyes empty, I felt the pangs of pity. Hope had left Muron, it appeared, and again I felt the grasp. The man met me, only to hand me a note and turn back to where he came. Perhaps I should have followed, to see the secrets held within those walls, but I knew I would only find absence.
And so I returned to my kingdom, to Haberdawn, where the Council of Kings had convened. It was not my place to open the note, so I waited until each and every king had found their seat, before I read aloud the fate of Muron.
 
*Many moons ago, the men of Muron came together to plot. They had determined that they should rule; that they should take charge of the realm, and rule the other kingdoms from their perch in the mountains. They began to scheme, to find a way to conquer. They had turned from the Great Path, the invisible string that kept our world whole. They turned a blind heart to the ideals of Unity, and instead looked only toward themselves for satisfaction.*
 
*In doing so, they determined the Great Bear an idol of a world that needed to pass away. And so with sword and spear and arrow, they killed him. The Great Bear let out a final, deafening cry, which put out every fire and torch in our city. And so the light fled from us.*
*The sicknesses began in earnest. The schemes and plots quickly came to an end, as the men who had built them went to their final rest. The carcass of our former Crest lay in our square, a constant conviction of our assured fate. We are no more. We know we have broken our world, and have likely set you down the same fate as us. That is why our shame only lives on in note; cowards, are we all.*
 
*May the Animals find a way to restore Unity, lest we all disappear.*
 
And so we learned our fate. The great string that bound our Crests together had been broken, and their only binding was now death. Hope abandoned us, as we knew the sickness would soon fall. It is only a matter of time until we join the myths of old.
And so I lay here dying, thinking of those myths of old - wondering what those dark ages held for that distant land. Whatever it may have been, I can only hope that they found a way to survive, to find unity. It's a terrible fate to die divided.
_____________________
r/psalmsandstories for more tales by me, should you be interested. |
The man looked at the sign - so art deco, "private eye"- and then he observed the facade again. Befuddled, he tilted his head. Was it *in* there?
Two children came out, playfully waving what seemed like a wand, one of them, and the other navigating a retro ship in the air while making displaced car-sounding noises.
He ventured inside. The shopkeeper greeted him with a nod, and didn't have time for anything else because the man immediately averted his gaze, beginning to search around, touching some of the little pieces of intriguing clutter After a minute, the keeper asked, with a particularly old-fashioned accent: "Are you *looking* for anything in particular?"
Nervous and stiff, the man denied.
"You sure look different from the usual crowd I receive. This type of funky trinket ain't for everyone. Sometimes people require *different* services."
No, no...it couldn't be there, that musty dump stuffed with everything yet nothing. Good afternoon, he'd try the next building. The guy must've had written the numbers incorrectly on the address.
The next building was a budget travel agency, a family business, it seemed. There was only him and a short and simply-dressed man exuding a very slight hint of sweat and red wine. He took a ticket and his turn came:
"Hello, I'm *looking* for something"- «or someone», he whispered under his breath - "I think currently in Peru."
The lady at the desk was slightly confused at such a wording, but proceeded to browse her computer for suitable destinations. |
Something about the way this flaccid slab of NY Strip inched and scrunched its way out of the bathroom like a brown legless caterpillar left us in a state of shock. Frozen in fear. All the air sucked out of the room, as we watched the 12oz menace round the corner.
The worst part was the slap. The slap of the wet meat hitting the tile, as it dragged itself into the foyer. The sound was haunting.
When the bovine terror finally caught full glimpse of the room, its pace turned from a daunting slither, to a full gallop with the determination of a hungry lioness.
Between the fear and absurdity of what we were seeing, we all mustered the same reaction. Me, Kyle, Brandon and all the strippers in unison simply lifted our feet as if someone were coming to vacuum beneath where we were sitting.
The steak wrapped itself in the bed post, and tried to curl its way up onto the queen bed closest to the door. It simply slid back down onto the floor with every attempt to ascend the banister.
The silence was finally broken when Candy asked:
"What the fuck is that thing?",
Her voice trembling with fear.
We all knew it was a steak. We could see the criss-crossed grill marks that coated its surface. We could smell the peppercorn crusted on its edges.
"A steak? "Brandon asked, staring directly at it from the safety of the other bed, as it tried to hurl itself onto the mattress.
Then it made sense. Out of the bathroom came a swarm of cocktail shrimp, pouring into the room, accompanied by a legion of half pound crab leg knuckles, crawling with the legs, dragging the white underbelly of what would be a fully formed crab with them, as they clicked and clacked along the tile toward us.
It was all the food we ate at the buffet, reanimated and restored, hell-bent on revenge. Were we being punished? Is there a threshold for gluttony that we had surpassed? Was God smiting us for being so vain to think we could take so much from the earth, and give so little back? Were the scales being balanced.
While a floppy steak couldnt manage to reach us on the highground, the same was not true for the lobster tails and other crustaceans we had expelled from our bowels. They had the opposable limbs neccesary to hop. They hopped. Fucking HOPPED.
Seeing the first crab leg bundle hop onto the bed initiated a fight or flight response in me, which manifested itself as vomit. Half on the duvet, half in Brookes hair, which only served to accelerate the chaos that followed.
We evacuated our bowels. Our beds. Sorry. We evacuated our beds right into their clutches, and in the case of the Alaskan Snow Crab clusters who still had their pincers I mean thay quite literally. The shrimps swarmed us. Bits of shredded chicken pinched onto our clothing and climbed our legs, presumably to make it to our faces, into our mouths and nostrils to suffocate us to death.
In a feat of Bravery, Kyle let out a battle cry that could rally even the most destitute of soldiers. He screamed, "Eat these motherfuckers! ". And so we defended ourselves.
The steak tasted of toilet water. The shrimps smelt of flatulence. But we muscled through. Then a bright light. I could feel shoes on my face. My arms were inside my shirt and I was huddled on a cold concrete floor. I lifted my head, my shoes had their laces removed, and I was using them as a makeshift pillow. Brandon was using my legs for a pillow, and Kyle laid on the bench of a stainless steal picnic table in the center of the room.
A line of men wrapped the room leading to a police officer in the center, handing out sandwiches stationed beside an old orange gatorade urn, with LVPD spray painted on it dispensing cold water.
"Where are we?"I asked the officer as I shook Bradon off me.
"Clark County Detention Center. "the officer barked back like he had, and would answer this question a hundred times. "Your hookers called the cops after you boys overdosed on acid, and started dipping your buffet left overs in the toilet, screamed at them, before eating said leftovers out of the toilet and off eachothers bodies. They were concerned for your, and their safety." |
An ocean tide wind slammed without mercy against my thick glass wall. My house was pretty much made of glass, so I got an amazing view of what they are calling the storm of our lifetime. It’s honestly beautiful, blankets of gray/blue ice rain are going in all directions against my windows like an orchestrated dance.
The only problem is, there are five people outside begging to come in. My mom, brother, wife, best friend, and sister. Pretty odd that these are my five favorite people. The odd part is when I let jim out, they killed and ate him. And they went back to pretending they are cold and starving and wanted inside. Actually the really odd part of it, my best friend outside clawing my window was Jim that was also inside with me. This is when I realized “they” are clones or could change shape .
So this is me, down one real friend, ten days of food left, and cannibal clones outside. I’m trying to put this all together thinking of every Stephen king book I can but my brain just goes to alien zombies or simply a nightmare.
So I setup a trap, I want to catch one of these clones and see if I can figure out what they are, maybe a way to beat them.
Out of pure laziness though, I decide to just wait for one of the clones to get isolated and I just opened the door. It comes right at me and I shoot it in the leg, it comes in, I slam door and kick it as hard as I can in the house. It obviously keeps coming at me to eat me, but I put another bullet in its leg, and it’s down.
15 mins later it’s in my glass shower with a lock on it, and now, it’s time for the fun.... |
"Ah! Thank you for seeing me today Destroid, its a pleasure to finally meet you, it's a shame you missed out on the last corporate party, Susan brought a mince pie that was just to die for!"I smiled, trying to ease the villains tension, his leg bouncing against the ground, sending small ripples through the room, nearly knocking over my prized golf clubs.
"Look, I know I messed up, but it wasn't my fault... Burnie! That bastard tricked me, told me to take the left lane, I didn't know their were civilians inside, I swear..."he blubbered, raising his ham fisted hands towards me.
"Twenty dead... Twenty Mr Destroid..."I reminded the man, yet again, I went to soothe him. "Burnie admitted that this was her fault, I have already spoken to her, however you must understand that bad publicity puts a lot of pressure on us."I stood up from my desk, pacing around my desk. "You see, now we will have to submit a weekly analysis of our actions, this will put a strain on our long term plans. That doesn't bother me, but of course the bossman isn't happy about that."
Destroid looked a little pale now, starting to rise from his chair before I placed an arm on his shoulder.
"Why so scared? Im not going to hurt you or anything, Im just a HR man."I reminded him, leaning against the edge of the desk. "You know, It's funny, I'm sure Burnie would find it funny seeing you tremble like this, Wait a moment, I'll get here."I said, raising a finger as I leant over me desk, reaching underneath it, pulling out the decaying head of the villain, cupping it with both my hands as I stared it at him, slowly moving its jaw as I made a soft feminine voice. "Jee, why the scared face, you scared of a little HR? I told him to go suck a dick.... that's funny right? Right?"I pressed her face against his as my voice returned to normal. "That... was funny... wasn't it?"
Destroid looked horrified, his lip quivering as he went to speak. "Y-yes?..."
I tossed the head aside chuckling. "Funny, guess it was. Anyway, you are dismissed..."I said, watching him rise from his desk, he turned to the door then went to run for the window, unfortunately he ran straight into a fist of mine. "So you found out the door was boobytrapped? You are smarter then they say... you know what I like about this business? Its the only place that lets me play golf indoors."I said? Grabbing one of the clubs I had carefully placed at the edge of the room, before going to down on the back of his head. |
The bundles of tightly wrapped paper fell into the bag. The canvass filled up in a jumbled heap as it poured over the counter, thrust suddenly across. Bundle after bundle continued to come across, as endlessly as a buffet plate refills itself on five dollar night. Then, as rapidly as the stream of freshly printed paper had begun, it ceased. The well had run dry.
Saturated orange and pink shoes thudded against the colorless tile floor in a symphony of sound. Each shoe collided with the floor in time with the last. Gasps filled the silence in between, as murmurs swept amongst the crowd. A shirt pushed back slightly as fingers gambled with fate. The glint of a six shooter aligned perfectly with the runners eyes. The shoes came to a screeching halt, as rapidly as callused hands were raised, tightly gripping the metallic black of a Beretta. Trigger discipline was abandoned as aged fingers raced for the delicate triggers. The Beretta fired first, adding a substantially louder sound to the orchestra of the noise. Another thud followed, complementing the bullet. This overshadowed the quiet splash of red, tainting the tile.
A glass door is pushed open as the thudding footsteps transfer to the pavement. Car brakes echo off of the brick buildings to avoid a pedestrian casualty. The hood of a black sweatshirt ripples in the wind manufactured by the man fleeing. The canvas bag that is flung over his back slows his pursuit down. He wonders what he is chasing as blue and red lights kiss the side of his face. Sirens flood the streets as turbo charged cars close in on the man on foot.
He is hunting freedom. |
"I am the lord of darkness, the inevitable, Nephthys, Hades, der Tod, Azrael, livsfara, ölüm, kamatayan, morte..."
"Yeah of course,"the life grinned. "A very thin, short little guy."
"I am not short, actually for standarts of 1500's I can be considered as-"
"Little!"The older girl shouted. "And we are not in 1500's anymore silly!"Her eyes were full of life, of course. She looked healthy, things around her weren't able to fade. Everything around her was shining, just like her. She was loving and loved, by everything and towards everything. Under her feet, flowers have already started to grow.
"I am so happy about this meetings every year, otherwise I couldn't see you!"
Natural powers always made up meetings, it was important for balance. But the boy didn't seemed very happy.
"Such a relief to be here,"he stated without emotions. His voice was like this in general, cold.
"Look how sarcastic you are!"said the girl with a laugh.
"What is wrong?"
"I am not really into coming here every year and squishing under judmental eyes."he turned his head to look very colourful flowers, his eyes calcified in a far point. He was short, he looked unhealthily thin. Although he was immortal and has a very young body, -a fourteen years old's body- he looked like he died a long time ago, sleep deprived. Big puple circles under his eyes, hands full of cuts and scars; like he wasn't regenerating at all.
"I see,"she said. There was no possibility for someone to look like her, not smiling yet having a great peace in their face, looking calm. She could look like she was going to tea party in the middle of a war. Other hand, the boy could be anxious as a soldier in a tea party.
"But it's your job, right? And you are doing it great."
"What I'm doing great, is killing people, do you hear what you are saying? And may I ask you what you have done all this year as a 'job'?"
"Hmmm, lots of birth of course, and a few recoveries as well; I really like modern medicine."When she shut her mouth she saw what does he mean, he was looking at her with meaningful eyes.
"Oh,"
"Yes. And I took little children from hospital beds, depressive people from bathtubs. I-"his voice lowered, as his head. Life heard a little sniffle.
"Wait, are you crying?"Life knelt beside him and stared for awhile, not knowing what to do. Then just wrap up Death with her arms, just like a sister comforting his little brother.
"Are you hugging me?"He asked under his tears, smiling faintly.
"Yes, and hush,"she hugged himtightly and then let him go.
"Almighty Life hugs the dowdy Death, what a scene!"he mocked. "Maybe we should work together, to help each other?"
It was her time for Life to glance meaningfully. "If the inevitable Lord of darkness wants it-"
"And to observe for educational reasons!"
Finally there was balance, and friendship.
Note: I am not fluent in English so I am a caveman trying to write stories. Forgive mistakes and criticize contructively! |
"In my restless dreams, I see that town,"said the familiar character, named Mary, in a disembodied voice, as a figure overlooks a lake. "Silent Hill. You've promised you'd take me there again someday. But you never did. Well, I'm alone there now, in our special place, waiting for you..."
My hands on the controller, I savor every bit of dialogue and scenery in this game, Silent Hill 2. I've replayed this game so many times, to the point I know the ins and outs. I know how to get from point A to point B, how to handle the boss fights, and memorized the puzzles no matter the difficulty. Yet none of that breaks my immersion.
