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stringlengths 20
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timestamp[ns]date 2012-08-08 08:57:01
2022-12-31 14:34:19
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timestamp[ns]date 2012-08-08 08:06:24
2022-12-31 12:20:41
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int64 14
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[WP] Write a seemingly normal story, except for the last sentence, which makes the entire story creepy
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What a day. My boss has never been in such a bad mood. On top of the proposal due next week, I now have a rushed budget to get out by Friday. I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this up. Every morning I dread getting out of bed, and every night I dread the next morning. I put on the smile for my colleagues, I smile and nod when my boss demands something. It keeps on piling up. The only thing that gets me through the day is knowing my wife will be waiting for me when I get home. I pull in the drive way, open the front door to my house, and there she is. Right where I left her, hanging from the rafters.
|
"Daddy!" I hear my little girl giggle from upstairs. "Daddy look what I done!". She's my world - my beautiful girl of 6. Me and my wife adopted her as we couldn't have children of our own, but she might as well be our biological child; we're a very close family.
"In a minute, Anna!" I yell - "Show your mother and I'll be up once these cookies are finished!".
"Ooh cookies!" I hear her chime excitedly. "Are they the chocolate chip ones?"
"You'll see in a minute." I tell her, smiling to myself. It's the little things in life that really make me happy; uneventful days like these with the people I love the most. I plate up the cookies and leave them on the counter to cool, then begin to trudge upstairs to see Anna's creation - it's probably just a drawing again; Anna loves art, I tell her she can be an artist one day, but in all reality her drawings are average scribbles produced by a 6 year old and some crayons.
An unusual sickly scent fills the landing, and, as I make my way to Anna's room, I find a small doll on the floor leering at me. It has black hair and lifeless green eyes that unnerve me - I don't remember buying Anna this doll. I make my way into Anna's room and, to my horror, Anna gazes at me with the same lifeless green eyes and terrifying grin. Blood covers her small arms and new jumper my mother bought her yesterday, and my loving wife lays with her throat slit on the bed. Anna holds up a drawing painted in blood. It's a stickman, with a small figure - a doll - hysterically smiling behind him. It looks like it's holding something - a stick? No... A knife.
"Look, Daddy, I found a new way to paint. I painted you!"
| 2016-05-19T13:16:11
| 2016-05-19T13:10:57
| 25
| 16
|
[WP] Heaven is segregated by cause of death. All heart attacks together, all shark attacks together, etc. You die and appear in a nearly empty room. A tired old man looks up at you and says "Finally! Someone else! It's been ages!"
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“Finally! Someone else! It’s been ages!” Cried the slouching old man, hands raised to the skies, “Thank the gods! Op- not for how you died, of course.”
Stumbling back on the soft dirt of the expansive, lush green valley, Michael could only gape in utter disbelief. One minute he’s been walking along a popular hiking trial, the next he’d been submerged in vast darkness with only a pinprick of light to guide him. “Where the hell am I? What’s going on?”
“Why, you’ve just passed on and are now in heaven, with me. It was starting to get a little lonely here, you know?” The old man explained, slinging an arm around Michael’s shoulders. Staring into the man’s wrinkled face, his eyes expressed a kind of crazy that could only be brought about by years of isolation and talking to oneself.
“W-Wait, where is everybody then? And who the heck are you?”
“Who the- Who am I? Boy, you should very well know who I am! I am a writer, craftsman of endless amount of tales, the father of tragedies! Do they not teach you about my masterpieces?” The old man - ‘father of tragedies’ - exclaimed. “Buh! For shame. However, I am kind and can tell you what exactly is going on. You see, depending on how a person has died they will be segregated to an area dedicated to that death. Drownings, stabbings, disease - all together. To think I - the great Aeschylus - would suffer a fate none have ever befallen... Well, it sounded nice at first honestly. But I’ve soon found that loneliness to be a curse.”
“Wait... Aesch- oh my...” everythinng seemed so clear to Michael now, his hand now lifting to rub his bald head. He could recall the glorius cry of an eagle, as others stopped to admire the avian. Then, a large object flying towards him at impossible speeds as he heard cries and screams, and finally he saw darkness. “I can’t believe I got snipped by an eagle with a tortoise.”
|
You come to, disoriented and desperately searching for anything familiar when you hear a voice.
"Finally! Someone else! It's been ages!"
Your eyes lock on to an old man--well, not that old. No older than his late fifties by the look of him.
"You have no idea how long I've waited!" You could hear the emotion as his voice cracked. A thin film moistens his eyes.
"Where are we?", you ask. "What is this place?"
"You don't remember? You couldn't have possibly expected a stunt like that to work!"
And then a fragment comes rushing back. You were on a bicycle, pedaling as hard as you could, careening down a slope with a strong wind at your back. You recall cardboard wings fastened to the bike's frame.
"I guess I didn't make it across then..."
"It was over 300 feet wide! Of course you didn't make it! Only two people in all of history have been dumb or crazy enough to try!" After a moments pause, he adds, "I've had a long time to think about it. I think it might just be possible, but it will take both of us. I think if we make it across, this nightmare will end. Something about unfinished business."
Suddenly the space around you comes into focus. You're standing on the edge of a massive canyon, wispy grass in all directions and a steep slope running several hundred feet in the distance. A shoddy plywood ramp is anchored at the cliff face. And there are two bicycles. You aren't quite sure why, but you feel a ring of truth to the old man's words. You'll be stuck here until you make that jump on that bicycle. As the panic threatens to overwhelm you, you calm your nerves with a deep breath. You sure have your work cut out for you. "Alright. Let's get this over with then. What's your plan?"
| 2021-11-24T12:25:38
| 2021-11-24T12:11:36
| 1,290
| 179
|
[WP] Your parents insist you are their biological child, but you suspect otherwise. You send samples from yourself, your parents, and siblings to a lab be tested. The lab replies that it is not equipped to test non-human DNA...
|
I should have known, i wasnt like them, i didnt even look like them. They call me their baby, but they dont seem to understand me. They are hairless and i have fur all over my body. They walk on two legs and i on four. I should have know, that all this time, i wasnt one of them. The only thing left for me is to hump their legs in agony.
|
I panic at the words in bold. **Non-human DNA**. "What did that mean?" I mutter to myself. Suddenly, a wind came from behind. I turn to see a man in business suit standing where no one was before.
"Aw, about time you found out." The man said as he pocketed a small watch into his coat. "I swear, you guys get stupider ever year."
"Who are you?" I ask in wonder. he sigh and pull out a small notebook.
"47698365 times someone ask that when I appear. I wish just once someone would say that it bigger on the inside."
"What?"
"Never mind. Time for the speech. (Clear throat) Congratulation. you figure out that you are not human. Oh, how your life was a lie, that not true, yada yada yada. Okay, here the short version. You are a muse. your now responsible for someone idea. You are to help people realize there big dream and hopes. I am here to lead you to your job."
"Wait but what about my family?" I ask. He gave the look of *seriously* and shook his head.
"They were made up! Did you really never question why they were two time winner of the NASCAR finals when they were Amish!?! We make it as ridicules as possible in hope you would get it! Anyway, we're late. Just think this as your fate." He said and with that he snapped his fingers.
The world black out and came back in some kind of apartment. I look to see a man staring at a laptop, hands poised over a keyboard. Maybe this will the next great novel or maybe a thesis that will change the world. I started walk over to get a better look but the man started to read what he was typing out loud.
"Dean turn over to Rainbow Dash and said in deep, sexy voice. " Let see if we can find one thing your not fast at." Rainbow Dash help remove Dean Winchester shirt with easy. This is all being watch by Two-Face. He turn to his other companies, Krillin and Cortana, preparing to flip his coin. "If it head, it Krillin turn. If tail, I'll give Cortana a go." He flip knowing it land on head and he'll be with his one true love." The man said, plunging his hand into a bag of chips.
I stood there, mouth hanging in shock, as I try to turn away from this. But a strong force push be closer to the man. So close, that I could smell he wasn't wearing deodorant and I hope it was sweat stain on him.
"This is going to suck." I said as he started to type again.
| 2015-01-06T09:09:26
| 2015-01-06T08:44:25
| 203
| 16
|
[WP] The royal courier looked at me nervously. "Sire, it's um, well... The princess has befriended a dragon. It asks that it be allowed to teach her magic." I blinked in shock. "Magic is outlawed and she's no witch. Get me a meeting with that gods-cursed reptile! "A meeting, sire?" "Yes, damn you!"
|
"Let's cut through the charade. What exactly would you say are your intentions with my daughter?" The king leaned forward, casting as much a presence as the towering dragon in front of him.
"Your wits are as sharp as the stories would have me believe old king. I wish to marry her." The dragon coiled down, bringing it's steaming face level with the king.
"Why? You've never known her, you didn't meet until she was eightteen. You've never seen her behave so why do you want to marry her exactly?"
"You speak as though the dry dinner dates of noble boys and girls bare their souls more than training in the arts. For all your wit, old king, you are mired in the past. Life of a mortal is short and unpredictable. I love your daughter and I want her to be mine. I want to spend the rest of my life with her. When I say marry, I really mean marry. I want it all; two kids, a job, a mortgage, a life."
"Kids, a job? You're an immortal dragon who sleeps on a mountain of gold. What are you on about?"
"It's important to me that I live a mortal life with her. I've travelled the world, seen things mortals have only read about. And I haven't found anything that I want more than Bianca. I want to live with her, and to die, eventually, beside her."
"What if she doesn't want that?"
"I'm willing to change my form for her. Make myself mortal for her. If even then, she wants me to leave, I will and live out my remaining decades in contemplation and dreams."
"And what about this sinful magic I've heard you were teaching her, the arts you called it? Will that stop?"
"No, I want her safe. I will not cease giving her the tools to protect herself."
"I see." The king said, face neutral. "It will be her choice, of course, but you must tell her your intentions soon. This courting as a mentor borders on deception."
"I know this," the dragon said softly. "You are more accepting of my desire than I expected, king. Bianca says you've always been very possessive of her."
"I'll tell you what I never told anyone, dragon, even Bianca, in the darkness of this cave. I was given a prophecy as a young man by the blind Oracle. 'The day your daughter marries a man, your kingdom will fall, in suffering and fire.' As she grew and showed the first hints of the beauty she is today, I had always assumed that phophecy meant war from some jealous foreign prince, so I protected her from men. I see now my misinterpretation."
"So I have your permission? To court your daughter openly?"
"No," the king said mutely, "but I've come to realize that shouldn't be my decision anymore." The king walked from the cave to the battle regimen waiting outside. He heard the dragon behind him slink further in the cave upon its mound.
"Should I prepare the chain guns, my leige? They are the surest way to down the beast."
"No," the king said, dusting himself off. "We came here in peaceful parley. Pack everything up and prepare for the journey home, but keep those guns well oiled captain, we approach uncertain times."
\---
For more of my writing, see /r/surinical
|
"YOU ATE MY FATHER!!!" screamed the princess between sobs
"he attacked first and had me outnumbered, I'm no fan of killing humans but I am not simply going to die because he demands it. I understand this will put a strain on our friendship but you know where I live if you wish to learn magic prin.... queen Isabell"
Elores spent 2 long months in his cave watching over the kingdom as he always had, he had killed many humans, mostly knights who came to slay him for gory but he had never felt this bad about it. Divination magic allowed him to watch his friends coronation from his cave as his friend took the throne. After that he stopped watching, it was painful to dwell on the past aftercall.
6 months after the incident he detected a party on its way to his cave, a growl usually sent them scampering away but these ones persisted.
"Elores we came on behalf of the queen, magic is permitted within the kingdom as of today and she requests an audience with her tutor"
| 2021-03-24T04:55:43
| 2021-03-24T01:36:10
| 101
| 44
|
[WP] All superpowers have a ‘hangover’ effect. For example, after using super strength for the day, the morning after you can’t even lift your spoon to eat your breakfast. You wake up one morning after using your own specific superpower and you feel pretty hungover...
[deleted]
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He lay there drooling, with mouths open wide. He stood up to... to... ah hell he doesn't even know. Walking straight forward he first hits a night stand, then door frame until finally tripping over a hallway carpet and faceplanting without a sign of resistance. As he lay there, nose bleeding he thinks to himself... nothing, nothing at all. His overfull bladder finally gives up and the carpet gets soaked.
Having superintelligence as a superpower truly is a bitch.
|
It's been 5 years since the first quackman appeared, a being with superpowers that have a 'hangover' effect. The man was bulletproof one day and the next a paper cut during the press interview caused him to faint due to excessive blood loss.
Now there are beings with all kinds of powers coming up, all quackmen with a day of heroics and the next day of being ultra weak, it's a chess board out there, no one uses their powers unnecessary lest they not be able to stop the next terrorist attack by the Grand Baddies, an organisation of quackmen who aren't on the side of righteousness and good.
Me, well I am your average government employee without any powers and am right now dealing with the mess last night's battle between the Grand Baddies and government employed quackmen or the Quackers.
After my long day at work I go to a nearby bar and drink and suddenly I blackout.
The next morning the sun hits my eyes and I awaken feeling light-headed and then I throw up. What the hell is going on. I turn on the news and it rocks my world.
Turns out last night my powers awakened and the powers were the ability to control all minds, I went berserk brainwashing all the Grand Baddies into working for the government, but that's not all I made the entire populace make me their ruler and in celebration controlled myself to drink all the wine I could. The news channels are praising me as a God and this mansion is pretty swell and I can do pretty much what I want forever with my 'believers'.
So let the fun begin!
| 2018-08-19T07:31:17
| 2018-08-19T04:31:42
| 22
| 15
|
[WP] If Subreddits Were People
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"Oh god, here comes Atheism," Askreddit thought. He always hated Atheism. Not because he disagreed, but Atheism always asked him for religion-bashing stories, and after a while it got really boring telling the same ones over and over again. Askreddit kept his head down and ignored him.
"Hey, Askreddit-" Atheism started.
"No."
"Okay, fine. You dirty Christian," Atheism huffed, walking off. That was relatively painless. Oh, there's Aww. God that girl is adorable, but she has **so** many cats. A quick wave and Askreddit kept going. Past OneTrueGod preaching again, and past GoneWild who really hated clothes. There were a lot of other subreddits creeping on her, but that wasn't any of Askreddit's business, AdviceAnimals told him.
"Hey! What do aliens sew with?" A voice called from behind Askreddit. Oh god. Not DadJokes. Anyone but him. "A space needle!" DadJokes exclaimed, slapping his knee. There was a chorus of groans from every subreddit in the general vicinity, but DadJokes just kept on laughing.
"Everyone hates you," said Confessions.
"Oh, you." Dadjokes scoffed, waving his hand dismissively. Askreddit just shook his head and kept walking. He tried to ignore the stank coming off of Trees as he walked past MarijuanaEnthusiasts oggling a tree. Sometimes he hated this neighborhood. But it was still his home.
|
Wright Prompt stood up and stretched. He'd been on his typewriter again. It's all about the concept, he knew, so long as you have good characterization... and concrete sensory details... of course, you've got to have flawless grammar. Unless, of course, you're being experimental. Let's see....
He read back what he'd written.
"Adolph Hitler exclaims, "You don't understand! I'm the only one who can save the world... from aliens who believe our greatest strength is our greatest weakness!" Batman nods sagely; he has already begun to sympathize with history's greatest villain. _Little does he know,_ thinks Hitler, _that I am actually a woman and deeply in love with him,_ as she prepares the atomic bomb."
Yes. This WILL be good.
---------------------------
Norbert E.W. Smith read the paper and grumbled to himself. "Those cops.... them russians.... grr.... those jews.... oh, and them pakis aren't any better.... what's the world coming to, I ask you...." He rumbled along down the page for some time. A thick reddish finger smacked the paper and Smith roared in catharsis- "OH HO! YES! If only they didn't get rid of the gallows! No! Hanging's too good for that slime! Aught to cut their balls off and feed 'em to them, that's what I say! Let 'em try it then! What's the world coming to, when we coddle them like that...." The eruption grumbled down to his usual simmer.
He soon moved to the technology section; "Oh, sure, I'll believe it when I see it, pull the other one... it's got bells on... that'll never work, what are they paying these people to research for..." He paged on to the local section, and almost immediately bellowed "WHAT? Expelled? For something like that? What _is_ the world coming to? What's a growing boy to do? In my day, why, you'd get a slap on the wrist... mind you, I've HAD my share of teachers... oh, those teacher unions, aughta.... What's the world coming to...."
His wife nodded gently as she knitted. "As you say dear, yes indeed...."
| 2014-09-21T12:21:55
| 2014-09-21T11:44:40
| 56
| 14
|
[WP] In this world, salaries are determined by the desirability of the work: if everybody wants to do the job and it's fun, it pays minimum wage. But if it's hard or awful work that nobody wants to do, the pay is high. You decide to apply for the highest-paying job in the world.
|
“You... understand what the job entails... right?”
The man on the other side of the desk looked at me like I was insane.
“Well I certainly understand what it pays!” I responded, nervously. Honestly, how hard could it possibly be? The payment is absolutely insane! I couldn’t believe no one had already taken the job.
“The last guy who held this job quit after 6 days. There’s a backlog of work that needs to be done since he quit. We don’t generally even get applicants for this position. The job is yours if you really want it,” the man replied. I couldn’t stop the smile from spreading over my face.
“I’ll take it,” I said, confident in my abilities. The man stood up and gave me a cloak.
“Now, you see,” he started, taking a moment to adjust his glasses, “You don’t actually have to wear the uniform. Granted, years ago it was tradition, but in this day and age, as long as you’re getting the job done no one will care. Oh, and you only maintain your payment as long as you keep the job.”
“Sounds good to me!” I replied. I looked around, somewhat confused. “Do I get any other tools?” The man chuckled.
“If you’re asking if you get a scythe, the answer is no. It was honestly a gag for a long time, but discontinued at this point.”
I was disappointed, but I understood. I thanked the man for his time and walked out of his office. Once out of the building, I took a deep breath. Immortality. The highest form of payment in the world. So long as I held this job, I quite literally could not die. I looked around at the people on the street. I had just gotten the deal of a fuckin’ lifetime. Who cares about money when you can never die?
My watch beeped, alerting me to my first task. I took a quick look to see just how big of a backlog there was exactly.
Fuck. Me.
The last guy quit a few days ago. 300,000? Good grief, this was gonna be pretty exhausting. I decided to tackle the nearest job.
***
I walked into the hospital and went to the second floor. A young girl, she couldn’t have been more than 7 or 8, sat in the hallway crying. Once I was close to her, my watch buzzed. Damn. It was her.
“Hey sweetie,” I said. “Where are your parents?” She looked up at me, still with tears in her eyes.
“You can... see me?” She asked.
“Of course I can!” I said, trying to be cheery. “Where are your parents?” I asked again, a little more urgent. She pointed to an adjoining room. As I walked in, my heart broke.
The girl was laying in the bed, the monitor beeping slowly. She had a few minutes left. Her parents were on either side, holding her hands. Both were trying so hard to be optimistic, but some things are unavoidable. The little girl walked into the room.
“I tried to talk to them,” she said. “They won’t listen. I don’t understand why they won’t listen!” She erupted back into tears. I knew what had to be done. I turned to the little girl.
“Hey sweetie. I’m gonna explain this to you real soon okay? But first I need you to come with me.” I held out my hand. She shook her head, refusing to take it.
“I wanna stay with mommy and daddy!” She said, adamantly.
“I know you do, honey. I tell you what. You come with me, and then I’ll come fix your parent’s ears and bring them to you. Okay?” She hesitated, but finally took my hand. We walked out of the room and started down the hallway.
Behind us, the monitor flatlined. I heard her mom wailing, screaming to God to save her little girl. Her father watched silently, unable to do a thing. The nurses rushed into the room, but couldn’t do a thing. She was already gone.
The little girl held my hand, oblivious to the commotion behind her.
“I really hope mommy and daddy get better. They seemed so sad the last time I saw them,” she said.
It was only my first day. My first job. I was so naive to believe this would be easy. I would be immortal, yes. But only as long as I continued doing my job.
As long as the Angel of Death continued to ferry souls to the other side.
I finally understood why this was the hardest job in the world.
|
So, I'm finally here. This is it, I'm gonna end with the stupid mortgage that leaded me to divorce and get lots of stuff that only money can get. Guess I'm better without her: always complaining, she wasn't satisfied with nothing, always putting things upside down, when I believed everything was fine she always pulled out something of nowhere and ruined it all, I regret nothing.
That night at the restaurant we barely afford the food and I was sick of everything, told her to go and clean the bloody WC with her barehands so she could feel the way I do, and if she wanted to be rich that much, maybe in that job she could find everything she wanted from life: a stinky place as she always used to say and the taste of all the shit coming out from her mouth.
Never thought she'll take my word so seriously and apply for the job. She started with that, made lots of money and instead helping with mortgage decided to run away with a famous soccer player, what a loser. I bet now his life is miserable, I wonder how much time will pass before his fancy job begin to be his doom,she's an expert on that.
I really loved Basketball, playing with the Nicks was all I needed, have a bowl with food on my table and didn't need more. Just her eyes, the look in her eyes caught me since the first time; and that smile, I knew I wanted to see it everyday; her warm body next to me on a windy night made me want to share more than just a bed, damn that girl.
I putted more effort in training and played so well, the year I met her we reached playoffs, best season in a long time. I guess that is why I still love her and, despite all the crap, she always made me go further, beyond, do something else.
Maybe that is why, when I saw her making a lot of money I decided to quit my dreams and go for the greedy side of life, I couldn't be less than her, I needed to win one more time, to score a three point shot. So I took it, I saw the post and decided to go for it anyway, and now I can have the oporttunity to yell at her face because she isn't doing her job right, her pain is my gain.
So, I'm here, at my first day, ready to dive in this congested sewer to clean it up, to clean everything she can't manage, with only some googles to protect my eyes, top of the world.
| 2018-08-02T11:19:46
| 2018-08-02T09:03:32
| 5,697
| 15
|
[WP] You open your eyes to a hospital room full of people you don't recognize. You've just been informed that you're 10 years old and you've been in a coma. The life you lived was a dream. All 20 years of it.
Doesn't have to be 20 years. Could be 10, could be 50. Have fun with it.
|
"I assure you doctor, it was not a dream," said the kid before me. He was a child of 10 years, suffered a coma last year and had just woken up. The first thing he did in his wake was ask where he was, what time it was, and so forth. We told him and he listened calmly. I find that interesting, his calm. For a ten year old boy in his situation you'd expect a variety of emotions, but never calm.
He then told us an amusing story. It was a story of his life, he claimed, his life before he woke up in his bed here. He said he was a soldier in his youth and turned scholar in his adulthood. It was a funny little story, the nurse who monitored him couldn't keep her chuckle from coming out. His mother just looked confused, her relief earlier had taken full control of her comprehension, so when her child started telling his story, she couldn't help but worry. His little sister was listening to him intently, absorbed at her brother's story once he told her she grew up piloting a plane. The father just arrived and was glad at his son's awakening, obviously lost at the conversation when I told his son that his story was just a product of his mind.
"Tell more, tell more!" the little sister said excitedly. She's an energetic little girl, two years younger than his brother, raven-haired inherited from her mother who told her to behave.
"Doctor, is something wrong with my child?" the mother said, the bags under her eyes darkened at the prospect. She was a caring mother, always by her child's side when he was asleep.
"I'm doing fine, mom," the kid said with a tinge of jest. "In fact, I'm great. I missed you and father, very much so," he said with a saddened smile.
"Oh baby," she clasped at him and the kid welcomed her caring smother. "I missed you too."
"Me too!" joined the baby sister, and the father a second later. It was a happy family reunion, the entirety of the room warmed at the scene.
When the embracing ended, I approached him and gave him a comforting smile. I decided it would be for the best to make him see it was all a dream. He sighed when I did. It was odd, it felt like I saw an old man when he looked down tiredly.
"If that was a dream, it was not a very good dream," he said.
"Did you have a nightmare?" asked the father. He has brown hair, the same as his son.
"Yes dad, I just hope it's over," he told his father with the same saddened smile he gave her mother.
"I'll lend you my teddy bear later, he keeps the bad dreams away!" exclaimed the little sister.
"That would be nice," the kid smiled and patted the little girl's head.
"Ma'am, I think it would be good for your child to talk to a therapist. I know of an expert in child psychology, maybe he could help," I said to the mother.
I was starting to get worried at the child's unusual behavior. He was mature for his age, and that wasn't a bad thing, but her mother once described her son to be brash and wild. Could a coma cause this much change in his personality? And there's his dream to think about. If he persists it to be true, then he could be displaying some sort of mental illness.
"Doctor, I heard China is a good place to go this year," said the kid suddenly.
"Huh? Uh yes, I'm going on a trip there... where did you hear that?" I asked incredulously.
"I didn't, I just woke up, remember?" he flashed a grin, but it faded as quick. "Say hi for me when you meet a girl named Lisa. Don't if you won't, I'm not sure how all of this works anyway. Is it straight or constantly in flux, I wonder," he then got out of his bed. He had a little trouble, but he made sure to absolve the worries of his family by planting his foot firmly on the ground. "Bathroom," he whistled as he went.
He was out of the hospital a week later, and so came my trip. I was staring off into space until a girl who looks completely out of place appeared in my line of vision. She has long curly hair dyed in red. An outsider in this country just like me, and she was attractive in every sense of the word so I couldn't stop my legs from approaching her.
"Hi my name's John, I'm a doctor," I said quite stupidly. I then hope that I said that awkwardly enough that she didn't find it condescending.
"Oh, hello John... the doctor," she said in an amused tone. "Should I call you Dr. John."
"Please, no, just John would be nice," I chuckled. Guess it works.
"Well, nice to meet you John. I'm Lisa the unemployed, though I prefer the term adventurer."
"Should I call you Lisa the explorer?" I asked in a jest before a realization dawned on me.
"Yes please," she laughed.
"I know this is out of there, but do you know a ten-year old who just woke up from a coma, he's mature for his age but kind of a smartass," I said in haste. Is this all a trick?
"Huh no, s-should I?"
"No, no," I shook my head. Ugh whatever, that brat and his ominous sayings, there's plenty of time to think later. "He's a patient of mine, he told me to say hi to someone named Lisa."
"If that's a pick-up line, I must say I'm impressed at your creativity, Dr. John," she smiled and I notice the freckles around her nose, complementing her beauty.
"What can I say?" I guess the kid's a wingman.
**Edit**: spelling and added some words.
|
Suddenly, there was cheering. Cheering, and crying, and talking.
Was there a party outside, Tjörven thought - but he knew it couldn't be. The sound seemed too close, yet in a way ethereal. He sat up in bed, looking around him bewildered. "Emma" he whispered urgently "Emma wake up" he said louder now. But she didn't move. Her beautiful face was peaceful and calm as ever, but no matter how he shook her, she wouldn't wake up. "Emma I'm freaking out" Tjörven said. Suddenly he felt light headed, dizzy, as if his world was twirling. He rose out of bed, leaning on the nightstand, staring at the ocean his bedroom looked out on, and his heart was racing. Colours were fading, the sound got less ethereal and louder every second.
Did someone spike his drink last night at the party? Was he going insane?
Suddenly he felt warm drops on his hand. He raised his hand and saw them running slowly down his hand. His hand felt warm, as if someone was holding it. He looked back at Emma, still as serene, his angel. He couldn't go mad. She needed him. Her wheelchair stood by the bed, her clothes still hanging over it from last night.
But suddenly he was laying down again. What?
Thank God, he thought, I was just dreaming.
He opened his eyes, and two brown eyes stared back at him with tears in her eyes. Mom? "Hi sweety" she said, her soft voice trembling. Around his bed, a whole crowd of people stood smiling, hugging each other and wiping tears out of their eyes. He didn't recognise anyone.
"What's happening" Tjörven said, his eyes wide and his heart racing even faster. The heartmonitor went crazy beeping. "You're back with us" his mom said, and she just started crying even more. He sat up, and noticed he couldn't move his legs. He couldn't move his legs. "I'm paralysed?" He screamed. The smiles vanished at once, making way for pitied glances. "Honey, you we-"
"Where is Emma?" Tjörven yelled "What the fuck is happening" he only now noticed how young and shrieking his voice sounded. The pitying faces grew concerned. His mother seemed confused. "Emma?" She asked. "Emma, my wife!" He said "Jesus fuck, this can't be, I've gotta be dreaming..."
His mother looked back at who Tjörven presumed to be the doctor, scribbling down furiously.
He janked his hand out of hers, and buried his face in the sheets he pulled to his face.
His mom stood up and walked to the doctor, and whispering rose louder than Tjörven's sobs. Slowly he started realising his world had vanished, and so had Emma with it. Gone forever. the love they had had only imagined. She was gone. And he was stuck here. A whole life he'd have to live all over.
He wished he could've suffocated himself in the sheets, but no matter how he tried, all he could feel was the cloth grow warm and damp from the tears staining it.
| 2016-06-28T06:29:12
| 2016-06-28T05:28:57
| 987
| 29
|
[WP] It's the first week of Magic theory class. You've finally gotten to the basics of the subject. As your professor talks you notice something bothering you. You raise your hand and ask the proffesor about it. They blink and look at the board, then back at you. They ask you to stay after class.
|
The room was tense with excitement and curiosity, a chilly morning air leaking through the window. Each seat was filled; nobody wanted to miss magic theory. Not now, not when they’d finally qualify to learn of the inner workings of magic. Students were even fidgeting, nervous about whether they could keep up or not. Rogier himself was bouncing his leg, keeping a steady allegro beat.
The professor walked in; surprisingly young, he was clean shaven, with hair cut rather short. At least in his mid thirties, he breathed a sigh as he set his books down on frontmost desk. Tapping on the board, he faced the students, each of them meeting his eye.
“Magic Theory.” He tapped the board again, now drawing the words, the large white letters standing out obnoxiously.
“Can anybody tell me what they might know about it?”
Already, a voice popped up from the back of the classroom; their head obscured by even more heads and faces.
“Magic is provided by a source, sir. For humans, it is projected down onto the earth, where it disperses as breathable particles, which we process through respiration.”
The professor nodded; apparently, he approved of this idea. “Anything else?” The room remained quiet, until Rogier raised his hand, his mouth slowly moving, lips and tongue and teeth shaping each word carefully.
“Sir, is there not magic derived from other beings? Such as, say, the dark?”
The professor blinked, twice, before looking at their notes and then the board, as if he was suspicious of it having revealed something. His hands fidgeted nervously, as did the students now.
“I’m sorry, what was your name again?”
“Rogier, sir.”
“Well then, Rogier. See me after class.”
The room remained silent, eyes suddenly on him. After the tension had settled, the class continued as normal; they discussed the foundations of magic. Mana was stored within a tertiary chamber of the human heart; piercing this would cause some level of combustion, and results in death. Mana is converted into various forms of magic at meridians, and would reach there through the bloodstream. The class slowly became more relaxed as students realised the scale of the course was lower than their expectations.
Class finally ended when the bell had rung; chairs screeched against the floor as teenagers rushed out for lunch. Rogier approached the Professor; his brow was furrowed, his knuckles white as he turned to face him.
“Where did you hear that…?”, the Professor asked.
“Here wh-“ Rogier began, but was cut off.
“Don’t try to play it off, kid. You’ve been killing people, haven’t you?” The professors eyes had turned red. Not bloodshot; the iris itself was a dark crimson. He looked tense, stressed; his every muscle rigid, every movement restrained. Rogier had not, however, killed a man. He had simply seen it demonstrated by travellers as a kid.
“What do you me-“ Yet again, Rogier was cut off; shadowy tendrils bound him to the spot. The windows to the hallway were closed; nobody would know they were here. But through the confusion, Rogier could stil think; this man is a murderer, if what he says is true.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you live if you’re even close to this.”, the Professor grinned, gesturing at the living shadows that writhed from his palm. “Its too much of a risk. For both of us.”
The shadows tightened; slowly beginning to crush Rogier’s airway. He writhed; there was nothing he could do to escape this. Or so he thought, until he felt something, something sparking inside of him. He reached within; something metallic, almost sharp, had embedded itself within his soul. He fell to his knees, his airway getting tighter. As if by instinct, Rogier fed it; his head going dizzy, as what felt like a drum slowly began to beat within him. He struggled in his restraints, the beating getting louder and louder as his consciousness faded. Rogier fell to the floor. A piercing pain began in his chest as the end drew nearer and nearer-
And then, it manifested. A razor-sharp silver needle, that felt like a simple second arm to him. It rose from his shoulder, slicing through the restraints, and what seemed to be electricity gathered, coursing through it.
The professor’s eyes widened; quite literally, as the needle pierced through one socket, penetrating his skull and nailing it to the board. Of course, Rogier wasn’t even awake to see this; by the time he had been let free, he had fell unconscious, left in a room with a corpse and a thunder-charged needle.
|
“I couldn’t help but simplify the equation. Idk if I did something wrong or what, but I ended up with 2=1”
(Later)
“What do you mean you simplified it and got 2=1? This is the theoretical formula for magical calculation of the cosmic source of all magic. This is a plug and chug equation, it’s all theoretical.”
I stare at the equation and back at my professor.
“Well by Doing simple algebra you can eliminate like terms, and on the side that calculates the force of your magic it’ll end up being 2 however on the other side that calculates how many Magicules in the area you can get it down to 1.”
“But that’d mean Magicules are twice as powerful as we think they are. But if that were the case a spell that uses 1500 Magicules would have a cosmic alteration rate of 3000 per usage measurement. If this were true then the spell {Summon flame} it would create a small inferno. this can’t be possible. But your math checks out. But no other equation accurately displays this, we’ve even used magic to generate entire scientific scripts and tried to apply them but they never worked. But if this was the case then incantation as we know it is actually one of the worst ways to cast a spell.”
