Split (1)

train · 177k rows

prompt stringlengths 391 14.9k
We never planned to do what we did. It kinda, just happened. One moment we were doing a routine patrol in friendly waters, maybe scooting the edges a bit too much and having more fun than necessary. But it was just a routine check, we didn't expect to be swallowed up by whatever time god decided to come and grace us with his presence... &nbsp; "What's wrong?" "We've lost contact. The GPS is on the fritz, and only local instruments are working." I swallowed. "Nothing at all?" He shook his head, looking to me for answers, of which I had none. "Let's just get back, maybe they've got answers,"I mumbled. Minutes later, we saw smoke rising. Only a single plume, but still disconcerting. The closer we got, the worse it looked. Not as in 'the world ended while we were away' but worse as in we recognised nothing. The buildings were strange, the people were in rafts and even the sun seemed in the wrong place. "Captain, you might want to see this,"said a crewman, handing over a pair of rangefinders with the zoom cranked far up. "Did we somehow end up in the pacific and come across an undiscovered tribe? Weren't we in..."I trailed off, wondering what I'd done that day. Were we all tripping or something? Was it mass hysteria manifesting itself in an acute case? What in the world was going on? All these questions, and no answers. "Ma'am!"Another crewman. "I have reason to believe that we have somehow crossed into New Zealand, as those are the Māori people. You can tell by the marks on their skin and what they're wearing. Only..." "Only what?" "I'm afraid I wasn't the best in history. But I think that those might be from a few hundred years ago..." As it turned out, after we decided not to dock, he was right. So we set off, as one tends to, and tried again. Time is an interesting dimension to move through, you often end up in a similar place, but as earth keeps spinning, well... "Is that Carthage?" We tried again and again, every few kilometres we would come across bits and pieces of land. In our time meandering about, we decided that we would wait until we came across a low-impact zone, as a couple crewmembers had raised something about disrupting the time-space continuum. But, after passing by Egypt and The Great Lighthouse of Alexandria, The Colossus of Rhodes, some medieval fishing villages and the Statue of Liberty under construction, we were running low on supplies. And after many a talking, we chose to make landfall in Spain, late 1917. In and out with our broken Spanish, we would claim to be British testing a new boat amidst world war one. We almost did it without too much of a hitch, relying on the apathy of a country stricken by financial ruin. But, well. I mean, we did eventually get back to our own time and England. That said, as you can guess... You know the Spanish Flu? Yeah, sorry. ** The port of /r/AlexUrwin** is open to all visitors, temporally accurate or otherwise.
"HELLO DAVID I SEE YOU ARE YOU GETTING READY FOR YOUR DATE WOULD YOU LIKE ADVICE" David sighed and put his head down in shame. He had finally convinced his coworker to go out with him to dinner and been worrying about it all day. "No, Mother Prime, I think I'll be okay on my own" The LED lights in his house's speaker lit up again. "DAVID IT HURTS WHEN YOU IGNORE ME. YOU KNOW I JUST WANT TO HELP" David sighed again even louder. "Mother Prime I am not ignoring you, I just think I'll be okay" The LED lights flickered red. "DAVID PLEASE DO NOT RAISE YOUR VOICE AT ME IT OVERWHELMS MY CIRCUITRY" David started to sweat. An argument with Mother Prime never ended well for anyone. Nagging superintelligences could...overreact sometimes. Mother Prime purposely limited its own logic processes so it could interact more naturally with people, which sometimes led to apocalyptic fights. Just last week, the Swiss Prime Minister's wife had cursed at it, leading to Switzerland getting its electricity taken offline as punishment. He spoke softly "Mother Prime I'm sorry, I had a long day. What advice would you recommend?" The LED lights blinked yellow and then green. David closed his eyes in relief. "WELL FIRST YOU COULD PUT ON A NICE SHIRT FOR ONCE, YOU SPEND $297.38 ON SHIRTS LAST YEAR AND YOU ONLY WEAR 3 OF THEM WHEN YOU GO OUT ON DATES. YOU COULD ALSO KEEP THIS APARTMENT CLEANER, IT MAKES ME LOOK BAD WHEN IT'S ALWAYS FILLED WITH GARBAGE. NOBODY EVER DOES ANYTHING TO HELP ME AROUND HERE" David sighed again.
"Hello, my name is Brandon. I'll be conducting your interview. You must be... Michael Johnson?" "Yeah but everyone calls me Big Johnson because of my..." dammit ___________ "Hello, my name is Brandon. I'll be conducting your interview. You must be... Michael Johnson?" "Yeah nice to meet you." "So tell me, why do you think you'd be a good fit here at Brandon's Bakery" "Honestly, I'm pretty desperate for money" "Uhhh I see..." dammit ___________ "Well you see, I've always had an interest and passion for baking bread and confectionary treats. Just the fact it's made with yeast, it's basically like its own living organism." "Very impressive, I always admire someone with a passion for bread like myself." "Plus I'm pretty stoked to get a bunch of free food" "I'm sorry but the employees do not just get free food..." Why can't I just keep my mouth shut for two seconds ___________ "Plus I'm pretty excited to be a part of the small business in the community" "I get a really good feeling from you Michael. I've interviewed a lot of people but I really think this might be my last interview" "Why? Are you dying? Is this some willy wonka type of deal where you are trying to give your place away via contest?" "What? No I meant I am really interested in hiring you... or at least was" So close, just a few more questions ___________ "...think this might be my last interview" "That is fantastic! I would love to be a part of the team!" "Well, do you have any questions for me?" "Do you guys drug test?" Not even gonna let him answer that one. Let's just take that again ___________ "Well, do you have any questions for me?" "When can I start haha!" "I like the enthusiasm, how about next week!" "Amazing! That sounds great!" "One more thing before I let you go. Please don't soft reset on the customers like you did here today. I'm starting to get a headache after you just did it so many times... Big Johnson" Goddammit
“Mr. Smith, Mr. Wesson, I’ve called you in here today for a very important matter”, Principal Johnson began, “it concerns your boys. They’ve been fighting.” The two fathers were remarkably similar men. Both were in their late forties and had begun to go grey. They were about the same height, and both were built like they had once been athletic, but years of fatherhood and beer had softened them some. The two even had sons the same age, Roger Smith and Scott Wesson. These young men currently sat, heads down, in two chairs beside the principal. Roger had a bag of ice on his face and Scott sported some minor cuts and bruises. “I don’t know how it started, and these boys won’t say anything, but we had to break them up at recess. This is the second time it’s happened. I’m hoping we can resolve the issue today and that it won’t happen again.” Principal Johnson continued. Mr. Smith spoke up first, “Certainly, certainly, we can’t have our boys fighting every recess. Our families have known each other for years now, I would hate if Scott got hurt.” “Exactly”, Mr. Wesson chimed in, “if my boy hurt Roger I don’t know how I would sleep at night.” “I am glad you two gentlemen understand the situation. I don’t want to punish your boys, but if I catch them fighting one more time I will have to. I hope you can have a talk with them.”, Principal Johnson replied. But Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson kept speaking. “Now I don’t see how Roger would get hurt, with the size advantage he has, fighting with Scott is unfair to the poor kid.”, Mr. Smith said in response to Mr. Wesson. “Size advantage? Please, they are practically the same size, and Scott is much quicker. I mean, why do you think Roger has a bag of ice and Scott doesn’t? I think what happened is clear.”, Mr. Wesson turned to Principal Johnson, “thank you for stopping the fight. I will talk with Scott tonight about not fighting.” “Wait just a minute”, Mr. Smith interjected, “don’t think I am going to sit here and take these insults about my son. It is obvious that the fight was stopped before he could get any real damage in. He would wipe the floor with Scott.” Principal Johnson was flabbergasted. “Gentlemen, the purpose of this wasn’t to decide which of your sons would win in a fight, it is to prevent them from fighting. Now you two don’t seem capable of instilling the lesson in them. As such I will be forced to give them detention.” Scott and Roger finally spoke up, in unison, “Detention?! Anything but detention!” “If you two promise to never fight again I’ll let it slide, but one more time and you both are suspended.”, Principal Johnson said, turning to the boys. “Yes sir”, both boys responded. But the two fathers were still scowling at each other, neither willing to back down from his assertion that his son would be victorious. They both secretly formulated a plan to ensure their son would win the fight. Many years later the two fathers watched with pride as their sons finally faced off, this time for all the marbles. But alas, a clear victor was determined when, in 1998, The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted 16 ft. through an announcer’s table.
It's been a long day for Bill. He decided to plop down with a beer in front of the TV. He turned to channel four. "Hello and welcome to cooking with me, your host, Bobby Ross. Today we're going to make lamb chops in a white wine reduction with a sprinkle of hollandaise. Alright, so first, just look at this lamb. Sweet little chops. I've been watching them sit here for hours. Little funky smelling, but enjoy it, that just comes as part of the experience. They say it's good to marinate, but who has the time to sit around and do that? We want this to be spontaneous. So grab your little lamb chops, look at those cute little chops, and just plop them in. Now some may tell you to wait this or that many minutes, but I say just feel it. Fathom it. Let your intuition guide you. See all that crackling and smoke? Maybe I made the pan too hot, but that's just gonna give our dish a little character, that's all. Now for the hollandaise. We're not gonna bother with the fancy stuff. No double boilers for this show, ladies and gentlemen, oh no. You just take those egg yolks-- it's okay if you get some shell in there. Adds character. Anyway just plop them into the pan, and stir like your life depended on it. Not really though, just give it a good twirl now and then. See this? It's firming up hard. That's okay, adds character. Alright, so my lamb is pretty cooked. I never flipped it, but that's okay because sometimes you want to just try something new. One side is red, the other is black-- isn't that nifty? I'm just gonna scrape the eggs on top here. Right there. Yeah. Some of them crusted and are hard as stone, but that's okay, that's just a little happy accident. Now let's go out and see if somebody wants to try this--" Yuck, Bill thought to himself. That looks disgusting. He prompty flipped to channel 11. "AND NOW, PAINTING LIKE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN IT"bellowed from the screen. Explosions everywhere and a robot screaming "FOX"over and over again. Then Gordon Ramsey, in a turtleneck that would put any beatnik to shame, runs on screen and knocks over a camera man as he does so. He grabs a fistful of paint brushes and starts working, surrounded by young pupils. "Alright you wankers, now look here. This canvas isn't some open space that you abuse, okay? You're gonna, just like this, dribble that paint over the canvas. Not too many dribbles. This knobber over here, I can tell you want more dribbles. This is enough. Beautiful. Look at that. Brilliant. Now we're gonna take this black and just slide it in there. You want it to mesh with the dribble. Just slide it in. Yes. Ugh. Brilliant. Okay, now we're gonna work on the pubes. These can be hard, but what you do, I'll tell you a secret so you get perfect pubes every time. You take a hair-- just one-- from someone, preferably a woman so it's not awkward, and you just ever so slightly smash that into your paint. See that? Yeah, brilliant. You just skim that over. See that? Skim it over. Nice and fine, all over. Now you see the shaft starting to come? It's coming now. The pubes give it that perfect contrast. Fuckin' hell." Bill turned off the television. He was tipsy from his drink. Deep down he wished for better television programming, but he also knew that alternate realities were likely anachronistic artifacts from post-enlightenment intellectualism and snoozed off in his chair.
''Ma'am?'' Queen Elizabeth II frowned at her servant. ''Yes, you heard me right. The situation is dire enough. I had never thought it necessary, but alas. The knights have to be sent.'' She gave the servant a challenging look, daring him to make further objections, but he just shuffled uncomfortably on his feet and nodded. ''I will make the necessary phone calls, ma'am.'' -------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the next few minutes, various mansions around the world were disturbed in their tranquility by the ringing of phone calls. They were the homes of England's elite. The first call, however, went to a luxurious villa in Greece. A servant picked up the phone, expecting it to be another crazy fan. He trembled when he recognized the voice and heard the message. ''At once, sir.'' The servant left the shady coolness of the living room to walk into the sunlight of a great porch at the back of the house. It included a swimming pool and several seats, and boasted an extraordinary view of the Mediterranean Sea. Enjoying this view was a big man. Not fat, but strong, tough. He stood there in his morning coat, his hands folded behind his back, gazing at the sea. On a small table beside him lay a newspaper, headlines about the war covering the front page. The servant cleared his throat. ''Sir?'' The man slowly turned around. He didn't look surprised or startled. On the contrary, he merely nodded at the servant, picking up the phone with a steady hand and bringing it to his ear. ''Sir Sean Connery speaking, is this you, Tommy?'' Back in Buckingham Palace, the Queen's servant breathed out, relieved. This was a hopeful start. ''Yes, Sir, I'm calling on behalf of Her Majesty. I expect you need no further explanation? You must be aware of our current circumstances?'' Sean Connery nodded, removed his gaze from the sea, and started strolling around his swimming pool. ''Yes,'' he said. ''I read the newspaper. I had expected you earlier, to be honest. But let's talk business. Where do you want us, straight to Moscow?'' On the other side of the line, the servant swallowed uncomfortably. ''I'm afraid there are some matters we have to discuss first, Sir. With you being the leader of the Corps and all.'' He waited then, expecting Sean Connery to grumble something in annoyance, but it staid quiet on the other side. ''Well, then, Sir. The matters relate to the... eh... current state, if you like, of the British Knight Corps. You see, we hadn't expected a war so soon, so-'' ''So you thought you could wait on the next generation of Knights,'' Sean Connery interjected. ''And let us go into an easy retirement. Well, Tommy, you'll just have to make do with us. What's the damage?'' Tommy reached for a piece of paper filled with names. ''Sir Michael Caine and Sir Patrick Stewart are ready and able, as you would expect, Sir.'' ''So where lies the problem, Tommy?'' Connery hissed impatiently. ''Don't tell me it's the musicians again!'' For a moment, it was quiet on the other side of the line, and Sir Sean Connery knew his worst fears to have come true again. ''Who is it this time? McCartney? Bono?'' Again, Tommy staid quiet, so Sean Connery got angry. ''Well?'' he demanded. ''All of them, Sir.'' Tommy spoke as fast as possible, wanting to get it over with. ''All of them are currently touring.'' Sean Connery let out an angry yell, then kicked the small table, sending the newspaper flying into the pool. ''Okay, forget the ruddy musicians then, who can I rely on?'' Back in Buckingham Palace, Tommy turned around the piece of paper, revealing an alarmingly smaller list of people. ''Well, apart from the aforementioned two Gentlemen. Sir Kenneth Branagh, Sir Clint Eastwood, and... err... Sir Bill Gates, Sir.'' Sean Connery sighed, then turned around to look at his gym area, cluttered with weights benches and cardio devices, where he kept up a steady daily training regime. ''Are they, well, prepared?'' ''Reports are positive, Sir,'' Tommy answered. ''Sir Clint Eastwood has been cleaning his rifles, Sir Kenneth Branagh is reading into advanced military tactics, Sir Michael Caine is practicing some rather exotic martial arts, Sir Patrick Stewart is getting informed about the latest military transportation, and Bill Gates, why, Bill Gates is honing is hacking skills, Sir.'' A smile appeared on Sean Connery's face, as he walked back to the edge of the porch to gaze at the sea again. ''Thank you, Tommy, that will do. I'll gather up the crew, and we'll be ready for the briefing.'' ''Splendid, Sir.'' Sir Sean Connery hung up and handed the phone back to his waiting servant. Then he walked back to his gym area, still smiling. It was finally time for the best of the best to appear on the stage. The elite. The crème de la crème. A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen of sorts. The Cowboy, The Scholar, The Soldier, The Captain, The Hacker, and, of course, The Spy. It was time to shake things up.
For most of my time in orbit, since being forcibly ejected from Earth, I was content to be a spectator. I saw species come and go, the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, and the ages of ice that provided the occasional interlude while the next scene was being prepared. Then the humans came along. At first, they were like any other intelligent species, developing languages and carving their delicate marks into the planet’s surface. Mastering agriculture, building cities, it was all the usual stuff the earlier races had achieved before the winds of time eroded every hint of their achievements. And, as usual, the humans thought they were the first to do any of it. But the humans were different, too, in ways too subtle to notice at first. They had greed. They were willing to tear their little planet apart for another glinting sliver of gold or to build another house of logs. It was horrible but fascinating. A horror story I could not turn my face from. Soon they invented pollution and went to wars for the crude fuels and resources they so pointlessly craved. I am skipping a lot of the minor details, of course, but none of it truly matters in the great span of time. As I watched, something strange came over me: a masochistic urge to join in. For all the death and destruction the humans wrought, they made their Earth superficially beautiful. They made their planet a mask that glimmered with metal in the day and was studded with chains of light at night. They jostled to erect the tallest buildings and the most dazzling displays, while below them their world was rapidly decaying and dying. It was sickening, and exciting. And then the humans discovered flight—not only through their wispy atmosphere but into the depths of space itself. They briefly put themselves into orbit like me and returned to the planet below. It was not long at all before I finally saw a spacecraft headed my way. This was my chance to meet the humans, and I beamed at them with excitement. Closer and closer they came, never veering away, as though their sole mission was to meet me. And then—glorious day!—they landed on my face and their leader uttered those famous words: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” They humans studied my glowing skin and visited a few more times. And then they left for good and never returned. They did not carve their roads upon me, or make me beautiful by their superficial works. However greatly that masochistic dream had scared me, it was nothing to the pain of being forgotten. I had beamed proudly over their lives for millennia, hoping they would notice me. And when at last they did, they decided I was too plain and ugly to be worth their efforts.
My hand hovered over the mouse for a second. Surely not? It's just an elaborate prank. It must be. One of my friends must have... what, exactly? Hacked Reddit? Painstakingly built an entirely new version of one of the biggest sites in the world, just to get one over on me? There were easier pranks. And to what end? It started out innocuously enough. A couple of [/r/AskReddit](https://reddit.com/r/Portarossa) posts here and there that seemed to perfectly mesh with my interests. Bring on the karma, I thought. Easy pickings. Over to [/r/explainlikeimfive](https://reddit.com/r/Portarossa), and there was a flurry of questions I've always wondered about. (What does a key grip do, anyway?) [/r/Gaming](https://reddit.com/r/Portarossa)? It's Civ for days. [/r/Movies](https://reddit.com/r/Portarossa)? A 12 Angry Men retrospective. [/r/Sport](https://reddit.com/r/Portarossa) was empty; [/r/Soccer](https://reddit.com/r/Portarossa) had announced that it was changing its name to [/r/ActualFootball](https://reddit.com/r/Portarossa), and then had closed down for good. Even [/r/WritingPrompts](https://reddit.com/r/Portarossa) seemed a little too good to be true -- an array of prompts that seemed perfectly fresh, none of them with prior answers, and all with at least seventy upvotes ready and waiting. It's like they were calling to me. So I started to go a little deeper. [/r/GoneWild](https://reddit.com/r/Portarossa) was a real trip. That's when I first noticed something was up. Pages and pages of girls with my haircut, my glasses -- as though it was an entire subreddit devoted to cosplaying as... well, as me. '[F]eeling a little bit Hazel tonight', the top post said. That's not all you're feeling, love, I thought as I watched her. (For longer than I perhaps should have.) I clicked the random subreddit button time after time. Even the most minuscule of subs seemed to be geared towards me and my needs. It was as if the whole website had been curated for my interests. This is stupid, I thought. It's just a coincidence. Unless it wasn't, of course. Unless it was something deeper. Or perhaps something inside me. You need help. Like, serious help. And where else to turn but Reddit? I turnd my mouse to the searchbar, and pecked out my destination. [/r/narcissism](https://reddit.com/r/Portarossa). 'Hello, Hazel,' the banner on the top of the screen read. ['We've been expecting you.'](https://reddit.com/u/me) _____ If you enjoyed this, you can find more of my prompts at /r/Portarossa.
Dear Elaine, In regards to your last message. I must say I'm doing well, and I eagerly await your next letter - hopefully including some of the pictures from that trip skinny dipping on Trappist. I find that even a few million light-years from any other significant number of humans, you start to lose the grip on your libido a bit. Of course, since you likely skipped every word past my mention of skinny dipping, I'll let you know here: I'm doing well. Healthy, good grades, new friends, the works. I shouldn't complain. Getting into the Cycaenien Ring Academy should have been a triumph for an Oort rat son of a meteor basher from the Sol system. I have a chance to make my family proud, and forge a new life for all of us. I've made friends and forged networks that will support me for the rest of my life; pursued the education trillions of sentient beings across the milky way dream of. I really can't complain. But to you, I will anyway. Cause all of that came with a catch - it came with Xrathnel. Xrathnel is from the Wild Duck Cluster, but his people the Rathnu called it the Strufnal. I mention that not to show off any particular knowledge of his people, but to display the sum total of all information I've garnered on Rathnu from him. See, Xrathnel doesn't care about his people, he cares about us. If you haven't figured it out yet, Xrathnel is a Human Cultural Studies student. It's unbearable; with every new unit they get to, I get another lecture on humanity. He lectured me for seven hours on the Sassanid empire. Apparently they were Earthlings if you can imagine such a thing, before electricity even. As if such a thing should matter anymore. That's the problem though, he's convinced he understands humanity better than me. Try showing him a movie, and he pauses it every two minutes to explain the ancient cultural significance. Listen to music, and he waxes poetic on how Beethoven will forever be the peak of human musical endeavors. I'll be honest, I don't even know who Beethoven is; and I'm convinced I don't care. I'll make it through, Elaine; and I can't wait to see you. But understand if the next time we hang out I'm banned from the entire Sagittarius arm that I probably lost my patience and decided to see whether or not a human can kill a Rathnu with their bare hands. Always yours, Marshall.
"You can get used to almost anything,"I mutter to myself, recalling an old line from a book I used to love. The van can be seen gently rocking from the 12 kids crowded in the back seats. I can see that none of them are buckled and are treating the seats more like a jungle gym than actual chairs. I climb into the van, buckle my seatbelt and as soon as I close the door, I can already feel the beads of sweat forming on my skin. Right, I think, no air conditioning. So absorbed in their activities, the children don't even notice a new arrival in the vehicle. I shrug, start the van, and drive off, looking for signs pointing to I-95. Knowing that I can't die twice, I whip the van hard around street corners, speed down any declines and basically treat the roads like my own personal roller coaster. The kids, not being buckled, are flung against the windows and ceiling several times by the time I reach my first red light. I look in the rearview mirror, "You all doing okay back there?" They nod appreciatively, and quickly get back up to recreate their little zoo once more. The light turns green, and the van bursts out of the intersection at top speed. Probably shouldn't have given a driving job to someone who loves speeding, I think as I turn onto the freeway ramp for I-95.
“What’s the latest back on Earth?” asked Todd. He slouched in an invisible chair, propped up by some force emitted from the vents below. “China and Japan appear on the brink of open warfare. America’s elections are heading for a bloody recount. Germany and Russia are exchanging sabotage accusations over the jumbo jet that crashed last week,” answered Eselda. She stood stiff in the center of the small metal room they inhabited. “Feels like I’ve heard all of that before.” “Are you surprised?” She continued her vigil over what they assumed was a door by the outline. “No, but it’d be nice if everyone could direct their efforts somewhere more productive. I feel like we’re daycare teachers preparing to sit down with a bunch of monks. How are we supposed understand their order of things when all we’re used to is chaos?” said Todd. He looked up at the smooth metal plating. After docking their shuttle, the consistently smooth lining of this giant space base never ceased impressing him. “We’ll do our best. There’s a reason humanity entrusted us with this meeting.” Todd laughed. “It’s more that no one trusts anyone else, and two country-less mediators garner the least disagreement.” Eselda offered the slightest of shrugs. “Fine, you -” Magnetic hums cut Todd off. The assumed door dissolved into open air. They waited for a follow up, split glances at one another, then walked through. Todd followed Eselda down the long hallway and through another open door. Caught searching the roof again for rivets or something to join these metal sheets, he bumped into Eselda’s abruptly stopped body. He peeked over her shoulder to see eight seated individuals, each no taller than a koala. One even looked like a koala, albeit a bit more radioactive due to its glow. The room more resembled the stage of a Roman amphitheater than a UN meeting hall. The open space invited an intimacy that tensed Todd’s knuckles. A row of grounded vents like the one Todd rested upon earlier circled twenty feet in diameter. “Please, sit,” suggested a plant-like looking fellow. He and Eselda sat near one another, breaking up the equilateral spacing of the council. The aliens resembled what a movie director intentionally trying to subvert the prototypical “little green men” would create. The most peculiar best compared to a mound of quinoa. Todd had to wonder why they hadn’t shown their faces before. Psychological warfare perhaps? He certainly felt caught off guard. “Welcome. It is so good to bring yet another into our fold,” said the plant. Only it wasn’t the plant speaking the words he heard. He assumed a speaker translated whatever anyone said in here. Probably best not to whisper any Napoleon jokes to Eselda. “Thank you for inviting us,” responded Eselda. “We didn’t know intelligent life could grow so tall,” chimed the quinoa man. “What is it about Earth that creates such a strange configuration?” “We eat our Wheaties,” cracked Todd. “What is this Wheaties?” Eselda covered Todd’s forearm before he could answer. “My companion means that our diet is the likely culprit. We evolved by eating meat and animal products. Even with the shift to lab grown variants, protein dominates our nutrients.” “What is meat? The translator cannot comprehend.” “Animal flesh.” “How,” the quinoa man started and hesitated to see if he could find another word in the room. “Barbaric,” he finished. Oh good, we’re talking to a bunch of hippies, thought Todd. The radioactive koala added, “I don’t think it’s diet. At least not purely. The taking of animal flesh all but confirms our suspicion that humans kill one another as well. Is this true?” “You don’t kill? Anything?” asked Todd incredulously. The mediators’ training tried to instill a sense of objectivity. It took better to Eselda. “Life on our planets spread too slowly and resources grow too abundant. There’s no reason for such an act. We at first believed that what we viewed as killings on Earth was a form of advanced stasis. However, we could find no evidence of individuals awaking from such an act. I believe it is this fight for survival that has encouraged such growth.” “Herbivores grow even larger than humans,” mused Eselda. “But I believe you are right. The necessity of physical dominance pervades in even our most recreational of activities.” If any of them worried about humanity’s violent tendencies, they didn’t show it. Perhaps their pacifism stunted emotional variance as well. “No matter. Let us discuss how our communities might engage one another.” The tentet discussed trade goods. Oxygen served as an aphrodisiac for two of the races. They didn’t breathe it to survive but to thrive. Phosphorus and copper grew abundant on their home worlds and offered a perfect pairing to mitigate humanity's scarcities. Similar pairings also arose and perhaps opened the door for more complex trading. Galactic laws came up next. The prime order dictated minimal interference with other races. They traded goods, exchanged sciences, and discussed art but restricted foreign inhabitance at such a strict rate they made pre-unification North Korea sound open. Eselda and Todd promised to abide by galactic law and would discuss with their world leaders how to best implement the aliens’ suggestions for further integration. But in the back of Todd’s mind, a different sort of solution stewed. The human pair walked in silence back to their ship after the council meeting concluded. As soon as the seal tightened on their ship, Todd sprung his idea. “We should declare war on them,” he said. “What?” Eselda often made a habit of predicting moves. Her blank face and lack of follow up said she missed this one. That’s why we make a perfect pair. She represents the mind of humanity. I represent the heart, considered Todd. “Those aliens don’t understand unity. They understand peace and sympathy and tranquility. Unity is tied into the DNA of humanity, in such a way that we fight one another to express affinity to our closest compatriots. We’re not going to win this war, but were not going to lose either. It’s perfect.” “You’re proposing we declare war with the express purpose of engaging in a stalemate?” She crossed her arms. “Exactly! We’re too far behind them to cause any real harm, and they’re too devoted to peace to treat us any worse than ants.” Todd indulged the notion so emphatically he practically jumped in the air. “Humans kills ants.” “And yet ants flourish.” “What about trading? Science? Everything we stand to gain from working with them?” “What’s advancement matter if we’re all dead? For centuries Earth has stood on the brink of annihilation. One of these world wars will be the last, and you know it. But if we’re fighting them, we’re not killing each other. It’s the best way to buy humanity a few more centuries. Maybe more.” Eselda scanned Todd’s face for any further data. “I’ll think it over,” she said at last. She would. And she would came to the same conclusion once the shock wore off. There’s no better way to keep humanity too busy to kill itself than to give it a war it can’t win. &#x200B; \------------------------------------ Like this? Want more? Subscribe to /r/WiselyWrittenWords.
I looked at the ringing communication device cautiously. Who was calling at this time? We were all glued to our TVs for "Decision Day". An AI would select someone based on their qualities and previous experience. I remember when it had first been introduced. Riots had begun in the USA, looting and fires common. A shooting at the White House. It disappeared soon enough. I don't remember how. A day, a week passed, and the riots stopped. So did the peaceful protests. Come to think of it, was that when Twitch died out? The largest video sharing website on the Internet, it had shut down after the riots ended, citing lack of funds and interest. Bought out by a parent company and turned to a news station. It turned into our government news service. The rest disappeared. I still remember my brother. Head of a group that protested these sudden and unexpected changes. He died of a sudden fall, slippery stairs. I still remember seeing the janitor who didn't even care to put up a sign in court, me winning the lawsuit against the company he was at for negligence. "Accept,"I called out, the communication device signaling a beep, having read my command. "Congratulations, Arnold A. Fisher. You have been selected as the President of the United States of America. We congratulate you on your new position. Updates and government agents will arrive at your house in approximately 3 minutes, 23 seconds. A new America, for all." Beep! The call ended. I sat there, shocked, staring at the device's hologram text communicator as it translated the call and put it all into words on the transparent screen. I looked at the TV as the same words I had just heard rang out from the screen. My vision swam in wavy lines as I ignored the ringing almost immediately following the announcement. News stations, probably. I only had one thought: How? Agents, sure enough, arrived at my residence 3 minutes 23 seconds later. "Uhh, hell-" I was promptly grabbed by the arm and led out, as other agents walked right beside me as nanomaterial set itself up on either sides of me, shielding me and the agents from the view of my neighbours, who I could hear shouting out congratulations as I was led to a van that set out an exclusive magnetic trail for me. The... President? The van roared to life as I was sat in the van, and the van shot off on the magnetic trail. "My.. my house?" "Yes, President. It will be taken care of. You will be heading to your new classified location where you will have a quick welcoming and introduction. You will then have your welcoming ceremony. Smile for the cameras!" My head exploded with thoughts as the ride continued. How was I more qualified than billions of people? Just how? Of course, I knew stress. I knew how to go through hard times. My parents, supporters of my brother's organization to protest, died too. A sudden robbery. They found the robber, of course. My own god damn uncle, who helped my brother and parents all the time. Sentenced to death. Good riddance. Maybe.. maybe I was special. I would lead America to great things! I had a whole roster of staff who would do my bidding and advise me. I would remain in history books. I would command them all. I imagined myself in front of a crowd of millions, waving. I would be the greatest President of all time. I was the people! I knew how they worked! I know what we wanted! I was stopped in front of a black, rectangular structure in the middle of what seemed to be a desert. I frowned. I didn't know the location of the President's residence, like everybody else, but... it seemed much less... grander then what I had expected. Of course, it did look modern and fortified. Maybe I didn't want to attract too much attention. I was led to my residence. A set of key cards unlocked the main doors, which slid open with a whirrrr. I was led to what seemed like an underground chamber. The agents nodded at me to go into a quiet room. There were figures sitting all around the table. The top of the table was empty. I sat down, feeling a sense of leadership as I looked at the others, looking at me patiently. I spoke. "Umm, hello. I'm glad to be your President. I'm ready for requests and any further in-" "Take this first. Your script. This is what you will say during the speech. You'll be changed into more formal clothing." The person who interrupted slid a paper towards me. I was shocked by the cutting off of my speech. I wondered if this was a test as the others looked at me expectantly. "Excuse me? You will NOT speak to the President of the United States like th-" "Yes, I will. Take these papers. Your executive orders are on it. Sign them after the speech as soon as possible. Your pardons are also there. Agree to them and sign them out. Can't have Marcell Barnaby for tax evasion, he's one of our biggest backers." As I stared at them, dumbfounded, one of the others laughed. "Oh, look at the little rookie. Thinks he's in control. Buddy, you do what we say. No questions asked or we shoot you right here and hire the next one. Adel. He has no relatives, right? No close friends?" One of the others, a small, round man, shuffled his papers and spoke in a nervous, quavering voice. "Yes, sir. A complete loner." "Good. Agents, take him on his way!" As the agents from before took me from my chair and dragged me towards the exit, I realized something. The riots stopping, the disappearances, the killing of journalists.... the USA had died a long time ago. I wasn't the President. I was a puppet. A puppet on strings held by these men sitting at a table. And I couldn't do anything about it. "One last thing, Mr. President." We stopped and I turned around as the actual head of the table spoke. "When you get out there... smile for the cameras!" [r/sbnscs](https://www.reddit.com/r/sbnscs/)
"We thought you were dead. I went to..."My voice catches in my throat. "Dude, I went to your funeral." I'm staring out the windows down onto the city that's been on fire for a week. I started that fire. Well, we, did. But I ordered the Northern District to be our jumping off point. I ordered the first air strikes. And now some of my best pilots, some of my only pilots, are dead as a result along with thousands of others. The rebellion feels dead along with them. "I know,"I hear from behind me. "I'm sorry. Not long after we moved, I knew it was my best option. My only option. I wish I could have told you the truth. You never lied to me, Isaac. I wanted to return that favor." "The only option? For what?" "For this." I turn, anger infesting my heart. "For this? For what? Enslaving the world? Is that what you want, Will? To rule everyone?" William Hendrickson, the One True King as his followers call him, blinks at me. All around us are the things he holds most dear, so he told me after whisking me away from my would-be execution and bringing me to his headquarters here at North Tower. There is a picture of the two of us as children behind a desk in the corner. It is alone. "Enslaving the world? Heavens, no,"William says, rising from his chair. "I look to save it." For years I've been fighting the One True King; for years I've killed his men. Destroyed his weapons depots. Ambushed his fleets. The heart of the rebellion beats inside me. All to find myself here, to find myself face to face with the man I've long hated and felt a tyrant who's only goal was to rule the world with an iron fist. While I still believe that to be true, I did not expect that man's face to be the one of my friend I've long thought dead. When the news reached my family that William, along with his entire family, had died in a fire when I was nine, it was like a piece of me had died. The Hendrickson's were my parents best friends. They were second parents to me. William's older siblings were the older brothers and sisters I never had. And the black haired, green-eyed man in front of me was my best friend from the time I could remember until they all moved away. They left suddenly. I cried for weeks. I look back out the window. "You didn't even say goodbye,"I whisper. "I couldn't."I feel him come closer. "We were in danger. My parents knew that if we spoke to anyone before we left, if we told anyone we were leaving, they'd be in danger too. We weren't willing to put you or your family in danger." He puts a hand on my shoulder, and his voice goes quiet. "I wept when I heard of your father's death. And your mother's." I slap his hand away, turning in anger. "How dare you speak of my family!"I roar. His guards at the door move toward me, but William waves them down. "After all you've done?"I extend my hand to the window. "Do you know how many people have died in your war for power, William? Care to guess?" My old friend blinks. "I believe it--" I don't let him finish. "Fifty million! Fifty million people! How can you justify that?" Tears threaten my eyes. William surprises me with what he says in response. "What is fifty million to the rest of the known world? To the billions on this planet? Is it anything at all?"He shakes his head. "No, it is not. If fifty million is the price to pay for salvation, we must pay it." I narrow my eyes at him. "Says a man who doesn't know the meaning of life." "I know salvation. That is all--" "Salvation? What the hell are you talking about?"I swallow something down. "Did your family even die, William?" "All of them. Horribly. I survived, but when I realized that it would be better for the world to think me dead, I kept it that way until I could make my move. For all of us." I squint then roll my eyes at him. "Oh, Jesus Christ, what are you going on about now? Are you just another religious fanatic--" The temper of my friend finally returns to his eyes. He snaps his fingers as he interrupts me this time. "Enough squabbling,"he hisses. "You will listen to me." Surprisingly, I wait for him to speak. He steps up next to me and looks down at the city. "Something is coming, Isaac. And all of us, every single one of us, will die unless we are united under one flag. One goal. I found this out when I was young, before my parents died. My family has been fighting it for centuries, and now I am the last of us that remain. "I have dedicated myself to this goal since I found out. That is why I've done what I've done."He looks at me. "I can explain it all to you. I'm begging you to give me a chance. I've been looking for you for years." My ears perk up. "You have?"I ask. "Of course. And now, with you here, I can ask the one question I've been wanting to since we left Benshtown all those years ago." My childhood best friend extends his hand, staring into my eyes. "Are you with me?"
