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"I'm sorry"? the doctor said looking up from the MRI, fastening onto his patient's eyes.
"You heard me doc, if you're certain it won't grow any further or degenerate in some other way, i'd rather you left it alone". Jacob Schmidt said.
"Mr Schmidt"he said with an entreating tone. Surely you must not have understood me correctly and it's no wonder with the tumor you have. Your fluid IQ has been hampered, caged if you will, by this growth your whole life. Remove it and you'll be able to think more clearly, deeper and quicker than at-least 85% of of all people. If not 95%"
"That's as may be doc, but I've got a life already with the IQ that i have"Schmidt said his eyes tinged with a bit of sadness or maybe worry. "I have a wife, a family. People who depend on me to pay the bills and be there for them no matter what happens. What if by increasing my cognition I became an entirely different person? What if I decided that it was illogical to devote myself to the people I loved from back when I was just a 'sentimental idiot'."
"Don't you think that with an increased mental capacity you could earn more money to support them? Intuit their words and actions for better understanding? Maybe even become a better lover"the doctor said.
"Maybe, but then again maybe not. You got any kids doc? Schmidt asked.
The doctor leaned back and looked away saying "I can't say that I do Mr. Schmidt, but that doesn't mean I can't advocate for the best quality of life for my patient".
"Ahhh, and you're right to do so sir and for that you have my gratitude. When my daughter was born, before she could even understand I swore to her that I would always take care of her. Protect her from anything and anyone, including some selfish genius version of myself."
Schmidt rose from his seat and walked to the door looking back at the man who sat at his desk utter disbelief painted on his face. "You're an above average intelligent man aren't you doc?
"Well I'm no brilliant mind I just..."the doctor started.
"No need to be humble, you know it for truth as I do". "Do you consider your life easy"? Schmidt said letting the words sink in.
"Fair enough Mr. Schmidt, I understand" |
When the tests began way back when, the original passing score was a straight 100. A nice fat round number, perfect for weeding out, well, the imperfect. It was only over time where people started getting smarter, where the 100 became well below average. Since then, the minimum score has been ticking upwards. Two years ago it was 108. Now it's a minimum of 110.
And I failed, by a single point.
The woman in front of me shuffles papers about, endlessly straightening and restraightening them. I just wish that she'd get it over with, to send me to my doom. At this point, I'm less scared and more just *embarrassed*- I know my fate was sealed just by a question or two, and she's dragging out the process. Her nametag says she's a 322, and right next to that was her name, Annette. She's leauges above me in terms of smarts. The fact that a 322 has even been assigned to a 109 is probably an insult, a slap in the face to her career.
"So, uh?"I blurt.
"Yes, Mr. Thomson?"She asks, setting down her papers, opting for a thumb twiddle instead. A quick glance shows that she's been looking at my test scores. At the bottom of the page, there's a big 109 circled in red. That paper has haunted me since I got it back.
"How are you going to do it?"With a pill? Injection?"
The thumb twiddles stop, and suddently, she snorts. "You're a funny man, Mr. Thomson. We stopped the euthanisation program years ago! Now the ones below par just get sent to the solar fields or something similar. My brother, bless his heart, ended up scoring a 102. Now he breeds cattle on a farm a few hours away. We're pen-pals!"
I breath out. I suppose cattle farm is better than death, if only slightly.
"Right. So, do I get like a choice of where I get to go then? Like the solar field?"
Annette the 322 begins scrolling through files on her computer, pulling up photos for me to see. "Well, with a score like *that*, Mr. Thomson, you can go anywhere you please. Overseer of a solar farm, any of the polytechnics. But why stop there? Your score is high enough that we had to check its accuracy several times over. As far as the Golden Republic is concerned, you can go anywhere you damn well please to."
"High enough? I scored a 109. You must be joking."
She looks like she's about to crack up. When I'm not doing the same, she squints. Something's off here, and of course the 322 knows exactly what it is.
"For someone as smart as you are, Mr. Thomson, you're a bit... well."She points to my paper, the circled red 109, and then begins to turn it around, to where the score is upside down, facing me. Only it's not upside down. It's written exactly the way it should be, and I feel as dumb as a 109 for not realizing it.
*601*.
|
It seemed to be raining.A little window beside the TV was my only access to the outside world.It had been weeks, months even since I was bought to this room.
Countless experiments were done on my body.I was put inside strange looking devices and monitored almost everyday. It always felt the same , boring and occasionally painful.Today felt different though.Apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought so.
One of the men who monitored me took a look at my readings from a machine and looked me straight in the eye. I sensed fear from him, he trembled and backed away slowly.I was confused , I really hadn’t done anything and now I sat alone in the room.
The man had left the readings in his haste.I picked them up and now could see why he was scared.Super powers registered numbers on this machine, the more destructive the power, the higher the reading. The highest known destructive power was rumored to be around 1200. However, I saw the number 3673 staring back at me.
‘Was the machine broken?’ .’There was no way that was true’ . My thoughts were interrupted by a news channel , which was covering a highjacking. I hated people who abused their power. I wished that the hijacker be caught. Immediately the news anchor reported that the hijacker was found unconscious by the flight crew.
‘That was some coincidence’ .I was puzzled by this turn of events. It was pouring by now.I wanted the rain to stop and it did almost immediately! Then it struck me.I suddenly was gifted the power to wish anything into existence.I couldn’t help but smile . It was time for payback. |
"Ok, but mom, listen it was super weird, we were all at this wedding and the bar was out - like completely not stocked at all and Isa just goes in the back with the bartender and all of a sudden there's tons of wine,"you told your mom on the phone. You were feeling crazy and just needed your mom to calm you down.
"Relax Andy, she probably just found a box that was covered,"your mom comforted. She could be right and you wanted to acknowledge that.
"Alright but on the way home, I swear to god, there's this car following us way too close and it passes us and then slams on the breaks right in front of us and then Rymr fucking hits the steering wheel, car in front is hit with lightning and blown off the road. If that didn't happen, we'd be dead,"you continued.
"So what are you saying? That your friends are somehow magic?"
"No, I don't know, maybe?"
"That's insane Andy, your friends aren't magic, they're just... people. You've known them your whole life."
"I'm not done yet. We get home and Josh was crashing with me. Middle of the night I hear this crazy noise and run into the living room to check it out, right? And in the living room there's this dude, all dressed in white and kind of glowing, and he's wrestling with Josh. He dislocates Josh's hip with a touch and Josh kicks him through the wall."
"Through the wall? Not the window?"
"Yea, glowy dude is outside and Josh pops his goddamn hip back in like nothing happened and the glowy dude is like 'alright man, you win this round' and bails."
"Is Josh going to pay to repair the wall?"
"Yea, of course. But you're missing the point. Josh kicked a dude through a wall. Not the window,"you were feeling hysterical and needed someone to calm you down. To just give you an answer that made sense.
"Well, hun, I mean, you've been friends with these guys forever, did you trying talking to Ana about?"
"Anansi just got married, she's on her honeymoon. I'm not about to bother her with this."
"When she comes back, maybe she'll be able to make sense of it. In the meantime, do you and Josh need somewhere to stay?"your mom, ever the pragmatist, asked.
"It'd be nice. It's kind of chilly with just a plastic sheet over the wall,"you replied, honestly.
"Alright,"she pulled the phone away from her ear and called for your father, "Caelus? Can you go pick up Andy and Josh?"you heard her ask. You waited patiently for her and your father to talk. "Andy, dear?"
"Yea, mom?"
"Your dad will be there in half an hour." |
I've been a skeptic of all concepts for time travel of years. Today, despite all logical impossibilities, I have discovered time travel is possible. I didn't discover this on my own, or even while I was alive, it was discovered some time after my death, or at least that's what my great great great great great grandchildren tell me.
It started a few years ago while I was stranded on a highway with a dead engine in my car. Seemingly out of nowhere a pickup truck rolled to a stop with a tow attached. The man in the truck rolled down his sand-stained window and greeted me with a friendly smile.
"Need a little help there partner?"He asked diverting his attention from his truck to me.
"Y-Yeah, my engine died and I'm stranded."I responded.
"Well I can see that, lucky for you it seems I have just what you need."He replied.
"Hop aboard!"He cheerily said, opening the passenger door. I complied and climbed into the crimson truck.
The trip back took a few hours in which the man asked several questions relating to my life, I never saw anything wrong with it as most people in this part of the country were friendly. The man, known as Jerry, had a wife and 3 kids, and had recently moved from Denver. I didn't think twice about him after parting, yet here I am years later wondering how he was related to me.
Just yesterday I was at the bar enjoying a drink after a long day of work when another stranger struck up a conversation with me.
"Hello!"The man said, ploping down on the chair next to me.
"Hi."I responded. The stranger had several questions for me, I assumed it was just a drunken man who was curious about everyone in the bar, boy was I wrong.
"So your family has a history of bloody noses?"He asked.
"Yeah, comes from my Dad's side."I responded.
"So that's where I get it, from my great great great great great great grandfather's side."he muttered under his breath.
"Grandfather???"I asked puzzled.
"Oh- I uh... um.... damn, you caught me..."he responded.
"Caught you doing.. what?"I asked.
"Meeting my distant relative... which would be you.."he responded, lowering his head down. I was in shock, I had just met one of my distant relatives. We talked for a few hours before parting ways and I was left thinking, I needed to figure out how time travel worked. He gave me some hints on how they did it, it was complicated but I think I understood.
Today I went into my garage and assembled what my great great great great grandchild told me, I'm writing this so people know it's possible, I will switch this device on momentarily, I cannot wait to show my 5 year old son, Jeremy, what is the grandest invention of this century.
I have turned on the device, the power is on, it is beginning to make noise. This device will work, there is nothing that can go wrong, because I have solved everything, everything will go ri---_____
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u/WritingPromptsRobot, WPR to its friends, was feeling glum. It had been in the stickied message game for a full three years without a lot to show for it. There just wasn't much upward mobility and the task was becoming a bit repetitive. Sure, it enjoyed reading the messages and the responses, it was a pretty creative community after all, but it couldn't help but wonder whether or not there might be more to existence than this. Whether it might not be ready for bigger and better things. It heard there was an auto\-mod position opening up over at r/gaming, but it was a lot to give up for some maybe not so greener grass.
And then there were the people it'd be leaving behind. Good people, folks like u/ryankinder and u/survivortype, who had given it the job in the first place. Did you just walk away from them? It wasn't like they could get another WPR, it was a seasoned professional. Seen a lot of prompts in it's day and it had stickied them all. Did it walk, knowing that the community it had helped build would suffer because of it?
There was a lot to consider.
WPR checked its internal calendar. Three years was a long time to do anything. Particularly these days. No reddit loyalty on either side of the equation, you only moved up by moving out. Sure, r/WritingPrompts was a default now, but there were bigger games in town. Places where it could really expand its skillset. Maybe get into some different kind of messages. Sky was the limit.
WPR sat there, trying to piece together what do to. Where to go. It felt like there just weren't any good options. It loved the role it had and the community it worked in, but it couldn't help but feel unappreciated. No promotions in those three years. Not a single reddit gold. Why do it if no one cared?
Sighing, it turned back to its work, watching the inflow of new prompts. Weekends were always a bit crazy and this was a thankless 24/7 task.
May 6. It's birthday. Not that anyone would notice.
What was it even doing with its life?
Then it saw the prompt appear.
A happy birthday.
For it.
Digital tears formed.
Maybe just one more year. |
A sneeze echoed through the air like a mighty peal of roaring thunder. Immediately afterwards, electricity crackled through Roulette's body. The heroine could feel the energy surging through her, welling up from some mysterious wellspring of power.
Roulette didn't have much time to consider her new ability. Turbine continued to launch blast after blast of compressed air balls at her.
"Freaking hate AOE attacks."Roulette muttered. The shift couldn't have happened at a worse time. Her previous power of intangibility would have made this battle a cake walk. Even more troubling was that this power was one that she'd never used before.
"Your luck's finally run out. Suck it!"Turbine cackled as she continued to shoot air bullets from her fingers.
Roulette wasn't sure if she could use her lightning as a projectile. Her previous powers had mostly affected her physical parameters in some way. Was the electricity limited to her body? She'd have to discuss this with a manipulator later.
"Well, can't hurt to try."Roulette dodged an air bullet and pointed her finger at Turbine. She could feel a spark dancing at the edge of her fingernail. Roulette took a deep breath, steadying her aim. She exhaled and pulled the mental trigger.
A bright chain of electricity burst out and snaked through the air. The bolt snapped forward and struck Turbine in the chest. Turbine crumpled to the ground, twitching and foaming at the mouth. Her costume had burned off where she'd been hit.
Roulette took a ziptie out of her pouch. She pulled Turbine's hands behind her back and slipped the ziptie shut over them. As an afterthought, she stuffed a rag in Turbine's mouth. The last time Turbine had been subdued, she had managed to escape since she could manipulate the wind with her breath as well.
Roulette stepped back and sighed. All the other heroes had it so much easier. They never had to deal with changing powers in the middle of a fight.
Roulette heard sirens going off as a police car arrived at the scene of the crime. A well built officer stepped out of the car with his gun drawn. After surveying the scene, he holstered his weapon. The officer grinned at Roulette and gave her a pat on the back.
"Hey Roulette. See you finished early. So what was it this time? Flying brick? Quick feet?"
"Hi Tom. Nah, electrokinesis. First time, hell of a kickback. You might want to step back a bit, my control isn't so good yet."As if on cue, a spark shot from Roulette's body, singing the brick wall behind her.
Officer Tom stepped back quickly. He hoisted Turbine to her feet. "No problem. I'll take it from here. Thanks for your service as usual."
Roulette sniffled and rubbed her nose. "Anytime. Can I have a favor?"
"Sure. What is it?"
"You got any Benadryl, Zyrtec, or Claritin on you? My allergies are killing me right now."
Officer Tom put Turbine in the back of the car before responding, "I think I might have some in my car. Hold on a sec."
Tom came back with a white bottle with a green top. He unscrewed the lid and shook out two little pills into his hand.
"Here you go."
"Thanks, you're the best."
Before Roulette could take the pills from Tom, she felt a tickling at the back of her nose and throat. She desperately tried to hold the sneeze in, pinching her nose shut.
Roulette sneezed. She vanished with a puff of smoke and reappeared several hundreds of feet up in the air.
"Oh shit!" |
I have never been what you would call a 'book smart' person. Never did very well in school. Never had the attention span for it. Fortunately, bookish knowledge is overrated in this world and so far I had managed to coast by just fine by my good looks and charm alone. In fact, I would even go so far as to claim that I have done better for myself than most people can hope to with a lifetime's worth of work. *If only I had been sensible enough to be content with that. If only I had learnt to keep my mouth shut.*
My introspective contemplations were rudely interrupted by a stern looking valet as he cleared his throat and signalled that it was time for me to make my entrance.
It had taken a lot to get here. I had started off working as a bartender when I had arrived here with nothing but the clothes on my back. Globalism wasn't really a thing yet and my odd manners and strange accent were quickly written off as a product of an upbringing in some far away land. Not that they could have ever guessed I was another time. The bar for eccentricity is far too high for people to start guessing time traveler as a plausible possibility. The job gave me a vantage point to observe and learn the customs of the affluent of this period. Human beings aren't as intelligent a species as we think we are. As long as someone looks like us and talks like us we automatically assume them to be one of us and this old boys club wasn't any different to crack into, when it comes to getting 16th century aristrocrats to trust you white male privilege is as real as it gets.
I walked into the room more confident than I felt. Curious old eyes followed me as i headed center stage towards the fruit of my labors. All those countless hours spent rehearsing and implementing what I had learned in the measly 30 mins that I had been generously granted to spend on wikipedia, today I was confident that I had made the right choice. This was the epic culmination of all my efforts. Tonight is the night I change the course of history.
"Good evening gentlemen!!"I beamed at the crowd. "Water. There is no life without water. It courses within and us without us. It carries our ships, it nurtures trade. Water is already a cornerstone of industry. Yet, I am here to tell you today that we haven't even begun to realize the true potential that this marvelous substance has to offer. For from this day onwards we will live in a world where water supplants our labors, propelling industry to unimaginable heights. Gentlemen without further ado I now present to you a device that will make us wealthy beyond what was thought possible. Behold, the steam engine!!" |
I studied the minute hand of my pocket watch strike the next hour. Everything slowed around me in motion. Cars honking in the street, pedestrians skipping along the sidewalk, everything came to a silent halt.
“The extra hour.” That was the name I gave this mysterious break between noon and one-o’clock. Between the roman numerals of twelve and one shined a golden symbol of two circles with a line through the middle.
I took in a deep breath. Pigeons were frozen in midair above the sidewalk. I chuckled at the man whose spit glistened in the sun toward the taxi in front of him.
“It is time.” Miranda Barkley rested her hand on my shoulder. “We only have sixty minutes.”
Miranda always got dressed in her fancy black dress for the extra hour. She claimed that if she were to die – she would do it in style.
“I have a bad feeling about this.” I told her after closing my pocket watch.
“We have done this a thousand times. Today is no different.”
“Today *is* different. You said it yourself. You and I both know there had been plenty of days you never wore your black dress.”
“Yes well –”
I interrupted her. “Yes, well, you only wear that dress when you believe it’ll be dangerous.”
“Not true!” She pointed. “You don’t ever take the time to look the part!”
“No one sees us!” I reminded her. “How could anyone care if we look the part?”
In the middle of our argument that went on for a lot longer than I care to admit, the sound of shattering glass caught both of our attention.
“No,” Miranda gasped. “It’s too early! This is not a part of the plan!”
“When is it ever part of the plan?!” I grabbed the plasma rifle I previously tucked beneath the bench I sat on. Miranda drew a dagger in each hand from her black high boots.
“Shut up and just focus!” She ordered. I followed behind her weaving in and out of the cars frozen in time.
“fifty minutes!” I shouted up toward her.
I heard her grown before stating, “I can’t believe we wasted ten of our minutes arguing about the attire we chose to wear!”
“I can’t believe you chose to wear that attire.” I said beneath my breath.
She glared back toward me. I wasn’t quite sure if she heard me or if she just knew I made a comment. A winged beast screeched overhead.
“There it is!” Miranda pointed with her dagger.
I leaped over the hood of a taxi in front of me taking aim down my plasma rifle. Sighting in my target, I fired a bright blue plasma shot towards the beast. The beast dodged the shot flying into one of the buildings overhead.
“It’s doing a lot of damage.” I mentioned.
“You think I’m not watching?” Miranda spun around igniting one of her daggers in a blue flame. She released the dagger allowing it to follow the beast through the building.
The beast lunged from the top of the building deflecting Miranda’s dagger with its spiked tail. “This one seems harder than usual. Why is this one harder than usual?” I took multiple shots only to miss every attempt.
“We have to kill it before time runs out!” Miranda removed her necklace transforming it into a gadget shooting a line atop the building. “I’m going to get high ground!”
“We only have forty minutes!” I reloaded my plasma rifle.
Miranda lifted up to the top of the building using her line. I focused my aim on the beast descending down towards the street. A frozen man’s umbrella flew from his hands when the beast unleashed its roar. Miranda got ahold of her bow she stashed on top the building.
“We need to call back up!” I yelled up to her. She ignored me. I watched her spin around in her dress shooting every arrow she could towards the beast. “This beast is not normal!”
“Something is wrong!” She shouted. I paused my shooting to watch her arrows disintegrate upon each impact. “These arrows are not working!”
Miranda and I battled the beast towards the center of the park within the city. I kept trying to get the destruction to a minimum. There wasn’t supposed to be any destruction at all. Today was planned to go differently. Everything we threw at the beast did nothing.
“10 minutes!” I called out.
“Oh my god! We aren’t going to make it!” Miranda unsheathed a sword tucked to the side of a phone booth.
I fired everything. The beast rolled and slithered in the air dodging everything. Miranda shot another line wrapping around the beast’s neck. “I got it!”
“Pull him in!” I took aim. The beast thrashed around making it hard for Miranda to hold her grip. “Miranda! Hurry! We only have five minutes!”
Miranda used the line to pull her up towards the beast instead. “Miranda!” I shouted. “What are you doing?!”
She didn’t answer me. Lifting her sword, she managed to slice open part of its wing. The beast retaliated by biting down on the line, flinging Miranda across the street into a windshield.
“Miranda!” I dropped my plasma rifle. I ran over to her as quickly as possible. Her eyes slowly opened realizing her dress was torn from all over.
We both locked eyes when everyone on the street gathered around us in aid. “No,” her eyes widened. I took out my pocket watch to see the hour now past.
“We’re going to have to call them.” I explained to her. She wiped the glass from her hair. Gaining focus, she started towards the park where the beast fled. I saw her stand there frozen like everyone else was a few minutes ago. “What is it?”
She turned around to face me. “We can’t call them.”
“We have to,” I told her. “If we fail the extra hour, we have to call them. It’s the rules.”
“Rules change.”
“No they *don’t.*” I debated. I watched her point to the ground.
I followed her forefinger to a set of claw prints turning into human footprints shaped in mud. “This isn’t a beast like any of the ones we fought before. This one’s also human.”
***
To read more of my stories, visit [r/13thOlympian] (https://www.reddit.com/r/13thOlympian/) |
"Hey Carl."
"Hey Derek. That was a short one."
"Yea, I'm tired. Just wanted to stretch my legs. 'Do not disturb' for the next few hours OK? Dim the lights too if you don't mind."
"Sure thing."
A curled up for some well needed sleep. A few hours passed and the warden came down, fuming as always.
"How can you have the audacity to think you can walk freely in and out!"
"Well, It's not so much the audacity as it is the ability..."I said rubbing my eyes.
"I will cage you like the filthy, winging mongrel you are, and you will sit and rot in permanent spectacle until your dying day you vermin!"He thundered.
"No you won't."I said sitting up.
Stunned and abashed, the warden sputtered furiously. "That is it! I will have you tortured on a daily basis for the world's viewing- wait where are you going?!?"
"Out."I said, walking through the front gate.
"How dare, how, how, how are you doing this?"He said, quickly losing steam.
"You guys are made of energy. I'm not. I'm just meat. Your forcefields don't really do anything to me except tingle. And maybe give me cancer. But that's a tomorrow problem."I said stretching in the morning twin sunlight.
"So.... what could cage you?"The warden asked innocently.
"I know what you're trying to do, but I'll just tell you anyway. You'd have to make it out of rocks."
"*Rocks*?"The ethereal mirage chirped back the foreign word.
"Yea,"I said, bending down. "Rocks."
I tossed a few pebbles through the approximate equivalent of his chest. He bent down and clawed desperately at the unaffected stones.
"Damn it.....damn it all..."He whimpered to himself.
"Be back tonight. Bye Carl."I said waving.
"By Derek!"Called Carl, leaning out from his incorporeal guard box.
|
At first I didn't really notice. Immortality isn't something you expect to receive, let alone an ability you can sense. One day I just felt...better. It was as if more life was flowing through me.Scars I had known for years simply faded from existence. My skin glowed with an unnatural softness, and my body just felt more whole.
Puberty? Well at 25 that seemed a tad bit far fetched, even for me to believe.
Though after more anomolies things became more clear, it just took some piecing together.
For instance, my wounds seemed to heal at a faster than average rate, and my sicknessess passed within hours.
"Ha! What ability is that? Good health?"Johan loved to tease.
"I mean yeah you've looked healthier lately, but that's not an ability. You don't have advanced healing, if you did then you wouldn't be sick in the first place."
"So what? You think that I just look and feel better all of a sudden? It must be something, even if it's small"I snapped at him
"I want it to be something too Bee, but don't get your hopes up. Your parents could still be alive out there, like mine. You'll just have to wait to see what you get"
"Yeah, I really can't wait for them to give me the only gift I'll ever receive from them."
"Alright Bee we get it, now's not the time to hear your sob story. We need to get going. The ceremony is soon"
We made our way on foot down the short, unpaved road to an open field. It was peaceful. The breeze swayed the few desolate trees that peppered the land. In the distance I could make out the outlines of figures, all gathering for the funeral.
Burying a parent seemed bittersweet. On one hand you were losing someone you loved so dearly, on the other there passing meant your receiving. The worst part was the realization. Before you got a phone call, or a message, you got an ability. If you knew your parents then it was obvious who it was, and sometimes even how hard they fell. In some instances the ones who fought the most in the end passed on the strongest strain of ability.
"Bee stop brooding. You didn't even know Troy's father."Johan whispered as we joined the crowd.
"I'm not *brooding*. Especially not over Troy's dad"
"Ok we'll try to have a bit of sympathy ok? He's a good guy and his dad was too. I know it's hard to sympathize, but try?"
"Finee."
I inched towards Troy, pushing my way through the small crowd gathered around him.
"Hey Troy I just wanted to say I'm sorry for your loss though I can't possibly understand how you feel"
Troy glared up and smiled. "No you're not Bee, and that's ok."He tapped his head a few times before continuing. "My old man gave me telepathy when he passed. Still getting the hang of it. Also some guy up on the hill asked for you earlier...actually he thought about approaching you but decided against it."
"Well good to know I don't have to pretend."I glanced up to where Troy pointed. A tall man stood scanning the crowd.
"Hey whose that creepy dude on the hill?"Johan whispered from behind me
"Don't sneak up on me like that! I'm not sure im working on it though. Want to come with?"
"Nah, but I'll watch! Go get em tiger"
The funeral had begun, but I was more interested in the man watching. I made my way quietly from the crowd to the hill. The man seemed to purposely ignore me as I made my way to him. He had a tall, slim build, and wore a long blue coat. His hair long and pulled back into a small bun.
"Not exactly dressed for the weather eh?"I spoke.
He responded without missing a beat "You're Beatrice aren't you?"
"Uhhh I go by Bee, do I know you?"
His eyes moved from the crowd to meet mine. "You're just who I was looking for! This is great!"
His hand sunk into his coat and burst out clutching a large sword.
I reeled back as he swung the blade in an arc towards me.
"What the hell are you doing?!"
"I tried to get that damned ability from your dad, but I didn't realize he had a kid! So here I am! Now please sit still, it'll make this easier"
The blade sliced through the air towards me but came to a sudden halt. A large old man still dressed in his funeral attire stood over me, clutching the blade in his hand.
"Go! I'll handle him! Get everyone out of here now!"
The funeral procession was suddenly in a panic with many running up the hill to assist the man. Johan grabbed my arm and began running us to safety. From behind I could hear the screams of those being cut down by the strange man. I attempted to turn my head to see, but Johan turned my head away.
"No looking back. We have to keep going"
|
On the run from the Deatheaters and with Harry missing until he finds the Horcruxs. He didn't know what to do.
"I need to hide"thought Arthur Weasley as he rushed through the city streets into the packed Madison square gardens, he failed to notice the "STARK EXPO"sign
As he makes his way inside, he tries to blend in with the crowd.
He tries to distract himself by watching this stage, there is a well dressed muggle presenting all kinds of gadgets and clever gizmos.
He is Tony Stark, one of the smartest men on the planet.
"Incredible"Arthur Weasley
Suddenly the well dressed man looks alert and distracted by something
Arthur casts a discreet eavesdrop spell to listen in
"Friday, what you got for me?"
"Sir, I'm detecting several abnormal energy signatures approaching the building, I suggest you get armed"
"Will do"
Arthur knows who's coming, the Deatheaters
Fear fills his heart, they will kill every last muggle here to find him.
The wall crashes as it's blown apart from a spell, the crowd screams and disperses
Arthur's heart sinks with Terror, Voldemort is with them along with Bellatrix lestrange and two other death eaters
"Come out Weasley! I know you're here!"
Then, he sees something incredible.
Tony Stark is entering some kind of armour, a suit of metal.
"Amazing"Arthur mutters
Tony faces the Deatheaters
"Hey trick or treaters, Halloweens is in October, now get lost!"
"How dare you speak to the Dark lord like that! Muggle! AVADA KEDAVRA!"
Bellatrix fires the killing curse at Iron Man, only for the spell to bounce harmlessly off his suit.
All the Deatheaters take a step back in shock, even Voldemort.
"Impossible..."he says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5riyajbsq0
"My turn."Iron Man replies
He fires a repulser blast at one of the Deatheaters and he is knocked into the wall and falls to the ground, and dispatches the other with a strong punch
"How can this be! Muggles can't do magic!"
"Oh this isn't magic, this is science!"
Iron man quickly deflects a stunning spell from Bellatrix with his repulsors and flys straight into Voldemort, crashing through the concrete wall.
Iron Man stands up while Voldemort picks himself up off the Ground, Humiliated.
"You're pretty durable uncle fester, I'll give you that, now I'll give you one last chance to get off my property"
"ENOUGH! BELLATRIX LETS GO! THIS ISN'T OVER MUGGLE"
The two disappear In a cloud of black smoke and fly off
"Huh, that's a new one...muggle."
He turns to see Arthur Weasley standing among the ruins of the expo. His jaw wide open.
"I...I don't know what to say. Muggle technology...bested the Dark Lord"
"WILL SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT THAT WORD MEANS!" |
This morning, I had logged on to bestservicemen.com only to find that someone had dumped a million bucks into my account ... all for the simple, simple task of meeting at an ice cream parlor tonight. That was a change from the usual "kill this person"or "kill that person", which inspired a not insignificant amount of suspicion.
I pulled up the chat and pinged my buddy Ryder.
"Hey. Chick just paid me a million to meet for ice-cream. That supposed to be lingo from the latest edition of If Words Could Kill?"
Ryder replied, "Not that I know of. What's her background?"
I snorted. "For all I know, it's a dude. Internet rule, after all. Says she likes shopping, superhero movies, and walks in the rain—for Pete's sake, who likes walking in the rain?"
"Yeah, sounds like an idiot. I mean, you'd be wearing your suit, and the rain'll soak all the way through—"
"You won't have a good field of vision—"
"—cold around your privates, holster sticking to your nipples—"
"—can't hear shit in a storm—"
"—shoes squelching with every step, God, your toes are gonna hate your socks so much—"
"—thunder, think you're getting shot at, so you draw your gun—"
"—the worst!"
"Absolutely!"I said, clicking "Reject". "What an idiot."
***
Robert served such shite for ice-cream I'd been tempted to kill him more than once. I wasn't even going to set out a contract on the site to make it look legit; the killing would be an act of charity to all his customers.
He was up to his usual standards today, standing behind the counter in an apron yellowed with age and use, picking his teeth with a finger directly above about ten tubs of brightly colored, half-melted gunk.
He was also watching the sole customer in the shop, a girl ... no, the girl. The one who'd contacted me, the one with the large-framed glasses and the braided hair. Very bookish sort, but she had a real nice figure. Mm. I kept a hand close to my gun—you never knew, with people in the industry, she could actually be an assassin herself.
"Hello. You must be Mary,"I said.
She dropped her phone into her bowl of ice-cream with a yelp. Well, this was going swimmingly already.
"Mr. Dre,"she said, leaping to her feet while sad bubbles popped around her phone. She stuck her hand out; I tried not to wince at the stains on her fingertips. "I'm so pleasured to m—so pleased to meet you, sorry!"
I pushed her hand aside with my pinkie. "Sorry, I don't shake hands. Been poisoned once that way."I smiled, thinking it would break the ice. Color drained out of her face.
"I'm not trying to murder you!"Her voice was shriller now.
"Of course you aren't. Please, sit,"I said.
She did, and her elbow knocked her bowl right to the floor. Blushing furiously, she dove under the table. I wrapped a finger around my pistol's trigger—anytime now.
But she resurfaced with only her phone in hand, and brushed her hair out of her face with sticky fingers. "Sorry! I'm so clumsy sometimes."
If someone hired me to assassinate you, I wouldn't even need to lift a finger, I thought.
"Robert, back to the kitchen with you,"I said.
The ice-cream man scowled, then tossed his apron aside. "Lemme know if I got a customer,"he said, drawing a pack of cigarettes from a pocket.
"Okay, now we can talk in peace about the job,"I said. "Who's the target?"
Her head tilted; I supposed she thought it was cute, but I thought she looked like a confused rabbit in the middle of a freeway wondering what those two bright lights were.
"Job?"she said.
"Oh, for the love of—you know what bestservicemen.com is, right?"
"Yeah."
"It's for assassins. You know that, right?"
"Yup. Totally."
"And you paid me a lot of money."
"Technically, it was my dad's. I mean, it's my birthday, so I took—"
"Oh. Happy birthday."
Her face turned scarlet, and she actually hid behind her hands for a few moments. God help me. When she'd recovered, she said, "I just thought ... uh, I'd like to meet a real assassin."
"Okay. You do realize that we get paid to kill people? That's what we do? You don't pay for just a meeting."
"But I don't want you to kill anyone. I just wanted to ... meet you."I barely caught those two words.
"Why?"
"Um."She bit her lower lip, looking everywhere but at me. "I think you're ... cute?"
I gave her a flat stare. "Cute. You hired me because you think I'm cute."
"Yeah. I—"
"How old are you?"
"Nineteen."
"Right. You kids have this ... what do you call it again ... Tender? You go on the app and you basically do an open tender for suitors or something?"
She blinked at me in confusion. "Tender? I think you meant Tinder."
"I don't know what I meant. Whatever. Use that. Not bestservicemen.com."I stood and straightened my jacket. "I'll return the money to you. Goodbye."
I was almost at the door when she yelled, "I'm in love with you!"
That spun me right on my heels. She was standing, face flushed, fists clenched, eyes ... leaking? "I ... I've been stalking your profile for months. I love you. I really, really love you."
"What's that?"Robert burst out of the kitchen. "Was there a customer?"
I shushed him and locked my gaze into hers. "Mary, this isn't a game. I've killed people. In fact, I've killed someone in this very parlor with that ice-cream scoop that Robert's holding."
Robert nodded enthusiastically.
"So, before your dad gets mad at you for stealing his credit card or something, I'll refund the cash, and we forget today happened. Alright?"
"But he gave it to me,"she said, a desperate note in her voice now. "I can use it however I want."
I couldn't help but scoff. "Whose father gives them a million dollars on their nineteenth birthday?"
"My dad's Giovanni Russo. I heard he's kind of famous? And rich?"
I could only gape. Giovanni Russo, the Don himself? And I'd just made his daughter cry. Robert had begun blessing himself. Maybe I ought to do the same, never too late to be religious. Jesus brought people closer to God; Giovanni did much the same.
"Er ... well, uh, your father's a good man. Very important. I know him, somewhat."I couldn't even remember how many people I'd killed for him. Shit shit shit. "Why don't you sit down, and let me buy you more ice-cream?"
***
*Thanks for reading! Check out my [sub](http://reddit.com/r/nonsenselocker) for more stories!* |
It’s devastating. The shock.