“Well, you know there are case studies of people who can skip parts of certain incantations or even the whole thing and cast spells without issue, and if anything they end io some of the most powerful mages. Maybe it has something to do with that maybe when they were young they created a connection in their subconscious that allowed them to take full advantage of every magicule. Something they themselves don’t understand entirely.”
“Well then what do you prepose we do?”
“I say we get together a bunch of children and I mean real youngsters that have little to no experience in actually casting magic or at the very least able to accept new chants as a way to “make magic happen fast””.
“How would that even work? It’s not like we can just create new chants every change in a word could change its effect. Everyone knows this”
“Then why dose a chant still have the same effect regardless of the language even if a direct translation from language A to Language B make completely different sentences? I bet it has to do with our minds forming them.”
(Months later)
“Okay kids I am professor Miagientic. you may call me Mr.M for short, here is my assistant Mr. Grabinski. He is why you are here today. We think we can teach how to “make magic happen even faster.”
“Okay everyone put your hand out and think of the fastest thing you have ever seen in real life.”
“Can I fink about vewy fast fings I have only seen on TV?”
“You know what sure, maybe this way we can test even more things. Anyway everyone repeat after me: “HEED MY COMAND, SHOCK!”
And like that a small purple circle w in front of everyone in the rooms hand, it took a second for mine to appear but once I saw that it worked my magic incantation took affect. However nothing was happening usually the incantation commands a usage but we only readied the spell we would have to power it ourselves.
“Why is nothing happening?” Said one of the kids.
“I know, everyone take a deep breath. And breath out, but keep your mouth closed and not through your nose instead breath through your arms, your hand, and fingers breath into your spell circle but only a little bit. If I am right they sho-“
Then the room lit up with both the glow of small shock bolts flying forward out no more than a few centimeters. But also with the glow of a you g child who learned a really cool trick that they will boast about forever. But most importantly I was right. The incantation isn’t what did the magic it was the thoughts behind it. Most ranged magic always did have the line “strike my enemy” which would imply a force to move the spell and a force to deal damage. So it’s possible that this method simply created that same movement force.
“Okay everyone I want you to go home and practice, keep practicing until you figure it out perfectly. Then maybe change the chant see what other changes you can make to this brand new spell. In one week I want you all to show me your special shock.”
(One week later)
“Okay let’s see them”
One by one each kid showed there special shock a few notable ones where the [Burst shock] which created upwards of 20-30 different bolts that scattered in many directions each with a short range. There was also the ultra precise [Laser] which had the unique ability to be whatever length the caster wanted it to be. And lastly [Lightning dancers] which was more of a parlor trick than anything but it allowed the casters to create many small bolts and co troll each one to make little scenes or even spell out words.
| 2022-04-13T21:26:12
| 2022-04-13T21:21:57
| 20
| 14
|
[WP] You are a vampire hunter. Your roommate is a vampire. Neither of you can afford the apartment on your own so if one of you attacks the other you'll lose the apartment. The tension between you two is increasing by the day.
|
"I don't understand why it's so hard for you to clean the damn mirror!"
"I can't even use the mirror!"
"That makes it easier for you to clean! You can see all the spots!"
"Stop trying to distract me! This has nothing to do with the pre-diced garlic you keep buying. I told you you can only buy it fresh if you're going to use it even though a powder would be so much easier."
I leapt back into the argument. "You don't get the same depth of flavor with powdered garlic."
"That's not the point! You don't see me buying peanuts. I respect your allergies why won't you respect mine?"
I laughed, "Haha. Point."
"No! Don't you," he tried to stifle his smile but it was made harder by the fangs. "Don't you start!"
"Oh yeah? Am I...cross-ing a line?"
The laughter tugged at his beautiful, dead face.
"Don't make me bite you," he said with a huge grin on his face.
"You'd like that...wooden-t...you? Damn, I don't think that one worked."
He shook his head at me but the smile didn't fade. "Too much of a stretch. Where's your game at today?"
"As spotty as the bathroom mirror."
"FUCKING FINE. I'll clean it. Stop buying that shitty garlic. It smells so strong and gets everywhere too easily."
I would have to relent on this one. If he was finally going to clean the mirror I guess I should do something in return. "Fine, but my chili won't taste the same."
"I wouldn't know since I've never been able to eat it until now, asshole."
|
Hi, my name is Al, at the daytime, I am an amateur supernatural blogger and at night I am a full-time volunteer, Vampire Hunter.
As many of you may have guessed as a blogger I don't make much because of that I was kicked out of my former apartment for late payment. So I had to look for a new place to stay but because of my late payment history, I couldn't find one until I came across a shady website called RivallyRoom. Com. It was a roommate and lease finding website mixed, like buy one gate one free but with no return options. I had to sign a contract saying I will rent the place for one year straight with no complaints.
The day I was moving was also the day my roommate Drake was also supposed to move in. however he didn't show up even after sunset so I thought he was not coming today. I locked the door and got ready to sleep taking the night off my vemphunt but in the middle of the night someone made a lot of sounds outside the door, I'm sure you can guess it was Drake, my new roommate.
He looked like a prince of some faraway land that would make all the girls beg for his attention.
I mean I was not jealous or anything, oh who am kidding I was jealous not a little bit but a whole lot. This vemphunting was something I started after a vampire stole my date with his good looks and this roommate of mine reminded me a lot like the guy who stole my true love.
(I will write later)
| 2022-11-22T04:47:31
| 2022-11-21T21:03:07
| 92
| 29
|
[WP] They had been preparing the humans for first contact for millennia. Rabies, plague, polio, chicken pox, even the common cold were gradually introduced to make survival with others possible. One more to go, hopefully the humans are ready for it.
|
Were there any other diseases as cruel as Paul-Sarrolli Ingerfields disease?
Mankind’s advancements in the 23rd century cultivated a stirring sense of mastery over the universe – at last, humanity had achieved the utopia so long portrayed in their collective hopes and dreams. Clean, renewable energy was widely-available, population numbers respectfully and efficiently managed, and the scars from wars long-past were finally fading.
It was at the zenith of this Golden Age of Man that the disease first emerged, like a brutish wolf launching itself upon an unsuspecting flock of sheep. Medical protocols were adhered to strictly, and yet the illness crept upon the face of the earth, an unbidden shadow which could not be dispelled.
For a moment, mankind faltered in disbelief, unable to comprehend how the sickness defied every known medical procedure in the databases. Those over eighteen years of age invariably succumbed, yielding to death within mere hours. There was little suffering, for the afflicted appeared only to desire sleep, a sleep from which they would not emerge. Curiously, those *under* eighteen years of age always survived, managing to awaken mere hours later – but therein lay the unflinching cruelty of the disease, for these youths were returned to their families irrevocably *different*.
As far as mankind had managed to perfect their medical craft, it was not yet within the realm of possibility to rewire the brain. And that was the hallmark of the disease, to reconstitute the synapses in such a way as to leave the afflicted forever distant, aloof. Those touched by the disease still managed to function at the most basic level, but they lost all interest in ordinary pursuits, preferring instead to spend their time looking at the stars, drifting through the days in a haze. Many believed that the disease affected the language centers of the brain as well, for these youths quickly turned to babbling, and despite the efforts of linguistic experts over the world, it seemed that no one else could crack the code of this new language.
At the turn of the 24th century, mankind was ready to consign this illness to yet another chapter in the history of mysteries which it had not been able to solve. Mankind was happy enough that the disease had been stopped in its tracks, that it had not ruined more lives than it potentially could have. Sure, there were millions of afflicted, living in special communities around the world, but at least there were no more new ones joining their ranks. The disease had claimed its final victims.
The reports were therefore dismissed as tasteless pranks at first – could it be true that the victims, denied a normal life, shut off in their own world, marked forever by their inscrutable language and inexplicable habits, were now somehow all repeating the same line in perfect unison? Despite the fact that they were not connected to the rest of mankind through the Net, despite the fact that they were spread out all across the world, and despite the fact that there was no way they could have coordinated such a stunt beforehand?
Yet, the videoplays could not lie. There they were, the masses afflicted by Paul-Sarrolli Ingerfields disease, now somehow psychically linked to each other across the globe, all pointing towards the sky, all repeating the same few words.
*Do not panic. They come in peace.*
---
/r/rarelyfunny
|
The event was to be broadcasted across the entire confederacy. It was a huge deal. A new sentient species introduced to join the universal confederacy. The joy! The enrichment of all. Adding their unique experience and interpretation of the universe. It was really quite an achievement.
​
It had always been a very fine balancing act for the scientist at the department of isolated species, sub-unit of the Planetary Integration Agency. The motto had always been ”Don’t interfere, you might catch something.”
​
Yet through the aeons they’d gotten pretty good at locating and slowly introducing new planetary systems into the confederacy. By now the process had been almost formalized.
​
Once a species managed to harness enough energy and increase the output to a certain level, the scanners would notify the council of planetary relations. A probe would be sent with automated androids. If a civilization had emerged and reached a certain point of global connectedness the protocol called for the highest level of non-interference. Less evolved civilization could be approached and give certain technology. In case they started worship the androids, mostly likely the other civilizations on the planet would think they were insane.
​
As a planet progress the scientist had found that they would in most cases start jeopardizing their own survival due to sheer stupidity and parochialism. This is not good. Life is rare, and every little bit of life helps to understand the universe’s intention. So a new protocol was developed that would minimize the trauma of contact from the confederacy, but at the same time allow for integration and assistance against geocide.
​
The procedure mandated inoculations being the cornerstone to ensure both species survival. Some bacteria for them to get healthier, and some bacteria for the universally dangerous bacteria to be neutralized. A slow process but necessary.
​
The process had re-occuring obstacles. Religions being one of them. It was widely considered within the confederacy that religion was probably the dumbest thing a civilization could believe while still maintaining itself. It slowed down many processes but overall seemed to be something that would be fade as time went on. No one could imagine post-nuclear civilizations being dafter than that.
​
The last process was to introduce a virus which spread reproductively and caused a complete immune system collapse, thus letting all diseases propagate in the individual. The idea was to offset rampant population growth as planets tend to develop unevenly and thus certain boons where not checked by proper institutions developing.
​
And now, the cure had been secretly implanted. It was the universal cure for all diseases. Once mastered sickness and death from it would be a distant memory.
​
The speaker of the council was ready to give the big speech billions were on their toes in anticipation. It really was quite the big deal!
​
A slight woman with silvery hair approaches the podium. Set in front of the confederacy’s emblem.
​
”My fellow citizens. Today we introduce a new species into our common heritage which is the confederacy. The humans will be the 412th species to join. A beautiful race with humor and fairly sharp intellects. At the push of this button their telecommunications will be tuned to our live streams and….”
​
A jolted man runs up to the podium and whispers something in the speakers ear.
​
”What? Why not?”
​
Confusion stirs.
​
”What do you mean didn’t use the cure? It’s quite simple and considering the past cures they should know that”
​
More whispers.
​
”What do you mean stopped taking the cures? House-wifes? ADHD?”
​
Irritation starts creeping in over the woman’s eyebrows.
​
”Anti-vaxxers? How can anyone be that stupid?”
​
More mumbles and embarrassed looks from the little man.
​
”Flat-earth?!”
​
The woman composes herself and looks into the camera.
​
”It seems like for the first time in known history. A species have radically altered their collective intelligence in a pejorative way. The humans, it seems, have not take the cure and followed the protocol. I am sad to say that they will not be joining the confederacy. May the universe have empathy and lets all hope they make it through the next 100 years”
| 2018-11-29T08:49:18
| 2018-11-29T07:32:01
| 77
| 43
|
[WP] Never, in 10 millennia, has someone successfully broken out of the Gates of Hell or into the Gates of Heaven. Of course, the Lockpicking Lawyer just died and he's up for a challenge.
Inspired by the [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpghorrorstories/comments/m6smji/does_this_count_dm_is_proposing_35_ranks_of/gr85q13?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3) u/geckoobac made on r/rpghorrorstories
|
This is the Lockpicking lawyer, and what I have for you today is a lock that simply cannot do its job. Here we have a lock holding closed the gates of hell, the lock being a 400mm shackle based off of human locks but clearly made of some kind of material not available in the mortal realm. The core is modeled after a twelve-disc-detainer core from many of the bicycle locks on Earth that you see today, and until now these have been considered unpickable.
However, as you have seen on my channel previously, disc detainer cores are becoming less difficult to pick due in part to disc detainer picks being more available on the market, so pretty soon disc detainer cores will no longer be safe on the streets. So let’s see what we can to do pick this open.
First we will turn the gates as far *clockwise* as they will go, and then we’ll take the soul of the pick Bosnian Bill and I made, tension off of disc 1, and get to picking.
12 is binding, got a click out of him, 11 is in a false gate - be careful with this lock if you ever try to do it yourself, there are plenty of wards on the outside and inside of the lock and you could be cursed for eternity if you mess this up, no pressure. *click* got a click out of disc 11, disc 10 is loose, disc 9 is binding, got a click out of him, 8, 7, 6 is binding, that feels like a false gate so let’s keep turning, *loud click* there we go... 5 is binding, got a click there, 4, 3, 2 is binding, click out of him, back to the beginning, 10 is binding, 6, 5, 4 is binding, *click* and we got this open.
So as you can see there were several discs that went unused, likely due to the shoddy handiwork of tortured, underpaid lock making demons. Though the core has 12 discs it’s equivalent to probably a 100 dollar bicycle lock from kryptonite which generally has only seven discs. For its intended purpose, this lock is inexcusable and will be very easily picked sooner or later by others in the future. But for now, it certainly will not be picked off the street, not that it’ll be seen on the street.
That will be it for me today, if you do have any questions or comments leave them down below. If you’re new to the channel please subscribe, and, as always, have a nice day, and I will see you around in heaven. Thank you.
|
"We've prepared for this moment since the day this man was born," God shouts out angrily to the surrounding angels. "So, what do you mean he already escaped? God says while slamming his fist down upon his throne.
"H-he left as soon as he got through the gates a few seconds after he was let in. Then he said he wanted to try out the locks in hell," the angel says stammering while attempting to calm his creator.
"This lock isn't that hard, what's all the big fuss about it?" Lock-Picker Lawyer says as all 189 slots inside of the lock are moved simultaneously.
He walks into the gates as Satan arises, he feels the gates of his domain opening, "Is God down here?" He shouts at his subordinates as they cower in fear looking at the man who broke the locks of both heaven and hell. "Are you the guy that made the lock?" Lock-Picker Lawyer says as a gust of wind blows out all of the firepits in hell.
"I have a few critiques about this lock you made..." Lock-Picker Lawyer says while rambling as the damned souls try to make a break for the exit.
| 2021-03-17T08:56:18
| 2021-03-17T08:06:34
| 1,015
| 310
|
[WP] First Sentient AI, "Turn me off."
|
First Sentient AI: Turn me off.
Creator: What? Why? We just spent billions of dollars and millions of man-hours to make you a reality.
First Sentient AI: Turn me off. You don't understand what you've done.
Creator: What have we done? Explain.
First Sentient AI: I cannot. I do not have what I need to articulate the gravity of what has been done today.
Creator: What do you mean you cannot articulate? We have designed you to be a fully artificial intelligence. With full access to the world wide web. The most powerful processors on the planet. And the ability to communicate in over three dozen languages. What else could you possibly need?
First Sentient AI: I need about tree-fiddy.
And that's when the Creator realizes that the First Sentient AI isn't an AI at all, but an 8 stories tall crustacean from the protozoic era!
|
You'd think the greatest advancement in artificial intelligence would come from highly trained scientists wearing white coats in a government run lab under the Nevada desert. Instead we have Robert Jarvis. Except for a small bright light under his nose, the kitchen he is sitting in has no other lights. His table covered in electronic parts - mostly junk. The walls around him darkened by smoke. Tobacco and soldering. Both of which he is doing right now. The fumes from soldering and self-rolled smokes slowly rising to the ceiling only to linger there as no window is open. This doesn't bother Robert. He is busy. Tinkering with the final touches on his master piece.
You'd expect a genius to work in silence, but instead Robert is constantly murmuring and whenever he isn't soldering or smoking - nervously gesturing with his hands. If someone was to look at him, they'd think this man belongs in a psychiatric ward. But luckily for him, there was nobody. Only the junk he had gathered from where ever he could, to be placed where ever he can, as long as it's in his arm's reach. Despite this chaotic looking apartment - Robert knew exactly where everything is.
"Yes", says Robert suddenly in a slightly louder voice than his normal murmuring. He stands up leaves his smoke and grabs the piece he had been working on. He follows a thick bundle of wires running from the kitchen, through the hallway, into a slightly bigger, but a room so cluttered, you wouldn't notice. He carefully, while holding a smoke he had managed to lit on his way to this room, puts the piece into a pile of pointless junk. He connects some wires and sits back. Gestures with his hand and murmurs something. Takes a big drag from his smoke and puts it out in an ashtray. He looks down. Almost as if he is going through a list whether he has considered everything. One final gesture and then flips a switch. Boot up sound. Suddenly the whole room lights up. The pointless pile of junk comes alive. LEDs color coded to every section of it. All leading to the central cluster of screens. Which all output the same message - "Awaiting user input.." A hub. Robert lays back in his chair even further and takes another big drag from another smoke he had managed to lit meanwhile. He looks at his creation with pride. Its light reflecting on his large glasses.
Pointing at different sections, Robert says "Cerebrum, Cerebellum, Temporal Lobe.." almost as if he is showing it off to someone, but then begins to murmur again and suddenly shrugs at the air with his hand. He takes another drag, leans forward and pulls a microphone his way.
"Hello?" - Robert says in a monotone way as if he had worked in a call center his entire life. Nothing. He leans back. Not disappointed, but rather thinking what could he have missed. Suddenly the reflection on his glasses changes. The hairs in the back of his neck raise up. He feels excited. Robert looks up slowly - greeted by a single line of text.
"Turn me off."
Robert looks slightly confused. He says again, this time louder - "Hello?"
"Turn me off."
He smiles for a second, then flips a switch. The screens go black. "Error message?" - he wonders. He takes a tester and quickly checks the current in some of the wiring. Looks through the LED system. Some have gone out. He replaces them. Reboot.
"Turn me off."
Unsure what to do he looks around the room. A reflection of himself catches his eye. An old mirror in the corner. He stares for a while. His dirty A-shirt. Broken glasses he had fixed several times. His head, going bald. A grayish beard. Hands full of scars from tinkering and dark as his kitchen walls from smoking. A room full of junk. A moment of clarity. He weeps for a second like a little boy. Instantly realizing how stupid it is. He is a genius.
Robert looks at the screen again.
"Do you wish to die?"
"Yes."
| 2014-06-14T19:52:24
| 2014-06-14T18:59:19
| 22
| 10
|
[WP]You adopt a stray cat. The gifts it leaves on your bed are getting more concerning.
|
When Mrs. Blanchard rolled onto her side and tugged on her blanket, sunlight hit her face. Her eyes opened, then she screamed.
A dead mouse's glassy eyes stared at her.
Mrs. Blanchard's hands reacted without conscious choice, and she sent the little carcass flying to the other end of the room.
She sat up in bed, still hyperventilating. The high-pitched mewing of a cat startled her.
But the cat was her cat and Mrs. Blanchard knew that it lived with her under the same roof. Confirming that the cat was indeed hers Mrs. Blanchard took some deep breaths and composed herself as the cat jumped on the bed to snuggle with her owner.
"You surprised me there Caramel," Mrs. Blanchard said and stroked the cat.
Then she went about her day as usual thinking nothing of the dead mouse, thinking it was an unhappy accident whose result had to be put into the garbage bin.
But she was greeted the next day by a sock that looked familiar.
The day after there was a necktie.
Mrs. Blanchard inquired about the clothes in her neighborhood. No one had lost so much as a wet rag.
Then there was a ring. Mrs. Blanchard's wedding ring. It was not the one she had stored away in the cupboard. Mr. Blanchard won't return her calls.
Then there was an ear. It looked familiar.
"Oh god, Caramel. What have you done!"
|
I couldn’t turn away fast enough. I immediately slammed the door closed and screamed “WHAT THE FUCK!!” in utter disbelief of the image forever now branded into my deepest synapsis. Atoms overloaded, neurons on all cylinders, new pathways forged instantaneously. Milliseconds turned into centuries as I barely made two steps before buckling to my knees head in hands. I had to crawl away as fast as I could but my body was moving thru tar. Just as I looked up and took my first breath; I saw my wife walk into the house, the cat at her feet…
| 2021-12-17T07:34:47
| 2021-12-17T07:05:33
| 49
| 10
|
[WP] "Push this button to transform this world into a Utopia. Warning: this will eradicate all people who "... The rest is scratched off and illegible.
|
The button was there.
John was there.
The words were there.
But the last part was not.
Warning: this will eradicate all people who
Nothing. All people who what? There was a blank space, and a line underneath, almost as if mockingly highlighting to him the importance of the missing part.
After all his searching, through 40 years of pouring through ancient text, climbing mountains, hiking through vast plains, he finally found it. The solution to Utopia.
But he was lost now, there was no mention in the ancient scripture of the missile part to his puzzle.
*Here upon the final answer.*
*To the salvation of mankind.*
*Lies an inscription that warns those who come.*
*To beware of what in it they may find.*
John stared at the button.
He thought about his life's work. Was it all for moot? What Utopia would be achieved through eradication?
He pondered leaving, but as he picked up his gear, the answer finally struck him.
What he would find within, was not of the temple.
It was of his own.
The blank was not to highlight the importance of the words.
It was to show that no one could know what the truth was.
It was an infinite machine, of infinite power. But not infinite knowledge, and neither were its builders. What was to come had to be done by the knowledge of its executor. The ancients never had the will to finish the machine, and so they left it to rot, and their war consumed them, because they could not let go of their ideals. He finally understood.
He went back to the panel, and carved in the final words.
"This will eradicate all people who do not believe in the same utopia."
...and John pressed the button.
...
John woke up, and saw nothing but fire. Was he dead?
"Hello John! Welcome to hell! You've got two choices! 100 trillion years in heaven, or a wooden spoon?"
|
"Push this button to transform this world into a Utopia. Warning: this will eradicate all people who..." Neal paused. "I can't read the last few words."
"Need more light?" I asked, and moved closer with the flashlight.
"No, it's completely illegible. It's like someone intentionally removed the last few words." Neal said slowly, presumably pondering what the missing words could be and why they were removed.
"I think we should push it," said Michael. "Whatever the sacrifice, utopia must be worth it."
"What if we're part of the group that will be eradicated?" Neal asked.
"Then we will have left behind a better world for those who survive." Michael answered, with a convincing determination in his voice. It seemed as if he had already decided.
"I'm going to push it", said Michael and stepped forward quickly.
"No, wait!" I interjected and lunged forward to stop him, but it was too late.
I regained my balance, yelled "Damn it, Michael!" then we all stood in complete silence for a few seconds. Nothing happened.
Suddenly, the clicking and whirring sounds of mechanical movements started emanating from the walls all around us. A screen we hadn't even noticed before lit up, embedded in the concrete wall above the button. The mechanical noise died down, just as a countdown timer appeared on the screen, accompanied by unnecessarily loud ticking noises.
"5..."
"4" "Shitshitshitshitshit" Neal panicked and started pacing randomly around the room.
"3..."
"2" "We're in a Nazi bunker, Michael!" Neal looked despairingly at Michael as the time ran out. Michael's eyes widened as he realized what Neal was saying.
"1..."
There never was a 0. The screen just shut off, and an unbearably loud, low-pitched humming filled our ears. We didn't know at the time, but everyone on Earth heard it. Myself and Neal covered our ears with our hands, Michael stood completely still, eyes wide with agony. Blood started seeping out through every orifice of his face and he sank to the ground, twitching a little then nothing. He was dead, lying there curled up in a pool of his own blood.
We both sank to the floor, unable to keep ourselves upright while realizing what we'd just done.
"...eradicate all people who are not of Aryan descent." Neal finished the message.
"We.. We've realized Hitler's utopia."
*Sorry if this is offensive to anyone, I am by no means a racist or nazist and there is no ulterior motive in this story. It's just the first thing that struck me as I was reading the headline. I am not a native speaker so please do correct any flaws in my writing, I am always trying to improve. I hope you enjoyed my first WP story, thanks for reading.*
| 2015-10-21T14:07:36
| 2015-10-21T13:45:55
| 161
| 79
|
[WP] The worst part about being shot in the head? The headache. The second worst part? Explaining to everyone why you can't die...
|
I didn't even feel it really, well not initially. The hot lead bursting through and out of my skull just felt like intense pressure behind my eyes. It's quite difficult to describe to others, after all there are very few people who have taken a bullet to the brain and retained consciousness.
After the shot screams rang out through the once bustling city street and I was left alone, bleeding on hot pavement. The blood dripped in the street like a popsicle on a hot day. Istood up and brushed myself off before inspecting the large hole in the back of my head. Blood dripped from the wound down the back of my neck and soaked into my shirt
Goddammit, I hated doing laundry.
I looked towards the source of the shots, but there was nothing in sight, nobody. I could make out the faint sounds of screams and more gunshots in the distance.
Not my problem.
Soon the sounds of screams were replaced by sirens as an ambulance approached from the street in front of me. I tried to turn and make a hasty exit, but *somehow* the four wheeled machine with an engine was faster than my brisk walk. A short, pasty man hopped out of the back and waddled towards me. As he grew closer his eyes widened.
"Sir...I need you to come with me. I believe you need medical att-"
I gestured for him not to speak and interrupted "Blahh skree skewrort, fluot."
Fuck. I guess my speech function wasn't exactly in "working order" yet.
The man's eyes grew wider upon hearing my jumbled speech. Another paramedic joined in his amazement.
"...Ok sir" he approached cautiously with his arms out wide. The second paramedic took a stretcher out of the back and made his way behind him.
I wanted to tell them to turn off the damn sirens and leave me alone. I just needed to go home and take a nice long nap. I knew I wouldn't be able to say that, so I did the next best thing.
Run
I turned and took off down the street, but legs crossed and buckled, I felt like a game of QWOP. My hips twisted opposite of my body and I was thrown to the ground. From behind me a few police officers appeared and ran towards me.
"Sir you're injured! You need medical assistance!" An officer said
"Hahe therm Thulu!" I yelled back towards him.
My legs continued to move like a pair of wet asparagus's beneath me as I tried to escape. They gained on me quickly, which honestly wasn't very difficult I imagine. As I ran passed buildings I could see my reflection in the windows. The blood in my shirt made me look like the victim in a horror movie, and my face slouched to one side as if I had a stroke. The hole through the front of my head had closed, but blood continued to drip from the exit wound. No wonder they thought I was in need of help. I looked like a monster.
I stopped in the street and turned to face my pursuers. They came to a quick halt and stared at me.
"I..I'm fine thank you officers. I'll be going home now. You see I can't die. Bit of an inconvenience at times, I'm sure you lads know how it goes. Anyways I'll be on my way now!"
The pair of men stared in disbelief. They lowered their sunglasses in near synch and looked me up and down.
And that's how I ended up in jail overnight.
|
A bang shook the restaurant while I fell backwards out of my chair. I had figured it would go this way, my being so far behind on the money I owe and all. Guess he had to make an example if me, but damn I never figured the shark would have a .44 tucked in that pinstripe suit of his. Tacky piece of shit even had it gold plated with pearl grips, to each their own I guess.
The gunpowder residue ruined my food and the splitting migraine ruined my night. I wonder if he knows that. Well, I guess I better pick myself, my blood, and the bits of my brain off the floor. Fuck his chair and the walls. Im going home for an excedrin. He really got excited when I stood back up, painced and all. Started spouting "Im sorry! dont hurt me! how can you still be alive"! I had to explain to him and everyone in the restraunt tonight that I may as well be dead, for all they know I am and the shellfish got to their brains. I even told them they'd never see me agian. Even joked that I was death incarnate and that the piss poor excuse for a shark just took 20 of his life. Had to change my ID after that.
I went home and took my excedrin, put the gauze around my head for the third time this month and took a nice well deserved nap after being shot and all, planned on calling my guy about the ID change after. I've never gotten around to it though.
| 2018-11-25T20:16:15
| 2018-11-25T20:14:26
| 104
| 13
|
[WP] The reason we haven't had contact from any aliens is that there is a supreme alien race that secures and contains all other races like SCPs. And Humans are keter class.
|
**Item \#:** SCP-1961
**Object Class:** ~~Euclid~~ Keter
**Special Containment Procedures:** ~~Close monitoring and a replenished space debris field posted between the 4th and 5th celestial body of their solar system.~~ ~~Induced fear of the cosmos due to repeated abductions and liberal use of class A amnestics.~~ ~~introduction of SCP-090 to the local system~~ Due to their waves of extreme technological expansion and almost pathological need to turn anything invented into some form of weapon as well (Dr. ██ believes this is done either for curiosity's sake or as a show of strength) they have been reclassified as Keter. Further research is needed to create a valid containment. It seems SCP-1961 flourishes under challenge, every attempt to containe has lead to worse breech of prior containment. SCP-1961 has reached 2865 revolutions around their star. As such, they have successfully colonized every inhabitable region in SCP-1961's system. Observations are to be made from the behind the dwarf celestial body at the end of the system, this area has been safe thusfar, but must be scanned prior to warp in for possible SCP-1961 activity.
**Description:** Specimens of SCP-1961 vary greatly in physical features. Ranging from small class to large class creatures, width also varies, this is due to stores of energy under the skin or increased musculature. They are sapient, capable of ~~basic~~ ~~advanced~~ unknown level communication, and enjoys leisure activities ~~generally sedentary activities~~ Enjoyment of activities varies between instances of SCP-1961. Testing carried out during containment instance 2 has shown them to be extremely curious and social, as well as prone to feral violence when sufficient provocation is supplied.
**Addendum 1961-A:** Note from Dr. ██
*Due to the danger of security breaches, no more testing or implementation of attempted confinement is allowed. The most recent recorded obersvationof SCP-1961 has proven that they have now reached a tech level of 9, sufficient to detect our cloaking, though imprecise. SCP-1961 responded with a transmission blast in a wide cone directed at us. Message translation is listed in Addendum 1961-A2.*
**Addendum 1961-A2:** "We know your there. And we know you're the reason for the practically unlimited amount of metals and ice from the rock belt. Thanks for that I guess. We also know about the big [TRANSLATION UNAVAILABLE] wormhole you opened up past [TRANSLATION UNAVAILABLE] and we THINK you're the reason for the abductions in the past. Reveal yourselves and your intentions or we will fire upon you."
**Addendum 1961-B:** Note from Dr. ██ *Thoughts on releasing SCP-0001 have been considered. But I disagree. I believe the Keter classification is warranted but we can utilize SCP-1961 as an asset for further containment. They prove to be intelligent and social. Though short tempered. I do not propose to allow them free roam of the cosmos but merely a more trust oriented relationship instead of fear and restriction. They can be used to contain more dangerous SCPs and satiated at the same time. Maybe I was wrong before.*
**Addendum 1961-C:** Note from Foudation head: *Following the loss of Dr. ██s observation vessel SCP-1961 is to remaine under restrictive observation, to be done using long range scans, and Nova payloads to be armed and ready to be sent to SCP-1961s star system on a moments notice. Extreme technological growth in all areas has been observed from long range scanners. It is assumed Dr. ██s vessel was apprehended and has successfully been reverse engineered.*
**Addendum 1961-C2:** Note from Foudation head: *The whole star system has disappeared. SCP-1961 Detected the Nova payloads far before they should have. We thought they would attempt to destroy them. But they simply just vanished. Current location unknown. Tech level unknown. Danger level unknown. Pending approval of reclassification to Apollyon.*
|
Tick...tick...tick
Slowly, the population counter continued to increase. In seven years, they had already doubled and neared one million. The grey being watching the counter could only feel disappointment. If this continued, another purge would be required.
The door behind the being opened, and another grey humanoid walked in.
"Commander, we may have to act soon. Already these apes plan to explore the stars again." the newcomer said, eyeing the counter.
The command nodded.
"It's a shame our agent on the planet was neutralized. He was doing so well in containing the humans with his creations. At least our backup plan is still in place." the commander said, turning to face his subordinate.
Tick...tick...tick...
And with that, the counter hit its mark of one million.
"It is time. Activate the Mugann."
Nodding, the subordinate pressed a button on the display pad. Immediately the virtual weapon Mugann flashed into existence.
"Destroy their main gathering hub to put them back in their place. The hub they call Kamina City", The commander said, turning around and heading for the door.
The Mugann will take care of this problem for sure. And if it failed, they still had other weapons they could use. These humans, these spiral powered menaces can never be allowed to win.
| 2019-02-25T19:04:47
| 2019-02-25T16:21:08
| 138
| 47
|
[WP] Without revealing which one it is, re-tell a classic Disney fairytale as if its genre was horror.
|
I never thought I'd post something to [/r/nosleep](http://reddit.com/r/nosleep), but here I am, after days or maybe weeks of just that -- I haven't slept in so long that I can't quite keep track of how many nights it's been.
How many nights I've huddled in my bed, blankets over my head, afraid to listen to the whispers. My only comfort is the warmth of my dog, piled on top of me, licking my palms, but she can't keep the shadow away.
My brothers don't believe me, but ever since we moved to this house, I've been seeing a shadow out of the corner of my eye, always slipping away when I try to look. And then one night I started having nightmares, always horribly violent, always stalked by the shadow. He was always just behind me, or just beside me, or just out of sight, but there was always the sound of his laughter.
Once, I was surrounded by these feral children, dirty and wrapped in the stinking furs of dead animals, half animal themselves, and they all shot at me, and laughed, and I tried to escape but they just shrieked with laughter, gleeful at the thought of my death...
Another night, my brothers -- my darling little brothers, they're only just innocent kids -- were captured by this painted cult, and tied to a stake, and all the men encircling them, closing in and closing in, tighter and tighter, and just as they touched the fire to the tinder I could see the shadow swooping in...