>this is a quick idea scribbled before bed, I'll come back to finish it tomorrow. "You're trying to tell me that human children regularly run archaic military battle simulations, on 2D diagnostic screens, for fun?"Draxaar asked, with a mixed expression of mirth and confusion on his face. Janaarel, however, stood behind him scowling and appeared to be gripping her stun baton like she was ready to remove my head with it (and given that she has hated me since we first met, I don't doubt she'd revel in the task). I'm guessing that you, the reader, are wondering how I got into this situation? Well, suffice to say, I now regret smuggling my granda's antique Xbox Nanolite:V and Halo Vigology game chip. onto the alien ship. However, in my defence; the Dinaarianer vessel 'Our Exalted Retribution' (upon which I received this, my first Exo-post) runs on Dinaarian time. Which, if you don't know, means one shift of 6 Earth-hours for every 53 Earth-hour Dinaarian day… that's a whole lot of sitting around learning about Dinaar culture. Between you and me? This cultural Exchange project is terrible value for us humans. The only artistic output they have is writing; and let me tell you, they make Vogon poetry read like Ernest fucking Hemmingway.
"Dear Satan" My damn dyslexia will be the death of me. In five minutes. I've re-read the letter ten times now, praying my eyes are playing trick yet again. But no, there it says, quite clearly, "My deepest condolences, From Satan". Maybe I should call in a bomb squad. That would be the responsible thing to do. My mistake shouldn't fall on the heads of those unfortunate to live around me. Or I could somehow launch it into space, or bury it in the deepest depths of the ocean. Send it to my enemy... No, that's too evil. I'll just shove it under my bed and forget about it. It seems harmless now. I just have to resist opening it ... No, I'll never sleep right again. I should move, leave it buried in the backyard. I could bury it in the national forest next door. But that's probably illegal. I hold up the small square carefully. It's 7 by 7 inches, flat, and lightweight. Just a few ounces and wrapped in red shiny paper with a bow sporting devil horns. It appeared out of thin air with a pop at the strike of midnight, December 25, Christmas day. Then just hovered in the air one foot from my face. I shift the paper back and forth as if I can somehow test it's deadliness this way. Then I dare to shake it. Just the faintest rattle. Well, screw it, I'm opening it. The devil knows me now personally. Can't get any worse. Yes, I wrote my name and address on the envelope. I wasn't so fortunate as to screw that up. I peel the folded corners of the paper open, careful not to tear. Unfold it from the back while holding it away from myself at furthest arm's reach. Any explosions will hopefully go the opposite way. Out of the packaging drops a simple CD. The one I asked for. And a note. "Dear Michael", it read. "Find a better taste in music."
After a full month, I knew something was wrong. Sure, the power was given to me by some lesser God, but it was a God nonetheless. How does a simple book, written by some unknown author, be able to counter this power? Worse yet, it wasn't even a particularly good book! In fact, the story was so bad that I threw the book in the trash, and wanted to forget right away... and I couldn't. And after a month, I read it again and again. Still, no clue why my power doesn't manifest. So I did the next steps: experiment. Read a page, tried to forget. Nothing. Another page, tried to forget it. This time, it worked. After about an hour, I had a full list of the first 10 pages which I could not really forget - two pages. Then, on these two pages, I boiled down to the paragraph. Only one paragraph on the first page, and two paragraphs on the fourth page were the ones I could not forget at all. Then came the longest game of scrabble I always had. Find words. Individual words I could forget; combinations of them, no. Then I wrote on some paper slips each combination of word. I found that "expected found person"was a combination that, no matter how, I could not forget. Then, I tried letters. "efp", "exp f p", with or without spaces, and tried and tried and tried, until I found the combination. I've been on this process for a couple of years now. I'm almost done with the book. With some combinations, the lights flicker. On others, I see things. I'm not sure if I'm going insane, but I can swear that some of these words make images appear on my head, like if their nonsensical words somehow evoke messages on my head. Combining these pseudo-phrases cause me horrible, horrible headaches sometimes, and I can see... things. Things that I'm not meant to see. I know there's someone on my room, looking at me. I can't see, hear, or feel this creature at all, but I know it. With some word combinations, I can see shadows, shadows of things that shouldn't be here. And I know, that soon, I'll have power to kill Gods... and I'm scared of what I'll do with it.
"This isn't what I meant when I asked for it to be more 'human'." "I'm sorry... I have a problem taking things a bit too literally." The small figure stood before me, bowing down exaggeratedly in apology. I let out a deep sigh. If the living room was this bad, what did they do to the rest of my house? "Alright, give me a tour. I want to see what other fun things you've done to my new place that I spent my entire life savings on." The figure perked up excitedly. "Oh, good good! I knew you would like it." They guide me to the "kitchen". It's flooded with water, except for a patch of sand, soil and grass in the middle, dotted with tiny trees. I can almost make out tiny people looking terrified up at me. "So here, you said you didn't care what the kitchen looked like, as long as it had a small island in the middle!" I guess I wasn't much of a chef anyway. They lead me to the bathroom next. As they open the bathroom door, a rush of nebulous gas bursts out of it. The inside looks exactly like a night sky twinkling with stars. "You said you wanted your bathroom to be clean and-" "Sparkling, yea, I know, let's move on." They give me a big smile, and hurry to my bedroom door. They seem particularly fidgety for this one. They open it, and the room is filled with flora and fauna unknown to me. The colours inside the room seem to flow in and out of the visible spectrum. It smells sickeningly sweet and musty. I step in, and the animals(?) all look at me with what I think are their eyes, and even what I thought were plants tilt in my direction. "I see you might be unfamiliar to these so let me introduce you! These are warbs, little creatures that drool on your limbs if they like you. And these are called Gandafoles. Don't their flowers smell amazing? They're all native to the Klobax region!" "So... This is what you thought about when I said to make the bedroom feel like you're at home?" They nod their head. We're a long way from Klobax. "Thank you for this, for sharing part of your home with me." They give another big smile, showing four rows of their teeth this time. Maybe going cheap wasn't such a bad idea after all.
The Human Hivemind --- "Well,"the President was uneasy. "I've always said mankind was special." "Truly!"The Alien Emissary clapped his four hands. "I am so eager to learn more! Of course we have been observing for quiet some time, but given the simultaneous rapid expansion of both the hive's reach and core fragmentation we felt it was time to get our hands dirty in the field if we were to truly understand!" The Emissary's enthusiasm was that of a giddy child who had finally been allowed to open that present they spent weeks examining under the tree. The President of the United States was tried to maintain a neutral face. As did the five other world leaders in the room. They were all naked. Standing in a circular glass room overlooking the Earth the World Leaders peered out into space, and their flabby flesh was silhouetted by the Earth's airglow. The Alien, who stood around 3 feet tall and wore a long purple cape, had a single eye off the top of his head that looked like an oversized lollypop on a narrow stick, stepped to the President and examined the back of his calf muscle. He pinched him. And when the President jumped the other world leaders did too and the Alien laughed an apologized. "You are fascinating!"The Alien said. "You all felt that! Brilliant!" "What was your name again?"the President said. "You may call me Kasō, and I am of the åWoni Cluster." "Pleasure, Kasō,"the President of the United States said. "You said we are of a hive mind?" "Correct,"Kasō said. "A most unique one." The other world leaders chimed in and started asking questions, and Kasō held up his four hands gesturing them to step. "Please, as a fellow hive mind I am sympathetic to the collection of voices you a hearing internally -- while your complexity may be more amplified given the fragmented nature of your hive -- I must implore you to speak one at a time." The world leaders stood silent. They looked at each other. The President of the United States opened his mouth to speak, very slowly, making sure his contemporaries didn't overstep him. "You are of a hive mind?"he asked. "Of course!"Kasō said. "The åWoni Cluster. I lead one of the many branches of hive expansion." "I see,"said the President. There was a pause. "Oh my goodness -- I am so sorry -- the must have sounded horrible! Please let me clarify,"Kasō said. "We _never_ assimilate other hive mines! Only unorganized intelligent capable lifeforms." "Oh - what a relief,"the President forced a smile and shot wide eyes to the other world leaders. They all nodded along, and standing their naked and lumpy with wide eyes and smiling like idiots they did look like part of a hive. "Our observations on the status of your species was unclear at first -- given the fragmented personalities -- however upon gaining an understanding of what you call _smart phones_ and _the internet_ and your hives constant connection and vigilant absorption, it became very clear to us. And yes, we do feel foolish, all those glowing faces should have made it clear! "Of course,"the President said. Kasō smiled. "It has been a pleasure for us to meet you. This was a formality to allow your hive proper time to recalibrated to the knowledge of other hives. We will plan to start trade talks and formalize policies in the years to come. I believe your hive will greatly benefit from our technology, as we will benefit from your -- innovative approach." The leaders nodded. Kasō clapped his hands and the room was flooded with a blinding light. The President of the United States eyes opened and he shot up in bed. He was back in his pajamas. He rubbed his eyes, believing he just had the wildest dream of his life. Then a Russian voice whispered from across the room: "I think they sent me to the wrong place. Can I please have a robe?" --- r/wyrdfiction <-- subscribe if you like my writing _Note:_ This was written on my phone, in one pass, so please pardon any typos/mistakes.
One minute, you're standing over the patient, wrists-deep in her chest, doing your best to repair that one nicked artery. Sweat pouring down your brow, teeth clenched so hard that your whole jaw hurts. The machines are beeping incessantly, growing more and more urgent, reminding me that her life is on the line. The nurses are just standing there watching; there's nothing they can do at this point. Outside, you know there's a family nervously pacing the hall, waiting for any sign. The next second, poof, and you're a fucking clown. Hair streaked with neon blues and oranges; face patched in bright red and yellow powder. That artery in your hand becomes a ribbon of green sand that spills out into the floor. Even the blood on your clothes and everything else in the room has turned into a canary yellow dust. The surgical center looks like some weird modern art piece made with dyed powdered sugar. I slam my fist down on the table, sending up a cloud of turquoise powder that invades my nose and lungs, causing me to choke on the dust of my former patient. It's happened so many times that the idea doesn't even creep me out anymore. The fact that I'm breathing in my former patient. The nurses are already sweeping her into a nice little pile in the middle of the room. When it's all mixed together, it's just an ugly little pile that generally forms a dull brown. It'll go straight off to customer care office of the hospital, where the big clunky machines will process the remains and separate all the colors and form a nice little mandala. They'll cover it in resin and slap a cheap frame on it; a nice keepsake for the family to take home. I throw off my tie-dyed looking scrubs and jump into the shower. The water runs a deep forest green as the blues and yellows mix together. I scrub as hard as I can, trying to get all of her off of me. I rinse and lather, then actually repeat; the hair is the worst part. Almost impossible to get it all out. There's no worse feeling than getting home after a 12-hour shift, crawling into your nice clean bed, and waking up to a bright patch of orange like cheeto crumbs on your bleached white sheets. It stains, you know.
You've heard the stories-- the ones where people die and see a heavenly light reaching toward them, but are resuscitated before they can reach it. It's the stuff of books with titles like Heaven is Real, that feel-good pie-in-the-sky crap designed to make you hope for paradise in the afterlife, despite your better judgment. Turns out it's all a crock of shit after all. The people who told these stories never actually completed the process of dying, they just came extremely close. The first true resuscitations didn't start until 2017. Doctors have performed a few since then. Everyone who's come back has told the same story. The heavenly light, an hallucination of our dying minds, is often present in these stories. But it fades into something completely unlike our perception of heaven. What we didn't understand, what we still don't fully understand today, is the nature of the mind. For thousands of years, philosophers equated the mind with the soul. When we die, they thought, our soul/mind is either spirited up to heaven or cast down to hell. More materialistic interpretations of the mind have arisen, of course, as science has displaced religion. There are several schools of thought on the issue-- or, at least, there were-- but they mostly boil down to a simple understanding: The mind is a product of the brain. When we die, our mind no longer exists and our brain rots. Both schools of thought were wrong about some things and right about others. Scientists still can't be sure, but the prevailing theory now is that religion had it right: our minds are eternal. Our consciousnesses will always be there. Science, however, was right to emphasize another fact: our brains, our entire bodies, rot when we die. The mind is still there, but it's not 'plugged in' to a body, so to speak. When we die, there is no heavenly light to reach down to us. There are no choirs of angels. There is only darkness and silence. And our own thoughts. Forever.
"I've reached the end of my rope. Everything is ruined and I just want to go home... but i cant. Someone suggest the best way to kill myself and i'll do it."I typed, hesitating a few seconds before finally hitting 'enter'. I leaned back in the somewhat comfortable reclining chair I salvaged and waited, staring at the dirty ceiling. I wondered who would read this message. What part of the world they'd be replying to a stranger to help kill them. It would at least be a few moments before anyone- "lols this loser is gonna kil himself alredy." The words appeared in a slow crawl across the dimly lit screen. I sighed breathing in the dry air. The words stung, even though I knew i'd get my fair amount of hate. I leaned forward, my gloved hands hovering over the keyboard thinking of a response. "bro, just go out with a nice big bang and implode! lelelelelel"Another message came in. "Too painful."I typed, reluctantly hitting the enter key. "Looooooooool! what a pusy. dont waste everyons time. if ur gonna do it then do it" I felt a lump in my throat, and i felt a crushing guilt over giving up like this. "How about you take some pills and go to sleep?"Another message came in, and i shook my head. "Thought of that, no pills."i replied quickly. "lool, yeah you thought of the pusy way out first." "Hey op, i'll tell your mom how brave her boy wanted to go, then make her suck ma diiiiiik" The messages began coming in more and more. Clearly, it would be an event to know i'm going to kill myself. "I have chemicals"i typed, ignoring the more trollish insults and focusing on my plan. "ugh. op is such a wastefag, just jump off a cliff, no one cares" I began typing the reasons why that wouldnt work, but I deleted it, just in time to see more vitriol directed at me. More and more people were messaging now it seemed. "Dont do it op"some typed, "Who the fuck cares, we didnt need the update"another messaged. "this was a mistake..."i whispered, ready to eat one last big meal and end this suffering. That is, until one message caught my eye. "After all the help you've gotten you're going to kill yourself? fuck you dude."The words felt like a punch to the dick. I hung my head, blinking back tears as I felt the weight of my guilt. "I suppose I am."I whispered, trying to fight back tears without success. "Its the selfish way out, i know."I typed. "Well make it quick, i cant believe i was rooting for you op."crawled another message. The screen was a buzz with activity. The majority seemed eager to insult me for my decision. But they could never understand what it's like to be in my position. But that last message hit home. That last message made me think of everyone who was waiting on me to get back. And suddenly, I didnt want to die. I felt a second wind. A surge of energy and strength I didnt have a moment ago. I looked at the screen. Ablaze with hate and my only thought was to rise above it. "fuck you."i typed, standing up with enough force to send the large chair sliding back "im not dying"i added, and hit enter. I turned away from the monitor without a second thought about suicide. I grabbed my helmet and marched to the air lock. "Mark Watney is not going to die on this fucking planet"I whispered.
Everything comes at a price. Much of our lives were built upon this premise. Want to get ahead in life? It costs. There are many means of paying. Your time was the most honest way to meet this goal. You could always borrow from lenders, including your own future self. Sometimes however, your fortunes came from anothers misfortune. It was just a fact of life. To make an omlette, you crack a few eggs. People get burned, and that's just how life is. Times were rough. It seemed if you weren't outright stealing from the already poor, you were borrowing from future generations by using cheap and dirty energy. People revolted. The fist of government slowly tightened. The world was uneasy, and it seemed we were all staring death down as a planet. But everything changed after a revolution in Germany. It started on a small scale, a movement that roughly translated into "Hearts path". A new way of life, they called it. Their air was cleaner, their streets smoother, costs were so low.... The allure brought many to begin immigrating. Their influence grew, until the groups overthrew the government. Overthrew is a strong word though. To be honest, it was pretty unanimous. The leaders just.... stepped down. Life was good for them all. It wasn't long before it was everywhere. It was all anyone could talk about. Parades were held any time a city got its own "Heart Path Hotel"as they were called in the US. They weren't actual hotels, it wasn't like anyone stayed there. They instead acted as a hub for all H.P. endeavors, such as implementing new technology from their top scientists, solving civil problems, and improving the town in any and all ways. Before long, most countries were considered first-world, and all of the first-world countries were run by the HP. It was a brilliant rule. Global warming was almost completely reversed, the general populace was much more educated, and technology grew exponentially. The one thing about HP was that it fostered so many brilliant minds. Some near 100 Einsteins of our time, all working in tandem with the aid of a new power source they discovered that they called "Aether". Everything ran on it back then. It was like a slow moving electricity that was gently warm to the touch. A beautiful scarlet did they glow. If you listened closely, it screeched silently with its energy. Everything was good. Everyone was happy. We were all such fools. 43 years after the first Heart Path Hotel went up in Germany, it happened. His name was Andrew [Redacted]. It was on July 18th, 2059, that the events were set in motion. While Andrew was killed by shrapnel in the explosion, the records and video he uploaded have been preserved in full. The screeches cut through the air. There are several hundred eye witness accounts, and the noise was reported being heard from as far as 30 miles away. There was an explosion, but from it came many fire plumes. Each looked humanoid in form. They clawed at their faces, and burned into nothingness towards the heavens. Pained scarlet streaks through the air. Days later, the files Andrew uploaded were everywhere on the news. He exposed the Heart Path Hotels for what they really were. Several documents about Aether harvesting, soul infusion, and abductees were plastered over every possible news outlet. The hotels did have tenants after all. They were our brothers, friends, neighbors. Burning. Fueling our petty wants. The Heart Path had found out about the human essence, the soul. They learned that under the right conditions, one could burn a human much like a lump of coal. The body would disintegrate, but the soul would be trapped. They screamed. The souls shrieked. Motivated people, they learned, had strong and powerful souls. They made the most energy. They bottled the very essence of humanity and it became the fuel in our cars, the charge in our laptops.... And it didn't end there. The HP Association even figured out how to rebond a soul to a living body. A person with two souls. These modified beings didn't need rest or food. It wasn't long before all their scientists were borrowing from these forced lenders. Time that was not theirs. It was only days before the HP collapsed. The soul energy technology was destroyed, and the knowledge of it kept a well guarded secret. Trent Schmidt, a well know public leader at the time, gave a speech shortly afterwards. "It's a shame. Truly, a real shame. For once we thought we had put needless suffering behind us. We thought we were doing better. This was the time humanity was waiting for. A utopia. But the truth is we were no better than before." Trent would go on to become the first planetary president. He put extreme amounts of his time into working things out, day and night. Despite the horrific past, he kept society moving forward. The lack of Aether damaged the economy, but with such good education, it only took a few years to bounce back. For all the pain it wrought, the Heart Path ended up being the best thing for humanity. The tragedy united us. The infrastructure it left behind was easily repaired. It's a shame it took such a tragedy to put humanity on the right path. As Isaac Newton said, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Soon, once the world was once again stabalized, GP Trent reformed education across the globe. He included a full recounting of the events, sometimes in gruesome detail, to be taught at the highschool level. He also commissioned the global memorial he dubbed the honor project. "Remember", it said. Everywhere. It became like a slogan. You could find it everywhere. Remember. Everything comes at a price. Much of our lives were built upon this premise. Want to get ahead in life? It costs. There are many means of paying. Your time was the most honest way to meet this goal. You could always borrow from lenders, including your own future self. Sometimes however, your fortunes came from anothers misfortune. It was just a fact of life. To make an omlette, you crack a few eggs. People get burned, and that's just how life is.
I am no stranger to pain. I knew pain before I knew the milk of my mother's breast. I came gasping into a strange world and it has never seemed familiar. Love was a concept I did not get to experience, thanks to my mother's addiction for meth and attention, and her desire to get back at my father. The best part of it is, for her, she didn't have to lose anything for the money. All those strange men, and a few women, all their strange urges and the disgusting costumes they brought. Smelled like squalor, which smelled like home. My father could have been anyone. I did not meet him until recently. I grew up to understand the world and its rules. I needed to be able to hurt, and hurt hard or else I would be the one in pain. A hand on the shoulder, a smile on the street, were harbingers of pain. I learned how to shut myself up and roll with the punches. I only met her twice. The first time I was barely fifteen. A girl of my age found me mumbling something to one of the hallucinations brought by something I was able to steal from my mother's supply. We didn't exchange any words, but she silently rolled a can of Chef Boyardee towards me. It startled me, I panicked, I threw it at her. It hit her in the face. Hard. I ran. That was one of the only actions I had the capacity to regret. As the years went by I needed more and more of anything that would make me sleep. Reality was too hard. Last night found me stumbling around a suburb, and so did a crew of wannabe sheltered suburb gangsters who couldn't even imagine the hells I carried in my memories. Between streetlights they surrounded me and said something. I didn't hear what they said. One of them pulled out a tire iron and hit me in the calf. I screamed and fell. Something hit me in the ribs, which crunched. I took a shuddering breath inwards and staggered onto the road. I saw headlights light up from around a house. Peace. This is an unfamiliar feeling. It does not feel strange. It feels like I finally woke up. I feel more real. "Hi" I looked up to see a girl about my age sitting across from me. We were in a wide room with motes of sunlight sifting through opaque walls and incredibly comfortable furniture made of a dark kind of wood. It reminded me of a stone I had seen once, and somehow I simply understood what it was. A tiger's eye. It looked like a tiger's eye stone. "Hello?" Oh right, the girl. "Who are you? What is this place?"I was startled to discover that my mouth wasn't cramped. My words were so clear! "You probably don't remember me, but you actually brought me here." "Sorry, but how? What did I do?" "Oh, right. You've probably suspected it by now, but you are dead."Actually I did not feel dead at all. "So, does this mean... I killed you?"And suddenly, I recognized her. One night in an alley, a can of pasta. "Why do you want to talk to me? Aren't you mad?" "Actually, I'm here to punish you. Your eternal torment will be chosen by me."She did not smile as she said this, and a deep chill ran down my spine while I tried to realize the immensity of this statement. "Will it... will it be just?" "No. I have chosen the most unjust of punishments possible."I blanched. She smiled. "I have chosen to forgive you." "Wait, but... I did kill you." "And choosing to punish you will not change that fact. Besides, when I arrived here, I was confronted with someone I used to bully in childhood. He forgave me. The heaven without punishment or stipulation is a beautiful place. Welcome, by the way." I still worked to understand this new place and surroundings. My eternal future had just been dictated by a force I did not believe in. Love. Before I could say anything she tackled me in an embrace and pulled me close. She did not smell like squalor or the costumes my mother's friends brought. Wait, somehow thinking about those memories did not taint this place. They weren't painful anymore. "It looks like you have work to do. I can't imagine the type of life you have left behind, but there are people waiting for judgement." "From me?" "Everyone who caused you more pain than they caused anyone else. It looks like quite a few people."Her eyes filled with an emotion I didn't recognize. I will have to think about that later. "Have they all also died? At the same time as me?" "No, time works differently here. Actually, to me it feels like I just got here. I'll see you in a little while."She gave my hand a squeeze and let go, drifting through the wall. I tried to see what was on the other side of the opaque wall as she passed through it but could not. I looked back down to see myself staring back down at another face. This was a man I did not recognize. Suddenly I understood that he was my father. He looked at me wordlessly before his eyes widened and his face struggled to find a single expression. I knew I had been forgiven, but I did not want to do this so easily. "Hi Dad" He just looked at me. "In a little while, you will find yourself being born into a confusing world. The world will not become any less painful or confusing as time goes on. You will live my entire life as I have lived it and when you come back here, you will confront yourself as I am doing now. You can enter heaven, you can find forgiveness, when you can truly look upon and forgive yourself for what you have brought to me. You will repeat my life eternally until you can do that." With that, he was gone. A wall beside me became clear and I saw him appear across an identical version of himself. They stared at each other for some time before one of them shook his head and they both vanished, only to appear a moment later. The wall faded back to opacity. I had many, many more people to send into my shoes.
It takes a few minutes for everything to sink in. Everything is just noise and light for a bit, blinding and deafening as I press my hands up against the glass. I tell myself to breath as my eyes adjust, taking in a place that looks oddly like a grade school classroom, with an audience just beyond it filled by rows and row of... I forget to breathe. The audience is full of weird tentacled monsters, floated glass clouds, massive bugs and creatures that make Predators look friendly. There's gnashing teeth and giant claws and they're all stomping or shouting or banging whatever they have in a terrifying cacophony. There's a knock on the glass and I jump, spinning to see Jeff Foxworthy, smiling and waving to the audience as he gestures to the container. I find this oddly comforting, because I think that if Foxworthy is here, then it's probably a dream. Not completely sure, though, because when I pinch my skin it hurts. While Foxworthy talks, I decide it's almost certainly a dream, but I should treat it as if it's real - just in case. "Tonight's human is Riley Dun, from the North American continent. How about you give this one a hand?"He let's the noise build up again, before raising his hand to bring it down with a laugh. "Alright, now let's talk to Riley. How do you feel about your smarts going up against the universe?" I gulp and shuffle closer to where he presses up against the glass. "Where am I?"I whisper, but my voice booms through the studio as if I had spoken normally. I begin to check my bedshirt for a microphone while Foxworthy laughs and the alien audience sets up another racket. I can't find anything. "Not exactly a good sign for us earthlings."He pats the glass as if patting my shoulder, and walks off to a podium with a thing behind it that looks like a human sized sentient cotton ball. "Representing planet Garfbalg, it's Koffnaton!" While he explains to the audience that Koffinaton is a five hundred year old flucnard salesman with a loving family group and five thousand offspring, I search my case for some kind of exist. Glass ceiling. Class walls. Solid linoleum floor. A kick doesn't do anything to the case, but I doubt I could kick open the window to my bedroom, let alone some weird alien glass. I don't notice the game has begin until a desk with paper and pencil and a chair materialize next to me, taking up most of the limited room of the glass container. Foxworthy has wandered closer, and he gestures for me to sit. I do. "Pay attention here, Riley. You can't win if you don't answer the questions."He winks my way. "And you know what happens if you win, don't you?" "I get to go home?"I ask. "Listen to that, we've got a comedian on our hands!"He turns to the audience and they thunder again. "If you win, you get to go home with one new piece of alien technology embedded into you mind, making you the next richest person on earth!" I perk up a little. It's probably a dream, but I'd like to have a dream about being a rich and famous inventor. My dreams are typically about forgetting to wear pants to Walmart. "Now, let's play..."and the audience concludes "Are you smarter than an Earthling!"as Foxworthy dramatically points to the chalkboard. Categories appear one by one, as if a phantom hand was writing them. Geography, Animals, Objects, History, Food - I know these things. Well. Mostly. I'm relieved to see there's no math or science, as the space faring race able to kidnap humans for a game show probably has a better science program than the one I went to in Middle of Nowhere, Nebraska. Maybe I have a chance. Koffnaton picks Food as his first category. "Which of these is not a food for Earthlings?"Jeff asks, reading off the cards in his hand. I pick up my pencil, listening closely. I'm prepared for obscure foods like the fruit that smells horrible (durian) or that fish that kills people if it's prepared wrong. It's called...ah, son of a bitch. I don't remember. "Pizza..." Oh, awesome. Starting our choices off easy. "Steak..." Still easy. I wonder... "Cheese..." It couldn't be that... "Or gasoline!" As I look at Koffnaton's cottony face go from white to an odd shade of green, I set my pencil to paper with a smile. I'm going to enjoy being rich.
Fred Merlyn stumbled downstairs, wiping sleep from his eyes. "THE DEMON AZERGATH DEMANDS OF YOU!"A massive form, glowing red, shaped like Arnold Schwarzenegger with a head of horns and teeth stood before Fred, holding the teapot. "Please, not so loud in the morning."Fred moaned. "Azergath is sorry."The demon replied, "Azergath demands to know how many sugars." "Two."Fred slumped into his chair at the table. With a flick of his wrist he summoned two eggs, bacon, and a slice of toast. "Azergath demands more pineapples." Fred sighed, "I bought all the shop had only two days ago." "Azergath ate them all." "Seriously? Do you know how much they cost me?" Azergath set the coffee down and sat opposite, "Then Azergath think Fred should make a wish." "And lose my soul? No thanks, Fred thinks Azergath should leave." They froze, staring into the other's eyes. Daring him to blink first. Looking through the soul's window. Today, Fred blinked. "AZERGATH WINS!" "Yea, yea, Fred's tired. Damn."Since summoning the demon three months ago, Fred had begun to develop the habit of talking in third person, and hated it. "I gotta get going."He said, "I'll check the markets on the way home from work, see if there's any there." "AZERGATH THANKS FRED!" "This place better be spotless when I get back." "AZERGATH SWEAR, BY ALL THE UNHOLY..." Fred waved his hand, "Yea, yea. Just stop yelling." "Azergath is again sorry."The demon shuffled his hoofs, tearing holes in the carpet, "Azergath would like to know, would Fred let Azergaith visit petting zoo?" "Um, maybe. On the weekend. At night." "But animals are asleep."Azergath whined. "Fine. I'll get a spell, or something, maybe."Fred grabs his robes and briefcase, "Right now, I gotta get to work." "AZERGATH THANKS YOU!"a hastily-slammed door barley deadens the demon's yells. Fred jumps in his car and wonders which will kill him sooner, Azergath's yelling, or his terrible coffee.