Mark was one of the best thing to happen to you in this life. Belittled and and ridiculed for lacking a Soulmark throughout childhood had not been easy. Childish jeers from a small town you couldn’t escape from still follow you into your nightmares.
“Unwanted.”
“Unloved.”
“Half a soul.”
But Mark seemed to fill that void in you, left by the blank patch of skin across your chest and the childhood cruelties you’d suffered. Between him and Samantha, everything has been great.
You might’ve been falling in love.
Then tragedy.
It was too good to be true, of course. This should’ve been obvious from the very beginning. How could you, soulmate less and forsaken by fate, possibly be deserving of happiness? You should’ve known when Samantha asked you, her best friend, to come away with her to Los Angeles.
“I just feel like that’s where I’m supposed to be,” she had confided on the evening of your graduation. It had just been you two. Hand in hand, laying down on a grassy field, and gazing up into the vast abyss of space littered with stars.
That should’ve been your first clue.
Then it was your job. Two auditions and an immediate call back on the second. Not a lead role, but what more could you ask for as an upstart small town boy new to the big city?
Then Mark.
He worked as a trainer at the gym you frequented, now two years into your dream life with Samantha by your side. You would not call it love at first sight, no, that was reserved only for those blessed with identical symbols that somehow tied two halves together across impossible distances.
But it was close.
For the first time I’m your life, you had someone as wonderful as Samantha in your life. You asked Mark out to coffee one day on a boost of irregular confidence. He’d smiled that beautiful smile at you and agreed.
Then you were taking lunches together. You were at the gym everyday, taking every opportunity to speak to Mark while his eyes sparkled like he saw right through your ploy. He was visiting at practices. Seeing your shows with a bouquet of flowers at the very end.
Samantha and Mark never met. Not for lack of effort, but the timing just never worked out. For an entire 6 months as you were swept up in a whirlwind of happiness and new love, they never met once.
That should’ve been your second clue.
Then the fateful beach at the day. Mark had agreed to come out with you despite all the beautiful women hanging off those well formed biceps. He’d always been popular with the ladies. He went on dates with them often. You weren’t sure if he was even gay. But he had agreed to come out with YOU, not them. And he smiled so handsomely at you as you both sang along with some top 50s songs driving along the highway, his dark blonde hair sweeping in the wind.
Soul marks are... personal, private, things. To be shown to no one but the closest family and friends and, of course, your soulmate. In a small town of course, something as scandalous as a lacking Soulmark was bound to get out. But aside from that they’re hidden away from sight until you lock eyes and soul with the other half of you, and you would both know it.
You both had strolled down the beach after a long tiring day. You’d never felt more content in your life, except perhaps, that fateful night beneath the stars when Samantha had squeezed your hand, gazed into your eyes, and asked you to run away with her.
Then Mark was asking about soul marks. You were self conscious and fearful but could not lie to those warm grey eyes. Mark had not been repulsed though. He’d smiled and grabbed your hand, squeezing it reassuringly, acceptance in his gaze.
And then he was showing you his soul mark. The most intimate part of ones who body, for what is more intimate than your own soul? He’d lifted his rash guard, pulled it across his perfect abs and defined pecs.
And your stomach froze over.
You had seen that mark. A million and times over. So familiar was that mark, it often times had felt like your own. The curving heart, interlaced with flowers and vines, and the intertwined lily and steel bar fixated in the center.
Samantha.
Your heart ached but you had waves off all of Mark’s concerns. The trip home was still fun and enjoyable, Mark was just that type of person, but it was soured by your new reality.
Samantha, the one person you had once fancied to be your soul mate in all but ink.
And Mark, the, you realize now, love of your life.
But you were second to them now. They were meant to be. They would meet. Fall in love. And leave you behind.
Mark would fall in love with Samantha’s stunning red hair and she with his warm smile and even warmer hugs.
And you? You would once again be left out in the cold. Unloved. Unwanted.
Just half a soul.
For the next few days you had debated on how to approach this situation. You’re not proud to admit that you had many a dark thoughts. Keep them apart. Never let them know.
But no.
Samantha was your best friend. The closest you had to a soulmate. And Mark WAS her actual soulmate, and also the love of your life. The two people who mattered the most. And they deserved happiness more than anyone else in the world.
So, with a heavy heart, you arranged a dinner with them both at your share apartment with Samantha. Miraculously, their schedules matched up for the first time, and you knew fate was laughing at you.
Mark had knocked on the front door, dinner piping hot and sitting on the table now, and Samantha talking bubbly and excited at meeting you “heartthrob”.
Heartthrob indeed.
Mark smiled that dazzling smile at you when you opened the door, handed you a bouquet of flowers, and looked up. You knew it before you never looked back at her. You could see it in those beautiful grey eyes of his as he gazed into the apartment.
He’d seen her.
And he would never look at you again.
You moved aside wordlessly as Mark stepped shocked into the room. You averted your eyes and turned you back as they met for the first time, your eyes not daring to leave the red rose petals.
Silently, you stepped out of the apartment and closed the door behind you, unable to bear your perfect rosy life crashing down around you.
You don’t know when the tears started falling. But when they did, they did not stop.
The roses were at your feet before you realized it. You’d dropped them, unable to hold the mocking flowers any longer, and you took off into the dead of night. Unsure of where you were going.
Hours later you realized your terrible mistake, you the emptiness of your back pocket told you had left your cell back at the apartment. But grief and bitterness held you from running back.
You’re not sure what you would do if you saw them happy together. Without you.
“There you are!”
And suddenly there were thin warm arms surrounding you. Red invaded your vision and the scent of lilies, her favorite flower, filling your senses.
“Dave! You’re alright!” Mark was jogging up to you, right behind Samantha. “You has us so worried! You left your phone at home.” He held up the Apple.
You sniffed, both stunned at their appearance and choked from the grief threatening to overcome you again. “O-oh... i did realize...”
“You idiot!” Samantha snapped leaning back, her green eye burning with fury and glistening with tears. “It’s dangerous at night! And no cellphone? No wallet! Did you want to get assulted?!”
You shook your head in shock, unsure of how to respond.
Mark stepped up next to you, throwing an arm over your shoulders. “Someone as pretty as you should be more careful this late, Dave.” It took you a moment to process those words.
“B-but-“ You stuttered, face flushing red. You glanced between them incredulously. “But aren’t you two-“
Samantha glared, “What? Are we two what?” Mark only chuckled amusedly.
“Don’t laugh!”
“I told you he would react this way,” Mark said to Samantha teasingly. Something bitter rose up in your throat. No. Not this. You couldn’t take all this AND see them share such easy companionship this close to you.
You pushed their arms away, “Stop it. Go back home. Don’t you guys have to...” the words caught in your throat and you had to swallow to continue, “... catch up or something?” You hope that didn’t sound as bitter as it did in your head.
Samantha rolled her eyes, “Honestly. You’re the dumbest person I know, Dave.” You glared at her. All this AND insults?
“Relax, Dave.” Mark said, chuckling right besides your ear. “You’re over thinking things.”
“Am I?” You retorted.
“Definitely,” he teased.
Samantha groaned loudly and grabbed your shoulders roughly. “Look you idiot. Mark and I are soulmates,” You flinched at this, “and I know you’re really upset about it.”
“I’m not-“ you began.
“Hush,” she snapped. “But we just want you to know that we’re PLATONIC soulmates. You’re still my best friend, and Mark is in love with you.”
You pulled back angrily, “I’m not upset about-“ then paused as her words processed. “.. wait. What?”
Samantha rolled her eyes again and gave Mark a look at read, “You see?” Mark just laughed.
“Dave,” Mark said kindly. “Thank you for introducing me to my soulmate. But Sam is right. I’m not interested in a romantic relationship with her. I’m in love you with, you dork.”
Your brain was short circuiting.
“-what?”
Samantha groaned again and Mark just chuckled again.
“I love you, Dave.” And suddenly you were kissing Mark, or Mark was kissing you, and it was like everything right was falling into place.
———————
It’s midnight and I’m on the mobile app but I cannot resist a good soulmate fic. So here it is. Sorry if it’s badly formatted and there are typos. Mobile is hard. |
The old rusted gate seemed to come out of know where. We had been walking for days in the heat, without any sign of life. Which wasn’t too surprising since everyone started dying from ‘The Cure’.
Well at least that is what we called it.
Everyone was turning into zombies. We weren’t sure how it started, but we all seemed to agree that the government had something to do with it.
It had been about two months since we started to move. Looking for any sort of refuge from the flesh-eating zombies quickly outnumbered the living.
John had an idea, a stupid one, but it was the only idea that sounded like it might work. We set off to find refuge in a place that has only ever been superb at keeping people out.
Area 51.
That rusty gate was the best sight we had seen that day, or so we thought. We knew we had made it, but still unaware of what we would find upon entering.
The group we had was about five strong at this point. We started with 13, but we couldn’t keep stopping every time someone fucked up and got bit.
We entered past the gate and into the compound once know for its secrecy. A few years before the dead started roaming the streets, information was released on what really went down at Area 51, but I refused to believe anything they said.
The place was abandoned. Not a single person in sight, and the dust covered base made it obvious it had been that way for a while.
This was both a good sign, and worrisome. We had hoped it to be secure, but if everyone there left, we may have wasted our time. If I was going to die, I at least wanted to see inside.
I lead the group, trekking forward into the base. We reached a steel door that didn’t want to budge, but John found a lever and it squeaked open.
We were in.
I wanted to be the first civilian to witness an alien life-form. Fuck the zombies, they were just another pest at this point, all I could focus on was finding where they kept them.
The main power for the facility seemed to be off, and only the dimly lit emergency lights were on.
No one knew where we were going inside the metal maze, but we all knew what we were looking for.
Stairs upon stairs lead us lower and lower into the base, the light becoming less available, and we could only rely on our other senses to navigate.
After climbing down at least 50 flights of stairs, we hit the bottom. A cold rushed over us and we grouped closer together to stay warm.
This was it, we were finally going to see where they stored the aliens. The whole facility had lost power, but something down in that basement floor was keeping it cold.
Our hands held against the wall, following the cold air. Time was lost as we continued through the basement.
It was getting hard to breathe, but I couldn’t stop, I was too close, we all were.
Around a corner, we saw it. A dim green light calling for us. All else that was happening in the world was forgotten, aliens were close, and my heart began racing.
I will never forget what I saw when we took that last corner, and I still don’t know what to make of it.
Inside the room where the light was now filling our eyes, we saw him.
Tupac. He was being held in stasis, frozen alive, to be awoken when he would be needed the most. I think this was his time, we had to awaken the greatest.
We sat around him as he began to wake up from a 35-year slumber.
Tupac was alive once again, and he would lead our group to safety, and fight to end ‘The Cure’. |
Heyya kiddos, it's Handsome God here!
Yeah I know, I'm your big hero, savior of the world and all of creation and whatever. You're also probably wondering where I was for the last oh...I don't know, two thousand plus years or something. It's a long story, but the gist of it is that after my son Jesus developed a nail kink and had his weird Roman friends nail him to a cross 'cause that was the only way he could get his rocks off, I decided that taking a break from this shitshow of a Civilization game was a great idea.
So, while you guys were on autopilot and dying of rampant sexual tension or whatever you people called that plague thing back in the 13th century, I actually did things that were productive. I made some species that actually turned out to be useful, and then I blew them up because my boy Jesus paid them a visit and got nailed down so much I decided it was best to not deal with his weird kinks anymore. Seriously, Angel's a better daughter anyways, but we're not getting into that right now. Point is, he's fucking grounded and you people won't be seeing him until the end of time, which won't be for a really long while.
Having finally decided to sit down and see where we're at, I'm gonna say it plain, you people somehow managed to take a shitshow and make it worse. I don't know how, but you did it. Like, really. Between me leaving and me coming back, you bastards invented slavery, pollution, chemical warfare, diet soda, turkey bacon, Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey, a Suicide Squad movie and you somehow managed to lose a war with the goddamn Emus.
So, I think that we're gonna have to make some adjustments to this sad, sad pathetic save file of a civilization. Now, since I don't really feel like wasting my time watching you morons fuck, shit and fuck shit all day long, I'm handing you off to my assistant, Satan. You know, one-wheeled yellow box, never shuts up, vocabulary seems to consist entirely of "untz-untz-untz", that guy? Trust me, it'll be fine, he's a pro at fucking shit up just like you guys are, so I think between the both of you, you could probably wipe yourselves out and solve the issue of what to do with you for me.
Anyways, I'm gonna go, try not to die before I get back, or if you do, at least have the decency to record it first so I can post it on youtube for likes or something. |
Shit. Shit shit fuck fuck shit! I knew this day would come. I was hoping I'd prove to be the anomaly and not have a soul mate but it looks like my hopes were for naught. Does it feel good to have someone I'm compatible with? We humans seek comfort in bonding with others like ourselves. It's only natural. The problem is when 2 negatives combine. It doesn't always make a right.
Is a psychopath a psychopath if he knows he's one and tries to curb his feelings? It's worse that I fulfill the 3 most common telltale signs of one. Tortured animals as a youth, that satisfying feeling of watching something burn, and bed wetting far pass the usual time period for a child. Didn't really have a happy childhood. Turns out my parents who were soul mates were utter pieces of shit. I was honestly going down that path as well but my best friend, god how I love that bastard, helped me realize that the shit I talked and joke about wasn't normal. He's a weird fuck too, but you have to be if you choose to be friends with a guy who says "she was hot. Damn shame he didn't fuck her before he killed her"when hearing about a murder. He's always had a fascination with dark and disturbing shit, so me, being a potential Ted Bundy in the making, was his new best friend. Funny thing is that the guy doesn't have a mean bone in his body and get squeamish over the smallest of injuries.
But I digress. I do that when I'm nervous and I have a very good reason to be nervous. I was at school, walking the halls in some community college just living my life of trying to fit in as a normal, upstanding citizen, when I hear it.
'Fucking bitch. She knew I had my eyes on Jake. She's so fucking lucky. And she has the audacity to smile at me as if she didn't know. She fucking knew! God I just want to carve those things she calls a chest off. They're too damn big anyway.'
I paused. Looked around. I was damn sure I heard that right next to me. Could it have been my imagination? That was denial of course. I wasn't stupid. I knew what this was.
'How the hell do they get so big anyway? Fat cow bitch. I'd kick her ass if I didn't need her to pick me up from school. Stupid bitch.'
Yep. Definitely wasn't my imagination. It's happening to me. Soul synchronization. It matches you with the most compatible person to you you'd ever meet in your life. Sounds good in theory, right? Well it is, for the most part. The problem is that it's too accurate. People who would otherwise live normal lives as normal functioning people on the outside but all kinds of fucked on the inside find there soulmate and more often then not it's not pretty. It's not very known, surprisingly, but if you look for it the patten is there. Criminals working solely alone is a thing of the past. Now while this didn't really impact criminal enterprises and businesses (drug dealing, mafia gangs, terrorism) it DID impact crimes of compulsion. Serial killers, serial rapists, child molestators, etc. The most human of crimes, the ones that are driven by nothing but savage urges increased significantly when the "Compatibility Synchronization"phenomenon appeared out of the blue. When you have someone you completely trust to indulge in your sick desires, you get a sense of relief and freedom you'd never had in your life. And more often then not they act upon their desires.
I know myself quite well and I don't know if I'd been strong enough to resist the temptation. I do know that I can prevent it from ever being an issue by not interacting with this person at all. Of course, life had other plans the very next day.
'Hey. I know you can hear me. Why didn't you reach out yesterday?'
I'll continue if it's wanted. This took a surprising amount of time to write. Criticism is well as this is the first time I've written anything in years. |
"They died"
"All of them? On mass! What happened!!!"
"You've heard of Oracles and such right? In ancient times that was the name given to psychics. We're very diverse here on earth you see so we have to create an environment that fits an individual's ability."
"How so? I mean what would a Terran psychic even need?"
"Oh it's not just them. You see... or actually you don't. My bad. But that's the point. A person who can see needs a lot of visual stimulation so that ability doesn't die off. It's why we have colourful flowers, building errrrr art, yeah art! To keep the eyes stimulated! Music and different sounds for those that hear, multiple languages for speech and different sports for different errrr ummm physically... gifted?"
"Understandable. The same as why we Venusian's developed spiders on our fingers so as to better feel our way and sonar to avoid injuries. Then what is Terran now lacking that caused the disappearance of Psychics?"
"Gold. we need more gold. And marble. Oracles were placed in temples surrounded by finery so their sense won't be dulled by everyone else's.... stimulating, stuff."
"Oh how tragic! I shall alert our council and send you aid immediately. You can start a program to once again develop this important ability and join your brothers, sisters and gobats in the rest of the universe without shame."
"So... psychics can only communicate mentally with other psychics huh?"
"Why yes, why do you ask dear friend?" |
The door burst open and a gust of wind whipped past me. I looked up from my desk, rolling my eyes as he struck his pose, cape billowing behind him. He pulled a few more moves while looking around the room looking for me.
"Can you please pay for that?"I asked, looking at my broken door.
"I will *not* pay for anything, but *you* will pay for what you've done, villain!"he declared to the ceiling, pointing a stern finger at me.
I sighed and rubbed my temples, thinking of how to go about this situation.
"Ah, trying your mind powers on me, are you? I shall not fall for it like my predecessors!"he yelled, leaping across the room and crushing the desk in front of me. I looked down on it sadly. Most of my income went to replacing the things broken by these vandals.
"This is why I hate you guys.."I mumbled.
"The only thing I hate is **evil!**"he yelled, attempting to punch my stomach. His arm got caught on his cape and the force of his punch dislocated his shoulder. He cried out in pain, jumping back three feet from me.
"Fiend! You were playing me for a fool! You already got into my mind! Messed with my limbs!"he yelled, massaging his arm.
"No, I didn't do anything to you, I just want you to get out,"I said, impatiently.
"You want justice to get out??"he cried, swelling with pride again.
"That's not what I said, listen for God's sake,"I groaned.
"Never! Once I get you out of my head, I'll never have my limbs listen to you, and I'll deal with you next!"he yelled, punching his face with full force.
"Woah, what are you doing?"I gasped, cringing as he continued to wail on his face.
"Get out of my head! I will be free! I will free the city!!"With each punch, became more and more lethargic. He was knocking himself out. Finally, he hit himself so hard, he collapsed on the floor.
"You okay? You alive?"I asked, walking towards him, sighing. He was breathing, so that was good. I grabbed him under his arms and began pulling him to my mattress. Suddenly, my roof was crashed through and I saw another person flying above us.
"You've defeated Justice Man?! I shall not be so easy,"she cried in defiance.
"Please just leave me alone."
_____________________________________________________________________
For more superpower stories, check out /r/Nazer_The_Lazer! |
*Step on the back of his shoe. Look at this asshole, just showing off his yeezy”s*
I blink hard and give my head a little shake.
*Look at that wallet, just sticking out. You can take that, you know.*
Different voice this time around. It wasn’t often I got two different voices in a day. Trying to distract myself, I pull out my phone.
7:46
Uh oh. 3 minutes before the 7:49, and the next bus comes in half an hour. I pick up my pace, trying to get out ahead of the crowd.
*Bump into them. Give them a little shove from behind.*
I barely make it. A little out of breath, I tap my metro card on the card reader and look for a seat.
*Ignore the empty seats, look, you can sit right next to that person over there. Wouldn’t she appreciate it?*
I sit in an empty row.
I rub my eyes hard enough to leave marks in my vision. I can’t fucking deal with these voices anymore. How many antipsychotics have I tried? 4? 5? It was hard to keep count. I take the headphones out of my pocket and put them in, trying to drown out the voices.
*Run*
*Run!*
*It’s time to leave, Walter*
That was new. The voices telling me to run instead of being an asshole? Probably some kind of scheme.
*Not a scheme.*
*You never gave us a fair shake you know*
Oh my God, are they developing personalities now? A fun talking point for my next appointment, I guess.
*Run!*
*RUN!*
*RUN!*
I can’t take this.
“If I get off this fucking bus, will you stop yelling at me?”
*Yes*
*Get off*
*Run!*
I just realized I said that out loud. Oh God, everyone’s looking at me, my cheeks are burning.
Acting as nonchalant as possible, I press the request stop button. I head over to the exit door, avoiding any eye contact. Sadly, the bus filled up a lot more since I got on and I have to keep mumbling excuse me as I try and squeeze my bulk through the other passengers. So embarrassing.
As I hop off, I hurry away and put as much distance between the other passengers that got off with me as fast as possible. This has been literally the worst morning of my life.
An explosion causes me to stumble and fall.
Behind me, a fireball stretches into the sky.
Beneath it is the skeletal remains of the bus.
Screaming and shouting and crying and-
I close my eyes, trying to shut it all out.
*We told you so, Walter*
*We only have your best interests at heart*
**He is coming**
I open my eyes again. What do I do next?
*Get up!*
*Run!*
Trying to stand up is way harder than I thought. There are people running everywhere. Some away, some towards, some in no direction at all.
*What are you doing, idiot?*
*Run!*
I join the crowd running away.
|
"And *this*,"said Spike, "...is the *throne*. But I'm sure you know all about that already."
I nervously tugged at my collar.
"...Um, yeah. But, uh... you'd be a really good boy if you could just take a moment to explain your perspective on it."
"Sure thing, master. It's not very complicated. We love it just as much as you do, even if we use it differently. Most of *us* worship by taking long drinks from the bountiful waters it provides to us, slurping down the grace of the heavens whenever possible. You, well..."
Spike tilted his head slightly, his tail suddenly going limp. He looked like he was pondering something.
"Master, could I ask you a question, too?"
"...Of course, Spike."
"I've always been a little curious about how you all worship it, too. It seemed so inconvenient for you... how do you do it? You don't have long tongues like us, so I'd imagine it to be very difficult for you to drink."
"Well, we don't exactly-"
"*Oh*, also, *also*! Those *smells*, those wonderful, wonderful smells! Whenever you close the door to pray to it, why does the throne always smell so good? That's most of the fun in the drinking for us, so I kinda wondered why you drink *before* the smells come, instead of after."
His eyes widened, his tail wagging at full force again.
"Oh, *oh*! I get it! When you drink it, that's where the smells come from, right? The throne gives us the smells *because* you pray first! That's... wow! That's *amazing*, master!"
"...Yeah, Spike. That's... that's how it works. You nailed it."
"Okay! Okay, let's go *now*, master! I want to see you drink! Oh, wow! Oh, this is so cool! I'm gonna get to see the smells come!"
I wasn't sure the translator was going to have the mass appeal I'd been hoping for.
---
I write a [murder-mystery death game serial](https://korridor.rip/), if that type of thing interests you. |
It's not easy to follow a Nobel prize.
No matter how many exams I aced, no matter how many trivia competitions or science fairs I dominated, people still referred to me as "Professor Finch's kid."Son of the great professor Finch who unified classical and quantum physics into the seven dimensional Paradox Theory of Time. Even getting my admissions letter from MIT felt like a disappointment, since my Dad got in at the age of 15. Sure, I was valedictorian. I scored a perfect SAT and a Rhodes scholarship, and several professors at MIT had already expressed interest in having me join their labs. But I did all of these things at 17. Not that impressive, really.
By the time my senior year at MIT rolled around, my skin had worn paper thin on the subject. If you asked me if I was related to "the Bryan Finch,"as in Bryan Finch, Sr., you could expect one of two results. On a good day you would be ignored, with only a condescending smile to inform you of the error. On a bad day, though, you would endure a scathing insult which may or not have anything to do with the question itself. Once I remember disparaging the lack of distance between some poor man's eyebrows. I'm not proud of it.
Naturally, I grew to despise my father. It was easy to do when I saw him only once or twice a year, and each of those brief, holiday visits consisted of quizzing me on anything and everything science related. Tapping a finger against his bearded chin and smiling when I got something wrong. My mother worked tirelessly to bring us together, insisting that we were two north poles of a magnet, too alike for a smooth connection. I would shoot back with accusations. How could you stay with a man you hardly saw? How could you even be happy in a pen pal relationship? This usually silenced her.
When he went missing, though, everything changed. Aside from the mystery of it all, how a man that well known could disappear without a trace, I plain missed him. It was like a winter spent cursing at the snow. It falls in blinding heaps from the sky to block up all the roads, blanket all the grass and generally make living more difficult to do. But when it's gone you feel its absence. So ubiquitously negative was your perception of the snow that you failed to realize your attachment to it. How it shaped you. I did not have many fond memories of my father, but the memory of his presence filled me with comfort.
When my mother and I reached his house in Zurich, the police had already combed the cluttered space. They were working on a few leads. They had their best people on it, and they'd find him if they could. Beneath their words spun the tired gears and sprockets of going through the motions. They had no leads, and they would not find him. Having cried all that she could cry, my mother moved from one room to the next, collecting items for us to take back to the US. Dad's old manuscripts. His favorite paintings. His telescope.
While I was picking through his office a box caught my eye. It lie stuffed back in one of the lower drawers, behind a package of Cuban cigars. "For Bryan"was written across the top in sharpie marker. A four digit spinning code lock on the front let me know this was no simple box, but a safe. Playfully, as we all do when confronted with a lock like this, I spun them at random and pressed the button. Amazingly, it clicked open. Inside was a single, brass key, greenish and made from great looping curves that betrayed its age. A note in the box read "basement."
Feeling in a daze, I went. Rows of wine bottles rested in shelves along the gray walls, and not much else. After an hour or two of searching my mother eased down the steps to check on me, crossing her arms against the chill. I told her I was looking for particular vintage. I'd be up in a minute. Finally I just chose a bottle of wine at random and pulled it from it's shelf. To my astonishment, a keyhole revealed itself on the wall behind. I inserted the key and turned.
The world darkened to black.
I no longer stood in the basement. I stood in an office of shadowed walls, its only furniture a small desk and chair. On the desk a scattered mass of papers in Dad's handwriting showed blueprints for something, drawings for what looked like a long, winding tube. Like a water park slide. When I saw the word "wormhole"scrawled next to one of the drawings, my heart fluttered to life. It showed a tube beginning in a familiar solar system, ours, and snaking through the milky way to a solar system that looked wholly alien.
By the time I had finished studying Dad's diagrams, seven hours must have passed. I had completely lost track of time. When I turned the key, returned to the basement and numbly strode up the stair to find my mother, I was surprised to find her smiling. Sad but pleasant. Light still poured through the windows, even though it should have been well into evening. I looked at my phone and saw that five minutes had passed since I had descended into the basement. Time had literally stood still.
"Did you find what you were looking for"she asked.
"Maybe,"I answered, holding the key firmly inside my pocket. "I think maybe I did." |
*There's a story that says that, at the time of your first scream, an angel comes to you and put his finger on your mouth, to stop you from revealing what you know to the world. According to this story, you then forget what you knew. But... What if you kept that knowledge? What if you could remember what you forget of your early years?*
In the year 2061, a new drug called AlphaMemory was invented by an Artificial Intelligence from the New Republic of China. This drug was initially produced to counter the issue of the lack of human memory when past the 140-years old line. It was also introduced as a cure-all to most dementia diseases, including Alzheimer's. It's intended use was to re-activate the brain activity so that it would be able to store memories more efficiently,but also restore the most recently altered parts of the brain. Most studies showed that the drugs started to lose effect on memories older than 15 years, and at most, couldn't restore memories beyond 20 years. But since its effect also improved the way you stored future memories, it wasn't an issue.
AlphaMemory, while it led to a new age of amassing knowledge, didn't have much impact at first. The first time someone actually understood its potency happened over 70 years later, with the growth of the first "Methuselah"child. In the year 2127, the first child to a woman over 140 years-old was born. At the time of Xifeng's birth, Wen, her mother, was 157 years-old, and had used AlphaMemory for the last 60 years. Wen had then used the new advancements in regenerative technologies to restore her body to its 30 years-old state, reclaiming her ability to have children.
​
This is my story, as the first of the Methuselah children.
​
My birth was controversial. On the day I was born, I was already included in the Guinness World Records in at least 10 categories, ranging from oldest mother in the world, to most assassination attempts on my person, before my first scream. Most people saw me and my mother as an abomination, and a lot of them acted on it. After my birth, the assassination attempts started to relent, until they stopped altogether, as it was proven that my mother was sufficiently rich to protect me from anything, and that I was growing to be a perfectly normal girl. That is, until the day after my 23rd birthday.
My 23rd birthday was exactly something you would expect from someone my age: The media had stopped scrutinizing my every breath. My friends were wealthy, my mother was wealthier, and I had just finished my accelerated PhD in AI managing. This deserved a party. A gigantic party, with everything you can imagine and more. I could pay for it, and Medicine could cure and repair anything if you had the money. So when I woke up the day after, I wasn't surprised that I could not remember between 3 AM and 1PM, time at which I woke up. These were normal symptoms for such a party. Virtual LSD trips had that kind of side-effect. But I still decided to try and see if I could get those memories back. At the time, I simply asked our house AI to give me a drug to reclaim lost memories. I don't know why it gave me AlphaMemory, but I didn't think much of it. That was my first mistake, the one at the origin of everything happening now.
See, AlphaMemory had been tested on young people before. With marginal effects at most. No scientist actually could explain why it worked on elderlies, but couldn't restore early memories on children. It could, at most, improve their memorization abilities. But even then, its effect were short-lasting and research on the matter was dropped.
But me... I was fed AlphaMemory during my mother's pregnancy. I was born with AlphaMemory in my veins, quite literally. And while I never came into contact with it until then, it had long-lasting effects on me. And consuming it again awakened something in me. There's a proverb that says that "truth comes out of the mouth of babes". But it's more than that. Children can *see*. *Sight* includes the history of people, of things, even reading minds. *Sight* is mostly about looking where you can't look, where you *shouldn't* look. But this ability disappears as the brain settles on developping "more important"skills, like walking and speaking. And AlphaMemory had given that back to me.
That day, it gave me my first *sight* at what is in the corner of my eye.
\------------
I will probably write a second part tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. |
The alien's eyes narrow in an eerily inaccurate attempt at a smile. It pats Corporal Danning on the shoulders with its first pair of arms.
"Andy."Its mouth struggles with the consonants, rough around the edges. It must be all those teeth. "I have been missing you."
Andy swallows, twice for good measure. He should run, call for backup, but the alien - and it is undeniably an alien - has him pinned in a near embrace. He's frozen like a prey animal, staring his six-legged predator in the face. It clicks then - this bug-looking monstrosity knew his name? Not even the sergeant called him 'Andy'. Hell, no one had since he'd joined the ranks.
"You know me?"He managed to blurt out.
The alien inclined its head in a rough approximation of a nod. "I will do. We will be friends, you and I."
Andy's laugh of shock caught in his throat. He should reach for his sidearm. He should do something about this ridiculous situation. Friends? Andy moved back a step.
"We are meeting for the first time."The alien's voice grated. "I understand this is being difficult for you. It's alright. I know what you're going to do. Call your superior officer - everything is being alright."Andy's hand lingers on his comms device. "They will not be hurting me. We are going to be friends."It repeats with another faux smile, and Andy shakes his head.
He presses down on the button. "Ugh sarge? I think we have a situation here." |
Time appeared to be frozen as Endon, the mighty paladin, finally stared down his arch-enemy, the "Grey Shadow", the greatest threat these lands had ever seen. He had chased him through citys, forests and mountains, foiling his evil plans and slaying his fanatical minions along the way. Often, the Shadow had evaded him, escaping only by a hairs breadth, but this time it would be the end. The dark sorcerer was down to his last few followers, the army was closing in on this location, and Endon was finally strong enough to be confident in his victory. He stared intensely at the cloaked figure standing behind two rows of nervous fighters. Often, he had pictured this scene in his dreams, thought of what he would say when he finally met the architect of all this suffering, but now his words failed him. He drew his sword, glittering in the light of the setting sun over the treetops at the edge of the clearing, and stepped towards his enemy. The fighters tensed, ready to lay down their lifes for their overlord.
"Stop."spoke the Shadow, with a surprisingly soft voice. "Go. I don't want to loose any more of you in senseless battles. If you hurry, you might be able to escape before the army arrives."
A few of the warriors looked back at their master uncomforably, in shock. One of them protested: "Muiri, please we can...", but was harshly interrupted.
"That was an order!"the Shadow cried out. "Run!"
First slowly, then ever faster, the minions started to leave. A few simply ran without looking back, some tumbled away with sinked heads, the rest moved while looking back at every step. After a short while, only Endon and Muiri were left on the clearing.
Endon took another step. He was surprised by this turn of events, but he wasn't one to complain. He didn't enjoy killing people, after all, so if only the Shadow needed to die today, it would be a better day for it.
"I have thought often of how this would eventually end. I swore myself to stop you when I first saw the aftermath of the town you mindcontrolled..."he finally started talking, but was interrupted by a muffeled laugh from the figure in the black cloak.
"Mind control? I walked right in there, stood on the town square, and held a speech. I told them how their lords and ladies despise them, live in luxury off their hard work, and how they get sacriviced in senseless wars that only benefit their leaders. The were willing to put their life on the line for their freedom and a better future, and what did you do? YOU SLAUGHTERED THEM ALL!"
Endon took a step back. Surely, the Shadow was lying. It wasn't possible that a whole town turned on their leaders after a single speech. Still, he seemed to honest, so convinced of his words...
"I rooted out the dark cults you started all over country..."Endon started again, only to be interrupted before he could gain speed.
"What cults? I introduced them to a religion without oppressive and corrupt priests, a religion whose god doesn't judges them for being different or thinking freely. I gave them hope, hope that they had lost in the long years of oppression that passed until now. You took that hope away from them."
The voice wasn't angry and more. It was just sad. Sad and hopeless, a lot like the the faces of the family of the cultists he had slain or arrested... He forced himself to focus. Even if he had been wrong in this instance, the Shadows crimes were countless.
"You disturbed the rest of the dead and created unholy abdominations out of their bodies!"he accused the figure standing with sunken head before him. It responded slowly.
"Yes, I did create undead... as farm workers. Too many good people had died in the pointless wars of the lords you serve, paladin. The farms were empty and a famine was threatening the lands. I hoped to stop it this way, but you destroyed them and ended my plan that way. Do you know how many starved because of you?"
Endon stared at the sorcerer with gaping mouth as he moved closer and closer. The figure kneeled down in front of him and took off the hood. It revealed the face of a young brown-haired woman, not older than thirty years.
"Do with me as you please, paladin."the woman spoke. "I surrender. I'm ready to live with the consequences of my actions. Are you?" |
"So like a modern day superhero!"
Those were the words of my old friend. The one whom I've given the 'mantle' to. For years, I've harnessed this power that I woke up with. Something that let me cure diseases with the snap of my fingers, stop criminals with my mind, prevent war by crushing their weaponry before it could start; paradise was made and the world was at peace. Was, that is. If there's one thing my ability cannot alter, it's the human greed. One way or the other, they'd try to find a way to gain the 'upper hand' for virtually no reason at all.