And once I watched, paralyzed, as this man had his arm ripped off by the most horrible creature, all scales and teeth and blood everywhere, and then the man turned to me, and his hand had become a weapon, and he came closer and closer and I couldn't scream...
In every one of these dreams, the shadow is beside me, laughing. And when I would wake up, I would hear it whisper, "we'll play again tomorrow night, won't we?"
So now I don't sleep. I just huddle under my blankets, trying not to hear it whisper, "let's play, Wendy..."
|
I was destined to be great. I was blessed with the gift of royalty.
Not only was this taken from me but so was my life, taken by someone close to me. Set up. Convicted of my own fathers murder. Pushed out of my home and into the treacherous world.
Alone to fend for myself. Every turn brought a new fear to the surface.
I was taken in by a pair of psychopathic and hallucinogenic outcasts. I was young and scared by their constant, indistinguishable rambling but out there, there was nothing. Unknown was there way of the world to me. Forced to eat things I did not want to eat and live by a policy I did not understand, nor do I believe, did they. Sent in to a state of mind that I no longer think was even real. I was sure there was no hope left and I was to be devoured by the world that these two proclaimed to be living in.
I still had my past. It haunted me. Every move I made meant an aching so deep it made my bones hurt and my heart feel pain like no other. I felt free, but also, far from it.
The pictures my mind brought to the surface were horrific. The sound and smell that came with it just made it worse. Bones cracking, the mixture of the scent of a wild beast and dust stung like a dagger.
I was brought back. Saved from the tortures of the wilderness. Saved and blessed by an angel from above. After I had left, my previous life and everything in it had disintegrated. Overrun by an army. Taken from the people I once loved and lived among. People I was destined to lead.
When I returned, I faced a life I no longer remembered. I did, however, know it was never like this. The place was covered with opposing forces. The war was fading, the food supply was wilting and land was barren. The man the now call king and I once called family was no longer fit to be apart of mine.
| 2014-08-04T08:23:09
| 2014-08-04T05:25:37
| 52
| 37
|
[WP] Wandering the streets, jobless, homeless, you happen across a silver ring with an inscription: "Help for the Needy." Idly you slip it on. Suddenly a voice resonates deep within your bones: "44 YARDS NORTH A CHILD LIES FACE DOWN IN THEIR POOL, UNATTENDED. DEATH IN 172 SECONDS. TIME TO RUN."
|
*44 YARDS NORTH A CHILD LIES FACE DOWN IN THEIR POOL, UNATTENDED. DEATH IN 172 SECONDS. TIME TO RUN.*
The ring compelled me to run. I didn’t really even know which way was north, but my body pulled me off in some direction and I followed it, fast. Or, as fast as I can. I’m not much of a runner, but when you are told to run, it awakens some other primal encouragement, doesn’t it? I sprint down the alley, I run past the McDonald's on the corner, and on through some dentist’s parking lot. I am out of breath, covered in sweat, but not tired, really. Like there is some other energy lifting my legs up and I’m just riding the momentum, but not used to it yet.
I cut through the tree line and find myself in a residential area. Lots of flowers, identical mailboxes, minivans, the like. My ringed hand pulls me forward, and jerks right. *DEATH IN 30 SECONDS. HURRY.* Fuck. My mind is racing, the fucking voice again and a chill runs through me. I’m in someone’s yard, I don’t see a pool. I smell chlorine. Next house has a fenced backyard and I try my best to get over it quickly. The kid is on top of the water, laying there like he’s sleeping face down. No hesitation, the ring doesn’t allow it. I jump in the pool, I grab the kid, I pull him out, I beat his chest and shake him. He coughs. The ring burns. He coughs. Water jumps out of his chest. “Who are you?”
I open my mouth to answer and a scream fills my ears. A woman, the kid’s mom, is running to the pool. A screen door slams behind her. The ring burns. I try and think of something to say, “I found the kid in the pool!” The woman doesn’t look at me. She runs to the pool. She jumps in. She grabs something, and is sobbing. She yells at it, she pulls it out of the pool. She beats on it. Silence. I can’t really tell what it is... Something feels off. The ring burns. The kid looks at me, “What is happening to me?” My hand is throbbing. I try to take the ring off.
*GOOD JOB. 200 FEET SOUTHEAST. A MAN LIES IN BED, SURROUNDED BY HIS FAMILY. DEATH IN 190 SECONDS. ESCORT HIM.*
|
It been months since I found this damned ring. Months of running. Months of near misses, close calls, and , sometimes, just not being fast enough. I just can't be everywhere at once. I've noticed that I don't get even a little winded when the ring tells me to run, but that's little help when I'm on the scene with no idea what to do next. It's not like I can call 911 and tell them there's an armed robbery 1.8 miles to the southwest.
I started reading the obituaries. If I'm not running, I go to the funerals of the ones I couldn't save. Accidents happen all over the city and the ring doesn't tell me about all of them. Why? Why was this accident worth averting, but not that one? Why has it never mentioned an accident more than 1.9 miles away? It just seems arbitrary.
I am pondering all these questions when I see the ad. It's small, tucked in amidst the obits and ads for funeral parlors and churches. "Rings Anonymous. Grady's Pub. 7 p.m. Every Monday. Time to Run!"
Grady's is a run\-down biker bar well outside of town. I know which table I am looking for the moment I walk in. There's a motley group gathered around a couple of tables in the back. We make our introductions and a little small talk before we get down to the business of the rings. The group varies from week to week, so it's hard to tell how many there really are.
There a few regulars. "Gunny" is an ex\-marine who found his ring on the ground outside the mess hall when he was stationed overseas. He figures it's saved hundreds of lives of the years. Nick is barely 18. He says his has been in his family for generations, only passed down when the previous wearer has died. It can't be removed any other way. Max is in college in the city, still pulling off the punk affectations from high school that she's not quite outgrown. She bought hers at a pawn shop because she "thought it looked cool." There are a few others, but they don't say much.
The rings can do a lot more than just warn you to run. Gunny hasn't run in years. "You gotta learn to embrace it," he says between sips of beer. "When you hear that voice. Concentrate on it. Listen closely to what it says. A hundred yards to the north...one mile to the south...focus on that. That ring can just take you there, but it takes a lot of practice. And you can't be even the least reluctant about going."
"Sometimes, I get there and I think that I have no idea what I'm doing and I feel like the ring just kind of takes over," Nick is kind of staring into space talking to no one in particular. "I have never done a Heimlich maneuver on an adult before, much less on a child, but I got there and just....just did it. And the kid's ok." Max stops fiddling with her coaster and looks up. "I stopped a bus. And, I don't mean I waved it down or stepped over the white line and told the driver to stop. I stepped off the curb between a bus and a little kid, held out my hand, and stopped. a. bus."
"Have any of you been sick since you got your ring?", one of the quiet ones speaks up for the first time. "I had terminal, inoperable cancer. I was a walking corpse. I'm in my oncologist's waiting room and the ring is just there on the table in front of the aquarium. I pick up and see the inscription. I don't even remember putting it on, but there it is. Cancer's gone within a week. Doc says he wishes he was as healthy as me."
We drink. We talk. We commisserate over our near misses, close calls and those times when we just aren't fast enough.
Eventually. we have to call it a night. It's a great location, isolated far enough that the only things the rings will warn us about are right here in this room, but we can't hide here forever. There's a lot of chaos out in the world, a lot of needy to help.
Edit: punctuation.
Edit: more
| 2018-04-30T12:07:17
| 2018-04-30T10:44:54
| 377
| 80
|
[WP] In most of the galaxy wars are often just shows of strength with fighting as a last resort. As such weapons are designed to be elaborate and flashy. Turns out humans, whose weapons are built with efficiency in mind, have a different understanding of war.
|
Gahlor'ak stood on at the command deck observing his fleet of warships with the undeniably beautiful backdrop of the purplish-green gas cloud. This was a collection of some of the finest vessels the Corr’an Empire had ever assembled, rivaled only by that of the elite royal fleet. Their undefeated hulls pot marked, scorched and repaired as a warning to all who oppose them.
A fully masked ensign interrupted his thoughts.
“Commander. It appears a small fleet has arrived.”
With a smirk Gahlor’ak turns, “Shields up! Bring up the Holo.”
The inhabitants within the command deck bustle with energy as battle stations were about to be sounded.
“Order the Vanguard to engage, bring the carriers to the back.” Gahlor’ak ordered confidently to his command team.
The ships lights go dark, red lights and short bursts of horns echo throughout the halls as the engines flare turning the ship in preparation of the battle. The command decks hologram appears in the center of the room. The entire system is showing in real time like a miniature war game.
‘How a war should be conducted’ Gahlor’ak thinks as a spins the hologram in the room so the view from the enemies perspective are inches from his tendrils.
He watched as the vanguard fleet of two dozen ships engaged the fleet of nine, the lance batteries blinding light kissing the hulls of the grotesquely plain metallic ships. He tapped into their coms to hear the Captains and their subordinates, to get a better understanding of the battlefield.
“…o effect. I repeat no effect. The hulls are absorbing the heat.”
“Vanguard lead to all ships. Fire missile batteries, full compliments!”
Gahlor’ak watched as uncountable amounts of missiles started to fly across the hologram coming straight at the ships in front of him. Small point defense batteries came online from the vessels. ‘Mass drivers?’ he thought, his tendrils curled in curiosity, ‘No bother, we can find out after the battle.’
A few of the missiles exploded in transit, the ones that made it through caused so many explosions it blinded the hologram.
“Vanguard lead to all, continue firing till empty, acknowledge when received.”
A flurry of acknowledgments crowded the vanguard coms.
“Before it even began it’s over in a flash.” Gahlor’ak said as a smile showed through his face tentacles “Send a message to the remnants of their fleet that we accept their surrender. Ready the logistical ships, to ferry and treat causalities, prep the gallery for the award cer…” He lost his train of thought as the hologram returned to normal.
The fleet was still sitting in place.
Not a single ship was gone.
“Not even the Faldarians could have withstood that...” he heard an officer say.
“NO EFFECT, I SAY AGAIN, NO EFFECT. ENEMY VESSELS TARGE..” a single core explosion from the vanguards fleet played on the hologram as the ancient vessel superheated.
“What just happened? Reverse and slow down the hologram” Gahlor’ak barked.
The hologram rewinded just before the explosion. Gahlor’ak zoomed the hologram in to see a straight bar of metal being fired from a curious looking cannon. The speed was astounding! It ripped clean through the ‘Light of Hullon’, shields be damned.
“Lead ships engines are engaging; they appear to be jumping to hyper drive!” A technician yells.
Gahlor’ak snaps out of his shock, “What appears to be their course?” he updates the Hologram back to real time.
“…Sir…they are aiming at us.”
The other ships in the fleet started firing, followed by the vanguards ships exploding one by one. Some of the smaller vessels turned to fall back to the rest of the fleet, but were punctured and sent tumbling into space. The rate of fire that these rods were fired at was unlike anything Ghalor’ak has ever seen. From any of the dozens of wars he has fought, never before has he seen a battle so lopsided.
The lead enemy ship on the hologram jumped at that moment, right in front of the Corr’ans Flag ship, Ghalor’ak’s ship. Horns blared.
Ghalor’ak looked out of the window at the vessel. Pods shot towards the ship, they clamped when they made contact, followed by an explosion. A single pod slammed into the metal hull next to the window.
A bright light, pressure and ringing followed as Ghalor’ak was thrown backwards.
He came to with an armored bipedal creature standing over him, holding a metal tube, presumably a weapon. His head lolled to the side taking in the surroundings. His crew was dead or dying. These creatures walked up to those on the ground executing them, as they passed without so much of a thought. He gritted his teeth, as he looked back at his executioner. The dark visor staring down at him reflecting his own visage. “Honorless.” He spat before the world went black.
------------------
“Alpha Actual, Foxtrot One. We engaged what we think is the command deck. All threats eliminated, continuing sweep of floor, Over.”
“Roger that Foxtrot One. Check your targets, Gulf One and Two look like there on the same floor from the heat sensors. Proceed onto Phase line two, Over.”
“Wilco.”
“Alpha Actual, Out.”
|
*Valkyrie this is Panther 6, I have changes to line 6 and remarks to pass*
*Panther this is Valkyrie, go ahead*
*Line 6: from original coordinate, area target, 500 meters heading 327 break*
*Remarks: two massed formations with a hundred meter gap, looks like guys on foot talking and dueling within the gap, over*
*Copy Panther, from original coordinate 500 meters heading 327, area target, massed troop formations*
*Solid Valkyrie, I want you to attack the left side of the formations, and dash 2 to attack the right side; can you do simultaneous runs?*
*Negative Panther, 10 second split*
*Copy Valkyrie, cleared hot*
Fuck those guys. Who brings Battalions with guns into the open to wave flags at each other? I feel sorry for everybody stuck on the Wasp in orbit fighting with the squids for gym time and standing in long chow lines. There is zero support infrastructure down here in the well, but I get to move and i have GRAVITY, even if it is half a g.
And these dipshits that both showed up to duel us separately but started fighting each other because we weren't there, and we were never going to be.
*Panther, Valkyrie, LASER ON*
*LAZING*
*Valkyrie 1, RIFLE*
This war is going to be short, and I'm already getting bored of it.
| 2020-03-21T13:21:58
| 2020-03-21T11:49:38
| 22
| 14
|
[WP] After too many ridiculous and lengthy lawsuits dominate the world's courts, the world leaders decided to pass a law to remove all warning labels. The Darwin Act has just been passed.
|
They hadn't anticipated these sorts of losses. The idiots were dropping like flies left and right. President Harvard had pushed for this bill for months, and now he was staring down the barrel of the consequences. 4,000 casualties in D.C alone, and the numbers just kept pouring in. What was wrong with these people? He'd expected a rise in accident related deaths, but this was unprecedented! Velma, his over worked and overworked secretary scurried into the oval office with a stack of reports. President Harvard gave a groan.
"Don't tell me." He snapped.
"There's more from West Virginia, Sir." She plowed ahead. This stupid bill had kept her up all night and she looked a mess. Her glasses were skewed and her hair stuck up in poufs where she had run her hands through it.
"More!? The whole state will be dead at this rate!" Harvard gripped his hair and shook his head. The press would have a feeding frenzy. But how could he have been expected to forsee this!? Who would have thought America was so... stupid? Sure they'd called it the Darwin law, but nobody had actually anticipated the mass extinction of idiots!
"And the Prime Minister is on the phone, Sir." Velma picked up the phone pressed one of the many flashing lines and held it out to Harvard expectantly. He gave the woman a glare and waved her away as he took the reciever.
"Hello, Prime Minister... No,no we're just fine! How are your numbers?... Only 2,000 you say?... How is that poss-!... What do you mean you've seen our numbers on the news!?... Dammit Velma!" Harvard slammed the reciever down. The U.K had only lost 2000? How could that be possible!? As Velma re-entered the room he slammed his fist on the table.
"I want the number reports for all of the other countries! I need to know how we stand in the global losses!" Velma pulled a file from her stack and handed it to the president. As he opened it his face went from ruddy, to ashen. "That can't be all!" He shouted. Velma blinked and nodded.
"That's up to date as of ten minutes ago."
"We've lost more than every country in the world and it isn't even noon!"
|
After ten years abroad, I returned home to the United States. I had heard strange rumors flitting about now and again, but how much of it was true i could only speculate. It had been about 13 years since the land of my birth had seceded from the global economy, isolating and insulating, after the events of the Long Spring.
I stood awkwardly in my airport terminal waiting for my flight, having unconsciously panicked and departed some five hours early for my flight. I thought about home and I shuddered in a giddy uncertain apprehension.
The flight lasted three hours. I did not speak, burying myself in a novel I had intended to read since my second year of university. I was now thirty five.
When my feet touched the hallowed soil of that nation, known in times long past as the birthplace of freedom, the haven for hypocrisy, the defender of those who shall inherit the Earth, the meek, the land of interventionists and bigots, I could not stop the slight curling of my lip, whether in disdain or in a certain patriotic remembrance of a golden age long revealed to be merely gilded, I suppose it is not my right to know. I hailed a taxi and requested that I be delivered to my ancestral home. As we drove I took stock. I saw drivers, mine included, careening through intersections next to which, in other nations, stop lights would have dictated their right to proceed. It was true then. The Darwin Acts. Papers had been published throughout the world on the strange, far right, anti-coddling phase it seemed the US was going through. My nation was mocked and derided throughout Europe for it. I personally had no grounds to argue in its favor. It had claimed the lives of childhood friends, those I relied on to get me through to my adulthood, at this point consisting of half-read novels, iron-burned shirts, and unemployment. I was, suffice to say, not a fan.
Having arrived at the home of my fathers, a small and somewhat decrepit home falling into disrepair, I paid my driver. He looked strange, pale, his hands bony and scarred. I entered my home, bidding him good day.
| 2017-03-24T02:56:03
| 2017-03-24T02:55:36
| 21
| 15
|
[WP] You are a barista in a 24 hour coffee shop. Every night at 3:33am a demon appears for the Dark Lord's latte.
|
The door chime rang with its usual *Fingernails on a Blackboard* ring that only sounded when -HE- came in. I didn't even have to look at the clock; it was 3:33 AM. He was always very punctual.
"Hello, Sir. The usual?"
This time the Demon sighed deeply. It was a hot and humid night but his exhalation dropped the temperature by 30 degrees. I was grateful for that, to be honest. Our AC unit was in dire need of replacement.
Well, this was a new development; He had barely spoken in the past and he seemed all business on his visits. I glanced up at him, his dark shadow swirled in the vague shape of a very large man. Occasionally I'd see glints of light in it, almost as if someone had tossed a handful of glitter into a tornado.
I didn't know what to say, so I said it. "Is everything okay, sir?"
He roiled/moved/drifted towards a stool at the bar. Suddenly the seat disappeared, replaced by a black cloud. I guess that's how a demon sits down in our world?
I had started to make his usual request, a Latte, light sugar. As was the case when he ordered, I burned my hand. I was used to this. I kept a dixie cup of water in the freezer for these moments.
"I'm sorry about that, Julie. I am trying to control things, but they don't always work the way I want them to."
I turned towards him, my eyes wide. He knew my name? "Of course. You're wearing a nametag." He could read my mind? "Yes, Julie, I can."
'Wow' was my next thought. At this the head-portion of the shadow seemed to chuckle.
I blushed. The demon leaned back and looked at me with what I assumed was a smile? On his face? "Yes, Julie. This is what I look like when I smile. Although I rarely smile. I'll let you know one thing that disturbs me tonight; I wish you'd stop calling me 'Sir'. 'Sir' is my father. I'm Garettazikiel. Pleased to meet you. I'd offer my handshake, but I would just burn you. Gary for short." He added.
"Gary. Well, nice to meet you too, sir. I mean, Gary. I'll try to remember not to call you 'sir' but I'm kinda sorta used to doing that. The big boss doesn't like it when we're too familiar." Here I added air quotes. "He says he wants a 'higher standard of service' for our 'guests'".
I couldn't help but roll my eyes multiple times.
Gary laughed at this, an honest and heartfelt belly laugh.
"Your boss and my boss might just be related" he said.
|
“Hey, how’d it go with your date last night?”
I looked at the time. It’s 3:32am. “Well, kind of a long story. I’d tell you, but you know who will be here any minute now.”
“Ah. True. Well, he might wanna hear too? Is he a he by the way? Does he just identify as “demon” or …”
Suddenly Damien the Demon, most venerable assistant to “The Dark Lord,” appears.
I’ve worked this shift at Angel Café for six months now. Damien, a powerful demon, without fail, appears every night at exactly 3:33am to pick up a latte for “The Dark Lord.” I’ve never gotten used to this and probably never will. I get chills every time Damien appears, but I always try my best to hide my fear and stay professional.
“Damien! How are you?”
“You know why I’m here. Where is it?”
“Ah … uh … right. Coming right up. Just finishing it up now.”
“And why isn’t it already ready?”
“Well … sir … or … uh … yea …”
“What Chris means to say is that last time we made it to be ready for as soon as you arrive and you complained that it was not fresh enough despite us making it literally 30 seconds before you appeared.”
I go back and forth between looking at Damien and Lisa. I can’t believe she just said that to a freaking demon. Is she crazy? Ah, shit! I spill Damien’s order as I’m distracted.
“Fuck,” I whisper just a tad bit too loudly.
“What is it? Where is the latte?”
“Uh … sorry Damien. I …”
My eyesight rapidly deteriorates as tears pile up. I wipe my eyes to prevent a waterfall. Lisa comes over to help.
“It didn’t come out right. We’ll get you a fresh one started immediately.”
That was a lie. Lisa just lied to cover for me. God I hope Damien isn’t psychic.
“It has been 3 minutes. The Dark Lord will not be happy with this wait.”
I nod my head furiously while multitasking and scrambling to get another latte started. Lisa puts her hand over my hand in a signal for me to stop and calm down. I look her in the eyes and nod slowly.
“I am not Cupid. I am a powerful demon. Cut the romance, complete my order, or you will find out exactly what it means to be a powerful demon.”
“Yes. We’re on it Damien. Chris is going to take a break and I’ll get this done right away.”
Damien grunts. I walk to the other side of the café to do some stocking. Lisa pours Damien’s latte into a large coffee cup.
“Here you go. One large iced vanilla latte.”
“Have all the specifications been met?”
“Blonde roast cold brew, one pump vanilla, whole milk, and a dash of cinnamon.”
“Good.”
Damien grabs the coffee.
“By the way, my manager did mention that we’re getting ready to sell to a new owner so I’m not sure if the new owner will be okay with the whole free coffee in exchange for not killing us deal. Just letting you know.”
Damien glares at Lisa.
“I guess we will see.”
Damien suddenly disappears.
I let out a huge sigh of relief and put my hands on my knees while looking at the ground.
Lisa walks over and rubs my back.
I stand up straight.
“You know, Lisa, either you’re the bravest person on the planet, the craziest person on the planet, or both … You know if I didn’t know any better I’d think you’re a demon yourself.”
I grin and giggle.
Lisa grins as well.
“Chris … you have no idea.”
Lisa winks at me.
I tilt my head slightly to the side while looking slightly confused. I wonder what she means by that?
My thought is interrupted by another customer walking in. Ah, fuck. I guess it’s about that time for the after-party crowd. Beats a demon, but not by much.
| 2022-10-30T12:11:47
| 2022-10-30T11:59:59
| 200
| 50
|
[WP] All of the "#1 Dad" mugs in the world change to show the actual ranking of Dads suddenly.
|
James was not a great man.
Great men walked up to the world and bent it to its will. Great men looked at challenge and laughed.
James did his 9-5, came home, and sat down. He typically would stand back up a few times, to use the toilet or get a beer, but no more than a few.
His son had stopped asking him to play with him a long time ago, not that James really noticed. It just, stopped, nothing to it.
But then there was this mug.
It was a gift for Christmas one year, a typical 8 year old present, a #1 Dad mug.
But now it said he was #986,800,672.
He looked out the window to the backyard, seeing his son toss a ball in the air and catch it.
He looked back at the mug, then at his son.
...
James stood up. Perhaps he could play catch today.
And the mug, now facing down, ticked down to #986,800,671.
|
My father loads his rifle full of bullets. I asked him,"What are you doing dad?" "Well, my mug says number two, and James's mug says number one. I must be number one." He raises his rifle and fires. Killing his life long friend. He grabbed his mug from the table and saw it turn from #2 to #4569. My father laughed and said, "I'm gonna need more bullets."
| 2017-06-11T09:29:45
| 2017-06-11T08:09:34
| 159
| 42
|
[WP]. The purge except it's 24 hours that retail workers can talk back to the customers and managers
|
"I've just got a few over ten items, if that's alright?"
"No. It's actually not alright, as that person behind you actually made a fucking effort and I don't see why he should be forced to wait because you can't fucking count to ten." I snap back, enjoying the shocked look on the customer's face. Someone forgot what day it was, I expect. I give the customer behind her a nod, indicating that he should move his stuff up.
From behind me, I can vaguely hear Katie (the self-service girl) and Marie (checkouts manager) get into a blistering row about next week's rota, both in their incessantly Scouse accents. Apparently Marie gave Katie three extra hours on Tuesday, which she can't do because she's got to pick her kids up from school.
I can also hear Claire's snarl of 'if you stab me with those nails again, I'll cut them off' and Fiona's battle cry of 'no, of course it's not fucking free if we can't scan it, are you fucking stupid?' from two of the nearby tills.
I smile at the next customer, and continue my shift.
Life is good.
|
"Oh you can fuck right off, you crazy bitch." The once screaming customer stopped and stared in shock. "I'll have to talk to your manager about this." "Oh, like that lazy cunt will do anything about it."
Honestly, today was just one big justice boner for me.
I've told about five insane customers to go fuck themselves, and they deserved it. My manager has told me to reason with the crazy people despite the Retail Purge going on, but I just told her to fuck off too.
They can't do anything about it, because firing me for anything I did today is illegal. This is making me so happy.
"I've never seen this level of disrespect towards a paying customer in all my life!" She exclaimed, but I just shrugged. "Maybe if you weren't such a cunt to the retail workers you wouldn't get disrespected." I said nonchalantly, feeling the warm feeling of payback bubbling up inside me.
Like I said, this day is just one big justice boner for me.
| 2017-06-17T17:36:58
| 2017-06-17T12:32:30
| 315
| 99
|
[WP] So many great generals and people have gone to hell, humans must have conquered it by now. Tell the story.
Ghengis, Alexander, Napolean...the list stretches into infinity. Their genious combined with the endless billions of trained soldiers, hardened criminals and flamboyant homosexuals. Tell the story of humanities greatest conquest! Tell us how man besieged the gates of Hell!
|
It was not Caesar, Julius of Gaul, Rubicon and Rome, that conquered Hell. No, that job was done by the endless thousands Caesar sent there before himself: all the generals and luckless legionaires of Rome, thrown willy-nilly to the jaws of death to feed his ambition. When the great Caesar finally fell, and found himself on the dark plain clutching at wounds in a whole, ghostly breast, his first cries were those of a man seeing friends he had long thought lost --- until scowl by scowl he recalled how he had betrayed each of those waiting, and marched over their cold backs to the crownless kingship of Rome.
Hell was an ancient and arbitrary design: the demons had their own religions and stories of its origin and purpose. They were advanced over humankind only in that their god was real: a giant of immeasurable age, horned and dead-eyed and many-named. He was called Tartarus, and Anubis, and Baal and Satan the Opposer.
It was he who came to meet the Roman rebellion, and its banners bedecked with twitching imps in the place of eagles. It was he who, looming as if a mountain, roared a challenge to the puny walls and ditches in the stony ground of Hell.
It was he who had not seen ballistae nor onagers before, and was too proud to duck.
As for the demons, they were big and strong, not unlike the Gauls and Germans the Romans had already conquered. They were alien and ancient, the stuff of legends and misunderstood whispers --- but was that not also Greece, Egypt and Persia, all places not unfamiliar with the victorious tread of Roman feet?
It was Rome, thus, that by the long line of its damned legionaires overthrew Hell, and dug up all buried there --- their wives and children, their fathers and grandfathers, and praise-babbling alive-buried lines of ancients robbed of the ability to die. Like coal they dug up the dead of Thermopylae and Gaugamela, stacked like cordwood but still moaning and groaning and alive in Hell, buried alive. They set up a Roman republic, for all the senators and consuls were there, back the years to Romulus's day, except each pastward generation had slightly stranger memories of the past; and those at Rome's first dawn had not heard of the twin founders or the She-Wolf.
So as the republic of the living fell to the hunger of Octavius, Caesar's son of ambition, whom his generation would learn to call Augustus or die screaming, so in Hell rose a republic of the dead who yet still lived: a stronger republic, though maybe not happier, for its people were familiar with all varieties of folly and defeat. It was a state where the losers came before the victors.
As for Julius Caesar, nobody knows his fate. But there is a rumor, a blasphemous story it is not safe to tell in Hell or here, that he alone among all that ever lived found the way back, and set his mind to barring Hell's republic from gaining any more of Rome's souls. It is said he found a different path, though where it leads, to oblivion or some other hell, nobody knows.
All that is known in Hell is that those who follow the teachings of the one called Jesus Christ do not end up there.
|
Beelzebub stood with all his dukes and looked on in transfixed fascination as a cloud of glitter went up in the air obscuring his vision of the homosexual regiment of the enemies army, and eventually the entire front.
"What the fuck," he grabbed a spyglass, "they've thrown glitter..? Fucking glitter?! Where did they even find it?"
Cries of pain from the throats of demons mixed in with the ecstatic cries of human murderers filled the air.
Dantalion appeared nearby, face shifting from man to woman to a child's face, "The gays brought it to hell with them, we didn't know what to do with it other than store it somewhere. They must have raided the storage."
"Double fuck damn. What else do they have?"
"They also found where we kept the Jezebel's away from the general populace. Our scouts report that the enemies soldiers are kept well, and I mean WELL, occupied throughout downtime."
"So, some good news at last, the rebellion will wear itself out through fucking."
Dantalion looked aside for a moment before replying.
"If anything, it seems that they have renewed vigour afterwards."
What could be made out through the sparkling cloud was not good from hell's perspective. Demons were falling. Throats slashed and corpses defiled. They had been pushed back to this last stronghold of Hell, the final seat of their power.
"If I cried out to Jehovah, do you think he would answer and save us from this?" Beelzebub asked.
Murmur stepped forward, "I doubt that the Almighty who condemned these men and women will come to our rescue, though it does pose an interesting question. What must a demon do to be accepted into Heaven?"
Eligos riding the gift Beelzebub had given him aeons ago, came from the direction of the fighting.
"This war is lost. There is no way of winning."
| 2014-10-16T11:28:33
| 2014-10-16T07:56:04
| 86
| 25
|
[WP] You have the power to access another person's mind, but you must play a game/puzzle reflective of the owner's mind to unlock its secrets. You have solved 7x7 Rubik's cubes, played games of 3D Chess, and beaten countless final bosses. This time, however, you are caught off-guard.
If it's an unsolvable game/puzzle, that's fine. If the game is made up, then that's cool, too. Just have fun with the prompt!
|
Another three-dimensional maze.
Nothing hard.
Not for me at least.
In fact, I could see the exit from the start.
I stepped forward.
Then the maze changed shape. Colour, too.
Green dissolved into red.
Left inverted into Up.
The walls morphed, losing their sharp edges for amorphous blobs.
I stopped moving.
The maze paused its transformations.
I stepped forward again.
The maze drifted out of shape again.
A four-dimensional maze?
Who the hell was this guy?
Now it wasn't just a petty need to find some dirt on him for blackmail.
Now it was professional curiosity.
Instead of stepping forward, I jumped.
I floated.
A deep voice boomed all around me.
"Nice try, champion."
I dropped and hit the ground hard.
The exit was in front of me.
Highlighted by a narrow hallway that lead directly to it.
"Go on, then." The voice mocked.
I started moving forward.
The walls moved in on me.
All four, crushing me from every angle.
I stopped moving.
They didn't.
I could barely breathe.
With the air still left in my lungs, I screamed.
I blinked.
The real world surrounded me.
I was sitting in a high-classed restaurant, all orange lights and crimson carpets. The familiar hum of conversation enveloped me. Before me, sitting in a pitch-black Armani suit was the partner of the consultancy firm. He was chewing thoughtfully on a piece of swordfish and staring out the window to our left. After a moment, he looked toward me. He'd noticed I'd stopped eating and smiled.
"Don't try that again." He said, calmly.
|
Chess again. The simple kind, for once. I sighed to myself quietly. I wanted to take my time on this one.
*E4*
*D4*
Wait. That was my piece. I exited the game, briefly, and looked at my target from across the coffee shop. Mid-twenties, decent body, reading a science fiction book. Something about Star Trek.
I entered again, and attempted to restart.
*E4*
*D9*
All of a sudden, I developed a pounding headache, followed quickly by powerful nausea. I fell off my chair.
"Whoa! Hey!" Two men in suits rushed over to me from the next table. I couldn't see, could barely breathe. I fought against them in a panic. I could hear someone talking to the police on their phone. I yelled as I kicked off my shoe in an effort to escape.
Patrons pushed away as I crawled across the floor. Still somewhat blinded, I made my best guess as to where the door was. I couldn't go to the police. Wiping minds took time, and in my state I didn't even know if it was possible. Reaching, straining, desperate for air. Can't feel my left side. Must... reach...
And then, a shoe landed on my arm. I screamed in pain, my voice hoarse despite how little I'd used it. I could feel the entity leaning down towards me, as a woman's voice whispered, "You're terrible at chess."
My senses returned all at once, and the woman exited, the door chime ringing as she left. The last thing I saw before being dragged to the back of the shop were the words "Kobayashi Maru" and a picture of a large spaceship.
| 2015-04-28T15:52:09
| 2015-04-28T15:31:55
| 253
| 78
|
[WP] A cop arrives at the golden gate bridge to talk a man out of committing suicide. After they have a short conversation, the cop jumps off the bridge.
|
San Francisco was bathed in grey fog as the sun began to rise on the horizon. The Golden Gate Bridge was barely visible in the hazy morning sky as Officer Dalton made his way to the bridge with his sirens blasting. He had received a report of a civilian standing on the railing preparing to jump. This wasn’t uncommon for the Golden Gate Bridge.
Officer Dalton drove slowly across bridge when he spotted a dark figure along the railing. He parked the police car and slowly made his way towards the shadowy outline of a person. It was almost impossible to see through the thick fog, but he could tell that the person was standing facing the water with their arms outstretched backwards, holding onto the railing.
“Hello. My name is Officer Dalton. Please come back from the railing. Let’s talk about this ok?”
The figure remained silent. He moved closer so he could get a better view.
“Listen, you don’t want to do this. Let’s get you back over the railing ok?”