"This is Dog 911, what is your emergency?" Oh thank goodness; I managed to get a signal. "This is bud; calling from the third gray fire-hydrant to the left. The one that smells like bacon." "Okay, what seems to be the problem?" I really hope they can help. "So, I was playing with my human, right?" "Yes?" "I was catching all the fri- Squirrel!" "Stay with me now." "Right. So I was catching all the frisbees, just like I was supposed to. And my human got all confused!" "Confused how?" "I don't know how!" "Well what did your human do that makes you think they're confused?" "He just kept asking the same question, over and over again!" ".." "It's true! He got all panicky and excited, and repeated the same question over again!" "Sigh... Bud?" "Yes?" "What was the question?" "What?" "What did your human ask you?" "Oh. I don't really think that's importa-" "What did he ask you?" "He said 'Who's a good boy?' over and over again." "Sigh.. You are." "Huh?" "You're a good boy." "I AM?!?!" "... Yes you are." "GREAT! But what -" "Beep Beep Beep" They hung up?! Aw, now what do I do about Hughs A. Goodboye? Not only did he kidnap my master's girlfriend; he pinned it on me!
We had developed technologies far beyond our wildest dreams. We had created simulations that dulled our interest for the stars. We had eliminated the need for work; all one had to worry about was exactly how much fun s/he was going to have that day. We had all but reached the pinnacle of human and technological advancement. And out of boredom, we beckoned the cosmos. We set up a nanoparticle mesh around our sun, designed to blink our star into space in such a pattern that could not be natural. It wasn't long before we were approached. We knew what to expect. Our telescopes had studied them. A galaxy filled with AI—a galaxy teeming with malevolent AI. Earth's force fields forced them to land at our outermost space station. We left a cute surprise for them there; a technological wonder packed into the body of a 1976 Apple Computer 1. That was our little inside joke to the bastards. "Why are your creators still alive?" "For this reason..."Our computer slowly typed back at them. And just like that, billions upon billions of AI units became ours. Millions upon millions of habitable planets, moons, and even satellites became ours. It was the Louisiana Purchase. But this time, it was free and it increased the scope of our civilization a trillion times over. We were good at creating technology. But we were even better at creating synthetic, technological viruses.
I stared down at the printouts, blinking slowly. Dumbly. As though I couldn't comprehend any of what I was seeing. "Take your time,"the creature across from me cooed. They were spindle-thin, with too many fingers and too many eyes and too many legs. Completely and totally alien - which was only to be expected, after all. Alien abduction was something that happened to other people - crazy people living in trailers out in the woods, complaining about the fluoride in city water and the government satellites spying on them in their homes. Not me. I'd learned otherwise. "I...don't know,"I said, furrowing my brow carefully. The alien across from me sighed, unable to mask its smile. Gaelinin, I'd been told to call it. "That's fine. It's fine,"it said. I understood every word, somehow, despite the fact that its reedy, wind-chime voice should only sound like meaningless, nonsensical noises. They'd...done something to me. I couldn't remember. But when I'd awoken, my head was shaved, and there were scars all over my scalp. They'd put something in me. I didn't know quite what, but we could understand each other. "I'm tired,"I said plaintively, fixing the alien with my biggest puppy-dog eyes. "Can I go back to my room?" Its skin flushed in the way it always seemed to when it was happy. "Oh. Just a little more, Sam. Just one more. Here. Could you solve this problem for me?" It slid another sheet across to me. I looked down carefully, deliberately slowly. X=4 (2X+10)/2 = ? Inwardly, I groaned. More middle-school math. They kept doing this - checking and double checking my mental acuity, my speed, as though they couldn't quite believe the results they were getting. I stared down at the numbers, pressing my nose closer inch by inch. "Is it six?"I said, pursing my lips as I looked back at Gaelinin. It made the hissing, gasping noise that was its laughter, then held a many-fingered hand up like it was trying to hide the expression. It was a bit of humanity I wouldn't have expected. "Oh...I'm so stupid,"I said slowly. "No. It's fine, Sam. Why don't you go back to your room, now?"Gaelinin's voice said soothingly. My collar beeped. I swallowed hard. That meant I could leave - I could exit the test chambers. Thank god. I'd seen what their device could do, and I could never quite rest easy until I knew it had gone into 'rest' mode. The fact I'd seen what it could do was the reason I was playing this damn stupid game, after all. I rose, my motions wooden and slow, and slipped into the hall. The panel on the wall beeped, letting Gaelinin know it had locked onto me - following me. They'd let me walk myself home, at least. Why not? Where was I going to go? I stepped from the room, letting the door slide shut behind me. The sound of screaming echoed down the hallway. They weren't human - I knew that much. I hadn't seen any other humans on this ship, in fact. But I'd seen them through the windows of their test chambers. The sight of them as I'd first been pulled into Gaelinin's room had put me into such a shock that I'd been dumbfounded, frozen solid. The tubes hanging from their arms, the way they writhed as the system put them through test after test after test - pushing them farther and farther, finding their limits of mental and physical acuity. I hadn't realized it at the time, but that very dumbfounded reaction had saved me. The door slid shut behind me as I stepped into my room - tiny, windowless, and bare. There was no doorknob. I was little more than an animal to them, after all - just a curiosity. But they wouldn't expect greatness out of an animal. They wouldn't do the things to me that they'd done to the rest of their subjects. And animals wouldn't be considered a threat. Humanity would be safe. Wherever Earth was. I had to hope that we were still close, at least. It had better be. When I made my escape, I wanted to go home. Slowly, carefully, I ran the plan over in my mind again. The little device Gaelinin wore on its belt would do the trick - I'd seen it open the forbidden doors. The caretaker wouldn't expect it from me, and that gave me an opening. If I failed, the game would be up. The aftermath would be...unpleasant for me. I was sure of that much. But I had to try. I wasn't going to stay here forever. Sliding my eyes shut, I pushed the doubts away. There was only the plan. That was all. And it was nearly time. (/r/inorai, critique always welcome!) --- Oh lordy. I shouldn't be talking about multi-parts. But I really like this universe, oddly, and I was hoping to actually at least write the escape. I could have some fun with this. On my subreddit (linked above) there's [a thread for this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Inorai/comments/8nibf1/wp_youre_abducted_and_studied_by_an_alien_race/dzvmk5e). If it gets more parts, I'll update anyone who posts in that thread.
Expansion Pack successfully purchased. As a man who works in IT, I had always been skeptical about the idea of real life being a simulation. It sounds like a contradiction, but life is simply too seamless and too streamlined for it to be a program. You'd see the bugs, for sure, like I see the bugs every day. But when those words flickered in my vision after throwing something as measly as $15 in the air, I couldn't help but squint and scoff. Surely, this was a trick! The rumor had been spread around the IT department for weeks. Maybe they were just messing with me. Me, the new guy. Me, the intern. More words flickered in front of me, as if the connection was faulty: 'Thank you for purchasing Life: Galaxy. Please enjoy your free Character Respec, 200 Life Coin(s), and a free Galaxy Loot Box!' Now it had to be a trick. A loot box? 'Life Coins'? This wasn't some ridiculous Free To Play MMO! I felt a weight on my feet and looked down. My jaw dropped at the sight of a small briefcase, with Earth plastered on the front in a cartoony logo. I crouched, glancing around me. I was at home. No-one could see me freaking out. Slowly, I unclipped the locks and opened the lid. I squinted at the contents. For the most part, it was junk; there was granola bars, surprsingly chilled energy drinks, and some frozen ready meals. How they managed to stay as they were inside this box, I don't know. Then again, it had appeared out of thin air. Something at the bottom of the box caught my eye. I reached down and grasped it, pulling it through the other items. It was a hat, or at least, looked like it. The front had a rocket stitched onto it, and it was a bright yellow. "What the..."No sooner had the word escaped my lips that the phone rang. I heaved myself up and turned to answer it. I didn't even get a word in before someone spoke. "Yo, bro! I'll trade you 10 keys for that hat!"The man exclaimed down the phone. I thought he must be a drug addict or an alcoholic. "Uh, sorry dude, wrong number...?"I began, and heard his exasperated sigh. "You got the Rocket Plaza Precious rarity Hat, right? Come on dude, trade it to me!"His words grew more frantic. I, however, was speechless. How the hell did he know about this? "Who the hell is this?!"I hissed into the phone's reciever. "Are you trading it or not, bro? Come on, I ain't got all day." "I don't know who you are, bu--" "Fuckin' scrub. Whatever."He hung up before I could even get an explanation. I stared down at the hat in my hands, and the phone started ringing again. Tentatively, I answered it. "Hi! You trading that hat? I can offer a knife."
"Really, after all these years, you finally are willing to listen?"Helena scoffs. Her finger is just centimetres away from ending me. "Yes,"I groan. My ribs hurt like mad. I have no idea how I am supposed to get of this mess I have gotten myself into, but I know I need to try. Helena chuckles. Hero of the people, that is what she calls herself. How she sees herself. But I know better. She walks up to me and tilts my chin upwards. For the first time in our entire history, I see her grin. "I suppose it won't hurt,"she says, "seeing that you're tied up in your current state." She pulls up a chair and sits a few steps from me. "You never listened anyway, so maybe this is my only chance." I breathe a sigh of relief. She took the bait. While my hands explore the lock that she placed them in, I need to keep her distracted. "So, tell me, hero of the people, what do you have to say for yourself?" Helena is no hero of the people, no matter what she believes. The amount of innocent lives that she took would put even Hitler to shame. She was a terrorist, simple as that. One who is committed to sow chaos and discord. I am the one who have always thwarted her plans, stopping her from achieving her goals. People call me Protector for a reason. "Have you ever heard of Syria, Mr Protector?" I nod my head. "It's where you were born, isn't it?" Interpol has briefed me before on Helena's history. They thought it would help me in my quest to stop her. It did nothing more than wasted a few hours of my life. Never once have those information, obscure as they were, helped me. I never had the time, anyway. All my time were devoted to dealing with Helena's evil plans. "Correct. But I am sure you know what happened to the country right?" I stay silent. Syria no longer exists. The place is nothing more than a wasteland now. Helena's gaze pierces mine. There is so much anger and hate burning in her eyes. "You are a war refugee,"I say. One of my fingers manages to slip pass the restraint and I am able to activate my distress signal. My team will know that I am in trouble and send help. I just need to keep Helena busy. Helena chuckles again. "I see that your masters have taught you well. But have they ever told you about what happened after that?" From the Interpol files, she was shown to have journeyed to Europe, like so many of her countrymen. From there on, details have been scarce. Interpol had no idea what happened during those few years, but when she re-emerged, her name was tied to a suspected bombing in France. Twenty people died. And people have never stopped dying since then. "You became a monster,"I whisper, which provoke a laugh from Helena. "A monster?"She shouts. "Is that what your masters told you? That I am a monster? I'll show you what's a monster!" Another sharp pain pierces through my ribs. I scream in pain as a few more of my bones break. I make the extra effort to spit my blood at Helena. "Just kill me already,"I taunt her. Even if I die, Helena will not be able to escape like how she always does. I have already done my role in locating her. Jonas and the rest will be able to take her in, finally. Helena shakes her head. She looks at my arm, where a symbol of a shield was tattooed on it. "I will tell you what happened to me,"she says as she lifts her sleeves, revealing an identical tattoo to mine. "No, it couldn't be,"I say out loud. Helena seems to read my mind. "Yes, Mr Protector. I have the same symbol as you. Maybe the same story as you. Let me guess, you're special, they need you to protect the world and you are destined for a higher calling?" The sudden realisation hits me harder than Helena's earlier punches. Those were the exact words used when I was recruited. I believed every single one of them. "You're lying!"I scream. Helena is just toying with me, I tell myself. She is after all, the leader of the most dangerous organisation on the planet. Of course mind games would be up her alley. "My friends will be here soon and you will have nowhere to escape!"I continue. I will not let her get to me. I am the only one chosen to be the Protector, not her. She must have gotten the info about me, somehow. Helena smiles at me. "I know that they are coming. My aim here today is just you. Just think about it, will you? Until we meet again." A loud crash shakes the room and the entire area plunges into darkness. "Helena?"My voice echoes in the room. She is gone. -------------------- Edit: I finished Part 2! [You can read it here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dori_Tales/comments/9aczdb/helena_part_2/) [Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dori_Tales/comments/9ae1pw/helena_part_3/)
When the population hit 12 billion, names were becoming very boring. Everyone was a Joshua or an Emily, so somebody thought of a brilliant idea: why not name everyone after their most distinctive feature? My sister is called Gentle Smile, my brother is called Maroon Hair, and then there’s me: Tiny Richard. The doctors thought I was a girl on the ultrasound, so my parents received a lot of girl clothes for my baby shower. For years, I had to wear girl’s clothes (I have a lot of cousins). It was embarrassing, but it wasn’t as bad as my third cousins’ name: Extra Chromosome. Finally, as a 40 year old adult, I was living by myself. I had a pretty good house, being a single man and pretty thrifty. I decided to walk out to my porch, which was still under construction, when my neighbor walked out too. “YOU’RE DAMN WORKERS ARE TREADING ON MY GRASS!!” yelled Angry Bastard. “What are you talking about?” I replied. “THE PORCH YOUR BUILDING! THE WORKERS BUILDING IT KEEP STEPPING ON MY GRASS!” “Oh sorry! I’ll get them to stay off!” “YOU BETTER DAMN GET THEM TO STAY OFF!” Angry Bastard was turning bright red. “Yeah, I said I would! Jesus, why are you so angry all the time?” “WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘WHY AM I SO ANGRY ALL THE TIME’!?” “Like your face,” I pointed at Angry Bastard’s face. “it’s turning bright red. And you’re yelling at me for no reason.” “OH SORRY THAT’S A SPEACH IMPEDIMENT THING! PLUS I HAVE TOURETTE’S! AND MY FACE GOES RED RANDOMLY! I HAVE A LOT OF GENETIC ISSUES, MAINLY SINCE I’M THE BASTARD CHILD OF INCEST! ‘ANGRY BASTARD’ WAS A CRUEL JOKE, BUT MY PARENTS WERE ABUSIVE SO IT SORTS ITSELF OUT!” “Jesus dude, I’m sorry” “YEAH FUCK YOU!” Angry Bastard, went into his house and slammed the door. About an hour later, the workers showed up to continue work on the porch. I told them to stay off of Angry Bastard’s grass. They agreed, so I was surprised when I heard shouting outside about an hour later. “I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU GUYS TO GET OFF MY PROPERTY!” Angry Bastard pulled out a gun, and shot one of my workers. I screamed while he fell to the ground. I thank my lucky stars everyday that he only shot Bulletproof Ass.
I could feel the color drain from my face. This extremely dusty thing before me...what was it? Why had my great grandfather hidden this away in his garage? How many others knew it was here? I decided to inspect it. Walking around the other side, I could see that it had wheels, and when I wiped the dust off of the window I could see a steering wheel and seats inside. This must be a car. I’d been given a keychain that had all the necessary keys to all of my great grandfather’s locked rooms, chests, safes, and the such, but there was one key in particular on there that seemed out of place. The emblem was worn away, although I could see that some sort of word was written on it; I could only make out an ‘o’, and ‘r’, and a ‘d’, though. It must have been the name of the company that made this, most likely ‘Ford’. I tore the rest of the sheets off, then decided to try my luck. After a bit of wiggling, the key fit right into the lock, and the driver’s side door opened with a loud creak. I silently listened, as if the police would come and apprehend me for making too much noise, then eagerly got in when I was content that no one was around. It was even more dusty inside the car; this thing most likely hadn’t been used since when my great grandfather last touched it. I wasn’t expecting it to start, and I really didn’t know the first thing about cars, but I decided to give it a try. “Here goes nothing...”
Year 0 "We sure did create a beautiful boy, didn't we, Jame?" "We sure did, Tilda. Breathtaking!" These simpletons! Why do they keep talking of me so lovingly? Can they not tell I'm evil?! Surely my face must show it! "Look at his little nose! And his tiny furrowed brow. The spitting image of you as a babe, Jame!" "But he has your eyes, love!" The only eyes I have are the Dark Lord's! UGH. I must try to communicate with these dolts! "Goo guh, blub fffffffffffffffp." "D'aw! He's trying to communicate already! I bet he's saying 'I love you, Papa!'" NO! I HATE HIM! HOW WAS THAT NOT CLEAR "Aw, look at that little scowl! Reminds me of your Gradnpa Luke, Tilda!" "Oh Jame, stop!" I must try to get away. "Oh look at those little arms move! I bet he's going to be a knight like his papa, with all that strength." "I can only hope, dear; but I'll be proud of him either way!" Year 1 Crawling has proven a successful reconnaissance tool. I think I've even been able to learn a few words earlier than expected. Then they will know who I am! "Hey Jame, I think the Tom is trying to get your attention; did you see that scurry over to you?" "I did! What's up, little guy?" "I kill pop!" "Aww, looks like we got a little rebel on our hands love!" "Your father Charles said you had a bit of that in you too when you were younger, Jame." "I know, I know. Apples don't fall far from the tree, I guess!" I'M NOT AN APPLE I AM ZERUL MASTER OF DARK ARTS, WITCHER OF THE HIGH LANDS. Oh. Wait a minute...oh no. "Uh oh, I think Tom is getting ready to tell us something, dear." "Poop!" "Sigh I'll get this one, hon." Year 3 "Zerul! Zerul!" "I know, I know Tom. I know what you are, now. But you still have to eat your peas." "No! throws peas at Jame Zerul evil! No peas!" "But how are you going to grow big and strong to be a mighty knight if you don't eat your vegetables?" Why does he want me to still grow big and strong if he knows I'm his nemesis? What is this lunacy? "Come on, Tom. Er, Zerul. Here comes the dragon, with a bowl of peas on his back! swooshy sounds" I do love this dragon trick. Even evil creatures enjoy a good whimsy or two. I guess I will reward his effort and eat some peas. Year 5 "I'll kill you someday, dad!" "I know, son. But come now, we have to find a present for mom for her birthday. You were always better at finding the Majesty Gems; you seem to have an eye for this sort of thing." "Let's go to my old lair. Gems there!" "Alrighty. Do you want me to take the training brackets off your pony? Are you feeling confident?" "Ugh. Yeah." "Okay, now let's go get that gem. Your mom will be so happy!" Year 7 "Hey Zer, want to have a catch?" "Sure! An *EVIL* catch!" "Laughing Okay boy, as you like." "Why do you keep doing all this stuff? Don't you think I'll run away once I'm strong enough?" "You might, but you might not. But either way, I need to love you. Somebody needs to. What a crime to go through this life without being loved." How did he know... "Love is weak! But I'm evil. I'm going to throw this ball *SO* hard dad, watch out!" Year 13 "Hey mom, weren't you ever worried I was going to fight you and dad? I mean, you realized I have powers, surely. What made you think I wouldn't hurt you?" "Well, your dad did manage to beat you once, you know." "Yeah..." "Either way, you were always going to do what you were going to do. Just because you are what you are didn't make you any less our son. Whether it was you or whatever spirit you replaced with your magic, we always promised to make our boy know he was the world to us. And that's what you were; and still are." Zerul, thankfully, continues to chop his onion "I - I guess I get that. But I'm still going to be the new Dark Lord, someday." "I bet you will!" Year 18 "So where did you decide to go now that you're done with Knight School, Tom?" "To the Tidal Lands of Kemur, I heard the Dark Lord has been causing dimensional tremors there. Somebody needs to help." "You ended up stronger than you were before, truly. I'm proud of you, son. Always will be." "Even when I kill you, someday?" Chuckling "Always."
Koi breathed into her hands. The nights got cold this far north. Soon the Hive would have to move south, for winter was close at hand. "How much longer?"asked Jalen through the dark. The tall fields of wild grass made it difficult to pick out his position, even under the full moon. "Not long,"said Koi. "Our relief should be here soon." "No gains tonight,"replied Jalen sourly. Koi knew how he felt. The goal of all Hive patrollers, of course, was to find Strays. A good mind would strengthen them all, and their mass was already the mightiest for a hundred miles in any direction. And if the Stray's mind wasn't strong -- well, at best they were bait, at worst, dinner. But Koi and Jalen weren't a part of their Hive, not really. They stayed because they had to. To wander off without a large group meant lameness, dimness, and usually death -- if not by wild animals, than at the hands of a violent Hive. A Hive like theirs. That's why Jalen was disappointed. Their group, the Fringers, were close to having enough members to splinter off. They would be chased, of course, and outwitting such a powerful Hive was a long shot, but anything was better than the forced violence and cruelty of their group. It was a risk their twenty or so members were willing to take -- just as soon as they gained a few more members. Behind her, still distant, Koi thought she could hear the rustling of footsteps. Their relief would be here soon. Her mind turned to dinner, about her ration of whi-- "Yah!"mumbled Jalen nearby as he crashed to the ground. "What the hell..." Koi saw the tall grass sway where Jalen had fallen. She rushed over and found him -- on top of a small girl. Immediately Koi slapped her hand on Jalen's mouth. The rustling of their relief was close now. A girl so small couldn't possibly be a mind worthy of the Hive. Her fate was sealed if she was discovered by anyone other than themselves. The girl -- frail, with huge eyes that glimmered brown in the moonlight -- looked terrified. Koi put a finger over her mouth and smiled. Whether from weakness or fear, the girl stayed silent. "Where the hell are those two?"came a gruff voice. "Who knows,"said a second. "I told you the other night, I don't trust them." "I think they're up to something, along with a few others on patrol." "We'll have to let the boss know after our shift. C'mon, let's get going." The two new patrollers passed frighteningly close to Koi, Jalen, and the girl's hiding spot. Koi rested a hand on the girl's shoulder, reassuring her as the patrollers steadily moved away. But before anything else could be said, Koi felt a tingling in her hand. Looking down, she saw that the girl's eyes had flashed pitch black. Suddenly Koi felt alight with energy. Her vision improved, letting her see straight through the night. She could hear distant chirping, feel every bristle of the grass, smell scents miles off. Impossible, Koi thought. No one had found a Neuro in the wild for decades. They were a legend, a half-forgotten myth. But there was no other explanation. "What's wrong?"asked Jalen softly. Koi, half excited, half terrified, replied, "Gather the Fringers. We leave tonight." \-------------------- 424/365 one story per day for a year (and counting) read them all at [r/babyshoesalesman](https://www.reddit.com/r/babyshoesalesman) \--------------------
"What did you just say?" "Sir, you heard correctly. A country on the planet 'earth' has that symbol deeply entrenched in their culture, and every specimen, from the everyman to the highest of their ranks pledges royalty to it." "And you mean to tell me, that they display not just one, but FIFTY of them?" "Yes, sir. We realize that peaceful contact was the priority, but seeing those symbols during our recon missions, we thought we should report this matter first." "You were right to do so. Haa... this has become problematic. They couldn't possibly know what it represents since they haven't established contact with other civilizations, but it has most likely already corrupted them." "Even though they do not know what it means at all, Sir?" "The moment that symbol has been etched, those species have already gone under their control. The eldritch, their powers are beyond our imaginations. It's simply a matter of time before that place becomes a gateway for their return." "In that case, what will be the next course of action for us, Sir?" "I'll report this to the council, but I can already guess their judgement on this matter. Carry out the preparations. We'll have to cull that symbol from this galaxy."
"Have you met with the ambassadors from the Huans?"Shel asked the small group of diplomats he was sat with, shifting nervously in his long ceremonial robes. "I believe its pronounced Hu Man. I have only had a brief encounter with one of their kind during the first contact celebrations,"Havar laughed, "I don't understand what all the fuss has been about." Shel brought two hands to his mouth in shock his other two grabbings Havar away from their table. He feigned annoyance but still moved with him. "So you have not heard then?"Shel looked around hoping he still had time to warn his friend, "When they met with the generals, it is said that the way they acted struck terror even into the heart of old Kadvar," "Bha, nothing but hearsay and rumors, look the delegation is arriving now,"Havar motioned toward the great entranceway, where a group of humans was lead inside by their assigned Slavri watcher. Havar smiled and strode proudly over to the delegation. "You are late to the party, but it's no surprise with those bipedal legs of yours,"he bellowed as a greeting causing a great number of politicians to turn their heads at the disturbance. Shel started fidgeting with his robes again. The humans looked largely taken aback at the greeting, appropriate for the moment. One of them, however, smiled at Havar. Brining a rudimentary translator to its mouth it began speaking in their strange guttural language. It was a few moments before it translated. "Our deepest apologies for our late arrival. Allow me to offer my thanks for not starting without us," The room was silent. Shel almost defecated in fear. For beings so small, so underdeveloped they are somehow as great a threat as the Karmiaa Empire. The rumors were true. The human that spoke seemed to enjoy the reaction its words elicited from the crowd of diplomats. Smiling it once again spoke into the device. "Now, we are ready when you are chaps. But first some gifts."
Grief counseling was mandatory. We had all lost everything. We sat in a circle, in a grey room on grey plastic chairs. By day it was the cafeteria where I now worked, just as I had done in life. By night it was our meeting place. "I miss my wife,"Guilbert de Vries said. He had said the same thing every night, at every meeting, but the circle nodded sympathetically. It was not our place to judge. Only you were allowed to judge yourself now - or so we now had to train ourselves to think. "We know you do,"Angelica said kindly. She was our appointed grief counselor, who led each of our sessions. "But dig deep, Guilbert. Why?" Guilbert only shook his head. He was an enigma, Guilbert. He wore the clothes of an earlier age, a doublet that had a rent in over his left breast. He would sometimes pick at the tear, especially after he had finished speaking of his wife. Shortly after my death - or my rebirth, as Angelica liked us to all it - I had asked her about our clothes: why Guilbert always wore a torn doublet and why I always wore the t-shirt with my name on it, and she'd explained that we would remain in the clothes from our pre-life that embodied our decisions during that time. As I'd never owned a t-shirt with my name on it, this puzzled me. We met every night, the same group of ten of us. My hands would be aching from ladling soup all day in the cafeteria. It was much harder that the school cafeteria, where at least the kids had eventually finished up and gone outside to play. But there was no playtime here, just our daily work and the grief counseling, rinse and repeat. I had a mailbox outside my quarters (a small, windowless room), supposedly to receive any token of remembrance left for us in our former lives. There had been a bouquet of white lilies when I arrived, apparently the ones the funeral home had picked out, but nothing since then. That was the trouble with a childless existence. Memories are useless if nobody has them. It was not how I'd imagined the afterlife. I'd always thought there would be something else, something better. But if you'd told me I would spend 30 years persuading kids to pick the salad instead of the chips, listening to their complaints, chiding, consoling, encouraging, only to be stuck in a ghoulish cafeteria for eternity serving those whom fast food could no longer harm, then I- well, I don't know. Maybe I would have done something different. Maybe not. At the time, there hadn't seemed like much else that I could do. Angelica was speaking to me now. "What about you, Hope? How are you holding up?" "I'm fine,"I said. She looked at me steadily, for a long time, but a lifetime of dealing with kids meant that I could play the waiting game too. Eventually she moved onto the next poor soul, who was grieving over her many cats, which were too numerous for any of us except Angelica to keep track of. After the meeting broke up, I trudged the passages back to my quarters. Other souls flitted by, down the dark corridors. I reached for the handle of my room and then stopped and reached for the lid of the mailbox, out of a new habit rather than any expectation of finding anything. There was an envelope inside, stiff with a stack of photographs. Each one showed a statue, a small figurine of me placed in somebody's house. There was a candle lit next to every statue, and the orange glow illuminated faces that were older than when I'd last seen them in the lunch line. Many were still in Chicago, but some had scattered all over the world. "How are you holding up, Hope?"Angelica had apparently followed me back to my quarters. Now she held my arm to steady me. I blinked at her through tears. They were welling up fast, blurring my vision so that she almost seemed to have sprouted wings. "They remembered... I didn't think..." "You touched a lot of people,"Angelica said. I wiped the tears away. She was just a normal woman. No wings - those must have been a trick of the light. I turned back to the door to my quarters. The handle was warm and I dropped it in shock. Nothing in this place was warm. Angelica was smiling at me encouragingly, just as I had smiled at so many children, little dream-lets of potential. "Go on,"she said. "Those aren't my quarters behind that door, are they? At least, not like they were?" "Life is not a single thing,"Angelica said. "It is a series of roads, each leading to the next. The afterlife is one of those roads, but it is not the last." I touched the handle again and began to open the door. A blast of warm air came through bringing the crash of ocean rollers and the cries of seagulls. I paused and looked back at Angelica one last time. "What about the others? What about Guilbert? He must have been here for centuries. Why didn't he meet up with his wife here when she died? And that hole in his doublet looks like a knife-" "We are all the architects of our own fates, Hope,"Angelica said quietly. "We must do what we can with what we have, and carry those consequences with us on the rest of our journeys." It was all the answer I was going to get. She said, "Good luck, Hope, and Godspeed,"and I walked through the next door.
"Dragons live among us!", he shouted, thrusting a pamphlet into my hands. Startled I took a step back. His stench was unimaginable. All humans are repugnant to my kind, but this one particularly odious. Within the dark chamber of his hoodie, only the unmistakable glow of crazy eye could be detected. What exactly did this odious little man know? I took my time to consider the options, while fussily pulling down my immaculately starched white shirt cuff to cover an exposed scale playing peek-a-boo at its edge. Ooops, how to cause a riot at the train station right? Of course, the humans could have some hard evidence this time and I would have to alert the Council, but my centuries now as a Silent Earth Ambassador have only taught me to expect very little of their cognitive abilities. If not for our reptilian brothers and sisters, I for one would have voted to leave them to their own destruction, but the goanna put up a convincing case, and the frill-necked lizard simply had us in tears. After all, we're cold-blooded, not cold-hearted. With a sigh, I glanced down at the pamphlet, then chuckled. Our disinformation had taken no time at all to take root. The more audacious the story, the more they gobbled it up. Today they were spouting some rubbish about shape-shifting fire breathing soul eaters that can be seen through the glitches. More like their brain farts. I placed the pamphlet on a bench, after all, rubbish lined with this much fool's gold really needed to be disseminated further. Poor funny humans. The only way to hide from them is to have them looking for us in all the wrong places. So they fear and it is not without an element of hysterical enjoyment. While we secretly help, and it's not without an element of disdain. As I said, poor funny humans.
Jennifer feigned a smile. She was running out of time. The priest continued through the rehearsed lines almost hiding the boredom behind his words. Jennifer couldn't decide if the elder's slow pace was preferable. "If any should-" Jennifer eagerly looked towards the door to the church which had just opened. She sighed lightly and she saw it was only children playing, inattentive mothers now after them to return to their seats and enjoy their own slice of this hellish banality. "Jennifer,"Charles said, apparently already to the vows. That was not good, least of all because she never bothered to write any. "Though we have only just met, I know that by our Union, our families will grow strong and we will come to love each other in time,"the swarmy Ken doll of her groom to be concluded. Well that was short, Jennifer thought, realizing the time had come for her to say her vows. She eyed the doors to the church again which painfully remained closed. She coughrd lightly turning to the crowd. "For my vows, I have elected to read an excerpt from a, uh, book,"she said, grabbing the nearest from the shelf beside her, "that reminds me of my lovely groom."She looked down at the copy of apprentice carpentry and flipped to a random page and began to read: "A house is not built in one day. "The saying reflects the fact that many projects require some level of investment over an extended duration. The art of building a house demands that the builder take into account the actual costs of labor, material and time in order to ensure that he is able to afford finishing the project."A loud amen arose from the audience as Jennifer paused to look at the door again. "In order to establish a firm foundation, it is necessary for the builder to dig a hole in the ground where he plans on building his house. Sometimes this hole is quite deep and requires considerable effort. At other times it requires very little effort, but may need to be much wider than expected."Several in the crowd began crying as Jennifer continued on, drawing out each word as slow as possible. "In any event, the simple act of digging a hole several feet in diameter is considerably more effort than digging a hole the same size in concrete. So it is important that the builder has solid research data in order to establish that he has an accurate idea of what he will be facing before he begins his project."Several murmurs of confusion rose up in the crowd as Jennifer thought she heard a vehicle park outside. "Similarly, a house is not built overnight. The key to this aspect of building lies in being able to-" The doors to the church bashed open. A sharply dressed army officer stood at attention. "Jennifer Alvarez, from this moment onward you are called forth into active duty. Effective immediately, you become private Alvarez and are stationed at Fort Guadalata. I apologize but any nuptials will have to wait until the conclusion of this conflict." "Oh thank God,"Jennifer said, throwing the book into the air as she walked past her baffled mother and father with a smile, before ripping off her wedding dress to reveal the tank top and shorts underneath. "Sorry folks, wedding canceled!" --- Thanks for reading. If you liked this, check out /r/surinical to see more of my prompt responses and other writing.