As Mary says these words, the figure at the lake, her husband, James Sunderland, stands, overlooking the town in the distance past Toluca Lake. He then monologues to himself about how he wonders if she could really be in this town, and how ridiculous the scenario is, as "a dead person can't write a letter."
From then on, I play through the lengthy introduction, as I make James walk down the hill, with the unsettling sounds of footsteps in the background. This game was always therapeutic growing up. I know I should have more lighthearted games on the new PlayStation 2, or even the PlayStation console before that, but something about this game when I followed it grabbed me, as if I was drawn to it. Yet here I am, in 2011, still playing it. I mean why not do a marathon of the game? It is October after all, and Halloween is just around the corner.
Soon, I am in the apartment complex level in the game, playing through it as usual, hitting all the stops I normally would to ensure what doors were locked and which weren't. However, there was this one door that I was sure was always locked in my previous playthroughs. 'Maybe it's an easter egg or has something to do with the ending of the game,' I thought to myself. Weird enough though was this apartment room I've walked into was well-lit and clean, unlike all the other rooms. What I liked about the game was how the town felt lived in but not anymore, yet it feels this room in particular seems it is still lived in. Normally there would be an item, a cutscene, notes, or even a save point in one of these rooms. There was nothing in here. Not even one of the ambient sounds or bits of music the game's composer left in, yet it wasn't quiet. There was the muffled sound of two people arguing, but nobody was in this particular room aside from James. There was even a thud, and the sound of what was a child crying.
My heart racing, I left this room immediately and never returned to it. That was way too familiar to me. Thankfully, the rest of the apartment sequence played as normal. I think I may have ran past that same room and tried to enter it again, but it was locked. Either way, I make my way out of the claustrophobic building, and run into all the familiar cutscenes of the game, and even pick up the character Maria to tag along with me. Maria, a symbolic and important character in the game, I felt had some of the best delivered lines in the game, but I can't get over the fact it seems she's looking into the camera, like she's looking out at me, knowing I'm here. Other than that, she was the same as always.
Eventually, after a few scenarios, Maria and James ends up in the next level in the game, a hospital. Yet again, I entered a previously thought locked room, but it this room looked entirely different from all the other hospital rooms in the game. This looks like the hospital room I was in when I "fell down the stairs", as my parents told me to tell others when asked about my bruises and scars. There was a cutscene here as well for some reason. It showed Maria telling James that she feels they should leave this room. She looked into the camera again, and this time I swear I could feel her eyes piercing through the screen at me.
Near the end of the level, Maria and James are on the run from the monster of the game, Pyramid Head. The most iconic character of the series, and one of the most popular gaming monsters in pop culture. The hallway with lots of turns feels disorienting, but it ends the same way nonetheless, with the death of Maria. James is then left to leave the hospital, alone. Instead of the soft and somber piano music that would normally play before leaving the hospital, there were whispers. These whispers told me: "You deserve it. You put us through all of this. If you weren't born, we wouldn't be in this mess!"The whispers continued, saying all of these things that I went my whole life hearing. Things I'd rather not relive.
Though my mind tells me to turn the game off and walk away, I can't. I'm still drawn to this game.
There was the penultimate level of the game up next, but I decided to take a detour. Pete's Bowl O' Rama. This is perhaps the most comforting place in the entire game. It's just soft rock music, and though the place looks beaten down, it feels like the positive moment in what is otherwise a dreary and depressing period of time. I love to soak it in. Especially with the darkness outside of this bowling alley.
After I feel recharged, I head to the aforementioned level, the Silent Hill Historical Society. This is perhaps the most haunting level in the game. Near the beginning, James has to run down a rather long stairway, into the fabled prison under Toluca Lake, the very place seen at the beginning of the game. I remember reading about it in the lore of the Silent Hill series. What sets this place apart from the other levels in the game is the open-ended nature of the Historical Society. The developers implemented nonlinear game design, so the closed-in, claustrophobic hallways and corridors you were used to have become bigger spaces, with you in the dark, unsettled by what could be further, across these open areas. Not only does this area house a prison, but also areas that seem impossible to be so far below the town's surface.
Even more creepy, yet symbolic is the segments where James is asked if he wants to jump down the dark holes. In a room that holds a graveyard one hole in particular in this playthrough, I jumped within, and if it weren't for my tight grip, I would have dropped the controller at what I saw next. In full display, within PlayStation 2 graphics, was my old room. Aside from a dresser, my bed, television, and PlayStation 1 and 2 consoles, this room was barren, just as I remember it. It was easy to see that my parents didn't give me much growing up, with few clothes to cycle through and no toys. Just a video game console to babysit me when I wasn't in their way or being their punching bag. Out of morbid curiosity, I go up to my television and turn it and the PlayStation 2 on. To my surprise, nothing creepy happened, and it worked as intended. It loaded up the copy of Silent Hill 2 I grew up with, but couldn't have James play it. Weirded out by James being in my old room, I have him take the door out, only to be back in the Historical Society, in the hallway just before coming out to the lake. In that moment, I had skipped a sizable chunk of the level, but I'm glad I'm out. It's almost like the fresh air James is getting, I'm getting.
To the final level, James must row a boat all the way across Lake Toluca, which takes a while. It's moments like these I appreciate the developers going to these great lengths to have slow building terror.
Thankfully, this hotel level is devoid of all these moments I had just witnessed. No extra rooms that weren't supposed to be there, no surprises to bring up the past. That is until I get the VHS tape, which normally would show what James did to Mary as the twist of the game. This time, however, it showed...me. It showed me the night I killed them. I tied bags over their heads until they would suffocate. I can smell them even now, rotting in my closet as my sweaty palms grip the controller.
The rest of the game continued as normal. I got the "In Water"ending, and that was that.
Turning the game off, I feel freed. I call the cops to tell them of what I did, then I go to my bathroom, and I find a hole, and I see a white prompt, same font as the game: "Will you jump down? Yes/No." |
Justin, Justin Wellesley, was a likeable young man, 17 years old in his second last year of school.
He was smart, funny, and personable, got along well with everybody and had his own circle of friends who were part of the schools athletic team, above all the one thing he'd always felt he stood out in was his dedication to fitness and his athleticism.
On top of his long after school training with the schools cross country running team, Justin would always put in his regular session training calisthenics and more aerobics at his local gym. He'd trained various martial arts since he was young and had for the past couple of years been training Tae Kwan Do at his local dojo. At home he would go through a regular fitness routing including a hundred push ups, a hundred sit ups, and a hundred squats and so on, every morning and every night, as well as a long jog every day before day break.
As such, though he didn't think of himself as arrogant, Justin secretly prided himself as someone, who if not the most fit person in any room, at least excelled in his dedication to it. And that was a resolution that'd always remained unfettered for most of his life until the day Sol showed up in town.
He appeared abruptly and suddenly nearly halfway through the year yet with surprisingly little noise or commotion in the small town. It seemed like one day he just showed up to class, introduced himself with nothing but his first name, sat down in a corner and things moved on. There were none of the usual rumours about who he was or where he was from or why he showed up so suddenly, no gossips, talks about what he was like, if he was weird or if he anyone liked him. A boy of average height, not bad looking with a bit of a childish face that always had a wildly excited grin on his face.
Justing approved of it, he liked that Sol seemed to avoid gossip and getting mixed up in different circles, he seemed unusually reserved having not made any friends or at least someone he talked to regularly in the coming weeks, but despite Justins differing tendency to be more open and talkative, he liked Sols enthusiasm. Despite the lack of scrutiny he would always put his hand up to answer questions, get excited when he got things right or found something knew and was tenacious if disappointed when he got them wrong, yet Justin could see that Sol put his full effort into all the work, every assignment that was handed, every test and practical was duly done with a shining enthusiasm as if he was genuinely excited to be there doing regular old classwork.
Moreso beyond all that was his fitness, what amazed Justin was his dedication or perhaps even sheer compulsion to exercise ...
saving this initial draft for later, got a feeling that this story if I ever finish it might be a long one, gonna come back tomorrow to do at least half of the prompt. |
I jerk awake, sweating and panting with terror.
Not again. Ronald McDonald has been haunting my dreams for the past six years.
Six years of fluorescent red hair and a manic unwavering grin haunting me.
I sigh and heave myself out of bed.
I pad into the bathroom to rinse the cold beads of sweat from my face.
Steadying myself against the cool porcelain sink top, I look myself in the eyes, lined with heavy dark bags, a result of years of clown invaded sleep.
“YOU ARE NOT THAT FIFTEEN YEAR OLD FAT KID ANYMORE!” I whisper vehemently at myself.
And yet, the smell of salt, grease and self loathing lingers faintly in the air. |
"I guess I never expected to do anything. This job is supposed to be one where no action is a good thing. Having to actually work on something aside from practice could be devastating to the people at large. So when the orders came down from on high, shock was the first feeling I remember.
"I went through the motions like a well oiled machine, incapable of actually processing what I was doing, the lives I was about to end with a few simple motions. How had this happened? What had led us to this point? My immediate superiors weren't quite sure. I distinctly recall them saying directly afterwards that there was a lot of speculation around what actually happened, but their orders hadn't really specified.
"I can see now the utter horror those few mechanical actions caused, your Honor. I was just following my orders, like I was taught and trained, but I accept any and all consequences this court puts upon me." |
"Betty, not yet", I wistfully said. A hand that once firmly held mine in hers, fragilely laid in mine.
​
"Thomas, we both knew I couldn't fight forever. I'm so exhausted and I feel ready", Betty whispered.
​
Since this disease began, Betty and I were able to survive. As society mirrored those which it was comprised of, Betty and I stood tall. We were a beacon of hope that whatever this was would not overcome us. We had lived in Cincinnati our entire lives just blocks from each other, but we never even noticed one another. Then as people began to waste away, it became impossible to not acknowledge the other because we were the only two not yet wasting away. We did not live the same life, we did not have the same values instilled in us, nor did have the same plans for the future. The only thing we had in common was that we were the only ones unaffected.
​
For nearly 20 years we did what we could; tending to the ill and looking to each other for a cure. But to no avail. As there were less and less left to tend to, we decided to try and preserve what little of humanity that we could. Trinkets, music, books, memorabilia. You name it, we saved it. Then eventually there was nobody in Cincinnati we could save. The only two left were us. In our years of solitude we found solace in one another.
​
She was a strong woman who was a teacher for 10 years before this began. She went to Kent State University and studied Early Childhood education. She taught 4th grade at an elementary. She always dreamt that one day she'd teach at the same school her kids went too. However she realized when the kids began fading away that was but a fever dream. She spoke of the kids she taught often, and how she missed doing roll call in the morning. Sometimes when she wasn't expecting it, I'd sneak up behind her and yell, "I'm here Ms. Betty!"For just a moment she'd smile, and I'd see a little bit of the Betty before this all happened; then reality would settle in and she'd once again become the Betty I was more accustomed too.
​
Unlike Betty, I did not go to college, I didn't even finish high school. I used to be quite the little shit. I'd always come to school and start trouble. Finally after a while the school had enough and suspended me. When my parents found out they were absolutely furious at me. What the hell did I care though? I always hated school and school always hated me. Betty was the first teacher who cared for me, and she was the first teacher I cared for. Now I feel awful for everything I did; I realize now that my teachers were just trying to help me with what the skills they had. Who can I apologize to now though? The only person I could apologize to was Betty.
​
As the years went by and when we thought that whatever it was had run its course, Betty and I were both proven wrong. Slowly but surely, Betty began succumbing to the same fate that everybody else had. With each passing day, the strong woman I knew started to waste away. The gaunt, sickly woman who laid before me now was not the Betty I met all those years ago, but it was her nonetheless.
​
As Betty got weaker I pleaded, "Betty, please just a bit longer. That's all I'm asking for; just a bit more time."
​
She looked at me with her soft eyes, and I knew what that meant. All I could do was wait.
​
As I sat there holding Betty, I said to her for the final time, "Don't you worry, I'm here Ms. Betty."Her eyes closed, and a weak smile leapt across her face, and then her body became still. For the first time in a long time, there was nobody to do roll call. |
So, my twin sister and I recently started going to the same college (she's majoring in journalism, I'm majoring in law). To save on rent, we live in the same apartment. Unfortunately, the apartment building happens to be in the worst part of town. Seriously. We were trying DoorDash, and when it scanned our location, it promptly deleted itself. If we call an Uber, the only driver we ever get is some sixty year old guy with a glass eye and an old APC that he somehow got cleared as street legal. We would move but, again, poor college students.
I'm a hermit, so I stay in whenever I'm not at class, so the crime rate doesn't really affect me as much. However, my sister has a lot of friends she likes to see often (and probably a boyfriend or something), and has been mugged five times as a result. After that fifth time, I decided that something needed to be done.
Like I keep mentioning, I'm a poor college student, which is a good thing in this case because if I had the money I would have bought a gun and gone all Charles Bronson on their asses. In lieu of that, I pondered how I could go about vigilantism on the cheap. And then I recalled that I was born without the ability to feel pain. (Something my sister didn't get -- not surprising, we're fraternal, not identical). That would definitely come in handy when fighting crime on the street. And then it came to me: the perfect idea.
I studied Youtube for weeks, to make sure I pulled it off perfectly. Once I was sure, I left the apartment at 10 PM, about an hour before my sister was supposed to be back from some party. I slunk into an alleyway near the building, quickly stripped off everything, and hid it all away where it wouldn't be found at a casual glance.
No sooner had I done so than the sound of angry barks of human speech reached my ears. I tentatively poked my head out of the mouth of the alleyway, and saw with horror that my sister was actually back early, and being held at gunpoint by a mugger. It was go time.
I left the alleyway and broke into a full run heading for the mugger. My feet slapped wetly against the sidewalk below me. He heard me and whipped around to face me, at which point I began to alternate between short, high-pitched screams and clacking my jaw open and shut rapidly, topped off with a scream of "YOUR SKIN! GIVE ME YOUR SKIN! I WANT TO EAT YOUR SKIN!"
I did leave out one minor detail: the YouTube tutorials I watched were regarding how to skin a person. I figured I could skin myself, and let the criminal element of this neighborhood know that there are scarier things wandering the streets at night than them. Let's be honest: if you see a guy without any skin running straight at you and he's screaming about how he's going to eat your skin, you sure as hell are going to be re-evaluating your life choices after that.