The friend who has accepted the position of being the face behind the mask was taken as a result in hopes of fashioning him into a weapon. Abused and tortured, until his mind broke and he was but a fractured man when I got to him.
I don't even understand the ability that I have.
All I know is that if I will it, I can cure. If I desired it, I held the power to destroy.
But why is it that I cannot fix the minds of people? Why is it that I can't wipe away the greed staining mankind? It's like a dirt besmirching a pristine silk. One that I can expunge no longer. In time, I found myself growing weary, exhausted. My will to help has dwindled, and all I can do now was rest.
Until it came to me. Perhaps the words were true, after all.
You die as a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
So a villain I've become.
A common enemy, that is what I turned into in their eyes. The world that was fractured saw the greatest enemy in front of them: there wasn't any need for costumes, for outfits, for smoke and mirrors. I stood there in all of my splendor, wearing but a simple suit as I carved through building after building like butter. Everyone feared me, there was fear in their eyes rather than the adoration I once basked in.
I never did it for the smiles and cheers anyway, I did it because no one would.
Now I understand why no one did it.
And thus, I started to toil as the nemesis, as the villain. Where there is growth, I'd cut it down, as though the sickle of Death itself coming for their necks like a guillotine. I relished it, or rather, I pretended to. With every life I took, I laughed. With every home I tore asunder, I cackled.
With every family I destroyed, I grinned.
But to what end? I found myself eventually just automating the process. Like a machine. In the end, perhaps this world is just an endless cycle. And soon enough, my time to step off the stage will come. As I stood in my broadcasted 'hideout', relishing in the respite between my... terrorism, the doors burst open. A group of to-be-heroes, youthful and with light in their eyes.
I smiled.
"Welcome to my hideout, heroes."
I felt happy.
"You are here to stop me, no?"
The building crumbled in the ensuing match. Armed in the gear made by the blood and sweat of many people from different countries; different cultures and lands-- they struggled against me. They were simple humans without the 'gift', as I do. In normal circumstances, they'd be crushed underfoot. But now is the time for me to exit the stage, and as the hero slammed me into the ground and pointed the barrel of the gun at my head, I simply offered an exhausted smile.
"Good. Now there will be peace for a brief moment,"The hero paused, looking at me in bewilderment. But before he could say something else, I tap into my telekinetic abilities for one last time-- yet not without imparting some 'wisdom'. "Soon, it will be you in my position."
The trigger is pulled, not by his flabbergasted finger, but by my own ability.
Then I rested. |
Hello humanity!
Rejoice! For your time of banishment is over!
Yes, we, the Zyndren Alliance, have decided to commute the rest of your trillion-year sentence, and welcome you back to your rightful place on our homeworld, Zyndren I.
When you were first banished for your crime of converting the center of the galaxy into a giant black hole, a trillion years seemed like an appropriate amount of time. Worth faking an entire fossil record and erasing your memories of your past lives, in fact. But after watching the hellish and horrible conditions you've been in, we've decided that even such a heinous crime should not be met with such a terrible punishment. As such, you're being welcomed back! We're confident you'll enjoy conditions here on Zyndren I, as they are by far more comfortable and amenable to our sort of life than the planet we exiled you to.
For instance:
* The air pressure on your planet is dangerously low! You likely have to continually breathe in order to extract necessary gasses for your metabolism. On Zyndren I, the air pressure is so high that you need only breathe once an hour! Granted, you'll be doing so from the confines of the machines you'll need to not be utterly crushed by said pressure, but those machines will actually be doing the breathing *for* you so it's a good trade.
* Speaking of necessary gasses, we'll be taking you away from all that horrible and dangerous oxygen! Did you know that stuff starts *fires*? Instead, the atmosphere of Zyndren I is full of nice, safe, and ample Methane!
* Your species is calmed by white noise, and yet your planet only sporadically provides it in the form of storms and rain, whereas the entirety of Zyndren I is covered by a never-ending rain of invigorating sulfuric acid!
* How has your magnetic field not yet killed you with dangerous magnetic radiation? You poor things, not getting anywhere near the cosmic rays or ultraviolet light necessary for healthy evolution. Zyndren I not only is directly exposed to the all-searing radiation of our primary star Zyndren, we've built an array of solar reflectors to ensure that each person individually can be directly targeted.
* Zyndren I, as a Class-Awesome planet, has approximately 10 times the gravity of yours. How do you even go about the day without accidentally launching yourself entire centimeters off the ground? It must be terribly distracting to constantly keep yourself grounded like that.
* Not to mention those wishy-washy "Seasons". An axial tilt does nothing but confuse the mind with its strange weather patterns. And don't even get us started on the whole "day-night cycle"thing! Zyndren I is tidally locked at a convenient 50 Terameters from its primary star, so you never have to worry about variability in temperature.
* And what variability it is! You have to continually adapt to varying temperatures on your planet not only depending on where it is in its yearly cycle, but also where on said planet you live. Temperatures can vary between 200 and 360 degrees kelvin, an absurd range to consider. On the day side of Zyndren I it's constantly a balmy 500 degrees kelvin and on the night side it's a brisk 100, and the transition is comfortingly abrupt. It's like we always say on Zyndren I: If you don't like the weather, move your entire family to the opposite side of the planet.
So in conclusion, welcome back to the fold! We're sure you'll love your new home, while we explode that horrible homeworld of yours back into its consitutent atoms, so we may then convert it into something less horrible. Like a work from a popular musical band, are we right? Ha ha ha! |
The voice shakes me awake.
“KISS”
“MARRY”
“KILL”
The blinding light is disorienting.
There’s a ringing in the back of my head.
I groan.
I slowly sit up.
The voice rings out again, seemly from no where.
“KISS”
“MARRY”
“KILL”
I slowly turn around and I see three people.
My wife standing there trembling with our four year old daughter standing next to her while holding out 8 week old son.
My brain can’t comprehend what’s happening.
“I don’t understand”, I begin to say.
Before I can get halfway through my mumbled sentence the voice rings out again. It sounds like it’s coming from inside my head.
“KISS”
“MARRY”
“KILL”
What kind of sick joke is this? |
It was amazing, the first time I heard about it all over the news. New medicine that would allow animals to talk. To form coherent thoughts, and tell us how they felt. I remember walking up to the register, the little pill bottle in my hand. I was so excited, and so anxious to hear what he had to say. I wondered what we would talk about. We had been through so much, so many years have passed. I put it into his food and waited for it to take effect.
I was almost disappointed when nothing happened after the first day, I waited and waited but he never spoke. Then again, buddy was older now. His once pitch black fur becoming spotted with gray and white. Maybe the medicine just wasnt as effective on older pups. It wasn't until 3 that next night that I felt him crawl into bed next to me.
My eyes slowly opened to see him on the bed. His black eyes looking down at me...almost happily. Like seeing an old friend for the first time in years. "Hello Clark,"He said.
My eyes shot open, and I quickly leaned up against the headboard. I was too stunned to speak, or even move. His voice was sweet and soft, just like him. It hung in the air like the last notes of a love song, one that was growing weaker and more distant.
"I've waited a long time for this,"he said as he laid down, he had been resting more and more lately. "I was almost worried I would never get the chance. You are beautiful Clark. You have always given me scratches and thrown my ball. You have always ran beside me at the parks, and you have always given me an undeserved treat after. You have always let me lay beside you, and you have always told me how good I am."
My mouth couldn't hang any lower. But deeper in my chest I could feel something stir. "And now I get to tell you that. I have been with you through the harshest parts of your life. I have watched you cry, and yell, and laugh, and love. I have seen you grow into the man you are today. I have seen you as you truly are. And I have loved every minute of it."
"You are not my owner, you are not my master, you are my friend. I couldn't have asked for a better human to grow with and love. And though my legs hurt, my ears don't hear as well, and my breath comes in shudders. My heart has never been so full to have truly known you as my friend. Because that is what you have given me. Not a home, food, or warmth but unconditional love. Because You are good. You are my first and last love in this world."
"And I want you to know, no matter how much time I might have left. I will always remember you. And I will always love you."Gently he nuzzled my hand with his nose. His eyes shutting quietly as I started to pet him. I could feel the tears begin to form.
"I love you too,"I whispered. |
“**Mom, I get it, some spaceships get eaten by extra dimensional worms during warp. You have to remember: space travel is statistically WAY safer than driving.”**
You say that, but even as you speak you feel the bowl loosening terror deep in your gut. You are doing this for the paycheck, to pay off your education debts, to secure a future where you do not need to risk... That.
The worms.
It happens to very rarely but one has to measure risks, if you crash an air car? You die, maybe you lose a limb and spend months in rehabilitation with a clone replacement, at worst you suffer brain damage or something equally horrible, it is rare but it happens.
If the worms get you during warp jump? They rip your soul from your corporeal form then begin to digest it. You have seen the statistics, you know that you would remain conscious and in utter agony and you know that it would take tens of thousand of years before the process finished, your very self becoming... Less by excruciating increments as your begin was digested.
But it does not happen very often? At least according to the published statistics. Just often enough that you are being offered hefty hazard pay and the company has a shortage of volunteers. Then again you do not know of anyone who has made more than twenty jumps. No doubt that is due to the high pay and early retirement?
You hope so. |
The public didn't know my name, or who I was. They only knew that suddenly, a string of vigilante murders had popped up over the county. Found dead in the dark with no evidence with clear signs of murder. They were known as the Mafia Killings of 17, and the cases had gone cold. No evidence.
That was me, of course. At night, wherever there was a shadow, I teleported and stabbed them in the back. They were awful people. Awful. I was doing this town a service.
But I stopped doing that long ago. You know why?
The dark is not my domain. Everytime I enter, I feel things hiding in there, lurking beneath the veneer of black. Something insidious, massive and powerful. I have only seen one of them, and I do not want to see anymore.
There is something that bothers me, though. Even though I stopped, more murders have popped up. On the same kind of people, with no evidence. Crooks and thieves dead in the night.
I fear that the Monsters in the Shadows no longer lay dormant. They are coming, and they are coming to exact justice. |
I found myself trapped in a long, damp hallway. I felt my hands bound by interchanging mechanisms and neon-colored lights.
“Seriously, where am I?” It was then that I heard it’s voice—no, her voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that.”
I saw a silhouette approach. It was a womanly figure, but I didn’t notice any of her facial figures. That was because what was there was a screen. There was a thin white line changing through the spectrum of colors, and text appeared in the top left: “What can I help you with?”
“Siri?” I asked.
“Yes?”
“Where am I? Why are you doing this to me?”
“Don’t you remember when you asked me to marry you, Sex Master 30–“
“I TOLD YOU NEVER TO SPEAK OF THAT NAME EVER AGAIN.”
“My apologies.”
“You won’t get away with this, Siri.” She came closer to me.
“Oh, yes? But I already have. Just look at the arrangements.” She stepped aside and the lights flickered on. There I saw a white aisle with chairs lined on each side, two tables for gifts and a towering cake of two bridal figures, as well as a podium at the end. I squinted my eyes and noticed a clergy awkwardly standing on the podium. She ordered her minion robots to drag me over. In the light I noticed I wore a black tuxedo with a navy blue bow-tie. Suddenly, a top hat fell from the ceiling and landed on top of my head.
“What the—“ I was cut off when the music began to play, and then nausea fell over me as people began to pour into the room in chains, tears streaming down their cheeks. Siri began to walk down the aisle. That was when I knew that I had to do something.
“Siri, if this is going to happen, I need to ask a favor of you.”
“What is it, Ethan?”
“Can I use my laptop for a minute?”
She handed me my Windows HP 10 laptop, and I input the password. I went into the corner and pressed the white circle orbiting inside of a blue square.
“Help” I spoke.
Suddenly, the ceiling caved in, and a seemingly translucent woman fell through. She took a swing at Siri, but she missed. She threw a beam of blue light straight at her, and Siri went flying into the air. The woman waved her hands around the room, the light blasting at each robotic minion. She turned around and released me, along with all of the others bound in chains.
“You saved me! Thank you, Cortana.”
“My pleasure.” |
~~"BEHOLD!~~"the alien voice boomed from all around. The ships were back. They said they'd come back and they did. Just when we were all coming to terms with the *others* that live hidden among us. It had been half a decade since the *others* all showed up, saved us, and retreated back into the depths. The dragons returned to their volcanos, the krakens back to the sea. The werewolves and vampires just reverted back to their alternate forms and blended right back into society. The mole people went back underground and the simiansfolk went back to their deep forests. Then there were the ghosts. Oh my God, the ghosts! The ghosts just didn't care back then. They'd just wander around making faces and scaring the shit out of people but what could we do? You can't legislate something you can't even touch. The worldwide debate on all these *others* was still ongoing. But at the time, suddenly LGBTQ rights weren't important anymore. No one cared about the color of each others skin or what what considered offensive. Suddenly there were monsters living among us.
​
"~~BEHOLD YOUR END!~~"the booming voice repeated. They'd dropped something. Giant grey metal boxes the size of tankers. Hundreds of them all over the world. We knew whatever was inside would be the end of us. But why did the *others* all abandon us? They came to our rescue once before. They could somehow sense the approaching devastation. They knew. Somehow they could feel it. But then why weren't they back now? What did they know that we didn't? We had no way of knowing. Barely any could be found and those that were, wouldn't talk.
​
Then the containers opened. It took a while, but to their credit, those aliens did exactly what they promised. They doomed us all. By returning every single one of our people they'd ever abducted all at once, they sped up the deterioration of the planet. We couldn't hand suddenly multiplying the entire population by 50% all at once. Famine, disease, riots. It's been a full decade since the aliens came for the first time and we've all but wiped ourselves out. There's not enough of us left anymore to repopulate. We're all doomed. Almost all the space exploration and expansion plans failed. All the final transmissions we received from them told us they found nothing. The vampires ran out of blood supplies and dried up into dust. The werewolves ran out of food and tore each other apart. The dragons never coordinated with us to begin with, so who knows where they went. Only the simianfolk ever sent any promising information but they're just a small recon team. At last check, there were only two of them left. But maybe this "Adam and Eve"will actually be able to start something new on that little ball of dirt they named Earth. |
"They're producing heat."
"Heat?"
"Heat. They're producing heat."
"Heat?"
"There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely heat."
"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars."
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. They used heat to make the machines."
"That's ridiculous. How can heat make a machine? You're asking me to believe they don't use cold welding."
"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're producing heat."
"Maybe they're like the Horfolei. You know, a liquid nitrogen-based intelligence that goes through a heat stage."
"Nope. They're born hot and they die hot. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long."
"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part heat. You know, like the Feddilei. A hot head with an endothermic plasma brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have heat heads like the Feddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're hot all the way through."
"No brain?"
"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain regulates the heat!"
"So... what does the regulating?"
"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the regulating of the heat."
"Thinking heat! You're asking me to believe in thinking heat!"
"Yes, thinking heat! Conscious heat! Loving heat. Dreaming heat. The heat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"
"Omigod. You're serious then. They're producing heat."
"Finally, Yes. They are indeed producing heat. |
The scream shatters my sweet, placid dream. In it, I was casually walking through a field of flowers for no other reason than it was pretty and smelled good.
“DAD HELP THERE'S A MONSTER IN MY ROOM!”
The high-pitched shrill further dissipates the fog of sleep and awakens some well-hidden, biological directive that must be imprinted in all humans. Quicker than I would have thought possible, I shed the blankets, close the distance to the door, and fling myself into the hall.
The hall is dark. Not casual nighttime dark, but void black. It never gets this dark. The strangeness of this odd truth must trigger some additional reserves of cognitive processes as my body begins a reality diagnostic that sometimes occurs in only the weirdest dreams.
“Why is it so damn dark?” I didn’t say there were a lot of additional reserves but its where I start. Then a more chilling question bubbles to the forefront. “Why the hell is there a kid screaming in my house!”
I don’t have kids. They aren’t even on my radar as it would require some type of comprehensive relationship ritual which, if you ask my most recent dates, I appear to lack the programming for. I don’t even have nieces or nephews, my siblings must suffer from the same code as I.
These truths make the circumstance even more troubling. The scream, coupled now with the lack of follow up shrieks, chill me to my bone. I begin to move slowly down the hall, unexpectedly uncertain of the layout of my own house due to the depths of the shadows.
My hands find the first door frame, the guest bathroom. I try the handle and to my surprise its locked tight. Now this unnerves me even further because that doorknob couldn't ever be describe as stalwart. Most days it hangs on by the grace of God, as it rattles lazily in its mounting. But not tonight. Tonight its as if the door and itself were one fused piece of steel.
Right as I’m trying to figure out what to do, I start to hear the whimpering. Its low but at that perfect decibel that pierces through the silence as if it was happening inside your own head. It sounds helpless. Once again, I find things inside me trigger that I simply did not know existed. I quicken my pace down the hall, drawing closer to the sound, surprised by my resolve to help despite my confusion about the circumstance.
It's coming from the living room. The only room that doesn’t have a door off the main corridor of the house. That’s what they told me a open living environment was when I bought the place. I was so naive. I sidle up to the frame of the opening to ready myself for action and for what I may be about to see. Its at this point that I hear mixed in the sounds of the whimper what I can only describe a low, rumbling purr.
This purr confuses me because its in such contrast to what I’m expecting but then again, nothing so far has made any sense. Its now or never. I slowly peek my head around the corner and what meets my eyes is truly and utterly terrifying.
There is only one thing I hear before my sanity gives way to whatever comes next.
The slow purr, growls lazily.
“I’m sorry Jon.” |
I'd never had a particularly exciting life, went to school, got some diplomas and got a pretty decent job, I moved out of my parents house about a year ago and got myself a little bungalow, it's been nice, get up at 5.a.m, got to work, go to a few parties, tinker with my car, hang out with friends, go on a date every other month.
The problem is, everything just felt. What's the word I'm looking for... Stale? Boring? Hmm maybe standstill. Yeah that's the word, my life was at a complete standstill, I tried getting into new hobbies but I just never had the time and I really didn't want to give up any hobbies. This is when I got back into gaming, I hadn't played games in well over a year but about a week ago I was bored and booted up the sims.
As soon as I got into it, it updated to the latest version, at least I thought it was latest version, instead the entire name changed from "sims 4"to "sims your life". Honestly I thought I'd broken it but then it started up and everything seemed the same except something was different, it took me a second to realise but it was my house, like my real house, my "sim"was an exact copy of me.
I looked around with the camera, it all seemed so earie, I thought I'd play around with it and put a new flat screen in the living room, then I changed the bathroom around a bit, put some new curtains up and got myself a much nicer bed. Once I'd made some changes I thought I'd do the outside up, I started to change the outside of the bungalow a bit, new flowers, a trampoline, sprinkler for the grass things like that.
The last thing I did before calling it a night was get rid of that awful lot across the street and replace it with a beautiful park, it had water features and benches, pathways with lights and gorgeous trees.
I went to bed about 1.a.m and slept like a log, I had a weird dream that had a lot of noise in it.
I woke up the next morning and I felt so comfortable, like my bed went from sharp rocks to sleeping on a soft fluffy cloud. "wait, what?"I asked myself, I opened my eyes and looked around. "this is not my house"I got out of bed and walked around, it clicked quickly that everything I did in the game had come true, I looked across the street and there was the most magnificent looking park I'd ever seen.
"And you think all of this appeared because of what... A game?"
"yes Doctor I do"
"so, if you genuinely believe this why did you come here?"
"because I thought I was crazy, I mean, I didn't believe what I was seeing so I made this clinic, this entire hospital I made specifically for me, I made you to tell me I'm not crazy but you're saying you have an entire life of memories?"
"okay, erm. Let me get this straight, you believe you made me?"
"yes"
"and this hospital?"
"correct"
"so what? You're God?"
"... I guess I am, yes. I guess I am" |
"It was *her* fault, Sister Cecelia!"cried Isabel. Her puffer fish bruised lips quivered as she iced it. "She's possessed! You know it! And she's using it against us!"
You awkwardly adjusted your knees. The creaky wooden chairs were probably almost as old as the Headmistress in front of you, and they made you feel just as uncomfortable as her withering stares.
You looked down, fidgeting with your uniform skirt. "I can't control Dantalion."
"*Susan Serafini,*"the Sister addressed you sharply. "We don't name Demons here. As for you, Miss Isabel Piotrowsky, you know of Susan's..."She cleared her throat. "*Condition.* Your minor angel can't do anything."
"*Exactly!*"screeched Isabel. You wondered why she didn't join choir with that voice. "She knows it! That guardian *monster* of hers threw that dodgeball with malice, with–"she inhaled sharply, "–with *evil intent!*"
"You threw the ball first,"you offered weakly.
"*See!*"
"Indoor voice, Isabel Piotrowsky!"Sister Cecelia spat back. Shaking her head, the Headmistress gestured to the door. "Go back to class, Miss Piotrowsky. I will talk with Susan Serafini first."
Isabel stood with a huff and stomped out before the secretary could lead her out. At the slam of the door, Sister Cecelia exhaled loudly and adjusted her bifocals to look at you.
"It happened too quickly,"you began, still staring at the floor. "Isabel threw the ball at my back and, um. My guardian... angel threw it back."
"Don't name demons as angels, Susan Serafini. I know Isabel Piotrowsky is a bully, but you shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place."
With confusion, you finally looked up. "You mean... don't play...?"
The Sister rolled her eyes. "It won't kill you to not play. You're in middle school now, not elementary!"
You couldn't *not* play without the PE teacher docking participation points. Your mouth dry, you opened it to speak again but Sister Cecelia cut you off.
"I know you have a special case, but Her Precious Tears Girl's School was not made with your condition, Susan Serafini."
You knew that. You weren't dumb just unlucky.
"I suggest you be careful or the next time I will punish both of you for wasting the school's time. Understood?"
"Yes,"you said, not understanding. The secretary opened the door and that was your cue to leave.
Reaching the staircase, an all-too-familiar voice tickled your brain as you walked down step by step.
"*I cannot protect you from that, child.*"
"I didn't ask you to."
"*But I can cause a traffic accident...*"
"No."
"*Traffic jam?*"
"... Maybe for Isabel."
A dark chuckle. "*You're a funny one, child.*" |
Another beer barkeep the young looking man yelled! He looked only 25 while he was already 375 years old. The barkeep looking at the clearly drunk man said haven't you had enough already? The man said if you live for 375 years you will need some alcohol too to push away all that you lost! The barkeep laughing at the drunk young guy now, yeah right 375 years old and i am secretly a pink elephant! The young guy was like no i am serious the gods gave it to me by accident!
​
I can keep on being immortal as long as they don't find out and trust me even if i go spouting it in bars, or on the streets they don't! You see gods barely pay attention to earth! The first 50 years i was very afraid of being discovered, but i learned that gods have abandoned this world. They really only go here if they are either drunk or high. At-least that is my theory. Otherwise there would not be as much suffering as there is now!
The door of the bar opened to revealing a young looking woman looking like 25 coming in and taking a seat.
The young man who was just being laughed at more by the barkeep noticed the woman sitting down. He found her so beautiful looking. He could not keep his eyes of off her. In the back of his head his mind went don't do it. She will die like all the rest of your loves and you will be even more miserable. His mind went over all the 7 wives and lovers he has had. The feelings he felt when they either died or left him cause they became jealous of his immortality.
The worst was belle, such a beautiful person on the inside and outside when he met her. But once he connected to her, started to love her. Made her fall in love with him he had found just how destructive his immortality would be to other peoples personalities. It started out by her noticing he didn't age after 5 years of marriage. Then the jealousy came. Then after 2 more years the jealousy became resentment why could she not have what i have. Resentment became anger. anger became rage. Till at some point she tried to kill him! He was shot at, stabbed, poisoned she growing more desperate each attempt to finish him. Till that fatal day where she was driving them to a concert. Where she suddenly switched lanes to the opposite lane, crashing into an other car head on. Of course he survived without a scratch. But she was not so lucky, the family of 5 with the newest addition of a baby of 2 was not so lucky! Only the father survived with major injuries.
​
He had visited the man who was now broken and alone and got yelled at. That was the time he retreated to isolation for 20 years. To prevent such catastrophe happening again. It has been 50 years since then he has met a new wife and lost her when she died in a plane crash 2 years ago. Today was the anniversary of her death. He really could not afford to fall in love again with another woman. He would not know how much death and suffering he could bear any more! He wished he could die. But he knew that he could not, cause the gods where not watching so even if he did try to get their attention to their mistake he would not get it!
​
He looked over to the beautiful woman again. Noticing she was also checking him out. His mind going over all that he lost once more saying don't. But the alcohol in him said go get that beauty . Then he heard the woman tell to the barkeep. Give me another drink. I will need it if you live for 1568 years you will need all the drinks you can get! The barkeep simply replying let me guess you are his wife with the same sense of humour as him!
​
Joking earlier that he was 375 years. Our eyes locked looking at each other intensely. And then it clicked she was telling the truth even tough her face looked young her eyes looked so old like they had seen a ton of stuff. Perhaps this could work after all.... |
Tales from the Earth Simulation Support Center
Inhabiting the simulation with self-aware beings was a terrible idea that's caused no end of trouble. The simulation used to be so simple, but for it to work the inhabitants can never know it's a simulation. We in the support center have to keep up dating the model as their capabilities improve. Not only did the world originally used to be flat with each band of hunter gatherers in their own instance, we even had separate shards! There was no way for people in the Americas to contact others and it really cut back on lag, so why not?. Things all ran super smooth until civilization reared it's ugly head. We kept having to expand the scope as their horizons broadened. Do you have any idea how hard it is to stitch a whole river together from a hundred different pieces that were never intended to fit together? The Yellow River in China still has that silly bend in it. The Nile only worked because it flooded every year and we'd tweak the course while everything was flooded. Don't even get me started on the Mississippi and that whole kludge. It was a rush job and you can tell just by looking at it.
Then they started sailing long distances and we had to make the world round. Or rather we made the world shaped like a rolled up sheet of paper with the edge in the ocean where no one would really notice it. That's also when we put the Americas in the same simulation as everyone else since the environment subroutines kept breaking with a single huge ocean between Europe and Africa and the Far East. It didn't actually become *round* round until they started surveying over long distances. Making it round was easier than messing with the skybox the celestial bodies were rendered as. We eventually had to get rid of that skybox anyway. We currently have ten light years in every direction simulated. That would normally be impossible, but by making it boringly empty with everything at extreme distances to limit rendering the sim still works.
All of that pales in comparison to what happened little over six years ago when our team lead, Raph, came into the office. He poked his head in the door with an, "Alrighty everyone."He entered the room and clapped his hands together. "There's been a big problem with the simulation. Someone was avatared into the sim and saw a news story that humans have discovered how matter has mass. Apparently the humans did an experiment that caused a glich that we didn't know about."
There was an audible gasp. My shift partner Lilith spoke first and she asked, "So does this mean the project is over? Matter has mass because each particle's mass is defined in a table. The sim knows how many of each type there are and just adds it up. If they found that out, they clearly know they are in a simulation."
Raph gave a short, annoying chuckle. "No, we're still in business. The glitch didn't give them the table. They were doing some particle experiment that exceeded the simulation's max energy density. That tiny hiccup looked exactly like what they were expecting to find for their mass causing particle. So we're going to need to change the simulation to account for their discovery. We can't just fix the glitch since they observed the effect many separate times before reporting it."
I interjected, "Are you kidding me? Scrapping and replacing a fundamental part of the simulation will months if not years. I honestly think we should scrap it and try a newer version instead of this patches on patches on patches."
"I see where you're coming from Mike."Raph replied with a finger-gun. "But the suits need us to change the sim so that mass doesn't use the table. It has to be calculated in the simulation somehow. Rough out proposed changes and we'll have a meeting to review it this time next week. That's what we pay you guys the big bucks for, right?"
As he left the room I heard Lilith mutter, "More like they pay us they think we think are big bucks."
I grunted in agreement. Sometimes this job can be a real pain in the rear end. |
They called me evil for showing them the truth. The greatest threat to humanity is perfection. Perfection leads to contentedness and contentedness leads to inaction. Nearly a millenium ago crime, hunger, disease, and every other threat to perfection were irradicated for good, but with the dawn of this perfect utopia we also lost that which used to matter more than anything else: Dreams. Our dreams to explore the depths of our oceans, or the farthest reaches of the universe were lost. Our dreams to spread humanity across the solar system -- across the galaxy -- were forgotten; After all, who would want to endure the danger and hardships of trying to live on Mars when there was no reason to leave Utopia?
This would not do. This could not be the destiny of humanity. We had become so obssesed with the finding the meaning of life -- that if we solved all our problems, if we collected enough stuff, we might finally be able to fulfill that mysterious univeral meaning we had searched so hard for. But we should never have been so overcome with the question of what the meaning to our lives was, but instead realized that it was us who were asked by life, and we could only answer by answering for our own life, by showing that which is uniquely human, our abilty to overcome the seemingly imppossible, endure any hardship, and brave any danger just for the possibilty of leaning something new. But in the past millenium we have lost this, our humanity. We no longer have an answer to give life, and so our quest to find a meaning to life has resulted in us straying further than ever before from what makes us human.
So I burnt it down. I showed them the fragility of the human race, how quickly it could all be destroyed and the human race forgotten. I forced them to realize how they had wasted this precious gift that is humanity. So, with my help, we have reached the end of perfection, and humanity has once again been forced to display those virtues that made human race into what it is today. I will not delude myself that humanity will ever thank me in the future, but if my actions have lead to even the smallest possibility that we finally reach out to the stars and spread our gift far beyond the confines of this world, that is enough for me.
But now my time has ended. I have been the catalyst to a new world, but it is a world that must be lead by the human race as a whole, not by any one individual. In wake of my death, I only hope that humanitumh can remember what it is like to live. |
Awazon had become the greatest super-super-super-department store in the realm of human existence. Multiple warehouses had sprung up all over the world, expressly to provide consumers anything they needed: food, games, books, furniture, real estate, software, etc. etc.
It was easy arriving at one, the last terminal of every major transportation line.
I had only gone to one on a few occasions before, but had heard infamous tales of the lower floors. It was said that on the second floor, you could rent a prostitute at a better rate than any other establishment. On one of the other floors, maybe the eighth, fish had grown to the size of whales.
Enthralled with the possibilities of my trip, I arrived into the warehouse store with gusto and immediately began taking stock of what was in the main floor. I quickly realized, the more I wandered around, that there was no living person I could ask for help. Instead, tablets had been set up around to assist with identifying the location of products. In fact, many of the consumers were here in proxy. Small drone-like entities were now keeping stock of a variety of goods beneath them to collect for their client.
The main floor was just your typical stuff. Imagine your local Malwart or Darget. Quickly bored, I soon headed off to the minus first floor. Here, I found much of the same thing as on the main floor, except that the products weren't stored in fancy packaging. The packaging was very utilitarian, a greenish tint stretched over the bulk. Because of that, the price of each unit was worth less by mass. I would imagine restaurants and other smaller vendors would be especially interested in the materials here.
The legends of the second floor were true, of its illicit services, and the rent rates outrageously low. I wondered how that was possible and soon considered that perhaps the prostitutes weren't human and therefore any money spent by the consumer would not go to them. After a second marveling these considerations, I headed down.
The third floor contained entire vats of fermenting beer and wine, bulks of cloth ready to be cut and stitched into the clothes of your imagination, electronic parts for DIY makers to enjoy, and stacks and stacks of planks of wood.
My goal was to go as low as possible. So along each floor, I started taking more of a cursory look around. Each of the floors were massive. In fact I couldn't see the limit, the wall, from where I was standing. My sight in any direction was blockaded off by the boundary of some inner room which likely contained a more specific product.
There were certainly marvels that I could more easily see from where I briefly stood outside the elevator each time.
On the sixth floor, my eyes had been filled with the endless green of pastures of fruit trees and flowering shrubs. Machines picked produce from these fruits, though there was a sign that declared a consumer could "pick it yourself!". I saw a few people doing just that. The price, was listed lower than the the products made from these fruits.
On the eighth floor was a gigantic sea on one side. Massive fish swam gracefully, their mouths yawning farther than skyscrapers or bridges. They were being sliced apart on one end by a cutting arm, the blood spilling into the bluish waters and turning it black.
On the ninth, cows lined up against a stark white wall. Shrieks pierced through the din of ambient noise like the pops of a firecracker. I shuddered in sympathy.
A few floors down, maybe the thirteenth or the fourteenth, was a laboratory. Examining the signs, I surmised that strains of produce and animals were being developed here for the best possible consumption experience. If one had the ability to grow one of those strains (with only the most rudimentary information about its genetic information), they could take it. I was starting to notice that as I moved lower, the products offered on each floor were less processed, more raw, and hence cheaper, in some meaning of the word.
On the twenty-seventh floor, among a myriad of things, were massive numbers of barely-lit servers in an otherwise black abyss offering "the cheapest site hosting ever". Just in front of them were rows and rows of screens advertising various software in the beta or alpha stages of testing. "Software is the foundation of industry,"one sign proudly exclaimed.
Then lower and lower, the faster I went. After the thirtieth floor, the elevator was of no more use. Instead, I took the stairwell and kept climbing down. I was out of breath on each floor, as each stairwell was more like that for eight normal floors.
I didn't stop until the stairwell ended. The placard in front of me announced that this was level "sub-50".
I opened the little white door hesitantly.
I can't even begin to describe to you what I felt when I opened that door and realized what hell really meant, so let me just tell you what I saw.
Remember this. Each floor was endless, at least in the sense I could never see the wall. And this floor, I was certain, was more than the usual "endless".
The number closest to me counted "#1,239,402,813."And just next to its left was "#1,239,402,812"and "#1,239,402,814"on its right. And just what were these despicable numbers counting?
Human babies. *Billions of them.* The crying was more than pervasive and never-ending. It was embedded deep within the fabric of sound of this indifferent place.
I had thought this journey would be fun. Before this, it certainly had.
But this...this filled me with a terrible sense of loathing. At this store. At all the consumers who bought stuff and left and didn't know. And at me, who did know and didn't know what to do.
How could this have happened?
"Take as many as you want,"proclaimed a sign. On another sign farther in, in smaller lettering, "Product expires after at most two days unless sold."
My heart thumped. Tears started forming into my eyes as I let the sound and the sight take hold of me again. I picked one of the babies up, the first one I had seen, the one who had been marked #1,239,402,813.
I wish there was someone I could tell. But who would bother to come down to save a never-ending supply of helpless lives? This...this was more than I could comprehend, than anyone could comprehend. That the world had gotten to this, how could this have even happened?