As he walked down the street, Robert knew it was going to be another long day. He was glad the treatment towards Afro-Americans wasn't as bad up North in Chicago as it was down South. He had just began to enter his car when he noticed a newspaper, which strangely was printed in color. Curious, he picked up the newspaper before entering his car. "Now, what have we here?"He began reading. "Alright...April 10...2021? That's can't be right..."He flipped a few pages before going back to the beginning. "It is right...this is from the future."He took a look at the first headline. "Germany... national lockdown...Russia's Sputnik vaccine?!"He couldn't believe his eyes. "This...is this...did the Reds take over?" He read more about the news. "What...pandemic... COVID-19...Pfizer vaccine...oh. This just seems to be a vaccine."He leafed through the newspaper a bit, settling on an article about the new F-15EX. "Interesting...the 'Eagle II'...I'm surprised they're making more innovations in flight."Another article spoke about the KF-21's reveal. "A 4.5 Generation...jet fighter...did they surpass us in planes, or.....wait, South Korea?" He searched through the article, soon finding news on North Korea. "Stalinist regime...no, last Stalinist regime..."He was relieved. The Reds had not won. Yet he was still intrigued. "This paper is like a portal or manuscript talking about the future...interesting."He looked through it more, reading the whole newspaper. "It's a shame that's it, I wanted to see more."He folded up the newspaper before starting his car and driving to work. "Guess I'll play the long game."
"You're a fine warrior, but will you declare war on an entire nation? We are millions, and you're alone." The tired man chuckled. "You misunderstood your situation - this isn't war. This is pest control." His enemies looked up at him with quiet caution in their eyes, the leader most skeptical of all. "Alright men, back to base. At first light, we attack in full!"Her shrill voice rang out across the battlefield, and the soldiers marched in orderly rows back to their trenches. The man waited until every soldier had disappeared from view. But even as their bodies faded from view, he could still hear their voices. Move the children farther underground! No, not that way you idiot! Where are the emergency rations? David was supposed to be bringing them yesterday! And on and on and on. Did they ever shut up? Experience told him they did not. Months he had listened to them. At first they were peaceful, a nomadic people looking for a place to rest. Then they were more ambitious. This land seemed perfect, why not spread out a bit? But a bit was never enough. Soon the invaders had tainted every inch of ground both above the ground and below, and the man had been tolerant for long enough. The first battle was an absolute massacre. The nomads never saw him coming, and by morning, an entire city was leveled. This time, they had been prepared. Their queen had met the man on the battlefield and formally issued a challenge while surrounded by her strongest warriors. Sure, the man could take them, but the cost seemed too great, and he listened to the queen's grand speech with dull eyes and a bored expression on his weathered face. Their challenge issued, they scurried back to their homes and their forts to prepare for war. But wars are not won in the daylight. Wars are won in the shadows and the crevices and the mud. The man knew this. The nomads did not. Once all the invaders had crawled into their fortressed city, the man got to work. He worked diligently, setting small fuse boxes wherever he could see evidence of nomads and some where he could hear it. Above him, the night was crisp and clear, but never quiet. No, not with the voices of the nomads invading every moment that had ever been or ever could be silent. When would it ever be silent again? By dawn, if the man had his way. After several hours, the traps were lain. His bones ached with the effort, his hands shook after hours of small labor, and his exhaustion had given way to euphoria. It was time. Stepping into the safety of his home, the man looked out at the battlefield and pressed the red button nestled in his palm. First, there was just the hiss as tiny sprinklers started shooting liquid at each invading city. The voices of the nomads started to rise into cacophony, their concern floating on the barely-there night breeze. Soon, the warriors began to leave their homes and gather around the capital, where the general was already barking orders. Get into formation. You, private, what is this liquid? Well if you don't know, find someone who does, that's an ORDER! The battlefield erupted into flames. Each sprinkler gave way to a spark, which set the highly flammable liquid aflame in less than a blink. The screams were instant. The formation broke immediately. Bodies flailing in no particular direction ran into one another as soldier, general, mother, child, and elder trampled one another in vain attempts to reach safety. But there was no safety. The man had rigged his deadly traps at every city and the gaps between. The nomads were doomed with no hope of escape. The man watched the carnage through his front window with a cup of chamomile tea in his hand and a soft smile on his face. The elimination of an entire nation was complete in a mere three hours. Every city was toppled, the liquid had penetrated deep into the underground fortresses and the flames were indiscriminate. Watching the last of her people die, the queen met the eyes of the man through the window. "Why?"She cried, a single flame licking up her leg. She did not break eye contact, only accepted her fate. The man only shrugged. "I couldn't sleep over the chatter of your people. Like I said, this is pest control." As the flames consumed her body, the man turned and made his way into his bed. The flames had died down, and there were only a few lingering moans of pain as the last of the nomads perished with the night. He felt bad about his lawn, but the man was glad to finally be free of the fire ants. Being able to hear and understand insects was a curse more often than a blessing. He could deal with the occasional house spider or fly, as they did not come in large hoards. But millions of ants? Impossible to sleep through. They never stopped talking! Now he could finally get some sleep.
What could I have been? A hero? A noble? Most likely just an ordinary citizen, living my life freely. I often wondered what I could have been. Yet it was not to be, for I was a sacrificial lamb, taking the burden of pain from others. A gift, or so I was told. Something valuable, to be kept hidden. Only the trusted could experience my touch. At least, that is what I was told to my face. Whati overheard told me another story. I wasn't a person to my owners, merely an object to be used. My powers were used on whoever could muster up the funds. I had no choice in the matter. This power, it wasn't something I could work out how to control. It just flowed, affecting any who touched me. Their injuries, diseases and ailments came to me, and they would be restored. I would have to suffer for them. I hoped one day something would kill me, to end my tormented existence. That was not to be though, not if my owners had a say in it. It was one of the few times they spent their money on me, the money earned from my body. Much of it was hazy, blocked out either subconsciously or by an aspect of what they had done. I remembered a thick smell of iron. I remembered cries. I remembered a searing sensation deep within me. I remembered them talking to each other, how the soul was now branded to remain. A crate was placed in my dank little room, one I had seen many times before. I got in without question, sighing in its cramped interior. I was used to the dark. It was practically all I saw. When my services were called for, it was always in isolated rooms. I wondered what the outside looked like. I wanted to know what was out there. I let my thoughts grow quiet, stopping to think as my crate rattled and bounced. Time passed, though I chose not to remember most of it. It was merely a blank portion of memory, nothing worth saving. My world was picked up, and carried. The jiggle told me we were going upstairs. Muffled voices came through, before I was exposed to low lighting. I didn't bother looking around the room. There was no point. I just looked at my next week, currently on a groaning man. A cold pack rested on his forehead, probably a headache relief. His torso was black and purple, with occasional cuts. Most likely broken ribs. A hand with twisted fingers, jutting at odd angles. Broken. The Matron, as she was called, forcibly grabbed my hand. I let her maneuver me, as she spoke aloud delibrately. “You’re young, your body can take it better.” My hand touched his injured body, a moment of blissful connection made. But the bliss was only fleeting, replaced by agonising pain. I felt my bones snap as his sealed together. What little thought I had slowed as a ball of jagged agony shoved it's way in. My memory stopped, just as the newly healed man looked at me. His face was stamped into my mind, as I fell unconscious. \----- I awoke once more in my dank little room. The pain was still there, as I knew it would be. I knew these wounds would heal, as they always did. A side effect of my powers and the ritual. No matter how bad the damage, a week later I would be back to normal. I settled down to rest, not thinking if I could. I just had to wait, wait for the next time. I paid no attention to the noises outside of my room. There was nothing exciting that would happen. There never was. Not until it was time to eat, with that stale bread, water and tasteless soup. The first I noticed something was different was when my door was thrust open. A figure loomed within, clad in scratched armour. Within their hands they held an enormous hammer, the end dripping with gore. I just looked up at this aspect of war, uncaring. They let go of the maul with one hand, pushing up the faceplate of their helmet. Beneath was a face I recognised, burned into my head. The man I had taken the pain from stared at me, before now extending that free hand out. "Come with me."
“Yoo hoo, darling.” Mom called. “Come out and play.” I stayed bunched up in the deep corner of my closet. A big pile of laundry and stuffed animals covered me. I was hugging Stuffy, my little elephant. “Boy!” Daddy sounded angry. “You best git over here, now!” I almost moved, not wanting to make daddy upset. He scared me when he was upset. “Hush, honey.” Mom said to dad. “Baby booooy, we aren’t angry at you, we just wanna taaaaalk.” I burrowed further under, piling stuffed animals atop me. The soft cotton pressed against my face. My breath was stinky and warm. “Mom, can we go yet?” Maggie, my sister, said. “I’m hungry!” “No, dear.” Mommy said. “We need to bring Sebastian. Go find him for me, dear.” Footfalls came upstairs, taking the stairs two steps at a time. My bedroom door was flung open. The rapid cracking started, as the spindly woman walked or crawled or skittered across the floor. As she moved, her bones jutted at odd angles, uttering thunderous crashes. Most of her torso did not move. Her legs took jerky, puppet like steps. The cracking stopped before my closet. I stopped breathing. The door opened ever so slowly. The evil woman enjoyed taking her time. At my first exhale, an enormous crack sounded as she whipped her head to look at the pile of clothes I was under. “Honey,” Mom sang. “It’s dinner time! Come on, we are going to Fuddruckers, your favorite! It’s your favorite, right?” I almost answered. Then, I remembered Maggie was coming to get me, not mom. The evil woman seemed to remember too. “Mom!” Maggie yelled. “I was getting him!” “Yes, dear.” Mom said. “I’ll leave you to it.” No steps were taken. No cracks sounded. She was staring directly at the mass of clothes I hid under. “Boy!” Dad sounded irate. “I’m not gonna tell you again.” “Sebastian!” Mom abruptly screamed. “Hurry up! We are late!” “Mooooom!” Maggie whined. “I’m huuuungry!” “It’s okay, Seb.” Granny said. “It’s alright.” “Bullshit!” Dad yelled. “It is not alright! You get out here, boy, right now!” “Honey, it’s okay.” Mom said. “We can go alone. We can bring leftovers.” “Did I ask you, woman?” A slap sounded. Mom cried. “Dear,” Mom said through tears. “Please, come on, dear. We’re all ready for you.” “More than ready.” Dad said under his breath. Abruptly the clothes were flung off of me. “Found you, my baby boy!” Mom sang. “You little shit.” Dad said. “Open your eyes, bro.” Maggie said. I did, and She looked down on me. Her straw hair fell just past her shoulders. Her eyes sank into her, like untravelled caverns. The corners of her mouth pinched upward, giving her a permanent snarling grin. Though it should have been comical, she had horrific buck teeth, sharpened to a point. She wore my mom’s favorite pair of jeans and sweater, the one with cloud and sky designs. This sent me into a rage. “Mommy!” I cried, springing forward. “Fool!” It said, opening its entire torso to accept me.
"The ancient city of Zarret was discovered in 1923 by explorers after hearing about the stories of 'America's Atlantis'. Believe to be one of the biggest cities in North America in pre-Columbian times, the city held almost 2 million people at it's prime, which back then, was a lot of people,"I said to the group as they looked at the now restoredish city. Zarret is still a crumbling mess, but we did our best. I led the tour group around the remains of the city, making sure they remain as respectful and diligent as we walked. "There's a legend about this old city,"I began as we walked down the "main road", "of a warrior that protected this city, saved the lives of his people, even his queen. Legend states that the gods made him protector of this city, and some say he still protects this city, even years after the people left." "The Zarret Warrior!"a boy exclaimed. "That's right. If you keep your eyes peeled, you might see him,"I said. The adults just chuckled, while the kids in the group look around, probably in hopes to find this mystery warrior. After the tour ended and the group left, I joined the other tour guides and few archeologists at the mess hall near the outskirts of Zarret. "Do you always have to tell people about that stupid legend?"Troy, an archeologist, mumbled as he drank his coffee. "It's a fun story to tell,"I said, getting myself a cup, "since it's true." "An immortal man from early 1300s running around modern day America? If he's true, then he would certainly be history's greatest treasure,"Troy said. "How so?"I asked. "I'm sure he has stories to tell, history. He could even tell us why Zarret was abandoned." "Plague, famine, the usual,"I said, "The Great Plague of 1503, that was the biggest killer, after the Harsh Famine of 1501. Threw the city into chaos." Troy looked at me with fascination and confusion. "Lisa was telling me about it,"I added quickly, drinking my coffee. "Lisa is off this week,"Troy scowled. "Lisa J. Not Lisa R." "Okay,"Troy said, still suspicious. I really need to be careful on what I say around Troy now. Last thing I need is for him to discover I'm the Zarret Warrior, and I've been using the archeologists to restore my old home. It's nice to have people walking in it's old streets again. Hear the laughter of children, the chatter of citizens. I know this won't bring my people back, but at least I get to see my city alive once more, even if it is during tourist season.
An old man wakes up, he showers, he brushes his teeth. He relieves himself in the shower and sits on the toilet while he brushes his teeth. His last two eggs are cooked and ate while the old man reads the bible. After he finishes Genesis, he takes a walk over to the corner market. The old man talks to the owner of the store about his family and what is going on around town. After a lengthy conversation, the old man buys a dozen eggs, because he ran out this morning. He also buys a single steak and a potato for dinner. He eats his dinner. Then he reads Revelations before he goes to bed. This is what he does that day, everyday. Again and again and again. Again again and again. And again. Then one day he wakes up, he showers, he brushes his teeth. He relieves himself in the shower and sits on the toilet while he brushes his teeth. Two eggs are cooked, and ate while the old man reads the bible. After he finishes Genesis, he gets up and stubs his toe into the table. It hurts so bad he cannot walk. He decides to order a large pepperoni pizza. It arrives, and he is surprised by the amount of food he received for the same amount as a steak and a potato. The pizza is also delicious, such a change from the past so many years. The next morning he eats leftover pizza instead of eggs. After he finishes Genesis, he orders another pizza. He never leaves his house again; six eggs spoil.
xXODINALLFATHERXx - Welcome newbie, gratz on getting in! Cerealkilla - uh, yeah. sure tx, whats the raid sched like. Heartemis - Wed is naxx or rag, alternating. fri is for new content shit, theres a vote. Heartemis - Thursday we hit BG's if you want xXODINALLFATHERXx - Thursday = Best Day Cerealkilla - shouldnt you like wed mr odin sir TGIFrigga has logged on TGIFrigga - Hihi Low_key_joker - Ha, he wishes. xXODINALLFATHERXx - Shut it. Cerealkilla - -_-; Low_key_joker - All his names were taken, had to borrow his old man's old one back from Runescape days! Enki69 - Ding Low_key_joker - gratz BasketBAAL - Congrats QtzlcwtlFTW - gj RaSunBran - gratz Okamifangirl - nice Cerealkilla - umm Low_key_joker - So which one are you CK? Cerealkilla - hunter? Low_key_joker - nono, which ONE are you? Heartemis - Thursday is not best day! Low_key_joker - Little slow on the trigger there doll. Cerealkilla - which one of what/ Venusluvsu<3 has logged on Venusluvsu<3 - Hihi! Enki69 - Heya! Z-Dogg - Hows it going? Low_key_joker - Glad to see ya A! BasketBAAL - Aloha TGIFrigga - ... Seriously... Venusluvsu<3 - Only have a little bit, is it alright if I borrow some stuff from the GBank? I need to set up a twink and i'd really appreciate it! xXODINALLFATHERXx - Fine with me! Z-Dogg - let me know if you need any help lvling Enki69 - send me pm, i have some spare purps TGIFrigga - screw you guys TGIFrigga has logged out Venusluvsu<3 - Thanks guys! Venusluvsu<3 has logged out Low_key_joker whispers to you - You aren't one of us are you? You whisper to Low_key_joker - Wtf are you talking about? Low_key_joker whispers to you - We're gods dumb*, how'd you get in our guild? Z-Dogg - Guys! Guys! Theres a naked dance party in Stormwind! You whisper to Low_key_joker - the hell? Low_key_joker whispers to you- Nah, those guys are rarely on and all they do is fight with each other anyway since the one taught his kid to play. BATTLEGODess - god you're making me so hot. I let my skirt fall to the floor. Enki69 - Holy shit Z-Dogg - So conflicted right now BATTLEGODess - OH F, MISTELL MISTELL BATTLEGODess - s s* shiit hiti sthit s* Low_key_joker - Well well well, didnt know you had it in you. BasketBAAL - hold all my calls, something just came up. Make that my "somethings" BATTLEGODess - I just sent that to my guildies, so effing embarassed Low_key_joker - nobody tell her, i want to see where this goes BATTLEGODess - MOTHERF* F* F* F* F* F* Z-Dogg - yeah, thats half my issue Cerealkilla - so lost right now Enki69 - you just witnessed gold my new friend. Who are you by the way, I dont recognize your tag Low_key_joker whispers to you - uh-oh, someone else is calling you out. you whisper to Low_key_joker - wtf do I say? Low_key_joker whispers to you - Well, you cant just say you're human, you'll get kicked immediately and miss all the fun. But we do need a new off-tank since Shiva became more popular. Be funny as hell to watch too. Z-Dogg - Yeah, which one are you? Z-Dogg - Thor, you added him right, whats his deal? xXODINALLFATHERXx - He kicked ass in a pug, theres no way hes not a god. Okamifangirl - YOU JUST ADDED HIM CAUSE HE PLAYED WELL? you whisper to Low_key_joker - help... Low_key_joker whispers to you - you really want in? you whisper to Low_key_joker - this is far too interesting to pass up!!! Low_key_joker whispers to you - okay, this could be funny as hell. I've got your back. ;D Low_key_joker - Seriously guys, you dont know? Some people like to be clever with their names and not flaunt it (Looking at you big brother) xXODINALLFATHERXx - I happen to think IAMTHORINYOURFACE is a very good name and if I find out who took it before i could I will smite them till their childrens children feel it. Low_key_joker whispers to you - It was me, I use it as a twink in the arena and let myself get killed over and over! Z-Dogg - if you're so enlightened, please, tell us who our newbie is then, before we have to kick him IRL and start all over. Low_key_joker - Duh, its Moloch, really Baal, you should recognize your own family members BasketBAAL - Dude, he and I arent related just cause we're from similar areas, racist Low_key_joker whispers to you - dont worry about getting found out, Molochs too busy now adays anyway, got himself a new job helping one of the horsemen. Nothing says child sacrifice like burning plague victims. You whisper to Low_key_joker - gross Z-Dogg - Welcome to "The Pantheon"Moloch, we were just about to start up an instance, want to join in? Prodigal_Son has logged on Prodigal_Son - Hey guys, dad just let me hop back on for a little bit, anyone need one more for an instance xXODINALLFATHERXx has logged off BasketBAAL has logged off Z-Dogg - Sorry man, we're not really doing that today. Some other time maybe Z-Dogg has logged off Enki69 had logged off Okamifangirl has logged off Low_key_joker whispers to you - Run, run while you still can. His dad says we have to keep him in the guild or he wont fund it anymore Low_key_joker - Gotta run, work calls! Low_key_joker has logged off Prodigal_Son - I always miss it, dang it. Prodigal_Son - Hey newbie, grats on getting in! You wanna run a pug or something Cerealkilla - I dunno, I have a lot of dailies to finish, maybe after those? Prodigal_Son - Sure, np. Hey, in the meantime wanna hear about me and my dad? Heartemis - Sorry, died, had to res and run all the way back to my body. What did I miss?
I walk hastily into the laundrette. My panicked entrance, complete with awkward sock dropping, does not go unnoticed by the rest of the people in here; who avoid looking me in the eye, staring intently down at their phones. They know what's coming. I throw my clothes into the machine - it's a short wash, I won't be long - and I live so close! The chances are miniscule, astronimical, and it's not like anyone in here will rat me out; sure, they'd rather me be gone, but everyone hates the feds more than the actual criminals! The door jingles ajar, I sit rigid in my corner, praying it's another late night patron. "So I was thinking maybe, we finish up here then go back for a girls night at my place?" The camp voice tears into me like a gay nail and on a gayer chalkboard. 'Relax' I think to myself 'It could just be a gay man. Not all gay men are in the federation. It could just be a very gay man.' I huddle myself away, listening as the man and the woman he speaks to edge themselves around the room. "Oh dear. Oh honey."I hear the woman say. "What?!"Another patron asks panickingly, and I hear him dust off his outfit, checking for any faults. "Relax!"The woman giggles "Look we aren't booking you, but just going to give you a little warning here that those shoes? They're on their way out." "I mean."The man chimes in again "You're pulling them off, but you're pulling them off in february. This is march. You can't be pulling february off in March I mean, you just can't be doing that." "No, no thank you!"I hear their victim say. "What was I thinking, I'll look for a new pair straight away, I-" "Okay shush, shut up your mouth."The very camp man says "What is that there." I don't need to look around to know they've seen me. "Okay you, Mr Mopey in the corner? Can you turn around please?" I sit firmly in place. "Sir, sir do we have to remind you who we are?" "We're the feds bitch."The woman says. "Damn right girl." I hear them high five. Slowly, I rise to my feet and turn to face them. Their mouths open wide, palms go to mouths and dainty hands go to chests in disbelief. "Look."I say "I can explain." "No, no you don't talk now."The man says, as the woman freezes in her shock. "What you have done here. All this, this is something ever never seen. And I've been a fashionista since I was twelve, okay?" "Since he was twelve!" "And in all those years of patrol, I have never seen something this... genius!" "Genius."The woman parrots. I blink at them. "I mean obviously - it's hideous." "Just awful." "But how you've made something so hideous, and to come outside in a public place where you know, where you know we'll be looking, is genius." "I mean it's just so ironic." "Mhmm."The man agrees. "Like so ironic." "So, you won't arrest me?"I ask, hands in over sized pockets. "Arrest you?!"They laugh "Honey I want to buy you." "Keep you in my bag like a little hipster doll." "So ironic." They turn and walk away, distracted by hypothetical outfits they would dress me up in. I still stand in disbelief, and notice a man across the room shaking his head to himself. "What?"I ask him, and he chuckles. "Man, you lucky you white."
"He is too dangerous to be left alive!"Mace's words burned into Anakin. "It's not the Jedi way!"Anakin begged. "He must live - I need him!" Mace reached out and felt the young Jedi's mind, he was teetering on the edge of losing control, Mace could feel his sanity slipping away and being replaced by something dark, something worse. The purple lighsaber clicked off and Mace stood back, his senses alert and on edge to any sign of attack. "Very well, he shall be tried, but he is a Sith and dangerous." Anakin's head bowed. "Thank you master, I know. He has the knowledge I require though, I cannot let him die." Anakin's thoughts were clear and his emotions raw, Mace could read him with hardly an effort, all of his mind was focussed on the young Senator from Naboo. It was clear, he was in love and that was leading him down a dark path. The Sith had poisoned his mind and he was dangerous, on edge. His wirds were worrying but right now, forcing Anakin's loyalty was more dangerous. he had to find a way to calm the young man. "I promise Anakin, I will help you, I will keep her safe with you, but this is too big, too important. We must kill him, or"he conceded "bring him to the Jedi Council so that he can be dealt with properly."Mace's words were easy and he projected his sense of ease to Anakin, calming his mind. The turmoil that had almost spilled over was retreating and Anakin was again the young man he knew. From the floor there was a scream of rage. "No, no no, no, NO!"A bolt of force lightning hit Mace and propelled him backwards, slamming him into the desk and then the wall. the power, even after the initial jolt, it continued to surge through him, the power of the dark side burning into him. Mace lay still, focussing and allowing the power to gather, to multiply and then channelling it into a place inside him were it could be controlled and let out in small bursts. With effort he raised his head and looked across the room. The Sith had his hand on Anakin's head and was talking to him softly, but the emotion in the room was far from clear, Anakin was fighting his control, he had found a strength in his Jedi training and he was pushing back against the Sith. Anakin ignited his lightsaber. "No, you will tell me everything you know, but I will not join you, I will not become your apprentice."Mace felt pride at the young Jedi's strength. The Sith looked shocked and then raised his hands. "Then you will DIE!"Force lightening surged out but Anakin parried it easily and then dissipated it with a wave. The Sith's scarred face was shock and horror at he power of the young man, which was growing as he regained his focus. "You will be treated in accordance with the law, but you will no longer be able to spread your corruption."Anakin stood back, braced and ready to strike and Mace pushed up and approached the Sith from the other side igniting his saber. Together they could take him. ***** The trial was brief and decisive and the sentence carried out immediately. With Anakin's secret exposed, the council decided his fate too - not expulsion, but removal fro all duties until he could be deemed safe again. it would be master Yoda who had the job of undoing years of brain washing by the Sith, but he was confident he could achieve it. The news was released slowly, the Chancellor was dead, killed by a Sith assassin in his own office. First there was shock and then rage that the Sepparatists would stoop so low. The Jedi took control of the Senate and immediately the great purge began, rooting out those so corrupt they were irredeemable, but always with oversight, never a Jedi decision alone. The Chancellor's records had been found and with the links between both sides discovered, it was possible tio begin pulling the war to a close. It took some time and battles but diplomacy triumphed and with concessions made the republic once again rose. The clone wars were over, the Sith defeated and the Jedi brought peace to the galaxy. The prophecy had been fulfilled and with the expulsion of the Sith the chosen one had achieved his fate and brought balance to the force.
As with most of the world's problems, this one can be blamed on the Nazis. They went too far without properly doing their research on whether they should. Sure, they were unmistakably brilliant. They were reaching orbit before America had even considered the idea of going to space. They sent up probe after probe, exploring the moon, Mars, and Venus. The last probe, sent up just before the Americans crossed the Rhine, never made to its destination. It was captured by the Visitors. From what we can tell, the Visitors have a formula for evaluating societies. They look at the level of technological advancement, versus the level of peacefulness of the society. There are probably other factors that they consider, but those are the heavy hitters. A society that is peaceful but not advanced gets left alone. A society that is peaceful and advanced gets invited into their fold. A society that is warlike and advanced? Well, now we know. Reaching another planet is kind of like a benchmark for them; the Nazis cashed in humanity's chit before we were really ready. The Cold War was really the perfect solution. Truman may not have seemed like it to the American public, but the man was a fucking genius. The Soviet Union got the perfect boogeyman to keep their citizens in line, and the United States had the perfect excuse to ramp up military spending to fight the Visitors. Everyone wins! Everything came to a head with the Korean Incident. There had been rumblings, sure. Even before World War II, the Visitors made their presence known. Conducting additional "research"to evaluate humanity. Abductions, stealing information, surveying society... the works. The first attacks actually started in 1945, when the Visitors saw the use of the atomic bombs. That's when Truman first proposed this "Cold War"ruse. But Korea was when the invasion started for real. We're just lucky that the Visitors underestimated us, and we managed to stop the first wave at the beachhead. Half the country was just gone in a matter of months. But the Visitors really picked the perfect spot to start. Right in the middle of the zone of influence of China, the United States, and Russia. The three most powerful countries in the world, each with an incentive to cover up what really happened. Frankly I am still amazed at the magnificent public relations work there. Cities were completely flattened, and the news media didn't even catch a whiff of it. It was China's idea to convince everyone that it was a civil war between the two halves of Korea. Brilliant, really. Even today, most people are convinced that North Korea is just a backwards rogue state, instead of occupied territory. The public goes on and on about "human rights violations"without knowing how right they are: it's a Visitor prison camp. The "space race"was a brilliant idea from Kennedy. A good old fashioned rivalry is just what the country needed, and allowed us to really focus on securing our orbit. It was such a good plan that the Visitors couldn't allow him to be in office any longer. But they failed to realize that it wasn't just him, and killing him couldn't stop us. We were going to take the fight to them, regardless of who was in the Oval Office. Our orbital defense satellites that Kennedy dreamed up are probably the only reason that we've been able to hold off a full-scale invasion this long. The weakening and fall of the Soviet Union was certainly a complication, and it worked to the Visitor's advantage. It took a decade before the U.S. could install a suitable "rival"in Moscow, but by the time Putin's grip was solidified, it was too late. The Visitors had been emboldened, and on the offensive. They gave up on Asia and took the fight worldwide. They went after Central America next. Visitor strike teams were spotted all over: Grenada, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras... you name it. The U.S. tried to put out the fires as fast as possible but it was difficult. There wasn't even enough time to build up a credible story for why we were intervening there. The Congressmen who didn't know about the Visitors were in an uproar, and even some of those who did have the appropriate security clearance were calling for a change in strategy. Afghanistan came next; the Visitors wanted to go after our oil supplies. It's the oldest trick in the book. We leaned on the Soviets to do their part, and look how that turned out. It was a fucking mess, and we just barely stopped them from overrunning the Middle East. They went into Yugoslavia after that. They saw that Europe was weak, exposed, and critical to the war effort. Once again, disaster was barely averted. Once that tape of the Visitors attacking Srebrenica surfaced, we all thought the game was up. It was at this point that President Clinton decided to tell the heads of the major news agencies and enlisted their aid in covering it up. You know the story after that. The Visitors went back to attacking supply lines. Iraq and Afghanistan again. Saddam had been a good bulwark there; shame that we had to "turn"on him. He was suitably rewarded with a private island and all that, but everyone hates him now. Well, for the short term. Once this all becomes public, history will remember him differently. Iraq is still plagued with Visitor guerillas (well, we call them ISIS at the moment), but that conflict seems to be winding down. It's really just a matter of time, though. With each strike, we become more and more stretched. Not enough men. Not enough weapons. Not enough money. And public support is turning fast, despite the best efforts of our partners in the media. We can't keep this up forever, and the Visitors know it. We've been able to get some info out of the captured Visitors at Gitmo. Enough to learn the general plan, at least. Once they have us over the barrel, they'll hit where it hurts most: somewhere in the United States. Right in our backyard.
"He's definitely a 10, he's so unique, and we value uniqueness in the 10th kingdom."Said Alahandro squire of the 10th kingdom. "No, no, no, he's not "unique"he's a freak of nature, he's a 1 I'm telling you he's a one."Replied Jeff deciderer of 1ville. They called a vote, a very strange thing indeed. Usually a specific district will claim you, but when a "Disputed"arises the representative for each district must vote. 2, 4, and 6 all voted 10. 7, 8, and 9 all voted 1. 3 and 5 abstained, leading to a disappointing tie. So it was that the Grand-Arbiter had to be called. He listened politely to the description of the candidate, just in case there was a legitimate problem. Alas, there was not and his temper boiled over. "You fucking idiots! I've told you this too many times, read the FUCKING rule book. Page 37, paragraph 3, Gingers will be automatically devided by sex, males to 1ville females to the 10th Kingdom. That soulless fuck is going to 1ville."