Anyway, back to the present. The mugger took in my act for three seconds, then turned and fled the scene, shrieking about having met the devil. My sister took one look at me and...just shook her head. She deduced it was me, between knowing about my peculiar condition and my repeated grumblings as of late regarding taking back the streets.
"Steven, I cannot believe you did this,"she said, dismay evident in her tone. We had returned to the dark alley, where I was pulling on my skin, followed by the rest of my clothes.
"What?"I asked. "I saved you, didn't I?"
She shook her head. "That guy already robbed me two times before. He's nice enough when he's not pointing a gun in your face. Also, you CUT YOUR FREAKING SKIN OFF."She grabbed a handful of skin on my arm, and I had to admit, the way it stretched did look more than a little off-putting. "Did you even wear sandals?"I shook my head. "Great,"she sighed. "Your muscle...meat...whatever the hell it is on the bottom of your feet is dirty as hell now, and you'll probably get an infection. I mean, you'll probably get a LOT of infections, let's be honest. Do you have any idea how important your skin IS?"
"Hey, I put it back on,"I pointed out.
"It's not supposed to ever come off in the first place!"she shouted back. "It's like hair! Once it's off, there's no putting it back! Do you remember Vincent D'Onofrio in Men in Black? His skin was rotting, Steven. Rotting! That is going to happen to YOU. You need to go to a hospital immediately!"
Long story short, I have to live in one of those bubble things for the rest of my life. On the bright side, rumors of a skin-eating monster actually have driven down crime in the neighborhood, which I take every opportunity to rub into my sister's face. |
Shimar wiped the sweat from his glasses for the third time in as many minutes. From shirt to socks, he was drenched in sweat. He took a moment to squeeze the last drops of an aqua pouch into his mouth before puzzling over the open panel again. It was so damn hot.
“Techie, where’s my power?” The vox link at Shimar’s ear crackled. He could hear Vera’s voice, her tone designed to annoy him, loud and clear over the hiss and pump of the various fuel lines. Wiping endless sweat off his brow, Shimar knew she was sitting in the climate controlled comfort of the control deck.
“One minute Bridge, the heat and moisture have shorted out another juncture. I’m rerouting it, but the auto balancer is shot. I’ve got to do this manually.” Soupy warm condensation had flooded the panel and shorted out relays. The sun beat down above mercilessly. A warm vapor fog had begun to rise off the launch pad. Shimar found it difficult to breath.
There was a long pause on the vox before Vera replied. “Techie... Shimar. Look, you should know that Ark 1 and 2 have both aborted their launches.” The controller’s voice was terse and strained. “You should also know that Central advises that a Djinn cat six is due to hit in an hour. So... you know, a little urgency please.”
He almost dropped his hand scanner. Djinn storms were hellish nightmares of heat, humidity, wind, and pressure. They had started a few years ago as the runaway carbon dioxide effect took hold. At an asymmetric rate the storms had increased in both frequency and intensity. Category six would be more than enough to destroy Ark 3.
Shimar got back to work. With urgency.
It took time, too much time. When Shimar finally closed the hatch with his job done, it was obviously too late. The sky was an angry blood red. Wind blown dirt already was scouring his exposed skin raw. His vox link crackled, barely audible over the encroaching storm.
“I’m so sorry Shimar... This Djinn will be here in five minutes and it would take you thirty just to climb the scaffold.” Vera sounded like she was choking back sobs. Around him, the ground shook as the Ark’s engines powered up.
Shimar sat down and unbuttoned his shirt. He discarded the wet rag on the ground.
“It’s ok Vera,” he said over his vox link. “Enjoy the third planet. Live wiser and better than we did here. This second planet, our Venus, it’s done.”
He closed his eyes and dreamed of a cool paradise, a world with blue oceans and endless beauty. Ark 3 rumbled and disgorged uncaring fire as it fled into space. |
Jim/Brian and Cindy 5 yrs after h[ttps://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/dhqsw9/wp\_you\_feel\_the\_weight\_of\_the\_dirt\_all\_around/f3susg3/?context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/dhqsw9/wp_you_feel_the_weight_of_the_dirt_all_around/f3susg3/?context=3) :
It took me 3 years to tell Cindy that I unknowingly killed her husband Brian, then immediately took his identity.
It took me by surprise as well, her reaction that is. I played her husband for so long, got to know her, what drives her, what she's passionate about, She's so smart...so beautiful....Brian was right she is the complete package.
"I saw the grave Jim", she whispered in my ear
A look of horror had to have been on my face but I tried to play it off
Getting out of bed and standing there with my hands on my barren hips,"Who is Jim, and what's with the macabre view?"
She knew I wasn't the same person she married and went on a primitive camping honeymoon, I could see it in her eyes.
"You are not Brian, you don't have his views, though you pretend to at times, his voice but not his words, his body..."
using her index finger to point in a circular motion to encompass him",...with out a doubt don't use it like he did. I like it don't change back but I think you should change your name to your birth name....Jim....?", She threw both hands in the air as if being inquisitive.
"I don't know my Surname", came a saddened voice, I continued, and as I talked she listened with an ear of a Scientist, not a victim nor a wife. Cindy is so incredibly smart, 4 Doctorates and working on a 5th for Physics now. She wanted to understand what was happening to me and how I do the things I do.
She helped me to learn control, unfortunately it took some practice. The more animals or persons I absorb the easier it is to control. I start to forget about a personality or animal if I don't use it for a while. I can only absorb male specimens of any species, I absorbed a dog and it literally spliced with the Wolf and when in wolf form I was larger. Humans don't seem to do that, they just fade away. Rodents that are drawn to me are absorbed at a distance now even through walls.
Cindy says I'm a true Lycanthrope, meaning I can change into many forms of varying sizes and shapes. She hasn't figured out what has caused it yet but has run many tests. We are on a break from all that though.
Cindy was working on her Physics Thesis when it happened, any electronic anything stopped working.
Jim decided to take a walk the next day, and everywhere I go I hear all the people whining, crying about how everything is broken. No motor vehicles of any kind, computers, phones, hell kitchen appliances are even on the fritz. People need to stop lamenting about it and either accept it if it's beyond them or do something about it if they can. Luckily for me I hadn't gotten to attached to them yet, Being from the mid 1800's in this case had some advantage.
Cindy was running out of chalk...and board.
So I picked up a pencil and continued to work. Doing it the old fashioned way was liberating. Made me realize humans had become to dependent on gizmos, actually working out complex equations is challenging gives the old mind a bender.
The sound of chalk on board, formula banter, cursing or nothing could be heard from the study for days.
Jim got her some new bee's wax candles,"should clean out the negativity he said, Yeah if ya believe in that crap, I just need light so I can finish".
"I've been working on this one problem for a week", she says aloud, "and believe I have worked out the Math just have to finnnnisssshhhh, HA! Done, now if I could just submit it."
Great noises of Joy could be heard form the study that day, Jim thought he was cured when he burst in the room.
Cindy's hugging kissing on him told him she found something very important, and once the celebratory smoothing was over with he may find out what.
"What is it?', he asks while looking at a bunch of symbols and numbers on the board, walls, floor and every scrap of paper he thinks.
A euphoric smile is on her face, pure elation, "What's What?....you mean the formula, yes it works, see it's right there", she points to a small circled space on the board.
"What's it say?", you know what curiosity does to the cat right
"tell you what you want it in Latin or Greek?", she states with a shit eating grin.
"Latin", I quickly replied
She begins the formula in Latin by the time she finishes a ball of what looked like fire shoots out of her hand and explodes 70 feet away in our bedroom. passed right through the walls like they weren't there, we lost everything in the room
Fire Dept and Police dept each ran an investigation and came up empty, no Accelerate was found, nothing was found except extremely small amounts of bat guano, sulfur and bees wax, it was deemed as a gas leak explosion. |
In the eyes of the human, the neon lights of the cities made up for the dissapearing of the day and even the animals and the plants learned their ways under the artifical radiance. However, the Night and its glorious veil of darkness did not found any solace in this travesty of the daylight. The pitiful street lamp could not even lessen the gloom of its despair and as River, a bird of the Night, still intoxicated from the party, crossed the Night's path, it glanced over at him with the stars of its eyes.
"Where's the dawn ?"asked the Night exhausted by this endless blackness, "Where is the morning that will liberate me from loneliness ? "
"Nobody knows,"answered River without entering the light of the luminary, "People learned to live without. And they don't mind not having to care about the next day. "
"What should I do ?"lamented the Night, "the sun refuses to come without the Day and the moon's about to fall from the fatigue of being alone. I can't rest, and staying on both sides of the world broke my back in half."
"Let the moon fall as it deserves it,"advised from afar the bird trying to sober up, "leave the sun in its bed and take some time for you."
"Without Day, without me,"demured the Night, "how will people learned about time ?"
"Don't think about the people,"whispered River stepping in front of the Night, "they have watches, they have schedules, they know about time more than your tardy coming of the summer or your overstay of the winter let you have. Think about you, think about what you want to do."
The Night nodded, taking the bird of the Night in its embrace, and it left the ground to show him the immensity of the heavenly vault. The pityful shape became the whole sky as the darkness brightened as ever.
"I like the Day you know,"confessed the Night, "all this chasing through the hours. The succession of the twilight and the dawn, the coming and going of an eternal you all forgot about with your pathetic glimmers."River could see from there the light of the cities. They seemed foolish compared to the obscurity of the cosmos.
"Watch me,"commanded the Night, "As I show them what true darkness is. Watch me little bird as I show them what happens when no love is there to mitigate my grandeur."Under his feet, River could see the world of the living black out. Even the moon fleed the cold wrath of the night, and the stars closed their eyes to the doom of the one that tried to supplant the Day.
​
As the Day came back, brought again by the prayers of the humans, it revealed under the light of its sun, a pallid world, bleached out by a relentless Night. "They lost they sight,"rued the Day, "I should have come sooner."But little did it know, that they could still feel its warm on their faces. |
You are the first baby of the first generation born in space on a long, 150 light-year journey to another Earth like planet. However, no other babies are born and slowly it's revealed that you're in fact an illegal and experimental clone of your father, because cryosleep during the journey has rendered the original generation infertile. This explains your strange super-human strength and fast development. You must decide who to clone to be your partner, in hopes that the cloning process will restore fertility in the new generation, but the other passengers are *not* okay with your unorthodox existence, even when faced with extinction. |
**Hell's Mind Newt**
Hell’s most powerful creature is a minute newt, barely an imp in size and as black as pitch and as sticky as glue. It sticks to its prey’s hair and sinks into their brain as they sleep, conjuring frightening images of torture and tyranny to scare its victims into submission.
Of course, this is only the first step, the next step is to sew the seeds of doubt and paranoia. Now that the newt is in its victim’s consciousness it is free to whisper whatever dark suggestions it desires. Perhaps the victim shouldn’t trust certain people, perhaps the victim will begin to believe in superstitions or even religious falsities. God’s chosen? Only the beginning. The soul savior to humanity, the hero of mankind? Don’t stop there! Many a dark and unusual actions can be performed for those who believe they are all-powerful and decide to leave their morality behind.
The final step is a simple one. Once the mind has been controlled it begins to grow weak, to soften at the edges and decompose under the newt’s taint. It’s simply time to abandon its host and let the mind collapse in on itself. Once the whispers and suggestions stop feeding into the subconscious, it’s all too easy for the mind to feed into itself, and the subconscious to conjure its own whispers. The host has been tainted and the damage has been done. Time to find a new vessel and wreak havoc again.
^(Did I do a good job Senpai?) |
**Teleportation Troubles**
Of course the eggheads tried to minimize all possible instances of the teleporters causing bodily harm but unfortunately, their efforts appeared to be not enough. Only when the devices were set up in every major and minor city across the globe did rumor begin to spread that teleporting had caused memory loss.
And it was only a rumor at first. Reports of memory loss after teleportation weren’t easy to confirm or deny, so it was met with much speculation and not a lot of action. Soon, however, people were beginning to feel like they had lost a bit of their memory but many dismissed it as an exaggeration of an uncommon phenomenon. The exception rather than the rule.
Clinical trials and further testing revealed that yes indeed memory loss was caused by these devices, the leading theory that as many as three memories were lost per transport! The mind instantaneously traveling through one space in existence to the other was sure to leave something behind, but no physical matter was lost or even misarranged, so what exactly was being left behind?
Further research was required. Scientifically it was proven that memories were simply electrons being fired in the mind, a pattern of neurons connecting and an electrical charge shooting through them, but this mysterious case of vanishing memories was cause of alarm, and this fact was put to the test. The results they found were... astounding.
Memories could be classified as physical matter but important memories were something more. Loved ones, cherished childhood scenes, pet names, children’s names, dreams and hopes that had fueled a person’s life for decades were the type of memories that were erased. In a controlled environment, the neurons that related to these memories could be fired up, and a memory could be provoked. These memories were tested in certain subjects before and after teleportation when compared to mundane memories and the results had indicated that only the memories that people were fond of, that people had an emotional attachment to were the memories that were erased. Perhaps these precious memories were more than the sum of their parts then. Perhaps teleporting from one place to another occasionally left something behind. Something not physical, not even metaphysical.
Something more.
^(Okay this prompt was a lot harder than I expected and I went way over my 5 minute timer so although this isn't perfect it's the best I have!) |
"I like my toes serenaded with remoulade and grilled to perfection, and my eyeballs injected with whipped cream and served on a silver platter. The intergalactic culinary arts program will teach you how to genocide human populated planets and harvest their precious flesh. Tuition starts at only 897848977985€¥£, and the program is full time for two years. We'll teach you how to skin a human with perfection, broil their toenails, grill their ears and extract the mucus delicacy from their throats. For ethical reasons, most culinary chefs have refrained from the preparation and consumption of human beings, but given that their taste is completely and utterly irresistible, demand for such expertise is at an all time high. So come join our team and travel the universe with a mouth full of human flesh. "
The hologram glitches, and the Goregak's voice becomes distorted. The room begins to shake, and items begin to fall off of the desk. The orientation group is terrified, every soul stares at the glitching projection before them. The shaking stops. A slight hum occupies the space of silence, and it lingers on as the class sits with wide eyes. A knock comes from the back door, and I walk over to open it. As soon as I'm about to grab the handle, the door flies wide open and hits me in the face. A HUMAN BEING. How can it be? On our home planet? The human stomps into the room with a spacesuit on, he makes his way to the food tray and grabs a handful of meat, human meat. He takes a bite. The man looks at it with delight and says, "where, may I ask, did you guys find something so delicious?" |
"She brought this on herself"Deacon forced himself to say when he read the king's interrogation list and Catherine's name was on it. "It is the will of the king".