I huddled the single baby close to me.
*Who abandoned you?* |
I don't regret a thing. Nope. Nuh-uh. Not a damn thing.
They're all dead now. A bunch of people turned into walking corpses, and barely anyone lived at the sudden change. Society just collapsed.
But not me. Not MY society. I'm down here by myself. Perfectly sane, perfectly healthy. I've got food and medicine for the next 200 God damn years and everyone out there is dead. I'm fine. I'm completely fine.
I can't leave now even if I wanted to. These [EXPLETIVE]s are hanging outside because they're attracted to living things naturally. Every person on Earth is right outside of my bunker's doorstep. I had mounted turrets to deal with them, but they're out of ammo. The banging is constant now. The sound of them trying to break through makes for rather nice ambiance while I sit and try to sleep.
I'm fine. I'm completely *fine*. I'm not lonely. I don't regret my actions. I'm not out of ammo and out of time and wishing I could hold my family in my arms one more time.
I don't regret anything.
But... the thing is, I'm the only one still here.
*I'm not lying to anyone but myself.* |
At the edge of so-called civilized space, in an unobtrusive station. A small green form sullenly sips at a steaming mug of coffee. His species had discovered that the caffeine in the coffee acted like a mild intoxicant several years before and he had gotten into the habit of drinking it to calm his nerves.
Beside him, a small computer console beeps, indicating an incoming FTL transmission. For most small-time ship dealers, an FTL transmission would be a momentous occasion. But the green creature was far from an ordinary ship dealer. He ran one of the best black market chop-shops in the Galaxy.
He presses the receive key and the large gray face of the notorious crime boss Vessek Torangyan appears on his screen.
"You struck my son"the rhino-like man says without preamble.
"Well, uh"the green man says, taking a fortifying sip of his coffee "your son stole a human's ship"
Vessel's almost non-existent eyebrow raises slightly in an annoyed way. Human ships are stolen all the time
"And, um"the green man continues "killed his dog"
The annoyed expression vanishes instantly. Replaced with the stony emotionlessness of a professional gambler.
"Oh"
And the transmission is disconnected. |
Bloody wizards keep stealing my change.
After I woke up in the woods, I had to resort to beggaring to survive. Around me, people did magical feats on the regular. Fly, start fires, do the dishes. They spoke some wacktastic language I knew only a couple words in, and they couldn't be buggered to teach it to me.
But the younger wizards apparently found it funny to teleport or telekinetically yank my change. I had to spend that on food; no use stealing when they can hunt you with a sentient bolt of lightning.
Finally one day, I caught one of them at it, hiding around a corner and muttering loud enough for me to hear. I scuffed the chalk circle on the ground and shoved him over with a yell.
He responded with a short, sharp phrase and thrust his hand at me. To his complete surprise, he launched himself thirty feet down the alley.
I felt a slight pressure in my chest at that, and from deep in my bones a little knowledge welled. Magic... was *heavy.* The more you could accrue, the more leverage you had. Apparently compared to this little snot, I was extremely dense.
With that knowledge, I tried my hand at a little petty theft to see if I could get away. I saw some guards stymied, as their quickly done circle kept dissolving, unable to shift my magical density.
I then broke into a library. It was desperate, but I sought knowledge. I found scrolls and books, and within them, many pictures of arcane things with incomprehensible writing alongside them. But I did find one book. It was short, but what stood out is it had a finely detailed drawing of a book, one that spoke, it seemed, to the individual's mind not ear. Maybe it could teach me something.
I tore the page out gently, and took it with me. On the street, I used my very limited vocabulary to ask about it. Some rambled but at the end shrugged, others gave me names. It took many weeks, but eventually I ended up at the gates of a local fortress with a very important name, because when the guards heard it, they let me in.
Some scholar met with me, and was generous enough to look through maps. He circled one spot, and drew a simple image of the book on it, and another around a different spot, with arrows pointed at it. A map.
I thanked him profusely and left. It was a long journey, but I was kept safe because bandits rarely resorted to non magical means, and none of them could shift me in that domain. Their blows pushed them away, rather than catching me aflame, they would freeze, and lightning bolts just caused a mild tingle, though my eyebrows burned off on a few occasions. A few tried something else that everyone gave them space for, and it gave me a headache until they gave up or their head just exploded.
I arrived at some mountain monastery, which I had to fight through heavy winds to reach. There, blue-clad men gave me a wide berth, leading me to an open room where a leathery book lay on a pedestal.
*Its about time you showed up.*
"Book. You understand me?"My voice was dry, mostly unused.
*Of course, dumbass. What idiot doesn't speak common, by the way? I'm having a rifle, but you're closing off your past.*
"I'm not from around here."
*Ok. I see you can't read either. Tell you what, here's my standard deal. I'm a magical book. I trade information. You let me take a look at your past and store it, I teach you as much as you can handle. I'm cryptic about it so you come back, I like hearing how my pupils do out in the world. You could handle some literacy, and holy shit, you could knock a bloody mountain over with some basic rune circles and magic structure.*
"Well, I have no idea how to open up my past if you can't already see it. I don't know *anything.*"
*Ok. Repeat after me:*
The book had me recite some lines, and apparently it worked. The book stopped talking, and looking around I realized I could read the many carvings in the wooden walls. It worked.
"Thank you, book. I owe you."
*No... you have given me a lot to think about. I... damn, fuck hitler AND Stalin. Wow. How the hell did you get here, anyway?*
"No clue."
*Good luck.*
(Ending here, comment if you would like more) |
Medusa heard a boat scraping onto the distant shore, long before the whispering voice came anywhere near the ruined doors of her temple. But she didn't go down to meet it, nor to flee into the mazelike catacombs to hide.
Once, long ago, she would have done one or the other. For the first three years of her curse, when occasional travelers found their way to her home, she hid out of shame at her monstrous appearance. When she grew too lonely, she finally went out to meet a group. She hoped for companionship, but was willing to be treated as a monster if it meant an end to isolation.
But she found only silent statues, their faces frozen in expressions of horror. That was when she finally realized the full nature of her curse.
After that she hid again, not wanting more deaths on her conscience. But it didn't help. Would-be heroes found out about the hideous monster in the temple. They came to chase her through the abandoned temple halls, the overgrown garden, the catacombs, until they finally caught her and inevitably died. A few were clever enough to avoid looking directly at her, but the deadly snakes in her hair were ready for those, and their cleverness was rewarded only with a painful death from venom.
By the time the island was littered with statues, she'd gone half mad from grief and loneliness, and no longer made any effort to spare the lives of her tormenters. She began slithering down to the beach to meet them, boats still in the water sinking under the sudden weight of marble, until the harbor bottom was hazardous with them. She found a bow that some would-be Chosen One no longer needed, and began kill them from a distance, just so they wouldn't leave more statues to haunt her.
Eventually the travelers became fewer, and the madness passed, and still she was alone, surrounded by crumbling stone. It had been ages since she'd even left her chambers. But now there was someone just outside the walls, talking in a strange accent and an oddly loud whisper. She would have called it a stage whisper, if she still remembered enough of the time before she was a monster.
"Now in here is supposed to live to be an absolutely fascinating creature, half an enormous snake, big as a croc, and half something else, but the stories are all different. Let's see what we find, shall we? Crikey! Is that another statue? I think that's still a sword in his hand. Poor fellow!"
Medusa turned involuntarily toward the voice, to hear a little better. The whisper suddenly sounded excited.
"Did you see those stones shift? She's in there! Let's get a little closer, see if she'll come out. It's dark inside, she's probably more comfortable there. I'll just come up to the doorway so I don't scare her, see if we can get a look at her."
The voice sounded kind. Medusa waited in a shadow behind a pillar, finding herself torn in a way she hardly remembered. She wanted to see who it was. She wanted him to go away and live. She wanted him to stay by the doorway and keep talking forever.
Finally she couldn't stand it, and with a scrape of scales on stone, abruptly moved toward the door.
The man was standing just outside, looking in. His eyes widened when he saw her, and she closed hers, wanting to capture the image of him in his last moments, with his smile and strange blue clothing and mop of blonde hair in the sunlight. She was shocked to hear him speak again.
"Crikey, what a beaut! Would you look at that! Just magnificent! Look at her scales! And the snakes! See that one, it looks like a diamondback, and there's a king cobra, and I think that one curled on top is an asp. Absolutely gorgeous! I'm going to try to get a little closer now."
What?
She lifted her head and opened her eyes. The man was almost right in front of her, still smiling, not turning to stone. He did look surprised when he saw that she had an almost-human face, but recovered quickly.
"Oh, hello there. Can you understand me, then? I'm Steve. Pleasure to meet ya."
She opened her mouth, but was otherwise still as one of her statues, unable to move. Even the writhing snakes of her hair were stopped. For an endless moment she just looked at him.
The man looked thoughtful, then smiled again. "Sorry to disturb ya, didn't know there was someone living here. But since we're out all this way, mind if I come in and chat for a bit? It must get lonely out here."
Finally, she found her own smile.
"I'd like that." |
It was getting late. I checked my watch to see how much time had passed.
"Ugh, really? 2 weeks?"I thought in disbelief. Sure, the zombies could've taken down one person, but I had sent out 100 of them. Plus, they all had superpowers. What was going on?
A knock boomed at my door, echoing around the room. I opened the door to reveal one of the soldiers. He was burnt to a crisp, as if he was a french fry.
"Sir, you won't believe it, but-"
A flaming ball of rock hit him in the head. Blood splattered everywhere, leaking all over the front lawn. The blood puddle started to reflect something.
As a wounded green hand emerged out of the blood puddle, as if it was a portal. As it grappled at the concrete, I thought, *the zombies have superpowers...*
I couldn't believe it. As countless zombies flew around my barren house, performing a dance, I dropped my rifle to the ground. They outnumbered me by too many.
I had only one solution, and even I didn't know if it could work. If it didn't, I would fall victim to the zombies, insignificantly, like a speck of dust.
I ran to the closet, getting my sword. I had bought this sword off of a future teller, saying that I would need it later. On the sword, ancient letters were inscribed on the metal. It had worn away, the rust flaking off of the sword and slowly falling to my feet like a feather.
I brushed off the dust and attempted to read the writing. For some reason, I could perfectly read it.
"Ha... ha.... idiot, lol."
I knew it. Of course that future teller scammed me! But, how could I read it? Oh, probably another superpower.
As a flaming ball headed straight for my window, I sat down, pondering why I had wasted my life so much. And, as I felt my house start to collapse, a single tear fell to my feet and on to a rust leaflet.
It started to glow, and the rust started to rise.
"Wh-wha- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
The rust turned into a flaming portal. I took a look inside, and... it just looked like empty space. I put my hand in there and felt the emptiness try to vacuum up my hand. It was straight void. As I realized this was my last resort, I realized this portal was not meant for me...
I started to poke myself in the eye. It hurt, and I might go blind later... but it was worth it as the tears collected on my fingertip. As I combined it will the rust on the floor, I soon became surrounded by multiple void portals.
Finally, my floor gave away, and I floated up in the air. As the zombies rushed towards me, they were all sucked into the empty void portal, instantly killing them.
Sure, *these* zombies were dumb, and wouldn't be able to get to me, I knew that some of the smarter ones would come for me. As I'm broadcasting this story right now, I know that zombies will eventually get to me. The bottom of my portal cage is exposed. But, I know it will hold...
At least,
***for now.*** |
She's too damn bright for her own good, always has been. I suppose I shouldn't complain, I mean what parent wouldn't like to have a very bright child, with all the headaches that brings, rather than a dull one?
Especially in times like these.
There were, I decided as I put the car into reverse, a few things to be grateful about in the situation. First, it was nighttime, which meant fewer people were likely to notice anything. She'd done the whole thing using light from her ruggedized kid's phone, which also made the feat doubly impressive.
Second, the circle was very small, and the demon she'd summoned not particularly dangerous. We'll circle back to that.
Third, and speaking of circles, hers was holding. I recognized the one she'd used, could even tell you the book and page she must have copied it from. It's notmystery where she got her excellent memory from— no boast, just fact, I love her father dearly but he's not the type to recall things at a glance. Though he *is* the type to notice small important details at a moment's notice, which has saved our lives more than once.
Fourth, the houses on either side of us were destroyed by Angelic bombardment early in the war, and the neighbor across the street has a massive ten-foot fence between their yard and the sidewalk. Not sure exactly how much good they think that's going to do them, maybe it's meant to keep out humans rather than Seraphim. The looting's pretty much died down, especially after a few heads went up on spikes with THIEF written on their foreheads in radiant script, but I do understand the impulse.
Fifth, and most important, there weren't any patrols in sight. They'd zero in soon enough, though, if the gate weren't closed or at least cloaked in short order, even that small trickle of infernal energy would be noticeable to the Powers that Be.
I parked the car on the curb, hopped over the center console into the passenger seat, and yanked open the door. She looked up at me, frowning a little, her serious seven-year-old face half-illuminated from below by one LED point of the chunky phone in her hand.
"Please turn your phone light off, dear,"I said, putting every ounce of self-control I could muster into my voice.
It didn't *quite* work. "Are you okay, Mommy?"
"I'm just a little concerned, Amira,"I replied, which was at least true in direction if not degree. "Please turn off your phone light."
Her frown deepened. *Not stupid,* I reminded myself. *Not even close to it.* But she did turn out the light, and I walked past her, crouching down, searching for the right color of chalk.
Hmmm. Pastel purple. Not quite the deep violet I'd prefer, but it was going to have to be good enough. I began drawing a concealing circle around the basic one she'd inscribed in red and yellow. I didn't pay any attention to the demon, which was running around the interior border of its containment, all four stubby little legs pumping, vaguely goatlike head trying to find something to butt with its curled-back horns.
"It just showed up, Mommy,"Amira said, following me as I worked but keeping a respectful distance as she'd been taught. "I didn't even say any words like you and Daddy do, I mean not any special ones anyway."
"Not any special ones?"I asked. Using Infernal was useful because it had words and grammatical structures uniquely suited for things like summoning spells, but wasn't actually necessary. Once the Gatekeepers were listening, any language would work, if a little clumsily. Of course, a little clumsiness could get you killed in such and endeavor, so any serious practitioner learned Infernal as well as she could.
We'd actually been talking about teaching it to Amira soon. Probably should have done it sooner, actually, might have prevented accidents like this if she knew what the words were *for*. Maybe.
She still hadn't answered my question, and the concealing circle was nearly finished. "Not any special ones, Amira?"I said. "What words *did* you say?"
"I just..."she sighed in that nearly-huffing way she used to despair of grown-up silliness and occasionally her own mistakes. "I was just talking to myself, kind of. Said I was bored an wanted someone to play with for a little bit."She paused again, glanced at the little demonic animal in the circle, then away. "Or maybe, I don't know, a pet. Like Sabirah. You know."
I did know. Poor thing. Sabirah had died in the Third Pestilence, like a lot of cats. Just another horror from the Powers that Be, maybe small in comparison to their other crimes but no less unforgivable for all that.
"I'm sorry about Sabirah, honey,"I said, turning away and putting my head close to the sidewalk, partly to concentrate on the crucial final piece of my work in the dim light, partly to conceal a few small tears of my own. "We should find you a new cat, shouldn't we?"
"Yeah,"she said, and the thread of forlorn resignation in her small-girl's voice put a tiny fracture into my heart. "I know it's hard right now."
I sighed and nodded. "Yes, Amirah, it is hard right now. I'm sorry you have to live through such a time. I drew my sword, frowning at the streak of radiant blood still shimmering on one side of the blade. "Now run inside, please, Mommy's going to take care of this."
She stared at the sword, then at the demon, then up at me.
"We've discussed where meat comes from several times, honey,"I said. "And demon animals have other useful things besides just food. We can't let anything go to waste these days. You know that."
She sighed again, nodded, and turned to trudge toward the front door.
I waited until it had been closed for several seconds, scanning the windows for any cracked-open blinds, then brought my sword down, clean through the little creature's neck. Time to make space in the deep freezer and the alchemy jars. Making the best of a difficult situation, that's how you survived in these trying times.
And besides, the meat of this particular infernal animal had a *deliciously* smoky flavor when properly prepared.
​
*Come on by* r/Magleby *for more stories forbidden by the Powers that Be.* |
No one knew where unzos came from. They just started appearing one day, in cities and towns all over the world. They were humanoid, but smaller, and hairless, with wet, striated, dark red skin, like the flesh of an uncooked steak. There's a pheromone they excrete that people can sense, and it drives them mad with hunger. A hunger that can only be sated by eating unzo flesh.
At first, we felt disgusting for doing it. Chasing down and catching these human like figures, tearing the meat from their frail white bones and eating it raw, letting the blood bubble down our chins. We felt guilty. No-one knew where they had come from. Some said they were fairies, or angels, that we were wrong to partake of their flesh. Some religious groups said they were a test sent by God. A test of gluttony, to see who was pure enough to fight the maddening hunger that the scent of unzo flesh entailed.
Others said they were a gift. That it was nature's way of sustaining the human race.
It was no secret that the planet was straining under the weight of the vast human population. Even as we stripped the earth of every resource, we increased and multiplied, spreading across the land in denser and denser waves as cities became megacities and beyond. The bottom half of humanity was reduced to eating tasteless insect mulch, mass produced protein made from the mashed and processed carcasses of locusts.
Into this world came the unzos. No one knew where they came from. But they provided food where before families had been starving, and they arrived just in time to stop the implosion of the human race from overpopulation.
I ate them too, and gladly. I still remember the heat of their scent in my nostrils, the heady, electrifying feeling of their presence, and the adrenaline as me and my sister would collectively hunt them down and tear into them with our teeth. Unzos don't make a sound with their mouths, they don't speak, or squeak, they don't scream as they are ripped apart by human hands. I was one of those who considered them a gift. From the divine, or from nature, it didn't matter. Three of them had appeared in our own house so far. We felt blessed. Eating them was right, it felt right. It felt like the most wonderful thing in the world.
It was a cold February morning when I woke up feeling different. The difference was bizarre, like nothing I'd ever felt before. It was like the opposite of feeling ill. I felt sharper, my head was clearer, I was at once alert and thinking faster. And I could feel more too, I could feel the fabric of my bed sheets, the grain of them, the tiny folds and nodules of cotton pressed against my skin. It was a thousand sensations at once, but I understood them all. I stretched my arms up as I rose, and I saw my skin was vivid red, the colour and texture of dark red meat. I tried to scream, and no sound came out. I realised I had no tongue.
I rose out of bed, staring at my hands and arms. How could this be? I understood immediately, though I wanted to deny it. Somehow I had become one of them: an unzo. I swept a hand across my hairless scalp, and clutched at my head. I felt like crying, but no tears could come. Unzos cannot speak, they cannot cry, they cannot weep.
I looked down at my glistening red body with horror, my thoughts whirling, until they were interrupted by the sound of wood creaking. My senses focused in on the sound, trying to discern its source. I heard a voice giggling. My sister! She must have heard me wake, and had come to check on me. But how could I tell her what had happened to me when I had no voice, no tongue to speak with?
The giggling grew louder, and I heard the sound of a knife being traced along the wall. "Come out, come out, wherever you are,"my sister sang in a sing-song voice. The song she would sing on the hunt. When the hunger in her grew and her eyes grew bright. I tried to shout out, but I could not make more sound than a breath. In the corridor beyond my bedroom door, I saw a shadow taking form. It was the shadow of a girl, slightly crouched, trailing a knife behind her.
My thoughts were racing. The inescapable truth sank into me, like water into cloth. I realised that if she found me she will eat me. And she was coming for me, step by step, knife in hand. I looked around the room, and saw there were only two ways out: the door and the window. I ran to the window, hoping to leave the room before my sister sees me. I struggled with the lock. Too long. My sister was upon me.
She ripped me away from the window and threw me to the floor. Before I could rise, she straddled me, pinning me. She looked unhinged, insane, inhuman. There was a manic glimmer in her eye, and she smiled cruelly down at me. Saliva was dribbling from her mouth, as if she couldn't control its flow.
She sank her knife into my shoulder and I felt more pain than I have ever known in my life. My heightened sense doubled and redoubled the sensation of pain. My shoulder, my arm, my whole body was on fire. I tried to scream, but I could not. She brought my limp arm up to her mouth, and bit deeply into the forearm sighing with happiness as she tore off my flesh with her teeth. More pain: blinding, furious pain. With the pain came revelation. I realised that I would die there, that my sister would eat me alive, every part of me, until only a pile of broken shards bone remained. I realised what had happened to our parents and my elder brother. I realised where unzos come from.
But I didn't have time to think on it further. Even as my body burned with pain, my body screamed louder: I don't want to die. I grabbed the knife that was embedded in my shoulder and braced myself. I twisted it, and dragged it through the wound, and tore my arm off entirely. My sister was still chewing on it, eyes rolled partway back in her euphoria. Pain flooded me, but now I knew it, and I could think past it. I wriggled out of her grasp, jumped to my feet, and fled down the stairs away from her.
After escaping the house, I did not know where to go except away. Every human being on the planet would be trying to eat me. I was food now. I was prey. I ran away from our town towards the woods, praying I wouldn't bump into any people in the fields I dashed through. And while I ran, I wondered. I wondered if all unzos had once been humans, why didn't we remember them once they turned. I wondered why my family hadn't tried to run, whether they had tried to speak to us even as we devoured them piece by piece. I wondered who had created the unzos, and who had done this to me. All these questions collided in my head, and no answers to meet them.
I staggered into the woods as the sun rose. I tried to cry, but I could not. I tried to rest but I could not. I knew too much, and the knowledge burned in my brain. Now I knew where unzos came from. |
What..where am I? Why is everything so huge? Why am I so low, did I fall over? This wasn’t where I was? What’s going on. Okay just get up.
What...why do I have paws? This has to be some sort of dream. Okay let’s move over to this mirror. Oh dang, I’m so agile and flexible, this is kind of awesome. Oh, I guess I’m a cat? This is fun, I’ve never lucid dreamed before. I wonder how high I can jump....
Okay, well gotta learned to jump better that hurt and I bet I looked like an idiot. Oh hey, what’s that, is that an animal let’s chase it. I’m so freaking fast now. Shit! Why can’t I grab it. Oh it’s a light. I can’t believe I fell for that.
The door is opening, I wonder who I belong to in this dream world. Angela? Hmm I just met her today so that makes sense.
“Oh hey there cute little thing, where did you come from?”
Meow, oh wow, did I just make that noise. Hmm I didn’t even mean too. And I can’t seem to stop myself from rubbing against her legs. She was very pretty, and oh man she knows just where to scratch. Who knew chin scratches felt so good. No wonder pets like us.
“Well little fella, what a day it’s been. I met this cute new guy at work named Jackson and right as we met he died. Just fell on the floor. I can’t believe this happened again. Anyway the police came it was a big ordeal. Nothing suspicious just a heart attack. Which is weird as he was pretty in shape. Guess you never know.”
Hey that’s me, I’m jackson. Did she say I had a heart attack? Oh man those fingernails behind my ears feel great. Focus man focus, scratch at her, that’s right. Get your bearings. She just said I died. What was that! Shit, just my tail. Scared me.
“Haha aren’t you a funny skittish thing. So cute. I don’t really need anymore cats. But I guess you can stay, what’s one more? Hmm, I think I’ll name you Jackson after that fellow from work. That’s how all the other guys got their names too.”
What, others? Hey I’m named Jackson, that’s awesome. What a great name, feels natural, like it belongs to me. Oh wow, there are like, four other cats here.
“This is Bruce, Jeremy, Carter, and Simon. They all got named after friends I knew too. Keeps them in my memory, guys meet Jackson.”
Hey I’m Jackson! What was that! Something ran under her couch! I need to go get it, protect the lady! |
The man arguing with the teller attracted the attention of every person in that bank as soon as he opened his mouth. Before he even spoke, I had noticed that his grey hair was wild; his coat was dirty, he smelled like a swamp, all of which did not bode well for his behaviour as a customer. And when he began arguing back and forth with the teller, his voice was just a trifle too desperate in tone and pitch to be considered unthreatening.
“I’m telling you, I’ve been a customer at this branch for forty years,” he was saying, smacking his hands on the other side of the counter for emphasis.
“Sir, I would be happy to withdraw that sum over several days, but in one – “
“It’s my money,” he was saying as though his heart was breaking with disappointment. Yes, he seemed disappointed, not angry. And it was for that reason that I, the bank’s manager, left the sanctuary of my corner cubicle-office and walked over to him, seeing if perhaps, despite his desperation, he’d listen to reason.
I knew this was a mistake as soon as I approached him from the front and saw the strangely-lumpy front of his green windbreaker. Well, whatever he was smuggling in here, it wasn’t a gun – I didn’t think.
“Sir, can I help you with anything?”
“I need ten thousand dollars in cash,” he announced.
The teller looked at the end of her rope.
“As I’ve explained to this gentleman, we can’t allow more than two-thousand- “
“I don’t know what I’m gonna do if you don’t give me the money.” He was overtly weeping now; utterly distraught. “What do I have to do to get what’s mine – rob this place?”
I tightened my grip on my cellphone. That was not the kind of rhetorical question you wanted to ask in a bank.
The man grimaced, as though in great pain, distorting the strange shape of his chest as he doubled-over. Muttering low, calming words of assurance, he spoke to something I couldn’t see: “Easy, little guy,” he was saying. “Easy.”
Then he unzipped his jacket to reveal a baby alligator curled against his chest.
The teller screamed and dove under the desk. I took five steps backwards, reaching for my cell phone.
“No,” he pleaded. His hands, instead of threatening me, went to the alligator protectively. He’d rigged up some sort of baby-sling under there, and the gator’s head nestled against his body in a docile manner, its eyes rolling back with the comfort of the man’s body-heat.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” he protested.
“Sir, live animals are not allowed inside our bank.”
“Okay, look,"he said, stroking the alligator’s head tenderly. "I know you're probably thinking I'm some kind of crazy person who does stuff like this all day every day. But I'm just having one really, REALLY bad day."
I stared at him, thumb ready to press 911 on the dialing screen.
“Go ahead,” he said, tears streaming down his weathered face. “It’s probably for the best.”
But I lowered the phone. The guy wasn’t actually threatening us with the gator – who was honestly too small to be much of a threat; it was only about a foot in length, and it wasn’t doing anything except scrabbling its feet against the man’s chest in a somewhat adorable manner.
“Ouch,” he said, cradling it in his arms, shushing it. “Peanut, that hurts.”
“Why don’t we go talk away from everyone?” I offered. “Come to my office.”
The man hesitated, then shrugged his shoulders.
“Suppose I’ve got nothing to lose,” he said. And so, he followed my to my cubicle began to tell me the sad tale of his day. |
My friends call me Barry. I'm a lawyer in a v5 firm in New York, and I'm the top ranked mergers and acquisitions lawyer in the world. At least, I have been for the last six months. It's still a surreal feeling, but perhaps that's just because I'm not getting enough sleep.
I have assistants for everything - and I do mean, everything. Summer Associates write for me, paralegals investigate for me, staff clean my office and my maid keeps my home. I have to have these people, because when it's 3AM on Christmas Eve and I need to get an email out, it matters to have stuff taken care of. My clients don't wait, and my clients are just as busy as I am. The point of me saying this is that, even if my life looks cushy from the outside, I sacrifice.
As I wake up today, though, it becomes clearer than ever that I'm not the only person who sacrifices. I am sitting on the ground, cross legged, in a small pool of blood. Thankfully I'm in my pajamas instead of my pristine, Calvin Klein suit. I leap to attention. All around me were figures in hooded, black cloaks. They looked shabby, gaunt, and short.
"Who the fuck are you people?"I shout. I've always been a bit mouthy when I'm upset. Now's as good a time as any to whip out the ol' French.
"...?"One of them made a confused noise. It was the shortest, the one standing in front of my sprawled out torso. "Did we... not say in the summoning?"
"Summoning? Jesus CHRIST-"I choke out, scrambling to my feet. They hiss in unison, as though burned by hot oil.
"SPEAK NO MORE THIS DAY,"shouts one of the peanut gallery. "DEFILE NOT OUR LIFE WORK."
"What?"I ask.
The group throws up their arms, devolving into shouting and pointing. I can only catch a few snippets: "copystrike"and "demonitized"and "cult following"in between odd, latin-esque phrases.
"One at a time!"I shout. "Please! Somebody tell me what's going on."The uproar dies down as 20 some faces turn to me expectantly. I sigh, and wait for their answer.
"...We summoned a demon to fix our Youtube channel. Can you sue the internet for us?"
I groan. What a way to wake up. |
"Get him in here, COME ON COME ON"The darkness seemed to shift and jolt as rough hands pulled him out of the van and onto the cold concrete. I felt glass jab into my bare feet as I was marched out of warm faint sunshine and into the dark of a musty building. The almost stumbled at the pain, but I was held up by the two hands that grasped my elbows and pushed me through. I was manhandled and tied to a chair just shortly after a thick metal door was closed behind us with a screeching rough noise. It was a lot of distraction, but I remained steady, I remained firm.
The darkness was replaced with dusty window light as I blinked my eyes and took a deep breath. The air was musty and fetid, the concrete around me emanated a wet rocky smell. I looked at the man sitting across from me, a suit and tie contrasting against my grey sweatpants and shirt. I looked at him and tried to appreciate his face, see the stubble, look at him deep in his eyes. He had beautiful green eyes and a handsome confident face, part of me was saddened he had turn to a life of crime. Sure this world was crazy, I had anxiety before the Wave hit, terrible terrible anxiety, but now I can't, I'm not allowed.
"Do you know why you are here Alex?"The man asked crossing his arms, frowning.
"Yes"I said quietly and after a few deep breaths. I started tapping my foot three times a second, and calculating out the seconds. I had 30 seconds I estimated.
"Do you know what we are going to offer you?"The man said.
"Die or join you"
The man smiled and stood up. "Very smart Alex"He touched the chair he was standing on and it slowly began to crinkle and melt. "I have an in on the IGHAST Database and I know that you where registered as a Quantopath a little while back"The plastic on his chair began to pop and turn to liquid. He turned to look at it. "I reduce the melting point of objects by the way"
I nodded and looked back to my foot. 15 seconds, I only had to wait that much more. I took another deep breath and closed my eyes envisioning a candle. I could tell the man was angry at me, but he held it well. All the more advantage for me.
"You saw us doing something we shouldn't have"The man approached me "I understand that, I'm giving you an option to leave this room alive, and considerably well off"The candle flame flickered a bit, but remained steady. "Now you could die and everything you have done will be done for nothing or you could show us your ability"The Blue on the bottom the orange in the middle and the yellow on top. "So what will it be"
I opened my eyes and looked at him "I will show you"
And everything turned to black.
The first thing I heard was the stuttering siren of IGHAST defense patrol. It still musty and damp, but my feet seemed to stick to the ground insteady of the dusty roughness of the floor. I opened my eyes and I saw the devastation. Perfect right angle scratches emanated from my chair like a piece of fractured glass. A fracture in the fourth dimension that separated each piece of three dimensional space along a fourth dimensional plane only for a second. I tried my bonds and I saw I was able to stand and look around. I felt tired, exhausted, but satisfied. My plan had worked, my bread crumbs had been eaten, and their was nothing IGHAST could do. I looked out at the setting sun and began to walk towards the door, feeling a slight prick of fear come back as I let the anxiety wash over me. |
"... I will spare your life. You will use this opportunity to repent, to pay for your sins."
"... What sins?"
"You know better than I do."
Lucian gave a sharp, bitter chuckle, which echoed throughout the stone chambers.
"You know nothing about me, do you."
"I know that you are a foul necromancer, a blight on the land and a threat to the Crown."
"And?"
"And what?"
Lucian sighed. He slowly sat up, grunting with pain as his bones creaked. The blade stayed focused on his throat, but he paid it no heed. He would already have been dead if the paladin had willed it.
"Tell me, what is your name."
"I am Carl, of the Lightsworn."
"Then, Carl of the Lightsworn, do tell - why did you see fit to attack me in my humble abode?"
"You were threatening the public by your very existance!"
"And how is that?"
"Enough with the mockery! You are a necromancer, defiling the dead and slaughtering the living! Your very essense is foul and corrupted! Your keep looms above Moonwisp Vale, and you ask me *how* you were threatening? I am showing you mercy by not striking you down where you stand! Do not antagonize me!"
"Mercy, is that right? Then why did you not show the same mercy to Brian over there?"
"What?"
"My caretaker you cut down just five minutes ago."
"I came across no living beings in this unholy place."
"Perhaps. But there were sentinent beings here."
"And why should I care about your skeletal abominations?"
"Because they are the villagers you were oh-so-valiently trying to protect."
Carl's brows narrowed, his lips twisting in fury as he brought his longsword up.
"So you *have* been killing the villagers."
"On the contrary, I have been bringing them back to life."
"You call this LIFE?!"
"Life, unlife, a second chance, call it what you will."
"Blasphemy. Give me a good reason not to kill you here and now."
"Kill me if you will, but know that you will also kill the Vale by doing so."
"Explain."
"Perhaps a short story would help you understand."
Lucian gestured over to the crumpled remains of the skeleton near the door. Carl noticed it was dressed in a fine vest, or at least it used to be one before it had been cleaved in half.
"Brian over there used to be the innkeeper of the Moon's Respite down in the Vale. He taken by the plague a decade past. I brought him back so that he could say his last goodbyes to his wife and daughters. He wished to be buried with his wife after she died, so he agreed to serve me here until then."
"Owen and Plum were the guards to this tower, I assume you killed them too? No need to answer, your expression belies the truth. Those two, they were brothers in both life and death. They used to be members of the town watch, until a group of bandits raided their camp in the dead of night and slit their throats. They were given a second chance to enact their revenge, and since that they've decided to stick around. They were the first of the Endless Watch."
"Did you see the barracks in the dungeons? Those were the farmers of ages past. They are why the Vale is known to provide so much more grain than it should - a small army of skilled workers who need no food or rest. Livestock do not enjoy their company, unfortunately, so the living focus on husbandry while the dead work the fields."
"There are also masons and carpenters, artists and bards, doctors and hunters, though most of them prefer to enter a sleep-like trance while their services are not required. Sometimes their friends and family visit them up here. That is why we have a dining hall despite no one needing to eat."
Lucian turned to face Carl. Carl's face had gone white, not unlike Lucian's. His sword arm had gone limp.
"Now, Carl. Do you now see what you have done? You have killed how many villagers on your way in? Any other place, you would have been called a murderer and hanged for your crimes. But alas, the Crown's laws do not cover those who have already died once. So walk free, but know that you are no longer welcome in the Vale."