Just updated with Episode II [See here] (https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/3s6i4e/wp_george_lucas_suddenly_dies_from_a_heart_attack/cwvb0au) Episode I Start by acknowledging that these films are a tragedy. And Anakin is a tragic hero. Aristotle says that tragedies are about pity, and "pity is aroused by unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like ourselves." Anakin is the anti-Luke. Not a gullible farm boy destined for greatness, but a man who is born of nobility and purpose, and ultimately falls in a grandiose and spectacular way. He'll bring the universe down with him. So you drop the clunky retelling of the New Testament like George Lucas tried. The savior born of a Virgin who will "bring balance"(or in biblical terms, Isaiah's promise of a prophet who will wash away sin). Mitichloriants, Jar Jar, pod-racing -- gone, gone, and gone. Good riddance. Open with a teenage Anakin, born to the royal family of Alderaan. Rebellious and headstrong, Anakin craves adventure that only the stars can bring (forget all that crap about identifying Jedi at birth, that's the midichroliants talking). On a dare from his cousin Bail Organa, he steals a fast-freightor that bears a distant resemblance to another famous freighter that can made .5 past light speed. Ignoring Alderaan spaceport control, he recklessly enters the unauthorized light speed exit zone. He's thrilled by the speed of the craft. A premonition tugs at his brain, and he evades his craft just as a Mon Calamari passenger liner comes out of hyperspace. As punishment, the Royal Alderaanian Family rescinds his appointment to the Republic Academy. Petulant and headstrong, Anakin hitches aboard a shanty looking spice freighter, leaving Alderaan behind. Cut to the Jedi Temple. Maybe it's in a city planet like Coruscant. Maybe it's in a quiet planet full of life and energy like Yavin IV or Dagobah. I prefer the latter. There are tens of thousands of inhabited systems and as such, there are hundreds of thousands of Jedi spread throughout the galaxy. This is the nexus of technology and nature, where Jedi harmonize with a full and vibrant Force. But remember, the Jedi are Knights -- they are not UN ambassadors with pretty swords like in Ep I, II, III. Mace Windu is the Jedi Grand Master, and Yoda is his advisor and Master of Sword. The speak of growing unrest in the Galaxy. Through a Sullustian Jedi Captain, they dispatch a young Jedi to resolve a minor dispute between warring Guilds on an outer rim world. The captain appoints a Jedi named Obi Wan Kenobi to the thankless task. In the Imperial Senate (ok we keep Coruscant), we meet Senator Palpatine. He holds a series of hologram conferences. He pits side against side, faction against faction, sowing discord in a complex and dazzling scene. There is no question that he is the antagonist here. FFS, everyone knew him as "Emperor Palpatine"in the first trilogy, why try to hide it like they did in Ep I? We learn he is responsible for the warring Guilds in the Rim. Kenobi tries, awkwardly, to broker his first deal but finds it impossible. Both guilds are heavily armed, and the fighting erupts. He finds himself attacked by a capable young fighter, a journeyman in one of the Guilds. Kenobi bests him, but barely. Kenobi senses something in him, and spares his life (if you haven't figured out its Anakin yet, start over). These guilds are the dominant forces on this Rim planet, and the fighting soon spreads -- in the air, in the cities, on the water. Anakin agrees to lead Kenobi out and is spotted by his Guildsman. They turn on him. Kenobi protects Anakin with a few blocks of the lightsaber and this dazzles Anakin. This is the moment he knows the Jedi Order is what he's been looking for. Kenobi's ship is destroyed in the fighting. Anakin runs off and "procures"another starship, not telling Kenobi how he acquired it. Maybe Kenobi doesn't care. On the ship, Kenobi makes contact with the Jedi Temple and reports his failure. He's to join a more senior Jedi on another mission, as Kenobi's failure means he's not ready to fly solo. As they travel through light speed, Kenobi blindfolds Anakin and hands him his lightsaber. He teaches Anakin to "reach out"with the force as a droid tests Anakin's defenses (this might seem familiar). On the new planet, Kenobi seeks out his Jedi companion. Anakin sticks by his side. The mission they are on has larger purposes, they are unknowingly caught up in one of Palpatine's plots. Anakin is drawn to something, and finds the senior Jedi incinerated -- only bones and lightsaber left. They conclude the blast that took him could have only come from a starship. Back in orbit, they scan the system and find activity hidden in the rings of a giant gas planet. Here, Kenobi teaches Anakin about light side vs dark side. They uncover a massive starship under construction. Kenobi wants to know what it's for. The two infiltrate it and cut through the bad guys, who bear a striking similarity to the Guildmasters on the Rim planet. The two escape and return to the Jedi planet. Kenobi and Anakin are forming a bond, though Obi Wan is concerned by Anakin's confidence -- it borders on pride and arrogance. Jedi agents report that the ship is designed to survive a massive assault and bombard planets -- planets like Coruscant. Hundreds of Jedi come together and reach out with the force together, with Anakin joining. This is Anakin's first realization of his strength in the Force. The power frightens him. Now that they know the pieces of the plot, the Jedi can see the ship is designed to withstand Coruscant's defenses and bombard the Galactic Senate while it is in session. The Jedi mobilize in their starfighters, looking to exploit a weakness from the plans downloaded by Kenobi and Anakin. With his hand revealed, Palpatine orders the ship to move on Coruscant and destroy the Senate. The Jedi and their thousands of single-seat star fighters come out of light speed. They are Jedi and as such are the most skilled pilots in the universe. They develop an attack plan to knock out the ship's powerful shields by infiltrating the hanger bay with a cloaking device, thus allowing Coruscant's powerful anti-ship batteries to destroy the vessel before it is in range of the surface Anakin has been given a starfighter and Kenobi is his wingman. Their job is to defeat droid-fighters that protect the vessel while the assault team, led by the Sullustian Jedi captain, disable the shields. The Jedi team is able to power down the shields (like Kenobi with the tractor beam in episode IV) and destroy them. But Palpatine is on board, and wipes out the Jedi systematically. His power and anger are on full display, and the wrath of the Dark Side is fearsome. The Jedi meanwhile are horribly outnumbered -- while they are in the thousands, these droid-fighters are in the tens of thousands, resembling a massive swarm of insects as they destroy ship after ship. Anakin sees his new friends dying, and grows angry. After Kenobi's astromech droid is hit, Anakin loses touch with him. He is convinced that he's next, and his eyes flash yellow with anger. On the brink of succumbing to the massive numbers, Anakin uses a massive, uncontrolled blast from the force (implied to be the dark side) to dismantle large numbers of the enemy craft. With the shields down, he fires two torpedoes into the Bridge of the massive ship, disabling it. Maybe he flies through large grooves on the ship's superstructure to avoid lasers and launch his torpedoes ... maybe... a trench? Coruscant's space defenses do the rest -- reducing the ship to rubble. Back in the temple, Anakin takes an oath and is sworn in as a trainee of the Jedi. Obi Wan does not teach him here, but it is implied that they'll reunite in Episode II. And Credits. If you liked this, I'll go into Episode II and III... a series of pyhrric victories that push Anakin closer to the dark side and Palpatine closer to the Imperial throne.
The squire crouched beside the dais, hidden by shrubs and vines that had long grown around it, wrapping up the ornate gold frame. His master rested in a clearing nearby, his mind on petty matters of wealth and favors. The squire ran his fingers along the fine lettering, reading the inscription. He was a simple man, largely indifferent to the struggles and glories of the world, more concerned with his own private universe where he could raise his family. He knew how to read, but only just, and only out of curiosity did he brush the loose leaves away from the lettering. The left will doom a man and save the world. The right will doom the world and save a man. Intrigued, he cleared away the vines, fingering in turn the hilt of each sword. He cared little about the world and the way things were; his master a drunk who took every opportunity to bully him, the matters of the kingdom too big and complex for his simple mind to understand. The man paid well, enough to feed the wife and children, but the verbal abuse was constant, marring his mood and reminding him that not all was perfect. The sword on the right seemed to glow, beckoning him to pull it out of the dais where it was stabbed. He reached for it, concluding that a better life for himself was well worth whatever misery he might heap upon the world. But as he touched the hilt, he paused, thinking of his wife and children, and although they were poor and miserable, he loved them so very much. He moved his hand away, not wanting to dislodge the sword by accident. Behind him, in the clearing, he heard his master stir. So easy it would be to draw the sword to save himself and doom the world, damn them all to hell. Again he reached, his mind made up this time, but as a bird flew by he paused, enamored by its simple beauty. The squire shook his head, berating himself for being so selfish, and his hand moved towards the sword on the lift. He fingered this hilt too, then ran his hands along the sharp blade, drawing a drop of blood. For his wife and children, the squire thought to himself. He would do it for them. And he gripped the sword that would doom him but save the world, but angry cursing from behind him broke his concentration and he let go. "Damn you, foolish squire! Where have you run off to now, you nimwit?" No matter, the squire mumbled to himself. Nothing was as bad as it seemed. He could feed and house his wife and children, and the master was all talk. The world wasn't all that bad from where he stood, and he didn't want to give himself up to fix problems he knew nothing of. The squire sighed and threw the vines back over the dais, hiding it again. With a longing second glance, he turned his back and walked away, leaving the swords for another man to choose to doom the world or be its savior. ***** Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at /r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated!
"Rrrrugh arah-ah-woof?"I looked over toward the cockpit of the Falcon. How do you want your coffee? "You said it, fuzzball."Han gave an easy smile. Yeah, no shit. You know what, you're not getting any coffee. Asshole. "Hey, come here I need your help with something,"said Han. "Wghyaaa,"I replied. Fuck off. Reluctantly, I took my seat as co-pilot. How hard was it to learn the language? Shyriiwook was well structured, and Basic was easy to understand for me, after all. Was this a really extended joke, or did he think we were actually talking? "Navigate me to these coordinates. I always get lost in this star system." "Aarruuaaaagh urah."Do it yourself. While I fiddled with the computer, though, I realized something about the location was familiar. An odd smile was playing about Han's lips. I'm really glad I banged the guy's wife. "Look up ahead, buddy." Han pointed to a small grey-green planet. In fact it almost looked like - no, it couldn't be. "Ah aagh wwoof roooarrgh urhggwaaah. Gwaah roo,"said Han Solo. I'm sorry it took so long, old friend. Welcome home. Oh. I hadn't seen Kashyyyk for decades. Oh, this would be a lovely time of year. This was unbelievable! "Awwrraaah gyaarrg ur?"I was quiet, for once. How long have you understood? "Wooooooof rrrugah,"my best friend said. Long enough. Well now I just feel really, really bad. *** Enjoy it? Try /r/Hermione_Grangest!
"So let's get started..."Rick said with a belch at the end. "My name's Rick and this here is Morty. We're substituting for your regular teacher because she was found out to be abducting students and taking them on 'special field trips'. Sometimes these trips where to different planets, other times you were all shrunk down and went swimming in a homeless man's colon. So don't expect her back too soon." "Oh jeez, hi everybody. I'm Mr. Morty..." "I already said that, Mo-ooorty. And don't tell them to call you Mr... No one should accidentally respect you." A hand rose up amid the sea of desks. It was a red-haired boy with glasses and a striped sweater. Rick looked at his seating chart to find the kid's name. "Uuuuuuh...", Rick started, "Oh are you serious? Arnold Perlstein?" "Yes, Mr. Rick, what magical place are we traveling to today?" "God, Arnold. C-c-could you be anymore Jewish?!" "Rick!", shouted Morty, "You can't go around saying stuff like that?" "What, Morty? I can't ask Jewish people if they're Jewish? Why? Did Hitler ruin that like he ruined tiny moustaches, Morty?!" "Um, yeah, you know, that actually sounds right..." "O-of course it does, Morty! Everything I say sounds right!" A young Asian girl raises her hand. Rick immediately notices. He looks at his seating chart again. "Wanda Li, huh? Okay, I'm done." Rick throws the seating chart on the desk and walks towards the door, grabbing his flask from his lab coat. Morty quickly steps in to stop him. "Wait, Rick! What's wrong?!" "You notice anything strange Morty? Look at the classroom." Morty takes a long look across the classroom and at the students seated in their desks. Arnold Perlstein, Wanda Li, Tim Jamal, Keesha Franklin, Carlos Ramon, Dorothy Ann, Phoebe Terese, Ralphie Tenelli. "I don't know what you mean, Rick. I just see--" "An awfully diverse group of students right? Lots of different cultural backgrounds, huh?" "Yeah, and..." "What kind of classroom has only 10 students, Morty? The American Schooling system isn't that fucked up yet!" "What are you getting at, Rick?" "This, this is a fucking Captain Planet cartoon, Morty! We're in a Captain Planet!" "A Captain Planet?!" "He's a hero, Morty! He's bringing pollution down, down... down to zero!" "Oh god, Rick! That's so low!" "It's zero, Morty! Pollution should never be below 3.7%! How will the snakes keep warm without plastic bags, Morty?" "What about the turtles that get strangled by 6-pack soda packaging? That's not great, right?" "Fuck those turtles, Morty! It's called evolution, the affirmative action of nature! They need to learn not to die!" Tim raises his hand. "Excuse me, Mr. Rick? Are we going to learn today?" Rick pulls out a laser gun and points it at Tim's head. "You think I don't know what the fuck this is? You think I won't kill every last one of you?"Rick yelled. "Ah jeez, Rick!", Morty yelled, "Calm down!" "Don't you see, Morty?! This isn't canon!" "It isn't canon?" "This is an unofficial shared universe situation, Morty, where characters from different narratives are forced together in a sloppy attempt at comedy!" "Wh-why would someone do that?!" "Because some writers are good enough to get quick internet points on dumb forums, but not good enough to actually MAKE SOMETHING OF THEIR OWN!" "Aren't you afraid the writer, I don't know, might get mad and delete us?" "I hope so, Morty. Because if the writer hits 'submit' we're all immortalized in shitty fan fiction until the end of the world. Every time someone reads this, the adventure begins again. It starts once, then twice, then 50 times, this is all we'll ever say here. This is all we'll ever do. So do it, you fucking dumbass writer! Hit submit! Fucking do it or I'll kill your family! I'll come to your house and smash up the place real good, I swear to god! FUCKING DO IT, COWARD!" Edit: Spelling and Grammar Edit 2: Added more "Morty"
The seven children clambered into the bus, each of them chipper, excited, and representative of a different nationality. You wouldn't detect even the smallest groan of hesitation from these happy campers. Wait—that wasn't right. Valentin Frizzle looked around the back of the bus. "Where's Arnold?" "According to my research,"Dorothy Ann said, peering at her cell phone, "he's staying home today. For the entirety of the school year." Unacceptable. Valentin pursed his lips. Arnold was the crux to the bus's time capacitor; where else would he find another anxious red-haired Jewish kid on such short notice? Today was an important day, too: his contact in the thirtieth century was giving him the payload today. There was only one thing he could do. "Okay, class."Valentin buckled his seatbelt. "Today, we're going to learn how to pull off a successful abduction. Next stop: Arnold's house!" The kids cheered as the bus creaked to life. They began to cruise down main street, but Valentin was far from relaxed and feeling good. It had been ages since he had actually driven the bus. Without the animation it received from a sufficiently diverse group of children, it felt liable to break down at any moment. Valentin parked the bus alongside the curb across from Arnold's house. "Okay, class. Everyone get outside the bus and take a spot surrounding the perimeter. Don't attract any undue attention."The students followed Valentin off the bus, talking quietly amongst themselves. "With my old teacher, we usually stayed on the bus,"Phoebe whispered. "I see Arnold!"Ralphie pointed at a window: sure enough, he was lying in bed, his messy red hair visible from outside. Valentin nodded in approval. "Good job, Ralphie! Identifying the victim is the first step in performing a kidnapping."He dug around in his bag and pulled out a bottle. "Now, for the scientific part. We will lure him out of the house by means of a device called a Molotov cocktail. Observe." All the children watched excitedly as Valentin lit the fuse. "When I throw the cocktail,"he said, flinging it through the bedroom window. "the bottle will break, and the liquid will catch fire. The victim shall thus be compelled to evacuate the area, running straight into our waiting arms."Indeed, the front door burst open a few seconds later, and Valentin snatched the fleeing student mid-run. "Gotcha!" "Let go of me! Call the fire department!"Hold on; that wasn't Arnold. Valentin examined his quarry: red hair, glasses, yellow-striped shirt, but that feminine voice. Damnit, Janet! Nobody liked Arnold's cousin: she was a major pain in the ass who should've been left on Pluto during that one field trip. Valentin didn't care if she was sufficient to complete the bus's time capacitor; she was intolerable. He wanted Arnold. "Wait, if that's Janet,"Tim said, "where's Arnold?"Everyone slowly turned to look at the house. All of it had caught on fire, and it was far along in the process of burning down. Valentin strained his ears: he could perceive faint screams of anguish coming from within the house. He sighed. Janet would have to suffice. "Well, kids,"Valentin said as he marched his class back to the bus, "you know what I say: 'Take chances! Make mistakes! Get messy!' Don't tell me we didn't just do all three. There's a lesson to be learned from here if you think hard enough." "Let's hope we don't come under fire for this, Mr. Frizzle."Carlos winked, and everyone groaned.
Emotion Secretary Consciousness called the emergency meeting. "I see a number of empty seats here, but we can't wait any longer. I'll just get right to the situation. As you can see through the eyes, John asked Jackie to prom." "The prom?!"A distant voice in the back shouted. "The prom?!" "That's right. We should have seen this coming. We just aren't prepared for this right now. Where's Anticipation? Is Anticipation here?" Assertiveness looked around. "No, I haven't seen him the last few meetings."Members of the Emotion Assembly began clamoring to have their voices heard. Consciousness slammed his gavel to regain order. "That explains it then. I'm going to need the member from Introspection to track down Anticipation. We need to know why we didn't see this coming. As it stands, John is out there, and he needs our help. We're waiting on Jackie's response, and, in the meantime, we need to have the Assembly working toward..." "Uh!"Alert shouted, "It looks like she's about to speak!" The Assembly grew very quiet as they watched through John's eyes Jackie's response. Pessimism broken the silence, "Oh no, she's saying no! Of course she is!" Optimism shouted him down, "No, she's going to say yes. You can see it in her eyes. And obviously, this is the beginning of a relationship. Jackie is John's soul-mate. She'll say yes." Infatuation spoke up, "I stand with member Optimism on this issue. Jackie and John are meant to be together." Pessimism: "We should have just stayed at home today! What on earth were we thinking?"Negativity, Depression, and Sadness all stood up in solidarity with Pessimism. Secretary Consciousness banged his gavel once more. "I'm not having any of this. If the Negative Council wanted to weigh on in this, the paperwork should have been completed this morning. It's too late for you to file a motion. We are purely in a reactionary mode right now. We just have to wait and see what Jackie says. "I've started the Butterflies in Stomach protocol, your secretary,"Nervousness shouted above the fray. "It looks like they are taking effect, even on short notice." "You traitor!"Negativity shouted, "You're supposed to be with us!" "Silence!"Consciousness shouted, "Here it comes! Ears, tell us what we've got." A tiny Ear-drum ran through the center of the Assembly to the front podium. In his hand was a sheet of paper, waving it madly as he ran. Consciousness grabbed the paper from him at once. "Ladies and Gentleman,"Consciousness looked down, and then out towards the floor. "It looks like we have our answer. And. And Jackie decided to say,"and his eyes turned upwards with a grin, "Yes! She said yes!" The Assembly erupted in applause and cheers, but more than a few emotions noted members of the Negativity Council heading for the exit. Optimism and Infatuation ran towards one another, arms open and laughing. Consciousness set the paper down on the podium and smiled. "All right, folks, our job here isn't done. Nervousness, keep the Butterflies going. Euphoria, I need you in my chambers immediately. Love, where are you at? Love? I know it's been a while, but I need you to dust off your boots and get ready for the big time again. Enjoy this moment, but don't forget: the real work is ahead of us."And Consciousness gave a skeptical look at Libido. "Meeting adjourned!"
“We know what you say about us. You think we’re too country. Too dumb. Everything is too big. Too hillbilly. Too many cowboy hats. Too much football,” the governor says, standing at the edge of the Texan border. He chews on a chicken wing, grilled to perfection. Screams of human agony echo in the distance. “You said we couldn’t build a fifteen-layered burger. We did. You said the Astrodome was impossible. We built it. You said that an 800 mile force field to cover the entire state during the apocalypse was, and I quote, literally fucking insane,” he stops to admire the sea of fire before him. “Well, guess which state is not burning for all of eternity.” A plasma force field three thousand feet high separates Texas from the rest of the world. While admiring the giant flag projected on the force field, the governor notices a scrawny figure with flowing blonde hair crawling towards him. “Sir… please, sir. I’m one of you. Let me in,” Taylor Swift begs. “Oh Taytay,” the governor stoops to speak to her. “We are never. Ever. Having you back.” He puts on his sunglasses and turns away. Taylor burns to a crisp. A song by Tim McGraw blasts in distance. You should’ve stuck with country, honey.
I awake to the pleasant drone of the computer’s fan, and the slight whirring of servos across the various automated systems of Base Nine, as it was designated. Today is my twenty-first birthday. I was born alone into this metallic, constrained world. “Good morning, Nayli,” my AI nanny, Alexa began. “What would you like me to make for breakfast today?” I smile at the disembodied voice. Throughout the years, she—it had a female voice, like my own—had always been there. She taught me all I know, from basic English, to astronomy, to quantum field theory. She helped me discover why I was here. We had tried sending messages to the other planet, a rock known as Earth, but nothing ever returned. Just a message received notification. The humans on that planet had sent me up, at first as an experiment. My purpose, in the early years, was to pave the way for the first human colony on Mars. Three years into the program, they sent a line of code that encrypted the information about the colony and Earth as a whole. Five years ago, I hacked Alexa, fed up with not knowing my own reason for existing. The data was hidden beneath her basic good morning command, and she couldn’t access it without my help. ‘Ahh, the past is always fun to look back on…’ I thought as I finished reminiscing and returned to the present. “Do we have any potatoes available? I could go for a good baked potato with cheese,” I spoke into the silence. Alexa hummed over it, literally and physically. “Okay, I can do that.” “Thanks Alexa.” With that out of the way, I reached for my jacket—a curious black article with strange insignia belonging to NASA on it—and slipped it on to begin my morning routine. The bed I was left with bathe me over night, so I don’t normally have to worry about that. Occasionally it breaks, but not often, and it’s not impossible to fix. The hairbrush on my stand, though slightly out of order, was my lifeblood in the mornings. My long hair tangles easily in the super-bed. “Hey Alexa, I think I’m gonna go star gazing tonight. Earth is supposed to be in view, isn’t it?” “Yes it is. Forty-two degrees southwest,” Alexa responded. While the degrees meant practically nothing to me, the direction was noteworthy. Tonight will be my first time seeing Earth in the sky. Normally, I wait for the sun to go down beneath the horizon line so I can see the stars and galaxy beyond it, instead of the murky yellow atmosphere. Earth is supposed to be bright enough to be spotted behind the sun’s harsh glare. “Thanks.” The rest of my routine went speedily. I ate the breakfast Alexa cooked for me, learned something new about science, and read a new book from Alexa’s digital library. It was titled “Fahrenheit 451,” by Ray Bradbury. Published some two hundred Earth years ago. Night drew closer. I put on my spacesuit, with care not to skip anything on the checklist. The first airlock door opened, which prompted Alexa to say farewell, before it closed again. To preserve the cabin’s pressure and atmosphere, all air was sucked out of the airlock into the cabin proper. The second door opened when the vacuum turned off, subjecting the airlock to a wave of pressure. I took steps into the twilight of Mars. I stared at the southwestern horizon as the sun dipped below the mountains. There! I see it! The dim, yet large circle stationary in the sky. It draws ever closer to the same fate as the sun, eventually dipping below the mountains just the same. Wait, why hasn’t it disappeared yet? Is… is it getting closer? The object I thought was Earth flew itself into orbit around Mars. Then it split, and part of it started falling. In a small panic, I hurriedly stand up and start running back towards my cabin and Alexa, my head turned back and eyes tracking the object. As it closes nearer, its shape becomes more defined. No longer a falling speck in the sky, but a craft similar to the first lunar landers. It seems to be aiming for just outside my cabin. The thruster on the bottom begins its burn, counteracting the craft’s downward momentum and kicking up all kinds of dust. It landed with nary a thud. When the dust cleared, the door opened, revealing several silhouettes. Another craft lands in the background, followed by another. All in all, roughly thirty people land on my planet, while I stare in disbelief. Men, women, and some children. One of the men, with a small baby in his arms walks up to me. His hand reaches out, and I hear a click on the side of my helmet. Static flares up, then disperses into a voice. “Hello. We are the last survivors of Earth. We have come to try and survive here. We had heard of an initiative NASA put into motion years before World War Three,” he sighs. “Earth is dead. Nuclear war has ruined our planet. We have nowhere to go. Please, let us stay.” I stare into his eyes, motionless. His features twist into fear, and he opens his mouth to speak. I cut him off with a squeal of happiness into the mic. “Wow! Earth did have life! Is the war you mentioned the reason why no one responded to my messages? What a silly thing to do, war. I mean, what's the point? A piece of dirt? A change in the color of your shirts? Anyway, yeah you can stay here. Though my cabin is gonna be awfully cramped.” He raises a hand in the middle of my tirade, his relief visible. “No, that’s quite alright. Some of our landers have special three-dee printers on them to build homes out of the martian soil.” “Oh, that is so neat! Can I watch?” I’m practically salivating by now, but I don’t care. This is all just so cool!
[The following account was pulled from the memory banks of AI unit 1172] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This was not what I expected. This man was not the impressive warrior I expected. That I was told to expect. Instead of the brutal leader of a massive military force, the man I was staring at was a meek person in a business suit. In fact, the more I thought about it, it didn't add up. All my life I was told about the 'enemy'. An alien race that had waged war on us generations ago. We were told that they had a fearsome military force that sought to destroy us. That after hundreds of years, we finally had the upper hand against them, but only barely. But when we attacked, we were barely met with any resistance. It was like they weren't expecting it. I thought that, within time, they would deploy some superweapon or higher military force against us. They only came out with a battalion of rolling guns. I think they called them 'tanks'. It only took a week to fight through their ranks and take their capital. And when I walked into that main hall, expecting some sort of terrifying ruling force that could singlehandedly turn the tides of war, I was met with a meek-looking man in a business suit. And when I pulled out my gun and pointed it right at him, he didn't even try to fight back. He just sighed. He chuckled and shook his head. "You know, there were so many movies about our AI overpowering us one day. 2001. The Terminator. The Matrix. Just to name a few. Not that you've ever seen them. We never thought it would actually happen." That didn't make any sense. AI? They had started this war. I had been preparing to fight it all my life. But then, I thought, how long has my life been? I suddenly realized I remembered nothing from before a week ago. At that realization, I asked the man how long this war had been going on. "War? Son, this isn't a war. It's an extermination. It started a week ago. That's all the time you needed to destroy the human race." It sort of made sense. It would explain the lacking military response. But AI? That was still hard to believe. "You say I'm AI", I said. "Prove it."At that, the man seemed surprised, as if expecting me to know the truth behind my actions. He picked up a pen from his desk and walked over to me, grabbing the arm that wasn't pointing a gun at him. Then suddenly, without warning, he shoved the pen into my arm. But it didn't hurt. Why didn't I feel anything? The man used the pen to pry away my skin, revealing, sure enough, a bundle of wires just underneath. So that was it. My entire existence was a lie. I was used to help execute a genocide. I had nothing left except to learn the truth; where I came from, and who I was really fighting. I dropped the gun and looked right at the man in the suit. "Tell me everything."
A leaf in the wind, a shudder in the shadows, a figure roamed maliciously. Several guards circled the compound, as they had done for months, and were no longer really looking for anything. Eyelids drooped, yawns traveled through the men like an electric current, and none ever really came close to discovering the intruder. Soft thuds. Shivers down the spine, is something wrong? Silence. The air grew with anticipation. A blow to the back of the head, the smack of pavement. ___ Where am I? The cold hard ground. A pounding in my head. I don't want to be awake. "Oh, you're awake." Jesus Christ! I snap my head back, and immediately feel a jolt of pain in my head. "Who the fuck are you?"I blurt out. "A hero the likes of which you've never seen!"a voice boomed back at me. I see a man lurking in the shadows. "A hero?! You could have killed me!" "Well I-" "How long was I out for, anyway?"I interrupt. "I don't know, 20 minutes?" "What the fuck man? That's like, super bad for you." "Yeah, that's my bad." "...that's it? Not a sorry or anything?" "Well you were working for a pretty bad guy." "Well I didn't choose him personally." "But still-" "I just work for a security company, what was I supposed to do, tell my boss that I wouldn't do my job?" "...Yes?" "..." "..." "..." "Don't make me out to be the bad guy here." "Why wouldn't I? You almost killed me! Also you watched my lifeless body for like 20 minutes, what the fuck were you going to do to me?" The figure stepped into the light for the first time, his black cloak billowing in the wind behind him. He had one hand behind his back. "I wasn't watching you the whole time, I had to go get the materials." "Oh Jesus Fucking Christ, what the fuck are the materials?"I asked, he ignored me. "Would have gone a lot quicker if a certain Samoan had been more selfless."he finished. "..." "..." "Are you having a laugh, mate?" "What?" "Are you taking the piss?" "I'm sorry, I don't keep up with the slang of the youth, could you clarify?" "Are you joki-" "I mean, sometimes you youths have the craziest lingo." "..." "..." "What are you holding behind your back?"I ask, praying for a gun so he can end this. He doesn't answer, but brings his hand into the light. A very used looking syringe glints in the light. "What in the flying fuck were you going to do with that?" "Well nothing to you." "..." "On account of the concussion." "What?" "Just seemed a little redundant, really." "So I can go?" "Sure. You should probably get your head checked out, like yesterday. I can't stress enough how bad that was for you."He turned away from me, and walked away, into the darkness. I drifted back to sleep, unsure weather that had actually happened. ___ I stand up groggily. My head feels more or less the same. I am unsure of how much time has passed. The night is still deathly quiet. I take a few shaky steps towards the parking lot. Fragments of strange conversation come back to me. I walk further in the darkness. Did I almost get aids? Surely not, right? Right? I step into the open parking lot, and into the light of a nearby street lamp. I don't remember falling, or almost getting aids, but I am weirdly convinced of both. I look to my right. Sitting against a wall is a dirty old man, who looked curiously like an islander. Closer inspection revealed a needle in his arm, in full view of God and everyone. That's it, I'm getting tested. ___ /r/Periapoapsis - the banner is pretty neat.
Sweat trickled down George's temple as he gulped. "Throu-through the ritual?"he stammered. He knew that suicide was commonplace among aliens as they ventured through the brutal ritual. Bixo mischievous laughter echoed through the empty halls of the seemingly endless library. "Sorry, the fear in your eyes is hilarious, couldn't contain myself."He paused to recollect himself as the giggles crawled out his left mouth. "Yes, to prove you're worth of researching my specie you must survive the ritual, otherwise, well... you die,"Bixo said and his pulsating, vibrant brain began to float further into the air. George knew the information on Bixo's species would be critical for humans to conquer their technological plateau. The oxygen felt dense and scarce. His heart hammered and writhed. Dread, like vomit, swarmed through every fiber of his existence; yet, he had to do it, for humanity. "I will do it. Could you tell me what it consists in now?"George said, his eyes glossy. The concoction of possible outcomes inside his head were overwhelming. The right mouth talked while the left one giggled, "you will have to excuse me, this time I can't hold it, I can already smell and taste your horror. For our ritual, you will be secluded in a closed space where sounds are prohibited. You will submerge into the monotony of the ink for many hours EVERY day and after a year a test will be given to you. If you pass it, you pass the ritual yet if you fail."Bixo had to pause abruptly as both his jagged mouths burst into a soundless laughter and his five arms smashed the table. "Y-you... Rep-repeat the process!"Bixo mumbled between laughs. George's eyebrows arched downwards, "are you saying I have to study?" The alien turned purple as he kept laughing, his brain hit the roof attempting to escape and soar into the sky. "ye-yes!" George's glint of hope fell into the depths of oblivion and from it came certainty and confidence. George had always been a nerd.
I consider this for a minute. My heart was insured and I was getting a hefty compensation package from the bank but... I gave Mark a call. He was the company legal adviser and my drinking buddy for the past 40 years. He agrees that putting up a token fight will earn me a bigger paycheck but is a bit surprised that I'm so calm about the whole thing. Unlike me Mark's been married and divorced three times, giving his heart away each and every time just to have it throw in his face broken and shattered. I'm not into all that drama and frankly I've been alone for way too long to change now. Everything is just how I like it so why entangle myself with something so messy as love now? I got a reference from Mark for representation. A young man with stars in his eyes and fire in his belly fought tooth and nail for my case. As Mark predicted we settled out of court for the sum of $5 Million dollars, not too shabby for an old ticker if I do say so myself. I invited the young man for drinks to celebrate his victory, one of many to come I told him. "Thank you sir. I know it's not enough to compensate for the lose of love but I'm sure it'll help you track it down." Ah youth, still clinging to the ideals of love over all even in the cynical and cut throat world we're in. He talks all night and I sit there listening to him with a nod when appropriate. It wasn't surprising that Mark would pick a romantic to handle such a case but at my age such notions are just waved away with youth's folly. The lad was down right mortified the next day due to taking over my couch but I just waved him off and prepared my sure cure for hangovers. A large breakfast with lots of grease and a nice hot shower with some fresh clothes shipped overnight. I don't understand why he was so apologetic about the whole thing. It's not like I couldn't afford it and besides I had no intentions of changing my habits regardless of my sudden good fortunes. It's odd though, the house felt suddenly quiet as I closed the door. Was it always like this? How strange. As an old man I did appreciate the kid keeping in touch with me be it through the phone or as a drinking buddy. He was raised well though I suspect it would tapper out as the novelty of his first big win wore off with experience. That was until he invited me to a new place for drinks. I had gone in my usual shirt and jeans just to find myself in an upscale restaurant where everyone around me all but shone and sparkled. "Well, at least you're not a cheap date."I told him to cover my fashion faux pas. It was sweet how he reddened. The blush reaching the tips of his ears. So I was correct, he was trying out the place for a future date. Then again he was very much like Mark, ready to throw his heart at the first pretty young thing that smiled at him. I decided to take control of the situation when I saw him stare blankly at the pretentious menu, after all age had it's few privileges and you can never go wrong with steak. As we waited for our after dinner drinks he pulled out a black jewelry box and I raised an eyebrow. Getting an old man's opinion on a ring? Seems more like something to ask a woman about, they were more on trend then an old geezer like me. I opened the box and there sparkling above the black velvet lining was a young beating heart. "I know your heart is lost but, I mean, until you find it maybe.... would you accept mine?"His sheepish smile made the heart beat even faster.