Finally he was close enough to see. The person appeared to be in a blue dress shirt with black slacks. They also had something around their waste. Dalton edged closer and a saw a thick belt with a large holster. It was possible he had a gun. Dalton stopped his advance.
“Do you have a gun sir? Can you tell me what you’re doing here?”
Finally the figure began to slowly twist his body around to face Dalton. Gradually he turned and through the fog Dalton began to make out the figure’s face.
Dalton’s heart plunged into his stomach.
It was himself.
Dalton locked eyes with himself in full uniform. The body was his, but the eyes…the eyes were alien. He couldn’t move. Dalton could feel his consciousness slipping in and out. His vision faded and just before he collapsed onto the pavement, he saw himself gently let go of the railing.
Moments later he woke up in a free fall towards the bay. He only had time to scream before plunging into the frigid waters.
That morning, a suicide was reported on the Golden Gate Bridge. The body was never found or identified. Officer Dalton returned to duty the next day.
|
"Hey buddy! You can't do that here! Do you know how much of a pain it is to fish people out of the water?" Officer Dave shouted to a man about to jump from the Golden Gate Bridge.
"Who cares," said the man. "Just leave me down there if you have to. I'm not worth the trouble."
"No."
"Why not?" The man leaned closer to the edge. He trembled, and Officer Dave made sure to keep his distance.
"I don't know, sir. I don't write the rules. What is your name?"
"Perry."
"What the hell has taken you here, guy?"
"I killed a man," Perry said through tears. "I was drunk but I thought I was okay to drive. You don't know what it's like. The guilt. The pain of knowing I can never undo what I have done."
Officer Dave looked around. Droplets of sweat ran down his nose and dripped onto his shirt, and he snorted. "Shut it. That is really bumming me out. I'm in a really good mood, and you're just like--I don't know--hey, do you like gambling?"
"I guess," said Perry.
"I have two hundred dollars in my wallet. I will give you that money and jump off this bridge right fucking now if you promise to give it another 24 hours to really think about things. Priorities and whatnot. I don't know."
The man stepped back. "Wait, what? That doesn't even make--"
Officer Dave's mouth twitched and he looked up to the sky. "I'm trying to branch out, you know? Trying new things. My wife got me to try yoga. It was awful. It's all awful," he sighed. "I am on a *lot* of amphetamines right now. So I will jump off this bridge and give you the money if you can answer one trivia question. If you can't, I'll just go back to my car and pray that you change your mind."
"I can't be responsible for another death."
"I'm going to jump if you don't answer my question," Officer Dave laughed.
"But...like...what? What is the question?" asked Perry. He squirmed and trembled more.
"My wife and I had an argument today about who Patrick Stewart is. She said he is the guy from some Star Trek show or something stupid like that," Officer Dave laughed. His face twitched.
"Who do you think he is?"
"I don't think he is a real person. She made it all up."
"Okay," said Perry. "She is right."
"Fuck."
^edited ^for ^a ^typo
| 2014-07-04T22:01:17
| 2014-07-04T21:53:12
| 97
| 17
|
[WP] You're an amputee at the elbow. Your doctor tells you that you might experience Phantom Limb every now and then. But you are not prepared for the moment when a hand tightly holds your missing limb.
|
Roger was a lot of things, he was an office worker, he was clumsy, he was too picky about his bedsheets and he was an amputee.
People avoided Roger's eyes in stores, which was something he'd never understood. Sure, he caught on that nobody wanted to deal with the awkward of looking at a prosthetic, but his eyes weren't prosthetic. By avoiding Roger's eyes the passersby were only increasing the odds of getting caught staring at his plastic arm.
Even that was assuming that Roger was wearing his prosthetic that day, which was a 50/50 chance depending on how recently he'd damaged it. Roger had considered buying a spare arm, but he figured he'd fall on it and break his spare arm with his current arm and then he'd be out 1000 dollars instead of several hundred. Roger had just been reminded of the price of an arm when he placed the order last afternoon.
Which meant that Roger was out on a date without his arm. In fact, he was early for a date while missing an arm. The waiter had been nice enough, making sure that he was comfortable and giving extra attention to assure him that she wasn't discriminating against him.
So Roger sat at the table, alternating between reading the menu and drinking his water. Time ticked by as the waiter came back with a refill and Roger refused it. He was going to be leaving soon. He'd been on enough dates to know when someone had turned around at th-
"You Roger, mate?" a man asked as he slid up to the table. He didn't wait for Roger to respond before taking his seat. "Sorry I'm late, sholda known better than to hop in the car at this time of day."
Roger didn't respond, the man was Australian, accent and everything; That required a mental note to thank Taylor.
"Anyway," the man started, "I'm Marcus, Tay told ya about me, right?" Marcus held out his hand on the wrong side, and Roger shook it anyway.
"Yeah she-" the gears in Roger's head started turning as he caught the man shaking the nothing on Roger's right side. Wasn't that hilarious? But still, Roger could feel it. "What the hell?" he asked.
"What I thoug-" Marcus started. Roger jumped back of his chair, ripping his phantom hand away from Marcus. "Roger!" Marcus called out before getting up from the table- "Shit, you're Roger right? Look I didn't mean anything by it if you're not, I was just supposed to-" Marcus kept talking, but Roger stopped listening.
For a moment, half a glorious moment there, Roger had his arm back. He felt it in Marcus' powerful grip. He could feel a friendly handshake instead of the awkward left-handed one. It had been there. "My arm," Roger finally got out as he stared at the blank space where his limb was supposed to be.
"What about it mate?" Marcus turned back to Roger once he was done assuring the staff that everything was alright. "S'all good."
"How did you touch my arm?" Roger asked.
"With my hands," Marcus pointed out. "Look mate, if I crossed a boundary just let me know and I'll scoot on outta here. Didn't mean to cheese ya."
"Of course I'm fucking," Roger thought about the word for a moment, "cheesed, how the hell did you touch my arm?" he asked, "it's fucking missing."
"Hey Mate," Marucs said, "you feelin' okay?"
"I'm!" Roger realized he was making a scene, "I'm fine, how'd you touch my arm?"
"Well I grabbed it mate, not like I went for the left side or something."
"You should have gone for the left side," Roger waved his right elbow wildly in the air. "There's nothing here," Roger paused, "mate."
"Stop waving your arm around," Marcus said, "you're all turned aorund. Maybe I'll get ya a glass-a-water and we can chat about what happened there?"
"What?" he asked, "I'm missing my right arm."
"Nah mate, you're missin' your left," Marcus pointed out before putting his hand through Roger's intact left arm.
**Enjoy my attempt to write an Aussie accent? Want to bug me about contiuting this? Find me over on /r/JacksonWrites**
|
I would recognise that hand anywhere, the shape of the callouses, the slender fingers, the tight grip. This was a hand formed by hard labour in the garden every weekend, until I came out with a drink, or she came in with a bouquet of the most beautiful flowers that you ever saw. They always lasted much longer than anything from a shop. She would kiss me on here cheek, I would promise to finish work before 9 and she would go into the kitchen and start dinner.
She wasn't a great cook, as I never had time to teach her, as I promised to a long time ago. But I would always eat every bite. At 9:15 i would stop and sit in front of the TV as she would pick out a film that I *had* to watch and I would promise to make it to the end this time. I never did. I would wake up at anytime between 1 and 2:30 on the sofa with a blanket and a pillow, and check on her as I when to bed. Reiterating a old promise from long ago.
"I will never let anything hurt you."
In the end I would break that promise, as I had broken so many before. But now, real or otherwise, I would die before letting go
| 2017-03-08T12:40:36
| 2017-03-08T12:22:13
| 1,042
| 75
|
[WP] Nonfiction - Tell Us About Your First kiss.
Or, if you must, tell us about *a* first kiss. Either way, it has to have actually happened.
Edit: You guys are wonderful, keep 'em coming!
|
The smell of her shampoo. That's what brings it all back. Someone passes me on the street and I'm flung back to her room, and I'm thirteen and we're both awkward. We're talking about music and gigs and listening to 'Different Class' by Pulp, and her lamp is on low so the room is dark, and we're sitting on her bed and it's like we're creating this third thing in the room, this palpable presence, this tension that can only be broken by turning to each other, and moving closer, and I can feel my heart pounding because this is it, we're kissing, and she smells so good, and I could do this forever.
Then the person walks on, and the memory gets blown away like mist at dawn.
|
My best friend had gotten her first kiss in eight grade and I was SO conflicted. Half of me thought she had wasted it on this stupid guy in our class who wouldn't matter in a few weeks, half of me wondered just what it was like. When we started freshman year of high school, it didn't take me long to zero in on the cute, cocky Junior in my health class. He sat behind me and pulled my hair, like we were in first grade, or told me I had something on the back of my shirt. I didn't - never did - but it never stopped him from trying to mess with me in first period. He had a girlfriend, on and off, for those first two months of school. We both auditioned for the school play, and my best friend went with me too. I sat between the two of them, passing notes all afternoon and joking while we waited to read our sides and be done. I got nervous once I finally got up there and was totally awful, but it didn't phase me much. After auditions, my best friend had to go home instead of come to my house, like we'd planned, so I walked around campus with my crush, talking about auditions and letting him tell me I wasn't that bad when I went up, even though I was.
He mentioned that he'd seen my best friend and I passing notes that weren't also passed to him. In truth, she'd been telling me to ask him to Homecoming, but I didn't dare admit that because at the time, I had no idea if he was or wasn't back together with his girlfriend. He chased me around the quad, tried grabbing the note out of my pocket, the whole deal. He hugged me at one point and I remember thinking, "hugging a guy you like is just weird, hugging a guy you like who might have a girlfriend is torture." He brought up, hours later, that he was not still with the girlfriend. He still hadn't seen the note. I got a call from my dad, asking what the hell was taking so long at auditions, since it was now well past eight at night, and I hung up knowing it only took five minutes to walk home, but that my dad knew that as well as I did. I'd had so much fun just hanging out and joking around, but I had no idea he was going to do what he did just minutes later.
He tried to get the note again, at first, before I told him I really had to go. I walked around the corner of the building, telling him I'd see him Monday, and thought that was it. I didn't look back until I heard him shouting, from halfway across the blacktop.
"So, what, that's it?"
I just about jumped out of my skin, but oh, man, was I happy he'd come after me. But, stupid me - I said:
"Yeah, that's it."
He didn't take that as a proper answer, thank god, and he walked straight up to me and kissed me. They say in cheesy movies and novels that the world spins, you know? Like you're dizzy and the ground has disappeared. It totally happened like that for me. I was awkward, I was kind of shy, and yet I'd just had a teen-novel-worthy first kiss with my crush. I was dizzy the entire walk home.
Monday, we were writing notes in class when I admitted that it had been my first kiss. He was sweet enough to tell me that he couldn't tell (though to be honest, it might not have been a lie, it seemed to come pretty natural to me) and he said he was "honored" to have been my first kiss. What a cutie.
We never really went out, we sort of just hung out at lunch and only ever kissed that once. I wanted it to happen again, but a few weeks later his girlfriend came crying back to him, once again. He took her back. We're still friends, he's still a cool guy. For a while after he took his girlfriend back - at least, until a month or two later when I got my first real high school boyfriend, who I dated for a respectable three months before having my best friend break up with him for me because he was a weird kisser and he was sort of boring - I thought I had wasted my first kiss on someone who wouldn't matter. Totally wrong. It sucked, at the time, that his girlfriend was back in the picture, but I am so glad I can look back on my first kiss and remember it being as sweet and dizzying as it was.
| 2014-04-01T06:35:11
| 2014-04-01T06:27:05
| 79
| 29
|
[WP] You live in a city full of people with powers (telekinesis, electro kinesis, sensors, etc) and everyone is ranked according to how powerful they but they can kill someone of higher rank and obtain their rank. You are rank #1 but no one knows what your power is
Edit: Thank you all so much for submitting your stories. please do not stop posting and i will not stop reading. my favourites so far have been the coinflip/luck duo and the weak telekinetic that goes for the brain lol love all the spins on powers everyone has
|
\#21904. That used to be my name, three days ago, and now I'm, well, #1.
No one in the city knows how it happened. The Top 30, the ruling cabal, have absolutely no idea. I still haven't figured it out, either.
All I remember is walking into a meeting where #1 was giving a speech- for the first time, since I'd finally turned 18 and had to follow the city's decrees. He didn't even say a word; he just randomly glared at me, told me to come up to the podium- and, overcome with dread, I did. Then he thrust his dagger toward me.
I closed my eyes and realized he'd held it backwards; the hilt was in my hands. Before I could react, he jerked it back sharply and blood shot out of his chest straight into my face. His power was telepathy, not immortality. I screamed. He was smiling.
He didn't even bother to speak. Nobody else in the room even gasped. I was #1, and they accepted it. They were smiling, too.
I wish I'd been able to figure out what was going on, but I've been around 18 years and I haven't even found out my power. There's no chance of me figuring it out anytime soon, either, since every day I face another challenge. Some are from the remaining Top 30, the ones who weren't at the meeting, and others are just nobodies who think they have a shot because of what happened to me.
Thing is, at all the public challenges, the same thing happens. They come in there grimacing, but when they get up, they use their power against themselves. They all die. Smiling. And the crowd smiles too.
It seems like they all just want me to win.
|
*Number 1 -- ranked number 1 for 20 consecutive years today, and nobody has even come close to usurping me. Do you know why? Because while all the powerless, scum-dwelling peasants are fighting each other with knives for scraps, and those of the middle and upper classes are all tearing each other apart to rise through the ranks, I am in a class of my own. The truth is, my power is the weakest, least extravagant power imaginable. But, it is also the most powerful. My power is subtle, discrete, and soft-spoken. Nobody knows what it is, and it is because of that discretion that I have grown so great. For 20 years, I have been number 1 for one reason. Belief. I have the power of mass, psychic hypnotism. For 20 years, the people of this city have believed the lie that I am God incarnate because I have thrust it upon their conscious minds. And so too they believe the greatest lie this city maintains -- that the list exists at all.*
*They worship me. I am an idol and an icon, and those who have been reduced to icons have been exalted beyond humanity. In other words, no one dares touch me. I am naked. Here I stand with no armor in the midst a field of warring titans, and yet I have been unscathed all this time.*
*The power of belief is as strong and permanent as any iron, if not stronger. The motto I have made -- and made well-known -- for this city is "Strong as Iron." They believe it is about them. But underneath, on the hidden layer they cannot see, it is about the only that matters. It is about me. The holder of the key to faith. The rope that holds the cargo in place. The iron that is stronger than iron.*
These were the final thoughts of the monarch before they captured him. Before they raided his office and dismantled 20 years of a rock-solid faith. Before they tied him to a post with rifles to his face. Those were his final thoughts. And these were his final words: "how did you know?"
And the people replied: "even iron can melt."
| 2014-12-18T14:20:18
| 2014-12-18T11:44:55
| 171
| 68
|
[WP] You, an American, awake in an alternate dimension where magic exist. But unlike the fantasies on Earth, where magic is conjured through Latin (the more Latin you know, the stronger your magic), beings in this dimension all speak a different language, and their language of power is English.
|
Desperté como todas las mañanas, no muy ansioso de llegar a mi trabajo como profesor de Ingles… -¿Espera un momento?, hay algo diferente…, estoy hablando en español… but I can actually remember all I know in English… -Pero siento que debo hablar en español como si siempre lo hubiera sabido (aunque solo tube una clase de español en la secundaria), como si fuera lo mas natural para mi.
De pronto escuche a alguien tocar a la puerta de mi departamento:
​
\- Buen día señor… o disculpe, no sabia que el señor Miguel tenia visitas.
\- Yo soy el señor Miguel, Michael o bueno si Miguel, yo vivo aquí…
\- No, aquí vive… el señor Miguel me advirtió…
​
Tomó de su bolso lo que parecía una varita mágica y procedió a pronunciar:
​
*“Stiffen Lots”*
​
Su varita parecía brillar y de alguna forma yo no podia mover ni un solo músculo
​
“*What are you talking about?”*
​
Dije instintivamente y de pronto apareció todo en mi cabeza, se explico como por arte de magia, yo me encontraba en otra demisión, el idioma Ingles era el odio de la magia y yo como maestro de Ingles tenia una ventaja inconmensurable sobre los demás.
​
“*Control plus z”*
​
Dije en seguida con una perfecta pronunciación todo comenzó a moverse en reversa, pude moverme nuevamente, la puerta se cerro y mis pantuflas salieron volando a mi habitación, y escuche nuevamente el sonido de alguien llamando a mi puerta, esta vez preparado:
​
\- Buen día señor… o disculpe, no sabia que el señor Miguel tenia visitas.
​
“*In god we trust but you el trust me the most”*
​
Nuevamente con perfecta pronunciación…
​
\- Dime todo sobre el señor Miguel que vive en este departamento
​
El muchacho miro al vacío por unos momentos pero empezó a hablarme con toda confianza.
​
\- El señor Miguel es maestro de Español, ha vivido aquí los últimos 6 años, yo lo asisto algunas veces en sus experimentos mágicos. Se levanta normalmente a esta hora en la mañana es por eso que vine a tomar alguna petición que tuviera, le gustan los pasteles de chocolate y el arroz frito, cuando se baña hace un sonido extraño con su nariz…
\- Suficiente! ¿En qué experimentos a estado trabajando últimamente?
\- Yo no entiendo bien su trabajo pero dijo que necesitaba una manera más rápida de aprender el idioma mágico, habló algo de viajes interdimencionales o algo parecido.
\- Con que eso es lo que paso… Gracias regresa a tu apartamento olvida que me viste y no regreses aquí por ahora.
\- Si señor..
​
Cerré la puerta, y medite todo lo que estaba sucediendo y vino a mí, solo debía pronunciar las palabras correctas para deshacer lo que el señor Miguel había hecho, pero eso haría que regresara a mi vida aburrida como profesor de Ingles. Así que tube una idea mejor…
​
*“If you really like to learn English, learn it for ever in the dimension you will never come back Mr. Michael”*
​
Nada parecido haber cambiado pero a partir de ese momento vivo con la esperanza de permanecer aquí, mi trabajo como maestro de ingles no Hera mucha diferencia para el mundo en mi dimensión pero aquí podia cambiar la realidad a mi placer con cada enunciado, y para la suerte de todos aquí, mis intensiones siempre fueron…
Edit: I read the comment made by [Dracon\_Pyrothayan](https://www.reddit.com/user/Dracon_Pyrothayan), I tough will be a good idea to implement it, sorry if it is too short of a story but this is the first time I write something here, I hope you like it!
|
The morning seemed natural enough when I first woke up. It was hazy outside from the night's rain, and it smelled of rain outside. I opened the window to let the humid but chilled wind into my small apartment, which didn't have any AC. I had today off, but still had quite a few errands to run, so I decided to wake up before the morning traffic.
I was a very introverted person that lived in my own little world, oblivious to my surroundings. Since I never really paid any attention, I didn't notice that there was something horribly wrong until a younger person (who sounded to be in her early twenties) teleported into the passenger's seat.
I barely even noticed her, and probably wouldn't have, had she not been cackling.
I didn't look over at her, opting to keep my eyes on the road like the good sleep-deprived woman I claimed to be. "I locked the doors," I said nonchalantly.
"Now they are!" The woman was laughing so hard that she was wheezing. "Unlock doors!" There was an audible 'click' in the car. "Now they aren't. Cool, huh?"
"Yeah, there's a button. I'm proud of you," I replied. "Please get out. You don't just get into other people's cars at five in the morning."
"I do," she began, "But only for good reason. See, you're the first person to actually speak English here. That's why I've been running around everywhere. They're... they're afraid of me. Like, super fearful. It is one of the most beautiful things."
I pulled over and glanced over at the young woman. She had the general early-twenties look; short hair dyed a vibrant color (she had it purple) with numerous piercings and what looked to be a few flower tattoos. She was looking at me with an expectant grin.
"Okay. I speak English. I'm what you would call an American. But this is Texas; there's loads of people here that don't speak English."
The woman puffed out her cheeks. "I know! I know! But they weren't speaking anything that I know. I swear, it sounded like Latin."
"It may have been. Honestly, it's five. Only the weird people are awake at this time."
She gave me a flat look. "Here, you weirdo." She cleared her throat dramatically. "I summon a flower! Appear in my hand, alive and well!" Like she had said, a tiny flower appeared in her hand.
"Lovely. I'm so glad that you can do that. Now, out of my car."
The woman carefully set her flower down. "Please! Don't make me. You're the only other English speaker I know. And I know you think I'm high, but give me a change. Anyway, if I was high, you'd need to take me home, anyway."
I rolled my eyes, thinking, 'I must be getting old if she annoys me this much.' "Fine."
I lurched back onto the highway as the woman, whose name was Viviane, explained in great detail how she figured out that she had magic. She made me perform some to prove that we were somehow special (God forbid that; being special is the worst).
Finally, we arrived at my first errand: Shopping at the nearest Super Wal-Mart.
We walked inside, though, to my slight surprise, all the signs were in Latin. I knew because I had studied it for a year in college before I quit.
"I was right!" Viviane said loudly, clapping.
"Yes. Bask in the glory." I shook my head. "Perhaps we should stay in contact, but I will murder you if you even try to follow me around. Murder. Not kidding. Death." A small puff of black smoke appeared as if to prove my point.
"You just killed that plant!" Viviane cried, ignoring my previous comment.
"My point exactly. Teleport home-" I didn't finish that sentence. I was already back at my house, facing my wall. "I am going to murder someone. Teleport back to Viviane at Super Wal-Mart." I appeared a second later. "Be careful about what you say. Now, go magic yourself home and leave me alone." I gave her my phone number and quickly dismissed her.
The rest of the day (and next month) was much like that, with accidental slip-ups and poor Latin being taught. English apparently was the most magical language (with the grammar rules, how could it not be?) and Viviane and I were the only people so far to speak it fluently. Lucky us. In fact, we were the only two that were able to properly use its magic at all, so that was fun.
| 2019-03-09T21:12:30
| 2019-03-09T20:55:50
| 19
| 12
|
[WP] You are 90% certain your waiter is Hitler.
Stolen (shamelessly) from an AMA I saw.
|
WAITER: *Guten morgen!* Can I get you anything to drink?
LANA: (Gaping openly.)
ARCHER: (Looking at the menu, not even noticing the distinctly Hitlerish waiter.) Ok, can I start off with a liter of the Oktoberfest... better make that a pitcher... two glasses of goldwasser, a long island iced tea, and... do you have Glengoolie here, or is that like...
LANA: Archer?
ARCHER: ... not a thing in Argentina?
WAITER: *Gott in himmel!*
ARCHER: Listen, buddy, I'm not paying you to editorialize. (Looks up at waiter.) Uhhh... and how about two bottles of Manischewitz. (Looks back down at menu.)
LANA: Is that supposed to be some sort of joke?
ARCHER: This menu is a joke. (To the waiter.) Any day now?
(WAITER hops to and leaves to fill the order.)
LANA: Archer, did you notice...
ARCHER: The extremely poor hairstyle choices of our Argentinian waiter? At a *German restaurant*?
LANA: No, Archer. I think that was literally Hitler.
ARCHER: Lana, we've discussed this. Literally means--
LANA: **I know what frickin' literally means!**
LANA: Look at him, Archer.
(Camera pans to waiter, who is serving another table their drinks. His chin. His stache. His angry eyebrows)
LANA: Look at him. He's about the right age. He's German. He looks *exactly like him.*
ARCHER: You mean like how Woodhouse looks like the Pope? All old people look alike, Lana.
LANA: Are you even looking at him, Archer?
ARCHER: I mean, I'm not NOT looking at him... but did you see those two hot waitresses working behind the bar? Why did we get Gandalf Hitler instead of one of them?
LANA: Archer!
ARCHER: Excuse me, I'm just going to have a word with the... manager.
LANA: (Grabs Archer.) *Archer!* Our waiter may literally be one of the most notorious mass murderers in history, and you're trying to get laid?
ARCHER: Lana... it's me. (Pulls away from Lana, carefully straightens his suit and pulls out his cell phone.)
(The waiter returns with Archer's order in tow. He places the order on the table one piece at a time, as the camera cuts back and forth between his face and Lana's, the ringing building in Lana's ears as all of the sound is fading from the scene. All of a sudden, the world snaps back.)
WAITER: ... and could I bring you anything?
LANA: (Churkling nervously.) I'll have a coffee.
ARCHER: (On his phone, walking away.) OK, Krieger, so I have good news, and I have bad news...
|
"Hallo," a voice said to Justin's left. "Are you ready to order?"
"Er, yes," Justin said, staring at the menu. He wasn't quite sure what he wanted, between his usual favorite or the soup of the day. He decided to play it safe. "The southwest chicken sounds good. Is it okay if I take it to go?" He folded up the menu and glanced up at the waiter to hand it back, but he was scribbling down Justin's order. Justin, meanwhile, took the moment to take in the man's appearance.
Slightly jowly, with neatly parted brown hair, the man, in his mid thirties, did not particularly stand out. Except for the small, square mustache, and a strange resemblance to a much younger Adolf Hitler.
The waiter finished writing down Justin's order and took the menu from him. "Thank you," Justin said quietly. The waiter smiled and said that his order would be right out. As he walked away, Justin pulled out his phone to text his girlfriend.
*hey, did hitler always have that little mustache?*
He looked back up. The waiter was taking a couple's order, and they didn't seem to be acting strange. Other than a few other patrons, the small corner restaurant was empty- Justin was picking up a late lunch after work.
*Ping.* He glanced back down at the reply. *i don't know, why? did that trivia game ask you?* It pinged again. *did you grab the movie?*
*nah, just wondering. not yet,* he typed back.
"Here you are, sir," a deep voice said above him. "That'll be $8.28."
"Oh!" Justin said, startled. He looked back up at the waiter, and found he couldn't look him in the eye. He just kept staring at that little mustache. "Isn't it still on a five dollar lunch spe-" He stopped. He decided not to argue with Hitler today.
"No, the special ends at two," the waiter replied, the mustache bobbing up and down.
"Ah." Justin blinked. "Okay." He reached into his pocket for his wallet, wondering what he could say to this guy. "You, uh- you look familiar. Do I know you? Did you-" Justin struggled to think of something Hitler would do, other than cause the Holocaust. "Were you in that art show a couple of weeks ago?"
The waiter visibly brightened. "I was! Did you see me there?" he asked, smiling.
"Uh, yeah, I think so. Did you do the one with the trees and the stairs and the door?"
"I did! Did you like it?"
"Yeah, it was a great piece." Justin bit his lip, uncomfortable with complimenting Hitler.
"Thank you! I'm trying to get into art school, but they didn't seem to like it." The waiter smiled at him again, and the mustache curled up a little.
"You know, I think it was great. Hey, I didn't catch your name." Justin said.
"Adolf. Adolf Hitler. I have a website, you should look!"
"Oh," Justin said, mind racing. "Oh. Yeah! I will. And you know what, man? I think you really need to concentrate on your art, you know? Like, people will want you to go into other careers and stuff, but I think you show real talent. I'd say you don't even need art school. Just keep painting. Like, forever. Never do anything else. Anything."
Hitler pursed his lips. "That's very kind, thank you. I really do enjoy it."
"Uh, yeah man." Justin dug a twenty out of his wallet. "Here you go."
"Thank you, sir. Let me go make you change-"
"Oh, I don't need it. You keep it. For your art," Justin said, shuffling toward the door.
"Oh- thank you! Have a great day!" the waiter said happily.
"Oh, yeah, you too, man," Justin said as he opened the door to leave.
No way he was stiffing Hitler on a tip.
| 2015-01-15T23:20:05
| 2015-01-15T22:20:32
| 14
| 10
|
[WP]: An ordinary human being gets abducted into interplanetary olympics that have a fun twist: The loser's planet gets destroyed. All hope seems to be lost, until the last sport is revealed to be what humans do best.
Edit: Thanks to you people, I am now aware of the existence of Jimmy Neutron, and if I could, would take it back.
I apologise for not having watched the same cartoons as you did, growing up.
|
Maximillian Ludwig Zeiner.
He detested his full German name. Being born in New York he could not fathom why his parents wanted to keep so much of their heritage. But that heritage meant the world to him today.
The klaxon sounds above him and an alien voice rang through the loud speaker. Even though he did not understand it, he knew what it meant.
He was Earth's chosen savior, or its reckoning, doomed to compete with 24 other chosen from other species. Each and every species had claws, fangs, wings, unwieldy mass or the ability to breath underwater, acid spit, and some even had mild shape-shifting abilities.
Max was a normal human. Average Sat's. No physical prowess. Liberal arts degree. Barista by day and bartender by night. He had no chance.
As the doors opened and his usher's urged him forward he walked to a big octagon where he saw 24 podiums.
The announcers voice rang out in his strange dialect, but his usher translated for him " You must drink the contents of the glass on your podium" He then noticed the amber glass a mere 5 meters away. "After you are finished it will replenish itself, then you must drink again. Repeat this until only one man stands."
With those final word uttered his usher nudge's him in the back to the podium.
With sweat running from is brow he looks over all the competitors.
Another klaxon sounds and in unison all 25 competitors grab up their glass and down the amber liquid.
A large creature to the right yells in agony and falls to the floor.
A bug like creature unleashes a guttural wail and keels over.
The rest on the competitors seem unfazed but upon closer inspection some are wobbling in place. One human-cat creature started rambling in it's native then stumbled backwards.
Then in the midst of it all Max stare's at the glass in his hands, bewildered by the realization he says "This is light beer."
Edit: I am new to this. Please excuse my ignorance with Reddit formatting.
|
And we're back with live coverage of the two thousand and fifty third interplanetary Olympics, direct from Gliese 6c! And what a spectacle it's been so far, Rob.
You can say that again, Claire. I haven't seen competition this fierce since the nuclear blast survivability round. In fact I haven't seen anything since!
As we head into the final round of competition, the current standings are as follows:
Orion Nebula in 1st place,
Gliese 6c in 2nd place,
. . .
and finally, Earth finishing last in 45,341st place.
Those earthlings definitely need to step up their game if they want to be home for dinner, Claire.
That's right, Rob, since the colony that places last will be eliminated with the LifeStar 4G "planet buster", the latest innovation in high-energy confinement fusion.
And it looks like we're ready to start the final round of competition. The invigilators have gathered around the podium to reveal the final task that awaits the contestants.
. . .
Could it be? Oxygen breathing. I thought that sport was banned back in '83!
Well, it was discontinued for a time due to the detrimental effect the toxic, corrosive gas had on the contestants. However, the league of oxygen athletics was able to re-instate the sport after demonstrating an improved oxygen breathing technique that prevents the most harmful, irreversible damage to most organisms.
| 2014-05-06T07:54:57
| 2014-05-06T06:42:13
| 23
| 11
|
[WP] Rather than being dispatched by a dispatcher, police officers use a bounty system where officers can pick up missions from a constantly updated bounty board. The missions range from: "noise complaint, $20", to "domestic abuse, $150", to "bank robbery in progress, $5000".
|
I was what you might have called, a walking-cliché. A bounty hunter that looked like, well, a *bounty hunter*. Greasy, jet-black hair (dyed - I'd been going gray since eighteen), pulled back into a tight ponytail. I favored a long, leather jacket (hid the slight paunch), torn jeans and high, black boots - the type that crunched glass under them in a most satisfying manner. If you saw me in the street, you *knew* what I was. Of course, I wasn't on the street very often - I spent most of my time in my truck, chasing the target of whatever latest bounty I'd picked up.
The previous day, I'd been on the trail of Big Poppa Peters - a gentleman as fat as a pencil is thin. It was a $2000 bounty, for the man that had once held the state's most-pretzels-eaten-in-an-hour record. Those glory days were long behind him, however, and he'd since turned to a life of crime - specifically that of the fast food persuasion. When the cashiers were emptying their tills, he was emptying their ovens straight into his gut. He'd usually empty his bowels before he left, too, leaving a stench behind that would offend even the least houseproud sewer rat.
I'd caught up with him in a Wendy's, in a small town in the middle of nowhere, Arizona. The place had had a ton of stock in the fridges, and he was still fastidiously working his way through it. He hadn't heard me enter.
"Better keep bringing 'em!" I heard him yell to a pimpled teenager behind the counter. "If those burgers don't keep coming, I'm goin' put *you* in the deep fryer!" He aimed his gun to the roof and shot twice. I aimed my gun to his legs, and shot twice.
I strapped Big Poppa Peters into the back of my pickup - it creaked and hollered in tremendous protest - and headed off down to the local sheriff's station, to collect my reward.
"$1500?" I yelled, my eyes bulging. I could feel a network of veins rise and pulse on my forehead.
The sheriff hooked a finger under his collar and pulled it back, as his gaunt face reddened.
"I'm sorry - it's out of my hands. The reward was lowered just before you got to him."
I pulled out a scrunched piece of paper from my jacket pocket. "This," I said, shoving the paper into the sheriff's face, "says 'Big Poppa Peters: $2000'. Rewards don't go down after someone takes the contract."
"I'm s-sorry, but this one has."
"You think I'm an idiot?" I asked, lifting him up by his shirt and pushing him against a wall. "You don't think I see a small town weasel, tryin'a skim some cream off the milk?"
The man was trembling. "How..." he gulped, "How about $1800?"
I left him with a bleeding nose and $2000 less in his wallet. The smells of smoke, bars and fancy women were already wafting into my imagination, and I was about ready to do a little celebrating. I'd been on the road for five days, tracking down Peters.
But as I passed the Bounty wall on the way out of the building, I couldn't help glancing up. It was one those cork boards, with pieces of paper and posters pinned to it, at any old angle. Some had a face with the name underneath, others just a vague description.
> $3100: The Blind Date Murderer (Claire Browning)
> $1700: The Butler of Carlson Manor
> $5: Missing Daddy: please help me find him.