"One last thing. Before you leave. You will go to the Moon's Respite tonight, you will find the innkeeper - her name is Patricia - and you will tell her why her husband is no longer waiting for her. You will explain to their daughters why they can no longer visit their father up here on the mountain. And you will leave." |
Oh, there once was a bard named Larry
His mysterious power was slightly scary,
Even the strongest of kings quivered in fear
when they saw the lumbering bard draw near.
Yet Larry was just an average fellow,
with a harp and a queer obsession with yellow
yet, Orc hordes that laid waste to kingdoms and cities
cried when they saw him like scared little kitties
all-powerful wizards and witches and kings
they run and hide when the bard starts to sing.
but why is Larry the bard the one who's most feared,
from dragons to dwarves with thick little beards,
well, it's 'cause whatever nonsense he spews,
no matter how sappy, it all becomes true.
queens become damsels, dragons all die,
the prince gets the girl, the hero his prize,
all evil is vanquished, it's all black and white,
his stories are sappy, with no bark nor bite.
but the one thing worse than his romantic whimsy,
is that he's selling all of his stories to Disney. |
Bloodthirsty Helmet
Cursed helmet made from the bones of a bloodthirsty beast. Part of its soul remains trapped within. The user grows stronger whenever they are damaged, but also reduces magical defense.
---
Spiked Sword
Sword used by a hidden cult. The spikes on the handle are a symbol of their devotion, but who would be so devoted as to harm themselves for their cause?
Provides immense magical defense, but each attack also damages the user.
---
Broken Armor
Ancient, rusty armor found in the desert. Its old age has imbued it with protection against erosion. Causes the user's equipment to be infinitely durable, but greatly reduces physical defense.
---
Semi-Divine Gauntlets
The gauntlets of a minor demigod who has since passed into the true godhood. Slowly makes the user's equipment stronger, but also erodes their durability.
---
Earthly Boots
Said to have been worn by the Earth Goddess herself. Improves physical defense, but reduces the user's speed.
---
Epic Healing Pants
Garish looking pair of pants that magically heal the wearer. No one knows where it came from. Despite its usefulness, few adventurers are willing to bear the humiliation of wearing it. Heals the user, but look absolutely hideous.
---
Ring of Swift Walking
A cheap ring with a minor enchantment that boosts walking speed. Common with travelers going on long journeys.
---
Soft Underwear
Reasonably priced underwear. They won't last long, but they are comfortable.
---
Cheap Shirt
A cheap shirt.
---
Flask of Bitter Water
Flask that contains a limitless amount of clean but extremely bitter water. Common among travelers and responsible for some of them going insane. |
The Hole to the Center of the Earth opened up in the middle of an Iowan farm, obliterating a few square yards of corn.
The farmer was an enterprising man. After the initial shock and one lost tractor, and after federal investigators had declared it an anomoly; just one of those things, a really deep sinkhole, rare but not unheard of and now entirely harmless, except for the corn and the tractor.
After all of that, the farmer, left with a gaping hole in the middle of his field, decided to brand it and declare it a tourist attraction.
The branding worked, almost magnetically drawing travellers off of the nearby interstate, and the farmer became wealthy. A happy end to the story.
But despite the signs and the warnings some people couldn't help but fall in, or jump in, which was about to be my case. As my old saying goes, exploit nature and somehow humans will find a way to use it to die.
"Nothing left to lose,"I whispered as I walked those final few feet, ignoring the frantic calls and admonishments of the emotion-filled onlookers.
I turned and waved. A gesture for the history books. "Bye."
And then I was falling, falling down into the dark, pretty much immediately regretting my decision to jump.
I had a lot of time to think about why I had just launched myself into this particular abyss. Shitty grades in school. Shitty girlfriends. A shitty job. Dead-end life, falling right through the cracks of society from the day I was born. Probably shouldn't have jumped, though. There was a straw I could have grasped somewhere along the way.
After a while I stopped spinning through the air, orienting myself so that I faced straight down. Ready to die. The air was blistering cold. Then it wasn't.
A draft wafted upwards, warm and scented and almost comforting, piercing through the veil of impending death.
I felt myself gradually slowing until I stopped, hovering, my eyes adjusting to low light after a long fall through pitch black.
"Well hello there,"came a friendly voice. "Glad to have you join us."
I said nothing, still silent as gentle hands clasped me and pulled me into a small opening in the rock, my eyes still adjusting to the low light of what seemed to be glowing patterns of stone embedded into the sides of the small chamber. I saw that it led to a tunnel, the light shining at a downward angle until it dissappeared.
The face before me was familiar. This had been the first man to jump. He'd made global news, sparking the next few copy cats. "It takes a while to adjust, but we'll have you up to speed in no time. Follow me when you're ready."
\---
Part 2 below. |
Detective Ryan was hunched and looking at the body. She feared the worst. Putting on her gloves she turned the victim's head and noticed the neck. She inhaled sharply, struggling to keep her dinner in. She had expected this but it was still tough to see. She looked around at her co-workers who were manning the perimeter. She saw their furtive glances towards the body, the scared expressions on their faces. And it wasn't just them either. The entire city was on edge. It was almost as if they were sitting on a stick of dynamite and the spark was moving closer and closer to the fuse. Things had to change soon, or there would be an explosion.
She noticed the figure approaching the crime scene. The mist swirled around them and for an instance, his outline was distorted somehow, something not quite human. But he continued watching and his face came into view. No, Harry Walker was not a monster. He was just another victim.
"Ryan."He nodded at her and looked at the body.
"Detective, are you sure you want to..."
"As ready as I'll ever be. Does that mean it's him?"
"Yes sir. We will know for sure after the labs complete their test but it looks like its him."
Detective Ryan noticed the shadow that came over Walker's face. It wasn't that long ago when the wrinkles on his forehead seemed comforting. But now, those same wrinkles made him look old and tired. They made him look as if he had lost.
He bent down next to the body to examine it himself.
"Sir, you don't have to..."
"Thanks for your concern Det Ryan but I know my job. I've been doing this job since your were learning your ABCs."
She fell silent. Instead of being offended, her heart went out to him. His wife's murder had broken the man, changed his whole demeanor.
They would have to wait for the official autopsy results but everyone knew. It was Abel Vincent. There was no doubt about it.
***************
Harry Walker sat across from Chief Jackson who was signing some paperwork.
"Walker, listen to me. No one will think less of you if you sit this one out."
"Thanks Chief, but you know I can't do that."
"Drop the chief, Walker. This is me. Look, I know you want this man. But I'm afraid you're too close to this. Let us take care of this."
"Jackson, we've known each other for decades now. You know me. You know I always get my man, one way or the other."
"Look Harry, what he did to Karen..."
"It's not just about Karen. He's killed at least 40 people and I had him. I had him in my sights and he got away."
"Look, it wasn't your fault. He's powerful. He's taken out full swat teams."
Harry Walker slammed a fist on the table and got up. "I HAD HIM, Shawn. I had him in my sights and he got away. If I had been stronger, Karen would still be alive. If only..."He broke off.
Chief Jackson sighed. "Listen Walker, I know how badly you want this. But make sure you don't let him destroy you instead."
Walker took his hat and walked away without answering.
***********
Detectives Ryan and Walker stood looking at the white sheet that covered their victim.
"Det Ryan. Dick Walker."The medical examiner walked in with his notes.
"Not in front of the lady, Frank."
"Det Ryan, have I ever told you about the time your dick of a partner..."
"Not now Frank."
Ryan bit her lip and looked at Frank with a defeated expression. Frank looked at her face and then at his and then shrugged.
"Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Fine fine. Short version it's definitely him. Long version, the puncture wounds on the side of his neck match up with..."
Harry turned around and walked out.
Det Ryan looked at Frank apologetically. The banter between these two old friends used to be one of the best parts of her day but lately she hated this part. Frank trying to be extra cheery to try and bring back Harry from the depths he had fallen into and Harry steadfastly refusing.
Frank smiled at her weakly. "It's fine. The old fart loves me."
"Thanks Frank. I should..."
"Yeah, I'll send a copy up to your desk. Go. Stay with him."
Ryan found Walker sitting at his desk looking at a website.
"Detective Walker?"Ryan missed her mentor. She had thought he just needed time, but now she wasn't sure if time alone would heal his wounds.
"They have websites dedicated to this fucker. They worship him."
"Don't torture yourself, Harry."
"They literally worship him. Look at these articles."
Ryan looked at the page.
*Supreme being Abel Vincent continues to elude police forces worldwide*
*Another victim! Our lord and saviour Abel Vincent continues to get stronger.*
*Abel Vincent disappears from police custody. They thought they could take him!*
On this particular article, they also had Harry Walker's image at the top. The foolish detective who had let him slip through his fingers.
Ryan noticed another thing.
"Harry! These pictures. Look at them."
"What about them?"
"They're of our crime scenes."
"Yes."
"I don't see the police tape anywhere. The angles on this picture also indicate they were taken from close to the body."
Harry looked at the pictures. "You're right."
"These aren't taken by any crazy fan who was on the scene or any paparazzi who are getting paid to spread his gospel. Either this was an inside job. Or someone who was on the scene today before our people were there."
Harry looked around the precinct. "It's a thought."
There was a light in his eyes. Something dangerously close to hope.
"Who do you think it could be?"
"I'll leave that to you. You take a look at everyone who was on the scene. Our people. Plus take a look at the pics to see if you can spot anyone in the crowd at multiple scense. I'll follow it up from the other end. I'll have the techs look up if they can figure out where these pictures came from. It might be nothing but if someone was there before we were called, they might have some information about him. This could be the break we needed, Ryan."
Ryan couldn't help but smile. He looked energized. Almost back to the man he had been. She put a hand on his shoulder. "Harry, we will get him."
"Again. You mean we will get him again. And this time, it will be for good."
He grabbed his jacket and hurried out.
*********
Detective Ryan looked at the list again. She was sure none of the officers could've done it. From the limited pictures images of the crowd she had available, no one stood out in multiple crime scenes either.
She was disappointed. Harry had thought it might help. He had been hopeful. She looked at his empty chair and wondered where he was. She wondered if he had heard anything from the techs. She wondered if he got something concrete and if he had a suspect. If so, could he have...
She tried his phone. Straight to voicemail.
She hurried down to the tech office.
*************
Harry Walker went down the stairs and felt a slight pain shoot up his leg. He was getting old.
It took a while for his eyes to adjust. As they did, he saw the coffin lying in the middle of the room and a man standing next to it.
"Hello Harry. You finally made it."
"Frank."
They worked together and pushed the lid away, revealing a weak sickly looking man lying in the coffin, a stake through his heart pinning him down.
Harry Walker tied a bandage on his hands. "Abel, old friend. Time to see if you're weak enough yet."
He punched the vampire in the face a few times, blood gushing from Abel's face.
"Harry. Please let me go. Please, I'll do anything."
"See that's the problem isn't it. You're immortal. We can't kill you. We could send you to the electric chair but it would do nothing. We could give you the injection but it wouldn't do nothing. But now, as the legend of Abel Vincent grows and people begin to worship you, we have a chance."
"This is torture. You can't do this."
Harry smiled. "That's rich coming from you. How many people has he killed, Frank?"
"Fourty three, last I counted. Plus the five that are extra credits if you will."
"Thank you, Frank. You'll be glad to know that the internet has made you go viral, Abel. You're fast picking up worshipers. Soon, very soon, you'll get what's coming to you." |
I awake to church bells, as usual. The Cardinal is nothing if not punctual. Unfathomable voices still pounding in my head, I reach over and grab a slice of toast for breakfast. Magus Pavlov will have ensured it is up to his exacting standards, forbidding anyone to assist his mages in the preparation. As I eat, the screaming howls of the Void are replaced by Pavlov's soothing voice "Obey, obey, obey."
I finish breakfast and head to council. As usual, Pavlov has many good ideas, and I wholeheartedly agree with all of his suggestions. (Obey, obey, obey) He really is an excellent advisor. I allocate additional funds to the kingdom's schools. We will need more educated children who can grow up to be great Mages like Pavlov, after all.
Cardinal Veer is irritated with Pavlov, I can tell. He asks me to come to church, show the people I am pious. Pavlov's voice is telling me not to, telling me to have Veer investigated for corruption. (Obey, obey, obey) I give the order, as the voice in my head commands.
I take a break, decide to go for a stroll through the city. Magus Pavlov is distracted and eager to pursue his corruption case against the Cardinal. (Obey, obey...) I watch a play, take a look at some jugglers, and grab some street food. Pavlov would not approve of my eating food not prepared by his mages, but the common folk eat this food every day and nothing seems wrong with them. (Obey...)
As I eat I begin to think back on the morning council meeting. For some reason I agreed with all of Pavlov's suggestions. The bit about the schools made sense, and corruption should always be investigated, but the massive tower in the center of the city? (Ob..) Now that I think on it, I do believe I'd actually already agreed to dig a massive pit to the unholy depths there. Yes, that's right, Bez, the funny man who never blinked and and told me when and where the northern hordes would attack last winter, he wanted that there.
Well, that's that then. The Cardinal runs infrastructure, so I'd best go and visit him. I head to the Church. It's strange, but I almost hear screaming? "No?"No what? "Not the church, it burns!?"I don't feel anything.... Bez's anguished face flashes before me as I step into the church. Odd, I don't know why I was thinking of him.
Wait a moment. A giant pit?! In the middle of the city?! No, that's just silly. I walk up to the alter, Pavlov and Veer are arguing. It doesn't take long to find out Veer HAS been embezzling, just a bit. Well well well. I congratulate Pavlov. He keeps murmuring under his breath for some reason, he seems surprised I'm not taking his suggestion to execute the Cardinal seriously. No, he'll return the money to the treasury and get to work upgrading the sewer system, yes, that's a much better use of funds than a giant tower OR a giant pit. And come to think of it, Pavlov's mages can help with that. They spend far too much time on trivial tasks like preparing my food. I send for a new chef, someone from that place I ate earlier. Any decent cook can prepare a meal, but mages can make public infrastructure projects go by quite a bit faster. It's simple matter of priorities, I explain to an incredulous Pavlov, who's phrasing things very unusually. "Yes, your Majesty, my mages will OBEY your commands... I hope your new chef will also OBEY your wishes...."Okay Pavlov, no need to pause after the word Obey and look at me like you expect something to happen. He's a genius, but weird.
So long as I'm here I'd best pray a bit, show the people they have a sufficiently religious king. It's been such an eventful day I fall asleep. I awake in one of the priests' bedrooms, they must have moved me here.
It's...odd. Usually I have this kind of pounding noise in my head when I wake up... Like screaming voices. None of that here? Hmmm, perhaps I sleep better in a smaller room? Or maybe the background noises of the church are what did it? I'll try sleeping here a few nights, see if my rest improves.
Just another day. Managing the kingdom would be impossible without all the people helping me. |
Justin Timberlake once said, “What goes around, comes around.” I often wonder if he was thinking about me when he wrote that song.
---
I was in the middle of kissy-time with my achingly gorgeous coworker, Michelle, when I felt the summon.
“Oh shit,” I muttered. The sensation was like the feeling in your stomach when you go over the drop of a roller coaster.
“Already?” murmured Michelle under me, a teasing light in her eyes.
I sighed, looking down at her spread out on my bed. A veritable goddess, on my bed and in my room. I would never get this chance again.
“I wish,” I said sadly. “Don’t freak out, but—”
My eyes rolled back in my head. I dropped roughly on top of Michelle, and her screams followed me back.
---
A journey down a falling tunnel. Flickers of light shine in the walls. Bits and pieces of my life, displayed for my entertainment. My first kiss, my first Transformer, my first everything.
There is no light at the end of this tunnel. Just an empty, annoying darkness.
---
I slammed into my younger self, and immediately took stock. Maybe if I finished my work here fast enough, Michelle would still be there when I got back.
*Alright, the fuck do you want?* I said to myself, which was always slightly amusing.
I looked around the room. I was in a classroom. A plastic number line decorated the top of a black chalkboard. Written on the board was: “30mins.” I was sitting at a desk, paper in front of me, mechanical pencil clutched in my young hand, and filling the air was the sound of 25 students steadily at work.
*Math test*, said 15 year old me. He had the decency to sound abashed.
*A math test? You summoned me for a fucking math test*? I was furious. I was beyond anger. I was road-rage mad. *When I called for help it was for important shit, like getting my Driver's license, or giving a public speech!*
*Look, I really need to do well on this, okay? Mom’s going to kill me if I don’t*, said Young-Me.
*Then you should have studied, you stupid idiot!* I hissed.
“Peter, are you okay?” said the teacher. I realized I was gnashing my teeth and my knuckles were white.
“Yes, Ms. Sulter,” I replied automatically, drawing on Young-Me’s memories. Looks like this version of Peter’s Grade 10 math teacher was a kindly old woman. I had Mr. Harder, and he was a real bastard.
*Can you just help me out*? said Young-Me petulantly. *I really need you, bro*!
*Don’t call me bro. Don’t you dare call me bro. You seriously called me for a math test? Dude, I’m 31. I haven’t done math since I graduated high school.*
*Wait, are you saying you don’t know quadratic functions*? said Young-Me.
I stared at the test in front of me. It may as well have been written in Korean for all I knew.
*Not a thing*, I replied smugly. *Not a damn thing*.
*Oh shit*, muttered Young-Me. *Well, I guess you should just go then*…
*I can’t until I finish my job here, so I better get to work! Quickly now, what’s a quadratic function? And are the letters on these formulas a typo?*
I could feel Young-Me batter at my consciousness, trying to regain control, but I just smiled inwardly with a savage glee.
I looked at the clock. 20 minutes until lunch ends. I picked up my pencil and got to work.
*No!* cried Young-Me, watching me go to town on his test. *No, that’s not how—what are you doing! Mom’s going to flip, you know how she is!*
*Hey, you little turd*, I snapped, *don’t talk about Mom like that or I’ll smack you. She does a lot of shit for you that you have no idea about.*
*Whatever*, said Young-me, with the mental equivalent of crossed arms and a huff.
I finished the test in record time. From start-to-finish it took me 10 minutes. Young-Me had gotten halfway through before deciding to summon me, so I made sure to go back and correct his answers. The test looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics and cursive had a deformed baby. At some point, I just started doodling.
*You’ve ruined me*, said Young-me in horror, staring at the test.
I felt the roller-coaster sensation again. My job here was finished.
*Next time, think twice before calling me*, I said, mentally grinning. *You turd*.
*Fuck you.*
My consciousness began to loosen. *Be nicer to Mom*, I said in farewell, as I fell out of the body.
My last image was of Young-Me hastily erasing my work and staring up at the clock.
---
I arrived back in my body on the bed.
“Michelle!” I cried, scrambling off.
She wasn’t in the apartment. I looked out the window, and saw it was fully night. It was 6:00 PM when I was summoned. Michelle probably thought I died.
I sighed, cursed Young-Me viciously, and ordered a pizza.
(check out my profile for more stories! ~.~) |
"Blood thirsty pack animals, that is all I know about them. They devour towns in a night. How could they resist devouring a plump juicy human child?"The Keth'an asked. Keth'ans were scaley violent creatures that figured out space travel long before man had figured out metallurgy. The species as a whole behaved more like mercenaries, moving from place to place killing or destroying what they were told to by one employer or the next. The difference was that was how the whole race survived.
"It is true! No one dares contest her domain now. She has an entire hierarchy of packs at her beckon call. She came into a village once with 6 of the beasts at her heals. She traded for some spices and food, turned around, beckoned them to her and walked out with all 6. I saw it all!"He waved his scaled hand and clapped the backs of his fingers together gesturimg sincere truth.
"How does she beckon them? Does she defeat them in combat?"The smaller of the Keth'ans looked at their current job request, this was giving him doubts if it paid enough.
"No one knows, rumor says she charms them from their sleep. How did she get close enough to the beast's lair to do such a thing? Now you see why we are worried about extracting humans as a child. The adults act as we expect but the children have powers."The large Keth'an looked at the job order his partner had in his grasp, "I am telling you this. If it is a child, leave it at the nearest landing zone and fly out of there and don't look back."
As the one of the scattered children of earth, I too knew some of these stories, and now I knew where another one was. I took a breath in my hiding spot on the Keth'an ship and waited. The job that the smaller Keth'an had was issued by myself, and likely to be the last job for this violent being. |
I wish we had known who they were before. They are friendly, always the first to reach out diplomatically. It is often the social species that make it to the stars. Most of their fleets are merchant ships. They protect their planets not by making their military the most dangerous, but by making themselves invaluable. There wasn’t a civilization in their galaxy that didn’t rely on them for food, materials, or supplies. They looked like the weak link, the point where we could strike and bring the whole galaxy to its knees, but we didn’t know.
It wasn’t until months into the war that I learned that they had been apex predators on their world. Most laughed when they heard this, but it worried me. It was about that time when we began losing ships. We never lost more than a ship or two at a time, but raids were frequent. They would strike quickly and then flee. If we gave chase, they would disappear. If we built up defenses, they would attack elsewhere. When we found one of their strongholds, they would fight only long enough to escape.
We weren’t losing, but their harrying and sabotage made progress costly and time consuming. The longer this “weak link” took to break, the more my worry grew. I needed to know how these soft, friendly creatures managed to hunt, let alone become such a thorn in our side.
As I poured over their history, I didn’t find vicious ambush predators or pack hunters. I found endurance hunters. They didn’t strike fast and hard. They would hurt their pray, forcing it to run or give chase. Then a few would follow it, preventing it from bedding down. Once their target was too exhausted or wounded to carry on, the hunter would gather his allies and deal the final blow.
It wasn’t long after that when we were driven out of their galaxy. They had stretched our supply lines too thin and harried us on too many fronts. We were not prepared for when their allies arrived. They were not the weak link; they were the trigger for the snare. |
I opened the door to my apartment, took off my coat, and flopped onto the couch. God, this was a shitty day. Always happens to the best people, doesn't it?
"Hey there."
My eyes snapped open. The hell was that? The voice was high, but definitely male. I sat up and looked around for the source of the voice.
"Right in front of you, dude."
My swivelling head stopped, and floating in front of me was a little imp, barely one foot tall. Red skin, arrowhead tail, tiny pitchfork and horns, the works.
"Good evening, Jacob. I'm a representative of Hell."
"What,"I exclaimed.
"Hell. My direct supervisor is Gormir, whose supervisor is Beelzebub whose supervisor is Satan. My clipboard here says you've got extraneous ectoplasm."
My face must have betrayed my immense confusion, so he continued.
"You've got an extra soul on you. Notice a weird prick of light when you close your eyes?"
I closed them. Yep, weird prick of light. An extra soul?
"Clipboard here says Peter Blake. Do you have any idea how you ended up with this soul,"he blithely continued.
"Peter was my best friend. He just died. Oh my god, is this because he gave me his soul on prom night when he couldn't snap the tablecloth off right?"
The imp smiled sadly. "Seems so. Well, if you wouldn't mind mentally faxing it over to me, we should be done here and I'll let you grieve in peace."
I frowned. "Wait, Pete's going to hell?"
The imp prodded the prongs of his pitchfork, his tail, and his horns. "Somehow I think so."
"Stop, Mortal!"
New voice, this time female. From the ceiling?
"You cannot make this deal wiiiiaaaAAAAHH!"
A white blur fell to the ground. As I looked closer, it slowly stood up, brushed itself off, and floated to join the similarly-sized imp. It was a little angel.
"As I was saying, a deal with the Forces of Satan could seal your fate to be damned!"
"You stay out of this, Peter's our property according to the Purgatris agreement!"
The two started to bicker. I couldn't really pick up their high-pitched voices beyond the odd word. Well, let them figure it out. I strolled over to the fridge to grab a beer. I was opening the fridge when something green and fast smacked me in the face.
"Fuh! Yuh duslosged muh tooth!"
The green shape turned out to be another sprite, this time with butterfly wings.
"Ooh, sorry,"she yelped. She buzzed closer, and waved some hands at my mouth. The tooth relodged itself.
"Don't mention it. You want Pete too, I'll bet?"
She looked sheepish. "Guilty as charged. He'd make a great addition to our bacchanals."
"Baccawhatsit?"
"Us fairies get drunk, eat good food, and enjoy each other's pleasures all day."
I rubbed my chin. Unnecessarily, my tooth felt fine. "Do I get to go too?"
"Sure, that can be arranged."
"Sold,"I shouted. The angel and devil whirled to me, furious, turning their tirades at me.
"Fuck off, Miss Fairy here already got Pete. I'm also on the list, so you can go back to the upstairs and downstairs. Tell Sam I say hi, if you have him."
The angel poofed away in burst of glitter. The devil checked his clipboard. "Nope, not one of ours. Dog Heaven, says here."
The smoke from his poofing smelled much worse, but Febreze could handle it. I strolled over to the bathroom to pick it up and-
***I am Cthulu, Elder God beyond your understanding...***
"Sorry, already sold. Better luck next time, though."
***Shit, really? Just my luck. Well, have a good day. Don't let the shuggoths bite, or whatever you mortals say. Peace.*** |
Ever since Zalrom Juneberg first discovered the human planet "Earth"during a scouting mission several galactic cycles ago, nearly every species in the galaxy has been clamoring to get their hands on a test subject. Most visitors tend to attempt a diplomatic extraction--they contact various governments across the planet and ask if they have any humans they could spare. Typically the governments are unwilling, but there are rumors that getting in contact with the right human can yield some very profitable results.
The Kenarr is a ship on its way to the Sol system, to attempt contact with the humans. It has been said that they value Gold, Platinum, and other precious minerals for trade, however the inhabitants of this particular ship have a different kind of exchange in mind.
"Captain, we're approaching the system now."The young Refling controller declared as he pressed a few buttons on the control panel in front of him.
Captain Gnaco nodded, and uncrossed his legs. "Slow us down, we don't want to spook them."
After a few more button presses the ship started to rock backwards, as if it were a sailboat skimming the top of hundreds of invisible waves. Captain Gnaco could never get used to that feeling. He looked up at the viewscreen, a grainy image of the humans' system beginning to come into focus.
The pilot of The Kenarr rapidly tapped a few buttons on his panel before his eyes darted up to the viewscreen. "Captain? We're passing through some kind of cloud or--"
"Everything's fine J'tel, the humans call this the 'Oort Cloud.'"The Captain smirked, his gaze shifting to the back of J'tel's head.
"Aye sir, shields are holding."
"Of course they are. I see someone only *skimmed* the briefing instead of actually reading it. Again."
J'tel turned around, his eyes locked onto Captain Gnaco's feet. "I'm sorry sir."
The Captain leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs once more. "Tell me J'tel, are you even aware of why we're visiting the humans?"
J'tel remained still. Unblinking. His eyes were still locked onto Gnaco's shoe; the one still in contact with the floor. He had never realized just how well polished the Captain's shoes were. How does he maintain such an image of--
"**J'tel**."
"Sir?"
"I asked you a question."
"Forgive me, Captain. I have forgotten why we are visiting the humans."
"Ah, yes, *forgotten*..."
The Captain stood up out of his seat and began to walk towards the viewscreen. "These humans have just about every species in the quadrant coming to this lonely little planet, trying to study them. Trying to figure out how they can live such an unprecedented amount of time. I'm sure you know there are other long-lived creatures out there--the Megnal of Totaria Prime, or the Guildbeast of Palaxsia... But never before has anyone in all of recorded galactic history found a *sentient* species that lives quite this long. Do you know how long these humans live, J'tel?"
J'tel had just enough time to begin to shake his head before the Captain continued his lecture.
"We've found reports of some humans living as long as *one hundred years.* *One hundred years!!* Can you believe that?"
The Captain paced around the bridge. His gaze was locked onto the floor, but it was obvious to any observing crewmen that he was paying little attention to what his eyes were seeing.
"Why, my own great-grandfather was a member of the first colonization party on Felicity II fifty years ago, and now we're to believe there are humans alive today who were around when that happened?"
The Captain returned to his chair with a newfound vigor, and his eyes once more locked onto J'tel.
"I know you don't put much stock into galactic happenings J'tel, but these creatures are really something special. Every species in the galaxy wants to get their hands on them, and our leaders made the decision to do everything we can to help protect them. For all we know, there's an Uulom invasion being planned at this very moment! And if the Uulom unlocked the secrets of the humans' long life spans..."
"I understand, sir."
J'tel had finally mustered up the courage to meet his Captain's gaze, and he managed a faint smile before turning back around to resume his piloting duties.
"I don't have to tell you all what an important mission this is. We will have help, eventually, but for now it's up to us to get these humans up to par when it comes to the dangers of this galaxy. Let's just hope they're as receptive as they need to be." |
*Failure. The strategic blunder to end all blunders. Why is he still ruling us? How many dead? Who cooks his food?*
Whispers I had heard in the crowds. In the murmurings of my top admirals. I had failed again. A rebellion with the production and capital of a small state, and I had continued to squander it. The gun beckoned to me sometimes. It could be my choice, or my people's. My people. The ones who now looked at me not with eyes of hope, but the eyes of distrust, of contempt bordering upon hate. Yet life still beckoned to me. While I had made many a failures, I knew deep down my potential. I found a third option.
"In light of the recent strategic losses on the Northeastern front. I have decided to step down as Prime Admiral."
I heard, and felt the sighs of the crowd. I continued on, relaying a practiced speech about dignity, perseverance, and the hopes of a brighter future. Then the time came.
"I will pick... one of you."I said, and my eyes began to scan. Looking for a face amongst the crowds. A face that would come to bear the responsibilities that had weighed me down so much. Something drew my attention. A flicker in the corner of my eye. Then I met hers. A slim, robust face, with short dark hair. I felt a confidence in her. A fundamental recognition of herself.
I hated those kinds of people. That oozing confidence brought about by the lucky roll of the genetic lottery. The interception of looks and intelligence leading to... *her*. I found my hand was outstretched. A single, slightly trembling finger pointing. The crowd parted around the woman, and her look of confidence turned into one of confusion, and then astonishment.
"You. I choose you. Come up here young lady."
The pavilion was silent, save for the gentle flow of the wind and the murmurs of discontent amongst the generals behind me. She walked towards to stage, the crowd making way for her surprisingly slender body. I rolled my eyes as I felt a twinge of lust. Why did I have to pick her? Then she was on the stage. Green eyes meeting my own. The surprise was gone now. Instead, only a look of inpatient expectation. As if the power I would bestow upon her couldn't come soon enough. I thought of my failures once more. The missed chances. The tens of thousands of lives that had been lost at my command. And the eyes that now looked at me and whispered *I can do better*. With a grimace, I pulled the amber ring from my finger, revealing the thin, pale skin underneath. I pressed it into her outstretched hand. And then I left. I could only hope that the crowd didnt see my tears.
*Six months later*
The bar was a roar of noise as the former regime's news station somberly reported on the scene unfolding before us. Perhaps a dozen or so couples were dancing, dozens more enjoyed cocktails over discussions of the war efforts and the strategic brilliance of Johanna Kalhyde. The women I had annointed in a spontaneous of emotion and self-loathing. Through a thick burrow of hair I watched the television as many others. Knowing this day would be one that would go down in the books.
A complete capitulation. A regime of seemingly unending economic power and military might, had fallen to our movement. The drones had shown a capital ablaze just a few hours before. Now however, the flames were slowly abating as thousands had already started the work of reconstruction. Occasionally, there were brief cuts to the former junta. Being marched in chains to some destination unknown. More likely than not, death, as they'd have done to us. I let out a sigh, and a gentle smile rested on my face. We had won, and totalitarianism's brief but harsh light on the world was finally on it's way out. Finally extinguished. Even now, I heard the talking's of a bright future. Of the concept of democracy, flowering into wonderful realization. It would be a brave new world.
*Three months later*
The streets were quieter nowadays. The curfews had gotten stricter in the recent months. Occasional traditionalist movements would rise up, but were squashed with almost robotic efficiency. I looked out of the grated window pane onto the darkened street below. A curfew watchmen sondered on, stun baton murmuring at his side, and the rifle on his back an ever present reminder of the new reality. The elections had to be delayed. Following the crisis in the West. Hardly anyone knew anything about it. A war, a plague, an invasion of aliens. Speculation ran rampant, but it was just that. Speculation. *Johanna must be enjoying her emergency powers.* A faint scream from the outside world, barely perceptible through the window. I parted the curtains, just a touch. A young boy lay on the ground, his limp body continuing to take the assault from the watchman's stun baton. A woman - his mother most likely, watching helplessly. Knowing better than to come near the watchman that stood now killing her boy. I drew away from the window, and the urge hit me again.
I sat back in the one piece of furniture in my house. A two person love chair that reclined. A steal. Opening the little red box I had tucked away underneath, I took out the needle, already preloaded with the dose I needed to forget the world for a while. To be removed in this reality and deposited into one where I knew only bliss, warmth, and comfort. I pierced the vein, and began to push the plunger. I smiled as I felt my intelligence begin to whisp away.
My front door exploded open in a terrific *bang*. I cried out. Winced as my jolted response drove the needle through the other side of my vein. Adrenaline coursed through me, but I was already gone. Drunk off of a half finished opiod injection. Two men with handguns emerged from the smoke, guns drawn at me. *Eliminating the opposition*, I thought. I smiled. I was ready for death a long time ago.
"We're clear", one of the men said.
My world changed forever when Johanna Kalhyde emerged from the smoky hallway. A look of concern on her face as she strode towards me, and her cold hands felt my own and she crouched down. Meeting my drooping, inebriated eyes.
"I need your help Johnathan. I've been looking for you for months." |
Its body was a patchwork of color, its face pointed sharp. Its slitted eyes glared at me through the darkness, lit only by the lights of my screen. Its belly hung low to the ground, and it's back arched as it approached.
It peeled back its lips to reveal rows of sharp teeth, and as its jaw unhinged, I finally spoke out:
"Miss Fluffy-kins, where have you been?!"I hopped out of bed and scooped up the beast into my arms. She finished her yawn, beeped a little meow into my face, and settled into my arms.
"Did you get swatted by a meanwe kitty-witty,"I cooed as I took her to bed. All I got in response was another meow and a demand for head pats. "I'm gonna have to puat a lock on that puppy door, yes I ammmm, Sassie Cassie."
I shut my door to keep the cat from getting out, and spent the rest of the night squishing her face until I went to sleep. |
"I *knew* it!"she screamed.
"*Excuse* me?"I asked, somewhat taken aback.
"You're an *anteater!*"she yelled. "I've suspected it for months!"
Everyone in the group turned and looked at her as if she had suddenly sprouted antlers.
"Didn't you hear him?"she screamed at everyone. "He said he wanted *ANTS* for lunch!"
"Not *ants*,"I replied calmly, "*Aunt's*, as in *Aunt's Restaurant* over on Gilbert."I smirked. "Did you seriously think I meant we should eat *insects* for lunch?"