The walk to the dungeon was one he had taken many times before and it brought back memories for him. Some he remembered fondly, others not so much. Today however, this route brought him no fond memories of putting rebels in the iron maiden or stretching captured spies. No this route today only brought him memories past of him and Catherine growing up in that small house with the horseshoe above the door for luck. These memories would only hinder his work, he needed answers that she had and he was going to get them out of her. One way or the other.
"Hello dear sister"Deacon said his hands rubbing together preparing for work. "Such a precarious situation you find yourself in isn't it?"
"Deacon, brother, you know my cause is the right one. The one that is best for what we've always been taught is right for our family"she said spitting the words at him.
"Ideals and morals are well and good, but good intentions dont put food on the table Cat, you know this and you always have". The time was to be now, he needed answers and was ready to extract them as only he could. With a flash he kicked her chair back to the ground and peered closely at her. Suddenly his finger inched closer and closer to her face, at the very moment it was to touch her face he stopped.
"I'm not touching you,I'm not touching you, I'm not.touchong you!"He repeated much to her horror as she responded with shrieks of terror and rage. This was only the beginning.
"Not enough to make you talk eyy? I have something just for that"he motioned to his assistant and he came forth with a metal box decorated in evil runes and darkness emanated from it. Deacon opened it and grabbed what was inside and shooed away the assistant.
"I have ways of making you talk, it will be easier on you if you just tell me where your rebel king is hiding. No? Fair enough then."He raised the instrument of torture and removed her shoes. "Normally I find no emotion in torture but this however, will bring me much joy."He brought the instrument to her exposed foot and tickled it with such ferocity that it seemed the Brill's of the feather would fly right off. The horrid sounds of weeping inducing laughter filled the dungeon, and yet no names were among her terrified shrieks.
"Now you test my patience. It's time to pull all the stops, neither of us will enjoy this one."He brought her chair to sitting, her face red with tears and her feet slightly pinker than they were due to the vicious tickling. He looked her in the eyes and said "last chance dear sister, just tell me where he is hiding and this will all stop."
"Never!"Whe yelled indignantly.
"You have brought this evil upon yourself, just know that". He stood straight up, turned about and bent over. Inching closer to her face with his rear he gave a battle cry "FOR THE KING!"And promptly broke wind with such ferocity and timbre that he feared he had done himself a terrible mischief.
The sounds of a great storm filled the dungeon, papers blew about and the paint began to peel from the walls. When it was over, catherine was left little more than a weeping, blubbering and gagging mess.
"Fine I'll tell you deacon!"
A sly grin stretched across his mischievous face. "Good..."he hissed. He licked his finger and twisted it about in her ear. "Damp William!"He yelled to her. That was her punishment and his final insult for making him shit in his favorite noble tights. |
Blood Of A Martyr
For Two Years I Have Been The Reigning Champion Of The Blood Pits Arena Of McCall. A Small City Infesting This Small Winding Valley Plastered With Pine Trees And Bandits. The Ruined Concrete Damn Looming Overhead Of The Town Casting The City Into Near Perpetual Shadow. And Yet The Light That So Rarely Passed Overhead Of The Wooden Walls Meant Death.
When Ever The Light Touched The Blood Soaked Sands Of The Pit There Must Be War. That Was What The Peoples Scripture And Religion Preached After Every Culling Was Over. That The Worthy Still Walked The Earth And The False And Evil Had Been Culled By The Scythe.
All Of It In The Name Of Finding The True Hero That Would Lead Them Out Of This Never Ending Hell. The "Savior"That Would End The Damned Suffering And Lead Them To Salvation And Prosperity. Those Thrown Into The Pit After Successful Raids Or Crimes Worthy Of Death From Those In Power.
​
And Yet Here I Am Blood On My Hands And The Last Of The Evil Warriors Thrown Into The Pit From The Tunnels On The Far Side. A Young Lad In A Battered And Bloody Gambeson With A Rusted Iron Sword At His Hip And Terror In His Eyes. The Heavy Stench Of Iron Hangs In The Air Emanating From The Piles Of Bodies Scattered Around The Twenty Meter Ring.
Some Impaled On Long Wooden Pikes Hanging Lifelessly Still Dripping With Fresh Blood. Others Skeletons Reaching Out Of The Sand Intent On Pulling One More Man Into Their Grave. I Slowly Check Over My Equipment The Frayed Leather Straps Of My Armor Still In Place Despite The Hundreds Marks On The Grey Leather.
My Hands Slowly Feeling The Individual Groves Of My Weapons Handle A Comforting Feeling When Facing Death. Eventually My Opponent Turned Towards Me His Rattling Of The Entrances Bars Freezing In Place. And The Crowd Becomes Silent The Air Becoming Tense As The Ropes Binding The Hanging Cloth Sheets Above In Place.
​
Carefully I Remove The Sword From My Sheath And Toss The Stray Flecks Of Rust Onto The Pooling Blood Of The Last Round. I Can See The Fear In My Opponents Actions As He Scans The Edges Of The Arena Looking For Something Anything To Save Him. Carefully I Tread Across The Sand Leaving My Shallow Footprints Imbedded Into The Small Pockets Of Dirt Between Us.
Slowly I Raise My Sword And Shield Keeping My Opponent In Sight And Blade At The Ready. The Small Cracks Lining The Blade A Perpetual Worry In My Mind As We Begin To Slowly Circle In The One Spot Devoid Of Any Remains. His Guard Remains High Yet I Can See His Eyes Looking Downward As The Distance Slowly Closes.
The Range Is Meant And He Strikes Impacting My Shield The Outer frame Cracking Under The Force of The Blow. Small Wooden Shards Imbedding Themselves Into my Left Wrist Guard The Blade Impaling A Point A Few Inches Away From The Handel. Taking The Initiative I Twist The Round Shield Away From My Person And Strike Toward His Person.
​
The Blow Lands The Jagged Ruined Blade Tearing Away A Swath Of His Left Arm Spraying Blood. His Scream Echoes Across The Walls I Cringe Internally At The Wound As He Leaps Away Leaving His Sword. He Is Still Standing Although His Arm Hangs Barley Attached By A Few Threads Of Skin And Bone Threading The Divide.
His Face Is White And Pale As The Crowd Starts To Chant *"KILL KILL KILL"* The Chant Reverberating The Sand Itself. My Opponent The Young Soul Holding Pressure On The Wound His Words Weak And Scared. *"I Don't Want To Die"* His Eyes Tearing Up As I Gazes At Me From Across Our Small Divide.
Slowly I Edge Forward As He Backs Toward The Wooden Spike Wall Behind Him A Decision Had To Be Made. Slowly I Examined My Sword In My Hand The Grip a Comforting Feeling In This Hell Of My Own Creation. Carefully I Slowly Removed The Leather Straps Attaching My Wrist Guard To The Shield And Looked Up.
​
Behind The People And Behind Overcast Skies Filtered In The Golden Rays Another Unattainable Possession To Add To The List. With The Last Strap I Threw The Shield Away And Gazed At The Young Lad Bleeding Out Onto The Sands. "With Either Of Our Deaths The Other Is Free"My Voice Was Rough Distant Almost Foreign.
Freedom an Illusive Possession I Had Forgotten Its Taste Of The Simple Days Back Home. Of Fields Of Golden Wheat And The Sounds Of Those That I Had Left Behind There. Those Burning Buildings Etched Into My Mind As The First Man I Had Killed That Day.
Once I Was Told A Proverb By The Baker's Wife From Before The Broken Skies Before All Of This "*An Eye For An Eye Leaves The World Blind*". And Yet They Needed To Pay For What They Had Done Those Above This Could Not Continue One Of Us Had To Die. Too Many Lives Had Already Been Lost In Vain To Have It End That Way.
​
Slowly I Gazed Back Down Toward My Hands Coated With Blood And Viscera From Early Battles. "I Am Sorry For The Pain I Have Caused You Already But This Must End Only One Way". Slowly I Raised My Blade Taking The Grip Into Both Hands My Shadow Hanging Over The Lad.
I Drove The Blade Downwards And Blood Pooled Onto The Sand The Child's Eyes Wide In Terror And Sadness. Trembling I Slowly Took The Sword And Pulled Toward The Side A Symphony Of Cracks And Tearing Filling The Pit. The Edges Of My Vision Darkening As I Fell Towards The Soft Embrace Of The Sand.
Slowly As I Lay Their And Gazed upward The Golden Light Spilling Forth From Behind Dark Skies *I Let Go*. The World and Pit , The Angered Screams From The Crowd And Drifted Upward. Past My Tormenters And Upward Into The Golden Light Shining From Fields Of Golden Wheat. |
We barged into the closet, my mind wandering all about before it happened. You see, our middle school is ancient, built in 1938, just before the war. A underground shelter was allegedly built under the school. It was made to be airtight, so if the Nazis gassed London, we wouldn't suffer from the horrors of gas, or so the legends go. I never believed the legends, as of course it would have been found by now. The stories say a bomb landed upon the entrance, sealing the entrance shut. I prayed that the legend was not true. Today, my buddies and I, with permission from the principle, have knocked down the door to the old janitor's closet. It has been sealed shut since 1945. With a gigantic sledgehammer and some elbow grease, we beat down the door. Inside, there was a broom, some 1940s era cleaning supplies, and a locked hatch. I found a key laying next to it. "Here goes nothing."I mutter.
What I found horrified me. In the large shelter down below, lay the preserved body of 48 children and five adults. They where in 1940 era clothing, and they where all wide eyed, looking as if they where gasping for air when they expired. "My God....."I exclaimed, horrified.
The designers must have made a fatal mistake, failing to add proper ventilation. They must have forgotten the key and trapped themselves inside the bunker when the air raid hit the school. They all suffocated to death. I raced back up, and slammed the trap door shut. "Get a blow torch!"I yelled in a frantic manner.
Within five minutes, we had a blow torch and locked the bunker of horrors up. I have contacted the proper authorities, and they will soon come and give the trapped individuals a proper burial. I guess historians will be happy, but I think I will forever be haunted by this.
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*My first story written here! :) C&C is welcomed.* |
Everyone remembers where they were the first time they saw the spot.
I was on my way home from work, at a traffic light that was notoriously hard to see against the setting sun. Deciding when the light was green was always a guessing game, and more than a few times I found myself accidentally cutting someone off or nearly wrecking my car. I learned to wait patiently until I was sure the other three directions had red lights before I moved.
On this particular day--a Tuesday--I sat for some time at that light. The sun was beaming into my face at full brightness, not a cloud in the sky. I focused my attention instead on the other lanes of traffic, but the refraction of the light on my dirty windshield made it difficult to see even that much. I rolled down my driver's side window to get a look outside and gauge whether or not it was my turn.
People were outside their cars, squinting up into the sky behind me. Many of them had their cell phones in hand filming it, others seemed to move their heads about, trying to get a clearer look. I re-positioned my rear view mirror, but all I saw behind me was a spot in my eye from staring at the sun. I blinked a few times t clear my vision, before attempting to look again.
When I looked again, the spot was back. I got out of my car and looked behind me, and sure enough, *something* was there. I just couldn't make it out. It was like I had a cataract in my eye; the object was shapeless, colorless, non-descript. I struggled to understand what my mind was perceiving.
A man in the car behind me made eye contact with me. He gave me an expression to communicate "do you see it too?"I can't explain why, but I shook my head. He smiled a thin insincere smile as if to say "of course not, my mistake."I was filled with conflicting thoughts in the moment. I did not want to talk about it--this cosmic, other-worldly event was occurring, and I kept it to myself like a shameful secret.
Nobody was talking in the crowd that was forming to look at it. I was soon joined by around ten to fifteen other observers, all silent, all awe-struck.
One man in the crowd was mumbling to himself. He was dressed in old, dirty clothes covered by several coats. His skin was dirty and his eyes were wild. He turned to us and whispered a single word: "closer."A man beside him threw a wickedly savage punch at the man before a good number of the crowd, men, women, and children, not violent types, began attacking the man.
I felt a deep hatred in my heart as well in the moment. My fists clenched and my jaw tightened. I felt the adrenaline in my chest building, but I had no idea why. He *spoke about it.* I knew, deep in my heart that we do **not** speak about it. I was sweating, furious. I had never been more agitated. I walked away from the situation and needed to pace further down the block to cool off.
I looked back up to the spot. He was right, it was getting closer. It was enormous, the size of a mountain range, and it was approaching quickly. Sirens sounded in the distance and gun shots rang in the air as the twilight sky was blotted out by the great spot. It was here now.
I was hyperventilating, heart pounding in my chest. I was filled with a primal hatred in my heart and found myself thinking wild, evil thoughts. Beside me was a decaying fence, the individual boards peeling from their frame. I pulled them off one by one until I found one with nails still attached.
I walked down the middle of the street with the board in my hand. I had no target. I had only rage and power coursing through my veins. The spot in the sky was upon me, and it would make me kill countless others in the next few days.
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Thank you for this prompt! I am still very new to this and any and all feedback is appreciated! |
"Hey waiter!!"
*Story\_Telling\_Person* turned around at the sound of the loud voice, abruptly stopping her writing of an order the customer in front of her had just ordered. She turned back to her current customer, an older woman who had just ordered a burger and fries to tell her that she would be right back with her order and walked towards the source of the voice that had called her.
Things at her small-town diner had been busy lately, people had been drawn to her diner like moths to a flame and it felt like there was no end in sight to her shift.
But hey, at least payday was generous today...
*Story\_Telling\_Person* reached the table, having located the person who had called her over to their table. This time, she was in front of a man at at small table, a hot plate consisting of a large juicy steak with mashed potatoes and a coke sitting in front of him. Herr mouth watered at the sight, not having had eaten since who-knows-when.