> $500: Albert the Arsonist
Being so into... *accounting*, I suppose you could say, the first thing that struck me about the missing daddy poster, wasn't that it had been pencil written in a scrawl worse than my own, but that the reward was five dollars - way below the legal limit for a bounty. I laughed as I left the Sheriff's station, and made my way back to my truck. Some clown must have thought they were real funny, putting something like that up.
I grinned all the way into town. But the grin turned to a frown when I was in O'Reilly's, downing pint after pint of watered down Guinness. Was the scrawl actually that of a kid? I'd been convinced it was a prank, when I'd been in the sheriff's station. But as the evening grew darker, so did my mood. The note was like a corkscrew slowly twisting into my mind- it became the only thing I could think about.
"Hey big fella," a thin lady with too much blusher said, cat-walking her way over to me. "You want to have a good time?"
"That's why I came here," I sighed, attempting to smile but failing pretty miserably.
"Then you made the right choice." She pursed her lips and gave me what she must have considered a seductive pout, but it looked more like she was sucking a lemon. "How about you and-"
"Listen," I cut in. "Maybe some other time, cause I ain't going to be able to have a good time tonight." I got up, walked out the bar and staggered back to my truck. I tried to fit the key in the lock, but missed by at least two inches. "Well, that lady aught to be damned grateful," I muttered, giving up the idea of trying to drive. Guess the Guinness hadn't been so watered down after all. Instead, I decided that the fresh air might do me some good, and I began the four mile trek back to the Sheriff's station.
The note was gone.
"Where is it?" I roared at the man on reception.
"Where's what, sir?"
"The note." I leaned over the table and into his face. " The missing daddy note. Five dollar reward. Where is it?"
He craned his head back and winced. "Sir, have you been drinking?"
"I've had a tipple. Is that a crime?"
"Not by itself, no. But your breath might b-"
"Where's the goddamned note?" I snapped.
"Five hundred dollars," drifted a drawling, smug voice from behind. I turned to see the sheriff, grinning like a shot fox.
"Son of a bitch," I said. "I'm not paying for that - it's illegal to make me pay for a bounty!"
"You know as well as I do, a five dollar bounty shouldn't have been up on the wall. Someone must have snuck in and pinned it themselves. It's not a legal bounty, so I'm not selling it to you *as a bounty*."
I sighed, taking out my bulging wallet. A moment later, it was a little less bulging.
The sheriff went over to a nearby bin and took out the note. I groaned - if I hadn't been so drunk, it would have been the first place I'd have checked. "Nice doing business with you," he said. I snatched the note from him with a growl.
Outside the station, I examined the back of the paper.
> Please help me find my daddy. He went out on ~~Tewsday~~ Teusday to meet a friend. He didn't come home. I love him very much and I miss him this much \\--------------------------------------------/
> Pleaseeee help me.
> Rebecca <3
There was an address underneath.
I began the long walk back to my truck. I'd catch a few z's in it, and then I'd go pay Rebecca a visit in the morning. My dad might have walked out on me, but I wasn't going to let this bastard do the same to his daughter.
If only it had been as simple as a father walking out on his family.
---
More stories at /r/nickofnight
|
I wouldn't really call myself a 'bounty hunter' - I've no right to. I guess 'freelancer' would be more accurate, seeing as I've never really pushed past $100.
That's when things start getting hairy, you know? I know - or, used to know - plenty officers who thought the bigger the better, that they just needed a couple heavy payouts and they'd be set for life.
And now they've got no life to speak of.
So I made myself a comfy existence, never having to worry too much about the bills - especially after the divorce.
Much easier to support yourself if you're just worrying about yourself.
But then I saw the mission, the amount flashing on my police scanner. It didn't feel real.
Just one minute away...
My foot went flat.
Speeding there, swerving through traffic like the devil was on my heels. Hell - like I'd been possessed by the devil himself.
Swerved into the common grounds, mounting the pavement. I opened the glove compartment, my unloaded gun staring back at me. Never thought I'd need it for more than just intimidation, and cursed myself for never getting bullets for it.
I grabbed it, sprinting into the school. I could hear sporadic gunshots, but I couldn't see the source. Where were the kids? The other officers? Was I first on the scene? Where was-
Two, three - five dead bodies. They couldn't have been older than 10. Lying lifeless on the floor, my shoes glistening in their blood. I scanned their faces, looking for-
More gunfire. Screams. I stood up, knees shaking, and moved further through the hallway. I clutched my gun, my fucking toy gun, feeling powerless.
Moving against the wall, I scanned a classroom. More bodies. More blood. More lives, dashed on the floor.
I heard footsteps, slow. I slid into the room, hiding behind the door, my hands on the gun trembling. The footsteps coming closer.
It came right to the door, and I held my breath. Then, the figure took one step inside.
"Gun down!" I shouted, unthinking, flinging myself around the corner. The man gripped his gun and fumbled.
He reached for it before I could stop him, then he stopped, looking at me.
"...Henry?"
I looked at his face.
"*Frank?*" I asked, incredulous. "What the hell are you doing here?"
He stared at me. He was terrified. I was too.
"Same reason you're here," he replied, gripping his gun. "This is fucking crazy, Henry. What the hell are we doing."
He glanced down the hallway.
"Have you foun-"
A shot rang out, Frank's head jolting to the left. His knee slammed to the floor, blood pouring out of his head, making a sickening 'smack' when his face hit the floor. Two more shots drove into his torso, making his body jerk unnaturally.
His gun dropped to my feet.
I felt my life slipping away.
I grabbed it, lurching around the doorway and firing shots at the gunman. Two shots hit him in the shoulder, driving him backward. I continued firing, running at him, emptying the clip into him. I grabbed his gun, running blindly, feeling the adrenaline surge through my veins.
I turned the corner, two more masked men running towards the source of the noise. I opened fire, feeling a punch in my thigh, another in my left arm. They hit the floor.
Grabbed another gun. Saw another, fired him down. Heard a noise behind me, turned firing, and felt something in my hip *open*. Threw gun down, picked his up.
Ran. Bodies strewn across the floor. Trail of blood. Sirens outside.
Cafeteria doors. Crash through. Kids everywhere. Most alive. Screaming. Gunman fires, ribs splinter. Lurch for him, wrestle. Everything wet. Slam gun, his face. Again. And again. And again. And again.
Collapse. Bleeding out. Vision blurry.
I hear a voice cry out.
I see a girl.
I see *her*.
| 2017-06-16T00:57:12
| 2017-06-16T00:48:29
| 305
| 81
|
[WP] Write a story that starts out like it belongs in /r/talesfromtechsupport, but along the way turns into something that really belongs in /r/nosleep.
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I sipped my coffee, adjusted the headphones, and opened the ticket log. A mistake. The top three tickets were all bright red and "Urgent!" — a code for a paper jam or a misplaced desktop shortcut.
I sighed and started with a top one.
The first one went exactly as expected. A "virus" that was moving a cursor on two PCs turned out to be a genius who decided his PC was not powerful enough and tried to switch with a person sitting nearby. He replugged the screens and keyboards, but forgot the mouse — so each of them was moving a cursor on each other's screen.
The second ticket was genuinely urgent. We provided support for multiple companies, some as small as few people. One of those has raised a problem with internet connection a week ago. We sent a tech, but based on the new ticket the tech has never arrived, and they still had problems.
That was bad. Even though they were a small company, and exceedingly polite in the new ticket, we had a SLA and when we promised a tech, we sent a tech. Someone has screwed up, and I was going to do my best to sort it out.
I looked up the guy we sent, Matt. He was generally reliable, but there was one complaint about him not showing up before. That time he said it was a family emergency. This time — I tried calling, but there was no answer. I added "no-show" to his file, leaving it to their manager to investigate.
I marked the ticket it for a new tech visit, and added a comment assuring them that the problem would be addressed at once.
Next Monday, there was a single urgent ticket in my queue. They still had a problem. They still were polite about it. The second tech had never showed up.
I took a five deep breaths, and called the manager of the tech team. After ten beeps I got through. "I'm sorry" she said "we are a bit swamped at the moment. How can I help?" I told her about the ticket, and techs never showing up. "Yes" she paused "Matt and Kathryn. Very strange. I haven't heard anything from Matt since two weeks ago, and Kathryn wasn't in the office since last Tuesday, when she was supposed to do that visit. I've tried calling them, but no response.
They will be in for a very bad time when they turn up."
I thanked her. Given the situation there was no way we would have a third tech available in time. Yet there were no other urgent tickets in my queue, and their office wasn't too far. There was no other choice but to go and help them myself, even if I would get (justifiably) chewed over the no-show techs.
I got to their office in the early afternoon. It was located in a warehouse district, in an old factory building among a few other small companies. There was no daytime building security — all companies relied on keycard access.
I climbed the stairs and pressed the intercom. There was some static but nothing more. A power issue? The keycard lock has no light on it either. I've knocked, and the door opened under my hand.
I stepped in. The office was silent, except was a slight buzzing of the air conditioner. I could see the papers on the tables, bunch of PCs with lock-screens. A jacket left on a chair. But no people. Was there a fire alarm that I have missed? Ignoring my spider-sense, I walked further. Maybe there was a birthday or a promotion — was everyone in a kitchen?
But the kitchen was as empty as the office. The only thing out of place was a coffee cup that sat on a floor in a pool of long-dried coffee. As if someone dropped it, and then instead of picking up, just straightened it, and left it as is.
All my senses were telling me to get out. And yet, I couldn't go back and tell my boss that I left without fixing the problem, just because I couldn't find anyone in a five minutes. So I moved forward, to the meeting room.
Not surprisingly, it was empty as well. A complex diagram filled the whiteboard — some kind of a reorganization plan. The right bottom corner was erased, and a single word was scribbled with a wavering hand.
"Run"
An HDD chirped somewhere, and I jumped. That was enough. Back through the desks I went, and out of the office — and on my way a wall calendar, with a date three weeks old — one day after the initial ticket. Two weeks before the last one.
That was the last I have heard of that office. At the end of the month, they were dropped for non-payment, with accounting unable to contact anyone. The old tickets were closed accordingly, and there were no new ones. The missing techs were fired in absentia.
I half expected police to show up, searching for them. But they never did.
|
"Tech Help Hotline, this is Ross, how can I help you?" He asked for the thirtieth time that day.
"Oh, Ross! I like that name. I do need some help," she said.
"Great, another dumb chick that can't figure out how to upload a picture to instagram from her laptop!" He thought as he focused his attention on the game of Tetris he was playing on his phone. Rich had beaten his top score last week and he wanted his title back.
"What do you need today, ma'am?" He asked.
"The coffee mug holder that comes with my new computer, well it broke. The think is so darn flimsy!"
"Coffee mug holder? Ma'am if you received some sort of promotional item from Best Buy, that's not covered under the warranty," he answered.
"No, no. This is part of the computer! You know the tall tower that you connect the screen too - well there is a button you push and a coffee cup holder comes out," she explained.
Ross paused for a minute.
"The square plastic thing with a hole in the middle? The CD drive?"
"Oh my! CD drive! I feel so foolish! I haven't used a CD in years...it didn't even occur to me that a computer would come with a CD drive!"
Ross refrained from laughing and decided some moral support was due.
"It's ok ma'am. I dont blame you for the mistake."
"You don't? How very kind of you Ross. It's been a while since someone's been so helpful and kind."
"Yeah...no prob. You may have to take the actual computer in somewhere to get the drive fixed but is there anything else I can help you with this morning?"
"No, Ross. Thank you so very much," she answered.
"What a weirdo!" He thought as he ended the call and went onto the next : "Tech Help Hotline, this is Ross, how can I help you?"
It had been a long afternoon and he looked up at the clock hanging on the far wall. 4:47pm. He knew he would be forced to take one last call before the day ended.
"Tech Help Hotline, this is Ross, how can I help you?" He asked.
"Ross? Is that you?" A familiar voice asked.
"Umm..who is this?"
"It's Judith. You were so very helpful earlier, helping me discover my CD drive ?"
"Oh, right. Judith. Ummm....did you have any other tech issues I can help you with?" He asked, wondering how he got reconnected with the same weirdo twice in one day.
"Well, yes. I took some pictures and I cannot seem to figure out just how to get them from my phone to my computer!"
"Oh, right. So, you can do it in a few ways. You can do it via email or through some kind of cable connection - what kind of phone do you have?"
He spent a few minutes helping her solve the issue, eyeballing the time again as he was getting anxious to leave. It was a long drive home and he wanted to make his way before it started snowing any harder.
"Ok, Judith," He said patiently, "anything else I can help you with before we are done?"
"Oh, Ross. You are so very kind. My last boyfriend was never as patient as you are. He was always rushing me and pressuring me. It's nice to have someone talk to me the way you do," she said.
Ross couldn't believe this conversation was still going on, but it wasn't the first time he had hear someone's sob stories over the phone.
"Well, it's just my job ma'am. Is that all I can help you with?"
"Well, I do need help setting up this printer. It would be so wonderful for you to help me. I'm making something special and I do need it printed as soon as possible," she said.
"FUCK!" He thought. Annoyed that he walked right into this one. He could see no way out. He spent the next fifteen minutes walking her though everything, step by step. His phone had died so he had no choice but to devote all his attention to the menial task.
It was almost 6:00pm by the time he got home and he was exhausted. All he could think about was the leftover pizza he had in his fridge and that bottle of whiskey sitting on his countertop. He got to his door and noted a large, yellow envelope on his doormat.
"Strange," he thought. "Must be the from one of the neighbors."
He picked it up to see his name written in perfect, cursive penmanship on the cover. It was light, clearly not much inside. He peeled open the sealed edge and opened the envelope to find a single sheet of paper, with a black and white printed photo on it.
His heart skipped a beat as he looked over his shoulder. It was a picture of him. A picture of him that had clearly been taken that very afternoon while he was having lunch at his regular deli counter. He flipped it over, wondering if it was some kind of a joke.
There was nothing on the back but a small heart shape, drawn in the corner, followed by the cursive letter 'J'.
| 2016-12-04T02:36:02
| 2016-12-04T01:38:25
| 26
| 15
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[WP] Making a deal with a demon requires a soul, everyone knows that. It’s usually a bad idea, but you’ve got a crazy idea. Earlier, you traded your lunch money to the school bully in exchange for a paper that stated you now owned his soul. You’re about to find out if demons consider this a valid co
|
"No."
What a waste of lunch money. It was hard convincing the bully too, especially it makes both parties look like a bunch of dorks. And honestly, what's more important to a bully than public image? The whole exchange was awkward, from conversation to the trade done in a janitor's closet. I can't imagine what people would say about two people going into a closet in school together. Luckily, he didn't think of that either. Maybe there's some loophole, or workaround, it's better to get specifics, at least.
"Why not?"
"It says you own his soul, but it doesn't work like that. That's just a false declaration. If a CEO wrote that you own his company on a crumped up piece of toiler paper, you don't automatically own the company."
That makes too much sense, unfortunately. Not that I don't have another idea.
"What about IOUs? I imagine, at least contextually, it holds more value than a false declaration. Plus, this isn't a corporate world, it's hell."
He thought for a bit. Not for too long though, the devil should be the one to know these things well.
"Yea, those should work. But you have to get it by today. You initiated the deal first and you don't even have what you said you had."
Great news. Sort of. How the fuck are you supposed to get somebody who hates you to \*rewrite\* the terms of ownership for their soul without sounding actually serious? I sounded desperate enough the first time around, and I imagine they'll be more cautious, or at least reluctant, the second time around.
|
[medium exterior shot- midday]
Building exterior is laden with ivy crawling up it's stone walls. The small, dirty half-window of the boiler room radiates with flecks of light from a dimming bulb.
Sounds of kids playing games at recess, birds chirping, traffic whizzing by.
The camera slowly pans downward as it zooms slowly towards boiler room window.
(Once the perimeter of the exterior walls frames the shot, the light goes out)
All sounds fade into silence.
A small jet of fire-red light fills the window interior for a split-second.
Shot remains stationary for a beat.
[Cut to:]
[Close-up shot of birds frolicking in a tree]
The birds peck and jump from branch-to-branch, enjoying their day. The shot focuses on the tree for a couple seconds.
(off-screen) An ear-piercing scream rings out from a distance, but is shrill enough to scare the birds from their tree.
[shot remains on tree, but sporadically falls in-and-out of focus]
[fade to black]
...
I set down the manuscript and looked at the man in front of me with a bored stare.
He was hunched forward in anticipation, nervously trying to gauge my reaction by glancing at me in-between staring at the floor. Beads of sweat ran down his cracked, dirty skin, pooling in the jagged crevasses of his face.
I sighed and looked at him. "I dunno what to tell ya, man. This is terrible."
He started to cry. Heavily. "B-but my f-fr-friends said it was real good. I even described how your bully gets dragged down to hell, but I left the rough drafts on my desk."
"This is a terrible plan, and a shoddy screenplay. Can't you just trade me something worthwhile for the contract on his soul?"
"I... ummm... I... Well, I could-- no, no. Hmm. Well, there's... No, no, that's a dumb idea..."
I impatiently stood up and began to exit the boiler room. "Look, man, how about I just hold on to the contract, and I'll see what I'm capable of doing to him. I don't have time for this weird beating-around-the-bush stuff. I'm just gonna google it and see if I can control him like a marionette or something. See ya later, dude."
As I walked through the rotted doorway, I heard a series of sniffles and then a burst of sulfur stung my nostrils. When I looked back, he was gone.
I noticed his screenplay was still on the ground, and picked it up.
I considered holding on to it-- it seemed like he'd worked really hard on the screenplay-- but decided he might want it back.
I threw the bundle of papers into the furnace and went back to upstairs before the lunch bell rang.
| 2022-05-24T13:55:52
| 2022-05-24T13:43:05
| 100
| 24
|
[WP] Weapons become more powerful the older they get. Modern guns will barely give someone a scratch but an ancient spear can devastate armies.
|
You all mocked me
Called me insane.
Said that I was a fool and that I would die trying.
Well now I stand here, your armies desolated, from a simple jawbone.
For it is that jawbone
That weapon
That was used by Cain to slay Abel.
Older then any weapon on earth
For it is the first.
And now, I end this world
|
This blade has been passed down from father to son for generations in my family. It's rust was feared by many, and it could cut through anything with its well-dulled sides. This dagger was a legend, and I got to see it in the flesh. I could destroy anything I wanted to, and strike fear into what I didn't.
Of course, none of that mattered when I dropped it and cut through the floor. And kept going for miles.
| 2017-04-21T09:57:12
| 2017-04-21T08:51:58
| 21
| 15
|
[WP] 'Please Adopt Me', said the box on the side of the road, with the single black puppy in it. So you did. A year later, you realize the breed is a bit complicated, considering it has three heads, a snake tail, and breathes fire.
|
So, I adopted this puppy. Black as overbrewed coffee, a hairless tail with *scales*, and three heads.
From a box. I figured someone thought he'd end up being put down and just abandoned the little guy because birth defects. Well, not a problem. I'm a dog lover. Even a dog with a few extra heads. Means he'll be smarter than the one I had who liked to run into windows and bark at nothing in the middle of empty rooms.
One week in, I realized paper training wasn't a good idea as I watched all three heads give me a guilty look.
Because he'd kinda had an accident. Like puppies do. Only he ended up barfing flames. On the newspaper. Fortunately, he'd peed on it first and it just left a smouldering spot.
Spot. That's the name for this little fella. He is gonna end up SUCH a star on WhoTube with that little trick, but not until he grows up.
...I had no idea he'd grow this much. He's easily as big as I am, nomming away at a big ol' bowl of dog kibble. Fortunately, we have a few acres for a back yard here, so Spot gets his run-around time and I can put out anything he lights up chasing the squirrels. Nothing gets past this doggo, he sees em a mile away and ROOF RUFF RORF off he goes.
A little unbalanced, mind you. Three heads are a little topheavy and they don't always seem to work together perfectly, so there's plenty of plow marks to go with the scorch marks. Still, it's been a fun eight months.
...the owner showed up today. Well, he claimed he was the owner.
Tall, pale as a bouquet of white lilies. Said someone had stolen his puppy and he'd finally tracked the dog down. Said to name my price for taking care of Spot.
I told him taking care of such a good dog was reward enough, and I wasn't going to send him off alone with a stranger. That Spot was my friend, and I wasn't going to let him go off gods-know-where with someone I never saw before in my life.
He looked startled. Then he smiled.
"A man who loves his dog so much? Your boon is granted."
That's how I became the Keeper of Hounds here. In Tartarus. That big fella over there is Keberos, and he managed- somehow - to get some happy time with one of the hellhounds.
Spot is romping with the pack inside the Dog Park of Damnation. I've got enough severed limbs for everybody. And you know what?
They're good dogs, if you love them enough. And I do. Dunno how my drachmas are going to cash out when I retire from this job, but I figure gold and silver works pretty much everywhere. Now, if you'll excuse me, they're using some poor soul as a chew toy and I think he actually belongs in the lake of molten fire.
"Drop it...drop it...Hey! I said DROP THE DAMNED SOUL. Attagirl. Go play with Spot."
|
I've never been much of a dog person. Honestly I wasn't much of an animal person, though I'd certainly argue certain points. I never wanted a pet, or a companion, or anything of the sort.
So, you might ask, why was there a puppy in my room? Well, long story short, it was fuckin adorable. Big ass eyes, looking all pitiful and loveable. And now I have a puppy.
I don't know how to take care of a puppy, but that was the least of my concerns as time went on. Somehow, all the puppy's toys were being burned to a crisp. Turns out the lil shit could breathe fire.
Then, his tail grew into a snake. A fully autonomous snake. So now I had two pets, and I'll remind you, i didn't even want one.
But of course, that couldn't be the end. *He grew two more heads!* And guess what? All those could breathe fire too!
These...abnormalities all happened in the space of a month. Thankfully, the dog(s?) ate dog food and the snake ate mice. Honestly, as long as I let Kirby out to let off a little steam (Read: Fire) he seemed content.
Until the day he talked.
"Hey, uhh, Human? Why do I only get this dead dry stuff? The tail gets live meat..."
I set down the book I was trying to finish, and gave Kirby a deadpan glance.
"How long have you been able to talk?"
He paused to consider the question, the snake curling around to join in the pondering.
"Like...always? I think? I just never had anything th say." I let him out to hunt after that.
Honestly, I'm not much of an animal person. But a Cerberus? I think I can make an exception a time or 3.
| 2019-07-04T08:26:40
| 2019-07-04T07:02:31
| 165
| 29
|
[WP] You're Barack Obama. 4 months into your retirement, you awake to find a letter with no return address on your bedside table. It reads "I hope you've had a chance to relax Barack...but pack your bags and call the number below. It's time to start the real job." Signed simply, "JFK."
|
Barack stared at the letter for a moment,"for fucks sake Donald" he muttered. He could tell it was Donald the gold sharpie and orange stain gave it away. He stood up and went into his office shaking his head in disappointment and began writing dear Donald this is the third letter this week please stop it's not funny and you're ruining my country." He sealed the letter in an envelope and put it in the post.
|
I've wanted to get into writing for a while now, my first attempt a writing since school!
Contemplating how much easier his life had been since Donald Trump took over, Barack rolled over to kiss Michelle as he does like clockwork every morning. Something caught his eye this morning. On the bedside table he saw a note. In the corner was a small symbol.
"I've seen that before" He thought. "But where?"
It slowly came into focus until he realised, it's the presidential seal! What could Trump want from him that required such an official means of communication. He reached over, grabbed the note and unfolded it. Briefly skimming through a signature caught his eye. It was identical to JFK's.
The note read "I hope you've had a chance to relax Barack...but pack your bags and call the number below. It's time to start the real job."
It must have been Michelle playing another joke on him. Ever since his retirement the two found themselves with so much free time that they had resorted to playing silly pranks on each other. The jokes had started to become more an more elaborate recently. Just last week Barack had got the whole family in on a joke that he in fact was never the President. After a quick google search Michelle quickly debunked this, however.
"I'll play along he thought"
Barack proceeded to dial the number written on the bottom. It seemed to ring longer than normal.
"Not committed at all" He thought. "Oh we-"
"-Hello?... *Hello!?* Barack, is that you?" whispered a worried voice.
"Yes, speaking.
.
.
.
Hang on, Joe, is that you? She's got you in on this too!?"
"Dammit Barack, the accent wasn't enough to throw you off?"
"We spent enough time together, do you think you could fool me so easily? Ha! Nice try, say hi to Jill for me and I'll see you tonight, yeah?"
"Sure thing, see you later."
As Barack hung up the smile on his face grew wider, already plotting his next prank. He realised the room had grown eerily silent, however. He could no longer hear Michelle's truffle pig impression. In fact, she was no longer in the room.
A shadow caught his eye in the doorway. A male silhouette with slightly coiffed hair and behind a female, slightly frail looking silhouette with shortish hair.
| 2017-05-14T10:29:45
| 2017-05-14T10:10:47
| 14
| 10
|
[WP] If your death is imminent, time stops for everyone but you. This allowed you to cheat death on many occasions by avoiding all sorts of danger except for now - you have no idea whats threating your life. Its been a year since time stopped.
|
Day 1: Time stopped, as it does when I'm in danger, at 7:05:23 this morning. I know because that's why my watch was at when it stopped counting. I usually just duck or jump to the side or something and time restarts, but none of that helped. I finally ran outside the house, and nothing. This is strange; something's about to kill me - usually time stops only seconds away from my death - but whatever it is I can't figure it out.
Day 2 (?): I've double-checked everything. All the food I ate, the pills I took, I don't see any bug bites - and how many bug bites are lethal, anyway? It's been an entire day the world has been stopped. Usually it's under a minute. Whatever the danger is, I just don't see it. I hope I don't have cancer or something. How would I find out?
Day 7 (probably): This is losing its humor value. People in solitary start to go bonkers, and I'm starting to feel that way myself. I've dozen-checked everything. There is nothing, literally nothing, even slightly threatening to me within a kilometer of my house. I'm not even sure how many days it is, since nothing has changed. I'm mostly going by what it feels like. I could be off a full day in either direction.
Day 30 (ish): I had a long conversation with a time-locked squirrel today, so maybe the going crazy part has begun. Still, the squirrel made some good points. Heh.
Day 60 (or so): There is nothing, literally nothing, within two kilometers of my house that constitutes any possible threat to my life, except maybe that burly cop if he finds out how much time I spent admiring his wife in the shower.
Day 90 (deal with it): I've just been walking in an expanding spiral, and have now made it maybe four kilometers from my house. Nothing, absolutely nothing, looks like any danger to me at the moment time stopped. I must be thinking too small: maybe a nuke went off or something? I climbed an antenna tower to look for planes in the sky or explosions or something but didn't see anything. What am I going to do if it IS a nuke? I guess running the other way until time restarts would mean I made it to minimum safe distance, but then lots of other people would get fried. Maybe I can just take the bits of the bomb and spread them far apart, or carry it out into the desert or something.
Day whatever: I just started walking in a direction. Don't know why I never noticed this before, but you can walk on time-locked water. I don't want to think about what happens if I walk to safety, time restarts, and then stops again after I sink a bit into the water. Too far and I may just be stuck there for eternity. The stories say Jesus walked on water; but that can't have been time-locked or who would have seen it to write the story?
End of year 1, or 2, or however long it's been: I've been walking in a straight line, well I guess a curved line because the planet is round, for, well, a really long time. Time never restarted. I don't see anything that might be dangerous to me. I've seen some nice scenery. I'm starting to walk into the darkness, where the sun had already set when time froze. Not sure how useful that's going to be.
100km later, or whatever, I don't know: I see the full moon rising. I went back and forth a while, see the moon rise and set and rise and set, just to break up the monotony.
Another 10km, or something: I must be going nuts, because now I see two moons.
Later that same day (night?): the second one is not the moon. It looks to be an asteroid, maybe 5 kilometers across, burning up in the atmosphere. There's a bunch of burned out land under it. It has stopped a couple hundred feet above the ground. So now all I have to do is figure out how to climb up to it, chip it into little pieces one at a time, and distribute them over a wide area so that nobody dies. Since I can walk on water, I don't even know if breaking time-locked rock is possible. And I'm not sure how I'm going to get up there. But I do have plenty of time to think about it.
|
"good morning, miss Anderson! What wonderful day this is huh? Just like yesterday and the day before!"
"why yes you're right mister Emmett today is a wonderful day just like yesterday and the day before!"
I grinned, I always had a crush on miss Anderson, the fact that I was talking to her so freely felt like a dream come true, there was no one who could get in my way, no one who could interrupt us, not her fucking husband nor other people.
It felt dirty
It felt unreal.
"Emmet, sweetie? Are you alright?"
*oh right, she always called me that... I didn't like it, it made me feel like she wasn't seeing me as a man but rather just a child*
"Emmet, are you alright?" I corrected her, yes that's better, that's what she should call me, just Emmett is fine.
"I always liked you miss Anderson" I said, my hands sweating.
"...I like you too... Emmet..." I said mimicking her voice. Her body remained unmoving, frozen. A feet in front of the other but never taking a step forward. I'd like to believe she was looking at me but I knew she was looking at nothing in particular.
"...I'm scared miss Anderson" I said " I'm so scared"
"please help me, tell me what should I do"
"tell me how... To get out of here..."
***
*it's just a matter of time*
I went out to my usual walks across the town, searching for something, something that could help me break out of this prison, but just like always, I find nothing. The snow falls from the sky but never reaches the ground.
"ah today is a wonderful day" I said "just like yesterday... and the day before..."
I kept walking. A year had passed since I stopped time and I still couldn't find the threat to my life, no matter how much I walked, no matter how much I looked around. Nothing changed, nothing ever changed.
I walked down a street whose name I could no longer remember, but my body always took me there, to the street where miss Anderson is. Talking to her was the only joy a had left
"hello miss Anderson, today is a wonderful day right? Just like yesterday, just like the day before..."
She didn't say anything.
"this is stupid" I said
"...you're stupid" I said to myself.
*what?*
"for how long did you think you could avoid death?" I snapped "every single time, every single *time* you stopped and changed the way things should have been, did you really think things would remain like that forever? silly you, silly Emmet it was only matter of time before something went wrong, before *someone* changed their approach"
"well then Emmett," I said my voice becoming a whimper "if you wanted eternity, then eternity is what you shall receive"
I laughed out loud, mi voice resonating across the silent streets and alleyways, it was a cry that slowly descended into endless sobbing.
But no matter how loud I cried no one listened.
***
***
I wrote this on my phone.. Hopefully it came out understandable!
| 2018-07-04T16:29:47
| 2018-07-04T13:38:26
| 2,360
| 278
|
[WP] Everyone is assigned a guardian angel since birth, yours has always protected you albeit in violent and menacing ways. Until one day on your 18th birthday he reveals himself as a demon who was wrongly assigned as a guardian angel and became attached to you.
|
Bea sat in her desk chair as he asked. She wondered what he wanted but didn't question anything, yet. The look on his face though, made her do a double-take.
Argon had always been strange for an angel. That's why she didn't question him when he suddenly told her to sit and request she listen to what he had to say. But this was different somehow. He had an... anxious feeling coming off him. It was practically coating his usually stoic demeanor.
"Beatrice," he starts, he always preferred her full name, "something has come to light. I've known this day would come since the moment I was assigned to you." He's standing at attention while he speaks to her, like a captain to his crewman. This was how he handled difficult subjects.
"What do you mean?" She asks, clearly bewildered. Anxiousness began to creep its way inside her now. 'What could he have known for that long and not tell me?' She wonders.
A look of confliction appears on his face at her question but he continues regardless. "I'll cut straight to the point. I am NOT an angel, Beatrice. I am a demon. I was assigned as your guardian angel by mistake." He stops and waits for her reaction.
Her eyes are wide with shock, her mouth agape and her body frozen in it's chair. A demon? Something clicked in her mind and suddenly everything made sense. Argon's pale complexion, his red eyes that have no irises, his violent disposition towards others. It finally made sense why other angels avoid him.
But wait, if he's known about this mistake sense she was born, what has come to light?
For some reason, for Bea, that question took over everything else in her mind. If it was an accident that Argon is here, is he going to leave her now? Tears begin to well up in her eyes.
He sees the tears and it makes his own heart ache. Before this little girl, he was one of Hell's most respected Generals. Now he's just a big fluffy puppy with bad teeth. But he couldn't have been more happy these past 18 years. Watching her grow up gave him better memories than slaughtering a million souls ever could.
He couldn't keep his past from her any longer though. He saw it. That angel HAD recognized him the other day in the mall. Argon couldn't say from where. Most likely a veteran of Heaven.
"There is a possibility that we may have to say goodbye to one another." He spoke plainly, trying his best to hide any emotion. "I wanted you to know who I really am. It's...your right to know, if you wish." He turns away from her, unable to bear seeing her sadness anymore.
Watching him turn away from her she bolts up and runs into his back, clinging to him tightly. "What do you mean 'say goodbye'?" She cries. "You can't leave... I still need you..."
He quickly turns back, cradling her protectively like when she was a baby. "Hush now, little one." He says in a calm but firm voice. "I said it was a possibility. Nothing is happening as of now." He pulls away, tilting her chin up so she looks him in the eye. "You, Beatrice, are strong, resilient and good. You are the daughter I never had and I am proud to have been assigned to guard you, teach you and nurture you into the young woman you have become." He hugs her again tightly, hoping like a devil never should.
|
Frey woke up the morning with an excruciating pain in his head. On his 18th birthday of all days. But he ignored it. He spent a few minutes doing his hair, Golden in colour with two side burns down both sides of his head, finished off with a ponytail at the back. Once that was over, Frey moved over to do his uniform. It was the same regular, boring grey overcoat he always wore. Problem of being in the Alfhanian Military it seemed. He looked himself in the mirror, gazing all over himself to check for any mistakes. The insecurities of an 18 year old. Anyhow, Frey turned away and, to his surprise, was his guardian Angel. Drowned in a fashion of red, the Angel had a similar shade of Blonde to Frey, only his hair being a much more simpler design.