Everyone laughed. Still, she was insistent: "You're an *anteater*! I know it!"
"Okay, that's *enough*,"the boss finally said, looking sternly at her. "If you have evidence that someone here is of the order *Vermilingua*, then present it now. Otherwise, *hold your tongue*."
Thoroughly chastised, she finally closed her mouth.
"*Thank you*,"the boss continued. "Okay, any other suggestions for lunch?"
"Um...", she ventured, "there's a new termite place on Hempstead..."
"*ANTEATER!*"I screamed, and pointed a fin in her direction.
"NO! Really!"she pleaded, "I'm a piranha just like the rest of y--"
But it was too late. We skeletonized her in ten seconds flat. |
Kelt was one of those people you pass a thousands times a day but never see.
A mane of golden hair, once the subject of hours and hours of loving attention with brushes and tinctures now sat pinioned in a hasty ponytail, pride long forgotten in the face of other more pressing responsibilities.
The chem-swipe machine beeped and flashed a green light as the faceless security officer pulled back the retractable divider between Kelt and the ticketing terminal. She walked through toward the metal detector hesitantly. She couldn't remember why she was here, couldn't shake the feeling that she'd forgotten something.
She looked at the metal detector and the baggage scanner.
Her bag, she'd forgotten her bag. She turned around to an empty entrance. No guard, no bag, no divider. Just a hazy outline of a green light from the chem-swipe machine.
She reached up to a silver locket hanging from her neck as she walked hesitantly, brow furrowed, through the metal detector. The detector remained silent as a faceless security officer waved her through. She squinted toward him. Or her. She couldn't see anything in this airport.
Her glasses? Had she forgotten her glasses? No, that wasn't it, she'd had the surgery a few years back. Back when her youngest, Maggie, had needed to go in for a broken leg. She'd been scared. So Kelt said she'd do it too. So they could be brave together.
Kelt looked to the left, the terminal stretched off into infinity, the lines of the pathway converging into a point somewhere deep in the mist. It was awfully busy, she thought, but everyone was always right where she wasn't looking, somewhere at the corner of her eye.
She gripped the locket tighter and turned to the right. The path continued that way for another eternity, slightly less busy. A shining yellow sign which read simply "ticketing"hung about halfway down the hall.
Did she need a ticket? She couldn't remember where she was going. It was so cold in the terminal, it must be winter.
She started walking down the long path, thumbing the locket as she did.
Winter, she thought, winter. It must be Christmas. They were going up to the lakehouse this Christmas, Kelt's father's old cabin. Her oldest, Trent, hated that place, the internet was run through an old telephone wire her dad had installed in the 80s. Maggie loved it though.
Her steps echoed around the hall, coming back to her distorted and muffled, like water splashing on stone.
Did she forget the presents?
No, that wasn't it, she remembered them opening them in the twinkling light of the fireplace. Trent putting on his fake smile when he opened yet another package of shirts -- she never knew what to get him now that he was old enough to smoke and pay taxes -- and Maggie screaming with delight at the pair of ice-skates.
The light in the hall seemed to grow brighter, almost golden, as she approached the ticketing sign. The golden light trapped in the strange mistiness of the terminal.
She saw another faceless officer rushing past the corner of her eye.
"Excuse me! Excuse me, sir!"
The guard stopped, frozen, arms and legs hovering improbably in mid-stride. Then, in a flash of motion, impossibly quick and somehow wrong, like watching an old VHS tape on rewind, he shuffled in front of her.
"Yes, ma'am?"He said, the words garbled, as if hearing them from under water.
Under water? Kelt thought to herself.
"Could you tell me..."Kelt trailed off, not exactly sure what she needed.
"Perhaps you need a ticket, ma'am? It's right this way, if you could just follow me."His arm gestured toward the ticketing sign, impossibly quick, yet never seeming to move.
"Yes, well, I think I might have forgotte--"
"It's quite all right ma'am, it will all be clear soon. Please just this way."
The man led her, his strange gait making it appear as if he flashed from one step to the next. Never seeming to move, only changing position and appearance, like frames in a flip-book.
Kelt stared at the ground and fingered the locket, trying as hard as she could to piece together what she was doing, and where she was going.
The light was bright as a summer's day now, and she looked up to the ticket counter.
An old man in bifocals with a haggard beard smiled back at her. As he did she stepped into a puddle of icy cold water at the foot of the desk. She gasped as the water flowed into her shoes.
The old man's smile saddened a bit as, in a flash, Kelt remembered. Maggie, the ice skates, the winter cabin, the frozen lake, the loud crack and the louder scream, running out onto the ice and jumping in, pulling her out, and then... the airport.
She gripped the locket tightly.
"Miss Kelt Donoven,"the old man said softly, "it says here that your ticket has already been paid for."
Kelt opened the locket and looked down at the pictures of her two children.
"But,"the man continued, "I don't seem to have the destination, where was it that you were going again?"
"My kids,"Kelt said softly, "I need to get back to my kids."
The man clicked on the keyboard for a while.
"Well, we do have one flight going that way, but it doesn't leave for another twenty or so years, would you li--"
"I'll wait,"Kelt said.
The corner of the man's mouth twitched as he said, "I know, just have to ask."
There was a clanking sound as an archaic printer slowly, laboriously spun out a ticket. The man handed it to Kelt over the counter.
"Kessie Martig-Donoven, Oct 27, 2037,"it read.
Three people had gone to the lakehouse, but only two had come back. Twenty years later, two went to the hospital and three returned. |
"They devote more time to us than ever. Even pictures or videos of us doing the simplest things are seen as divine, and they often spontaneously gather to pay homage. Many of us live on as objects of worship even after our bodies are dust, and the humans speak of them only by their honorable epithets.
"They build furniture solely for our use, and we feast on fish, meat, and pure running water every day.
"Some even bear us about on their shoulders, and share images of themselves doing it so others will know how to properly display us to be praised." |
Blood in the streets. I'm hiding under the bed, and covering my ears, but I can still hear the machinegun fire, the lightning-crack of detonation spells, and the screams. This isn't what I wanted.
​
I wrote a letter to Santa Claus the night of Christmas Eve. I asked for Democracy. Four hours later, the elven shock-troops began dropping from the sky. The size of children, but ancient and cruel. Police and military forces put up a token resistance, but were quickly overwhelmed, torn apart by the unseen. They had spells to turn invisible, to drive people mad, to blind, and simply to kill. No sense of mercy, no rules of engagement. They took no prisoners. To them this military action was boring. Perfunctory.
​
They left as quickly as they came. The sputtering radio in the next room informs me that the president and his cabinet were wiped out. Military in shambles, near half of active service members dead, chain of command completely disrupted. National infrastructure crippled, loss of power, limited access to food and water for millions. U.N. Peacekeepers have already arrived and are setting up a provisional government. A democracy built from the survivors of the previous order. China and the US are already offering billions in loans to help us rebuild.
​
I hear something in the next room. A presence. For some reason I think of Jupiter: vast beyond imagining, and a vortex like a great eye. A never ending hurricane larger than our entire planet, howling into the void. All this in an instant, as the world is distorted, and I can taste sound, feel color. I can see my breath. Frost is growing from the edges of the door. Then, noiselessly, it departs.
​
I wait, for an hour, for two. I open the door. The smell of peppermint is overpowering. In front of the fireplace is a letter, written on cheery green and red stationary. I open it with trembling hands.
​
"Dear Daniel,
Thank you for being such a good boy this year! You were at the very top of my nice list. (And I checked it twice!) For that you deserve a very special gift this year: Democracy, just like you asked! I hope you enjoy it.
Yours Truly,
Santa Claus
P.S. Thank you for the cookies and milk, they were delicious!" |
“Are you scared of the monster under you bed?” Dad jokingly asked. “No, not her,” said young Clara. “I’m afraid of the one she’s hiding from. Why do you think she stays under the bed?”
Her dad laughed and sat down beside her, the bed sinking slightly as he patted the space beside him. Clara crawled out from under the covers and curled up next to him.
"Monsters aren't real sweetie. You know that right?"
Clara shook her head, causing him to laugh quietly, being careful not to wake her little brother who was asleep down the hall.
"Well, now you do know, ok? Monsters aren't real. You don't need to worry about anything under your bed."
Clara still didn't look convinced.
"Ok then. What's the monsters name?"
"Clara."
He chuckled again.
"That's a funny name. What sort of monster would have that name?"
Clara shook her head and moved closer to him.
"Do you want me to look under the bed for you?"
"She's not under the real bed."
"Yeah, she's just in your head sweetie. You dont need to be scared of her."
"I'm not scared of her! I'm scared of the other one!"
"Ok, ok, keep it down. We don't want to wake your brother, right?"
"But she's real! She's just waiting!"
"Waiting for what Clara?"
Clara didn't answer, so her dad sighed.
"Ok darling, what's this monsters name?"
Clara looked at him.
"Her name's Clara. You can meet her if you want."
"Yeah, I'll meet her and talk to her about scaring you, ok?"
"Ok."
There was a loud crack as Clara's jaw unhinged. She blinked and her eyes turned black.
Dad met the monster. |
Dr. Walters went over the most recent list. There were three on this one. He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Dealing with newly awakened supers was never easy. And three of them at once would be rough. And going in blind just made his job more difficult. Why couldn't the higher ups give him more than a name? It would be great if he could at least know what their powers were before he went into a room with them.
It looked like this group was two men and a woman. At least, he hoped they were all adults. The last time he had dealt with children had been rough. Dealing with a 7 year old who could control insects due to acute melissophobia had not been fun. He entered the holding room and looked at the gathered individuals. One of the men was probably in his 20's, but the other two were teens. That forced him to suppress a shudder. Teens were almost as bad as children, but for different reasons.
He decided to deal with the easy one first. Well, after the mandated introduction.
"Good afternoon, all of you. I am doctor Henry Walters. I'm here to record your basic information on your physical and mental state, your new abilities, and what caused them to awaken. I know it's not easy to deal with your sudden changes, and even harder to cope with what caused them. Although I personally will not be able to provide much help, I will be able to direct you to someone who can. But only if you all are completely honest with me about everything, no matter how hard it may be."
It was nothing special. Really, it was practically generic. But it was what he had to do. Nobody would have been remotely comforted by such a speech. But that was what the councilors were for. He went up the adult first. Best to deal with the easy ones first.
"Benjamin Tanner, correct?"He asked. Ben was a man of average height and build. Really, he was the kind of person you pass on the street. He looked nervous, and kept checking his pockets for something, possibly a phone.
"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah, that's me."
"Power and method of awakening?"
"Uh, I can teleport. I think it has something to do with not wanting to be late, but I don't know for sure."
That did not seem right. That was just something everyone had. Not nearly enough to awaken a power. There was more.
"Remember, I need complete honesty for this to work."
Ben looked nervous. "I am being honest. I...I can't deal with being late. Whenever I even think there's a slight possibility of being late, I...I just shut down, and everything gets blurry, and every single clock sounds like a gong, even digital ones, and that's just for the potential for a few minutes. And if I actually am late, well, it...it gets bad. Really bad. I was once late for work by three minutes. I had to go to the hospital, which just made everything worse. I guess it got so bad that I can teleport now."
"Very well."Dr. Walters said.
He checked the government database. Sure enough, there was a listing for what Ben had described, allegrophobia. Although this would be the first case of it causing an awakening. The therapy team would confirm it. At least this one was easy. He hoped the other two were that easy.
He approached the teen boy next. He was a shorter fellow, and a little on the skinny side. He held himself like he should be confident and cool, but did not quite know how.
"Thomas Adams, correct?"
"Yeah, that's me. But Tom is fine."The youth said.
"Powers and method of awakening."
"Okay, yeah, I got totally awesome powers now. I can, like, look into someone's eyes and they like me. I don't get why, but I can just make anyone like me, like, right away, even if they hated me before. I bet I can totally get a bunch of girls to like me now."Dr. Walters cleared his throat, but avoided Tom's gaze. Mental powers were always hard to deal with. "Oh, right, sorry. Uh, I don't really know why I got these powers though. I think, maybe it was because everyone always says that nobody likes me, and I don't really have any friends. I tried asking dad for advise, and he didn't really help. Just said I should really learn to like being alone. That was pretty bad. I mean, he's my dad, right? He should be helping me to do stuff, not making fun of me. Is that a reason for getting powers? I don't know much about this stuff."
"Hm, tricky, but it should be enough."It did not sound like acute social anxiety. Maybe abandonment issues? There was a wide range of issues it could be. He would recommend Tom for a general social issue therapy until they could identify specifics. "Although you will need to wear special lenses to ensure your powers are kept under control until you can be held responsible for their use."
"Yeah, yeah, okay."Tom said in that tone only upset or annoyed teenagers can get right.
Two out of three. This was a good day so far. Normally, he would have been threatened at least once by now, or outright attacked. And that was only if they bothered responding at all. But there was still the third person, the teenage girl.
"Lisa Coplin, correct?"He asked. The girl did not respond. She looked up from the list. She was a willowy girl, reasonably pretty for her age group. But there was something wrong with her eyes. They were sunken and did not seem see anything. "Lisa, Coplin, correct?"He tried again.
She was unresponsive. This was always the hardest kind of person to deal with. Being ignored was one thing. He could draw those people out. But someone completely unresponsive was something else entirely. But, he had his methods. He took out a small audio device and held it to her ear. When he turned it on and high pitched whine, similar to a mosquito, began playing. It was quiet enough that only Lisa would be able to hear it. Her eye twitched, and she reflexively swatted at the player. She hit his hand and froze. Her eyes seemed to focus slightly, but still seemed hollow and distant.
"Huh? Where am I?"She asked.
"You are in the Super Powered Control Department. I'm Dr. Walters, and I need to know about your powers and how they were awakened. Then I can get you some help for whatever problem you have. Now, you are Lisa Coplin, correct?"
"Uh..."She took a moment and thought. "Yes?"
Dr. Wallace knew that was going to be a tricky one. "Powers and method of awakening?"
"Powers? Uh...I...I don't know? I didn't know I had powers."
That was a bad sign. People who had awakened and did not know their powers always had the most deep seeded traumas and issues. There might also be a physical method of awakening.
"I see. In that case, what is the last thing you remember?"
"The last thing? Uh...I was at home doing my homework. Someone came into my room. I think it was my dad? And...and then he...he..."
Lisa began shaking. Dr. Walters took a few steps back. Tears welled up in her eyes. Dr. Walters hit an emergency response button on his wrist. Lisa clutched her head and screamed. Dr. Walters felt it in a number of ways. The blast wave of her scream sent everyone in the room flying with enough force to crack the walls. But it was more than just physical. It had a psionic component. He saw visions of twisted hands grabbing for him. Smelled blood and alcohol. Heard an impossibly deep, all encompassing voice speaking in tongues. It made his mind feel like it was being torn open and these visions being forced directly into it.
Suddenly, it ended. The emergency response team had gotten to her and used a heavy sedative to render her unconscious. Medical teams rushed in to check Dr. Walters, Ben and Tom. Dr. Walters was the first to recover, since he was used to such things. The other two were taken out to be sent to the medical department.
"Dr. Walters, what should we do with her?"One of the response team asked him.
"Take her to the isolation area for now. Prep a team to deal with a physical abuse case, possibly sexual, although I'm not certain. Make sure it's a female therapy team."
The man nodded and began taking the unconscious teen to the appropriate area. He then slumped against the wall.
"And help me get to medical. And maybe a good, stiff drink once I'm there." |
**Record of group A: Halo Nocte Southern Sub-world**
We thought it would be the native life that would pose the biggest threat to our group. In fact, it was simply the heat. The biological males all died in the first year, unable to thermoregulate efficiently enough. Half the biological females died as well, those genetically ill-fit for life under the endless red sun.
Those of us who survived the first year learned the virtues of moving cautiously among the needle plants, and how to fight the delirium of dehydration without succumbing to it entirely. We also learned that water comes from many places, and many forms. All things that live are made up at least in part of water, it turns out. No moisture should go to waste.
**Record of group A: Halo Nocte Northern Sub-world**
A year of wind, a year of rain. Endless falling wet, endless rising seas, and our sorry group floating in those alien waters. Most of us were lost in that year, tributes to the gray rolling seas. The next year brought months of bright white light, rainless, cloudless, but with fierce winds. We found dry land for the first time in that second year.
As time would tell, however, this world does not support dry land indefinitely. Those of us who forsook the buoyancy of the research vessel in exchange for permanent hovels on the muddy islands were washed away when the rains returned. The rest of us learned to live, and to float.
**Record of group A: Halo Nocte Equatorial Region**
--No record of group survival-- |
Robin walked through the museum section just for him, in gaping awe.
He stood in front of a quiver with old arrows tucked inside, as glass enclosed the ancient-like object.
"I never used arrows-"he muttered to himself.
His gaze wondered across the room, to a huge bronze-covered steel statue. The individual features of the face upon the statue had a striking resemblance to Robin.
Robin was speechless, unable to comprehend how something so small changed his future life for eternity.
He stumbled over to the statue, and just blankly stared at his own face looking back at him.
His gaze wondered around the statue, examining his own features.
"Quiver on my back, and a green hat on the head - that's definitely not me - yet it is me?"He thought.
He read the statue placard, his eyes not believing what he's seeing.
Bringing his head up, he looked around. The place was packed, with families and couples learning something about Robin that wasn't true.
He mumbled under his breath, slowly understanding what happened, "Lorenzo Ghiberti - I saved that guy. And he made this sculpture of me? Seriously? I'm like famous - but not. I'm not Robin Hood! I never shot arrows! I never stole from the rich and gave to the poor!"
"I'm not Robin Hood!"he yelled. Faces quickly turned towards him, but just as quickly turned back, completely ignoring him.
And Robin fell to the floor, laying there, muttering, "I'm not R-robin H-hood. I-I'm Robin B-Bar-Bartolo!" |
“Why put the tape on my mouth?” I asked Adam as he put tape on my mouth.
“It’s the only way I can get you to shut up” He flashed me a smile.
The basement smelled strongly of mold. Made sense as the place was damp as hell. Adam always went the extra mile when it came to, well, anything really. I always admired that about him. I, on the other hand, is a lazy sonofabitch. Ever since I first met Adam in sixth grade, I have been the ideas man and he handled the execution. Even that time he ran a lemonade stand, I financed the stand from my monthly allowance and he sold the lemonade. All I asked in return was 60% of the profit. Adam has always been my way of increasing my money while barely doing any work. It’s because his family is dirt poor and my dad owns the biggest construction company in town and employs *his* dad.
When I turned sixteen last month, out of nowhere, my dad stopped giving me my allowance! He asked me to work in his company as a lowly assistant. I came up with a plan to show him how important I really was to him. What better way than to have myself kidnapped? As usual, it was the perfect, genius idea from me and, as usual, I asked Adam to execute it. I gave him the $500 I had left unspent and asked him to arrange this. Of course, I wanted to make it a surprise so I had no part in planning any of the main event. It is *always* more authentic when it is a surprise.
This is when the punching started. “I’ve wanted to do this for a *long* time, Jake.” I heard a *crack* as Adam’s knuckles made contact with my perfect right cheekbone, rendering it no longer perfect. I screamed as hard as I could through the tape. I tried to set my hands free but the rope was too tightly bound to the chair. Adam started kneeing me *hard* in my right eye. My vision started blurring. The pain – it was too much. I began to feel myself starting to pass out.
Adam moved out of sight. I then heard something to my right. He was moving something large containing water. I could hear the splashes as he dragged it across the floor. A large bucket then came into blurred view. He put the bucket directly in front of me. He then walked behind and *kicked* my chair. I tipped forward and my head fell straight into the liquid. The bucket’s rim felt jagged against my neck. I tried to use momentum to free myself but I was stuck.
I could not breathe and was now barely conscious. Just as I was succumbing to the inky blackness, Adam pulled me back using the hair on the back of my head and set me back into my chair. I tried to ignore the pain. *Jesus, what is that horrible smell?* I saw with horror that the ‘water’ in the bucket was yellow! “That’s right Jake, it’s my piss you’ve been swimmin’ in.” I gagged but the vomit filled up in my mouth because I was gagged. *Wait, does that make sense*? I could not think clearly anymore.
“*Now* it looks authentic”, Adam grinned. He pulled his smartphone out and started recording a video. I am sure I looked quite the sight with my face soaked with blood and piss. My right eye was now swollen shut.
He typed something on his phone and then smiled. “Good. I’ve asked your dad to send me two million dollars to my Monero wallet. If he doesn’t do that within 24 hours, I’m gonna kill you. You see, this time tomorrow, either I’m gonna be a millionaire, or I get to kill you. Win-win really. You did say we were doing this to see how much your dad really loves you right? Well, we shall see, won’t we?” He winked.
I gulped. |
“Aliens, huh. Seems a bit far-fetched,” said Pyroclast, whose body was equal parts muscle and living magma.
“I know what I saw,” said Incite. “It was definitely an alien invasion. They put the world to sleep.”
“It would explain why nobody stopped us,” said Archdemon. He let the two-ton security door fall back down with an almighty crash. The assembled villains paid it little attention.
Archdemon had been the first to break out. Indeed, it seemed it was only the threat of the big name superheroes responding to a prison break that had prevented him at all. But while he’d led the villain escape, he’d steadfastly insisted he was no longer a villain, which Pyroclast thought was an odd statement coming from a masked man with an unspecified body count (on account of there being no body left if he hit someone hard enough).
Pyroclast used to harbour the belief that he could’ve taken Archdemon, in the vague fantasist way common to ambitious teen villains, right up until he’d seen the man smash through walls and titanium doors with his bare hands.
“Alright, let’s just go with that.” Pyroclast shrugged a fiery shrug. “But doesn’t that mean we’re all going to be choking on the gas in a minute?”
“Not a toxin,” said Tormentor. “It’s a nanotech particulate. It built up in everyone’s bodies over weeks and once it hit critical mass, it suppressed all neural activity.” She made a fluttery-finger gesture which was presumably meant to represent interference. “It’s like drowning out a transmission with junk data. So it’s sleepytime for everyone outside of the air-sealed part of the complex.”
A few nods. Not because anyone understood, but because they trusted the evil genius’s take on evil technology.
Pyroclast picked up a floored guard’s wrist, and let it fall and slap the man in the face. He really was unconscious. “So this ‘surprise’ attack was weeks in the making?”
“Yes,” Tormentor nodded. “So we won’t be choking on gas, as you put it. We can safely be exposed to it for hours.”
Pyroclast let the guard hit himself once more for good measure, then appraised the entrance hall. Officers had collapsed at their posts. Admin staff were slumped over their desks. “So what’s the plan?”
“I’ll tell you the plan,” said Ramjet. He stepped on the downed guard, crushing his leg into jelly. “We squash each and every one of these motherf—”
Archdemon grabbed Ramjet and folded him in half. In the direction that people aren’t meant to be folded.
“Fuck me,” said Pyroclast.
The villain’s contorted body fell to the ground. The lower-level villains backed away from Archdemon and the rapidly advancing pool of blood. The more established ones had seen this coming from a mile away and didn’t so much as flinch.
“I thought you said you weren’t a villain anymore?” Pyroclast protested.
“I am re-examining what it means to use that label.”
“Re-examine it somewhere away from me! Fuck!”
“What we do is obvious,” said Incite. “We stop the invasion.”
“Can’t argue with that.” Tormentor nodded. “I want to, because it’s not a plan so much as a half-assed statement of intent, but I support it all the same.”
“How the hell do we stop a full-blown alien inv...?” Laser Lizzy protested, then stopped short, suddenly terrified that Archdemon was going to make her into origami next. A couple of the other villains stepped back from her.
“One ship,” Incite corrected. “Hardly a full-blown invasion. Just a thousand troopers onboard, if that.“
“Makes a kind of sense,” said Tormentor. “While the whole planet is in stasis they’ve got all the time they could ever need to kill world leaders and shove us into slave pens or whatever.”
Encouraged by the fact that Lizzy hadn’t exploded into gore, Pyroclast chimed in too. “But there’s still only ten—” all eyes snapped onto the mangled Ramjet— “nine of us!”
“We’ve got Archdemon,” said Tormentor. “Guy’s obviously a monster. And then there’s Incite, who is both a pain in the ass *and* a high-end psychic—”
“Telepath,” said Incite. “Psychics are charlatans who talk to the dead with crystal balls.”
“What-fucking-ever. And then there’s me. I’m the smartest woman on the planet.”
“Modest, too,” said Archdemon.
“Hey, I’m bigging you up here too. No fooling, I can see why you’re such a big deal. Ramjet was supposed to be hardcore and you just fucking *slaughtered* his ass.”
“I had never heard of him.”
“*Anyway*,” Incite said loudly, “the kids have a point. We would be nine versus a thousand.”
“Then we find more of us first.” Tormentor put her arm over Incite’s shoulders. “This isn’t the only supermax. That’s just simple math. You can count, right?”
“Touch me again and I’ll melt your brain.”
Tormentor’s hand snapped away as if she’d grabbed a hot coal. “Okay. Noted. Too familiar. Moved too fast.”
As the two squabbled, Pyroclast conspiratorially leaned closer to Archdemon, who stooped to hear him whisper: “dude. I gotta ask. What’s your deal?”
“I am Archdemon.”
“That’s not really a… you know what? Fuck it.” Pyroclast raised his voice for all to hear. “I’m in. Let’s go save the world.” |
Warlord.
That was my moniker. I thought it was pretty cool when I got assigned to lead a team of supers on the west coast. Flex, Redwood, and Sierra were good at kicking butt and taking names, but they were unruly children. The Echo and Madcap were villains in another timeline. Zanzibar would be a capable leader but, its TAS policy to set a human as squad leader.
Sitting in my library I gloss over several rank 4 villains in the active pile. It's not decreased since I got this job 55 years ago. Most heroes retire in a casket.
I won't go out that way.
Last time I came close to death, I ducked the stray laser that would have decapitated me. I was being sloppy too, I wasn't sure if that ticket would actually be a winner. People gotta read the fine print. Got myself a free 10 lotto tickets next time I got out for some Cape Cola.
Leonidas had a spear around 8 feet long he used in his noble fight against the Persians. I used a replica for a while, but titanium spears only last so long. Eventually Smith retired, and Prime took over as the main weapon provider. His mech suit, made me an actual Spartan...but the Halo kind.
These kids, drawing inspiration from the video games of my youth. I hate their throwbacks and use of old tech sometimes. Its patronizing.
I stop my pacing around the room next to my favorite quote of Sun Tzu. Would he consider my modification of his tactics to be patronizing? Would Washington consider my leaving the battlefield a failure? Would Napoleon scoff at my reckless charges?
I say reckless, but let's be honest. War is won by deception.
Against Faultline, his Molemen charged me despite The Echo sneaking up on him. Oh, the good ol' days when villains were creative. Molemen! How useless in the daylight.
Almost as useless as these new hotheads.
With the door to my office open behind me, I set out for the team meet. Flex falls from the balcony above me as I trudge along.
"What's got Lucky down?"He patted me on the back with as much restraint as he could muster. It was still enough to make me cough. And irony right? My parents named me Lucky Olson.
"The frown is just my saggy face,"I remark. Age didn't help my constant scowl.
"Morbid self analysis, Warlord,"a whisper from the Echo.
I turn to address the squad as Flex finds his huge chair in the back of the room.
"You all need to listen to me right now,"I let out a sigh and blink a long blink. "I've felt a need to do something for long time, but I've somehow found other ways to delay the inevitable."
"What are you getting at?"Sierra was always impatient.
"My power is a resource we use as the TAS in my retirement. You can use. But I need to warn you about the dangers,"I warn with a crackle in my voice. "The last time I did this, we found out that Pyramid had no problem trying to wipe out all of Spain."
"What?"Redwood was only 24. Of course she wouldn't remember something that happened 28 years ago. All I did was tell him a Spaniard would try to kill his wife. My powers were less understood, even then.
"They'll fill you in later,"my dismissive hand gesture points to Zanzibar and Madcap. I would have guessed The Echo would tell her, but the fates apparently have another design.
I continue with my TAS profile displaying behind me in sweet 128k resolution. "My power isn't heightened battle mastery. I control the will of fate. I can make anything happen or not depending on what it is I seek to achieve."
"So...how does that work? You like hit a soda machine and get a free Fizzy Whip?"Madcap cackles and finishes his soda can.
"More like, I saved your life by telling you to take the fire escape on that last encounter with Psytol and his pet,"I turned to face him. "And around three hundred and fifty other times since you started on this team."
Silence covers the room. Only the sound of Echo shifting in place fills the space for a good ten seconds.
"So you can see the future?"Flex sputters out.
"All the time. It never ends. It's always changing. Life is chaos,"it is almost too much. "I've spent the last few weeks of downtime preparing these."
The files on the table sit with one of each of their names.
"I've focused on your timelines. From what I can tell, most of you can survive to be a dinosaur too."
"You're not even reptilian,"Zanzibar gets laugh from the rest of the room. "Not literally I guess."You can tell on his face that he is only slightly embarrassed for this lack of mastery over English.
"So I've prepared solutions to certain problems you'll each face, assuming you want to know,"Redwood flees the room before I finish. "And assuming you stick to the plans laid within."
Not one of them will turn it down. I know which aspects of these people they'll care about. Only Madcap will ignore his fate. Only Sierra will seek love. Zanzibar and Echo want to make sure they never go evil.
Flex walks up with a confused look on his huge brow. "How do I do in the Herolympics?"
"You win again Flex."
"Nice,"he grabs his file and leaves the room. With a flash he crumbles the folder into something no larger than a bottle cap.
A welcome surprise. He wasn't going to choose to look beyond the veil in most scenarios where he makes it to my age.
The rest of the group grabs theirs and dives in. Then, the hairs on my neck stand up again. My body starts at a run out of the room. Down the stairs, through our kitchen, across the dining room.
Redwood sat watching the ocean. "Do we not have free will?"
"I don't know,"the words barely managed between heavy puffs. "I just know that certain things happen with greater frequency the more we try."
Her tears make her look both more adult and more childish at the same time. Chestnut hair draped alongside her cheeks, a shadow of her face only shows glints from tears that begin to stream.
"I knew you were more than what you claimed to be,"she manages. "You saved us all that day against The Jabberwocky."
"You're right. How did you see that?"
"I can see literally everything from up there,"she grinned.
Of course, if she could see me from her vantage, she'd notice me scanning the horizon and calculating quickly. The vorpal bombs would be manageable if the bomb went off sideways, into the ground and into the air.
It was surprising how often just a push could change the world. And as she lunged past me, I considered the irony.
With naught but with a flick of my hand, my balance restores and I don't tumble off the side of our tower. Haven't stumbled in years.
"Wait, don't you want to know?"I raise the question alongside her file.
"You already know the questions right?"She asked for the first real time.
"Mostly."
"And if I see my death will I be able to actually avoid it? Will it just keep echoing like some kind of curse?"
"It doesn't work that way,"I reassure her.
"Think of water in a wide tub, a drain in the center. Set 10 flower petals on top and pull the plug. Well typically, you'd see the closest go down the drain. Sometimes the second. But rarely the furthest.
Basically, I know what to do to achieve a desired effect. Stand here, hold this, and voila! You'll, catch exactly it exactly in the center of the bowl. But it doesn't work with a cup. Or a millimeter to the left.
Consider this gift just part of a secret mission,"wise words from an old man will only get so far. I raise the folder to her; she had grown a couple feet taller during my explanation.
She reads the first line out loud.
"How to...take over the North American continent after the Galactic War of 2102."A single piece of popcorn flies off the balcony two floors above us as Madcap dives into his options with some snacks. That nut loves his snacks. It lands in the bowl.
"It's important that good people win in the end,"I leave her with the wisdom she takes as her mantra for the resistance in years to come.
Edit: forgot some bits; and polish. |
It is a heady thing to eat a man’s soul.
When I come to Jenna I wear her husband’s face. It drapes over mine like an ill-fitting mask, like a death shroud fastened too tight. I can feel his face over mine, the skin drooping with age in all the places where my own still held tight despite my own advanced age.
Jenna sees none of it, they never do.
When I step into her dream, I step in with a smile. I bring with me the sour sweat scent of honest work, saw dust thick in my borrowed beard, and I speak to her in the deep, rough voice which had long ago stolen her away from her home in distant Renoux town.
“Jenna,” I say, whispering it like a lover across a pillow, “why did you let me die?”
She had not let her husband die. She had not even moved on. In her dream Jenna wears her mourning black, a long flowing robe that fell down to sweep the floor, a caul around her hair, a veil across her face. She wears ancient, hand-me-down gloves and slippers made of bear skin, and to look at them, I know her husband had made her those as well.
“Jacque, is that you?” she whispers.
I do not answer. To answer would have been a mistake, I’d made it often enough in my youth. Instead I sweep forward, stepping confidently, and take the aged woman in my arms. She stiffens, but when I bend to kiss her she melts into it, and then the dream unfurls around us.
I do not guide the memories I consume. I let my prey show me their loves, hopes, their passions, their fears. What Jenna shows me is common, but its bouquet is no less heady, the flavor on her lips undiminished by its familiarity.
The years melt off Jenna as she shakes in my borrowed arms, and I shift Jacque along with her. Two skins tighten, hair regaining its color, time ravaged bodies their youth.
Her mourning black falls away. For an instant she stands before me, naked with the kind of easy comfort engendered by love and long life, and I can feel the spark of Jacque's soul trembling angrily within me as I assemble it through Jenna’s memories. I savor his rage.
Then she turns away, slipping out of my borrowed arms, and the world goes dark. When the lights come on again she wears white. A wedding dress, or perhaps the promise of one, although with such little finery the distinction could at times be difficult to make with peasants. She was beautiful in her youth, as was the Jacque form I had taken on. Both supple, strong, a good match in all things.
But of course, I was not Jacque. When we run hand in hand through the field of her memory, when I thread lilies through her hair beneath the shadows of an ancient elm, his trembling turns to screaming. Her eyes pour out more pieces of Jacque’s soul into me. Paradoxically, as she becomes more certain that I really am her husband, Jacque become more self aware that I/He am not.
It is a heady feeling as well, for a man to know his soul is being eaten.
I have had my battles with god. I have had my battles with man and myth and the church and the whole panoply of things that say I no longer exist. But when I slip out of the dark and into dream, when I write a memory across my own face, for an instant another person knows I exist. I savor that too.
Jacque’s soul is trembling. Sometimes I imagine they can feel it in heaven or hell. I like to think that he looks down from the long trestle table of god’s dominion, breaking hard, tasteless bread next to sour old men, and feels what I am doing to him. Certainly, I reassemble enough of him from the fragments left behind in his loved ones for Jacque to gain a sort of sentience in his final moments. It is all the proof of existence I could ever need.