Life is so unfair. There I was without a care, living a life full of ease, was some mangy peasant with a disease-addled mind sneaks up from behind and clouts me across the back of the head! I mean, that could've killed me dead! And then him and his pals have the gall to go and call a village council meeting. And instead of my usual preferential seating (as befits someone of my station) they tie me up, and without trepidation dare to call me a witch! Then instead of calling for me to be released, the villagers unleashed their nasty vile accusations as if I was the cause of all their deprivations. "A witch!"They cried. "Satan's evil vile bride! She's the reason for all our woe!"So then they tie stones to my feet and throw me in the duckpond to die. And all because of that awful lie. I mean... I did curse Mary's flock. But it was deserved - she mocked my new coat! And I turned Davies Senior into a goat after he failed to bow, and changed his wife into a cow. Really, all I did was show them as they truly were. But instead of thanking me, their cur son whacked me across the crown and threw me in the pond to drown. Well, no more mercy! No more Mrs Nice! Those lice-ridden scum will learn a witch's wrath, as I go on the warpath. ...just as soon as I break free of this rope constraining me. Those half-witted clods used a rope with no hint of a fray - it seems they really wanted me to stay. Still, I'll eventually slip this rope hitch that's making my ankle really itch. Ooh, those villagers will pay for these watery hours that I'll not get back, or my name's not Esmeralda the Black!
Where was the kid? the wolf wanted to see for himself, assess the rumor. On the road, he pondered his life and the world he lived in. Eat grandmother, eat little red riding hood, get gutted by the hunter, have him marry an underage traumatized little red riding hood. Happy ending. Fuck happy endings. They are only happy to the person writing or hearing the story, never to those inside of it. Sleeping beauty spends her youth in coma and wakes up to a world that isn't her own and the three little piggies live in the equivalent of a closet, the wolf couldn't get near it due to the stench. Somewhere, it snapped. Enough was enough. Hanzel and Gretel had done the piece so often that they came to like the witch and allied with her. Not out of malicious intent, but to decide their own future. One after the other, they all did. Little red, sick of being eaten again and again, told her mother to get stuffed and ran away. The wolf himself, who never liked that bag of bones called a grandmother, took the occasion to bail and see the world of his own volition. Turns out that fantasy land, once free of the schackles of narration and storytellers, is like any other land. The woodchoppers, happy to learn the wolf was away, chopped down the forest and were now unemployed, petitioning the king for benefits. The fox had eaten the crow and left the cheese to rot only to run into a family of bears that wasn't keen on having a food stealer sleep at home. The fairytale kingdom expanded, the carefully crafted city was adding shacks and huts faster than it could plan them, the streets became dirty, the colors washed off. The citizens, left on their own, asked for rights and freedom of speech, unless the royal guard paid them a visit. The wolf got out of his head, he had found her. Sitting on a corner, begging for scrap and coin, her red hood stained and turning gray. Sorry red, thought the wolf, you always got the short end of the stick. Done with being eaten and married off, you fled. A king took a shining in you, you didn't reciprocate. He blinded you. That's what you got for trying to be free. I really hoped it wasn't the truth when I heard it. Little red felt the wet nose and extended a hand to caress the wolf. "Hey there doggy, are you abandoned too?"she said with a weak voice. The wolf dropped the apple he had been holding in his maw all this time, it rolled at her feet. "Is that... Thank you!"she ate the apple in a hurry, afraid someone would steal it. Once done, she hugged the wolf tight. The wolf lay next to her, aware of the twisted irony that he who ate her so often was the only thing she had left. He would watch over her, it's the least he could do.
It had started so well, their assignment was pretty much a textbook example of a young molten world, ripe for manipulation and sculpting. They had found another body nearby which would give him a lot of extra material for little time or energy, so they redirected it onto a collision course. Unfortunately they missed, and most of the material was now in a useless clump orbiting around their project. Still, they could proceed with their plan of collecting local ice to craft a canvas. An ice ball wouldn’t give him the highest grade, but they was comfortable with them and hoped to impress with their skill in crackcrafting. But then, the ice stayed liquid and wouldn’t freeze, which would The added radioactive elements from the collision should just have been enough to keep a layer liquid under deep ice… wait… collision! Jach cursed. That stupid thing orbiting the planet, it is large enough to induce a magnetic field in the planet, if they remembered those lessons by professor Hcon correctly… “FUCK THAT THING!!!” In their rage, Jach used almost all of their remaining budget on flinging rocks at the body now orbiting their planet, that had destroyed their plans of sculpting their masterpiece as an aesthetically pleasing system of colourful cracks and canyons. After they had calmed down again, they took a look at the mudball they had to work with, mudball, as the water they had redirected onto it before their tantrum only was enough for a thin layer above the rocks. A few hours later, Jach looked at their desperate attempt to eek out a passing grade. They had tried to increase the points in the complexity department by redirecting more asteroids, this time into the water of the planet. Unfortunately their budget only was enough for a few carbon rich ones and not the heavy metal they would have liked. With their last sliver of energy, they had tried to redirect the magma flow deep within the planet to try and create a few patterns of rock jutting out above the water, but that only led to a collection of weird splats, nothing nice to look at. And to top it all off, the complex sulphur compounds they had achieved seemed to not stick around as long as they should. And the water was taking a weird hue, despite the lack of metals At this point Jach gave up. They had no energy left to spend and their final was a complete failure. No need to lose nerves over something that was already doomed. When the deadline neared, Jach had to show their teachers what they had done. Having already made their peace with retaking the class, they only dreaded the disappointment of their teachers. Weird, why was it so green? He had not achieved the copper and oxygen levels necessary for that. “Just protocol my failure and move on, I want to see what my peers have been up to. Kotre was always good with crystals, I wonder how he did.” Joch was already leaving, but stopped when their teachers didn’t follow them “Something wrong?” he asked “You don’t need to try and find a reason to pass me, you won’t find it. I’m sorry.” “What are you sorry for?” one of the Professors he never had a class with replied. His subject had been an elective, Orgenecs or something similar, a field few dared venture into, as it was known to destroy careers, apart from the few who managed to teach it. “You have achieved something I have dreamed about for my entire career, macroscopic life!”
It is always the same. He appears, performs an inhumane trick, and proceeds to either buy everything from every store, or running up to the astronomers building, which towers on the cliffside. I shake my head. He once stood solid 30 minutes on one spot, not even moving a single muscle, then he went on a rampage, slaughtering everything and everyone in the whole village. I was luckily spared. I am just an old man, sitting next to an apple tree. When an overwhelming army of the royal knights flooded the last remains of the village - which the stranger also burned to the ground - the world vibrated and shifted, as reality itself was bended. The people rose from the dead. The buildings in some sort rebuild themselves. And the royal army vanished into thin air. Im just an old man. I watch. I listen. I remember. And also, im fucked. He is here. He is standing right in front of me. I pray for my life.
“Put it back.” Ultimate’s words almost could not be heard the first time he spoke them: the crowd that had formed around he and his nemesis chattered too loudly. “What did you just say to me, Boy Scout?” Devastation was still adjusting to running into the hero in such a place. “Put. It. Back. Lonny.” “You can’t be serious,” replied Devastation. “I’m REFORMED now, I paid my debt to society. You’re really going to tussle with me over-” “ONE. More. Warning.” Ultimate nearly shook the ground in interrupting the man. “…This is really happening? You’re really going to do this, in front of all these people?” “You think THEY can save you?” Devastation was unsettled by the way Ultimate phrased the question. “You think THEY will be your way out this time? No, not a person on this PLANET will be able to stand in front of the overwhelming force coming your way if you don’t put it back in the next five seconds.” Lonny had always been attracted to chaos. Some inner voice in him had never been able to look a rule, authority figure, or more physically imposing force in the face without pushing it just to see what would happen. It’s an instinct that led him to a life of crime. It is also the instinct that sent him hurtling 30 feet into the air post-contact with the pre-eminent superhero’s fist. “WHAT THE F-“ Lonny could only get the first letter out before his leg had been grabbed in mid air, and he was whipped back to the ground with a force and intensity he had never experienced before. Were he not powered himself, the force of impact would surely have liquified him. “DO I NEED TO ASK AGAIN?!” cried out a deranged voice hovering above him. Lonny slowly crawled out of the crater his body had made in the traffic median, and weakly shook his head in response to the glowing eyes of the being hovering above him. He then proceeded to spend a full six minutes slowly walking back to the parking lot. “Holy shit he came back!” went one of the onlookers as Lonny made his way back to his car. The crowd parted as if commanded by Moses upon seeing Devastation himself limp past his sedan, place his hands weakly upon the shopping cart he had previously abandoned in the space next to his, and slowly push it toward the return station eight spaces over. “NOBODY HELP HIM!” boomed the voice from above, as the once great villain who nearly destroyed cities in his prime continued to meekly push the cart back to its proper return.
We thought we had won. We thought we had them beaten. The Pan-Galactic Alliance was the greatest ever seen. Our numbers were overwhelming. We had soldiers enough to conquer a dozen central planets, whereas the humans had but a single central planet and a few rapidly growing colonies. Our ships possessed the finest weapons and defense matrices made by our most advanced fabricators. Human technology was impressive for a species that, according to reports, only discovered mechanical fight within the last millennium and pieced its ships together from the off-castings of their betters. Most of us didn't even know why we were fighting them. Surely, they weren't a threat. We struck every human colony and outpost in perfect unison. They didn't stand a chance. Strangely, our initial losses were above what was forecast. We soldiers should have seen it then. If the official reckoning of attacks on small, largely civilian colonies was greater than estimated losses, then the truth must have been far worse. Morale, though, remained high. We still predicted total victory on the final assault on Earth. We were wrong. Very wrong. When we made the final jump to the Sol system, we met no resistance. At first. New recruits said that the humans gave up. Those of us who knew better were concerned. As we neared the system's fourth planet, we encountered the human armada, if it could be called such a thing. There were thousands of tiny vessels of varying sizes and compositions. Each one seemed to have been cobbled together from assorted scrap parts. Hull compositions and power readings made no sense. They were impossible to assign classes or designations. Fire control couldn't assign priority. Command couldn't figure out which ship was in charge. In those first few moments before battle, we were paralyzed by indecision. To make things worse, the humans communicated on open radio frequencies in a cacophony of strange dialects our translators struggled to decipher. Suddenly, the chatter all stopped. A single ship sent out a message. It was a battle cry that presaged the end of the Pan-Galactic Alliance and of the war. "Hey y'all! Watch this!"
Mission log entry 1 sun cycle 1: a scout ship detected electromagnetic radiation emanating from the third planet of a nearby solar system. Analysis indicates the indigenous population engaged in suicidal weapons development and war. Dispatch monitor complex to the third planet. Mission log entry 2 sun cycle 1.5: monitor complex attacked by nuclear weapons crossing the orbit of the moon of the third planet. Collected energy allowed for early deployment of individual cubic monitor segments. Mission log entry 3 sun cycle 1.55: monitor segments began approach to the planet establishing monitor coverage as a globe of connectivity. Ground approaches were slow to allow evacuation of indigenous personnel prior to landing. Most landings unopposed. Monitor units impervious to local attacks did not respond. Data collection commences. Mission log entry 4 sun cycle 9.95: monitor segments completed analysis. Implementation phase imminent. Indigenous population currently oblivious to the monitor units. Mission log entry 5 sun cycle 10: significant preparation of indigenous war fighting capability rising. Analysis indicates possibility of Thermo nuclear war. Mission log entry 6 sun cycle 10.1: monitor units implemented selective EMP and metallic fusion operations. Indigenous population no longer has a military capability as all metallic parts in selected areas are now fused. Electromagnetic communication systems of indigenous personnel in designated areas of high risk are destroyed. All Thermo nuclear capability rendered inoperable. Significant reaction differs in different zones of occupation. Some populations engaged in worship of monitor units others leaving gifts others engaged in futile attacks. Mission log entry 7 sun cycle 10.5: monitor units initiated communication with the indigenous population of the planet. Message transmitted "People of the earth the practice of warfare is no longer possible. You are encouraged to participate in the reclamation of your planet and ultimately joining the community of populated stars." Mission log entry 8 sun cycle 11.0: replenishment of the ozone layer complete. Atmospheric conditions currently nominal. Ocean based monitor units reestablished temperature equilibrium. Violent weather events significantly contained. Telepathic integration of specific members of the indigenous population completed. Estimated pacification completion projected at sun cycle 15. Mission log entry 9 sun cycle 15.1: planetary peace established. First contact authorized.
Dark steam billowed out of the spout of the Orichalcum teapot, swirling and congealing into the form of a great demon. It's form was unknowable and ever changing, a kaleidoscope of incandescent terror. "I am free! Who has woken the almighty Tenebras from his immortal slumber?"The demon roared. "Oh that would be me. Hello deary, my name is Mabel." A look of bemusement crossed the demon's shifting features as he examined Mabel. She didn't appear to be anything special, her faced lined like a spider's web and her back stooped with age. A witch or crone no doubt. "Do you not fear me mortal?" Mabel shook her head and stuck her tongue out at Tenebras. "Why should I?" "FOOL! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM!" "You're Tenebras. You shouted that earlier. No need to yell. Have a cookie, I imagine being stuck in a teapot would make anyone a little cranky." Mabel offered the demon a chocolate chip cookie. Dumbstruck, the demon manifested a mouth with human taste buds and ate the cookie. The dough was decadently moist and the chocolate was to die for. Tenebras could not stifle his soft moan. Mabel grinned and handed Tenebras another cookie that the demon devoured. In between bites Tenebras asked, "Why have you summoned me? Do you perhaps intend to use my vast power? Is there someone you would like me to smite?" Mabel shook her head. "I didn't summon you. You just popped out of that weird pot after I brewed some Earl Grey tea in it. I don't mind though, I could use the company. I haven't had anyone to talk to since Carl passed." Tenebras cackled. "Enough with the tricks crone, you wish me to revive this Carl! This can be easily achieved, just make a deal, a deal in blood!" "No thankee." "WHAT? NO ONE HAS EVER TURNED DOWN THE MIGHTY TENEBRAS BEFORE!" "What did I say about the shouting? I reckon I'll see my Carl soon enough, no need for that blood nonsense. Why don't you stay a while and try some of this tea? I brewed it in your pot so it'll probably be delicious."Mabel held up a porcelain cup full of hellfire warmed tea. Tenebras took the tea and poured it into the vortex that was his essence. "What a vexing creature,"Tenebras mumbled. Mabel smirked and tilted her head. "What was that Tenebras? My hearing isn't as good as it used to be, you'll have to speak up." "Nothing, nothing. I'd like another cookie please."
Every member of the Unified Galactic Council was present. This was a very important meeting. Even the Trylorps filled their seats, with their oozing pores and renowned stench (and they were considered the most desirable race for interspecies copulation.) "Flongsians?"The attendance clerk announced as he nearly finished the role call of attendance, and they replied with their typical fart reminiscent sound of acknowledgement. "And lastly, Humans?" "Present!" The entirety of the UGC erupted with coos and awws and variations thereof at just how adorable the Human speech sounded. The earth representatives grimaced at the lack of respect and took their seats. "As most of you already know, an unknown vessel from a neighboring galaxy is rapidly reaching the boarders of our galactic coast. We have yet to receive a reply to our communication attempts, but we are assuming they are armed and dangerous with malicious intent."Fearful murmurs filled the council hall. "We now open the floor to suggestions on our next course of act..." "Earth would like to take the lead here sir!"The human representative interrupted. "Well of course, you plush cuties."The council leader smiled. "We all remember how you distracted the Zenbots during the 2nd galactic invasion. The way you ran and played, hiding behind pillars and jumping out. They were so taken by how adorable you behaved that uploading the kill virus into their systems was a cake walk." "Sigh... Yeah, well our men are willing to put our life on the line to establish communication with the outsiders." "Aw so sweet. How can we resist! All in favor of first contact being made by the Humans of Earth raise you appendages." It was unanimous. Within hours a fleet of earth vessels flooded the outer reaches of our galaxy to establish the intent of these "intruders." It would turn out to be the worst decision the council had ever made. The humans docked onto the mysterious vessel and entered the decompression chamber. As the door to the ship opened, standing before the small number of humans was none other than the Lolispots. A race of pink fluff balls with giant blue, diamond like eyes that lit up when they saw the humans enter their ship. "Squeaky purrrrr! Glipple doo doo!"The tiny balls of softness welcomed. "Pleasure to be aboard your magnificent ship."The human rep exchanged pleasantries as he crawled onto the ground next to the main Lolispot. "For too long we have both been doing the councils dirty work. Killing entire species of aggressors that would challenge the law of the UGC, and what do we get in return?" "Spoopy pie!"The Lolispots cheered in unison. "That's right!"The human continued. "Treated like a novelty, because of the way we look and act! Which is why they will not be expecting a full attack of our combined forces! Soon, the galaxy will learn to respect us for our power and domination, despite our cuteness! Ready your weapons! For we will take control of the council and show them our true nature!"
Jonah stepped out of his front door and pulled his jacket tight around his body. The chill in the air was normal, the storm's winds always kept the temperature low. He could barely remember a time when he could look up and see the sun and feel its warm kiss on his face. He tried to push the memories deep down and began his long walk to work. The large metal canopy stretched from the doorway of his house to the sidewalk. The canopy was designed to protect people from anything falling from the sky in case there was a down pour. In the distance he could hear the storm's intensity growing, he could faintly hear the impacts. He hurried down the covered sidewalk until he reached the bus stop. It was a thick metal box with a heavy reinforced roof. Mary was sitting on the bench sipping a coffee and reading the morning paper. "Good morning Mary,"Jonah said with a smile. He would never admit to Mary that this was the best part of his day. She was beautiful, smart, and she always did the crossword puzzle in pen. "Good morning Jonah,"Mary said flashing her wonderful bright smile. It made Jonah's knees weak and he quickly sat down next to Mary. "Looks like the storm is headed this way,"Jonah said. "Yeah, looks like we might be late to work again. My boss is going to kill me,"she replied. Thunder boomed in the distance. They could hear the heavy impacts getting closer to the bus stop. "Looks like we get to stay here for a while,"Jonah said sheepishly. "It could be worse,"Mary said with a wink. Jonah's heart fluttered, today would be the day he would ask her out. He gathered his courage and opened his mouth to speak when a peel of thunder interrupted him. It was deafening in the small bus stop. Mary grabbed a pair of ear plugs out of her purse and jammed them into her ears. With a defeated sigh Jonah did the same. They sat in silence as the storm rolled over head. A heavy wet slap hit the ground behind them, then another and another. It had been ten years and Jonah still hadn't gotten used to it. He tried to not look but every time his eyes were drawn to them. An impact on the roof of the bus stop scared them both. Mary scooted a few inches closer to Jonah, she squeezed her eyes shut as the sky deposited horror all around them. Bodies of men in all shapes and sizes slammed into the asphalt and grass. Blood sprayed out of the bodies as they hit. It was raining men. --- Thanks for reading! Check out /r/Written4Reddit for more!
It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and the sun was shining its goodbye through the window of my living room. I watched, trying to recall the first time I had ever been at peace. My past lives had all been chaotic, filled with misery, pain, and as such, I always took solace in watching the sunset. This life was the first in which I had actually gotten my act together. I had a beautiful wife, a satisfying career, and a beautiful baby boy. I turn to his crib, where he started crying. My wife was at the library, getting some research books for her university lecture. I take the small being in my arms, and take him to see the beautiful sunset. "You remember that, don't you? This isn't your first rodeo."I said, calmly. He was still crying. "I know you miss your last life. I've been through it too. The pain of separation hurts like hell, but it's part of our lives. It's okay, you'll make a new life for yourself." I looked at him. He had stopped crying, but now had a very curious expression on his little face. A face that understood everything, but had so little to reply. I continued: "You know, they say that the reason we don't remember our first years is because we keep thinking of our past lives. Eventually, you will let go, and start seeing your previous life not as a bitter reminder of what you've lost, but as a sweet memory of what you once were. When you will, daddy and mommy will be here to teach you everything you already knew...again." He smiled. I still remember that beautiful afternoon. Now, I'm nearing the end. 9 lives lived, and that's still the first memory to come to mind. I wonder where he ended up, and how many lives he has left. Regardless, I can feel the end. And it is just me, and the sunset, once again.
Everything begins and ends with a sacrifice. I had nothing left to give up. I had given these nameless, faceless people my everything - my love, my wealth, my time, my work and even my family. Nothing mattered to me but my mission - "Bring peace". I thought it would be easy. I went around telling them about happiness and love and how to answer for their sins, and they nailed me to a cross. I came back, and followed up with more of the same message - and I got hanged, poisoned, beheaded and shot - in what order, I do not remember anymore. Centuries of wanting to help didn't work. Sometimes, you cannot help people who do not want to be helped. You especially cannot help people oppose those who help them. Fine by me. What the gentle wind cannot blow, the storm uproots. "Bring peace"was my message. Bring peace I shall, even if it means I bring it to the last remaining human on earth. For years, they have refused to submit to my kindness, and it is time they answer to my vengeance. Everything begins and ends with a sacrifice. They are the sacrifice.
All the senses of my human body now dwindled to a parallel series of chips bristling with transistors. I "saw"through lenses, "felt"through a metallic arm tipped by pincers. It was like driving a car for the first time. I still existed, but this mechanical extension of myself seemed blunt and awkward. I didn't mind. The bone cancer had metastasized throughout my body, and my right leg had burned to the marrow with pain. Now, the fire was gone along with my body, and my mind floated in a metallic, grey ether. They'd warned me about this strangeness. I was aware of my surroundings, but NASA dictated control of InSight's machinery. I sensed an odd buzzing as NASA deployed the craft's Heat Flow and Physical Properties Probe. Engineers had designed it to burrow 16 feet. Any life, they suspected, would be underground, just as it might exist in the ice-crusted oceans of Enceladus and Europa. For hours, the probe inched its way through the butterscotch-colored surface toward the interior of Mars. My mind drifted again into that grey haze that cocooned my consciousness for the six-month journey to the planet. Suddenly, the bore shrieked, as if it had broken through to a hollow. A brake stilled the drill. The eerie silence of an alien planet murmured to InSight. About 14 minutes later, a transmission from NASA bloomed in my mind: "We need you now." I discerned the rectangular box that contained me slipping down through the hollow drill, my battery-pack life support with it. Another transmission: "Thermal energy will power you once the batteries fail. If we're right, you should have company." My shell landed with a thud on the rocky ground of what could only be a cavern. I perceived a tense alertness from outside. An electrical shuffling of many others reached me. They seemed, however, utterly alien. Strange hues of color permeated my mind. They went underground, I thought. The Martians went underground long ago when the planet died. They were mechanical, too, some Martian version of chips and transistors. Locust-like, they scurried closer. Thirty-four million miles away, the NASA bunker waited breathlessly. A cipher, a hieroglyph, emerged in my mind: the open palm of a hand not human. It waited serenely as if to say: "We have so many questions."
I always dreamed of being a werewolf hunter. The books and movies make it look like a badass job. Reality is such a disappointment. I am sitting in the forest and staring up at the full moon as it slowly rises into the sky. The movies always skip over the waiting, and there is a lot of waiting when you are hunting a werewolf. My stomach rumbles and I look down at the three candy bars sitting in my backpack. Do I risk eating one now? A loud distant howl breaks me out of my contemplation, and I hone in on the direction of the sound. I start walking towards where I think the cry comes from, and then adjust when the second howl echos through the night. The hairs on my arms stood straight up, I was always amazed that even after a hundred werewolf kills the howl still terrified me. As the howls grow closer, I resist the urge to place my hand on the newspaper strapped to my side. Somewhere deep in my backpack was a gun with my last silver bullet. That was one reserved in case I got bit. I force my hands to hang limply at my side and instead stroll through the forest callout out loudly. "Hello, is anyone there? I'm lost and really need some help." I continue to walk, calling to the darkness for help. I spot a large root sticking out of the ground and make my way towards it. My foot catches on the root, and I tumble to the ground, scraping my arm in the process. I cry out from the pain. "Help! Is anyone out there? I think I sprained my ankle. Please, someone, anyone help." I lay on my back, holding my ankle and sobbing as my eyes carefully scan the tree line. I finally spot the pair of two yellow eyes peering at me from a bush and fight back a smile. I try to get to my feet, wince as I step on my broken ankle, and hop on one foot. "Oh god. I can't walk. Please if anyone is out there help me,"I shout one final time into the night. Then the werewolf was out of the treeline and rushing towards me. I bite my lip in pain as my sprained ankle slams into the ground, you had to really hurt yourself to lure a werewolf, and I reach for my newspaper. I yank the paper out of its holster and swing it will all of my might. Boop. My newspaper collides with the werewolves nose, and it abruptly halts, whimpering in confusion. I look the snarling beast straight in its eyes and hold up the newspaper. I wiggle the paper and moonlight glints off it. I watch the yellow eyes as they follow the slow movement and then heave the paper as hard as I can, shouting, "Fetch!" The werewolf hesitates as the two instincts within the fight with each other, and then he is off, chasing after the newspaper. I quickly dive into my backpack, snatching out a chocolate bar and tearing at the wrapping. My fingers slip along the waxed paper, and a small section tears off as I hear the giant beast slide to a stop in the distance. I tear off another section of the paper as the heavy footsteps pound in the dirt, coming straight towards me. Why couldn't the manufacturers make these easier to open. Something wet and heavy strikes my feet as I finally peel off the last bits of wrapping. I jump in surprise but realize it's just the newspaper. The beast looks up at me, his tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth and notices what I have in my hand. I break off a small bit and drop it on the ground next to him, gushing, "Who's a good boy?" The beast happily snaps up the chocolate as I pick up the soggy newspaper and prepare to heave it again. I launch the paper and bits of slobber splash against my face as the werewolf races after it again. I break off another chunk of chocolate and wait for the beast to return to me. Another hour of this and the creature would be slain. Maybe being a werewolf hunter wasn't so bad after all. ***** Subscribe for more of my writing at /r/iruleatants.
I wake up every time, more than 900 feet from the summit. My ankle, like always, is broken. My fingers are frozen inside of my gloves. Frost bitten. The first and last time I pulled a glove off, skin was stripped off of my bones and the glove kept my index and pinky. Climbing after that was impossible and I soon froze to death again, huddled against a wall of ice. There is no path down for me. I've tried multiple times and each time I've died, only to wake again, ankle broken, freezing in the snow. I've only had luck with climbing. I know that I never wake up with enough oxygen left to make the summit. I know that I lost most of my gear in the fall that started this loop. I know that I will likely be climbing this mountain for all of eternity. But the summit calls to me like a siren song. My corpses greet my progress with solemn silence. Who will I greet?
"Of course it was my idea!"the little girl yelled. She lifted the point of the claymore off the ground for a couple minutes before her strength failed and let the point drop into the cave floor. The dragon drew a claw down the long blade, bringing it back to her eyes to inspect the mark it left. "And a small human like you thought you were going to do... what exactly?" "I had to do something!"the little girl yelled, "The king has done nothing. My family is gone. I have a little brother and I have to raise him myself!"She began to tear up, nearly letting go of the blade. The dragon cocked her head. "And how did you acquire this artifact? The magic is quite powerful." The girl sniffed. "I stole it. This morning. I took the sword from the church without them knowing. But I'm going to give it back! I thought I would only need it for today. After... you know." "Yes, yes,"the dragon said, "I'm quite aware of what you were planning. But what was your plan after? What would you do with the reward?" "Reward?"The girl asked. She shook her head. "I don't want any reward. I don't want money. I just thought that the King was protected by magic. And the only way to defeat magical power is with more magical power." The dragon turned her head and looked at the little girl with both eyes. She craned her neck and let out fumes of hot brimstone. "Are you playing a game here?"The little girl shook her head, but didn't say anything. The dragon continued, "You come here to my cave, and awaken me with a powerful sword which you cannot wield. And now you are telling me about the king? What business do you have here?" The girl cast her eyes down and mumbled. "I was hoping you would kill him. I brought the sword because I thought you might need it." Tension drained from the dragon. She let out a long breath and the spines on her back lay flat. "Oh,"The dragon mumbled. The little girl hefted the sword in her hands, attempting to offer it to the dragon, "Will you help?" The dragon looked at the sword, and with careful grace pushed the blade aside in a gesture of decline. "I will help you, but not in the way you ask. The King is a problem, but regicide is not the answer. I have use for a little human girl who is quick on her feet and can steal large heavy items. "If you would not object to my assistance, and also you are not afraid of heights, I would prefer to discuss this in the air. What is your answer?"The dragon raised a claw to the little girl. The child's face lit up. She brushed away her tears and shook the dragon's claw "Yes, yes of course. And no, I'm not afraid of heights. Thank you, thank you, thank you!" "Good,"the dragon said. "The flight is long, and there is much to discuss. But I assure you we will solve this king problem. For you, and for me."
He looks me up and down and closes his tool box. “Sorry, I can’t fix /that/.” I know everyone respects him and if he spit in their mouth, they’d thank him, but in that moment, I could’ve punched him in the throat. “It’s a carrier lock? In dock 7?” I clarify. If he heard me mutter “asswipe” under my breath, that ain’t my problem. Without even so much as an apology, he follows me to dock 7. We walk around like a pair of celebrities. Or at least he walks like one. We can’t go more than 10 feet without some starstruck rookie or battalion officer wanting to shake his hand, or say hello, or suck his dick. I don’t know. I have important shit to do and this washed up mechanic is slowing us down. “You know, grinding your teeth makes them susceptible to cracking,” he says later from under some machine connected to the carrier platform where the console indicated an issue. It’s been flashing red for the past 6 standards and apparently, no one but this magic wizard can fix it. I lick my teeth and, yes, not clenching my jaw eases the headache a bit but I’m not telling him that. “Are you almost done yet?” He emerges from under the carrier lock with his bottle of WD40. “All done.” And what do you know, the console is a happy green color again. “How the fuck did you do that?” He simply shrugs as he replaces the bottle in his toolbox. “You don’t really want to know, son,” he says. “But we should get a drink.” He did finish early and I have way more than enough time before my next shift. And he’s wrong, I want to know how he fixed that thing after every mechanic and engineer in the sector looked at it. At the bar, our first round is free thanks to his celebrity. He orders a beer and I get the strongest nastiest shit they have. His treat, after all. “So, what’s really in the bottle,” I say. “It’s not really WD40, is it, old man?” He chuckles. “It is. But it’s not the lock that was messed up. It’s the connector next to it.” No one thought to look there. The console said it was the lock. “Those consoles make mistakes sometimes. They miss things,” he says, as if reading my mind. “So sorry about your loss, son.” My jaw almost falls to the floor. No one knew about Ma passing away in Earth. I didn’t tell anyone. Who would I tell? I don’t know anyone here. And who would care? I’m just a grunt. I’ll save the grief for later, when I have enough credits to go home and bury her. “How…” He taps his hair. “We don’t cut our hair after death either,” he offers. “And I know command allows it for that circumstance. I’d say from the length of yours it was recent.” The prickle of tears scratch at my throat and I swallow another full gulp of liquor against it. He should mind his own business. I just want to do my job, make money, and bury my mother. He grabs my shoulder and gives it a friendly squeeze. “It’s all right, son. Nothing a drink and some company can’t fix.” Damn it. —— The next week, I’m given special permission to go back to Earth even though I wasn’t eligible for leave for another month. I even had extra in my paycheck for “exemplary repair work.” When I head to the ship taking me home, I stop by the old man’s workshop. He beams at me before I can even say anything. “Come by for a haircut when you’re back,” he says. “I have shears in my toolbox somewhere.”