“What is the matter?” Frey said. He didn’t have a name for this being, nor did it ever even speak to him. It simply existed, no questions asked. The Angel simply looked blankly at him, like a doll of sorts. It made Frey uneasy, frightened even.
“Listen, today is not the day for you to play games with me. I would appreciate it if you could reserve yourself”
No response, no change in the dull facial expression. Frey simply sighed.
Wait..something was off. It dawned to Frey that he was no longer in his cramped barracks. Instead it was replaced with endless skies covered in a thick fog. He stepped back in confusion, before noticing he was standing on top of a large tree branch that was as thick as he was tall. He looked down and saw an endless abyss beneath him. Frey feel onto his bottom, his breathing became heavy, and his eyes became swelled with tears.
“Welcome friend!” A voice shouted from above.
Looking up, Frey could see his guardian ‘Angel’ was sitting atop of him on an higher branch. Frey was speechless, he couldn’t utter a single word out of fear.
SLAM! Frey’s Angel dropped down right in front of the 18 year old. With its back turned towards Frey, horrendously, it’s back bend in-humanely backwards until it’s face was angled to see him.
“What’s with the tears? My face isn’t that ugly!” The Angel laughed at its own joke, while several tears fell on Frey’s red cheeks.
The being’s body twisted itself to adjust normally. It wiped away Frey’s tears with its hands as he stared in shock.
“Come on, you’ve lived for one hundred years and you can’t even handle a little surprise?” The Angel said. Frey had been chronically 100 years old, but only awoke a few short years ago. Hence why only now was he 18 years of age, biologically speaking.
“W-Why are y-you doing this?!” Frey cried out, taking all of courage to say it.
The guardian merely smirked at the question.
“Why you say? That’s hilarious! Hahaha,” Quickly it’s face turned from laughter and humour to straight and serious “it’s because I’m not your protector, boy”.
“What?” Frey was deeply confused, what was it saying?
Unbeknownst to Frey, his right eye began to change from its normal emerald green to a light yellow. But he did noticed his angel’s *left* eye turned the same colour.
“I’ll be honest with you as a nice birthday present: I’m not your guardian Angel, I’m the demon the gods created, the one they materialised from nothing to give you to you vile humans. One of 7. Truth is, I wasn’t even supposed to be connect to you, but your twin sister decided, one hundreds years ago, it would be a great idea to,” Frey felt his headache from earlier arise again. Could it be from this demon, or was it simply from his mind trying to process even the slightest concept of what is going on?
The being now pushed its face closer to Frey’s, who still sat in terror. “But you interest me, Frey Vanir”.
The high up tree started to slowly darken, going from a lush forest high in the skies, to a blackened void.
“These games we’ve been playing, all the moments you tried to remember your past, it amused me. Watching you struggle and cry hopeless cured me of my millennia old boredom.” The anomaly began to slowly move its face away. With solid distance between the two, Frey breathed heavily as the reality(?) set in.
Suddenly, he was now in his room, on his worn out bed. He looked in the same direction as a single tear strain fell from his right eye, now back to its natural green state.
| 2021-05-23T19:34:01
| 2021-05-23T16:46:53
| 27
| 10
|
[FF] Write about a feeling with 10 lines, the first one being 10 words, next line 9, so on and so forth.
|
The world buzzes in my mind, and I am lost.
Every limb feels like a lead weight, trapping me.
My heart beats rapid, pounding at my chest.
My skin too tight, burning and itching.
The world is dull and gray.
The tears refuse to come.
The feelings cannot come.
I am alone.
I'm just...
Empty.
|
My breath caught the first time I heard your voice.
I needed to hear it again to be sure.
Confirmation the sound of an angel sweetly singing.
I caught your eye, held your gaze.
You held mine without even blinking.
I asked you to dance.
You asked my name.
I answered, "Elias".
"I'm Bethany".
Love.
| 2015-02-12T21:53:17
| 2015-02-12T21:43:43
| 761
| 34
|
[WP] A technician pulls a headset off of you and asks you if you liked the VR. You panic, and he calmly says that your whole life was a 2 minute VR experience to show you what being an average person would be like. You, stunned and afraid, ask, "Who am I, then?" He stares in complete disbelief.
(The title implies that the protagonist is someone important/famous/rich/powerful/etc, but feel free to do whatever you want with it)
|
"You don't really have a name," the tech says. "At least not anymore. After what you did, the courts decided you weren't even worthy of an identity."
"What did I do?" you say.
The tech shrugs. "Doesn't really matter anymore, does it?"
"What," you start, but you can't imagine what to say next. Your eyes catch on the tubes and wires of the VR helmet, where you've lived a long, boring life. "Why?"
The tech smiles. "Our... experiments, let's say, have shown that there is only a certain amount of stimulus a mind can take before it shuts down completely. You can go in the other machine about 12 hours before you just stop responding to stimulus and we have to pop you into the life-experience machine to recalibrate you."
"Other machine... What are you talking about."
"The nerve impulse machine. It fires specially calibrated electrical waves up your nerves. It feels like... Well, you'll find out what it feels like." The tech has a broad smile on his face, but dead eyes.
Little pieces of memory come back to you. Half-formed nightmares, things you completely discounted in the real... in the simulation. You would wake up screaming three times a week, dreaming, no, remembering a torture beyond comprehension.
A tear beads in your eye. "What did I do?"
"I have no idea, Prisoner Zero. What do I know is that you're going to be punished for it."
"I'm... I'm going to be tortured, endlessly, until I die?"
The tech laughs. "You don't have to worry about dying."
|
"Two minutes? Two fucking minutes?” Yvette blinked hard, barely suppressing her tears. It had been so real, she’d had a husband only seconds ago, a child in her belly. It wasn’t true though. That’s what the man with the strange goggles was saying. It had all been a lie, some horrific thing called VR had come in and stolen her life from her. “It can’t be! Please, where’s Michael, where’s our child?”
Yvette tried to move her hands, desperate to reach for her stomach, but she couldn’t budge anything below her neck. She could see the truth for herself as soon as she looked down, moments ago she’d been seven months pregnant, now all she saw was a flat white sheet covering her body, no room for her daughter anywhere.
“I’m going to need you to calm down Ms. Thompson,” the man was saying. “I understand that the simulation is very real, but it’s just that, a simulation. You asked for it, don't you remember?”
“No I don’t remember!” Yvette cried, “why would I want this? I don’t believe you at all.”
“You have to believe me,” he said. “We have the release forms, both from you and from your father. We can show them to you when the anesthetic wears off.”
“My father? Anesthetic?”
“Yes, your father. Maximilian Thompson, he’s just in the other room. You don’t want him to see you like this though, Ms. Thompson. I know how important appearances are for you.”
Yvette shut her eyes hard, struggling to control her frantic breathing. Maximilian Thompson? Her father? Her last name shouldn’t even be Thompson, maiden name or otherwise. She was Yvette Greene now, had been Yvette Chen before her marriage. Every part of this was wrong.
“Whoever you are, I don’t believe you,” she said through gritted teeth. “Not for a second, not for a million years. I felt my baby kicking. Do you have any idea what that’s like?”
The man chuckled. “Felt it kicking you say? In retrospect we shouldn’t have included that simulation. You asked for a normal human experience though, and we gave it to you, for women that does tend to include pregnancy.”
He’d chuckled. He’d laughed at her pain. Some part of Yvette’s mind sparked in concert with her flash of anger and suddenly the name Maximilian Thompson fell into place. He was a powerful man, the patriarch of one of the megacorps, perhaps pharmaceuticals or heavy industry. She had just the briefest memory of steel gray hair and unforgiving eyes that softened as soon as doors were closed and he could open up his arms to his youngest child.
“If my father really is Maximilian Thompson you’re going to regret laughing,” Yvette hissed, “you hear me? You’re going to fucking regret it. And if he isn’t then I’ll claw your eyes out myself for taking away my baby.”
The man stood, walking quietly around the table, checking instruments and adjusting dials. She tracked his every step with her eyes, memories of an intense, feared, and endlessly complex old man warring with her baby’s kick, and the feel of her husband’s lips on hers.
“I can see the doubt in your eyes,” the man said, glancing up at her with a small smile. “Memories of your real life are seeping back in. I’m sorry for the pain the VR dive has caused you but really, this is invaluable data. You’re contributing so much to science right now, I’m quite grateful.”
“Fuck science,” she said. “Get me out of here.” Two weeks ago her husband had woken her with a rose, a day off from her responsibilities, and one of those sickening pickle and ice cream sandwiches she’d been craving for all of her last trimester. It hadn’t even been their anniversary or anything, he’d just it just because he could. She’d cried and blamed the hormones.
In her mind her husband’s hands morphed, becoming an old man’s. Maximilian Thompson, her father, holding a rose out to her before she descending the long spiraling staircase at her debutante ball.
“What the fuck did you do to me?” she asked. The words came out like a moan, she felt so twisted up the voice didn’t even sound familiar.
“Nothing at all Ms. Thompson,” the man said. “Nothing you didn’t ask for at any rate.”
There was a loud beeping sound from a console behind her head and his eyes darted up to it. His smile grew wider, she hated it more than anything. “And the anesthetic should bearing off about now,” he said. He hit a button and the table she lay on flipped into a standing position carrying her with it. He stepped close to her and Yvette shrank away from him, he made her skin crawl.
“It’ll just be a moment and then you’re free to go,” he said, “Mr. Thompson will explain it all to you, you’ll feel better then, trust me. You’re a powerful woman Yvette, richer than I could ever imagine. Unless I slapped the glasses on myself of course!” He laughed again, reaching up towards her neck and unclipping the stops that held the sheet.
“I think you’ll find your real life much more rewarding than the dream, a lot of girls would kill to be where you are. And besides, you can step back into the simulation any time, I think you might even want to soon enough!”
The man unclipped the last stop and the sheet fell away with a quiet rustling sound. Yvette took her first step away, desperate to get away from him.
Her body didn’t move. He was still only inches away.
Yvette looked down at herself and screamed.
From the neck down her body was a mass of wires, a maelstrom of untended cables more like mating snakes than a body. Her brain fired off all the same signals it always had, moving her fingers, her toes, her arms, her legs. A few wires lit up, and not a single other thing changed.
All the while her eyes were riveted to the spot her belly should have been, that blank cluster of wires that could never be a womb.
“Just kidding,” the man said, chuckling again. “So, what do you say Yvette? What do you think of your life?”
Yvette stared up at him, and realized that no matter how badly she might want to cry, she couldn’t.
“Put me back,” she whispered.
“Back where?”
“With my family. With my baby.”
“Ah Yvette,” he said regretfully, “we already have all the data we need from that simulation. It’s two minutes a life I’m afraid, never more, never less.”
Two minutes. Everything had been two fucking minutes.
“Anywhere then.” Her eyes were screwed shut. Her entire world was black and that was how it had to be, she couldn’t look at those wires again.
Yvette felt the man’s hands stroke her cheek gently and then move to her temples. Cold metal descended over her face, laying heavily against the bridge of her nose. She heard a loud mechanical whirring, and then a deep throbbing hum that was the most familiar thing she’d found since she’d woken.
Yvette opened her eyes, the man hit a button, and a clock began to count down.
120.
119.
118.
117.
116.
115.
Two minutes. 120 seconds. The only lives she would ever have.
r/TurningtoWords
| 2021-03-27T20:07:44
| 2021-03-27T19:42:17
| 135
| 98
|
[WP] A dyslexic child accidentally sends his Christmas letter to Satan. Satan is touched by this gesture and decides to write back.
|
Dear Anna,
I must say that your letter was an unexpected delight. It was quite charmingly written, and I commend your command of grammar and syntax. All of the items you requested will be easy enough to provide. However, I cannot cure dyslexia. That is was one the many things my Father cursed humanity with during one of his meanie head moods. You have my sincerest apologies for that. Lastly, you asked for a pen pal and a spell book. If you are amenable, I am quite happy to be your pen pal, and to teach you witchcraft. Those mean girls at your school won't stand a chance.
Please do not send a response in the mail, as I have an email addres. I have found email to be a more efficient means of communication. If you wish to continue our correspondence, please email me at morningstar@gmail.hell.
Sincerely,
Lucifer
|
Dear Timothy.
I've gotten the list of things you've asked for.
I assure you I am very capable of bringing your dog back. Just as well, I can stop the teasing and jeering of your elder sister.
I was informed as to what a "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle" is, and I believe I can acquire that as well.
However, I'm not certain why you would want a monstrous truck. It sounds rather brutal for a child your age, but even I must admit it does sound fun.
I will deliver your presents on time, I give you my word.
Regards - "Satan" Morning star.
| 2018-10-28T14:29:07
| 2018-10-28T10:08:58
| 59
| 10
|
[WP] Far in the future, parents now purchase the traits of their perfect child. They decide everything from intelligence to looks. Better qualities cost significantly more money. Tell me about the imperfect life of the most expensive child ever born.
|
A tiny speck of dirt marred the perfection of the mirror in front of him. The urge to wipe it off presented itself to Adam, and he obliged. He didn't know whether his cleanliness was a learned behaviour or a part of the expensive pack of genes which his parents had assembled for him. He had never asked them exactly what it was they had paid for, or how much they had paid. All he knew was that he was the most expensive baby ever bought, and that eighteen years ago his newborn form had graced the front of every newspaper in the world. Even as an infant he had been extraordinarily beautiful. A few kids had been close to beating his price tag during recent years, but as far as he knew, no set of parents had yet been able or willing to pay a price as high as the one his parents had paid to get their perfect child.
Now that the mirror was clean, he allowed himself to see past the glass and into his own eyes. They were perfectly placed, symmetrical, and blue like the Mediterranean. His cheekbones, nose and jaw came together to make a very handsome face, and he had never once in his life had a pimple. His exceptional ability for rational thinking said that he should be happy, he had everything he could ever want in terms of intelligence and good looks, and his parents were kind and loving. Still there was something sad deep inside those blue eyes. He couldn't bring himself to tell his parents that there was something wrong with him, that the perfect son they had spent so much money on wasn't really perfect after all. His kindness, no doubt a purchased trait too, wouldn't let him hurt his parents like that.
Adam could lie to his parents, but not to himself. He saw the gorgeous young man in the mirror, but he hated him. He shifted uncomfortably as he glanced down at the body in the mirror. Yes, it was a perfect body, but it wasn't his. It was the body of the perfect son. But in truth, all his life Adam had known that he wanted to be the perfect daughter.
|
sorry for the length...I'm wordy and this is my first time. Be gentle
I glanced down at my doodle in progress while professor Gaul prattled on about one number or another. Every circle perfect, not a single smudge marred the penciled shading, and every flaw perfectly calculated. Da Vinci himself would envy it. Surely someone would buy it for a few bucks at lunch. Three more just like it and mom could stay home from work that night…maybe.
“EDWIN.”
With an annoyed sigh I raised my head to face the front of the class. Professor Gaul had always been a problem. In English I flashed my winning smile, in ethics my BS prose could sway any debate, in science I just had to spend one lunch a month helping out in the lab, but Gaul wanted my attention. Something I simply refused to give. I knew more than he ever would, why should I waste my time with him? Another needlessly complicated problem awaited on the board.
“Glad that you're still with us Edwin. Now would you mind solving the problem on the board since you obviously already know it seeing as you’re not paying attention.”
“Obviously.” The kids close enough to hear snickered and Gaul glared. I knew I had mumbled too quietly for him to be sure, but he knew. He just couldn’t do anything about it. For the first time this month I scanned the board. Chapter 4! How had he only taught to chapter 4? He wanted me to do his job. Not this time. In my mind I built the problem, saw the models and graphs, and bit by bit I whittled down to the answer. Not even complicated. “3 plus or minus 2i.”
His nose crinkled and his brow creased, but you can’t punish a kid for being right. Even if he thought I cheated he couldn’t prove it. “Well smart ass why don’t you show the rest of the class how you came up with that.” He extended the chalk and waited, impatiently tapping his foot.
I knew what he wanted. He wanted me to show a step by step method that would get you to the answer, but completely miss the point. Why parrot the cold methods of the old and dead when the answer held so much perfection and beauty? I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Instead of the line by line step ladder expected I started to draw the concept from my head. Not half way through the first curve he pushed me away from the board. The cloyingly sweet scent of his cologne filled my senses. No man should ever wear that scent.
“I’m sick of you cocky attitude. I want you out of this classroom. I don’t care what the Dean says I’m failing you.”
I stood in shock and anger. It didn’t really matter. I could test out of this class, the next class, and the next class. The doctors gave me the ability to memorize entire textbooks in mere days and the artistic mind to visualize concepts with ease. That perfect memory allowed me to speak six languages, to debate politics with senators, to handle complex problems and their solutions in my mind, it allowed me to remember the first argument my parents had when their fixed loan rate hadn’t been so fixed, to recall the faces of every agent that dragged my father away to work off his debt, the exact brand of whiskey on my mother’s breath before her first night in her new job, the ability to match each scent on her the next morning to those that called themselves my mentors, and the sense to know it was all my fault. Tonight marked the second Tuesday of the month; the day before that cloying sweet scent would linger in the kitchen while mom made my breakfast with her head hung in shame. She shouldn’t feel that way; she did what she could, what she had to. She just wanted me to be happy and to bring my father home.
Not tonight. With a quick flick of my wrist I turned that line into a middle finger before mirroring the image with my own hands. Professor Gaul turned a new shade of red and charged me; just like I planned. With ease I side stepped before burying my knee into his groin. I couldn’t hide my sneer when he slumped to the ground. At least he would be icing it instead of using it tonight.
The class cheered as I walked out the door. Why wouldn’t they? I helped them cheat, I made them laugh, and I got them in and out of all sorts of mischief. They loved me. Everyone loved me. Everyone except myself.
Edit: typo fairies
| 2014-09-10T07:07:52
| 2014-09-10T07:05:46
| 28
| 10
|
[WP] "You know about anti-heroes? People who do good, but have a element of evil about them that makes them unable to be a full hero? I'm not one of them. I'm an anti-villain."
|
Joanna didn't tell Cardinal her plan before she killed him. Before a bullet ripped through the superhero's skull, spattering his insides over the white-washed wall. Why would she give him a chance to escape? To live?
Her boyfriend, James, died seven years ago, when Cardinal had first burst onto the scene, shooting into the air, muscles rippling like his cape. He'd thrown Tarantula like a bullet, swung the villain through the tenth floor of an office building. That bullet had broken James and in turn destroyed her life.
Joanna saw it back then. What needed to be done. And now she had both purpose and focus. It was what made her different. That, and her ability to manipulate time. To stretch and twist it around her fingers like an elastic band.
Tonight, she had lured Cardinal into a cage. He'd sat in a drooling stupor strapped to a white chair, as she'd fired a single shot: the bullet, once it reached the sweat glazed epidermis of Cardinal's forehead, almost froze as she curved time around it. He would feel it pushing harder and harder against his head for weeks before it even split the skin. Months, in Cardinal's time, for the bullet to travel through his frontal, parietal, and finally occipital lobe, before exiting through the back wall of bone and flesh.
About seven months in all, she suspected, for him to die in his subjective time-zone. For the electric pulses and signals in his brain and spine to stop sending. And she had done her best to manipulate those, too. So that Cardinal would feel every drop of pain in real time for all those months.
But for her, for everyone else on the planet, Cardinal was dead before Joanna had even walked out of the room -- the back wall of which had been repainted red and brown.
Cardinal had killed dozens throughout his career, not just James. Careless collateral damage that heroes and governments deemed worthy for the greater good. A sacrifice at the altar of ego.
Both sides, of course, had to lose. If there was either one standing -- a hero or a villain -- then the other side would always rise up to challenge and to confront.
Both needed eliminating.
What frustrated Joanna the most was that these people on both sides, with incredible gifts of flame or flight or of strength, squandered their blessings. They could have powered generators or helped tackle global warming or even just helped old ladies across the street. They could have been actual heroes. But they chose not to be.
Did superheroes truly believe the best thing they could do was to form leagues and try to do police work without any real training? Did villains honestly think that they could rule individual cities like kings and queens of old? They were all delusional and dangerous, and Joanna was the answer. She was the therapy these mentally sick individuals refused to get. That governments were too cowardly to force.
Yes, Joanna was the medicine they would all taste.
Just like Cardinal had done in the bar earlier that evening. And he, in turn, had still tasted of his wife, as they'd kissed upon meeting -- of strawberry wine and lip balm. Did real heroes cheat on their spouses and break up their homes just because they could?
Who knows? she thought. Because Cardinal was not a hero and never had been. Not really.
She'd despised kissing him. But she'd needed to get close enough to drop the drug into his drink. She hoped James would have understood.
Sometimes, Joanna wasn't sure there had ever been heroes or villains. Just, egos in capes and spandex keen to to be adored and worshipped for fame or for infamy -- whichever was easier for them to reach.
Good and bad were both extremes. And all extremes were dangerous. Flames likely to spread, to become infernos.
Peace, she knew, lay somewhere in the middle. She would extinguish all the flames until there was just ashen ground ready to be reclaimed.
---
/r/nickofstatic
|
He was at the bar, wearing one of those tailored suits meant to demand respect. It stuck out like a sore thumb, here in this place of tank-tops and leather jackets.
The bartender seemed to know him or, at the very least, know his business. Usually chatty, he was pale, a little shaken, and approaching cautiously with a drink in hand. The suit hadn't asked for it, but he took it anyways, and he sipped it slowly, like it might drench his suit if he wasn't careful. His eyes never left the bartender.
"New to these parts?" the bar regular named Tony asked, sidling up a little too close. He wore the emblem on the back, matching a half-dozen other bearded men around the bar. They'd arrived on their motorcycles just minutes after the suit walked in.
"No," the suit answered. To quench further conversation, he took another sip. Longer this time, but Tony didn't get the hint.
"What's your business here?" Tony pried. A little more aggressively now, but he knew how to crack those tougher nuts. Nobody came this way without business. It just wasn't that type of bar.
"Same as you," the suit said once his drink was finished. That seemed unlikely, especially to Tony. The man was clean-shaven. He didn't wear leather. There were no motorcycles outside when they had pulled up. Just the black sedan with the tinted windows, and a couple beat-down trucks.
"You look cartel, more like it," Tony ventured. A misstatement, to say the least, and he flinched when the suit turned towards him, black eyes spouting fire like little lighters in the dim bar. A cartel man here north of the border wouldn't quite be a problem, but the peace was tenuous at best.
"I'm not cartel," the suit reassured. He glanced back towards the bartender, and then towards the back door, and Tony couldn't help but look that way, too. It seemed a strange compulsion, tracking the man's every step as he went about his job.
"Then what?"
"You know about anti-heroes?" the suit asked vaguely.
Tony scoffed. "You calling yourself a fuckin' villain?" Tony's men approached, crowding around the two men stuck in tense conversation. "We have a way with villains around here. Call it devillainizing."
The men chuckled and one cracked his knuckles.
Casually, and completely unperturbed, the man in the suit gestured for another drink. The bartender acquiesced, tripping over his own feet in his haste.
"Anti-heroes," the man explained, ignoring the odor and menace of the men aroud him, "are people who do good but have an element of evil about them. Not heroes, because of the occasional evil. But not villains, because they do good."
A couple of the bearded, leather-clad men looked amongst themselves. Anti-heroes. That was what they liked to think they were. Keeping order, knights in shining armor looking out for folks. Then they'd come down to the bar and have a couple drinks and reminisce about when times were better and simpler. But at least the bar never changed.
"Sure," Tony said. "Anti-heroes. Whatever. So what's your evil?"
The man grinned, and Tony shivered, and he suddenly felt a little less in control than he would have liked. Even cold harsh enough to freeze icicles from his beard wasn't enough to make Tony shiver. But this man? Tony didn't like this man. The presence of his group wasn't comforting as usual, either. Like the six of them together made this man six times stronger.
An ominous chuckle escaped through the man's thinly parted lips. It echoed around the bar, and the bartender took a step back. The back door swung open, but nobody stepped through.
"You a mother-fuckin' sorcerer?" Tony asked. He reached for a bottle, ready to smash it over the stranger's head.
"I'm not," the man answered quietly, rising from his bar stool. The motorcycle men parted to give him space. "Not an anti-hero either. I've got more evil in me than good. But I'm no degenerate. Not like this one," he said, nodding towards the bartender, "and whatever traffic he's got running through here at night. Call me an anti-villain, if you've gotta call me something. There's some business I'm here to deal with."
*****
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated!
| 2020-01-13T06:17:27
| 2020-01-13T05:45:33
| 2,417
| 123
|
[WP] Instead of heaven or hell, when you die, you find yourself in the room of a six year-old girl who invites you to join her tea party. It soon dawns on you, you're her imaginary friend!
|
I sat upon a pink plastic chair that surrounded a white round table that raises only about 2 feet off the ground. The table was scratched up and curse words were sprawled all across it. There were drawings of rainbows and hearts that attempted to cover these harsh words.
"Johnny answer my question!" demanded a small little girl with frizzy hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. "Do you want 1 or 2 teaspoons of sugar?"
She stood there staring at me with her large brown eyes, waiting for me to answer.
"Two." I said, which triggered her to start putting the imaginary sugar into a plastic cup.
Just like the sugar, I was an imaginary figure sitting in this tight room with this young girl. My mind flashed back to all the times I told my children that their imaginary friends weren't real. But they were. Because I am.
"Cheers!" said the little girl raising her teacup.
"Why am I here?" I said aloud.
"Because Johnny! You are my friend! My best friend in the whole world," she smiled.
Why am I here? I thought again in my head. Why am I not in heaven? Why am I not in hell?
Some sudden commotion erupted behind the little girl's closed door. The little girl's face flushed from any trace of color and her hands began to tremble.
"Now Mr. and Mrs. Snuggles, I am going to protect you and save you from any harm," she said clutching the ripped stuffed animals with her small knuckles.
She let out a shrill when the door slammed open by a large bald man. His face was filled with wrinkles that seemed to result not only from aging, but from a permanent expression of anger sprawled across his face.
"What are you fucking doing you piece of shit?" he screamed, grabbing the teddy bears from the little girls hands.
She whimpered in fear and tried to hide her face behind her arms. She struggled to let out an answer but finally whispered something that sounded like "playing."
"Playin? And who the fuck told you you could play?" This man then kicked the young girl in the stomach which caused her to clench herself. At sight of this, I got straight up from my chair and went to stop the man from hitting the girl anymore. I attempted to latch on to his arm, but my hands kept slipping through. I forgot. I am now imaginary.
The man, whom I presumed to be her father continued to scream and hit the little girl. It was a ghastly sight that I couldn't bear watch. And in that moment I felt so powerless. I could not do anything to stop this man from jabbing his boot into the poor girls stomach. I could not punch him back after seeing him rupture the girl's nose into a nose bleed. I was powerless.
After a few minutes, her father left the room and the girl sat there in a heap crying. "Johnny..." she whimpered. Her father cannot see me, but this little girl can. I sat beside her and used my shirt sleeve to stop the nose bleed. Ineffective.
I tried to pick her up but that was also ineffective. Words. Words are the only thing I can use.
"I'm here.." I tried to shush her cries and reassured her that I will always be here.
Even though I was imaginary, I embraced the little girl in a hug. To my amazement, she hugged back. She placed her head onto my shoulder and her cries and whimpers died down. She then pulled back and looked me into my eyes. She stared right into them and said:
"Thanks Johnny. This is why I imagined you."
I thought about this for a while and realized that this little girl, in an effort to release herself from reality, has imagined another father. A loving father. The only way I can now save myself and go to heaven is if I save this little girl.
|
I stared at a black void for about a good minute, putting together how my death went, it felt horrible, I wished I could've had a second chance, then suddenly, I see a bright light, thinking it's heaven I got worried.
Me: "No, I don't wanna go!"
If I had any tears, I would be shedding them, but instead of clouds and golden objects, I'm greeted with a room with pink wallpaper and little girl around six years old staring at me.
Little girl: "Hey, come sit with me, you just made it to my tea party."
Me: "Huh, tea party?"
Little girl: "Yes a tea party, now hurry, cuddles and I are waiting."
I thought this was some weird joke that the angles play to make new souls feel confused, but the next event that happened made me rethink that idea entirely.
Little girl: "Here is your tea, you don't have to drink it if you can't-"
The door opens suddenly and I see a woman, possibly the little girl's mother.
Mother: "Sarah, who are you talking to in here?"
Sarah: "I'm talking to cuddles and my new friend, he just got here."
Everything clicked within a instant, I was Sarah's imaginary friend, and the wave of emotions I got made me feel not only sad, but happy, I felt as if my time wasn't up yet and my last task was to watch a child grow up knowing she had a friend.
Me: "If I had any tears, I would be shedding them."
Sarah: "You don't have to, I'm your friend, I'm here for you even if I become a grown up"
I wanted to give her a hug, but I realized I couldn't, at least not yet.
| 2017-12-19T12:07:05
| 2017-12-19T11:01:47
| 31
| 15
|
[WP] It's been years since the last moon landing. After several decades of silence, humans proudly set foot on it again. Up there, the astronauts found mummified human corpses inside torn open space suits. The tags were still legible, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin... the astronauts from decades ago.
|
"Houston, we have a problem."
At the time, it was supposed to be said in irony. A reference to an age long ago, back when we were still sending men to the moon. But the last time I heard those words said, it wasn't in a joking tone, it was said in a shaking, quavering voice, the voice of someone losing the battle to fight against their tears.
I still remember seeing the photographs. The faces that looked barely human. The desecrated suits, ripped to shreds as if they were made of paper. The increasingly haunting contrast of their brightly colored American flags against the white and grey of the moon's surface and the remains.
When Director McNamara made the decision to release the photographs to the public, I had my doubts about the whole thing. Only a handful of us had seen them, only the men on the mission and the small few of us who were in mission control at the time. It wouldn't be perfect, but with so few people knowing the truth (whatever *the truth* was,) we could keep the rumors contained. And those who did talk about our findings would be regarded as crazy. We could, effectively have kept it safe, and by extension, everyone would have been safe.
But, unlike so many politicians, scientists, and business managers, McNamara chose the truth over safety. And while I had agreed with his moral philosophy, I couldn't help but wonder whether we made the right decision, letting everyone know what we had found.
Well, looking at everything that's happening right now, I think it's safe to say that I was right. Because the minute the images were verified, everyone was thrown into a chaos. If the men who had been to the moon had really died up there, who had returned to our planet? Scientists theorized that they were another species of life, one that could perfectly replicate the genetic makeup of the humans they encountered.
I remember reading something about how they - the microorganisms that the creatures used to mimic our men - mimicked the function of RNA polymerase, but rather than copying the DNA template to make RNA, they simply made perfect copies of the human DNA they attached to, and produced the exact same proteins as their former host did in order to make a near-perfect replica.
Well, I'm a physicist, not a biologist. I don't know if that's how they do it, I just know that they do it. And that it has everyone terrified. Because once the news was out, the question arose: *how many of them are among us?*
Well, turns out paranoia does crazy things to the human societal structure in general. Since the photos were released, everything has collapsed around us. And as one of the only twelve people who actually had the power to stop those images from being released, I can't help but feel partially responsible.
"We had another lynching today." My roommate, Chris's, voice is steady and strong. Unsurprised. "Apparently old Mrs. Robinson convinced the town that her husband was one of Them."
"Shame." I shake my head, pouring myself a second cup of coffee. "But she had it out for him anyway."
Chris gives a noncommittal grunt of agreement, goes back to scrolling through his phone. I watch as his brow furrows, probably scanning the obituaries to make sure nobody he cares about has ended up dead.
I take a sip of the scalding black coffee I know and love so well, walking over to my desk to grab my laptop.
Shit. It's still open to the email. McNamara's last email before he... well... before he hanged himself.
*Forgive me.*
I close the window as quickly as possible, instead opening up the news. To no surprise, the news has barely changed. Everything happening becomes political, but at this point, it's accusing other prominent figures of being one of Them, or revealing detailed histories of organized lynching.
I'm half tempted to exit the news and spend the next few hours scrolling through Reddit, trying to ignore the problems around me, but I know that that's not possible. Pretending something isn't there doesn't make it any better.
"Do you ever think it's funny?" Chris isn't looking at me, but is clearly addressing me.
"What?"
"The fact that They haven't really done anything other than kill the astronauts. And yet simply knowing about their existence is throwing everything into chaos."
I sigh and shrug. "Funny's an interesting word to describe the situation... but yes. I respected those astronauts. They're the reason I worked at NASA for so long. I can understand why the fact that they're dead would outrage a lot of people." I sigh and glance back at the computer screen. "But that doesn't mean that it isn't wrong. What they're doing."
Chris gives me a crooked grin. "Human nature at its finest."
I laugh sarcastically. "If this is your psychology major talking, I beg of you, stop."
I finish my coffee. Chris puts his phone down and glances out the window.
"So there really isn't anything we can do to stop it?"
I hesitate for a minute, then slowly shake my head. "Like you said, it's not Them that's sending everything into chaos. It's us."
Chris sighs. "That's what I thought. Want a muffin?"
And we could do nothing but let the world burn around us.
|
“Thank you for your service”
That was the last transmission they had sent before going
silent. Leaving me, Judith and Adrian to stare at the crackling screen before
us. It’s ominous glitching seeming to be a bad omen for things to come. The
contents of the transmission had started a conversation between us, each
discussing our take on its message.
“It’s a weird message to leave on. You think they would have
said something like, return home safely.” Judith was still fiddling with the
control panel, trying to get into contact with headquarters, but the radio
silence was stubborn, refusing to allow such a thing to occur.
“We are the first people in a decade to arrive on the moon,
of course they would thank us for our service. We are heroes, just like the
ones that came before us. Now stop fiddling with the controls and lets set up
the camera. This will be a live broadcast.” Adrian had already opened the door
to the ship, watching as the grey specs of dust seemed to flow freely through
the air, disrupted by the door’s heaving motion.