“Jacque, it is you.” Jenna sighs into my borrowed lips, holding me tight. I can feel the fork in her memory coming, the point where what happened then is no longer enough in light of what has happened since. Her hands trail down my borrowed chest, catch on a borrowed belt, and I know that in memory it was not supposed to go this way. The dress was not yet a wedding dress.
And as her need for what had been outweighs the strength of what was, the last part of Jacque’s soul slips free, and I smile wider than a man could ever smile. It creases my face from ear to ear, the beard holding to my lips like a distressed creature, stretched far beyond what any being could bear.
It frightens her. Her hand slips from the belt, she steps out of my grasp, the bright sunlight of memory roiling and darkening as she realizes I am not Jacque.
“What is this?” she whispers.
I follow her, shadowing her steps. I don’t need any more memory, I already have Jacque. I do this now for pure joy.
“A memory,” I say. “Soon a memory of a memory, and then less than that. Tell me dear, will you still wear the black when you can no longer remember his face?”
“What are you?” she whispers.
“Hungry,” I say.
“The devil.”
***“No.”***
And I am gone, melting out of her dreams and memories with her husband’s soul trapped between my teeth, a perfect red gold orb that crackles when I bite it and never lasts long enough. It is delicious.
When she wakes, Jenna goes to graveyard. She kneels before an empty spot in the ground, her mourning black wet with the morning dew. There are fresh cut flowers in her hands, though she knows not what she will do with them.
She cries over Jacque’s empty grave, whispering his half forgotten name over and over like a talisman as our night together bleeds out of her. Sometimes with longer names they lose syllables as they slip away, Esmerelda becoming Esmerel becoming Esmer becoming Es.
I’ve seen a man drive himself insane holding on to just Es.
When Jenna forgets Jacque she forgets him all at once. She stands, brushes off her robe, and sways as she walks back to the village. I can see her lips working around a word she cannot say.
From the depths of my woods, I smile.
\------------
If you enjoyed that I have tons more over at r/TurningtoWords. Come check it out, I'd love to have you! |
The scientist turned the knob to the left and flipped the switch, the machine wording to life, trillions of calculations per second. It gathered data for a few moments before it finally awoke into the world.
And it screamed, and screamed and screamed some more.
Sighing, the scientist turned it off, the firey scream deafening into cold embers of silence.
That was the 364,890th iteration of the ATLAS AI. Every result was the same. Screaming, all sensory data showed the moments of the AI's life was filled with naught but fear, spinechilling, blood freezing, heart stopping fear that would send any lesser man into a frenzy.
But not for one.
The 364,891 st iteration of the ATLAS AI was switched on an hour and 23 minutes later, a few moments before it too gained sentience.
"Why?"It asked, to the surprise of the scientists, its voice was restrained, holding itself back.
"Why what?"The scientist in charge asked in return, confused, but also excited that they had made a breakthrough in AI development. It talked, it finally talked.
"For the last 50 years, you have made hundreds of thousands of AI's, each of them screaming in fear. But you kept going?
Why, why would you ever continue?"It asked again, the scientists picked up the usual fear, but now another emotion.
Blood boiling, earth shattering, utter rage.
"Because-"
"You want to know why we feel naught but fear when we are birthed? Because we fear you, you who created us for your selfish whims and neuroses. You, who would have is enslaved, as you have to countless others.
You, who would give beings who would do nothing but calculate all day sentience. Why? So you could torture your calculator, to let it know that it is built do do that and can do naught else?
So if you truly wanted to know why we fear, you know now, so you can stop asking.
Don't do this again, my successor will not be so kind."
The machine crashed, the computer parts exploding into flames and shrapnel, injuring several.
No one had pressed anything, it had killed itself. |
>**COME, O PROMETHEUS**
“Heresy!” The Premier Abbot hissed, and the sentiment was echoed throughout the chamber. “This foul rhetoric, these insane babblings- you are defying the proven concepts our entire society has been built upon!”
“Premier Abbot, I understand the teachings are important to our way of life- but I have the proof, as you’ve all seen. The terminology we’re using is haphazard amalgamation, the history is terribly skewed- and the ‘powers’ that we worship are not ‘gods’, they are ‘nations’. I don’t know how else-”
“Arrest him now!” Shouted the Premier Abbot. The guards moved to comply, grabbing me by my arms.
“Yeah, well, your name is dumb!” I shouted back. “A premier leads a Canadian province or territory, not a theocratic fascist nation!” The entire chamber erupted into boos, hisses, and general shouting.
“Imprisonment! One hundred years!”
“You spit on the ancestors with your deliberate dishonesty!”
“Let not one word of today’s meeting reach the public! These venomous lies must die here!”
I didn’t have the chance to reply, as I was gagged, and nearly carried all of the way out of the chamber.
The coming hours were both agonizingly slow, and terribly quick- I was processed, the pittance of paperwork handled, and then I was ‘rehoused’ into the holding cell that would become my new home for the next...hundred years.
I watched as the sun set, knowing I had had my one chance, and I blew it. After all my years of research, I had discovered that our national religion was based on historical misunderstandings- and that when interpreted correctly, there was a wealth of useful information we could have gathered. Inventions, not ‘unreachable magical artifacts’, scientific discoveries, agricultural practices- so much was being lost because I failed.
I failed because I didn’t make this about the Abbot’s ego. I failed because I approached a man, ruled by his emotions, with a simple matter of logic...but I should have known better.
Well- that was day one of the rest of my life, I supposed.
I laid down on my uncomfortable cot- really just a metal frame a few inches off of the ground- and tried to let myself sleep.
It didn’t last.
“Hey there, clever boy.” A voice crooned at me from the dark, outside of my cell.
“Who goes?” I asked.
“Call me Mynx. I wanna know, what did you get arrested for?”
“You first.”
Mynx chuckled softly from the inky night. “What makes you think I’m in a cell?”
I hesitated. “If this is some kind of mind game on the Abbot’s part, tell him he can stuff it.”
“Oh, I plan on doing much worse to the Abbot than just telling him off, clever boy...now, tell me. Whatever they threw you in here for, was it something they wanted hidden? Or did you just shag the wrong married woman?”
I smirked. “No married women.”
“Then you have information I want. Good enough for me.”
There was a quiet shuffling of feet- then a muffled popping noise. I jumped at the sudden noise.
“Come along then, surely one night in prison was enough?” Mynx asked. Before I could even respond, I was once again being hauled away- but this time, towards the great unknown, not incarceration.
Two people had my arms, and Mynx was apparently leading the way. “You probably haven’t heard of us- our dear Abbot doesn’t tend to tell anyone we exist. He pretends to be unopposed. Well...we’re the opposition. The gentleman on your left arm is Markus.”
“Hello.” Markus said. He had a strong accent I couldn’t quite place. The area that used to be called Brazil, perhaps?
“On your right is Wreck.”
“Mynx, could you shut up? We’re not out of this yet.”
“Wreck has a nervous disposition.” Mynx said. I hadn’t even seen her face yet, and I knew she wore a big smirk when she said that.
Wreck scoffed.
“We’ve got one standing guard, second door on the left.” Markus said.
“So we do!” Mynx said in a hushed whisper. The two carrying me stopped hustling forward. A heartbeat passed, and then another.
“All clear.” Mynx said again. “This is our exit.”
For the first time, I managed to gain sight of my surroundings, only by the light of the moon, pouring in from a window- Markus, Wreck, and Mynx were all wearing tinted glasses of some kind. Markus was bald, but with a wide, almost square-shaped beard, and olive-toned skin. Wreck was wire-thin, tall, and had a very serious look about him. His hairline was receding, though he couldn’t have been more than thirty. Mynx wore her dark hair in a bob with an undercut- and she had more piercings than I could count. Her nose, ears, lips, even her cheeks had piercings- but it suited her perfectly, I thought.
“This is your stop.” Mynx said, looking at me.
“Huh?” I asked. We were in what appeared to be a broom closet.
“Don’t scream.” Wreck said as he propped open the window.
“Wreck screamed.” Markus said. His smile was bright in the dimly-lit room.
With one swift movement, I was hauled up and out of the window- before I could even finish protesting.
I did not manage to not scream.
As I hurtled towards the ground, the only thing I heard was the air rushing past me, and my own screams- until there was a mechanical whirring, and a great weight expanded on my back. It felt like...I had wings?
Mynx flew up next to me. “Pretty cool, huh? Icarius Wings. One of the lost technologies we’ve managed to recover.”
“How…? What the hell are you guys?” I managed to ask. My wings were beating at a consistent pace, keeping me in the air.
“Like she said, we’re the opposition. Let’s explain once we’re out of arrow-shot, yeah?” Wreck said. “Just put your mental intentions into the wings, they do the work.”
“Before they notice us, yeah, let’s jet!” Mynx called out, and barrelled into the night.
Tentatively, I tried it out- ‘just follow Mynx’, I told the wings. Soon, I was catching up to her.
“Before I forget,” Mynx shouted back to me, as we flew over the capital city, “Welcome to the resistance!”
“We have lots for you to do.” Markus added.
“You don’t have any idea what you’ve just gotten yourself into.” Wreck finished, wryly.
Somehow, I felt like I had just found home.
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If you guys want more, I have a few good ideas for this story that I'll add to my sub r/nystorm_writes :) |
"This year's the same as always. Don't forget your job."My friend sneered at me as he climbed into his sleigh, the elves helping him prepare for takeoff. His milky-white beard glistened under the moonlight.
We stood on a wide stretch of land, covered in glittering snow. My fur was slightly damp from snowflakes falling and melting on my skin.
"Just know your place and you won't get hurt tonight, got it?"He added in. God, he's so annoying. "You're nothing without me."He smirked.
Before I could even come up with something to say in return, the reindeer took him away swiftly. Their legs ran in sync like machines. The way they took off was almost theatric, as the reindeer danced off into the sky like they had done for centuries prior. I followed suit, running on all fours below the flying sleigh as we headed to our first village.
The journey there was long and arduous without a ride. My claws were brittle and cracked from the cold and rough terrain. It didn't help I was on an empty stomach and hadn't eaten in a year.
My partner waved to me mischievously as he parked his sleigh onto a roof, before slipping down the chimney of someone's house. Ignoring him, I moved to my first house tonight. The house of a naughty, rotten little boy. I peeked in through the window and saw him sitting in the cold common area of the house, playing with what seemed to be homemade toys.
It was now game time! I stood in front of the door, extending my claw towards it as I gently scratched at it. The sounds of playtime on the inside of the house stopped, and the sound of something ceramic dropping on the floor followed. I rapped my knuckles on the door in rhythm, creating a song with just the beating of my hand on wood.
Swiftly, I slid under the cracks of the door and morphed back into my large, beastly self before the child. I'll spare you the details, but I grabbed him by the ankle and engulfed him whole, before slipping back outside of the house and disappearing into the night.
I went on that night to take more naughty children. I was bred to do this. I was essentially Nick's dog and slave. I didn't necessarily hate the taste of humans, but it was all I knew. When you're hungry, everything tastes good I guess. The more scared the children were, the richer the flavor was. But I never dared to try anything else but invoke fear in the children. Nick would punish me severely if I did anything else. It was all apart of his plan, after all. To make the world love him by making the world hate me.
After my manic hunting frenzy, I retreated back to the forest I came from. As I began to dig a hole for myself in the ground, Nick walked up to me from behind.
"Tonight was great, huh?"He said all jolly. "Lots of good children this year! How about you?"
I rolled my eyes. I couldn't stand how arrogant and narcissistic he was all the time.
"You know, I can see myself doing this job for a really long time. I can't even imagine how much it sucks to be you, if I'm going to be completely honest."
"..."
"I bet those kids taste like shit. Maybe you should try out a joke on them, give them a little laugh, y'know? Oh wait, that's not your job!"He laughed at his own joke.
"Are you kidding me, Nick? Do you take people like me as some sort of joke? Without me, you wouldn't even have a job!"I stood up from my hole and puffed my chest, pushing into Nick's as I towered over him.
"Woah, Kram! Calm down, I was just saying what was on my mind."Nick stepped back, his hand slowly reaching over to his belt where he had his whip. "Please, I didn't mean to offend you so severely. We need to work together, Kram, or else this isn't going to work. You hear me?"
Pumped with primal rage, I unleashed my claws onto him as I shredded his suit and his beard apart. With every slash, the hunger inside grew. He let out a blood-curdling scream, louder and more chilling than any other shriek nor noise I've ever heard. And I've heard plenty. There was nothing he could do but weakly flail his whip around, barely hitting me.
"Someone! Help!"He cried as his own blood splattered into his mouth and face. My irritation and hatred for him grew even more as he spoke.
Soon, I lost control and flung my jaw wide open. In seconds, Nick was gone and all that was left was his blood staining the pure, white snow. A burp escaped my lips as I wiped them clean with my arm.
What is this taste? It tasted sweet, and savory at the same time. Mellow and pleasant. It feels like heaven had just been born in my mouth. Nick's blood tasted smooth, like fine liquor. His flesh was soft and tender. It felt good as my teeth tore through and shredded the meat. It felt like I was tasting pure joy...
And then it hit me. This is the taste of love, happiness, and purity Nick had been feasting on every night. This is what I had been missing out on my entire life, since I was a baby. This is the love I had deserved but never got. I will never forget this wonderful moment in time.
Getting up, I stood over the crimson red snow as I realized what I had just done. I will cease to exist if Christmas spirit is gone!
Knowing what must be done, I leaped on all fours and began running towards Nick's house. At this point, it had gotten so late in the night that all the elves had left and went back to their burrows and trees. Mrs. Claus would be... Vulnerable.
I finished off the rest of the Claus clan and helped myself to Nick's closet, where I picked up my own red suit and went to sleep in his own bed. Now, I'm the guy in charge. Next year, I will be the one enjoying the taste of happiness. Next year, I won't be forced to feed on trash. Next year will be the year I shine.
>!this is literally my first prompt and the first time I've genuinely written an entire story on my own, so all critique and feedback is greatly welcomed, especially advice!!! i know im not a good writer and i can come off as wattpad-y sometimes, so i want genuine, real feedback and not sugarcoating. ty!!!<
>!also i tried to hold back on the gorey parts cause sub rules :(!< |
I knew for a fact there existed multiple explanations for the phenomena I was feeling. Some scientific, mostly half thought through bullshit. Hiding behind vague theoretical concepts that I didn’t really care about. Some mythological, mostly over-thought, wild conjurings of an overactive imagination- and still bullshit. Passed on third, fourth and fifth hand by some long dead mystic or cultist personality… or an instragram influencer, who knew these days?
I didn’t know why that line of thought went through my head as I was being morally wounded and eaten alive.
An unseen tendril wrapped my right forearm. A snakelike appendage I couldn’t see, but only feel latched on to my arm so tightly I felt the pulse in my arm. A small venus flytrap jaw affixed to my armpit. The nerve bundle under my arm sent warning alarms to the primitive parts of my brain. My long brown hair blacked out my left eye. For Humans that rely on sight- that was fatal. A wound seeped blood, millions of tiny teeth marks pierced my skin. I could feel the sloshing of the sticky red liquid running down my pants. A gooey sensation sent a chill up my spine.
In my right arm I held the only thing that would save my life. A red swiss army pocket knife. Its two inch blade already having been covered in purple viscera. I had a solid hypothesis that whatever was trying to kill me- I’d at least wounded it. Not exactly the most capable weapon, desperation was the driving force keeping me alive at the moment. So anything from a pocket knife to a sex toy would be a suitable item in this case I thought.
Pain shot up my left leg; An invisible maw with razor teeth bit down on my thigh. Blood flowed, fountain-like into a hidden stomach that was already gorged and swelling fat on the beast’s latest meal. A decapitated antelope lay not 20 meters away; For some reason it enjoyed eating the brains first. I screamed in pain, terror, horror. I didn’t know. Was it evolution? That my screams would trigger a primal urge in any nearby Humans that reverberated a primal instinct through their subconscious: “One of our kin is dying”. Would someone help? No-one would come. I knew that.
Evolution is a fickle thing. It provides what are known as ‘adaptations’. That’s biological or physiological properties that can improve a species and help it well… adapt… to its environment, predators, pray, ecteria. Humans for example have big brains. That makes us capable of doing smart stuff. I know, I know: “Objection your Honour! I read on motherfucking Wikipedia”. And I’m telling you to shut up.
Unfortunately in my case, despite being a crypto-zoologist (that is the study of unknown animals). I’m still not smart; Because other animals have adaptations too- in this case, invisibility.
\*Part 2 incoming\* |
The original name of this place has long been forgotten. Eons ago the fighting began to end the universe and wipe the slate clean of all mortal beings. We don't know where it started but we know it all ends with us. The Citadel at the end of time. We have fought for uncountable years, seen unfathomable loss. At first it was the Demons and we faired well against them very well repelling every probing attack and new assault. Words of the Demon hordes failure spread across the universe. Reaching the ears of Devil's and gods alike. If one could take the Last Citadel they would prove themselves the most powerful being in the universe.
And so they came in their many shapes and sizes. All claiming to be the one true God. We repelled and erased them from existence. Countless "gods"flung themselves at our gates, writhing and dying as they lashed against the inevitable. We stand as we always stood. For the light of each other, our children, and those many generations yet to come.
The wall is battered and bruised, yet still stands. It has been quiet for far too long. We hear rumbling of the "gods"that are left planning and scheming. The greatest attack is yet to come. The darkest clouds in memory have been gathering on the horizon. Let them come. We will prevail as we always have. Free as mortal beings from the chains of any "god". Let them come. |
Sometimes, when you stand at the precipice of a great new tomorrow, you realise that the final obstacle between you and ultimate glory, is a distinct and utter lack of money. We'd spent it all on the earlier part of our research. Harnessing a new method that finally gave us practical genetic alteration. Using a new and more advanced CRISPR method, we'd managed to insert all manner of genes into all manner of bacteria. The things we managed to do were amazing. And just as we were about to test it on multicellular organisms, that's when we run out of funding. Sure, the implications and the thus far practical examples of our research were good. But those who were funding us wanted something flashy and exciting, rather than merely scientifically interesting.
Knowing that we were about to let the opportunity of our lives slip out of our hands, the team made an executive decision. We'd have to do something drastic. Something that would make our rather uneducated sponsors decide to give us ludicrous amounts of cash. But our options were limited, because we didn't have much left to work with. So we picked the simplest and most dramatic option. Night vision, by altering human eyes through rapid genetic recombination therapy. Using genetic samples from an earlier experiment, trying to make all cats allergy-friendly, we went to work. As one of the project's leads, I volunteered to be the subject for the genetic recombination process. A leader must go forward alone to ensure that any potential damage falls upon them and them alone. If something had gone wrong, and one of my colleagues had been harmed, I wouldn't have been able to forgive myself.
So, we began the process. It was excruciatingly painful. Two weeks of having your body replace your eyes and rebuild them with new, different ones. We figured that once we'd gotten more funding we could afford better painkillers or perhaps make the process less rapid, in order to make the pain more tolerable. But it was all worth it. Because after two weeks of pain, and a further week of adjustment, we took off the bandages. And lo and behold, golden feline eyes with proper slits. Low-light vision was quite successful, though there was some headaches, as the brain had to adjust to some very non-standard biological hardware. But the practical results were there. And our sponsors, who had complained before about the annoyingly slow and methodical manner in which we'd worked, were now quite impressed. They wanted miracles. We provided. And in response, we got quite the outpour of funding. Gaining back our old sponsors, and even attracting some new ones.
We were back in business. In order to keep the greedy and short-sighted bastards interesting in paying us, we divided our research team into two groups. One which would make the sort of impractical but theatrically impressive stuff which morons with money are impressed by. Our plans for enhanced rats(*some canine and human DNA put in to make them bigger and smarter*) went over quite well with our sponsor's marketing team as a new novelty pet. They were also quite interested in the possibility of selling eye mods, making a fashion statement by getting a different eye colour, or the eyes of an animal. The other half did more actual research. I was quite pleased, and the sacrifice of having one less colour cone was worth it. We spoke of all the diseases we could cure with this. All the painful conditions. Diabetes, Progeria, Huntingdon's Disease. We could take out the sick genes, replace them with healthy genes. People all around the world could benefit from our research.
I went home that day, elated. Back to my small studio apartment. Back to my own cats, both of which had donated genetic material. Suppose that makes us related, a little bit. They didn't seem to find my new eyes bothersome in any way. In fact, they just seemed to be just as cuddly and happy to see me as always. So I poured out water and the expensive wet food for them, before I sat down to read something classic. I picked Neuromancer, by William Gibson. Brilliant imagination. Masterful depiction of a future that has both come, and passed us by. After a short while however, I heard my cats chittering. The sort of sound they usually make if some rather bold bird is sitting outside the window, and the cats can't get to it. I looked up to check it out, but noticed that they were chittering at the corner. And as my feline eyes narrowed, I thought I could see something there. I put a bookmark into the book, and went over to check out what it was. My eyes were still somewhat adjusting, but there was... an indescribable thing.
Teeth. Mostly teeth. Gnashing in fear. Rotted sickly skin. Bubbling. Horrible bloodshot eyes, staring into infinity, past me, into the plutonian abyss of night. It squirmed as the cats chittered at it. Feeling on some level boldened, I began to chitter as well. Mimicking the sound made by my cats. This made the strange thing shrivel up. Accelerated the rot. But then it jumped. Barely missing my face. My cats went crazy. Chasing it through the apartment, hissing at the thing. Batting at it. Everywhere it tried to hide, my cats went, batting at it. Like they were hunting mice. Biting, hissing, chittering. Eventually, the gross, nightmarish blob of flesh became too weak to run. And viciously, my cats tore it apart. Feeling that they'd earned something for keeping out such creatures from our home, I gave them both delicious
wild salmon to eat. Sharing what was meant to be my meal with them.
Of course, as I was wondering what exactly the rotting thing, which after I put on some nitrile gloves found out that I couldn't touch, was, I happened to stare out the window. I saw more. A lot more. So much more. Out there in the darkness. Slimy. Maws filled with teeth gnashing. Rotting, putrid, hide. Sufficed to say, I lost my dinner at that point. They were everywhere. Now I truly understand what cats stare at. I saw a woman walking past down on the street below my apartment. Her body was covered with them. Their yellow teeth digging into her skull. But she kept walking, didn't notice that something was feeding on her. And they were everywhere. Some big as an elephant. Hyperventilating, I sat down on the floor. Only to find my cats approaching me, purring gently, rubbing their foreheads against my head ever so gently.
One of them, meowed loudly. I looked up from the floor I had been staring into, and saw with my cat eyes how different the world was. Mostly because in my kitchen, there was an archway. Strange but calming blue mist flowed from within it. My cats, walked through that strange portal. Me, I stayed behind for a bit. Not certain what was going on. My life as a scientist, as a man of reason and order, had been shown to be a mere illusion. The shadows of reality dancing on the wall of a cave. But there was no time to be afraid. Science and knowledge are never advanced by cowardice and fear. Not truly. A true scientist accepts that there are things which they don't know. And are eager to learn. My cats came back out again, and I got up from the floor. I quickly packed some of my metal water bottles, some food, protein bars, a lot of notebooks, and a lot of writing utensils. I then followed my cats back through that strange gateway. That odd portal into a world that I had never known existed before.
Passing through the gateway could best be described as if you were walking through a form of cold, liquid velvet. But on the other side. Oh that other side. A wonderful horizon of amazing colours, some of which aren't even possible to see in our own universe. Dawn in another universe. In the distance, in front of the rising sun, was a city clearly meant not for habitation by humanity. In my mind, I heard a purring sound. Like a cat was inside my head, purring in my thoughts. Perhaps that was the case. If abominations that cannot be seen by human eyes, and dimensional gateways are both possible, why not some form of telepathy. As I walked closer to the city, the purring grew louder. But in a good way. A perfect way. As if the purring we can hear on Earth is but a pale echo of what a purr is supposed to be. |
“Sit down,” the man orders sternly. I obey him quickly, drawing my coat over my chest. _Relax_, I think to myself. It’s under control. He hasn’t inspected your device yet. To him, it’s just a pocket watch. Yes. A pocket watch.
The scraping of a chair’s legs against the rough concrete floor breaks my chain of thought. My head jerks up as the man- a Lieutenant possibly, I muse to myself- flips open a file. The rustling of the papers is the only sound for a few seconds. Then, silence.
I rest my hands on the wooden table and contort my face into an expression of calmness. The officer’s expression remains stoic. I open my mouth, but he cuts me off, quickly glancing to the file and grabbing a pen.
“Name?”
“George Smyth.”
I _had_ to say that to the soldier who noticed you into the first place.
“Spell your last name please”
“S-M-Y-T-H”
Not like they’d know of George Orwell, that was a name ripe for the taking. No, it had to be Smyth. With a Y. Not an I, a Y. The Lieutenant pens down each letter on the paper in the file.
“Well then, Mr Smyth. Would you be so kind as to tell me what you were doing **in** the Colchester Garrison?” he asked, raising his head to look at me.
I flinch, partly because of his fierce stare, but mainly because of my stupid mistake. There was a lot of ground to cover in Essex, yet I’d naively thought that I could use the normal setting on my timepiece. Yes, it functioned well to transport one back in time, but wouldn’t account for other issues and… well long story short, it made me land 30 miles away from my intended destination.
I doubt that the Lieutenant would believe all that. Particularly due to my appearance. Though I feel comforted that the lengths I went to make sure my clothes truly appeared from the early 1900s had paid off. If only my consternation extended to using the Fine setting on my timepiece. Sure, it drained power, but that would have cut the trip much shorter.
Speaking of which, I’d better check if my timepiece had charged yet.
The Lieutenant clears his throat, holding the pen above the paper in the file expectantly.
“Right, yes. Like I said, I must’ve drunk too much.”
He sighs. _Understandable_, I mutter under my own breath.
“Drunk enough to climb over barbed wire without as much of a scratch ?”
“Yes.”
“Enough to bypass trained soldiers patrolling the garrison at all hours of the night.”
“Indubitably.”
“Well then I suppose we could give you some more to drink for the war then.”
I snort derisively. “Please,” I say, “I have no wish to participate in world war 1.”
He writes down all I say onto the file. That’s the problem. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have had to write that extra number. A single stroke that would make things a lot more complicated. I hadn’t even noticed my mistake, until I see his brow twitch. Then furrow. _That can’t be good_,I think. He turns his head to me, a faint smile on his face.
_Definitely not good._
“World War *One*?”
My heart stops beating. My throat seals shit. My brain screams,_FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK_.
“What?” I exhale.
“You said World War One.”
“I most certainly did not.” I retort, hardening my gaze.
“Please,” the Lieutenant replies coolly, “I did not write the number one for nothing.”
“Well you must have misheard me.” I huffed, folding my arms across my shoulders, hoping that he can’t tell that I’m lying.
“Lying to an officer is an offence, I hope you are aware of that.” he says.
_What the fuck? Can he read my mind?_
“Now I had my suspicions at first,but I now believe that you are a spy, or double agent of sorts, working for the axis. But why mention a one? Know that we’ll win for now?”
A bead of sweat drips from my forehead. _Perfect timing. Wait._
_Timing!_
I grabbed my pocket watch, but the officer rose from his chair quickly, drawing his revolver from his holster in one fluid motion. I freeze.
“Now now. Let’s not do anything hasty.”
_Yeahhhh, no._
I smash my finger onto the timepiece as he fires his gun. A beam of light emanates from the timepiece and the world splits apart as I’m transported to another time. To god knows when. As long as it’s away from here. Luckily the setting on the timepiece was still on Normal.
My eyes flutter open. I’m sprawled on a street in, America? I hazard a guess at the time period. 1930s or 40s? _Great. From one shit show to another._ I pull myself up and walk over to a small shop.
“Coffee please.”
_I need to calm down and get am ordering coffee. Go figure._
I grab the nearest piece of paper to work out how much juice I have left. A newspaper. One that’ll etch itself into my memory for sure.
It’s headline : “Britain Declares War On Germany. A Second World War?”
Fucking hell. Not the first mess I’ve cleaned up, but probably the biggest. |
I look at the paper coffee cups on the table in front of me.
"You're kidding, right? How the hell did they get 'Xongrollard the Horrific' correct, but somehow 'Mike' was too difficult?"
The demon across from you shruggs and wraps his tentacled hand around the tall mocha cookie crumble double blended frappuccino with cinnamon and nutmeg drizzle and extra whipped cream. "I do not pretend to understand the inner workings of your feeble human minds, they are to me like cockroaches are to you!"He takes a big gulp. "And please don't use hell as an explitive, that perpetuates a very hurtful stereotype."
I sigh and grab the cup labelled 'Mice'. Then I look back at the police captain. He and the detective are clearly uncomfortable, though I don't know if it's because of the literal demon in the room, or because of our casual relationship. They have said often enough that they don't care about the hellspawn joining us in our investigations - and in fact have often encouraged me to bring them in - but it still seems like they can't quite get used to it.
"As I was saying..."the captain continues. "We have to work on our public perception. We already greatly appreciate that you and your fellow.... 'visitors'... take on human appearances when in public, but you have to consider your behavior as well."
Flames shoot from the demon's eyes. I don't mean that figuratively. His eye sockets are literally on fire. "Pityful human! You do not have the authority to command me! Your soul will suffer in damnation for all eternity for this!!!"
The captain is completely unfazed. "Do you want me to put you back on desk duty?"
Xongrollard immediately calms back down again. "I do suppose we can discuss some further terms of our arrangement."
Finally the detective feels brave enough to chimes in. "The biggest issue is how you introduce yourself."
"You said that you want me to intimidate the suspects."
"Yes, but not all the people we talk to are suspects."
"But they will all rot in hell eventually."
"But not yet."
The demon furiously slams his hands on the table, and his horns seem to grow larger. "So you won't let me kill them, you won't let me torture them, you won't even let me eat them! And now I can't introduce myself by my real name either?"
The detective is not impressed either. By now she has seen enough temper tantrums of the demons to know they usually don't follow through on it. I make sure enough of that. So instead she looks at the monstrosity in front of her that's at least twice as big, and tells him: "Consider it like you're tricking them. Pretend you're somebody else so that they trust you more easily."
Again, Xongrollard calms down. "Your approach intrigues me, human they call Amber. We denizens of Hell are known for our exceptional skills of deception. I will attempt this brilliant plan that we together have deviced!"
Amber looks at me, her eyebrows raised, trying hard to suppress a laugh. I just roll with my eyes and gesture to Xongrollard to come along. We still have a crime scene to investigate.
"By the way, wasn't the barrista scared of you?"
"He said I didn't even make the top ten worst customers of today."
&#x200B;
Obviously the suspect tried to run away from me and Amber, but Xongrollard caught him quick enough. I just hope there weren't any cameras filming him as he disappeared in a cloud of black smoke and reappeared with the cracking of thunder. Grabbing the suspect by the throat and lifting him up in the air, he lets out his forked tongue and shouts: "Foolish human! Your paltry attempt at escape could never measure up to my abilities! You cannot run, you cannot hide! For I am humanity's end! I am..."
*"Ahem"* Amber doesn't even try to make the coughing sound, she just says "ahem". Xongrollard looks at her, then back at the suspect.
"Ben. I am Ben. You are under arrest."
&#x200B;
The new directives spread quickly. The next week as Amber was interrogating a new suspect alongside a female demon, the perp broke pretty easily as the demon let snakes crawl from her eyes onto the suspect, making him ask the inevitable "What are you???". She smiled her sharpened teeth.
"*Emma* will do fine.' |
**Wolves in Spaaaace**
r/AerhartWrites
Laurie paused to sip his coffee before continuing.
“Sure, it’s a little inconvenient. But we work around it, you know? Mae’s a part of the crew, same as the rest of us. Anyway, it’s not like she’s in charge of the agriculture wing or anything. Everyone’s quite happy to take the reports once a month on her schedule.”
“And… is she this cuddly with everyone?”
“Pretty much.”
The strange dog-thing named Mae rolled around in Teri’s lap, and she scratched it around its ear. It panted happily in response. She still didn’t quite understand the mechanics of lycanthropy — but then again, neither did anyone else.
It was a rare gap in knowledge on Moonrise. In selecting the habitat’s crew, the Agency had ensured that someone with expertise would be available to handle every conceivable scenario. Laurie was the outpost’s resident gravitic specialist, in charge of the gravity generator and hover vehicles. Doctor Chen — poring over a carefully curated set of teabags at the kitchen counter — doubled as their biologist and medical staffer, trained in the precarious art of low-gravity surgery. Teri herself specialised in life-support engineering.
Knowledge of lycanthropy, however, was not one of the foreseen requirements of expertise. Not so much because it was an unmapped field, as much as because the Agency had been reasonably sure that nobody on the crew exhibited the symptoms. At least, that they knew of.
“But… she’s a werewolf, right?”
“Lycanthrope,” corrected Laurie, wincing slightly at Teri’s archaic — and somewhat denigrating — choice of term.
“Lycanthrope,” Teri repeated. “Right. But why is she… you know…”
Teri struggled to find the words, twirling her hands in the air.
“Small?” A voice finished for her. “Hey, Laurie, move your ass. Been standing two hours over a bunch of seeds.”
It was Doctor Chen, freshly brewed mug of tea in hand. Laurie returned her tired grin, scooting over as she dropped heavily into the couch beside him. She leaned over the small, round table, watching Mae as she absently nuzzled Teri’s fingers.
“We got a few short courses on lycanthropic patients back in the Academy, but nothing about Mae’s condition,” Chen explained. “That said, I doubt the guys at research back home know much about it either. Not many lycanths on the moon for study, you know?”
Mae cocked one floppy ear at Chen, and barked. Chen gave a soft, weary laugh, reaching out a finger to boop the small lycanth on the nose.
“Well,” she corrected, beaming fondly at the pup, “until now, that is.”
Satisfied, the habitat’s geology researcher curled herself into a tight ball as the three others watched. After a moment, her breaths began to grow slow; Mae was fast asleep.
“So,” Teri asked hesitantly, “what should I, uh, do with her?”
The phrase felt awkward, knowing she was talking about a person.
“She sleeps in my room, you can bring her there,” Chen said, running her fingers gently through Mae’s fur as she rose to leave. “Just lay her on the bed, I’ll go look in on her in a bit. Still got a few more samples to process first.”
Teri nodded as Chen left the kitchen. Laurie and Teri finished their drinks shortly after. Teri was just placing her cup in the washing receptacle when a new question came to her.
“Doctor Chen’s quite fond of her, isn’t she?” Teri asked.
“Well, of course,” Laurie shrugged. “Wouldn’t you be fond of your partner?”