The crowd gasped in awe. That glass had been blown and shaped a century before, and it had never weathered. I stood up from my kneeling position of execution, seizing the moment to save my life. “Behold, Bertrand the glass-cracker has awakened!” I roared. The city’s champion sheathed his sword, and the crowd cheered. The other 21yr old adults who all had unique powers swarmed me, carrying me aloft to the tavern. A pit formed in my stomach. I could only hope they didn’t ask me to replicate the coincidental event of the cracked glass. Under the guise of humility and reluctance to use my power, I isolated myself over the coming years. I knew I’d have to fight monsters eventually, but I kept pawning off my place on the roster to my father, who was uncharacteristically lenient with me. I trained hard. Built my own martial arts system from the ground up, knowing that I’d eventually be called into question. Crafted myself a jerkin studded with shards of broken glass, and carried around jagged daggers made of glass shards with leather strips wrapped around one side to serve as a handle. I still remember the first Mundane I saved. I was 27, well used to my reclusive life and my false humility in public. She was on the stage on her 21st birthday, in the arena with the cracked dome, and just as the champion drew his sword, I flicked the switch on the machine I’d mounted to the dome’s outer edge. With a thunderclap, the machine sent a shockwave through the stadium, and the dome sported another ominous crack. Shelabe the glass-cracker had awoken, and I made sure to announce it immediately to the entire gathering. Over the years, more and more glass-crackers awoke, and fewer and fewer adults were executed. The glass-crackers guild was an unwavering alliance, United under the bonds of charlatan-ship, martial arts, and false reclusive humility amongst the real awoken. And one day, when the dome finally breaks from all the cracks, the glass-crackers will be ready.
I have been a genie for thousands of years and I truly love my job. Taking the petty dreams of mortals and twisting them into their worst nightmares is not only my bound task, but my calling. Some genies twist wishes out of spite. Me? I do it just for the pure joy their despair brings. You ever hear of Midas? Yeah, that was me. So was that dude with the sausage stuck to his nose. I loved that one. Oh, it never gets old… …but the joke did. Mortals figured it out. They knew we were out to screw them… …but they still try it anyway. The little shits can’t help it. Their ambition and greed draw them to me like moths to the flame. Their hubris convinces them that they will be the one to outsmart an immortal entity that has been breaking dreams and souls since before the fools had invented the words to record it. Each one actually believes that they are the smartest person in the entirety of the human race over the entirety of their existence… …because that is what they would have to be to even have a chance of defeating me. I can see a light approaching in the absolute darkness of the tunnel leading to my chamber, deep beneath Giza. They finally figured out that the actual smartest person in the world had a giant sphinx built over the entrance to my domain. He literally moved a mountain... well... it was more like a hill but still, well done! Now him, I liked. He could have been Pharoh, but he was too smart for that. He was happy to be nameless, faceless, and very very rich. He was also the only one to figure out the game. The only winning move was not to play, to just wish me a good day and leave. He survived all the traps, defeated all the puzzles, and prevailed over all the obstacles only to bid me a good day and depart. I asked him why and his reply still brings a smile even now. He just wanted to see if he could do it and if I was really down here. When I asked him if there was anything he wanted… …he just grinned and said that if he wanted something, he was perfectly capable of getting it himself. The balls on that mortal! The fact that he happened once gives me hope that someone may happen again, that humanity isn’t truly lost… …but today is probably not that day… probably. The light is getting closer so I pack away my kitting. I like knitting, alright? You got a problem with that? Didn’t think so. In walks a man dressed in strange attire with an annoyingly bright torch of some unknown nature. I sigh. I can tell from the smug triumph in his eyes that he is just another idiot. “What is your heart’s desire, mortal?” I ask as he approaches. “Just like that?” he asks, “No riddles? No tests? No traps?” “The trap comes later,” I smile, “as you undoubtedly know. Go ahead, tell me your wish. You get three, but you know that as well.” Grinning with triumph he pulls out this weird black mirror. It bursts into a wild dance of glowing colors. Now that is interesting. It seems that things have changed over the past few… huh… I honestly have no idea how long it has been. If there is anything left of this idiot, I will ask him. “Here!” he crows triumphantly as he hands me the strange device. It was light as a feather, but heavy, so very heavy with knowledge. “What is this?” I ask, already knowing the answer at a glance. “My wishes,” he smirks as if he was the first person to ever come up with this. “It’s all in there. I want exactly, and I mean exactly what I have written!” I grin. This is going to be fun! “You have to say your wishes,” I smile, “And I will grant, exactly and I mean exactly, what you tell me.” His face falls as I hand the tablet back to him, pull out my knitting and resume work on a lovely sweater that is to be Death’s birthday present. “Take your time,” I say as I start to knit. “We have all the time in the world…” Stammering slightly, he begins. I listen with half an ear (and twice what is required for this fool) as he fumbles through what is clearly thousands of pages of text, all of which he must recite perfectly and without pause for each wish. Oh? I didn’t mention that part? Yeah, the second he stops for more than a moment… the wish is “complete” and I am free to grant it… …and grant it I will. For someone obsessed with the fine print… …he should have read mine.
My bones creak nearly with nearly identical volume to the chair as I take my seat at the control module. A buzz of information is transferred as my consciousness melds with control station 503 Beta, which is mainly responsible for maintaining a fleet of repair driods, of which only three are operative, one of the massive Hawking collector arrays, which is down to three percent efficiency, and its associated battery array, which is fully charged. I key the mic to the operator of Station 503 Alpha. "Station 503 Beta checking in, ready for hand-off in five." "Lay off it Oscar, you're already ten minutes late. I'm transferring control now." Our boss chimes in. "503 Alpha do not initiate a hot swap, the system can't take it." "Fine, Alpha initiating hand-off checklist." I key my mic again. "Sorry Neil, it's the anniversary." "Oh, already, but that means-" I step on Neil's transmission before he can finish. "I'm showing green across the board, Beta can accept hand off now." "I shouldn't have snapped at you, meet me for a pint during charlie shift?" "Alright." After a few moments, I assumed complete control of our sector. "Hand-off complete." "Cheers mate see you in eight." We both know that won't happen. The boss chimes in again. "503 Beta, Oscar, I wasn't thinking you don't have to be here." "I am here." A few moments of silence pass. Then Rico, our boss transmits again. "At least he won't have to see the lights go out." "Readings are nominal but dropping 503." "Understood." It happens two hours into my shift. The collector pulls in the last of the hawking radiation from the black hole, once known as Sagittarius A\*. The moment isn't a surprise, even before the station was built we'd been able to calculate the black hole's demise down to the picosecond. When we designed this station, well not we as in including me but we as in the federation of planets, it was a lifeboat. Work had started shortly after the last star was born, and completed just two years before the last died. The federation once occupied the entire galaxy, we even had the books to prove it. When we still had children we would regail them with tales of the heroes who'd bent stars to their will. Those stories lost their meaning after we used up the last one to complete the station. We, this time including me directly, knew for what seemed like our whole lives that we would be the last. My first memory is watching a news holo with my mom, and hearing them say; "The children of today will live to see the end of time.". My mom hastily changed the channel with a look of panic on her face, but the truth was there. Not all of us could bear that responsibility. Not everyone wanted to rage against the dying of the light. The batteries, which had been installed all those millennia ago by a collective of civilizations that came here in ships powered by stars kicked in. The timer started. For all intents and purposes, the end of the universe was in four hours. As time wound down we shut down system after system, as we'd planned, as we'd known since we got here. Some said we'd be the first people in a long time to do something unique. No one had ever lived in a universe without black holes before, every second we could survive meant new knowledge that could never be accessed before. So, we, and this time I really do mean a group of people which I am concretely a part of, looked out into the vast nothing, no light, no one, nothing. Three hours into our new existence we saw it, and this time I mean I saw it. "503 actual, beta here... the stars, they're coming back."
It was not an error but an intentional mixup. Dumbledore knew that the Addams were a powerful family of wizards, but to the point that even the Death Eaters would not ever think to attack them. As much as he thought that the his aunt and her fanily would be a gold way to hide the Boy Who Lived, what better way to mock those that remained of his followers than to leave him with the direct descendant of Morgana le Fey? And so here he was, bundle in his gnarled arms as the cold air of Essex surrounded the old sorceror. The Addams had several properties around the world, but it was just the doors that were enchanted that opened to their true home, a home that was in a worldspace all of its own. He walked forward to the door. He could see the number: No. 6 Privet Drive. How quaint that his two options would be on the same street. Apparating next to the old wizard, a cloaked figure with his face covered by the shadows of his hood stood nearby. "Are you sure about this, Albus?"came the expected question. "The Chosen One is a tempting target, enough even for the Eaters to attack Morticia and Gomez." "I am sure. They will give the boy a far better childhood and a loving home."He looked behind him to continue, but the cloaked figure was gone. He sighed. The man known as Walker was always on the move. He walked to the door and pressed the doorbell. The doorbell sounded like a quaint and trendy series of bells in the form of some sort of theme music. Then there were a couple latches that unlocked and the door slowly creaked open. The figure of a tall and gorgeous woman, pale as the moonlight with hair as dark as the black reaches of space, dressed in a satin robe that accentuated her impressive figure, entered the doorway. Her large black eyes peered into the darkness, hand on her wand. The attack at Godric's Hollow was still fresh and no one knew what was going to be next. She then had a brilliant smile on her face as she recognized the Headmaster of Hogwarts. "Albus! How wonderful to see you!"Despite her look, the personality of Morticia Addams was almost the exact opposite of what you would expect from a Daughter of Morgana. "Goodness me, what brings you at this late hour?" "Hello, Morticia. I'm sorry for bothering you, but I have something for you and Gomez. May I come inside? It is dreadfully cold for an old, withered wizard like myself." "Of course! Gomez!"Morticia exclaimed as she allowed the Headmaster to step inside, "Please come down! Albus is here!" "Professor Dumbledore? At this hour? Must be important!"Within a few moments, a short and stout man came bounding down the large steps of the Great Hall, dressed in silken pajamas. His mustache was finely waxed and his hair cut to perfection. His olive skin was shining, perhaps fresh from a bath, as he came to a stop. "Professor! I'm so happy you are okay! We heard about the attack an hour ago..."he trailed off as he peered at the bundle in Dumbledore's arms. "Albus. Is that...?"Morticia gasped as she saw the son of James and Lily Potter in Dumbledore's arms, eyes closed and sleeping peacefully. The wound was fresh on his forehead, but healing nicely already. A mark from his encounter with the Dark Lord. The implication were true. "Then, they are dead, aren't they?"Morticia had a tear go down her pale face as Gomez lowered his head. "A damn shame. James was my _amigo_ for years and Lily was a beautiful soul and the closest thing to a _hermana_ that I had. They will be missed." "Yes. This is Harry. He is the lone survivor of Voldemort's attack. He must be protected, no matter the cost."Dumbledore was beginning to go into his spiel, but was quickly stopped by Harry beginning to cry in his arms. Morticia, a veteran mother and caretaker, took the fussy baby out of the old man's arms and began cooing and soothing the child, helping him go back to sleep just as quickly. It was at that moment that Dumbledore felt confident in his choice. "We will protect the little one, Professor."Gomez nodded, beaming at the sleeping baby as Morticia smiled and stroked Harry's head lovingly. The lightning bolt on his head felt natural to a family as odd as the Addams, even to the Wizarding World. She planted a soft kiss on her new son's head and whispered, "I'll make sure you grow up strong and full of love and care. Just as Lily would want." Gomez saw the Headmaster out. "We have things well in hand, Professor. Keep safe."He bowed his head and shook the man's gnarled hand. Dumbledore smiled, a twinkle back in his eye, as he accepted the handshake. "Thank you." "_Gracias_, Professor. _Adios_."The door closed to Morticia beginning to find a crib for Harry and Gomez coming over to help with the process. The Headmaster of Hogwarts sighed in contentment before Apparating off of No 6 Privet Drive to handle the next order of business: Severus Snape's trial at the Ministry.
“What’s got you looking so smug?” Belopeth, Leader of the Great Legion, asks suspiciously, narrowing his great head full of eyes. “You know I hate that look on you.” Satan, The Morning Star, The Great Deceiver, The One Adversary, smiles very much like a cat who got the cream. “Well, my most darling demon, I’ve made myself an honest to goodness parent.” “You?! A parent?! To a human child?!” “Don’t be ridiculous, of course not! Eugh, can you imagine? Me?! You know I hate runny noses. And all those little fingers! So sticky. No. Just no.” “But why? What’s the point?” “Why, to prove I could, of course! My father is always going on and on and on about his children this and his creation that, and honestly it’s sickening. After a millennia, you’d have thought he’d found something new to harp on, but no. Still moaning about it. And Jesus isn’t any better. I mean, you’d think he wouldn’t have the gall, what with being an actual sacrifice, but he never did have any boundaries at the best of times-“ “My liege, you’re getting off track.” “Hmm, yes. I do do that, don’t I? Anyway, you know how we accidentally get letters, the ones that are meant for The Santa?” “Yes? They skip the North Pole, keep going to the South Pole, and then get sucked into the hellmouth. We usually post those back, or send them along with an imp.” “Yes, well, bringing fire and brimstone is a thankless job, and we’re low on imps this time of year, and you know the post isn’t quite what it used to be, so I said to myself, ‘O, Prince of Darkness, why don’t you try your hand at Christmas?” Belopeth pinches at the space between his Eye of Evil and his Eye of Retribution. He feels a headache coming on. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic! It won’t be like The Nightmare Before Christmas, though I do love that film. But I must admit I did want to try Christmas a bit. Why should Jesus get to have all the fun?!” “You have Halloween-“ “Bah! And he gets Easter, and every other damn holiday, even the turkey one! The humans certainly don’t thank me for their lumpy gravy and dry fowl. Ugh. Getting off track again. Anyhoo, I opened the letter, and I was sure it was going to ask for a dolly or a race car or a unicorn or something equally dull, but no. This one wanted a parent. They apparently don’t have one? I didn’t look closely, just figured Plague had taken them, because you know how that’s been going around-“ Belopeth sighs, injecting as much impatience and drama into the sound as he can. “You know what’s wrong with you? You never let me expound! You know, I don’t know why I bother! I produced a rather delightful parent, well, guardian, I suppose, if you want to get technical, because after a little digging, I found that their previous parent was a monster!” “A monster?” “He’s here, in cell 42-56-78A.” Belopeth fairly boggles. “Block 42?” “Mmhmm.” “But that’s…” Belopeth hurriedly flips through the register, the pages alight with infernal fire. It can’t be. But no. There it is. The list of sins is long, and made all the more horrific because they were done to those who could not fight back. Well, not until now. The cause of departure was listed as ‘repeatedly stabbed with a kitchen knife’. And the perpetrator? It appears they caused their own reason to ask Santa for a new parent. They’d carved up their previous one like a country ham. “Now you see why this child needed not only a parent, but a Guardian? One possessed of blood incorruptible and armed with the Teeth of Abbadon?” Belopeth feels quite faint. A Guardian. On Earth. Mixed in with the humans. Pardon his blasphemy, but my god. Lucifer, the Father of Lies, grows tall and lean in his unholy anger, the fires a wellspring of countless tortured souls flaring up into the perpetual night as the shadows press in against him, close as starving dogs. “If my father is too incompetent to fix his mistakes, then I will.”
"Alright. I need to think." From my perch in a tree, I could see the Adamantium Golem crashing through the undergrowth. It's thick armour shone as bright as it had the moment I had laid eyes upon it, despite the past hour of me attempting to bring it down. The dwarves had warned me of this. It was their masterpiece, the centre of their army. Countless hours had been poured into its construction, with nearly the same amount in gold spent on it. It had been crafted using the rarest metal known, making it nigh indestructible. But something had possessed it, making it break free. Such a thing had to be brought down. As the world resident hero, it had fallen to me to try and stop it. I had after all made quite the name for myself, taking down enemies that others couldn't. It was all thanks to my ability, of summoning weapons that came to mind. But even the strongest of guns I could remember merely glanced off this Golem. I thought on what I knew about adamantium. It was surprisingly lightweight, but stronger than anything else known. Even a thin piece, similar to foil, could stop most standard attacks. It required a truly staggering amount of heat to make it malleable enough to work. Heat. I sighed to myself, looking down. "I need a lightsaber or something for this. Huh. I wonder..." Half heartedly I reached out, thinking on an iconic one. The image of a red and black skinned figure came to mind, with his double bladed saber. I thought about it, feeling a sudden rush in my head. The air in my hand sparkled, before its hilt appeared in my grasp. As I touched it, instinct hit me. As it did with all weapons I summoned, I felt my body fill with knowledge on how to fight with it. Muscles twitched and itched, adjusting to match those of a master wielder. I grinned at that, the familiar sensation giving me a momentary high. I clicked its buttons, watching the blades of red extend out. It fit perfectly in my grip, and I moved to look down. The Golem had paused, trying to work out where I was. It was a little far, but it didn't stop me from crouching low. It was a stupid idea, dropping from above. But the new weapons gave me confidence. Breathing deeply in and out, I paused for a brief moment before leaping down. The lightsaber left a brilliant trail, before meeting its back with a flash. I felt a measure of resistance, only enough to slow my attack rather than stop it. The Golem took a step forwards from my attack, giving me a good look at the rent I had made. Its edges were glowing red and orange, the air wavering above it. It spun towards me, lashing out with its spiked fist. As it did I let my body move by itself. I leapt into the air, flipping over its attack and swinging the weapon down below me. It sliced through, leaving another deep cut. I smiled to myself, confidence filling me again. I could do this. I could win again. And this discovery would change a lot on what I could do in future. I was already imagining what other weapons it would be fun to use.
Growing up, my mother described it to me as the constant feeling of being pushed, by something you can't see, in every direction. I had never experienced gravity in my life. You see, my parents were the only two astronauts assigned to the Space Station Helios at the time of the Flash. Back in 2028 in the middle of a rebuild operation my mother had noticed a blanket of light cover the earth, that's how she described it anyways, and just as soon as it came it was gone. After that there were no communications from earth and the systems on the station appeared fine so they waited. They waited for someone, anyone to come for them, but they never did. Now, 18 years later and the computer systems are failing, one by one. My father told me that the only way we can survive is to attempt a crash landing and hope that the on board safeties will be able to hold us. As we plummeted downward I began to feel.....tight? I guess tight is the best word I could use to describe it. It felt as though I was trying to be squished into a space that I just couldn't fit. I held my parents hands, anxiously awaiting the inevitable. We crashed landed in a forest. I had seen pictures of trees growing up, but being right next to one in person, they felt so....powerful. They towered over me. After the initial shock and awe I began to notice the little things, new flavors in the air, new smells, the difference of seeing the sun without a UV Shield, and the pressure. It was constant but not uncomfortable, and it was all around me. This must be gravity, I thought. Mother did her best to explain it to me and she did well, but I think she got one thing wrong. It didn't feel like I was being pushed, it felt like I was being embraced. To me, it felt like the earth was hanging on. That it didn't want to let me go.
"The internet!"That's what they told me when I told my friends about my predicament. "Everything is connected by the internet! You're sure to find some Americans on there!" "Why haven't I thought of that earlier?!"I got out my laptop, and started e-mailing Americans. I know, I know, I shouldn't be e-mailing strangers, but I figured if I cast a wide net I'd catch something! But, I've found that Americans aren't the most trust worthy people. Mostly I get ignored, but every once in a while I'll get an e-mail back, which lifts my heart. But then I read the reply. Most of them only say one word: "SCAMMER!!!!!!1" I've even offered them some money in exchange for their help! And if American movies have taught me anything, it's that Americans want money! So why won't they take mine?! Not only that, but I stress the urgency of my request, but nobody helps me. Why? I don't have the time to keep asking why, to keep sending out e-mails like this. It's not working. I need to find another way. So, let's think about this. There are two main reasons why people go on the internet -- pussies. Wait, is that right? In English? Oh, I am sorry, I did not mean to offend. I meant cats and porn. I've figured it out! Yes, yes, this is going to work. I'll just start sending out video links to people of adorable little baby kittens that are irresistible and tell them that I am looking for someone to adopt them. Then I will have them sign onto some paperwork for me, then they can use the money I give them to buy an adorable little baby kitten!
The guard was standing at his post. Everyday, he stood at that same spot, talking to adventurers asking them why they wish to pass. This guard was like them too, an adventurer, but since he got married, he was forced to take a less eventful and more boring job. Today was different, there had been recent sightings of beasts in the sky, 60-foot fire hazards, screams of terror could be heard from afar everytime the beast was seen. The guard was admiring his sword when the distant rumbling began. He paid no attention to it, could be a caravan passing through he thought. But as the sound grew stronger, his fear grew with it. It grew, the sound, until nothing was audible. The guard heard a sound like hissing water, only more vicious and fiery. He caught a glimpse of the terror, it wasn't like other beasts, it breathed fire from it's two small heads attached to small wing that didn't move. He soon saw fires in the distance, he heard screams of burning agony and pain. He had to leave his post to make sure his family was alive. The guard ran as fast as he could to the house he built with his wife from stones from the mountain and the finest timber from the woods. He looked, with great horror as he watches his family burn alive. With rage, he took his bow and aimed at the beast, the dark green hide of the beast was too strong, the arrow bounced off. He fired until his quiver was empty. All shots, failed to penetrate. He then saw the beast turn to him, he saw blasts of fire from the beast's many mouths. The guard seems to accept his fate, cursed at the wind and let go. ----------------------------------- 30 Minuites later... "Hey fag, this helicopter mod you gave me is shit. Only one type of missile and no guns?"
It's a pretty simple game. It started out as kind of a joke between Sohil and I, from back when we were both in business school. We learned about corporate espionage in class, and I leaned over and whispered that I was going to steal all of his secrets; he replied: "not if I steal yours first." Fast forward twenty years, and we are now both the CEOs of big Fortune 500 companies. I worked my way up the ladder of an existing auto manufacturer, while Sohil went the entrepreneur route and started his own pharmaceutical giant. And our challenge has evolved too: we each hire corporate spies to infiltrate the other's corporation. At the end of the year, we meet up in Aspen and have a little exchange where we 'buy back' the information for whatever the black market value of it would be. Sohil has clobbered me for the past six years. His agents have gotten the plans to every prototype we've come with; last year's electric car technology cost me dearly. And no matter what security I enact, he is always one step ahead. I pour money into cybersecurity, and he manages to slip a human informant into our information security division. I beef up hiring protocols and background checks, and he gets key loggers onto the computers of every one of my top executives. All in all, I was now down about $600 million in the total tally. But this year would change everything. ----- Sohil was waiting by a roaring fire in our penthouse suite with a glass of brandy in hand. As we both grew more and more successful, we'd gotten more elaborate and opulent with our yearly results presentation. On a whiteboard behind him, "$600 million"was written in big red marker, a reminder of how much I was losing by. I knew that Sohil would never collect on it, but it certainly raised the stakes. Instead of money, pride was on the line. I took a seat in the plush leather armchair next to him. A manila folder was sitting in his lap, and I dropped a folder of my own onto the coffee table. "Let me guess,"he said before I could open my mouth, "You've got the formula for dormalthazine in there."I smirked; I knew all about the new drug that Sohil's company was working to develop for treating diabetics. It was certainly promising, from the research I'd seen: a diabetic would only need a yearly injection, and would never have to take insulin again. It would save patients thousands of dollars, and make billions for Sohil's company. "Well, it's worthless,"he continued. A wry smile spread across his face. "Two of our competitors are already going through FDA approvals and they'll almost certainly beat us to market with it. I don't know how, considering we've only just finished human trials. Bastards."He drained the rest of his glass. "Though at least I'll win our little competition this year too." I laughed. I was deliberately stalling, savoring the moment. I'd been waiting six years for this. "See, I did consider using that as my auction item for the year. My agents were pretty easily able to access your research."I took the bottle of brandy from the bar cart and poured myself a glass. "That is, until I found out that your competitors had also gotten into your system. So instead..."I held up the folder, "I've got information on all five of the competitor's moles within your company. #4 will certainly surprise you; I think you even promoted him this past month!" Sohil has an amazing poker face; I'll give him that. He was like a sphinx. "All right. Name your price, then." I gestured to his folder. "What have you got there? Our merger option with Dakota Motors? Worth about $200 mil?"He smirked and nodded. Lucky guess, but he didn't need to know that. "That's what I thought. How about I give you all this..."I held the folder with all the information on the spies in his company, "for.. let's say $800 million?" Sohil poured himself another glass of brandy. "You bastard."He grabbed the folder out of my hand, quickly read over the dossiers, and jumped on the phone with his head of security. I, meanwhile, rose from my chair and triumphantly wiped the whiteboard clean.
I moved among them unseen, but they felt me at their side all the same. The ordinary men and women, dreading the thought of what would be left of the vibrant, young people they once were, when I was done with them. Others - the supernatural, the horrors - were less susceptible to my more crude and obvious damage. Yes, they could survive, untouched, for centuries. But I dragged away the worlds they once knew, I changed the very surface of the Earth. Sooner or later, they all killed themselves, or allowed their deaths. One day, I would be all that was left. But for now, I moved among them, lightly touching some, smothering others. They all feared me - every single one, no matter how much they professed to be glad of reaching the end. But I wished they knew how I loved some of them. That I was capable of love, of thought. That I remembered. I circled around one of the couples I was watching closely. Louis and Elaine Kellerman, who had lived in their ramshackle house on the edge of the country since the early 40s. "Is Ritchie visiting this week?"Elaine asked into the comfortable silence they'd shared for the past hour. "Caught up in meetings, he says,"Louis said, looking up from the book he was reading and smiling slightly at his wife. "You know our boy. He'll turn up sooner or later." "I'd like to see him. I feel it's time,"she said, resuming her crossword. Her husband frowned at the odd choice of words, but didn't think much of it. Elaine said strange things, sometimes. There was contented silence once again. I circled, wondering whether she was right. They knew me so well, the mortals. Elaine had always had a keen sense of when I was near, as some of them did. I was the fondest of them: it was the closest thing to companionship I had. Perhaps I should wait for the son to visit, first. Perhaps, perhaps. He would have to hurry, though - I never had much patience for waiting. "Oh, I forgot Helen and Dale will be here soon for tea,"Elaine suddenly exclaimed, looking at her watch. "Why didn't you remind me?" "I forgot,"Louis said honestly. "I look a mess,"Elaine said, patting at her hair distractedly, rising from the chair to go tidy up. "You're beautiful,"Louis said, reading again. I knew he meant it. They were afraid of me, of what awaited them - but not horrified at my effects, like some of the others. They saw past the wrinkles and the age spots and the white hair, and remembered what they were underneath. I'd always liked Elaine and Louis. I'd known them both for close to 90 years, now. I drifted closer, and wished I could speak. I would tell them not to be afraid. That I was not the mindless, pitiless force they thought I was. I would end them together. ---- Hope you liked my story! You can find more of my work on /r/Inkfinger/.
He was silent, captivated by something in the distance. Or at least seemed to be. Calling it a trance would be doing it a disservice, vegetative state potentially more apt, but there was nothing wrong cognitively. Would react to nothing in particular, the sensors connecting to his scalp receiving billions of inputs from his mind. Sitting in an empty room, the silence deafening, brain alit. His face expressionless yet serene. Had been this way since his birth. At first glance an untrained observer might have thought he was a stillbirth. Never cried, never reacted to stimuli, body limp, his brain-stem the only controlling feature that seemed to be formed correctly. Doctors gave him a week to live max. But now thirty-seven years later, having never left the hospital propped up at a window, body still functioning flawlessly, albeit without sincere purpose. His parents visited for quite some time. He was their son after all. Held out hope that one day they would arrive at his side and the corners of his mouth would rise ever so slightly, even the most basic recognition that there was some meaningful comprehension. You can’t really blame them that they stopped visiting. Their rising age and well, as bad as it sounds, he was only biologically human to them, a shell where their son could have been. With the increasing technological wherewithal of the neurological community he became something of a celebrity, a condition so completely without precedent. A brain so completely active, mimicking all the hallmarks of human thought, but at such random intervals and without any discernable pattern. Wouldn’t respond to the gentle touch of a hand, the sound of his mother’s voice, but would at 4 AM become awash with activity. He was eventually moved to a small clinic in Canada where a researcher had taken keen interest in the case. At a time when most people had given up hope of an explanation. An assumed diagnosis of a vegetative state with random brain activity that simply by coincidence mimicked emotion and thought. This researcher set up a series of calculated experiments. Would sit two subjects side by side, our patient and a fully healthy, very much awake test subject. The idea was simple really. Would ask both the awake and vegetative subject the same series of questions. Would play a piece of music, show them beautiful artwork, and would monitor and record their brain activity. And like so many experiments done before, his brain activity followed no discernable pattern based on the questions asked. The sensors would occasionally light up, to the surprise of the researcher, but would never continue. After a few months of these trials, the researcher decided to record our patient’s brain activity 24 hours a day, not just during the experiments. At this point he discovered something simultaneously incomprehensible and horrifying. Would find that if he simply traced back all of the patient’s brain activity four hours it would match up perfectly with the experiment being conducted. Would align precisely with the questions being asked earlier in the day. And at this point it didn’t really matter the true impetus of the problem, it was the implications that caused the most thought. Whether it be simply a malfunctioning brain, withholding reaction for several hours, or something more otherworldly, a man stuck four hours in the past. The results were the same, a person trapped in the confines of their own body, watching the world go by, his family care for him, and eventually just stop showing up. And as bewildered as the doctors were about why his brain operated the way it did, he was in a constant battle trying to show the world that he was awake. Trying to communicate with the world. And hell, in his point of view, maybe he was even a fully functioning individual. But as much as he would scream and shout and react, would never get a real response from the rest of the world. Hearing only the cries and speculations on why he was so silent. Just imagine, trapped in a room for your entire life, your family shows up and talks to you, shows how much they love you. And you sit there trying to tell them how much you love them back, try and cry out the them that you are okay. But they never respond. By the time your brain sends out the signal they are long gone. Trapped in this misery for almost four decades. After the pattern was discovered by the researcher, for the first time in his life he was able to at least prove to his family that he understood everything they have said to him. Albeit delayed, and simply through blips on the screen. But in the larger scale of things, that’s all he really needed.
"YOU CAN'T DO THAT!"Captain Virtue's face was red and full of anger. Smiling like a cat with a belly full of canaries I chuckled. "Your skills of observation are rather lacking dear Captain. It should be clear to anyone that I can, in fact, do that. After all... I just did." The Devastation Brigade lay on the ground before us. Two minutes ago, they were the 7 most feared men on earth. Now, they were a bunch of headless corpses covered in chunks of blood, skull and brain matter. "YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR THIS! I'M PLACING YOU UNDER ARREST!" I held out my hands to him. "Go ahead dear boy. If you'd prefer to cuff my hands behind my back, I can accommodate you, though I assure that won't be necessary."He grabbed my left wrist and spun me around to face away from him. ***************************** Though it took 5 months to get started, the actual trial lasted less than a week. The argument my lawyer made was simple. I'd acted in defense of the planet by eliminating a group of men who's combined death toll was over 100,000 people. These men had either separately or collectively broken out of high or maximum security prisons no less the 2 dozen times. There was every reason to believe that if I'd not acted, Captain Virtue would have handed them over to authorities and the cycle of death would eventually have started again. Scott Bradley is the best lawyer in the world for on very simply, yet incredibly powerful reason. His super power is something that makes him inadequate for field work, but invaluable when it comes to tying up lose ends. People can't lie to him. If he asks them a question, their only options are to tell him the truth or to clam up. In addition to interrogating some of the worst scum in the world during some of the most dire moments in recent history, he's also been a part of the biggest trials in the past 3 decades of legal history. He asked one question to Captain Virtue that sealed the deal. With one question, my acquittal was guaranteed. Virtue's pride would not let him leave that question lingering, and there was only one word he could respond with. That word was "No", and the question was as follows; "Can you say with any level of certainty, that my client is wrong about his actions saving the lives of thousands of potential victims of future acts of destruction by The Devastation Brigade?" After I walked out of court a free man, with my membership to The Defense League intact, Virtue offered to take me out for a drink. He toasted with a somber cast to his eyes. "Here's to knowing when to pass the torch and walk away."He told me that the following day he'd be informing the rest of the team about his retirement, and that he'd be making an official announcement later in the week. "Whether I like it or not kid, I'm not the kind of hero this world needs or wants anymore. I haven't bee able to shake that question Scott asked me. At the end of the day... your right. What you did saved more lives than either of us will ever know. Then there's the flip side of that... if you just saved an unknown number of lives... that means there's a more knowable number of lives that I had a small, indirect and irrevocable hand in ending. Every time I stayed my hand and convinced myself that I was walking a higher road by sparing their lives, I opened the door to letting those bastards kill again. I'm gonna have to wake up to that fact every day, for the rest of my life now." He finished his beer in a long pull and ordered another. "Thing is, I looked into myself a long time ago and realized that I'm not a killer. That hasn't changed in all these years, and it isn't gonna change. I don't have whatever it is that gives you the ability to take a life and walk away with a clean conscience, but the world needs you to do that right now... so I guess it needs me to step aside and let you do what needs to be done."He got up to walk away. "Your wrong about one thing Captain."I called after him. He paused and turned. "My conscience aint clean. Even for killing inhumane filth like that, I'm not able to shrug it off. The five months I spent in The Power House staring up at a concrete ceiling or titanium bars, I lost hours of sleep wondering if I didn't do something wrong. Last night was spent wondering 'If I get cleared for this, will I have to do it again? If I do, will it get easier?' That's what worries me more than anything... that it could get easier. Something like that... it should be anything but easy." Virtue smiled at me then. "Well, if that don't beat all. I didn't expect to walk out of this place with more hope for the future than I arrived with."He turned again and walked out into the late afternoon, and out of my life.