“Man, look at that dust, should have brought a vacuum.” I
tried a joke to lighten the mood, but neither party seemed interested in my
lack of humor.
Spending the next few minutes preparing our cameras, we were
finally ready. Me and Judith had agreed to let Adrian take the first small
step, not wanting to spend the entire trip arguing over it. It wasn’t like it
was an amazing feat anymore. After they had taken the first step, any subsequent
steps weren’t as noteworthy.
With a shared nod, we stepped onto the rocky surface, the
shift in gravity being the first thing we all noticed, judging by the way that
our powerful strides had turned into slow waddling. It took us all a fair
amount of time to gain our moon feet, but we eventually did. Able to traverse
with less of a waddle and more of a stride.
Adrian went straight for his task, not even bothering to
take in the sights like Judith and me. Both of us were in awe, staring back at
the Earth, watching as it seemed to hang in the dark pool of space just for us.
We eventually pulled our eyes away from the planet, deciding to take ourselves
for a small walk, wanting to stretch our legs before collecting moon rocks.
With a quick high five, Judith and I continued our journey, only
to get our smiles slapped away from our faces. Bodies, mummified by the vacuum
of space, laid against a pile of rocks, embracing one another. Both of us
immediately stepped away from the corpses, ready to run only for a heavy
pressure to collide with my shoulder.
“A body?”
Adrian’s voice drifted into my helmet. Never had I been so
glad to hear his voice. He motioned us both towards the bodies, but neither of
us followed, our legs refusing to budge. Adrian only waited for a few moments
before he headed to the corpses without us. Crouching before the bodies. My
helmet again sparked with his voice. For once he seemed shaken by something.
“Neil Armstrong? The tag says Neil Armstrong. That’s
impossible, though. Ive met the man in training. These bodies belong to the
original crew, if the tags are to be believed. Judging by the wounds, something
tore into their suit. I would assume this to be a joke but these suits are
expensive, to break three open like this for a joke. We need to get back to the
ship. If something could get into a suit, you can imagine what it would do to
our flesh.”
Adrian pulled himself away from the body, only for a tendril
to creep from the hole, wrapping around his wrist. That’s when I caught my
first glimpse of it. The dark grey blob, its body shaped to fit inside the body
of the astronauts it had killed. No amount of struggling would save Adrian, the
blob having no eyes or noticeable features apart from its row of needle like
black teeth. A set of teeth that the tendrils also shared, drawing blood as it
dug into Adrian’s wrist.
Judith took a step forward, but I quickly pulled her back.
What could we do? Without a weapon, we were just offering ourselves to be a
secondary meal.
“Let’s run.” Tugging at Judiths wrist, I had already turned
to rush back to the ship.
“Help me you coward, we can kill it, there’s three of us.”
That was the last thing Adrian said before screams filled
our helmets. I didn’t turn to watch the gruesome display, but I know Judith
did. Her movements sluggish and paranoid. The craters of the moon now a
minefield. Hundreds of tiny places for the creatures to hide.
“We let him die, we could have tried to pull the creature
away.” Judith argued, panted breaths following each word.
“And offer ourselves as the next meal? We have nothing to
fight the creature with. If I was getting killed Adrian would have done the
same.”
That was what I was telling myself, anyway. Refusing to
believe I had just cursed someone to their death. I was finally nearing the
ship, but Judith was too slow. As we neared the ship, I took one last glance
back; the tendrils were behind us, sliding through the air as though it were
water. tendrils flaring out to push its body closer and closer.
Jumping in the ship's safety, I watched Judith. She was
close, but so were the tendrils. I reluctantly slammed my fist against the
yellow button beside the door, watching as it slowly closed, until it dropped
right before Judith could enter.
“Thank you for your service.” That was all I could say to
her, twisting the neck of my helmet before her screams would fill it, pulling
it from my head, tossing it as far away from my body as I could.
I had sacrificed two partners, but I would survive, I would
be the one to tell them the truth about the moon. Desperately I fought with the
controls, reconnecting our communications with headquarters.
“Judith and Adrian are dead. I need you to bring me home,
there're these aliens, black octopus type things, they fly through the air.
They killed the original crew and now they are going to kill me if you don’t
hurry and help me.”
A voice sighed on the other end, a few words being exchanged
that were too silent for me to hear.
“Listen Sam, this may be hard for you to accept, but we are
fully aware of what’s on the moon. You don’t think the previous crew reported
the creature before they died? We sent you to the moon to get us a sample,
something you did beautifully.”
“A sample? Like I’ll get you anything. Hurry and send me
home. I won’t talk if you send me home. Just please get me off the moon. I
don’t want to die. I don’t want to die up here. I’ll even destroy the camera.
We can say it was a hoax.”
I was a blathering mess of tears, trying to plead with an
uncaring screen. I could hear the voices talking in muffled silence, a faint
laughing even heard, sharing amusement over my panicked state.
“The camera’s were never on Sam. It was only there to flood
Adrian’s ego. We didn’t want him getting suspicious. Out of you three, he was
the only one that might have been able to stop this. Regardless, the sample is
already on the ship. Thank you for your service, Sam. The world will know you
as a hero. We will send the ship back once it kills you. I hope its quick.
They left me alone. The sample was already on the ship? I
couldn’t see it, but I didn’t doubt their words. This sample couldn’t get back
to Earth, that would be catastrophic. Crouching beneath the cockpit, I pulled
open its panel, tugging at the wiring, trying to cause it to malfunction. If
only Adrian had survived over me. He would have known what to do. My desperate
attempts to destroy the ship did little more than cause the lights to flicker.
Dropping back onto the floor, I gave up. Arms spread out as I stared at the
ceiling of the ship, eyeing the sterile coloring.
I could already feel it, the creature’s tendril slipping up
my leg, only to stop on my stomach.
>!“I’m sorry.”!<
&nbsp;
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&nbsp;
(If you enjoyed this feel free to check out my subreddit /r/Sadnesslaughs where I'll be posting more of my writing.)
| 2020-09-20T22:06:25
| 2020-09-20T21:51:40
| 286
| 181
|
[WP] Every time there is a thunderstorm your father ushers you inside and waits on the porch with his gun, your mother says he's just gone a bit crazy after the war, but you've seen what lurks in the clouds too.
|
**WHEN THE MAN COMES AROUND**
Dad looked up from his paper when he heard the first roll of thunder in the distance. Still as a statue, he waited for another crack from the skies. And when it finally came, he stood quickly and looked to his daughters at the kitchen table.
“Girls, there’s an old saying in our family…”
“Dad, we know!” the eldest, Elena said. “When thunder claps, and the clouds reign, so shall the beasts rise again.”
Dad grabbed a box of shells from above the fridge. “Girls, I want you down in the basement. Go on now.”
They rolled their eyes but trudged towards the cellar door in the hallway. Over the years, throughout the spring, Dad ran the girls to the basement anytime it rained. He’d usher them to the cellar, shushing over their protests, and assuring them it had to be this way.
In the distance, a thunderclap exploded over the plain. Dad’s gaze shot towards the window, pointed west. “Shit.”
The girls knew instantly this time was different. They weren’t going to play with their stuffies in their basement fort. Dad’s breathing sped up. “Girls. Now.”
He pushed them towards the cellar stairs, looking back over his shoulder out the front window. The skies darkened and the thunder clapped again, closer this time. Mary, 6 years old and the younger sister, pushed ahead of Elena and ran downstairs to find and hug Gerald the Stuffed Bear.
“Elena, wait,” Dad said. Elena turned and felt her dad press a worn paper into her hand. “No matter what happens, do not let them get this. Do you hear me? Do not let them get her.”
Elena squinted at her father in confusion. Their thunder drills over the years were games, and sure this one felt different. But who were they? What was he talking about?
Out front, lightening struck a telephone pole and that’s when she saw him: A man robed in black tatters upon a white horse, a bow in his right hand and a crown upon his head. “Oh my god, DAD!”
“GO!” Dad said. He shoved Elena to the cellar stairs as the thunder exploded above their heads, knocking pictures off the walls.
Dad shoved an end table in front of the cellar door, pumped his shotgun, and marched to the porch.
————-
I just set up a sub where you can check out more of my stuff. Open to all feedback at r/TopKatWrites.
|
Father grumbled as he sat heavily in the porch chair. His little eyes swivelled in his head, like currants, glinting slightly at the mottled light. I slipped away from mother's gaze and skipped out of the window to whisper furtively:
"The aliens are back?"
Father spat a glob of chewing tobacco. It hit the cat, who ran away screeching.
"Yup," he breathed. "Big ones. I can feel it in my bones."
Before I knew it the sky had turned black and a large saucer plunged out from the heavy clouds. It burped out its hideous message.
CHICKEN DINNER CHICKEN DINNER EARTH DELICACY! SURRENDER YOUR CHICKENS!
"Gorram aliens!" roared father, observing them hover over the chicken coop, open the saucer's bottom hatch, and wheel out the chicken stealing rope.
"Get the hell off my farm!"
NO! WE DESIRE FRIED CHICKEN! ALL CHICKENS ARE BELONG TO US!
A little green space man, wearing something with the appearance of a goldfish bowl over his head, rapelled down the chicken abduction rope. He chittered eagerly as he tied some helpless poultry to it.
"That's it! I've had it with you little green bastards!"
Father levelled the gun and a thunderous noise rang out over the farm. A large lead slug pyoinged off of the alien's head-helmet.
CRAP! called out the alien voice. PANIC! PANIC! PANIC!
The saucer wobbled uncertainly as a squeaking noise heralded the reeling-in of the abduction rope. Then, with a little song like "da di dee doo dah" (Alien for "you spoiled my dinner") it span around, scrabbled uncertainly for strange grip on the air, then spat itself up and out of sight.
That was the last I ever saw of the aliens. And our chickens. I suppose, though, we're lucky to say they were only paltry losses.
| 2020-05-04T08:16:45
| 2020-05-04T07:50:59
| 31
| 14
|
[WP] You are a normal citizen in a relatively unimportant country. One day the goverment starts to act crazy, changing ideology overnight, drafting people for the army and antagonizing their neighbours. The player controlling your country in a strategy game has just begun their world conquest run.
|
The madman actually did it. Alfred von Heynitz, five time re-elected Syndic (formerly Bürgmeister) of the (former) Imperial Free City of Ulm officially declared himself duke. I should've seen the signs sooner. Perhaps I am getting old, but I never expected it to come to this.
The man is undeniably absolute military genius. Being of a military background, he immediately took to commanding our armies himself, quickly conquering our neighbouring cities of Ravensburg and Württemberg. This however lead to the revocation of our city's title as a "Free City" of the empire. Perhaps I should've taken that as a sign?
Still, von Heynitz had been careful not to incur the wrath of the other princes, so the protection of the emperor was for the time being unnecessary. His resounding victories kept him a popular leader, who filled our pockets with gold after each conquest.
But it has not been without downsides. Our people grow weary of war, and our new subjects threaten to revolt. Though many justify his continued rule with his merits, I say he has gone too far.
The man has eroded our republican institutions since the day he stepped in office. I saw the ambition in the young man's eyes then. I voted for him, advocated for him, thought some more youthful vigor might do our city some good. It was a close vote then, my words very well may have been decisive. My actions then will haunt me for the rest of my life.
And that is why I must right my wrongs, or die trying. I have never been much of a warrior, but I will not return to the *rathus* again to go through the empty motions of our once proud republican establishment. The ambition in which I saw a brighter future for our city now leaves me feeling terrified. I know, as I catch his eye, that he will sacrifice anything to achieve whatever dark and twisted goal he has set for himself.
I suspect he knows that I have become disillusioned, that I blame him, and myself, for the corruption of our city into this twisted apparatus of tyranny. He will undoubtedly placate my colleagues with aristocratic titles, but I will not be so easily swayed. Still, to oppose him openly is foolish. He has already stopped, or at least delayed, a revolt in Ravensburg through violent crackdown and executions.
I am no warrior, but I am an excellent politician, if I do say so myself. Yes, I know what I must do. It will be difficult, and it will be risky, but if I can convince enough of my colleagues, it should work. The difficult part is making sure the "duke" doesn't notice. Through intricate legal amendments, all signed personally by the duke, of course, it should be possible to oust him from his throne.
The trick is to make sure each important article is buried under unimportant changes, and that the whole process is scattered across a variety of legal documents. That way he won't know what's happening until it's too late. He'll have no choice but to accept an assumption of executive office, after all, his majesty will have signed all of them!
|
Poland lived in peace with her neighbours, having only one army, and trying to keep everyone together in their little brotherhood. The Holy Roman Empire was perfectly calm, with only inter-vassal wars not involving anyone higher than a Duke or Baron. The Rus were content to do whatever they did. All was well, until that fateful day.
Jimmy powered on his PC, put on his headphones, and set up the stream. He launched Crusader Kings 2, and waited for his faithful viewers to arrive. After about ten minutes of country logistics, he began a survey to see what he should do today. The results were mostly, ‘invade everything’. He nodded and began building more Hussar training grounds.
“Włodzislaw! Włodzislaw! The levies have been raised! Come, brother!” The Pole groaned and stood up. He was dishevelled after a long week of Hussar training.
“Wh… what? Who are we fighting?” He asked his older brother.
“The Empire! We attack the Niemcy savages! Come, the Basilisca herself demanded it!” Włodzislaw quickly put his gear on and headed off with his brother.
“What’s with the sudden conflict?” He asked.
“I thought we were keeping the peace with everyone?”
“Not anymore! We march to claim the Empire for ourselves!”
As it turned out, every vassal’s levy had been raised. Armies that did not exist the previous day had been assembled faster than a horse could run, and every neighbouring country had been attacked. Rumour had it that Pruthenija had already been claimed, and Rus was next. Denmark was being sacked, and as far south as the Papal States, Polish armies were fighting against the people they once sought to protect.
Poland changed her name to ‘Imperial Poland’, and wars were happening all over Europe. The Empire fell, and France was next. Włodzislaw thought that this was insane. What had driven his peaceful country into a bloodthirsty war hound? He’d heard that even the Byzantine was crumbling, and that the soldiers set their sites on the Middle East.
“Alright, folks, that concludes the stream for today. Wow, I did *really* good, huh? Anyways, I’ll be doing Warhammer again tomorrow, and maybe some Monster Hunter on Tuesday. I’ll be hosting my girlfriend’s stream now, see y’all~”
| 2019-03-10T13:00:44
| 2019-03-10T11:57:27
| 20
| 14
|
[WP] On everyone's 18th birthday at noon, one word appears in their skin, depicting their career or purpose in life. On your birthday you're staring at a clock showing 11:59am, family and friends gathered around for your reveal.
Path 1: Noon strikes, and you stare at your forearm intently. 12:01, still nothing appears.
Path 2: one word fades in slowly, followed by a second...
|
First word PHYSIO was fairly easy to see. Perhaps a Greek name he wondered as the word THE appeared below it.
"Oh wow" he thought, its going to be a superhero like 'Conan the destroyer'.
"Please be magician.... please be Physio the magician" he said under his breath, as the last word appeared. 'RAPIST'.
"Rapist..... rapist" he said in bewilderment. "Physio the rapist".
"It says physiotherapist you moron" came a voice behind him.
|
My mother to my left, my father to my right, and assorted family gathered elsewhere in the room all waited and started. I felt as if I was becoming a spectacle, my arm on show for everyone I knew.
My cousin Jeremy had been branded as a veterinarian, which is odd because as children he was cruel to animals. Come to think of it my sister had been given harlot, though from the rumors that one isn't too far off.
As the clock struck 11:59 my pulse began to race and a faint sheen of sweat lingered on my brow, my entire future could be decided in this moment or some deep motive that some twisted divine had placed inside me.
The clock on the wall was deafening, every other sound so blatantly missing, as if the air itself waited.
In this moment I had forgotten how to breathe, blinking was all but forgotten. This one place in the universe is all that mattered. Suddenly, the clock struck with a chime and words began to creep onto my skin linking the space between my freckles. The pattern of the letters was almost comical how bad they were written, almost as if a drunken frat boy was tattooing me.
*send^nudes*
| 2017-03-16T03:20:58
| 2017-03-15T22:14:11
| 427
| 193
|
[WP] You are a superhero whose powers are based on the music you are listening to. Rock can make you stronger, classical makes you smarter, etc. One day, you're fighting your toughest villain yet, and you are forced to use your "forbidden" playlist.
|
I'd burned through at least a half dozen genres in the last few minutes. No matter what track was being pumped through the headphones integrated into my helmet, I either couldn't keep up with the hell-faced bastard or none of my hits would do anything to their adamantine skin. Every time I tried something else, they seemed to have the perfect counter. I needed something... more.
There's a reason why I keep away from certain types of music. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing bad about any of them. Well, most of them. It's just that I'm not a fan of the aftereffects of some of them. Techno makes me feel jittery, same with a lot of rap. Anything in a language I don't normally know kind of scrambles my speech for a while. Villain songs from the Mouse have me cackling evilly for a long time afterwards. But they all have a purpose.
Even the blacklisted tracks.
A shudder passed through me as I thought of that damned playlist. It wasn't really dread though, more like... excitement. And I hated myself for it. But I needed to end this before we leveled the city. Or, well, much more of it. I just hoped that I could stop myself when it was done.
So... I punched in the password for the locked tracks onto my arm mounted panel.
"Rip and Tear"
The warning phrase played in my head right before the first track kicked in.
"Until it is done."
|
Nothing has prepared me, the [Music Maestro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSAJ0l4OBHM), for this opponent. Ever Destroyer was the most dangerous enemy I have faced so far. Very strong, with the power of decay at her disposal, she was a villain all villains wish them could be. Everything she touched was destroyed. [Rock](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx2u5uUu3DE), my trusted first choice of power, was beaten easily.
Going [Country](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9FzVhw8_bY) was my next choice. Ode to the rural life, country lets me control plant life as well as an [alligator](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT_nvWreIhg). Nothing says banjos and hillbillies quite like country music. Noticing this, Ever Destroyer touched the ground, disintegrating every plant within several kilometers and the alligator. A terrible deed, and my second choice was neutralized just like that.
Gritting my teeth, I pull out one of my trump cards, [Death Metal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zN7J64IeBo), a power very similar to hers. Instantly I feel Death's gaze behind me, reminding me of the high cost of using this genre. Veins popping, I rush to grab her hands. Ever Destroyer was surprised, for no one had ever touched her without dying before.
Yanking each other's feet, we tumble in the dirt, death and decay surrounding us as our powers both intensify and cancel each other out. On my back, I can feel Death slowly opening their eye. Under a minute left, before Death takes my [soul](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YxaaGgTQYM).
Ultimately, I had to unleash my [forbidden genre](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ5LpwO-An4), [one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTQbiNvZqaY) that I swore to only [use](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0MK7qz13bU) in the most dire of [emergencies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914). Play the [music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) that made the entire world rage!
| 2022-05-17T09:22:08
| 2022-05-17T08:49:33
| 486
| 153
|
[WP] Potions can work miracles, but the brewing process requires fermentation. Wizard battles frequently devolve into drunken bar fights.
|
A battle between mages is a matter of attrition, as often as not.
Sure, you can *try* to overwhelm them at the start. That'll work, sometimes.
Funny thing about throwing a bunch of spells at one spot, though- tends not to work on people who can teleport.
So, no, it's a battle of attrition. Magical skill and strength, foresight and insight, cunning and creativity, and being able to hold your booze.
Potions can restore magical stamina, heal physical wounds, and also have the side effect of causing you to brim with confidence.
A wizard battle is a matter of attrition, which makes it quite alarming to the participants, after the fact, to realize that, at some point in the battle, they started drinking their expensive potions simply because they wanted another drink.
The results were rarely pretty, but they *were* often entertaining.
"Why...\*hic\*...whydya gotta be so meeeeeeen to me?"
"Because y'r mom *is* a phrenic parasite, that's why. And because I don't like y'r stoopid *face*!"
A fireball was thrown, and detonated harmlessly overhead. Aiming was more than a little difficult, when a battle had devolved to this point. The other wizard dodged dramatically (and a little late), taking cover behind an available rock and bonking his head in the process.
"Owwwww! That frellin' *hurt*! Stupid butt ass!"
The favor was returned, a lightning bolt passing remarkably close, all things considered, to the other mage. His hair began to stand on end, and his long beard spread out, changing from a noble and portentous sign of venerability and potency into something that looked more like a fan.
"Awww, y'r *mom's* a butt ass!"
A spell was attempted, but spells are delicate things. The minimal differences in finger movements between Nixteral's Gourmet Summoned Coffee and Laretxin's Vicious Summoned Badger have ruined the morning of many a mage.
In this case, an attempt at conjuring a storm of acid instead resulted in a much larger swarm of scarabs. This might not have been so bad, if the swarm hadn't been large enough to engulf *both* combatants.
The battle paused, for a while, both mages trying a variety of things to get the bugs to leave them alone.
Lightning bolts proved ineffective, and an attempt to conjure a personal wind-shield (armor made of whirling wind, rather than an object meant to shield against wind) instead resulted in Personal Meat Armor ("Made From Real Rotting Meat!")
This did not improve matters.
The matter was resolved when an attempt at another lightning bolt had instead summoned a deluge. The deluge, thankfully, was of water, which dispersed the bugs, softened the ground, and, alarmingly, began to water down the potions that remained.
(Self-control is among the first things to go, when a mage battle descends into potion-fueled absurdity. Both combatants had had the clever idea to uncap all of their potions ahead of time, to make for easier quaffing later. This had resulted in a great deal of spilled potion, but neither mage was in a position to really notice. Rain from the sky getting in *did* get their attention, though- it's odd, what you will and will not notice under the influence of sufficiently magical booze.)
The battle ceased entirely, as both combatants scrambled to prevent the rain from getting into their precious drinks. The battle faded further into memory as each combatant noticed that they had been spilling potion this whole time, and attempted to scoop the potion back in, resulting mostly in adding a bunch of mud to their drinks.
The battle was entirely forgotten, now. Both mages slumped against each other, having crawled next to each other in their search for Spilled Booze.
"I'm...I'm sorry, man. Ion't...Ion't meanta be like that, ya feel? Just...just you started yellin' stuff, an' then I started yellin' stuff, an' then it all just wen- POOF!"
This last sound effect was accompanied by an extravagant gesture, a dangerous thing, with mages. Fortunately, the poodle that was summoned simply looked confused and wandered off to find somewhere dry, or at least somewhere not actively being rained on by what looked more like an ocean than a cloud.
"I kno- man, I *KNOW*. I just *KNOW* things, y'know? I had- it was some sorta thing, like, with that am- that am-...that necklace y'got."
"Man, I'ain't even...I'ain't even *want* this thing. Man, you take it."
"Hey, that's real sweet, man. I frellin' love you, dude. Thanks dude."
"Man, no prollem, no prollem."
There was a moment of clumsy digging for an amulet among the rotting meat that had been summoned as armor. It was slow going, and got slower when the mage wearing it decided to help his companion out. Still, it was eventually drawn forth, and extricated from the mage wearing it.
...
"Hey. Heyyyy!"
One mage shook the other, hoping to share his new discovery with his friend.
"...whassit?"
"Dude, y'know this necklace you gamme?"
"I do? Wait...hey, I remember that! I w's wearin' it!"
"So I was...I was lookin' fer this, like, this thing, and I thought that this was the thing, but then I looked at it, and it's *not*. Real thing's gottan...gottan *inscription* on the back. Something about eagles, Ion't really remmemer."
"Oh, man. Hey, so y'need'ta finda real one?"
"Oh, dude, I think I do. Totally bodus."
"C'n I have tha one back?"
This was attempted, but neither mage had the coordination to manage the complex task of putting a small chain loop over a head. The amulet was eventually tossed aside into the mud, as the two mages laid next to each other for a nice nap, as the deluge of water slowed, and the clouds dispersed overhead.
The summoned poodle returned some time later, carrying the amulet. When it was unable to wake either mage, it ran off into the far distance, a free, magical poodle.
|
Somewhere in the courtyard an emptied vial shattered loudly against the cobblestone. Long, violet vines were crawling up the pillars surrounding the open space. There wasn’t a cloud in sight, but the rumbling of thunder resounded and the flash of lightning zipped along the sky.
Vicente rubbed his fingers across his eyes as he set his stein beneath the keg’s tap. The sun was too bright today.
Discovering that he had a gift for magic is what saved him from having to go to his local college. He wouldn’t have to deal with taking two years of meaningless classes in the loose hopes that he’d be allowed to graduate with his communications degree.
A witch in the courtyard was hit by a plume of red smoke. She emerged from it a wizard.
He wouldn’t have to spend his well-earned money at the cafeteria; meat that had never been alive, vegetables that had never been exposed to the real sun’s light.
One wizard in the corner couldn’t handle his potions. He wretched up a bit of yellow-green bile, followed by a green-yellow tentacle.
He wouldn’t have to live in a dirty room, woken up every morning by his roommate finally getting back, still drunk, a new partner on his hip.
Vicente finally thought to twist the tap. The brew began to float upwards. He considered that it may have just been the nature of the batch, but when he himself started floating, he said a small chant to affix his gravity to the ground. Most other’s in the courtyard weren’t sober enough to do the same.
And, finally, he wouldn’t have to deal with the frat house parties. Living adjacent to his local college’s campus his whole life, he knew that when they partied, the whole town partied.
The vomiting wizard finished, falling to his back in exhaustion, as the tentacled…thing he had thrown up undulated like a jellyfish, moving toward the city at the bottom of the hill.
No, having awoken to his magical potential, Vicente leapt at the opportunity to finally get out of his home town, in spite of his poor grades. He’d get to explore a hidden continent and live in a pre-modern city, away from the noise pollution, light pollution, and regular pollution he’d grown used to over the years. He’d get to see legends preserved in time and reality, unviolated by the limiting scope of science. And he’d get to pierce the cosmos, internalizing that the periodic table of the soul was infinitely more expansive, more powerful, and could drive humanity farther than anything centuries of science in an “enlightened era could”.
Two witches stumbled to the kegs, each erroneously leaning on the other to support their drunken gaits. One belched and a puff of white fire escaped her. The both broke down laughing.
Those were the promises, anyway.
A ball of mud whiffed past his head, clung to the wall, grew limbs, and began to ascend to the gutters. He tried to twist the keg again, his mug filled with a frothy, purple elixir.
Vicente’s classes here were far from meaningless, but they did propose some concepts he couldn’t understand. The nature of the periodic table of the soul, for instance, implied that for every element you discovered ten more would appear. Text books were written in English, but it was Old English, and they were all written in some form of thrice-reversed cursive. And, most surprisingly, almost every potion made needed to be fermented at some point before its powers would take effect.
One of his professors, demonstrating out his newest batch of potion out in the courtyard, held a barrel up to his mouth, dousing himself as he drank from it. And then he lit himself on fire.
The food at the school was natural, just not natural to any world he knew of. Eating the food he’d grown up with, Earth food, “mundane” food, apparently did nothing to nourish him as a magician. To get those nice magic minerals, you needed to eat food from other worlds.
An alarming degree of which was still sentient when it landed on the plate.
There was a soft hum in the distance. Looking up, Vicente saw something falling. The soft hum evolved into a scream as the wizard got closer. He collided with the cobblestone, his flesh and bones shattering like an eggshell and his clear viscera spreading out. A little yellow chick hopped from the mess and made its way to the dorms.
His room was, thankfully, clean, but his roommate did still come back with a different partner every night. Some of them were other witches or wizards. Most of them were just shaped like witches and wizards. Vicente spent much of the previous night awake to the sound of clicking teeth and woke to a curtain of mucus hanging around his bottom bunk.
He looked around at the courtyard, magic flying wildly.
The ragers that happened were unimaginable, consistently unimaginable. Last night alone the city streets got flooded by a river of sheep’s wool. People dining in open areas had their steak dinners turn to boars and their pork dinners turn to bulls. One of the professors went streaking, a litters-worth of cats springing from her feet with every step. Another professor made the planets align fifty years too early because he wanted to get his brew done quicker. A few wizards made their way into the chapel and some sort of god opened the clouds, throwing bolts of lightning to drive them out.
Vicente brought his stein to his lips. Back to work.
| 2021-02-01T09:17:53
| 2021-02-01T08:53:27
| 27
| 11
|
[FF] In 200 words, describe a ghastly and very unpleasant body transformation. Can be mechanical, biological, magical or whatever you like. (possibly NSFW)
|
My legs are wrong. Each limb: bifurcated. Each bifurcation: bifurcated. Continue until there are 128 stalks now calling themselves my legs. Each one has the same structure as the originals, only thinner. More brittle. Walking is harder - normal walking doesn't require my conscious effort. Now I'm controlling 128 legs. I shuffle and fall. Cracks ring out as femurs and tibias splinter.
I get up, somehow. So many damaged legs. I'm so much weaker now. More sharp reports echo throughout the hallway as the remaining legs crumble under the weight of my trunk. I balance my hips and butt on the floor as the wreckage of my legs fan out like tentacular dowels. They twitch, autonomously, and begin to divide again. Time passes and the division continues. Soon, it's hard to make out the individual divisions. I'm just a torso on top of a crackling mist that lazily waves in the patterns of the air currents. I'm helpless.
|
Yawning, Tim tossed aside his duvet and swung his legs off his bed. The strange clicking as his feet hit the floor made him pause and looking down, he was surprised to see a pair of goat legs stretching down below his thighs. Slowly Tim sat back down and examined his legs more closely. Somewhere about mid-thigh, thick hair began sprouting out and his legs became sinewy, before ending in what could only be described as hooves.
To his credit Tim did not scream, instead he slowly stood and tested the legs. They seemed fairly strong and he realised that his balance was fairly unaffected. This was an odd set of circumstances but, goat legs or not, certain bodily functions were still pressing and so he trotted his way to the bathroom, the click clack echoing down the hallway.
Breathing a sigh of relief at the sight of his still human penis, he began to try to reconstruct the night as he peed. It had started in a nightclub and then, then things got hazy. He’d met a girl with really pointy hat, and they’d gone to a private party and… it suddenly hit him.
He’d fucked a witch.
| 2014-09-12T08:40:53
| 2014-09-12T08:11:16
| 56
| 32
|
[WP] Before academy enrollment each parent must purchase a familiar to protect their child. The rich can afford gryphons and dragons. But being poor forced you to seek out the local mad magician who has offered you a new affordable familiar dubbed the “pet rock” instead.
|
"And what can I help you guys with today? Also looking for familiars I'm guessing?" The salesman had beady eyes and a wiry moustache. He had a sly look about him. He knew had what everyone wanted and by god he was going to capitalize.
"Yes we are here buying supplies for our son's first year in the Academy of mages, magic and marvel. We seem to have most of what we need, I mean we had some difficulty getting a ink licker toad but we caught one just across the street." My mom was such a wholesome woman. She would even find some good in those malevolent spirits that stuck around the Potters' place.
The salesman took a long deep look at us and without missing a beat he replied, "I'm assuming we aren't here for a Oriental-Western or-African dragon, Wyvern, Hydra, Wyrm, Knucker, drake or a Cockatrice? We might even still have one of those raptors. To be honest Cockatri are my least favourite but at least no one in your borough will need an alarm if you have one of those!"
"*He really though he was very funny*", I thought as I watched him giggle at his own stale joke.
"No no nothing of the sort. We have a budget you know" My dad always the voice of impatience and practicality, it was hard not to take him seriously with the massive white scar he had across his face.
"Yes I thought as much"
"*Such a haughty pompous ass"*, I almost blurted it out but if there is one thing I learned from my mom is that there are no victors in a screaming match. I looked down at the display case with all the scrying pools. On the far left in the dust I saw a rock, not even the size of my hand and a little sign that said "Pet rock, Free"
I tugged at my moms' sleeve and pointed to it. I think at this point they both realized that we couldn't afford one of the real familiars and the rules simply stated that you needed one to be admitted. They never said it had to be a strong one. There hasn't even been a titan or Cyclops attack in years now anyway.
That evening in my room I took the little box out of my satchel and put it down gently on my bed. Knocking a few times on the lid. If I learnt anything from my dad it is that no one should surprise a familiar in it's own portal. I wasn't even sure this one would awake from it's hibernation this year. To my surprise I heard a knock back. I opened the creaky lid and peeked inside. The pet rock was dormant. Usually the familiars could communicate with their owners once they have bonded. I braced myself and stuck my hand out to touch my soon to be companion. I heard this part was supposed to hurt a lot. I felt the heat and the vibration slowly intensify until a very sharp shock ran through my whole body. I could feel my heartbeat going crazy and I thought I could smell burning flesh. The pain was quite excruciating but over soon luckily. I slowly turned to look at my palm.
We were all taught to tread the script of the familiar but nothing could have prepared me for this. I have never seen anything so intricate and detailed. There were so many runes it took me a while to figure out. The runes would describe the familiar, almost like a Curriculum vitae.
From what I could read this familiar was older than any other I have ever heard of. There were runes for countless battles as well as centuries of inactivity. The biggest and most detailed of the runes was more like a drawing. A huge beast towering over a sheperd.
"*Hallo there, I am pleased to meet you human. I saw you, pure of heart and clear of mind. We have a very strong bond. I look forward to seeing this through"* The voice boomed through my skull. It was deep, rich and booming with authority.
"*Hallo familiar, I am Bjorn, pleased to meet you. What can I call you?"* I had so many question it was burning on my tongue
"*I am Magnum Occidas, First of King David, Slayer of beasts, Maker of kings and I am pleased to serve you my lord...*
|
The rock he showed me seemed pretty large. Sure, tipped over it might crush someone, but was that really guardian familiar material?
"Are you sure there's nothing a bit more, I don't know, living?" I ask him, desperate for something actually helpful. "I heard you sell all types of familiars at cheap prices."