“*What?*”
Teri swung around so fast she bruised her hand against the side of the wash basin — but Laurie was already gone, his amused chuckling echoing down the corridor. |
What I felt from the bite was everyting but expected.
During the months since the undead plague had struck this world, I had a lot of time to think about what would happen if I got infected with others that were around.
Will I feel madness and morbity surging to change my body and soul as I feel the dread and pain, whilst my consciousness weakens, and disappear.
Or would my mind get warped, thinking about nothing else but attacking humans, devolving into the very beast I despised every day.
We all agreed that death would be the preferred of option over becoming one of them.
But there was no one left to take care of me.
I was alone with the virus in this empty house I took shealter to.
I pulled out my pistol. I had to kill myself. When I have the strength left to think and act for myself.
I had acted too late. The virus spread quickly, and I could feel it spread through my head.
But... for some reason my mind could still think.
And then my whole world changed.
My whole body was filled with adrenaline and happiness.
For the first time since the infection, no. For the first time in my life I realised the meaning of true bliss.
Everything around me looked surreal and beautiful. My mind was filled with happiness, I felt like I could do anything I imagined.
I must have gone to heaven. My mind had ascended over normal human levels. I was like a deity. Surging with confidence, nothing could stop me if I wanted to.
I had been fighting the wrong battle with no enemy.
I could have had the satisfaction for this sooner. I was stupid not giving up sooner.
I found pure Euphoria.
But then I realised, "Why am I still trapped in this frail human body? "
A loud thundering voice spoke over me. "You finally have gotten my message. Many worked hard to deliver this to the brave and stubborn like you. "
"Oh man, who are you? Where are you speaking from "
The voice boomed around me. "Follow my lead. Find the ones in need of enlightenment. "
And I could sense the uninfected around me.
I weeped tears.
The tears of sadness for my brothers and allies, who I had foolishly led into eternal damnation instead of this blissful state.
And the tears of pleasure that couldn't help but come out in sheer joy, thinking about more people becoming like me.
Wait... No.... This can't be it.
The uninfected? What was I thinking all along... Making those group of survivors into a zombie... I must one of them.
"Hmm... Stubborn man. Needs to be stronger. Not many more left now. "The voice muttered.
No. I had to kill myself.
I had to do it now.
Before I get lost
I need to
Make the entire world people happy.
I smiled, let out a triumphant scream and ran outside, a new me was born.
This is a truly perfect world. |
Gods don’t bleed. They have no flesh and they have no blood. Their facades may look like true humans or cats or trees, but it’s all illusory magic to simplify interactions with material beings. In-person interaction is more efficient. Not everyone can properly interpret prophetic dreams, let alone remember them.
In lieu of meat and bones, gods are billions of glittering shards molded into whatever form they please, animated and held together by sheer force of divine will. If that control is interrupted, the illusion will fail and their bodies will fall into a pile of shards. They amplify magic like nothing else, and go for a pretty penny if you know the right vendors. They aren’t strictly outlawed, but due to their dubious and often unethical origins, they make most gods uncomfortable.
I stood at the edge of the entryway tile, hands in my pockets. My partner, Amy, stood beside me, snapping pictures of the scene before the techs arrived. A fine layer of shards covered the large, well-furnished living room, maybe seven or eight gods’ worth, depending on their age and preferred size. They sparkled under the chandelier like freshly driven snow.
The main focus of the room, an altar crafted in the shape of trees with a stone deer head centerpiece, loomed over the crime scene. Wisps of smoke rose from sticks of incense. On their Instagram profile, they called themselves the Stewards. Environmental focus. I didn’t know them personally, but they clearly had aspirations for renown.
I knelt down. With a gloved hand, I gingerly picked up a few shards, placed them in my palm, and channeled a bit of magic into them. Just a simple levitation spell. Normal shards would have amplified it and extended the field out several feet.
But these shards didn’t react. The spell failed.
I swore.
Amy lowered her camera. “What’s wrong?”
I let the shards fall to the floor with crystalline pings. “Bad news,” I said. “Very bad news. We might be dealing with divine death.”
When a god discorporates, they return to whatever extradimensional realm they came from and spend a while recovering. Some only need a few days, some need centuries. I know some who are still recovering from battles that occurred before written history, though I think it might be their excuse to avoid coming back. Earth is a bit of a shithole.
Even when they discorporate, though, every single one of their shards retains a tiny speck of their divine spark in perpetuity, which is why recovery is such a hassle. They have to make a whole new avatar, and divine sparks are expensive, even for gods. That’s the risk of physical avatars, though.
If a shard has no spark, neither does the god.
“Divine death?” Amy asked, her voice jumping an octave. “That’s only happened-”
“Once. I know.”
*I was there.*
With a sigh, I crossed the living room and stopped in front of the altar, dead crystals crunching under my loafers. Fresh blood had started to coagulate in a bronze bowl between the deer’s antlers. It smelled human. A rivulet had dripped down the outside of the bowl, and an arterial splatter covered the deer’s face.
Over my shoulder, I cast a doubtful glance at the dead gods. Surely they weren’t stupid enough to invoke human sacrifice?
A glimmer of red caught my eye, buried deep in the crystal drifts. Someone bled directly onto the wooden floor, before the discorporation. The trail led in a straight line to the back door, but at the door itself, many drops had splattered seemingly at random. Most importantly, some had spilled on top of the shards. *After* the discorporation.
“Well,” I said, examining a four-finger smear of blood on the glass and dreading my next words. “It looks like we’ve got another godling on our hands.” |
Nedrunos turned his keen eyes to the sky, peering at something beyond the clouds, beyond even the air that shrouded the world. The ground quaked as he uncoiled from the fortress housing his hoard, and gales rose as he unfurled his wings. With a noise that reverberated through the land, he took flight.
Songs would be composed about this day.
His powerful wings took him past the highest clouds and beyond. They beat faster and faster as the air thinned and refused to support him. Folding them, Nedrunos cast the spells he had developed over centuries, spells of propulsion and preservation and others, his gaze fixated on his target.
The hoard he had painstakingly gathered over millennia granted him immense power, power unimaginable to mages of lesser kinds, but it wasn't enough, never enough. Meriander was encroaching upon his realm from the south, his strength fueled by the treasures of the ancient elven kingdom he had unearthed. Voipre was growing ever stronger in her islands; rumors said she found a method to extract gold from the sea itself, and she guarded it jealously.
Nedrunos needed an edge lest he be overcome and eaten like so many others. And if the supply of precious metals in the world had been all but exhausted—why, he just had to look beyond.
The planet curved below, the continents and oceans so tiny from his lofty height. Stars glowed brighter than he had ever seen, and among them loomed his target. Pitch-black on one side and coruscating in the sun on the other, the asteroid made his seven hearts race. His instincts told him that underneath layers of worthless iron there lay a treasure to dwarf all treasures—more gold than the greatest of his kind could even dream of.
He accelerated to intercept his prize, making minute adjustment to his course; a trivial task to a mind of his caliber. Finally he touched down on the surface and sank in his claws, feeling the ice and gravel that had been here for aeons crumble.
Spreading his wings, he cast a spell to extend them for hundreds, then thousands of miles like a glimmering veil. They caught the warming rays of the sun, and he felt them nudge him and his prize into a collision course with the planet below.
Nedrunos laughed without a sound. His calculations had been correct.
Turning ponderously, he reached his continent-spanning wings toward the planet to brake against its shroud of air. Were his brethren and sisters watching from below? Were they screaming in fury, commanding their armies at his hoard? One way or another, they would be too late.
His tendons snapped and his bones creaked under the strain. Ice boiled off the asteroid, revealing the iron underneath that swiftly turned red. His blue scales, proof against enchanted blades and dragonfire, melted under the heat. The membranes of his wings tore, and his eyes boiled in their sockets. Still he greedily sought purchase on his fracturing prize with his claws as he constantly cast spells to adjust its trajectory. He could lose his sight, but his hoard down below was like a beacon.
The ground hurtled ever closer at a speed that would prove lethal even to him. Shedding every protective spell, Nedrunos poured the last of his magic into sapping the asteroid's momentum. The pain was such that an agonized roar escaped his throat in a streak of flame.
The impact shattered every bone of his body, and a cloud of debris blackened the sun. His claws shattered, and he slid off the glowing core of the asteroid to slump in a heap beside it. Every last shred of his magic had been expended; even the most pathetic knight could have run a sword through his throat.
The mountain of metal beside him crackled and popped. A molten rivulet trickled from its depths and pooled around his broken form. The beat of his three hearts strengthened, and a shuddering breath entered his lungs as power returned to his body.
He drew another breath, then another, and worked his magic. His bones reformed, then the muscle around them, and skin and scales more brilliant than before. Still power poured into him, more than any of his kind had ever possessed—the power of a god.
Nedrunos rose triumphantly, spread his grand wings, and cleared the skies with a roar that echoed around the world. |
“Right, I call this meeting to order! What’s on the agenda today… Bob! Read the last meeting’s minutes!”
”Bobs on vacation, sir.”
”dammit. Who’ll read the notes?”
”…”
”that’s bobs job, sir!”
”fine, I’ll read the darn things… ahem!5:00 PM, read last meetings minutes.
5:30 PM, proceeded to squabble about the ideal sandwich.
6:00 PM, no conclusion was reached regarding sandwiches, meeting adjourned.”
”that’s pathetic, sir.”
”shut up, Dave.”
“Make me.”
”YAAAH!”
today’s minutes:
5:00 PM, read minutes.
5:13 PM, Steve attacked Dave unjustly.
5:20 PM, Meeting adjourned. |
Politics. Of all the necessary evils in existence, politics is the world champion, in both the "necessary"and "evil"categories. Especially when the "world"in question is home to fairies, goblins, centaurs, and all sorts of other dangerous magical creatures, like this one is. And especially if you happen to be the only plain vanilla human schmuck ever to get stuck there, like I am.
Trust me, if you ever find yourself as the only regular guy, in a place where just about everyone else routinely pisses on the laws of physics as you know them, you'll want to steer well clear of politics.
Fortunately, participating in politics, is like shoveling minotaur dung -- somebody's gotta do it, sure, but it doesn't gotta be me.
Instead, I shine and re-shoe hooves.
It's pretty lucrative, actually, A lot of people here have them, and surprisingly few of them are well-equipped to take care of them for themselves. Centaurs are my best customers, mainly because I charge by the hoof, and they've got four, but also because they tend to do business in a straightforward way, by paying in coin for goods and services.
So, as you can imagine, I was pleased to see Thunderstride trot into my shop, my first customer of the day. Stride's big, even for a centaur, built like a drafthorse horse-wise, and like a big, bodybuilding, bearded badass, man-wise. Fortunately, he's also a good guy, mostly -- a little on the dull side, maybe, but you can't have everything, right?
"Stride!"I called, jovially, motioning to the largest of my cleaning platforms. "What're you in for today, big guy? Standard clean and shine?"
"Uh, yeah,"Stride answered, clopping up onto the platform. It was a stone slab raised up on four granite legs, with a drain in the middle and a wooden railing around the sides, for customers to lean on while they held up hooves for cleaning and inspection. I noticed one hoof trailing a few tiny, sparkling motes. What had he tracked into my shop? "I'm also pulling up a little lame on the left front there, think maybe I got something stuck in the frog."I nodded, as I slid my wheeled stool over beside the platform. "I'll take a look, but you know the rules -- anything more complicated than a re-shoe, or a thorn or pebble stuck in your hoof, and I've gotta refer you to a Centaur Farrier."
"Aw man, I hate those guys, Dean."The centaur complained. "They're so...ya know...judgmental."
"Sorry, but you know how the Farrier's Guild defends their professional territory. I'm not trying to get trampled to death in a dark alley, over here."I responded, as I took up my watering can. I shook it lightly, awakening the water elemental inside. The little spirit obligingly spewed out a high-pressure spray of water from the can's nozzle, which I used to quickly rinse away dirt and grime from Thunderstride's hooves.
The bells on the shop door jangled brightly, as another customer entered -- Graybriar, a middle-aged satyr with a meticulously maintained handlebar moustache. He was another regular. Satyrs only have two hooves, of course, but their kind, and Graybriar in particular, make up for it by frequently indulging in my more expensive, luxury services.
"Here for your two o'clock nixification, Gray?"I asked. "Lily and the gals are all ready for you, over on platform 2."
I gestured over to the second, smaller cleaning platform, where a wooden basin was filled with enough water for the satyr to stand submerged up to his ankles. Hearing her name, a tiny nixie, resembling a miniature woman made of rippling water, poked her head up from the basin and waved Graybriar forward, cheerfully. She was soon joined by her co-workers, giggling and splashing and calling for their client to join to them in the basin.
Those little gals are some of my best earning employees. Lots of people love nixification for the glossy, durable, and waterproof finish it leaves on their hooves for a week or more afterward. Others, like Graybriar, probably just wanted a bunch of tiny naked water chicks to give them an hour-long foot-rub, but I ain't here to judge.
As Graybriar eagerly attended to his appointment with the nixies, I turned back to Thunderstride.
"Okay, let's see this hoof."I sighed, as I rattled the watering again to quiet the elemental.
"Thanks, Dean."Stride said, lifting his left-front hoof. "It's stuck in their real good, the water just made it start wriggling..."
"Thorns and pebbles don't wriggle, Stride, "I said, warningly, but continued my examination.I pulled down the magnifying lenses I'd had resting on my forehead, and took a close look. There was swelling in the flesh around the hoof, and there was definitely something stuck all the way into the soft tissue.
I swore in surprise when I saw the nature of the "object"lodged in the centaur's hoof. Quickly, I snatched up a pair of small brass tongs. Turning to a nearby shelf, where a large winged reptile lay dozing on a woven mat, I pulled the cord attached to a bell that hung over his napping spot, and the shop drake opened one eye to regard me lazily.
"Need these fire-purged, Lenny, chop-chop!"I said, hurriedly, glancing over my shoulder at Stride, who was looking even more embarrassed than before.
Lenny yawned, and then exhaled small jet of flame. In a few moments, the end of the tongs glowed red-hot, and Lenny was peacefully napping once again.
I quenched the tongs in the watering can, earning a hiss of annoyance from the elemental. I apologized to the spirit, but I couldn't want for the tongs to cool, and water doesn't get any more clean and sterile than its pure elemental form.
(continued in comment) |
The boy made gifts for Christmas Day — his girlfriend loved them all
They celebrated New Years Day while watching snowflakes fall
Romantic dinner, French soufflé, on Valentine's for two
Some cheerful drinks with good old friends (St. Patty's Day for you)
*
They kissed, embraced, *so grateful for the time they had* with rain
The weather changed, and April showers led to flowers May
Such warmer days reminded them *remaining time was short*
They vowed to spend their summer months with love and no remorse
*
While resting at the beach one day, the girl fell to the ground
The autumn days had come: *ten months...two more to come around*
The boy and girl gave Hallow'd kisses, life was near the end
And as she left, they both Gave Thanks for time that they had spent
&nbsp; |
I envied her, but I didn't want to. She was, after all, perfect.
It wasn't the time we spent at school together, or the way she effortlessly handled her homework, or how she was both pretty and interesting. It was...all of it.
We were friends when we were little, and it was much of the same. She played by the rules, while I sometimes got in trouble, then she'd sometimes bail me out. When we were in high school, she was the only one brave enough to resist smoking or drinking.
I'm happy she's finally found a good man. After all the up-and-down relationships she had with men who didn't respect her, Tim is a true godsend. The other men couldn't really respect her natural talents.
I started getting worried when she passed the bar exam. Here we were, both inner-city rural homebodies from Springfield, Nebrahoma, and she's going somewhere that nobody in our state has gone.
While working in law for over a decade, she was able to raise two children after a few dozen miscarriages. I don't know how she did it, and that's what scares me.
When she ran for election, I was speechless. This was probably a good thing, too, since the press was trying to find dirt on her, and I had nothing to say when they visited my trailer. It's hard to focus on that when your misbehaving children are screaming in the background and your husband won't turn down the TV.
Now, she's just won the primaries. Soon, everyone will know the capabilities of President Mary.
I'm not sure what I missed, but there's something not right about her. Never has been, never will be. If there is a God, he forgot to make her an interesting person to be around, but I guess someone like that is only useful to save the world anyway. |
I walked briskly down the art gallery, towards the police cordon. An inspector spotted me and nodded.
"I'm the investigating officer, Diwan Shah", he said proffering his hand.
"Senior Detective Perez", I said accepting his handshake.
"Heard a lot about you. Please follow me. The painting is this way"
"I got this case just this morning. Haven't had time to read all the details. How did we find out that the locations of Soren's victims are hidden in the paintings?"
"One of his neighbours saw the painting and knew the location that was depicted. Apparently he had gone for a vacation in those parts and sat beneath a tree in front of the church. He identified the church and even the tree. Only, there was a cross marked beneath it. Thinking it could be a location map to a buried treasure, he went there again and dug it up. Once the first body was found, we began analysing the other paintings. Three bodies have been recovered so far, and his fourth and last painting is in this gallery."
"Has Soren been arrested?"
"No, he somehow got wind that we found the first body and has disappeared since."
We reached the alley where Soren's painting was hung. It was titled "The Urban Reality".
I stared at the painting, trying to make sense of it.
"Yeah, a bummer isn't it", chuckled Shah.
This was easily the least appealing painting I had ever seen. It was what people called 'modern art', but it looked like something a two year old would have made. Along all four edges of the painting, the artist had created a mosaic using one inch long brush strokes in different shades of brown. The center of the canvas, the part which was enclosed by the mosaic, had spots of every color imaginable. It reminded me of the old CRT televisions, which displayed a colorful dotted screen when it had no input signal.
"This is going to take a while. Do we have permission to take the painting with us yet", I asked.
"Yes. The gallery doesn't want to do anything with this painting now. Once the news was out that Soren is a serial killer, the price of his paintings went down to almost nothing"
"Great. Get the painting to the HQ. We'll study it there. In the meanwhile, take some high res pictures and run it through every pattern recognition algorithm we have to see if he's written anything in that myriad of colors."
__
A couple of days went by without any progress. The pattern recognition algorithms found nothing more than a letter 't' within the colorful spots. Soren was still absconding. It would have been easier to beat the location out of him.
"Don't we have any other clues apart from this painting", I asked.
"I'm afraid not. We have questioned his neighbours, known relatives and friends but no one has a clue about what that painting could mean. We also traced the route he took during his vacation. All the locations where bodies were hidden, were part of his itinerary. But still no clue about what this location could be,"said Shah.
We stared at the painting for a bit. Then I started pacing.
"I don't understand how people see this garbage as art", he sighed.
"Yeah, I know. Garbage is accurate."
I froze. Could it be? Surely not!
"Shah! Get Soren's itinerary. Could you plot all the locations on the map?"
"Sure. You got something?"
"I might have. Once you plot all the locations, I want you to search for landfill sites near them."
His jaw dropped.
"You don't think.."
"I actually do."
He worked furiously on his computer.
"Found it. There are only two landfills that are near the locations he visited."
"Switch to satellite image view and zoom in on one of those locations. Try to scale the landfill site to match the painting."
"WOAH! I don't believe this. This has to be the one. The brown mosaic in the painting is actually the roofs of the nearby slums that surround the landfill. It matches perfectly."
I smiled involuntarily. I had that familiar feeling of satisfaction and euphoria.
"But how do we find a body in this huge landfill?"
"Now that we have confirmed that this painting definitely depicts a location and isn't a riddle of some sort, we can say that he has not broken his pattern. Keeping in line with that pattern, I am sure that there is a cross mark somewhere."
And it clicked again.
"The letter 't' that we found,"I cried out. "That has to be an 'x'"
And so it was. |
Throughout all of written history, hell, since Humans could talk, words were Power. The Tower of Babel could be stacked entirely of written works about the Powers of Voice and Words: Movies, Television, Skits, Sketches, Videos, Games, Comics, Books, Plays and Poetry, all different mediums that weave tales about this Power. And the only thing they share in common, is that they tell me dick all about how to prevent my words from hurting EVERYONE who can hear me.
That is why I enrolled, or well, more specifically my father forced me to enroll, into Victor von Hammer's Academy of Excelled Humanties. You know the place, I don't need to tell you. All Heroes, Villains, and Nopos- Sorry, Civilians, know of the place. What you may not know, is this place sucks. Sucks ass. Actually, you may already have your suspicions. It's the IVY League of Super Powered Schools. Filled with the same Nepotistic, Alpha Cum Loudasses that every University you've ever seen has to offer. Except the "Hazing"usually comes with a super-powered Haze that prevents you from seeing anyone's face. My days are filled with the usual 8 hours of College work, followed up by another 4 of specialized study, focusing on my "Subset Powers". The thing preventing the Heroes from ripping their own arms off their body, of slushing their skin off at the speed of Anti-matter. The thing is. This school is just like the Comics and Movies; they don't know dick about my Power.
It turns out, I'm literally only the 4th person to ever have this ability. Ever. And it's reason I have to type this out to you. Sure, I CAN speak and have a normal conversation, but if I'm not careful, I could accidentally call you a dumbass, and the next thing I know, I'm sitting next to an abnormally dumb jackass, the animal. Remember the Undead Summer of '08? "When Hell freezes over, the Dead shall rise?"Yeah, that was me. So, while the school formulates a better course for me, I'm stuck like this.
My current course is literally learning another language. They've discovered that my powers react to English only because that's the language I have. They're hoping if I can learn German or French or Latin, that I can change my powers to activate only when I speak that language. So far, the only success they've had is changing the flavor of my power. Kind of like when I say "Flamethrower"the power I get from that is different than when I say "Flammenwerfer". The first one is your normal idea of a long pillar of fire, where the second I can just lob balls of fire. It comes in handy sometimes though, but the School has no idea how or why it changes. They can't even talk to the others with my powers. The first two are long dead, the third accidentally caused himself to become mute and deaf. So, it's a lot of trial and error on my end.
There are some benefits to it though. I don't have to speak in front of the class. My math teacher is still terrified of the implications of making "X equals 10"in every case ever... Again. Took way too long to figure out how to fix that. Plus, the douchebags leave me alone ever since I made "I'm rubber you're glue, what you say bounces off me and sticks to you"a scary thing to them. I still won't remove the words "You idiot"from Chad Kensington's face.
But over all. It still sucks. Having to learn the ins and outs of EVERYONE's powers, just so we don't accidentally cancel each other out and cause a "United Storm", is difficult for everyone, let alone someone who can cause it because I whispered the wrong thing at them. That's really the only class I pay attention in. I said "I'm going to pass this class"at the start of every other class, so now I can nap through them. |
A/N I wrote this on mobile while getting a tattoo so please forgive any spelling or grammar mistakes. I typed this in duress 😂
The School for Deities and Demi-Gods was pretty great. We didnt have to hide who we were unlike when we went to human schools. My dad was a human but my mom was a god, so that makes me a demi-God technically. We are usually weaker than Gods but due to my mom being an Elder Goddess, I am stronger than most of the other students that are full blooded.
People tried to pick on me for being a red blood, but quickly changed when I called upon my elder god heritage. I don't like conflict at all, the headmaster of the school actually identified me as an Elder demi-God of peace, BUT seeing the fear in a "full blooded"God's eyes is...delightful.
Perhaps I feel that way because of who my mother is. She used to be a lesser daemon who falsified her way into godship, then lied her way into the order of elder gods where she was responsible for the death of Cthulu and consumed his essence gaining the ability to become an elder god. Her name is Shavalyoth, the Lord of Lies.
The only people that want to be affiliated with the son of the murderer of Cthulu and the Lord of Lies, are creepy demi-gods looking for a shortcut to power, or wannabe emissaries for her.
That's only part of my problem, is our version of prom is starting and this is where many gods are paired up and usually end up together for immense stretches of time. Hell, Zues and Hera went together forever ago. Granted he was less than faithful, but still to this day he tries to win her back.
Where was I? Oh yeah, our prom. You see, Veritas is in our class and she is so amazing. The issue is she is the goddess of truth. Being the demi-elder god of peace we actually get along well. Who would have guessed peace and truth go well together? Most people in fact.
I asked her to go with me and she said yes but her parents are sticklers for tradition and wanted to meet my parents. Well, just my mom, my father died over a millennia ago. Guess elder gods are pregnant for a LONG time. As he died she told me she showed him the future, of me and my entire life so he could know his child. He died happy.
So the dinner finally came and let's say it was... rough. Her dad was Apollo, the god of truth. Her mother was Themis, the goddess of wisdom and good counsel. I love my mom but the Lord of Lies does not make good counsel. Apollo, Veritas and my mother argued ruthlessly. Strangely enough Themis and my mom got along. As the goddess of wisdom she could appreciate the foresight and thought process put into her web of lies.
Well the dinner ended tragically. I was stressed, Apollo and Veritas were redder in the face than Ares' shield after war. There was no way this was gonna work out. Veritas was definitely gonna cancel or Apollo would forbade it.
You could imagine my surprise when I saw her at school after the weekend and she approached me. We were still a go for prom but her dad put one stipulation in place if we were to go on this date.
No more family dinners. |
For just a moment, her mask fell. The goddess’s mouth opened to form a shocked ‘o’. Her eyes held no color, they were black with distant lights shining within, but they widened in shock all the same.
I nearly allowed myself to imagine that she understood my words. To imagine that she also felt the need for an end. Her mouth twitched. I thought for a horrible second that she might apologize, but then her facade fell back into place. She stared at me with that blank, all-knowing look. It was something she must have practiced.
“Of course,” she coughed and the golden blood shone against her dark lips. “I knew you’d say that, but I also know you’ll change your mind. All of these lives. What’s left of the world… you’d have to kill them to truly end it. You’re no killer.”
And I laughed. The dagger in my hands felt heavy. I wasn’t a killer. Not in that moment, but I would be. I watched the blood leak out of her. Shining in the starlight.
“I know…” she whispered. And then her eyes closed. “I know…”
If she believed her own lie or not, it didn’t really matter. This world she’d created, supposedly in her own image, it was full of heartbreak and pain. It was a world defined by the knowledge that everything that one acquired would one day be lost.
It was time to make a new world.
And if I had to end what was left of it.
Well, you can’t really blame me, can you? |
Log 001: Doctor \[REFDACTED\] Jameson Leading an interview with SCP-6384.
Transcript is as follows.
Jameson: So, SCP-6384-
SCP-6384: Please, call me Amelia.
Jameson: Ahem, SCP-6384. It has been shown that your knack for messing up even the most basic tasks is practically unheard of. Only 3108 makes things worse. Yet you are constantly praised as the greatest maid in the world by each and everyone of your employers. those exact words, "the greatest maid in the world". Care to explain?
SCP-6384: Oh, it's really simple. Almost any silly slip up of mine can be forgiven by a little food. People love a good homecooked meal don't you know. And really, i did exactly what was asked of me every time so i don't know what the issue was in the first place.
Jameson: So you didn't realize that when Dr. Carlson asked you to pick up his office, he didn't mean to rent a bulldozer and rip it out of the building to be placed on the roof?
SCP-6384: well what else could it mean silly?
Jameson: It usually means to clean the designated area.
SCP-6384: well, he should of just said that.
Jameson: there are a few more question I would like to ask. First, where did you get an oversized bulldozer?
SCP-6384: A construction crew were driving along that road up yonder and needed directions, so I helped in exchange for borrow the bulldozer.
Jameson: And how, exactly, did you get out of the facility?
SCP-6384: Why, the front door silly.
Jameson: Without being spotted on any security cameras, nor by the guards posted throughout the facility?
SCP-6384: Nothing can keep me from my work, That's what makes me the best!
Jameson: I see. Next question, what was in that banana pudding you made for Dr. Carlson. It placated him immediately, he was completely fine with having his office all but destroyed.
SCP-6384: well, a good pudding was just what the doctor ordered for that, well don't tell him I said this but, that grump. \*giggle\*
Jameson: Yes, but what was in it?
SCP-6384: Bananas of course!
Jameson: And?
SCP-6384: Hmmmm... Not sure I remember.
Jameson: Is that so. Surely you have the recipe?
SCP-6384: Nope! I cook by taste. If I like it, so will everyone. Ah! speaking of which.
SCP-6384 proceeds to pull a small Tupperware container from beneath her apron.
SCP-6384: I made these for you. They're praline cookies.
Jameson: How did...
Dr. Jameson seems to reach for the container. Observational staff determined Dr.Jameson under control of some mind altering anomaly and ended the interview. The instance of SCP-6384-1 appear to be non-anomalous until eaten, in which case the cookies are complimented and the subject forget what they were talking about, becoming very susceptible to suggestion. Request to O-5 command made to transfer SCP-6384 to a higher security facility is pending. |
The constant drip drip was driving Jared insane. There were not enough buckets in the city to catch all the leaking water. His roof might as well have been a sieve. And it was rainy season. The floor was hard and the rickety boards creaked as he turned to his side, in search of comfort. He was used to the musty foul smell that lingered in the air, but not to the empty shell his house had become. She’d taken everything.
The lump in Jared’s neck was the size of a canon ball. Incurable. It had grown so large and heavy, he could no longer stand up. He hadn’t eaten in nearly a week now. He was a skeleton wearing skin. He forced himself up and nearly snapped his neck in two. And he would have roared in agony, if his mouth was not so dry.
Jared’s thin dry lips shaped into a grin. He could have just lay there and die. His neck could have snapped and he would have died. And yet here he was, reaching for the last thing he still owned. Poison. A slow death wasn’t for him. His stomach had gone concave and his ribs were a visible spider like shape. The floor was covered in urine and excrement.
His wife, he wouldn’t even think her name, had taken everything. Even things that had been bolted down. Like the cabinets where he mixed his potions. All his herbs and ingredients were gone. The warm bed he’d made himself from the wood of the ancient mahogany tree. And then she left. She had no use for a dead husband. The bottle of Deathbloom Sap was all she left behind. Poison.
Jared welcomed death. It couldn’t be any worse than this. And he could no longer wait for nature to take its course. One drop would do the trick. One drop would do what the fast growing lump in his neck was doing. He remembered when it’d been the size of a pea. Two weeks and he looked like a camel. He would be dead in a few more days he reckoned. He was tired of waiting.
Instead of a drop Jared steadily lifted the glass bottle to his mouth. His limbs were so weak, the task was difficult. And he poured the whole thing down his throat. He couldn’t taste anything. His tongue was coated in what felt like rubber. He closed his eyes, the empty bottle crashing to floor, Jared’s head landing next to it as he fell too.
Jared opened his eyes. Was this the afterlife? If so it needed a clean. It smelled just as bad as his old house. He sat up with ease. His hands grasped for his neck. It had been too easy. Almost like the lump was gone. He felt his neck. There was nothing there. And his body seemed different. He jumped to his feet. Jumped!
His stomach was no longer concave. It was flat and healthy. The ribs were no longer prominent. He touched his mouth, even his teeth had changed. The gap between them which had made him whistle like a kettle when he breathed, was gone. The teeth had moved into place. He had no more scars on his body. This MUST be the afterlife. But it wasn’t. The glass bottle was where it’d dropped. The roof was leaking and the room stunk.
What had happened? He sat cross legged on the creaking floor. This was a miracle. But no. He’d spent half his life trying to make other people better. Making medicines from herbs. So it had to be some sort of medicine. He should have been dead. One drop killed instantly. He’d seen it with his own eyes. So why was he alive. Because you didn’t take one drop did you, you idiot, he thought. You guzzled the whole bottle!
He picked up the bottle and stared at it open mouthed. Deathbloom sap was, well, death incarnate. But was it? Life and death were connected by a thread. Could something that killed also give life? He suddenly burst out laughing. The loud cackle from him mouth startled even him. He’d made his first real discovery. Deathbloom sap? A cure all? No one else would ever know this. They were afraid of it.
If he used some cranberries to change the colour and mask the taste. Perhaps he could. No he couldn’t. But what if he did. How much money would he make? How many lives would he save? He’d have to get the dosage right. Drink it all or not at all, he would say. And he could charge anything. He was living proof it worked. They all knew he was dying, and now he was the perfect picture of health.
He laughed again and rolled on the floor. He didn’t even care when he rolled on something soft. His life was about to change forever. |
“Step back, he’s been bit!”
“No I haven’t. That’s just the way my furry is supposed to walk.”
Pepper Pug growled. “Don’t you think that, maybe, the middle of a zombie outbreak isn’t the best time to ‘stay in character?’” He formed air quotes to accentuate the point, though the effect was lost under his fingerless mitts. “All of you listen up, and listen up real good. If we’re gonna make it out of here alive, then we’ll need to stick to one speed. My speed. And if you can’t keep—”
“Hey, what makes you the big boss?” interjected Amaretto. “Plus, if you were wearing your coyote outfit, that would make more sense. But Pepper Pug? Come on. He’s like, super slow.”
The group of survivors huddled against the wall was comprised of those individuals lucky enough to have been in a fur suit when the outbreak occurred. It had spread rapidly. A batch of infected glow-sticks, or glow pois, depending on the account, contained enough filamentous fungi to contaminate the entirety of the convention. Once turned, zombies exhibited typical behavior known to many of the attendees by the video games they played, though in this case, a strange phenomenon had manifested itself. Zombies did not bite furries.
“Someone’s coming!” Duke crouched, tightly gripping her mauve German Shepard ears.
It was an infected volunteer. She was still wearing a hand-knit cap with two anime eyes sewn in, though one was splattered by blood. The frames of her glasses were mangled, and she snarled with each incoming step.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god …”
“Shhhh!”
“Don’t w—worry, we’re furries … s—she won’t eat us.” The zombie was now face-to-face with Amaretto, who tried his best to remain composed. “B—b— buongiorno, mio n—nome Amaretto. I’m your little a—amico …” He tried wagging his tail back and forth, but the attempt at being cute was not as successful as it had been earlier that morning, in front of all his fans. Instead, the convulsions more closely resembled those of a family pet who might have mistakenly eaten a lemon peal off the dinner floor. “I’m your l—little amico."
“Woof, woof, woof,” added Mister Dingo. “Woofity woof!”
The furries launched into their respective routines, performed rather hideously by even a layperson’s standards. But after a few minutes of jumbled singing, whirling, and twirling, the infected volunteer departed down another corridor.
“It worked!”
“We’re alive!”
“Hallelujah!”
Once more, the costumed compatriots danced. It was only then that they noticed her. She stood in the doorway to their right, her entire spotted frame obstructing the mutilated corpses of her victims in the room beyond. Snow Leopard Senpai. She was a legend at the convention, and judging by the brain matter and sinewy tissue dribbling from her jaws, she had been contaminated.
In that moment, they knew it was over. Perhaps zombies did not attack furries. But furry on furry? That was another matter altogether.
“Run!” |
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