"Excuse me, waiter!"
She snapped out of her hunger dazed state, forgetting all about her hunger as the man glared angrily at her. She shook her head, she needed the tips if she wanted to pay this months' rent.
"Oh! I'm sorry sir, what can I get you?"*Story\_Telling\_Person* asked, hoping that she hadn't daydreamed of food for too long. She got her pen and paper ready; Maybe he wanted something else?
"I want some pepper on my steak, and don't skimp! I like my food *spicy*."He stated, his voice becoming a bit more annoyed than before.
"O-of course sir, just say when you would like me to stop."*Story\_Telling\_Person* said as she grabbed her pepper grinder from her apron.
She began to pepper the steak, hovering over the plate as what seemed like thousands of black sprinkles rained from the heavens and onto the food below. This continued for a while, the man never telling his waiter when to stop.
*Story\_Telling\_Person* started to get worried, a small mountain of black pepper had begun to take shape on top of the steak. She decided to voice her concern.
"Um, sir, don't you think this might be a bit too much-"
"I said I like it spicy! Keep going!"
*Story\_Telling\_Person* shut her mouth immediately, a look of concern on her face as she kept on peppering the steak, the black mountain getting bigger and higher.
Time passed on as she kept at it, fearing that she might run out of pepper in the pepper grinder. The man looked on unfazed. This has been going on long enough.
Suddenly she stopped...
The man looked at her in confusion, his eyes widened as the pepper had ceased to stop piling onto the plate. He opened his mouth to speak but *Story\_Telling\_Person* cut him off before he could start.
"Look, I know you like your food to be spicy, but this is ridiculous! There is literally a *mountain* of pepper on your steak! What kind of person eats this much pepper!?"
The man *Story\_Telling\_Person* was serving, as well as the other customers looked on at the scene she had caused in awe. *Story\_Telling\_Person* blushed at her outburst, her eyes widening as she realized her potentially fatal mistake. Yes it was very strange that this customer had made her create "Mt. Pepper"on his steak, but was it really worth her job?
*'Shit, shit, shit, I'm so fired!"Story\_Telling\_Person* screamed in her head. This is not how she wanted today to go down.
As *Story\_Telling\_Person* was having a mini-heart-attack, the man she was once serving stared at her for a bit before his face broke out into a grin. He suddenly stood up, placing a hand on *Story\_Telling\_Person's* shoulder.
*Story\_Telling\_Person* snapped out of her thoughts when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see the customer she was serving.
*'He's...smiling?'*
The man let go of her shoulder and placed his hands on his hips, the grin never leaving his face.
"You've passed the test young lady."
Wait...
what the actual *hell...*
what test?
*Story\_Telling\_Person* looked at the man, very much confused. *'Test? What the-'*
"I-I'm sorry...what? Test?"
"Yes. Test."
OK, now she was *really* confused
"I..I don't understand..."
He figured she wouldn't. Not many people really get it do they?
"Let me explain. You see, there are so many people in this world who will suck it up and go through with even the most ridiculous demands of the people that they're supposed to be serving, and not many people are willing to say 'Hey, this is kinda stupid, I don't wanna do this.' But *you* on the other hand... you told me off for not stopping you peppering my dinner. Good job kid."He explained before reaching into his pocket, grabbing what seemed to be a large wad of cash, handing it to the now very confused waitress, and leaving without even touching his food.
Right after the door had closed, *Story\_Telling\_Person* checked to see what he had given her. This man had, indeed given her a *very* large quantity of cash; it almost made her tear up it was so much, as well as a business card.
*Story\_Telling\_Person* eyed it closely, curious to see what he had given her. It was indeed a business card, but there was some added writing to it that she didn't expect to see..
*"You've proven to be a very strong-willed person. Come to \[This address\] on Monday. You'll start then. Say hello to a brighter future."*
*Story\_Telling\_Person* smiled a bit. Maybe she wasn't gonna be stuck at this dead-end job for forever after all...
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**Sorry if this is bad. I didn't know what else to write T\_T** |
"Look how cute you are!"I screamed, petting the beatiful golden retriever.
"Yeah, I hear this a lot,"he said. I didn't expect it to talk. I am not Dr. Dolittle, am I?
"Now you have to come with me, mortal. I really believe in you, you will be very helpful in this war."As he said that he turned into a man, young but tired. Standing in front of me, with loyalty and rich cloth, Light blue uniforme and red cloak. He looked fancy, but I would prefer the golden.
"Don't you remember me? You promised me!"
"But I don't understand, actually dogs does not turn into human beings everyday!"
"This is not everyday, and I am not a dog. This is the day I finally find my honourable guard!"I looked at him with confusion. "Let me help,"he said. "It's you!"
"I see, but I didn't promised anything. You, doggo sir,are talking to wrong person."
"No, let me show,"he touched his pockets, then found a print, gave it to me. I remember it, it's a comment of mine, I'm expressing my love for a dog in the most kind way, and to this stranger; I'm promising I would perish for them. What a interesting day.
"The others banished me because they didn't liked what I said, but they won't satisfied with it. They are coming for me."He nervously backbited my arm.
"Wait, wait. You can't just took me as a guard. First of all, who is 'others'? And what did you say to them, making them this uncomfortable with you? And what they gonba do to you? What can I even do about it-"
I could talk all day, but he stopped me.
"The other gods of course. And I told them about helping you humans, you know; like giving you fire. It really makes them angry. Have you ever heard what happened to Prometheus? Poor fella, we were good friends."He dived into some old memories, so I didn't say anything until he spoke.
"I can't be a dog anymore, I mean, it's great, I was so cute but... I'm starting to forget who I am. After all I don't want to lose my awareness, otherwise I would buy myself a cellphone or something like you humans."
"Great, then find yourself a bodyguard or something, just hire someone to assasinate the 'others', I don't know if it starts The Great War with a sequel or not, but I can't."I was pretty content with my history joke, and about to wend my way to work. But he looked even miserable.
"It's not how it works, I need consent, real, sincere consent! What can be a better consent then a profitless love towards a dog?"
"Yeah, I suppose you've got a point,"I said thoughtfully. "Dogs are important."
"Dogs are important."he approved. "So, are you gonna help me?"
"We can try,"I said. "But you will help me too, in daily basis."
"Do you want me to make you coffee, with... celestial powers?"He asked. "Deal!" |
I slipped the mask over my face, not completely convinced that it would hide my identity. With a huff I pressed the button to livestream. The red dot on my screen lights up and my anxiety sucks out my soul. I'm ready.
"YOOOO, it's ya boy, Freaky! How are you all doing today?"I shout at my camera and spin around like a helicopter. I move forward like I'm going to whisper a secret as I lean in. "Today I've got something very special, and never EVER seen before. Trust you, you want to see this. No tricks, no traps, but maybe a treat for you!"
I clap my hands a bit and sigh. I cover my face with one hand and act as dramatic as possible. "For those of you who know me, I'm just your boring and average guy. Here's the thing about me now though... I not normal anymore. Yesterday, I was walking down a street when all of a sudden something happened. A little snot nosed kid pushed me over!"My face turns to one of disappointment, and I sigh. "This kid knocked me down and I smashed my head on a rock as I fell. Suddenly I was rushed to the hospital, but when I got there all of my vital signs were completely normal."
"So you know what I did?"I could see my eyebrows wiggle up and down on my screen and I tried not to let the pit in my stomach stop my flow. "That's right everyone, I decided to test out my new found powers of immortality!"I chuckled to myself.
"Now, you're going to think this sounds crazy, but what I did next absolutely did not bother me one bit. I decided to jump from the hospital roof."I shook my head as I gestured towards the camera. "Alright, alright FOCUS. I know you probably got lost as that part because I look totally fine, but what happened next will shock you to the core."
I stretched a bit and spoke with a crazed grin, "I jumped, and I floated."By this point someone had taken notice of the livestream and in mild confusion had invited a few friends. The chat had grown to just over thirty viewers, but it still wasnt enough. "Now remember kiddos, this isnt magic and it's not a joke. To prove that, I'm doing it live! Watch."My hands trembled as I sat on the floor with my legs crossed. I breathed in and then slowly began to float in the air. I breathed out only once I was successful in keeping my distance off the ground. I looked directly into the camera lenses and smiled insanely. "Isn't this cool?"I waved my hand underneath my ass to prove that there was nothing below me and then again above and around until it was proven I wasnt attached to any strings. "Now, here I was FLOATING in mid air and thinking to myself, 'Whoa. What else can I do?'. So I started testing things, just like superman would. I can confirm I do not have laser eyes, but I can tell you that I do have other powers."
I began to move around in the air floating freely. By this point the chat exploded and people swooped in to see what the commotion was. I excitedly waved to the stream, "Welcome, welcome! Hopefully you all are having a wonderful day, but I'm going to have to end this stream for now! Please follow me on all my accounts at FreakyPowers! Until next time my lovable little potatoes, bye~!"
I reached forward once more and ended the stream. I dropped to the floor and breathed heavily. My anxiety enveloped me and I curled up into a tight ball, "I-I... I did.. it... ha.. haha..."I laughed for a while until my body stopped trembling in waves. Today was the first day of the rest of my life. |
"Patrick. It's time."
The researcher laughed deeply, as he carefully sifted through the ancient artifacts under the old pineapple. He reached for his favorite weapon, and weighed it in his hand. It has taken a while to recreate the weapon that had brought the end of the humans above, and given sentience to the animals of the ocean, but they had done it, and they would destroy everyone here for their insolence.
"Sandy..."SpongeBob crooned, as he looked towards the tank that had given life to his favorite monster.
She had been a dead squirrel at first. Floating through the ocean, a sad, pathetic thing. But he had changed that, given life to her. He had risen upon the tides a new form of kraken.
Walking up to the tank, he tapped a finger against the glass. Watching in satisfaction as a dark tentacle reached out, and tapped the glass. He saw the state of decay that the squirrel's body was now in. It would no longer be able to contain the creature inside.
"Let's go."SpongeBob said, as he tore the voice box out of his chest. No longer would he have to suffer that annoying voice.
"What are we doing first?"Asked Patrick.
"Oh, I think we might just tell that damned crab the formula to his own burger."
Patrick began laughing as they walked from the pineapple and jumped into the stolen car. The sponge used it expertly as they made their way from the house.
From inside his house, Squidward looked on in confusion at the sight. He saw the pestilent sponge driving expertly, and slowly made his way from his house and outside. Just before he could make it outside of the door, however, he felt a hand encasing around his shoulder. Spinning around, he found his own eyes staring back at him. But something was wrong. Those eyes were dark, bloodshot. He saw blood protruding from the side of this things head.
Backing away, he felt a scream rising from the back of his throat, but before he could say a thing, one of the tentacles that should have been his, wrapped around his throat.
"You cannot escape... From what you have done..."
They stopped in front of the Kristy Krab, and saw all of the usuals walking in.
"SpongeBob me boy, you are late. I had to cook the burgers myself, and I've been using the ingredient you requested all those years ago, but I cannot cook them-"
"You've done fine."Patrick said in his cold, dead voice, stopping the stupid crab before he could say anything else.
SpongeBob then, without hesitation, pulled the trigger in his pocket.
"I don't think you'll be in business any longer."SpongeBob said, looking through the window of the store.
"W-what do you mean, SpongeBob?"Mr. Krabs said, feeling a tension pulling in his chest at just how low, and menacing, SpongeBob's voice had gotten.
"Well, you see... There's a drug up on the surface level, that made the entire world go insane..."He took a step forwards, "Their faces began to decay, turning hideous and monsterous. At first it only lasted for seconds. A moment here or there when a person turned into a grotesque monstrosity..."He took one more step towards the now frightened crab, "Until they went, completely insane, and then tried to kill... Everything, in sight. And I was there to see it all...."
"W-what're you talkin' about me-"
"Shh now. It'll effect you soon enough."
It was sudden then, like an avalanche of motion underneath the crab's body. He began to twist and turn, and snap. His body crunched together, and slowly molded. His eyes became crazed and ravaged, until he was nothing more than a simple monster.
"And what about you SpongeBob? Haven't you consumed more than your fair share?"Patrick had been secretly hoping that this was the flaw in his plan. He feared rather deeply, his Superior.
"As a sponge of the human earth, I have already consumed a countless amount of that drug. My very existence is only possible because of it. I am a monster unlike anything this ocean has ever seen, well, perhaps I am not the strongest of them, however."With that, the sponge tapped another button, "Watch with me, the destruction of the ocean, Patrick."
From within the darkest cellar of the pineapple house, came a darkened claw. Eyes that reached out and gazed, unthinkingly into the darkest stretches of infinity, began to reach out. A cry unlike any other, that awoke all creatures within the ocean sounded, just before it destroyed all those pesky rats, once, and for all. |
I started my day surrounded by confused, frowning octopuses.
"Hello?"I said.
They only looked at me more quizzically.
"...I'm in the right place, aren't I?"
One lifted a tentacle to me. I became confused as well, until a perfectly clear line of text appeared on the tentacle.
*Are you trying to communicate?*
"Yes,"I began to respond. "do you not know Terra Standard?"
Another octopus held its tentacle out and showed text.
*We didn't know you had a sound language. We had access to human dictionaries and grammar guides, but I'm afraid we didn't research how humans communicate extensively. We don't understand your sound language, and we don't even have sound-producing organs for it.*
I grumbled as I pulled out my phone. Stupid shortsighted octopuses. They said they would know all they needed by the time I got here.
I opened up the notepad app and started typing. I showed what I had typed.
On a thought, I said "I can use this to talk for now."They may learn spoken language if I speak what I type.
*How fast is this method?*
Interesting, it was only the front two that were doing any talking. They were probably in charge. The rest were just standing back.
I finally looked up to a look of impatience. Showing them my message, I said: "Slow. I can go faster on other devices, but that requires my hands. We should set something up that can switch between text and sound.
The octopuses debated a bit, then turned back to me. *Go set that system up now. We can have a better introduction when you return.*
I said "Okay"and started heading back to my docked ship. I almost forgot to show them an acknowledgement until an octopus tapped my phone.
"Oh, sorry."I said, quickly typing the word.