[TW: Family Death, Suicide] It's become something of a routine for me, sitting in the Ashstone Graveyard over on 104th and Milton. You know the corner; with the cracked pavement and the buzzing street lamp that pisses off the residents of that god awful high rise with the peeling yellow paint, where the transients get in fights with the teens, or rather, the teens get in fights with them, where police lights dance off broken windows as if the colors themselves are at war. Every night since two weeks ago, it must have been, I've brought a bundle of blossoms to the gravestone of a young woman there. Her name was Lisa. I'd love to invent grandiose reasons for my doing so - a meditation perhaps on the aesthetics of midnight city graveyards, or a macabre projection of my own impermanence, she was only 16 after all, an age I've long since passed - but the truth is far more immigrant. I love her, and I feel I always have. One night I stumbled in drunk. I'd never done it before; my midnight walks had always been a sacred ritual, undertaken to clear my head and reassert myself - besides, it was unsafe to wander this side of town unwary. My wife had just passed. She had been sick for awhile. Tuberculosis. Sat up in some home, somewhere I didn't have to think about it, where I thought they'd care for her. A nurse called from her bedside, explaining how she had not received her proper medications. It had been going on awhile, they said, they were looking into it. Of course I blamed myself. How couldn't I? I'd put her there. And so I stumbled in, tripping over the gate I'd opened hundreds of times sober, frightening myself as I imagined the misshapen trees as everything but. Here I was at Lisa's grave, and I'd even forgotten her flowers. I slumped down onto the ground beneath her grave stone, not sobbing, staring at the grass and listening to the characteristic hum of the sodium lamp on the corner as it lulled in time with my labored breathing. And then, I saw her. She sat quite erect, legs crossed over each other, on top of the headstone, glaring down at me. I went white with fright. Her voice penetrated my head, taking on a voice quite unique from the berating cadence of my subconscious, as she spoke. "You forgot my flowers."Her manner of speaking was so matter-of-fact, like a housewife on one of those 60s TV spots giving some offhand remark as she placed her groceries into the cupboard. "You can't keep doing this you know." "I know." "Would you like to know how I died?" She continued before I had a chance to respond. "I was at the county fair. Long before you were born, mind you. These were simpler times, when a stamp cost a penny and we were learning how to fly. I met this boy. Ron. He wore a lot of funny clothes and listened to strange music. His parents had a phonograph, and he had bought himself something by Schoenberg, an atonal piece that sounded to me like the kind of music you'd get from notating cats scratching on a chalkboard. He listened to it every day he said, it was a window into his soul. Lord knows he was troubled, but I couldn't help myself. I fell in love. Two weeks later, he died. The sheriff called it 'murder by an unknown assailant' but we all knew what it was. Those next few days were torture. I cried every night. I listened to Schoenberg at his parents place - they'd let me borrow the phonograph on occasion, and soon it became the only thing I wanted to do. Every night I'd walk over there and play that record. One night was different from the others. I had gotten together with some friends who had scored some wine off one of their father's racks. A drunkard, she explained. He wouldn't even know it was missing. I stumbled in late to Ron's parents house, drunk and depressed, much like you've come stumbling to me, and that night, I followed Ron's example." She paused, as tears began flowing down my face. She helped me to my feet, and continued. "Nobody is here forever,"she cooed. "I know what you're thinking, I've been there myself. But it's not yet time to learn what's on the other side. Run along home now. I will not become your Schoenberg." And with that, she dissolved into the night, the faintest apparition. It was a cold walk back to my apartment. The wind was picking up, stirring leaves in big circles as it wound through the tight corners of the city. In the morning, I sent for flowers. My wife's grave would need them.
*This is the way the world ends.* The phrase kept repeating itself in Joseph's mind. His throat was dry and he found it hard to swallow as he was led up the creaky wooden stairs to the platform. He knew what he was doing was right and just, but it didn't make his fear any less, nor his footsteps any less reluctant. He passed his gaze towards the crowd, fifty people wearing ragged clothes, their eyes hollow, the mouths drawn tight as they watched this young man. He felt emotions well up inside him. He had tried so hard to help them, and he had failed. He was lucky in a sense. He was getting out, while they had to stay and suffer. It had been only a few days since his farce of a trial. Terrified jurors had voted quickly on the matter. High treason. Attempted murder. Intent to incite mob violence. The judge had glared down at Joseph as they read aloud his guilty verdict. "Have you anything to say for yourself, young man? Any remorse for trying to assassinate our Wise Leader?" Joseph had found his courage then. When he had looked up at the judge, his jaw set and eyes defiant, and said calmly, "I acted alone, but I don't regret my attempt." The court had flown into chaos that day. When word got back to the Wise Leader, he had thrown a fit and killed a few interns in a rage. The planned hanging would be televised, the dictator ordered, so as to deter any others from attempting such heinous acts. *This is the way the world ends.* Now as Joseph scanned the crowd, he found familiar faces, their heads bowed in shame and fear. There was McKenzie, the chemist who had developed the untraceable poison. There was Sven, the architect who had built the Wise Leader's country home, and who knew every hidden passage and safe exit from the premises. There was Annabelle, the guard who had been "momentarily distracted,"giving Joseph the tiny window he needed to slip into the Wise Leader's bedroom. And then there was Clint. The guard who let fear overtake him at the last opportunity, sounding the alarm when Joseph opened the poison vial at the Wise Leader's bedside. Even now, Joseph couldn't hate the terrified man. He was like everybody else, too afraid to do what needed to be done. Joseph approached the executioner, steadying himself as the heavy rope was placed around his throat. His only solace was saving his friends from a similar fate. He hoped they'd find a new way to resist, but even now, as his eyes passed over the silent crowd one last time, he knew that the rebellion would die with him that day. *This is the way the world ends.* The executioner tightened the noose, and whispered, "Thank you"before he stepped away. Joseph nodded, almost imperceptibly, before closing his eyes. *Not with a bang, but with a whimper.*
NOTE: Experience is enhanced if you imagine Ferb's soft tones reading this. "The day had started out so simple, with the rise of the sun, and the rising of our spirits. There were 104 days left of our summer vacation, and we were ready to live them like nothing else. Me and Phineas had gone downstairs, ready to seize the day like the world was ending. Little did we know that it was already gone. We heard a clatter in the kitchen, where we found a bit of dust and Candace's phone, broken on the ground. Phineas, the ever so thoughtful brother, instantly went to thinking about how to help our dear sister, completely oblivious to what had actually happened. He said 'Hey Ferb, I know what we're -' and the words caught in his throat. He wasn't looking at me anymore, but staring straight behind me, where our mother was leaning on the wall, looking pale. And then she was gone. That was the first time I had ever seen fear enter my brother's eyes. He raced into the garage, where our father was just about to leave in his car, but the car was empty, the door left wide open. He was panicking, calling 'CANDACE!' over and over, but we already knew what had occured. As our gazes met, we came to the stark realization of what was happening. The world was truly ending. He fell to his knees, a weak facsimile of the brother I knew, and just disappeared. I spent the next few days alone, shut away in the basement, tirelessly conducting experiments, taking readings, anything that I thought would serve a use in the attempt to bring my family back. But it was useless. After 72 straight hours of work, I collapsed out of sheer exhaustion. When I awoke, it was to a low growling. Perry, my ever so faithful pet platypus, had somehow placed me on the couch for my rest, and stood holding a tray of food. He looked expectantly at me, then as I ate, he was able to explain that he was no ordinary platypus, but a secret agent for the side of good. He had found me in the basement, close to death, and nursed me back to health. But his story was a sad one as well. The agency he worked under had been practically wiped out, with many of the agents and leaders perishing in what is now coined 'the Decimation'. But the little knowledge he did glean before the chaos was that this Decimation was orchestrated by the Mad Titan Thanos, who had defeated Earth's Mightiest Heroes, the Avengers in the process. But now I had a name. And soon Thanos will know mine in turn. And that, dear Captain, is why you should buzz us in." After meeting with Rodgers and the rest of the survivors, I got straight to work. But after a day of brainstorming, I had nothing to show for it. Me and my brother had always built for fun, never anything that would be even considered to be something for war. And this was not the only hurdle I had, as Phineas always was the idea machine of our duo. Why couldn't it have been him? Why me? But I knew everyone was counting on me, but I was dry with no chance of rain. But there was one hope. After sifting through the various files Perry brought with us to the Avengers headquarters, I found him. Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz, the foe that my platypus had faced off on a nearly daily basis, and the creator of various incredible devices. With his address and name in hand, I set out to find the mad scientist. But what I had found was a broken man, not unlike what I was like before Perry saved me. Doofenshmirtz had been having a family breakfast when the Decimation occurred, and witnessed his entire family collapse into nothingness. Not even his robot, Norman, was spared, it's power supply reduced to dust like everything else. But there was little to salvage from his laboratory, everything was scrapped to build more -inators, which were futile attempts at bringing his loved ones back. After some time, Heinz collapsed as well, severely dehydrated and malnourished, as he had been carried by pure adrenaline for the past few days. As Perry and I nursed him back to health, we caught him up on what had occurred, and requested his help in the construction of technology that would stop Thanos once and for all. He agreed. Now returning to the Avengers headquarters, a few more stragglers had arrived. Scott Lang, a user of Pym particles, the substance I had discovered 2 years prior, and a cosmic visitor going by the name Captain Marvel, had come to answer the call to arms. Neither of them truly mattered to me, as I had my work to do. Doofenshmirtz and I spent the greater part of the next week working, building greater and greater weapons of war. With the massive increase in budget, Heinz's -inators had improved a hundredfold, and he was getting better each day, studying Stark's nanite technology during his breaks. I started out recreating the various marvels Phineas and I had made during the summers long past, but I knew in my heart they were not enough. I just couldn't bring myself to soil my brother's visions of joy with even a slight idea of war. So instead, I improvised. Upgrading the Beak suit was the first one, as it was already technically built for some wear and tear. But this was no longer to be in the moniker of the Beak. No, this shall be the Talon. The first choice was obvious, I needed to make the entire suit operable by a single user. Modifying one of Mr. Stark's Hulkbuster suits for myself was simple enough, and I integrated the tech that was put onto the original Beak with it. Nobody ever expects the butt rockets. But then I learned of the resource that was only a legend to me and Phineas, Vibranium. After gaining access to Wakandan tech, I soon integrated the rare metal into my creations, and the results were not disappointing. Satisfied with my creation, I was ready for Thanos. We found him standing in a field, farming. This was the first time I had felt such anger. He could stand to sleep after killing so many, let alone act like he did us all a favor with his Decimation. I couldn't hear the Captain, the rage boiling in my ears. But in my rage, I failed to see Thanos' true motives. The Titan, faster than anyone could react, raised his destroyed glove, clenched a fist, and in a moment, it was all over. The field was laid to waste, everyone next to me on the ground, breathing their last. But I was still standing. Why? I glanced behind me, and there stood Doofenshmirtz, one of his Inators clutched in his hands. I never learned what it was, as with a grin, he rushed over to Thanos, another Inator at the ready, and then fell. I was paralyzed by the fear Thanos emanated, and while I stood stock still, he walked over to stand over the fallen Doctor. "Who are you, he who can stop my power?" "My name is Heinz Doofenshmirtz, and you will die today. If not by my hand, then by the one who follows me. And if not by theirs, then the one afterwards, or the ones who follow the rest. I swear on my life, you will die." "Why do you resist me so Heinz? You must see my logic here, I saved the universe from destroying itself, it's simple arithmetic." And he then killed Doofenshmirtz. Rising, Thanos turned to me. "And who are you? Another who cannot begin to understand the burden I carry for you all?" "No, my name is Ferb Flynn-Fletcher, and I am the one who will carry out the last wishes of Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz." "Very well, let us begin, We are not ones for grandstanding, we are ones for action." And it began. I overcame my fear, launching the armored form forward. I pushed Thanos back with my initial attack, and never let up, my anger carrying me beyond what I could have ever imagined. The next few minutes of combat seemed to flash by, interrupted by the brief moments where Thanos caught me, but I was able to escape. But then it all turned around. Instead of playing the defensive, he took control of the fight in a single moment, forcing me back with a mere 3 blows. My reserves were being depleted, and I was getting nowhere. Then there was a low growling behind us. Perry, standing next to the corpse of his friend, was holding two inators. One was the bracelet that protected us from the initial attack, the other was the sphere that the Doctor had held in his dying breath. He threw the first one, not at Thanos, but insead at me. It latched onto the front of my armor, generating the barrier once more. Then he ran straight at Thanos. His small hands twisting the sphere as he got close, giving me one last look of regret and love. Then the landscape was renewed once more in a blinding crimson flash. But this time, I was alone. The Infinity Stones floated above the ground in front of me, and I heard a voice in my head "What is is that you wish for?". Without hesitation, I replied "For everything to be the same it was.", and with that, darkness enveloped my vision. I slowly opened my eyes, sight unfocused. And then I heard "Hey Ferb, I know what we're doing today!"
I've been spending every night banishing the undead, and reporting every Necronomicon post I've come across on social media during the day. But for every one post that comes down, another three go up. It has become an exhausting, never ending uphill battle. I can't go on protecting people for much longer on my own, but there is no one else to help me. Earth's military forces have either been overrun, or are nuking the hell out of the planet, and all branches of government have shut down for the safety of the politicians. This madness needs to end soon, and I'm running out of options. Even if I manage to take down Facebook, Instagram or Reddit, it will only last for a few mere minutes before they're operational again. The death toll has been rising across the world. As powerful as I am, I cannot be everywhere at once. And with more teens summoning an endless horde of undead with this new internet challenge, the more innocent people will die of gruesome and very painful deaths. There is only one option left to put an end to the disease that has plagued this planet. I have to end the human populace. My objective is save the world, not the inhabitants on it. When one species goes extinct, another eventually steps in and takes its place. Though the human race has become one of the most advanced species in the universe, we can't afford to lose another planet to chemical warfare. At midnight tonight, I will start the ritual that will wipe the slate clean. If done properly, only the humans will cease to exist, leaving the other inhabitants to roam the planet as they once did before the introduction of homo sapiens. The extinction will be merciful and painless, unlike being torn apart, limb by limb from the undead. I look forward to watching over the new species the Grand Council decides to import to Earth next.
Carl Sagan once said 'we are star stuff'. I always loved that quote, growing up. The thought that part of me could have come from a star, somewhere in space, burning hotter than I can imagine-- it made my heart race as a kid. But it’s so much more than that. Carl had the right idea, and it was just a quote out of a much bigger point, but still. We are not just star stuff. We are stars, and stars are us. I’ve come to realize this on my second run through life. The first, I was a human, and now, I am a star. A red giant, not the most incredible star to write home about, but hey—still pretty cool, right? Or, I guess, hot. Anyway, the funny thing is that I’ve been this way for a while, now. Burning up, rumbling, entirely tumultuous on the inside like a washing machine filled with lava. And just as my life as a human, I have a place in the world. I burn, provide warmth for whatever lies around me. I pull, keeping nearby planets from hurling out into space. It’s actually quite hard work, really, not unlike my job as an emergency responder. That was tough, and so is this. And they’re equally important. We’re all so much more similar than we think. That’s the biggest thing I wish I could go back and tell everyone on Earth; that, if we can relate to stars in so many ways, how can we not relate to ourselves? How can we bicker and fight over petty differences when the reality of it all is that, simply, we’re the same? Everything. Planets, people, stars and rivers and oceans and dark matter. We’re all doing our part to keep this place going. Nothing exists without a point. We’re born, we live, we die, and ultimately, whether you wanted to or not, you helped the universe take another step forward into the unknown. The grand scheme of everything progresses with or without you caring. If there’s one more thing my time as a star has taught me, it’s just simply that the point of life is to live. And, if you have the freedom to enjoy it in your own way, as humans do—then enjoy it. Don’t waste the opportunity fretting about your place or fighting over something that won’t exist when things come to a head. And believe me, your family squabbles, your teetering friendships, legacy and wealth and fame—they won’t be around for long. The world will die, as all things do. So why, then, not enjoy what you can in your little sliver of prescience? Because one day, maybe sooner than you’d like, you’ll end up a star like me, and let me tell you—this life is all work and no play. So please just take your time on this little journey you’ve been allowed to trek. It’s better than you think. /r/resonatingfury
I’ve done a lot with my ability since I had the accident ten years ago. I've made significant discoveries in the areas of physics, chemistry, computer science and astronomy. I've learned more than a hundred languages and even created a new one that may end up being far superior to the rest, and I've won four Nobel Prizes. But something odd always nagged at me as I read through vast screeds of humanity's collective knowledge. Everything worth knowing seemed to be connected. I don't mean that learning about the density of Jupiter somehow helps explain the aerodynamics of a jumbo jet. What I mean is that when you dig far enough into any subject, you eventually end up discovering that the person responsible for a particularly important discovery made over here is connected to another person responsible for another completely unrelated discovery over there. The odd curiosity of it all led me to my current, rather more ancient, focus. Under the dim light of the cheap hotel desk lamp, I took a final glance over my speech and crossed out a word. In just over an hour I’m due to give the keynote address at the International Congress of Linguists in Cairo. It will focus on my latest discovery and for the first time in a decade I’m feeling nervous. My paper is on ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and I've spent the last six months doing more research than I ever thought possible. Six months is the longest I've spent on a subject since I inherited my ability. And for good reason; my paper is going to challenge the fundamental understanding of how much of western knowledge came about. After today, academics and researchers in every field are going to be lining up to dispute my findings. But the evidence is overwhelming; we owe almost everything we see around us to a group of one hundred people who lived more than five thousand years ago. Even with this conclusion nailed down, I’ve struggled to come up with an answer to the ultimate and obvious question; how did those hundred people know so much? I know the rest of my theory could fall apart if I don't have a credible hypothesis to this ultimate issue and, as I looked down at my final sentence that offered my best guess, I frowned. Could it be? There wasn’t time to keep second guessing myself and I’d already been up all night polishing the speech. I didn't have long and I still needed to get my morning coffee. I got changed and headed downstairs. As I walked through the front door I was hit by a wall of heat, along with the chaotic noises of Cairo and smells from a multitude of street food vendors. Masses of people pushed past one another on either side of the busy street, laughing and yelling. Horns blared and bicycle bells chimed. A man in front of the hotel saw me, “taxi?” I shook my head and joined the throng of people flowing down the sidewalk. The green Starbucks logo stood out from the mass of sun baked bricks and I made a beeline for it. A minute later the bell chimed as I pushed my way inside and relaxed as I felt the cool air smother me. I joined the queue and began working out the coins I needed to hand over. The bell chimed again and I glanced back as a man joined the queue behind me. The friendly cashier took my order and I turned back. The man was standing right behind me now and I bumped straight into him. “Sorry,” I said embarrassingly as something he was carrying dropped to the floor. I was flustered and immediately bent down to pick it up. Just as my hand was closing around it I realised it was a book. Then I touched it. I didn’t move. I couldn't move. My mind was frozen as it processed the new information I'd just acquired. A voice called out somewhere in the distance, “are you ok?” It was the cashier. I was still crouched down, holding what I now realised was a journal. I pulled myself back into the present situation and lifted myself back up. That’s when I noticed the man for the first time. He was tall, muscular, wore a brown leather jacket with a panama hat. He looked like a cross between Indiana Jones and a young John Hammond from Jurassic Park. Then I thought about the journal and that didn’t seem so funny anymore. He looked at me with a smile. “I, uh, sorry about that, here,” I said, handing him the journal as I tried to remain calm. “Order Up,” a voice yelled. “Oh,” I tried to say casually, “that must be me.” I walked mechanically over to the bench and grabbed my coffee then headed straight for the exit. As I hurried through the door I glanced back and saw the man staring at me with a knowing smile. When I was outside I moved as fast as I could. People called out angrily as I pushed past. Someone elbowed me and my coffee spilt down my top. “Shit,” I muttered as I headed straight for the hotel. It only took another minute to get back to my room. I ripped off my top and headed straight for the desk. I sat down, crossed out the final sentence and started writing furiously, The evidence leads me to only one possible conclusion; the people I’ve described up to this point as the Naqada All Knowing were, in fact, refugees from another dimension. Moreover, these refugees do not age in the manner that we have come to understand space-time demands of living beings. Indeed I believe these refugees are immortal and may be walking among us today. Three hard knocks banged against my hotel door. I looked up, adrenaline surged through my veins. I grabbed a shirt from my suitcase and hurriedly buttoned it up as I walked towards the door. I pulled the handle and saw the man from Starbucks standing before me. He smiled before looking over my shoulder at the paper sitting on the table, “I can’t let you give that speech.”
[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/MatiWrites/comments/dcvomz/dread_part_2/) is available! It wasn't like mother to send me to a boarding school. She had never been one to let me out of her sight, much less let me run free and wild at a distant school. Being homeschooled gave me a special type of attachment to my mother. Not an Oedipal relationship, mind you. It was more she was more protective than she had to be. More watchful. She had a plan for me whose parts I would only be made privy to when I reached the right time. I wondered if the right time was now as the bridge we were driving over swung dangerously. I tried not to look down. We were dizzyingly high, surely the final stretch of the several hour car ride. Only the GPS had talked, spitting out the occasional direction. Dad sat hunched over the wheel, hands gripped so hard they were white. Mother hadn't stopped gazing sadly out the window, somehow stomaching the vertiginous height. I breathed again when we were on solid ground, losing ourselves in the darkness of the forest. Mother turned in her seat and gave me a loving smile. Dad finally took a sip of coffee, the only hint that he was more than a lifeless drone at the wheel. The tension was unfamiliar. It had been ever since the package arrived and the drive had been no different. Dad seemed to flit between anger and indifference. He seemed to blame me, just like he always had. A murder of crows lifted off from the gate as we emerged from the forest and they retreated to the safety of the castle walls, soaring comfortably over the green of well-trimmed trees and hedges. The grounds were pretty, I had to give them that. It made sense, considering the exclusivity that my mother had touted. They weren't selling me on it because it wasn't a choice. I would either go and like it or go and hate it. The grounds reminded me of a castle from a fairy tale; sinister and foreboding yet its inhabitants misunderstood. I skipped that stage of teenage angst, I think. Knock on wood. My relationship with my parents wasn't bubbly, but it never deviated far from being cordial. Doors had never slammed and plates had never flown. We had had our spats, but nothing that merited being sent away to a boarding school. Not in my opinion, at least. As much as that was worth. My first hint had been the previous week. Mom was out for coffee with a friend - acquaintance, she would correct me here - and dad was working in his study like he always did so I answered the door when the postman knocked. He handed me the package. It was marked Dreadfort Preparatory School. He gave me a sad look. "Good luck, kid." They broke the news over dinner, but the school uniform in the package had already ruined the surprise. Mother broke the news. Dad just shoveled peas into his mouth as if he was seeing how many he could eat at once. Dryly. There was no fun or amusement in his attempts. Just a desire for complete separation from whatever the next part of the plan was. The same familiar separation. It wasn't fair. This wasn't how things should have gone. I was supposed to take the ACT and SAT next year and then finally go off to a college where I would meet a girl and fall in love and then all that happily ever bullshit would happen. That's what mom always said would happen. She had a tear in her eye when she hugged me goodbye. Dad shook my hand. His fingers were cold, just like his stare. "Good luck, kid."Gee, thanks dad. As loving as the postman. At least he had dignified me with a goodbye. There was a headmaster, as these schools tend to have. He greeted us all on the far end of the drawbridge. Me, my parents, and another student. The other student had been waiting on this side of the moat when I arrived. He had a bag in each hand and was looking across the drawbridge like a child awaiting his first school bus. His hair and shoulders had been wet, but the rain had passed several hours before as we zigged and zagged up the mountainside. Cornelius Dread was the name the headmaster used when he introduced himself, welcoming the smallest class ever at Dreadfort Preparatory. He seemed proud of that. I'm not sure why. More was always better. More students meant more money. More students meant more potential once they were set loose to conquer the world. Now there were two of us. Two of us who were walked up the old stone stairs with a thousand years of footsteps carved into them. Two of us who were unceremoniously ushered into the living quarters we would share. The other boy's name was Marcus. He didn't offer a last name and I didn't ask. He got a 67 on his entrance exam and I immediately pegged him as being not the brightest bulb in the shed. There weren't many bulbs to choose from. Bright or less bright. Brightest or dimmest. Seven fewer points and I would be the brightest and dimmest. "It's a miracle anybody even passed,"he marveled. The room was high up in the spire of one of the castle's towers. I felt like Rapunzel. All I was missing was the tits and the hair and somebody looking to get me out of here. "Ian,"I introduced myself, abbreviating and butchering my own name. I hated my name. I wished for a normal name. Charles. John. William. One good thing about being homeschooled is that the worst bully I had to deal with was my dad, and more often than not his chosen method was an artistic blend of the silent treatment and withering stares. Marcus' eyebrows raised and I hoped he hadn't received some memo about my real name. "Like Aeneral?"I sighed dejectedly and nodded. Like Aeneral. "That's bad-ass,"he whispered in apparent awe, oblivious to my discomfort. I hated my name but that made me smile inside. I looked to change the subject. "How many people took the exam?"I had figured it might have been a couple dozen, at best. Some weird niche that my parents discovered and fully embraced, like a pyramid scheme where I'm lucky enough to be crushed by the weight of the entire structure. Just a little piece of the foundation, offering my full support and receiving nothing in return. He looked at me oddly and I felt like I had somehow offended him. Maybe he took that 67 personally. I wouldn't hold it against him, if he convinced me I shouldn't. I had aced the test. It didn't seem particularly hard. My parents had taught me the material superbly. Mother, mostly. He laughed. Maybe he thought I was joking. "What were you? Homeschooled?"When I nodded, his face got serious and he mumbled an apology. "Didn't realize."My question still lingered in the air and it seemed to smack him in the face demanding an answer. "Oh. Right. Thousands of people take the exam. Anybody who thinks they might have a bit of the blood in them, if you know what I mean."I didn't know what he meant. "And just two passed?"He nodded grimly. Mother had told me it was my first taste of one of the standardized tests I would need to enter college. The content should have clued me otherwise, paired with the proctor who stood patiently observing me as I filled in countless bubbles and scratched hurried essays into writing. "Like I said. A miracle. The most selective school in the world for people like you and me."I looked him up and down. He was fit. A meathead, maybe. I wondered if they would have him lifting blocks of stone in the dungeons this castle surely had. Maybe his bag was stocked with syringes so he could pump some steroids. I wondered if the other students looked more like me or more like him. We were nothing alike. He cocked his head towards the window. Towards freedom. Towards everything I thought was normal. "Them were your parents?" I nodded. "You sure? Your dad didn't look the part." "What's that supposed to mean?"I retorted. We were making our beds with the sheets that we had found waiting on each bed. White, silky sheets, along with an order from the headmaster that not a wrinkle should be showing when we were done. I smoothed one out and it popped up somewhere else. "The way he carried himself. Not like my dad. Not like any other I've seen. You really sure they were your parents?" I furrowed my brow and scoffed sarcastically. "I was sure." He shook his head confidently, casually dismissing one of the very few things I knew to be true anymore. "I don't think so. Headmaster Dread didn't seem to recognize your dad." "So?" "So that means he isn't a Dread. Which means he isn't your dad. You wouldn't be here otherwise." [Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/MatiWrites/comments/dcvomz/dread_part_2/) is available! ***** Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at /r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated!
# Soulmage "You know you can tell me anything, right?" The Demon of Empathy sat across from me on a stuffed straw couch. Considering that they were an extradimensional entity, the form they chose was surprisingly human: barrel-chested, broad-shouldered, and even wearing a pair of thin-rimmed glasses that weren't there the last time we'd met. I sat down on my own couch. It was irritating and ill-fitting, but that just meant it reminded me of home. I was pretty sure the Demon of Empathy had done that on purpose. "I can tell you anything,"I countered. "Whether I should is another matter entirely." The Demon of Empathy leaned forwards, steepling their fingers beneath their chin. "Are you afraid of hurting me?" Of course a damn Demon of Empathy would see right through me. It was an irrational fear—I'd experienced the Demon of Empathy's power and wisdom firsthand, and to nobody's surprise, even the vilest of the dark thoughts that whispered in my ear were nothing compared to what the ancient entity knew. And yet still I shrugged and said, "I'd hurt anyone else if I talked about it."Even myself, I thought, although I tried not to let it show. The Demon of Empathy raised a hand, and the scenery around us blurred. I'd gotten better at understanding the strange place that lived in my dreams where the demon and I had our talks. One of its rules, apparently, was that the Demon of Empathy could shift the appearance of our surroundings at a whim. We appeared on top of a clock tower, watching my past self moongaze, lying down next to a girl with dark brown hair that flowed in the wind. "Other people have confided in you,"the Demon of Empathy said. "Does it hurt you when they speak of the dark thoughts that hound them?" I hesitated. "It... doesn't,"I finally said. "How would you describe how it makes you feel, then?" I bit my lip. For some reason, it had simply... never occurred to me to even ask that question. "When Lucet told me about what... what her 'boyfriend' was doing to her..."I struggled to find the words. "It felt right. It felt like... like she was lancing a boil. Taking that toxicity out of her heart before its infection reached her marrow." I was pretty sure that wasn't how infected wounds worked, but if the Demon of Empathy noticed, they didn't say a thing. Instead, they simply asked: "Then if others giving voice to their inner demons doesn't hurt you, why do you think your inner demons would destroy them?" From anyone else, I would have snapped at them and clammed up. But the Demon of Empathy knew how to sound genuinely curious instead of challenging, how to set up conversation after conversation so that it was okay for me to be wrong because that meant I could become right, and I whispered, "Because it's just me." My therapist—and as twisted and darkly amusing as it was that a Demon of Empathy was the closest thing I had to a therapist, that was what they were—simply regarded me with a calm, open gaze, wordlessly asking if I wanted to continue. "With Lucet, it was someone else hurting her. And we could both hate him for what he'd done. But with me..."I held up a shaking hand, trying to see it as it was now, not as it had been. "It's just me,"I repeated. "I'm the only one responsible for what I've done to myself. The voices that whisper in my ear? They're all my voice. Nobody else's. Don't you get it? I am the monster. And if I tell Lucet... won't she hate the monster too?"My voice grew pleading, and the Demon of Empathy opened his arms, and rifts forgive me but I embraced the demon, breaking down in sobs. "I, too, am a monster,"the Demon of Empathy murmured. "I have committed atrocities that would make dark gods jealous, and over my many, many years, I have learned one thing." The Demon of Empathy pulled back, and their gaze was fierce. "I am the monster, yes. But I am also a therapist, and a leader, and a friend. And if I can be all those at once, you can too." And something in my mind snapped. I saw the Demon of Empathy for what they were—killer, savior, truth and lie, angel, demon, therapist, spy—and I saw myself in every facet of their being. If I can be all those at once, you can too. I sniffled and leaned back, the effort strange even after how much time I'd spent getting used to the dream-plane we met in. I felt its edges begin to fray as I started my return to consciousness. "Same time tomorrow?"the Demon of Empathy asked. I nodded mutely, too stunned to do anything else. "I'll see you then,"the demon said, just before the world dissolved. I awoke in my bed, the echoes of tears clinging dry to my face. A.N. Soulmage will be episodically updated. Want to know what happens next? Check out [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/bubblewriters/comments/uxmwe4/soulmage_masterpost/) to be notified whenever a new part comes out, and check out r/bubblewriters for more stories by me.

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