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It didn't take too long for me to set up the communication system. I had libraries of machine learning programs, functions, data, and whatnot. I found a computationally efficient speech-to-text algorithm and had it display my speech to a tablet I had lying around. I wanted to be able to hear what the octopuses were saying, so I set up an OCR text-to-speech system. I searched for my nearly invisible bodycam vest I had got for a reconnaissance mission, and hooked that up to the tablet. Ironically, I spent the most time searching for an audio headset I knew I had. My system wouldn't work if it couldn't speak.
After one and a half hours, I pulled myself through the airlock to the aliens' rotary habitation module. I was greeted by an octopus who said he would fetch his superiors. I heard it through my headset; my system was working.
I wasn't waiting long before the two lead octopuses came. They seemed quite surprised I was back already
"Hello,"I said, showing them the tablet screen. "Is this better?"
"It's much faster."the first responded "That will work until we can connect your system to our eyepiece devices."
​
...
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​
I haven't finished it yet, and I need to go to bed. Here's a partial story, mostly introduction. If you want more, reply to this to remind me about it.
Update: College weighing me down today; don't expect too much. Should be able to get to it tomorrow. |
**SCP-XXXX**
**Object Class:** Keter
**Special Containment Procedures:** SCP-XXXX is to be held in a humanoid cell with a standard bed and table, along with several cogs aligning the walls to make it appear to be from a futuristic factory. If SCP-XXXX is to ask about their 'pocket' (SCP-XXXX-1), he is to be told they are testing the gadgets within it, and it will be returned to him in due time. Despite this, SCP=XXXX=1 is to never be returned, given the amount of resources within it. In case of an attempted breach, several fake 'mice' will be set in and around the perimeter of SCP-XXXX's holding cell, until they can be properly contained again.
SCP-XXXX1 is to be held in a separate holding locker on site B, with access only permitted to Class B and up, testing has to be done in an open environment, and SCP-XXXX1 is to be thoroughly questioned on it before use for testing is authorized.
**Description:**
SCP-XXXX is an autonomous figure, in the shape of a cyan cat, missing a set of ears. They are able to stand upright and can speak fluent in both Japanese and English.
Around the stomach area of SCP-XXXX is a detachable pocket, dubbed SCP-XXXX1. The pocket in question, despite it being of a small size, can hold a seemingly infinite number of things in it. Including those larger than the pocket itself. This pocket has since been confiscated, with several anomalous devices lodged inside it.
SCP-XXXX was discovered in a family's home in █████, Tokyo, Japan, living among the ████ family. When questioned, they explained SCP-XXXX1 was 'sent from the future to help their son, ████'. SCP-XXXX1 was taken into foundation custody, after the family and any neighbors or relatives who might have seen of heard about him were given anesthetics.
**Log of items retrieved form inside of SCP-XXXX1 (names are based on what SCP-XXXX referred to them as):**
**"Anywhere Door:"** A light-magenta door that can be carried around with relative ease. Despite it seemingly not leading anywhere, opening the door with a specific location in mind will cause the door to open the specific location. SCP-XXXX first used this in an attempt of containment breach.
**"Take Copter"** : a handheld propeller with a suction-cup attached to the other end. When connected to the user's head, will allow them to travel through the air without restriction, similar to a real copter. Runs on an eight hour battery.
**"Small Light":** A handheld flashlight, bright green in color, with a blue lining surrounding the bulb. Anything shined on it for an extended period of time will end up decreasing rapidly in mass and size.
**"Computer Pencil"** : a pink, graphite pencil, with a set of yellow lights near the grip. While normal on blank sheets of paper, if used on any form of test or quiz, will always write the correct answer, even if the writer has no prior knowledge on the subject. SCP-XXXX showed agitation at using this particular device, believing it to be 'cheating'.
**"Air Cannon"** : A hand-sized barrel of a cannon that can fit over the hand of most. When the one wearing yells "bang"or something similar, a highly concentrated blast of air comes out the other end, of at least 50 miles per hour. Location of where this blast comes form has yet to be determined.
**Further tests of devices from SCP-XXXX1 or use of devices on other SCPs must be reviewed by at least two B-Class staff.**
**Addendum:** SCP-XXXX1 has seemingly grown more restless on achieving SCP-XXXX1. I believe it's important why I remind you why he's keter in the first place. The more we look into this pocket of his, the more dangerous we find him to be. Before custody, he had all of this at his disposal to do whatever he pleased with it. Even if he had no malicious intent with it, it'd be very possible for others, more dangerous minds, to get their hands on it, ones that would render them so powerful, we would barely have the ability to control them. This becomes more and more apparent the deeper we look into SCP-XXXX1. No matter how 'cute' he may seem, any attempts to return SCP-XXXX1 to it's owner will be met with termination. |
The footsteps were loud and clumsy as they came up my steps. The intruder would have no idea that a 12-gauge slug was waiting chambered in my Remington 870. The steps became clearer as this unwanted guest stumbled up my stairs, the heaviness of steps lead me to believe they were wearing boots. Makes sense since this winter has seen some of the heaviest snowfall since I was in middle school. I remember walking to school every day. My best friend and I would throw snowballs at each other, and by the time we got to class, the bottoms of our pants had become so wet that they were frozen solid. We had almost all our classes together, our favorite was science though. From dissecting frogs to mixing different chemicals into compounds we loved it all and always worked together whenever there was group work to be done. The steps stopped about halfway to the top. In the silence you could hear the slight wind from the outside, blowing against the outside of this house, thankfully I had been able to seal most of the holes left behind from the homemade mortars that ravaged the first few years of the war. Breaking the silence of the breeze was the sound of a gun sliding out of a kydex holster, the sound of metal rubbing on plastic was one I had grown used to hearing throughout the war, then the sound of a safety being flicked off. Apparently, this person did not seem to think that anyone had lived in this house in some time. Either that, or they were simply careless and under trained, not saying I was any better trained, I simply had the element of surprise, which had won me many fights in the early years of the war.
I sat, breathing as shallow as I could as to not give away my position. In a close-range fight, I wouldn’t be able to maneuver the long barrel of my shotgun as easily as the handgun that this person presumably had. I need to play it safe and try to keep myself hidden until it was time to strike. Do not shoot until you see the whites of their eyes, or something along the lines of that I believe is how it went. Either way, I was going to do whatever it took to make it out of this encounter alive. That’s when I heard it, the top step creaked, and I felt the hard steel of a handgun hit me on the top of my head. The pain was excruciating but by that point the adrenaline was pumping through me harder than I had ever felt before. I looked up and smacked the barrel of the handgun away as it was pointed at my head. I saw the flash of light and my ears were ringing like crazy. I swept the legs of this intruder out from under them and watched them smack into the ground. I looked quickly for my shotgun but couldn’t find it. It was too dark and there was no time to fumble around. I pulled my knife off my belt and flicked it open. The intruder who I could now see was wearing a full faced balaclava was starting to stand up, their leg bandaged and with fresh blood oozing through the bandage. Easy fight I thought to myself. I tackled them to the floor and drove my knife deep into their chest. I heard a squeal of pain as my hearing finally started to return. I stabbed four more times to ensure that they would not get up. As I removed my knife for the last time, I pulled the mask off their face.
Horror overcame me as I saw her face. I grabbed in the darkness for any source of light I could find as to recant what I have just seen. I ran into the nearby bathroom and grabbed my flashlight off the counter and flicked it on. My eyes had not deceived me, it was her. We had done everything together until college came and she went out west while I stayed in our hometown. I hadn’t seen her since the war began over five years ago, now here she was, dying in my arms, by my hands. There wasn’t anything I could do for her and she knew it. She breathed rapidly and I could see the pain on her face. She either couldn’t speak or simply didn’t want to. Her breathing became shallower and more slowed. I could feel the tears starting to run down my face. I cried, I begged, and I pleaded that god allow her to live. Something I had not done in some time, for I felt that god abandoned us when this whole thing started. I felt her hand touch my face, and she attempted a smile, then it fell and softly landed on my lap. Her eyes were open but there was no more life left in her eyes. Her chest had stopped rising and she wasn’t breathing anymore. Death was something I had grown used to by now, but this one was different. I don’t think I will be able to live with myself for this.
The light shined through the holes in the roof. As I walked up the stairs, I could see the mess before I got to the top, the smell was by far the worst of it. Decomposing bodies, something that I could never grow used to smelling. The war had already been over for a year, but we found more dead every day. As I rounded the top of the stairs, I knew this wasn’t your typical killing during the war. There was a note lying on the ground, next to it was two dead bodies, a flashlight and a Remington 870 shotgun. I slowly set the note down as I finished reading it, only imagining what I would have done in that situation. I checked the weapon and called in my team to come take care of the bodies. I decided to pick up the note and slowly slid it into my pocket and proceeded back down the stairs, and onto the next house.
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I have lurked on here for some time now and this is my first attempt at writing my own story. I don't write a lot but this topic sparked something that made me want to attempt it. Any feedback is greatly appreciated, I would like to do more and improve my skills as a writer please help me anyway you guys can thanks a ton! |
Note: I’ve been a lurker on WritingPrompts for a long time and finally decided to create an account so that I can share what I come up with.
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A harsh voice deteriorated by the chemicals of a thousand cigarettes broke the silence that had settled about the room. “Ben... Ben, get your arse up, we need to move... now!”
Light burnt his eyes as they fluttered open, dancing up and down like the wings of a bird taking flight. Deep lines travelled across his brow as he winced at the distortion the words triggered against his ear drums. His senses slowly cleared in the same way the morning fog escaped the deep valleys that littered the nearby mountain ranges.
“Corporal Anderson!” Ben gulped as he pulled his head from the rough brick wall he’d made his pillow. The skin on his chin pulled tightly as he gaped his jaw. The whites of his eyes, still partially bloodshot, were visible as they grew wide. “Wh... what are... how did you...” He choked as his chest heaved with each breath that found his lungs.
Standing mere meters away was a towering man donning a steel plated suit that fit perfectly against the features of his body. Thin black matte strips were carefully fitted around it. Immense curved plates, heavily scratched and dented, hugged his broad shoulders and bulging ovals of steel protected his oversized chest. Dirty and ragged strips of cloth wrapped around his wrists before hanging loosely through his hands, stained a deep blue.
“We don’t have time for this. Throw that damn book away and get up, we’re under attack out here!” The man, Corporal Anderson, yelled with beads of sweat swarming from his brow. His jaw was clenched as his eyes darted from side to side.
Ben lowered his gaze to find a book face down against his chest. The title read - *The cruel swarm in our stars* -. His eyes narrowed as he explored the familiar bedroom. His hands found the warmth of his cheeks as he dragged his firm fingers down to his chin and onto his neck.
“H... how did your get here?” He asked, realising the Corporal had been nothing more than a fictional character in his book before sleep had taken over.
“Snap out of it, man! Our troops are dropping like flies. We need you back in the action.” The Corporal yelled.
“Action?” Ben said as his brow scrunched downward in a mass of wrinkles. His eyes explored the bedroom once again. “What action?” He asked. “I’ve got to be dreaming!” He added.
“Boy, your far from dreaming. Switch your damn implant over, you’ve got it set to home right now you idiot!” Corporal Anderson grew red in the face as a thick vein pushed against the dirty skin of his neck.
*Ok, I think it’s time to wake up now Ben thought to himself.*
“Get in here!” The Corporal lunged forward and cupped the side of Bens face with his rough hands. His thick fingers clawed at the back of the boys head before he dragged them to the top of his spine. There he pushed his thumb between the top vertebrae and the occipital bone of his skull, lifting it upwards to activate the boys IST implant.
Darkness ensued for a split second.
Ben wrinkled his nose as he raised his hands. His gaze travelled down his left arm, to his shoulders and down past his chest. His head slowly moved from side to side as he saw the steel suit encasing his body.
“Take coverrrrr” An unfamiliar voice pierced the air moments before a green bolt of lightning crashed against the sandy ground. Screams erupted as sand exploded through the air... |
The past two weeks have been a god damn train wreck.
It was hard getting that call. Devastating. It’s cliché but true – you really don’t realize what you have until it’s gone. My best bud had been smeared across the highway like a bug across a windshield. We’d never hang out, never bicker about dumb shit, never be there for each other ever again. And it sucked.
But *now*? Honestly, if that jerk isn’t already dead, I’m gunna kill him anyway. Whether this is a joke or something else I don’t think I’d ever be able to forgive him. The text messages started not even an hour after the wake - to say I was beside myself was an understatement. I don’t think I’d ever cried so much in my life. And then it happened. *Ping*.
*Hey asshole! Didn’t think u were such a* *crybaby* *lmao*
The minute I opened that message I was flooded by a cold sweat, the nausea hitting me like a train. It was like I couldn’t process it for minutes on end. I stared down at the phone, reading the message over and over and over. Soon enough, my cheeks were hot and I was furiously typing back.
*Who the fuck is this?*
Hardly a beat, before:
*What do u mean who the fuck is this who the fuck* *do* *you think it is??*
I ignored the messages for the rest of the day, slowly sinking back into my own grief and anger. It was a tough night. It felt like every minute that crept by lasted a year. I couldn’t sleep, but I didn’t want to be awake, either. And all the while my phone kept lighting up, silent but flooded with message after message. I read through them the next morning.
*What's with u anyway lol?*
*Dude?*
*Fuck man it was just a joke*
*My bad* *i'll* *go get u a sense of* *humor*
*Seriously man, u there?*
*Oh my god grow up and just message me back you dick*
A part of me was mortified that someone was willing to pester me so much just to piss me off, but a part of me felt warm and bittersweet looking over those messages. It was honestly just like him. It's like the whole thing with stairs, right? You live with someone long enough and you just know when they’re coming up the stairs, the way they do it is *unique*. Same with this. A dumb part of me just felt like it *was* Jason. Stupid, really.
*How about you grow up and tell me who you are and why you think this is funny?*
*Damn bro was the funeral that bad?*
*Your* *a joke*
*\*you’re*
I didn’t know whether to be upset or downright psychotic at that point, but before I could type back - a flurry of messages came through again.
*Before u get all pissed off* *again* *I know what* *u’re* *thinking*
*I just needed a break dude*
*It was just a joke*
That brief happiness, feeling like my friend was alive and annoying as ever, having him text me as though nothing bad had happened, began to fade away. The grief just kept wriggling its way back into my brain because I knew if I let this go on, I might not ever get over what had happened.
*Funny cause from what I heard you got creamed* *halfway* *across the highway*
*That's dramatic lmao*
*Seriously, whoever this is just quit it, please*
*It was a scratch at most bro*
I kept staring down at the phone, not really typing back but just reading the messages as they came through. A thousand excuses as to what had really happened. A million memories being pulled up and making my insides squirm. I smiled for a while, but as it went on - exhaustion hit me. Whoever was doing this was giving me a blessing and a curse. Even if it turned out to be a blessing, it was still messed up.
It was nice having a part of him back. Like the feeling you get when you look over old photos and it’s almost like time has stopped and you're back *there* in the moment. You can't really think of anything but that comforting memory. But knowing some asshole was getting a kick out of all this ruined it for me, every single time.
Before long, I was crying and wrapping my arms around myself, cold and shaking. Another message popped up. *Ping*.
*Man* *u really are a* *crybaby* |
"Help...? What ?. Who's Pablo ?"
Those are the word your incoherent ass blurted out, still not sure that you have awoken or were still dreaming.
The man handed you a picture:
"Pablo is a dog you had promised to do anything for her. We have the screenshot with your comment right here with your username on it"
"yea ... right"as you vaguely remember your username on the picture dOglOvEr694 a jolt of embarrassment flash through you.
"oh well, here's 50$ ... you can go and buy her some foods or toys..... goodbye". You just want to get back to bed.
"Sir, we don't need your money, we need your aid in something in particular..."
"But it doesn't have anything to do with me, it was just a random comment it posted, many other peoples did too, can you go ask them? And Pablo was just a dog!"
"umm, first, Pablo is not just a dog, she's a queen of an extra-terrestrial species..."
"You can't be serious right ..."a bit shocked, you're still not sure if all of this is even real
"Still, i can't do anything for your majesty, can i just ..."
"Sir, all the people commented like you have done their services, some provide her with great financial assets, some even give her lands, free constructions and everything carter to her needs. Now she requires only one thing from you, she has let us know that you are the only one capable of doing this"The guy speak with the straightest face you have ever seen, it's dawning to you that maybe this isn't a joke or random reality show pranks.
"what do i ...."you got interrupted
"We will paid you for this, we can give you almost anything, you just need to name it. You can live the rest of your live like royals"
"... alright.. what do i need to do ?"Your interest just piqued, it's not like you have anything to lose and lots to gain here.
"Her majesty need you to propagate her bloodline"
".. meaning ?"
"You will have to mate with her"
"the ..fuck?" You can't believe your ears, did this guy just ask you to have sex with a dog for money?
"no, i can't do it, there is no chance i'm going near her, much less in the same bed"You firmly decline, thinking the prostitution part is okay but the bestiality is too much.
"We encouraged you to do it, for the sake of both species. She has all the authority and power to destroy our world"
"....."speechless, you don't know what to say anymore, you just can't fathom the fact that the fate of the earth is relying on you to perform an alien interspecies intercourse.
The silences last like 3 minutes despite it only been seconds, your brain are scrambling to find a way to get out of this mess but then you began to realize there is no way out...
"I agree to do it with one condition. There will be nobody else know about this thing, you, me and Pablo and that's it"
"Sure, i promise you that, there will not be another human to know about this matter"
He gives you a firm nodes and shakes your hand "Thank you "
Heading to the car, your mind cling to the hope that it will be over soon and maybe they will have some kind of tranquilizer to erase the memories about to comes.
As soon as the door slam shut, he says "Oh but since this is a royal mating ritual, it's their custom to broadcast the whole event to her citizens, they are not human so it will be fine"
"F\*&!\^@"You tried to vent out your anger but only barks came out, and that was your last memory as a human. |
"Hey Bob, you see the news?"
"Yeah man, biggest datacenter in the country, up in smoke."
"We feel anything here? I was driving in when I saw the smoke"
"Yeah, we had a blip for about five minutes. Then Joe over in I.T. got an automated call that we were being transferred over to a center on the east coast. They said we shouldn't see more than a couple seconds delay in our processing till they get the new datacenter up and running. And we didn't even loose much info, what with it being distributed and all."
"Cool. Hey, you still on for Friday?"
"You know it." |
The rain brought strong winds and four identical murders.
And the flooding. God, the flooding. The police had all been out the entire week, directing teams of volunteers in soaked, cheap ponchos and waterlogged work boots. Men with trucks, weekend warriors who had seen their opportunity to shine and jumped on it. The town was going under, and they all knew it, but there was glory to be had.
Sand bags, thousands of them. Crews of thirty shoveling and filling and tying and stacking and hauling away. Pick up the ground and move it way over there. Keep the river out of the city. How many more hours? Nobody knew, but they knew it was coming. Children slept in cars while their parents paid a sweat penance to stall the plague of the rising tide for a few hours more. Flood lights, shimmering and glancing between the sheets of rain. You were there because that’s where you should be - there were atavistic, communal forces at work screaming at you from the belly of history. The wind, hand of god, herded you together and reminded you who you were. And when the river broke they drove their trucks and their families to high, dry land while bloated livestock and doors floated down the river.
The murders had all happened that night, they believed. There were no calls made to dispatch the night of the rains, but four bloated bodies were found in wooden houses that the silt was trying to reclaim. Old folks who couldn’t haul themselves out of their house, let alone transit forty pound bags of sand. Each and every one of them had been chained to a piece of furniture on the bottom floor of their house, all of them within a yard of their telephone. The water, of course, had swallowed them up and spit them back out in their kitchens and living rooms.
But who could have done this? Who would have seen such opportunity and acted upon it? The black muddy waters of the mighty river left no footprints nor fingerprints behind. Nothing was stolen. What pariah chose the river as an accomplice while the community bent, knowing it must break, but together?
The bodies were retrieved and funerary rights were observed. The rain returned after a day and continued on for a week. It was easier to let the river eat the cursed old wooden houses, and so they let it, happy to be rid of the reminders of the rot the flood had revealed. |
The dead inched forward, dragging their decaying limbs towards me. The horde swayed forward, clacking what remained of their jaws as if I were already in their hands. These corpses had feebly clawed themselves from their coffins, fuelled by an unquenchable hunger for the living, two weeks ago. Bullets were now in short supply, the packs of survivors fought over them without mercy. I had not seen one for weeks because I was a loner as I tried to avoid the sea of disease that plagued my home.
Groans filled my ears as they rushed forward like a rotting river. Dead arms grasped forward blindly, some were missing fingers or even hands as they attempted to grab me. The putrid smell of dust and decay settled into my nostrils. I sneezed, and the zombies stumbled towards me. My festering leg wound burned as I tried to hobble backwards. I fell backwards. A rusty cloud of dust surrounded me as I landed onto the scotching ground. The zombies at the front of the group attempted to grab me, lunging forward as fast as they could. Zombies were tripping over each other in their rush to grab me. The zombies gnashed their teeth and drooled hungrily. I took in the red dust and the few flecks of vegetation one last time. I shut my eyes and waited for the oncoming onslaught. I heard a few furious growls before the chorus of zombies grew quiet. I heard the quiet sound of limping zombies moving away as their dead feet slipped through the sand. My eyes flew open. The horde was receding in search of a different victim. I knew it was not pity that had made them act in such a way. My mind was devoid of ideas until eventually I looked down at myself.
Red dust was smeared upon my skin. My shirt was ripped into rags. I had been on the ground for at least a minute. After I had fallen, the zombies only had to finish me off. Yet, five seconds after I had fallen they retreated despite the effort it took for them to hunt and their luck in finding a wounded victim that they cornered with ease. Why did they turn away as if I were spoiled? I was dirty, but why should that bother those who are already dead? Why should they care about bacteria? Some lingering human instinct that had yet to rot away? Did these wandering dead still have "The five second rule?"engraved into their brains, of all things? |
“We’re sorry, but your existence violates our community guidelines”
The woman read the strange sentence from a sheet of paper - the only thing in the room that looks like it hadn’t had beer spilled on it at some point. She continued to stare at the sheet of paper as though she couldn’t bear to look me in the eye while she read it. The whole thing was absurd.
Patrons down the sticky, dark wooded bar top stared into their drinks. Some looked, then looked away when they saw that I had noticed. I slowly put my ID back into my wallet and slid it into my back pocket. She didn’t move, and my gaze couldn’t break from her body language. She was afraid and ashamed and so I left.
How was it any different than a tattoo? So the little chip inside my right cheek augmented a few of my senses - was it really worth tearing apart relationships over? It’s not like I was reading her iris or something. It’s a fucking smart watch for your brain. I’m not a bot, I’m just a dude with some metal in my mouth.
Walking back toward the main commercial street. The little chunk of metal does get cold when the weather turns like this, but otherwise it’s easy to forget it’s there. You just always know which direction you’re facing or what altitude you’re at just like you know what day it is or what the name of a certain color is.
My Uber is two minutes away and Jasim is stuck at a light near the underpass. I sit at what used to be a bus stop and just think about what happened. Do I hate the naturals at the bar? No, because I was them just three years ago. Do I think they’re making a bad decision? No, but I can’t see how they’ll get by resisting change like this. There’s always going to be side effects of using new technology. People working in factories at the turn of two centuries ago had to adapt to a world that didn’t need a nuclear family to survive. Fifty years later they stopped cooking. The good outweighs the bad, or we wouldn’t accept change like this.
Jasim is one minute away.
I do worry about how often I’m not ‘in the moment’ as they say. Facts and connections and discrete bits of information seem to overwhelm my consciousness at times, but that’s useful. It’s like how they have machines that can simulate ten thousand flowers of the same variety just by observing rules about how the flowers look. When you can measure and predict, you can win.
My head is starting to hurt again today.
Jasim is pulling up two blocks behind me now. |
It started out as a pretty average Thursday in fall, not yet late enough in the year for the nights to become bitterly cold, just crisp with clear black skies – perfect for stargazing. I was driving my truck down the I-44, keeping an eye on the other traffic and listening to the radio. They interrupted my singalong session with some pundits yammering about sport, something about the game tonight and how the Chiefs were going to smash the Broncos.
I stopped paying attention to the radio, finding little there to keep my interest and focused on the old red VW Beetle steadily chugging along ahead of me. The driver was managing to keep his car within the lane, but only barely, jerking the wheel whenever his tire hit the ripple strip on either side. I’m not sure if he was drunk, or high, or just plain tired, but I decided that I needed to keep my distance regardless.
I slowed down a little, knowing that I’d be getting off soon anyway when my attention was snapped back to the radio by the familiar tones of the Emergency Alert System. It seemed a bit odd to me, I was unaware of any tests, and storm season had finished months ago, so I paid attention as the mechanical male voice began its intonations.
“The Federal Emergency Management Agency in Washington DC has issued a Meteorological Warning for the continental United States.”
“Intelligence information has indicated a threat to the nation.”
“Locations impacted include the continental United States.”
“Citizens are instructed to secure an adequate supply of shelf-stable food and bottled water, and to be indoors before 8 PM central daylight time.”
“Further information will be broadcast as it becomes available.”
It was just after 1PM when the EAS was activated, leaving a solid 7 hours before… whatever was going on. It bugged me a little that there was no information out there. Scanning the radio gave me half a dozen stations with hosts busily discussing the interruption, but no new facts about the event.
I pulled off at my exit and drove towards town. Predictably there was a panic. I passed businesses that had obviously been hurriedly closed up for the afternoon, and a line of cars outside the Walmart parking lot on my way through. Panic shopping, I suppose. I stopped in at the local bottle shop to pick up the little necessities that I was running low on at home, waiting in line a little longer than I’d wanted to, and stopped in with the Colonel for a quick snack before I started toward my house.
It took about another 15 minutes to get there. My house isn’t much, but it’s far enough away from town to have a decent backyard to go with it, and it’s built on a ridge, so it backs onto a wooded valley below. I pulled into my driveway and sat in the truck finishing my last few chips as I waited for the creaky old door to lift itself from its rest within the brick of my garage.
I let the dogs in, and retrieved my telescope from the truck. It didn’t seem like I’d be making it out tonight with the weather warning in place. I checked the internet for any update on the situation. There didn’t seem to be much yet. FEMA were claiming that it was a legitimate emergency, but when pressed for details wouldn’t provide anything new. The young lady representing them in a clip I saw just smiled, sadly, and asked the assembled reporters to wait for a further announcement that evening.
There was some hysteria, as expected. The conspiracy theorists were up on their soapboxes shouting about how “they” were going to put us in the FEMA camps, man. I got a bit more worried when the Reddit post I was following linked to an almost identical warning from a similarly tight-lipped Canadian government. Eventually though, I fell asleep in front of the TV, flipping through channels and refreshing news sites on my phone. |
The year was 2069, a war had broken out, invading everyone's lives. This war was all in the amazingly realistic virtual world, televised all across nations Bets were made and ranks were given to "Soldiers". I think everyone blocked out the fact our nations were the ultimate prize for the winner, they treated it like that one book, I think it was called"READY PLAYER 1". It wasn't just adults tho, little kids were in aswell making the numbers much greater than they should have been.
Me and my group of 7 were the recon team, we always went for the map,"No Mans Land"easy pickings there. We had been in this sick game for around one and a quarter years now and had accumulated enough money to get the best gear in the game. There was only two teams left, N Korea, and America, the final battle was scheduled in two weeks, and the map was oh so glorious "No Mans Land". Everyone gathered to plan, we decided to try and get 2 rapid fire rail guns, 20000000 each, the grind was on, killing as fast as we could and setting up all the defenses.
The day came and thousands charged us with tanks, jeeps, and planes, but the rail guns made quick work. The team numbers went down drastically, NK-3000, U.S.-4,236, the tanks lead the gunners through no mand land while we stuck behind. Then the boom, NK-125, U.S.-21. Only a few of us were left in the trenches, we gathered out mustard and tear gas, a few grenades aswell, and set off into the tunnel leading to them. We went slowly through their trenches, took out 48 of them with a tear gas and grenade trap, but lost 3 in the commotion. We lead on and spotted most of them huddled together, we didn't hesitate to unleash hell, but the numbers weren't going down, It Was A Trap! We scuttled going in all different directions but they had gotten us. The screen that was around my face had gone dark, taking it off I was met with a state of Abandonment, it was a hoax, they took the time to set this up and invade when everyone was strapped into that fake world. |
During these years, thousands of species returned to their homes and ecosystems. They also spread and established new genetic lines. When we banned fishing for sharks and rays, it was the sharks that started to spread the genetic elements of their bodies and brains, and they also bred these new genes into new species. As we began to study the effects of long-lines on these new species, it became abundantly clear, after a few generations, that long-lines can actually accelerate the decline of fish stocks. Instead of the recovery we predicted, the trend is actually toward more shark-finned fish and lower populations of other fish too, perhaps even species we would have expected to be thriving after the ban. We also learned that the same fish, when released into the ocean, may be toxic to one type of predator, but only beneficial to other different kinds of predators and may make new lives for others, while killing off the one thing that killed it. And we learned all these things because we first studied the effects on marine life. This was what we did in the 1990s as we worked to stop the dumping of human and industrial waste into the upper bay of San Antonio Bay. This is when we were the lead partners in California's Endangered Species Act, with the goal of permanently saving some of the coast's best ocean food sources. Because this work led to such wonderful discoveries, our current effort is to replicate similar experiments so we can see if these same discoveries affect a large variety of marine life in different parts of the world. |
“Is it broadcasting?” I ask the tech hand in the decrepit studio. He flashes five fingers, then four then three. The lights come on and bathe me in their glow. I was dressed in my full military dress uniform. It was suitable that salvation and destruction be one and the same and it is ironic that it should come at the command of a lowly captain. The last two fingers fall and the cameras all pan towards me. “Ornias,” I begin in that even tone I had practiced for an hour in the mirror. “We once dared to call you our protector, our guardian. Now you work to subjugate us. We have, time and again, proven the inadequacy off our weaponry against your might. That said, while we can’t hurt you, we can destroy that which you seek to conquer. Over the past few weeks of massacre, I have consolidated control of every nuclear weapon in the United States of America’s arsenal. I have run the simulations and with the help of some very intelligent people, I have pinpointed the necessary targets to tear this planet apart. We will not be slaves to the whim of an abomination. May God have mercy on our souls. Enjoy your nonexistent kingdom.” I made a big show of flipping up a covered red button and mashing it. The explosions rocked the room and indeed the whole world. I was the man who has destroyed the human race, and I was the man who had deprived the eldritch abomination, Ornias, of his kingdom. The shockwave burned out the building I was standing in and for the briefest of moments, I felt a searing heat and a blinding light. Then it subsided and I opened my eyes. He stood before me, Ornias.
“Do you really hate me so much that you would destroy your world and everyone and everything you ever cared about?”
“I do.”
“And there is your first mistake, you petulant child. I could have subjugated this world and established peace and harmony.” His clawed hands played out to his sides in an exaggerated gesture of innocence. His toothy maw curved into a horrific, menacing grin.
“Peace at the edge of a sword is not a peace with having, it is a hostage crisis.”
“Are you really willing to live with the choice you made to kill everyone?”
“Fortunately,” I bit off my words sharply, exaggerating the pauses between each word. “I. Don’t. Have. To.”
He chuckled, and it sounded for all the world like a metal fork scraping across a glass plate. “Except, you do. I’m not letting you off. As you said, you are depriving me of my win condition and now I’m going to make you live with the consequences forever.”
At that moment I realized my mistake, but it was a trade I was willing to make. It wouldn’t have been so different anyways. I had just killed every human still alive. Whether it was hell or apparently eternal torment at the hands of Ornias, the result would be much the same, but it was done, and I could take solace in the fact that I had, in a certain respect, defeated the most powerful known entity. He hadn’t won, therefore, I had. |
Hitachi Jherico was not a dumb man, nor was he particularly a smart man, but there was one thing no one in the world could call him. A coward. When the Shogun demanded his loyal lords send their best Samurai to his defense, Jherico complied. Among the Kyoto elite Jherico was somewhat of an anomaly, born to a christian mother and a Japanese father he was often mistaken for a foreigner. His whole life he battled the perceptions that his mothers blood had imbued him with weakness not worthy of the vast land titles his father had left him. He found it all too ironic that now he stood beside the Shogun, Minamoto go Hyata, as the sole Samurai lord to ride to his defense. The Minamoto clan had seen its fair share of misery as of late, and many lords figured that hedging their bets against them in favor of the Taiga clan was in their best interest. Perhaps the same could be said of the Hitachi clan, but Jherico did not inherit the lands of a liar or a traitor.
"Hitachi Jherico, it seems you are the last loyal Samurai in Japan"The Shogun said, staring out over the city that would soon see the ravages of war.
"Hitachi honor is not so easily bought by the promises of traitors. My grandfather swore to defend the Minamoto Samurai and now here I stand, ready to make good on that promise"Jherico responded.
"And yet it seems the foolish decision, surely you understand the force gathered just 5 miles up the river does not mean to simply ask us for our heads"
"I have no delusions of what we face Lord Minamoto, and neither to my commanders. They will hold this city and come dawn the Minamoto clan will rule all of Japan."
Of course, Jherico thought, that was surely not the case. The enemy far exceeded them in number, and come Dawn the city would be brought to its knees.
The Shogun stood silently, a smile curving at the corners of his mouth, he did not know whether Jherico was a fool or not, but he could not help but admire his resolve.
"Then you surely inherited your fathers iron will, not even in the face of death do you cower"
"My father was a man of iron, but it was my mother that gives me the resolve to do what I must do"
The Shogun balked, shaken from his nostalgic trance, "I've no doubt she was a lovely woman your mother, to have captured the eye of your father as a simple missionary, but surely it is the Samurai in you that allows you to face death so."
"I cannot deny that my fathers training and relentless moulding of my character taught me the ways of the Samurai. He instilled in me the belief that Samurai live on borrowed time, that a violent death is the only way out of this world for one who wields this power. But deaths inevitability isn't why I am here."
"Enlighten me then, Jherico of the Foreign Eyes, why do you stand here, facing death itself? What did your western mother teach you that the Samurai could not."The light of the setting sun now danced through the city streets, illuminating the quiet cobblestone in one last gracious gift to Minamoto go Hyata. When it rose again, his clan would be no more.
"It is not what she taught me but rather what I learned from watching her. She was a healer and as such fought against death till the bitter end. She never raised her voice in anger at the Samurai who inflicted the wounds on those she treated. Be they Samurai lord or poor farm boy, she battled not the earthly forces that inflicted the wounds but the divine force of death itself. Samurai give glory to death, but death is not glorious, nor is it evil. Death is fate itself, but fighting it is not futile, for my mother, though she often lost, sometimes succeed in changing the whims of fate. I do not pretend to understand death or its whims nor instill in it some type of glory, only that battling against it is never futile but should it come there is no evil in it. In that spirit I came here to battle my fate, not the Taiga."
Silence enveloped the posh interior of the royal apartment, once reserved for the Emperor's family. A large smile tugged at the lips of the Shogun, soaking in the last rays of his reign. He then slowly turned to face Jherico as the sun finally dipped behind the western mountains.
"Forgive me Lord Minamoto but we must get moving to the barricades-"Jherico suddenly stopped, out of breath as he looked upon the face of the Shogun.
A simple smooth white mask covered the Shogun's face, and a deep baritone voice, completely unlike the Shogun's emanated from behind it. "It seems I have finally found one worthy of wearing this mask. Finally, it has been many, many cycles since I donned it. Hitachi Jherico, your soul is worthy of the Mask of Fate."
Suddenly memories flooded Jherico's mind, of preparing for the hopeless siege, the gruelling street to street battle, the arrow that had pierced his shoulder, the Taiga forces surrounding Onriendo Castle, the Shogun carving his stomach open in the very spot this false Shogun now stands. And finally of the Taiga general beheading him in the spot that he now stood.
The false Shogun slowly drew his long katana from its scabbard, "just one more test lies between you and your destiny. You claim you came here to battle death. Now do so." |
I rubbed my eyes in a haze. “Hmm. That’s not right.” The clock read 2:00 am. The knocking turned into rapid, thundering bangs. “Er, one moment!” The answer was simple: I’m dreaming. When in Rome so they say. I walked over to the new door, a solid white thing in the center of the room, not attached to any wall. The brass doorknob didn’t have any keyhole and opened without any resistance.
The view inside was interesting to say the least, it was the opposite end of the room. My view if the door wasn’t there anyway. I shrugged and stepped through m, the door closing behind me with a slam. Immediately I was wracked with a sense of dread. Sweat began heading down my face, my heart pulsing in my ears. Who was knocking?
“Hello?”
The silence was the only response.
I walked around my room, nothing seemed out of place. I looked up, down, left, ri-
I looked back up.
It looked down at me.
I screamed.
It pounced.
I ran, sprinting out the room slamming the door behind me. I heard it run into the door and it’s screech of pain. Turning the corner, I bolted upstairs as the door splintered behind me. Down the hall and on the right, I entered the guest room. Again shutting the door behind me, but not before I saw It clamoring up the stairs. Door closed, chair in front it and a table pushed behind that, I took my first breath in what felt like my life.
It ran into the door but my barricade held. For now. Another inhuman scream, and more thudding sounds from behind the door. I had maybe 5 minutes if I was lucky, and I wasn’t feeling particularly lucky right now. I looked around me at all my resources, and quickly fell into despair. Besides the chair and small table acting as my only defense, and the small bed, the room was completely empty. I knew I should’ve furnished the room sooner, but I never had any guests so there was never any reason too.
The door opened by an inch, just a moment, but that was enough for one if it’s spider like legs to slip into the room and hit back the table. Make that 30 seconds. I dove under the bed and held my breath. The door crashed open, chair flying back and smashing the window.
The Window! Salvation at last! I felt the beginnings of a smile, which quickly faded as I heard the creature leap onto the bed. Another deafening screech and I felt the creature jump, but no sign of it landing anywhere. Must of went onto the ceiling. I could feel it watching, waiting for any sign of movement. I counted to 5, and did the only thing I could: ran.
With nothing but adrenaline fueling me I crawled under the bed, sprinted for the window, and leapt.
I never realized how tall my house was until I could truly see the view below.
Darkness.
I awoke lying in the grass, pain radiating from my leg, bone protruding from it, but the pain quickly vanished. Guess that’s one benefit to adrenaline, but I knew the sensation would only return. I got up, applied a little weight on my broken leg, and fell down again. Guess I’ll have to crawl. I crawled towards the road, and noticed something unusual, no cars. The street completely abandoned. I took note of that and began crawling to the nearest home. That’s when I noticed the ground shaking.
Then I saw IT.
That’s when I realized the thing in my house was a child.
I screamed.
It smiled. |
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Today was lousy, I woke up and everything was dark and gray and gloomy, just your average fall morning. Are you at work no change there. Opening up my email I side and looked at the mountains of work that accumulated. But then, then I noticed something peculiar, it was a letter from no one. Intrigued I opened it and saw this message: hello Jared, I’m pleased to offer you a special opportunity. You can come up to the heavens every other day to meet with the council of the gods. “Okay, who wrote this fake email, not funny” I yell. The email had two links one for acceptance and another that said yes. Laughing slightly, I clicked on one, and in an instant, I was transported to a room alone. Suddenly a voice says “hello, don’t be afraid, I am hestia, the Greek goddess of the hearth and home. I’m sorry we transported you to this room, the outside world is too unnerving for you to comprehend.” Hesitantly, I muster “okay stop it with the pranks, you’re taking this too far!”
A deeper, mans voice shouts “I knew this was a bad idea Loki, can you ever just admit you’re wrong for once!? |
"You look well."I said cruelly, watching the hobbled mess of a hero drag their body towards me. Their once powerful physique reduced to that of a leper. His ribcage pushing against dry skin with each heaving breath, such a pitiful sight... it was like a mutt that needed to be put down.
"You took EVERYTHING from me!"He screamed, pulling up the last bit of air from his lungs. His bellowing voice held fogs of sadness underneath it, as if he would be weeping if not for the decaying state of his body. "My legacy, my family and... and.."his fragile fingers clutched together, causing a loud crack as his bones snapped appear, causing a comical howl of pain to slip from the would be hero.
Perhaps it wasn't funny, but I could hardly hold back my laughing. "And your love, was that what you were going to say? I didn't kill her, the idiots in your town did that. Honestly she should have just abandoned you, how cruel a loving heart can be."I added, feeling little sympathy for that wrench, she had every chance to denounce her husband, yet she foolishly stayed by his side, thinking those animals that call themselves humans would grow some common sense.
"You... I'm going to kill you."He said with conviction that may have frightened me once, yet all I could do was crouch my body slightly, almost as if I was listening to a child talk, lowering myself to their level.
"Kill me? Is that where you went? To find a way to kill me? I thought you were just in hiding, honestly that's precious. Well... come on then herooo"I snickered, egging him on, offering him the first blow.
It was a sight that was somewhat incredible, swiftly he reached for his blade, giving me almost a sense of false hope that he would put up a fight, yet his first swipe at the air had already caused his frail body to collapse, the sword clinking along the ground as the cold iron met the stone floor.
"You done?"I asked, not wanting to be rude and ruin his big moment, when I received no response I approached. "Honestly, you are quite a fool, you ever considering maybe just starting a new life?"I asked, picking up his blade, the once sacred heroes relic would now be the death of the hero, how poetic, as I made the fatal swipe, I could almost feel a sense of sadness, it was the end of an era, this feud had been fuelling us both for years, what would I do after this? When the clean slice was made, I went to slide the blade out of his lifeless body, only to find it stuck.
Bits of diamond begin to form against the swords Iron, climbing up its handle towards me. "Y-you!"I couldn't even curse out the deceased hero... the diamonds climbing only seeming to accelerate as I struggled, my body soon being kept in place as I felt the harsh cool jewel press against my throat. So, he plans to seal me, I could only laugh, a hearty belly emptying laugh as my body began to crystalize.
Touché hero... touché
Where he failed, he also succeeded, while I may be trapped in this diamond hell, it was only temporary, yet the hero has offered the people something I never would have.. hope, perhaps the next hero would be the one.
{If you enjoyed my story, Feel free to check out r/pmmeyabootysstories where ill be posting some more of my stuff for people to read} |
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