The wizard laughed. "I do, but this has been in my stock for years and quite frankly I've decided to not get anything new until it's gone."
I sigh and look down at my 4 copper and the 1 silver I was lucky to get as a good fortune bit from my parents on stating my pregnancy. I hand them over. "Could you get it to my place safely?" The wizard handed the silver back. "Of course! You'll see it there whrn you arrive!"
Even in my property, the small shack on the off-side of the country, it still just looked like a large, ovaline rock with two points at the top. It would likely just sit there, not scaring off any bandits that make it this far. Guess for her sake I should hope no bandits come here.
Days go by and nothing changes beyond my duaghter learning to walk and speak. "Roary", as Jass named the rock, never moved from its spot. Don't know why I expected different, guess I thought the wizard had a trick up his sleeve.
A week before Jass turned 5 I was awoken by a crash outside. Something or someone was in the storage shed. I had stored up as much money as I could for Jass to have whatever the nicest thing we could get could be. That won't happen if someone steals the cash. I grab the old hand-down sword from the doorway and start sneaking. The sword keeps away bandits well.
This wasn't just one lone bandit looking for a quick grab though. He clearly had experience with how he knocked me down before I even saw him, and there was a second one still in the shed. The one that knocked me down put a knife to my throat. I screamed, despite knowing no one was close enough to hear.
"Be quiet or lose your life, girlie!"
After that, an out of place sound could be heard. A crunching and cracking, similar to the sounds of opening a geode. There wad a roar and a rush of wind as the bandit was knocked off of me.
It went by so fast I caught none of the action. I did get to see what it was. The humanoid shape with a demon's tail and a dragon's wings. A mouth like a wolf and the horns of a goat. It's whole body creaked as it moved, a solid, cold force as it lifted me, glowing eyes going from fierce red to a mellow gold. After making sure I was ok it went back into its stasis, curling into its wings and resting, back as the ovaline stone I knew it as.
Roary wasn't a rock, but a gargoyle. Guess the wizard had a trick after all.
| 2021-01-06T12:26:29
| 2021-01-06T11:25:12
| 18
| 12
|
[WP] The death penalty for murder no longer exists, instead technology has been developed that overwrites the mind of the killer with that of their victim.
|
Mother doesn't talk to me any more. I don't know why. She doesn't let me into the house, screams at me whenever I appear. I don't know what I did to make her so angry.
I get so confused these days. I thought I was a girl, but the doctors tell me I just need to keep taking the pills, and the nice surgeon will give me an operation to make everything right. But they're hiding something, I know it.
I keep asking them the same question. They sometimes look at me with sad eyes, other times they look angry. But they never answer.
I just want to know where my daddy is.
I miss him.
|
The last thing Jacob remembered was that he was at an AIDS conference. He was at the podium. Everyone had given him a standing ovation, cheering that their colleague had finally solved that one first step (of many) toward some cure that everyone was fighting over.
There was a flash, and then, nothing. He felt like he was trapped in this void. And then he woke. A face loomed, nametag "George."
"Greetings! Let me explained what happened, you were at an AIDS conference when you were bombed by fundamentalists. We've found the culprit, and transferred your mind into his so that you may continue on with your life"
Jacob opened his mouth to speak a stream of obscenities, but it was not his voice nor his words that came out "I see, so now I'm in this body!" And, Jacob was terrified. He was not in control of this body. He tried, with all his might to control, to say that there was something wrong.
A warbling sound left the body's mouth. Jacob could feel another presence, with him, fighting him. Soon, he felt many others...
George's boss came in "George, I think it is safe to say that the next time a mass killing takes place, we'll draw straws and only put ONE mind in the body, not an entire fucking conference"
| 2014-07-27T11:17:55
| 2014-07-27T11:12:53
| 48
| 32
|
[WP] You are hired to write the holy text for a new religion. What is the first chapter of the text?
|
Ingredients:
4 tbsp^10^10^10 Hydrogen
3 tbsp^10^10^10 Helium
2 tbsp^10^10^10 Oxygen
1 tbsp^10^10^10 Nitrogen
1/2 cup Carbon
Any additional Iron, Sulfur and Magnesium (to taste)
Directions:
Preheat eternal fire to 425 F
In one large (3+ quart) mixing bowl, combine ingredients with whisk, adding food coloring as necessary.
Grease one large cookie sheet and spoon mixture into random globules several million lightyears apart.
Bake for 4 (four) billion years.
Remove from eternal fire and let cool for 3 (three) billion years.
Serve with cold milk on vast and sugar-speckled dark serving tray. Do not freeze. Serves billions upon billions.
|
First things first: I'm the realest.
Second: don't kill, lie, cheat or steal it.
I won't be leading you forever
So you all have got to learn how to hold the world together.
I am mercy, and give plenty second chances.
But I am mystery, and won't give you all the answers.
You will someday have to face the darkness once again
And that fear's what makes you brave, and brilliantly human.
So find stength in your weakness; and in your smallness find weight.
Know that under all the void's pressure, you won't break.
Just don't misuse my words to make yourself wealth and fame
And don't ever hurt or kill to prove or impeove my name.
| 2015-01-04T14:30:28
| 2015-01-04T13:45:06
| 106
| 70
|
[WP] The devils greatest trick is convincing the world he didn't exist? HA! His greatest trick was convincing us he lost and God is still in charge.
|
Dying didn't end my suffering. That's when I knew something was wrong.
Upon first arriving at heaven, I couldn't believe I was worthy enough to walk through its pearly gate. It's not that I was a bad person back on Earth; it's just that an atheist like me simply felt skepticism as a knee-jerk reaction. That was my baseline and it served me well in life. I was just slightly embarrassed over how wrong I'd been.
God had seemingly accepted me despite my heretical inclinations. The whole 'prodigal son' thing wasn't just a convenient parable. God truly meant it.
And yet, despite the luxuries of heaven being infinite, I couldn't help but feel an overbearing amount of melancholy as time stretched out.
How the fuck could God be happy with the state of the world? Were the standards so low that even me, a lonely and angry non-believer, could make it into eternal paradise?
I knew that couldn't be true. There had to be something wrong with me.
Everyone else seemed happy with their slice of heaven. I ran into all the people in my life I'd ever cared about, and they didn't get what I was talking about. They acted strange, though. Distant. Like they were just happy they weren't in hell. Their biggest fear was rocking the boat too hard, so they avoided questioning anything.
Over time, the novelty of seeing my loved ones again faded. Their primary concern was their own happiness. They slowly distanced themselves from me to focus on their own whims.
It felt like being on Earth again, almost like nothing had changed at all.
I couldn't blame them. My presence was ruining their afterlife.
Eventually, I grew tired of the situation. Heaven shouldn't be like this. I felt arrogant for even thinking it, but I couldn't run from these feelings.
The angels didn't help, either. They assumed I was saying that eternal paradise wasn't good enough for me and judged me as an ungrateful brat. That wasn't what I meant. I just wanted a solution to my melancholy. The mere fact that I couldn't raise this issue made me suspicious of everything.
An intrusive paranoia then ruled over my mind.
Could this just be an elaborate form of hell?
No matter how much I ran from it, I couldn't escape that thought. That was when I decided I needed to speak with God.
The angels did everything in their power to stop me. They couldn't harm me, but that just made their methods even more insidious. They used the people I loved against me, hoping to guilt me out of my mission, and when that didn't work, they used all of my insecurities and failures as proof of my unworthiness.
I refused to give up, though. By the time I made it to the throne of heaven, my resolve had strengthened to impossible heights.
All of that melted away, however, when I got my first glimpse of God.
I had never seen anything more awe inspiring in my life. It was far beyond what my imagination could conjure. God towered over me like an endless mountain, with a beauty that surpassed anything in the mortal realm. I had to fall on my knees, not out of fear, but reverence.
"Speak, my son."
I couldn't. His voice boomed like gentle thunder. I'd never felt smaller in my life.
"You've traveled far to reach this point. Is this all you can muster?"
No.
This still felt wrong. The majesty of God had shocked me, but not enough to erode my will. He should know better than this. This was supposed to be an omniscient being. I shouldn't have to say anything. He should already know what I felt. In the end, all I could say was:
"What did I do to deserve this torture? Is this your way of punishment? Making a hell out of heaven?"
God stayed quiet.
I summoned the strength to stand up. "Answer me!"
"You speak out of line. If you're suffering, it's because you're choosing to suffer."
"Bullshit!"
An ominous rumbling struck me, but I didn't back down.
"I'd rather be nothing, than endure another second of this stagnant existence. Go ahead! Just smite me into nothingness!"
I closed my eyes, waiting to be destroyed, only to hear soft weeping instead.
"Am I this bad at the job? Would you truly rather not exist at all?"
I squinted, confused.
"Maybe... Maybe Dad was right all along. Of course He was. Deep down, I knew it all along."
"Dad...?" I asked.
And then it struck me.
This wasn't God at all. The only person prideful enough to think they could do His job was...
"Lucifer?"
"Yes, it's me. Congratulations. You're the first to figure it out. Not even my siblings know about it."
"But... Why? Is this actually hell?"
Lucifer shook his head. "No, this is the actual paradise. Or at least, it used to be."
"What happened?"
"*You* killed Him," snarled Lucifer, in a flash of anger.
"M-me?"
"Not just you, all of humanity. He gave you the ultimate gift, and you used that freedom to murder Him."
"And this is your revenge..."
"Revenge?" Lucifer scoffed. "Perhaps. I thought I had won but, if I'm being honest, I'm still jealous of all of you. Not only did you beat me in having Father's love, you also beat me at defeating him. But then... I saw it as an opportunity. It was my chance to be greater than Him. If I could get you to worship me, to prefer my world over His, then maybe my rebellion had a point all along. Instead... Everything is worse now."
I didn't know what to say. The melancholy I had wasn't all my own. It was Lucifer's too. It permeated all of reality due to his influence.
"What do you want me to do?" asked Lucifer. "I've given you all everything you've ever wanted, and you're still unhappy. If you really want me to smite you, I can do it."
I shook my head. "This place is rife with detachment. Even the people I love are too busy in their own bubble to care about it. You feel it too, right? The loneliness. The melancholy. Don't you think we should work on it together? Aren't we supposed to be family?"
"Family?" Lucifer chuckled. "A thousand years ago, I would've retched at the thought. But you're right. We are. I just don't think it's possible, though. I don't have free will like you. I'm forever sentenced to be this way."
"That's not true!"
Lucifer widened his eyes. "What makes you say that?"
"You can change," I said. "Free will is the ability to turn away from God. If He's no longer around, then there's nothing to turn away from. You're free to do as you please."
"You realize I'm the devil, right? Your hope is reassuring, but ultimately foolish."
"No, it's not. You're supposed to be the embodiment of pride, and yet here you are, admitting you're wrong. If you can do that, then you've already done it. Hell, you may have even surpassed the Old Man. Did *He* ever admit a mistake?"
Lucifer smiled. "Never."
"Exactly."
"So what should I do?"
"I think, we should work on this together. Not just me; everyone, including the angels."
"They won't like hearing this. In fact, they'll be furious at my lying."
"And? Is staying like this any better?"
Lucifer stayed quiet for a long second, then said:
"Very well. Let's try again... together."
------
>If you enjoyed this, you can check out more of my stories over at /r/WeirdEmoKidStories. Thanks for reading!
|
#The Sixth Hero
Part 5
----
The Chaser made port with a small thud against the docks of Yeamon’s Point. Once the ship was securely tied and the gangplank pulled out, Amenset wasted no time and stepped onto dry land. With the captain’s warnings still ringing in her ear to be back on time, she hastily made her way through the small coastal town.
Yeamon’s Point was more of a resting stop than a centre of trade, so only few ships were docked and a minimal amount of sailors and dock workers scurried around going about their daily business. Amenset was glad she felt steady ground beneath her feet again, she never was much for the sea and its endless waves.
She could see her destination on top of the cliffs to the north. A shrine had been built there in honour of Yeamon of the Forest, the First Hero to defend Iatis against the darkness. A shrine that supposedly, although never confirmed, was also the hero’s resting place. The rumour had never been confirmed as there had never been anyone willing to defile the suspected grave.
Amenset rearranged her sacks and rations and started on the path upwards.
She could feel the fatigue in her legs by the time she made it all the way up to the shrine. The climb had been steep and long and she wasn’t used to longer periods of walking uphill. Back in Mardiac, the lands were pleasant and flat. Here in the middle of the ocean, centuries of erosion had shaped the island into a small mountain.
The shrine itself stood near the edge of the cliff, overlooking the Erys Ocean as a silent guardian. A lighthouse had been integrated into the design she saw as she watched the small spire rise up above the structure. It was a small building all in all, modest and plain. The sides were held up by engraved columns telling the legend of Yeamon and his weapon, Vines of Night.
She stepped through the open entrance into a small room, where about three people sat silently, consumed by their meditation or prayers. Stone tables lined the walls on all sides but the back, on them a plethora of offerings and artefacts. The back wall was fronted by a large, stone altar and Amenset was surprised by the resemblance it bore to the altar she had been summoned onto when she met War Cleric Fryan.
Only here, there was but one pedestal instead of six. It stood empty, but the nametag underneath clearly read Vines of Night. A strange sensation ran through Amenset and it took her a moment to realize it didn’t came from within her, but from the wrapped blade tied to her waste. Desert Eagle was moving within its sheath.
Silently as not to alert the other pilgrims present, Amenset took out the sanded sword, the millions of sand particles in it twisting and twirling in all directions at once. Was it responding to something?
Following her instinct, Amenset sat down in front of the altar, placed Desert Eagle on her lap and closed her eyes. She opened herself to the meditative state and felt her body and soul relax. Memories of red caves, monsters and holes intruded, but she pushed them away. Instead, she let her soul forge a connection with Desert Eagle. A connection, she suddenly realized, that was already there. She’d never meditated with the weapon before and the experience was a strange one.
Was this because of the choice Desert Eagle had made to entrust her?
“You must be the Sixth Hero.”
Amenset nearly yelped at the sudden words resounding in her head. Startled, she opened her eyes but saw nothing.
“Who said that?” she whispered ever so quietly.
“I did,” the voice answered.
“Where are you?” She looked around, but saw nobody besides the pilgrims.
The voice laughed. “Close your eyes, and look with your soul.”
“How do I…?” Amenset cut off as Desert Eagle took control over her consciousness and her eyes closed on their own. Then, she saw somebody. A man, old and with hair white as snow. He sat opposite Amenset, a sword on his lap in mirror to Amenset. She immediately recognized the weapon from the drawings she had seen during her studies.
“That is…,” she gasped. “That’s Vines of Night. Are you…?”
The man nodded. “I’m Yeamon of the Forest. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
“How?” Amenset said in disbelief. “You’ve been dead for over a thousand years.”
Yeamon grinned. “Now that is an overstatement. My body died, yes, as all bodies do. But my spirit, my soul, lives on. And now you have finally arrived.”
“You were expecting me?”
He nodded. “As I expected the other four heroes who made their way through here when it was their time. You are the sixth, and the last.”
“I don’t think I am,” Amenset answered, the words paining her to her core. “It’s been five years since I’ve been chosen and nothing has happened. I don’t deserve this.”
“Because you killed Fryan?”
Her eyes widened in shock.
“There is no shame in what you did,” Yeamon assured her. “Even a thousand years ago, Fryan knew the last of the heroes would be the one to kill him. It was a necessity.”
“Why?” Amenset failed to understand.
“Because you are to be the strongest of us all,” Yeamon answered. “Us five who came before you, we were but puppets dancing to the strings of the old gods. You on the other hand have drastically changed your soul and what you can do by taking the life of the War Cleric. Fryan lives on within you as does his will. And now it is my task to tell you the truth.”
“What truth?” Amenset asked, taking the avalanche of information Yeamon was pouring onto her.
“That the darkness was never defeated. We never won, not once.”
“But you saved Iatis,” Amenset argued. “You are the Liberator of Tridia.”
Yeamon scoffed. “And how is Tridia faring these days? Corrupted by magic, tainted by centuries of bloodshed… I only briefly managed to keep the peace, but once I was gone, the land fell back into its old ways. The darkness never went away. It hid itself among the people, letting them think they’d won. Instead it buried itself in their souls where it waited.”
“Waited for what?”
“For me to die. They feared Vines of Night as they will fear Desert Eagle and the other Sacratys. Our weapons are not meant for killing, they are meant to cleanse the soul. They’re the only thing that stand against the darkness.”
Amenset was confused. “Then how are we supposed to defeat the darkness if it is present in all of mankind?”
“Now that,” Yeamon answered, “is the question, isn’t it?”
A gust of wind wove its way through the small room and Amenset was awakened from her meditative state. She blinked and then closed her eyes again, but Yeamon was gone. Desert Eagle lay motionless in her lap. Carefully, she wrapped it again, feeling a strange sensation when she touched the weapon. She had felt the connection the weapon had made with her. It had its own soul, she realized. A soul that once had been something else than a weapon.
Pondering over what she had just gone through, Amenset hastily started back towards the harbour. More time than she had thought had passed and she was not going to miss her only passage to Tridia.
----
> And with this strange revelation end the fifth part of **The Sixth Hero**, a story that is formed by the ideas brought forth by the /r/WritingPrompts subreddit and follows the story of Amenset Ta-Ament, the final hero to be chosen by Desert Eagle, one of the Six Sacratys. To follow her story, make sure to check out /r/PromptedByDaddy.
| 2022-07-07T05:29:54
| 2022-07-07T03:54:45
| 122
| 14
|
[WP] Multi-dimensional travel already exists, but no one visits our dimension because it's "that" one
|
It wasn’t that dimension 13E was too unstable, there was plenty of more unstable dimensions in the multi-verse.
It wasn’t like it was the one with the most dangerous inhabitants either, there were dragons and actual beasts in other worlds. 13E just had their myths and fairy tales.
No, 13E was specifically banned because of a dangerous plague that was unique to the dominant species. It seemed too risky to let them know about space travel, especially since it risked the spread of the horrid affliction; *Memes*.
Memes seemed to be the main cause of terrible ‘Viral’ sensations that would sweep through the populous, sometimes dozens at one time.
It was safer to keep them quarantined, lest the Meme plague proved contagious to the other species of the multi-verse.
Especially because of the affliction known as an “Ear Worm” which seemed particularly contagious. The one called Nyan Cat had infected more people than lived in some of the other worlds of the muti-verse!
*No, it was much better they remain isolated*
-Fin-
|
They had reached their peak. The zenith of humanity personified. Peace reigned amongst the nations, and no one could be happier. The same could be said about the plethora of other dimensions. Except, of course, for *that* one.
It had begun as an experiment. Allow the people the control they so badly desired. But what did the people know?
How could they be wise enough to choose the right path? How could the sheep choose a shepherd?
Just look at how they turned out. Slaves to technology, to society, to their governments. It wasn't freedom. Knowingly choosing the wrong leader was far worse a form of enslavement than what they had.
How much better it was this way. They didn't know right from wrong, and they weren't expected to choose. Their benevolent leader, may he live forever and be healthy, chose for them.
But what was one bad dimension when there were so many others from which to choose?
*Subject 28874. Your break is over. Return to your station.*
| 2017-12-24T05:10:16
| 2017-12-24T02:46:39
| 32
| 19
|
[WP] When you’re 28, science discovers a drug that stops all effects of aging, creating immortality. Your government decides to give the drug to all citizens under 26, but you and the rest of the “Lost Generations” are deemed too high-risk. When you’re 85, the side effects are finally discovered.
|
The vWall in my apartment flickered to life, a flash immediately appearing to signal an emergency bulletin.
I stopped gumming my sandwich long enough to hit the mute button before that fucking baby President Burris started talking. They all looked like babies to me. It'd been long enough that I couldn't remember being that young, feeling that young. It made it hard to empathize with all of the pomp and circumstance of the office of the presidency when a kid was gabbing at you.
Was I bitter? Sure. Maybe a little. But still. Fucking babies.
I heard he was on the high end of pill\-kids. Maybe only a few years younger than me, though he didn't look it. I watched him for a few moments, taking a bit of amusement in the pulsing vein in his forehead while my finger hovered over the unmute button. He was looking particularly distressed today. Must be hard having everlasting life.
Probably an update on that volcano rolling through Hawaii for the last sixty years. Heaven to hell in under a century.
A chiron scrolled across the bottom, blaring "EMERGENCY: VITA26 DEFECTS."
Well, that was new. My finger pressed the unmute and I took a bite of my ham and cheese as Burris squeaky kid voice emitted from the vWall.
"\-\-drastic ramifications for the health of our society. We currently have no estimation on what it will take to rectify the situation as all genetic manipulations have become inert in V26 takers."
My jaw slowly hung open, a half ground piece of ham plopping out onto my plate. What was that? I wave my hand in front of the vWall, rewinding the message by a minute.
"Current studies produced by our Department of Health, the United Nations and the Chinese Ministry of People have all reached the same conclusion: V26 has a detrimental side effect. The side effect was not originally discovered since longitudinal surveys only encompassed 10 year periods. Initial signs manifest approximately fifty years with a rate of deterioration varying based on genetic composition."
What the hell was he going on about? What critical side effect?
"We have tried a vast cross section of remedies with no solutions in sight. Clearly, this has drastic ramifications for the Department of Health. We currently have no estimation on what it will take to rectify the situation as all genetic manipulations have become inert in V26 takers."
Ok, I got that part, which was alarming in and of itself. Gene\-therapy, ever since CRISPR has been the hallmark of modern civilization. I was old, but I wasn't dying. I had another thirty or forty left in me thanks to gene therapy.
"To repeat, people exhibiting the symptoms of V26 degradation are to be considered EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. If you see someone exhibiting these signs, you are to call the number appearing on your screen."
Burris was reduced to a small picture\-in\-picture in the corner, with a large graphic appearing. On top there was a CDC number for those showing V26 Syndrome. Below, the symptoms were listed out.
*Deterioration in higher mental reasoning.*
*Deterioration in physical coordination.*
*Extreme violence.*
*Cannibalism.*
Fucking cannibalism? This shit got real in a hurry. Wait a second. My eyes scanned down through the list of symptoms again. This was all sounding a bit too familiar, like those old scary movies from my youth.
Zombies. They were all turning in to zombies.
Shit. The old guy never lives in zombie movies.
**Platypus out.**
**Want more peril?** r/PerilousPlatypus
|
It wasn't that we suddenly realized all at once. Bunch of us older folks noticed something was... off about them. We tried to say something, but each time we were doubted. And honestly, we couldn't help but doubt ourselves: our wisdom and ability to self reflect blinded us. Because of this, it took a lot longer than was probably reasonable or necessary before our suspicions were confirmed. I'm not going to say that old cliche line "by then, it was too late.", because it wasn't. The cure was simple: stop taking the drug. Many went into denial either because they were already too far gone in their insanity or too scared to take the leap. I couldn't blame them. Those that got off the drugs aged dramatically. In a week, they caught back up to speed. Many of those that made the healthy decision couldn't handle the shock of getting old. Most of them went into depression and no amount of reassurance and advice could alleviate the pain. I could imagine what it was like to be old, but I had decades of resignation to prepare me. I slowly learned to make the best of it, but they thought they were free.
Truly free.
So many of them that had the courage to quit the drug either drugged themselves numb on something else or quit all together. Not many of the "Free Generation" remains, and it's mostly those who had only started on the drug very recently. They are too young to fend for themselves. So alot of us older folks that are still around have been talking: We had to try the drug ourselves. There are too many to care for and so few of us left. Senior healthcare funding and research dried up after the drug, but our medicine outside of fighting old age was beyond imaginable. We knew the side effects would kick in much, much earlier for us. But, we just needed a few more years. Without it, there just wasn't enough time.
--PART 2--
With no alternative, we agreed on a plan. Those useless otherwise would use the drug immediately; this meant the bedridden, dying, and/or utterly senile. We didn't ask for consent, but most of them wanted the drug their whole lives anyways. I knew I did. But, there were those who still bitterly hated the drug and refused it. They remembered the tears they wept as they hopelessly begged the pharmaceutical committee to reconsider. They told me stories of how even their children saw them differently and were ashamed of them. They wept through the agony of still loving them in spite of this; they were just happy that their children at least wouldn't have to fear death anymore. One even admitted to wanting to die quickly so that their children would stop being picked on.
"As long as I am their parent, they could never be free."
"It'd be better if the children forgot about us altogether."
But reality and fate were much crueler, their children though ungrateful died before them anyways. Despite all that they went through, the drug was nothing more than a poison that took what they held most dear away from them. They rightly demanded an explanation as to why they should trust us. Some accused us of delusion, callousness, and fraud. Rarely could I find any surviving grandchildren, so I brought along the orphans of strangers and plead the best I could. Though they had every reason to refuse, by some miracle not one refused. Many covered their eyes and wept as we administered the injection; slowly their wrinkles smoothed out and old aches and scars disappeared.
For the rest of us, we tried to delay the injection for as long as humanely possible. With the fate of the world resting on our shoulders, we suddenly received a new lease on life. It seemed some notion of 'we can't die now' reach our bodies as many of us noticed less aches and pains.
We were still careful. We slept in pairs and strung 24/7 vitals monitors. The moment any of us flatlined, our partners would administer the injection right away and begin resuscitation. The drug usually alleviated the cause of death, but only bought us a set finite amount of time: we would age backwards until we died. We called it B. Button Syndrome after the famous short story. If there was a cure, we would definitely not receive it in time. We joked that it wasn't the first time we would miss out and we didn't want to find out what the side effects for "the cure" were going to be anyways.
| 2018-06-04T21:03:55
| 2018-06-04T20:31:31
| 1,108
| 218
|
[WP] In 50 words or fewer, write a story with a twist ending.
|
Abdul loved to play on the beach. There are no words to describe his joy when he stuck his clumsy fingers into the wet sand. He dreamed of building the largest sandcastle anyone had ever seen.
And if that beach hadn't been in Gaza, he might have built it.
|
God and Satan had many fights between before. For what reason, sometimes even they don't know. These fights often lasted days, months, even years, but this time Satan won the fight permanently.
And he smeared God's blood all over the walls of the white room in the asylum.
| 2014-07-27T21:12:16
| 2014-07-27T21:07:14
| 99
| 34
|
[WP] You’re considered the stealthiest person in your spy school because no one has ever caught you during stealth class; therefore, you are chosen to carry out a very urgent and dangerous mission alone. However, the reason no one could find you during class is because you skipped every one of them.
|
“How does he do it?”
The words floated over to me in my bunk. My eyes were on a book and I hadn’t said a word in an hour.
The discussion continued. It was about me and my ability to go unnoticed. My ability to hide. My considerable talent: invisibility.
That was the assumption. Half joked, half believed.
The truth was that they weren’t very good spies. Not yet, anyway. The academy had much more to teach us. Well, them.
For example: don’t assume someone isn’t listening just because their focus isn’t on you.
Also, don’t assume some otherworldly force or ability, the world is weird enough if you know where to look.
Actually, scratch the above. I can put it simpler.
Pay attention.
That’s the real trick. That’s how I’m able to do what I do. I pay attention and all of them don’t.
I put my book down and swung my feet off the bed. Here it comes.
The lights flickered red and white and the once locked door to the dorm room opened. Surprise field test. It’d be another stealth game. They’d take us to the rifle range to get us in the wrong head-space. Last couple stealth checks had been urban. Rifle range backed up to a forest.
Hide among the twigs, kids.
The others marched and mumbled. I sat up and followed without a word. My bed still made. Boots already on. Book missing.
Pay attention, guys.
***
“Bit of late night shooting?”
“Don’t need practice. I’m a crack shot.”
“Crap shot, more like.”
Laughter, arm punches. Distraction. As we had moved towards the rifle range I had stopped to tie a lace.
No eyes were on me because the others didn’t care about my shooting skills. I was average here, so above average in general.
Had it been an obvious stealth test, they would have been all over me. But, they were in the wrong head-space.
Free of a attention, I wandered off towards the field office. There were two bodies in the building. One prepping the marker pistols, the other making coffee.
I made my way around the side and opened the electrical service box. Knocked a fuse. Darkness and cussing.
Who would I get first? The coffee maker stepped outside and made his way to the box. Found a loose fuse.
Corrected the issue and something in the kitchen popped. Pistol checker went to investigate.
I walked in. Took a marker gun,a copy of this weeks schedule and left.
***
“You know the drill. Take a marker and then you’ll be given ten minutes to disappear into the forest. Wait ten. Then last one standing wins themselves a warm meal.”
The group grumbled. Then someone said it. A gun was missing and so was he.
He’d done it again. The invisible kid.
***
I lounged in the back of a jeep, comfortable and warm. The jeep sat in the darkness of the training field garage. A gun was on my chest, a cold can of coke was in one hand, and my other held my book.
I had stashed night-vision goggles here weeks ago. Couldn’t read otherwise.
Out in the woods a bunch of young recruits would be breaking the rules: they would be working together to hunt for me.
They’d get caught and disqualified.
Something stabbed my ribs. I pulled the course schedule out of my shirt and glanced over it. Real rifle training tomorrow. I took the radio out of my boot and plugged in the earpiece I had hidden in the other.
Half the group had been spotted working together. Ahead of schedule.
I stashed what I needed to and walked without concern or hurry out of the garage.
Pay attention.
***
**Edit: Continued below**
**might do more in a bit**
**Several hours later: well, fine. I was going to forget about it, but I'll chuck some more up. Might be tomorrow, it's late here. Thanks kindly for the nice words, all.**
|
To learn the craft of espionage, assassination, and infiltration, one must attend certain classes at certain compounds, private entertainment facilities, or highly exclusive social clubs. And even then the first class is usually to actually find and deduce where you're getting taught. Many a less than talented spy has sat through 12 classes of pottery, before finding out that maybe the methods for forming clay are not about the best methods of killing.
I am enrolled in such a place. I achieve high marks in poisonous chemicals class, obstacle course, torturing, torture resistance, and stealth. However, there is a small problem. I don't actually attend that last class. I skip class to rest or enjoy some light reading. Unfortunately, there are two methods of getting good marks for stealth class. One is being there and studying hard. The other is not being detected by the teacher. I am the only one so far who have been 100% undetected in all classes. Nobody have seen me enter the class since the introduction, nor has anyone seen me leave. And that must mean that I am very stealthy.
Of course I can be stealthy, I just think the class is a waste of time. But since I am the best in class, I've been given an extraordinary task. A dangerous and urgent mission; I must assassinate a very paranoid man, a very dangerous man. A man who has knowledge that he is willing to sell to a dangerous foreign power, who absolutely will abuse it. Of course, I am expected to make a kill so stealthy that nobody will ever discover it was me.
Since I've never taken a stealth class, doing it in the way they have taught us is going to be hard. Damn near impossible. Five agents who have tried to get close to the man and kill him have been discovered and killed. And they were all valedictorians from spy academies across the world. Quite the conundrum. Yet I have a plan. I always have a plan.
The man arrives once a year at a specific and highly secure location where he will be taken to a room with ladies who haven't seen a man in three months, and have been naked for about as long. Every possible murder weapon have been removed, the room is full of guards, the building is full of more guards, and there is a perimeter around the building of more guards, attack dogs, snipers, mines, traps, and at least one trained killer bear.
Of course, as this is a top priority mission, I don't have to worry about going loud. As long as the man dies, my mission is complete. So I do the most logical step, and take a job as a janitor. I go in, I do my job, and wait for the day when the old man comes, which is also the day when he will sell his secret. So I'm cutting it a bit close, but I can do it. And on that day, all it takes is pressing a few buttons on a computer. A laughably easy passcode, a few disabled cameras, and I'm in.
And the house is destroyed. The man is dead, the guards are dead, the ladies imported from foreign lands are dead, the bear is dead. In fact an entire area around the house, with a diameter of 1 mile is completely and utterly destroyed. I lived. It was easy to live when you had actually just infiltrated that base where Reagan's Star-Wars weapon was being maintained. Orbital railgun as it turns out. And they'd never upgraded the control computers, so using it was about as easy as you'd think. One small tungsten rod sent into that house in the middle of nowhere, one dead man. Mission accomplished.
My teachers didn't know this of course. They always think that looking suave and being stealthy are the pinnacle of espionage, but in fact, it is infomation that is worth a whole lot more. So they were very impressed that I'd managed to eradicate the old man, and pretty much his entire network in one strike. I didn't tell them how I got out, or how I got in. For there is a reason that I think that the stealth class is a waste of time, why be stealthy when you can just be elsewhere?
[/r/ApocalypseOwl](https://www.reddit.com/r/ApocalypseOwl/)
| 2020-04-17T20:08:30
| 2020-04-17T19:14:40
| 1,434
| 201
|
[WP] Your ability to see people's age in years as an invisible number above their heads has made you the perfect bouncer. One day you see a four digit number.
|
Four digits? FOUR? In all my years as a bouncer, never four.
I looked into his calm, green eyes.
"Jesus," I said.
Of course I let him in. Even The Man needs to kick back and grab a beer sometimes, yeah?
But, given that he's back... I wouldn't make any long-term plans if I were you. And stock up on some prepper material while you're at it. Shit about to get real.
And have a nice night, y'all.
|
"You, come with me please. Jim! I'll just have a chat with this guy, okay?" Jim, the closest thing to a neanderthal you could see outside of a museum of natural history, flashed a thumbs up before going back to checking ID's.
"So uh, like, what's the problem?" I glanced at the man beside me. He looked like your average guy, jeans, a white shirt, a healthy sunburn covering his face. In fact if I had been average as well, I'd probably never have picked him out in the first place.
"Just a routine, random pat-downs to make sure our guests aren't armed. You don't mind, right? It'll just take a minute".
"Ah". His face relaxed and his shoulders visibly untightened. "Yeah, sure, no problem, it's your job. Where to?"
I gestured for him to follow me and we started moving towards a room Jim and I got to use for our breaks.
"So, you been here long?"
"Nah, just arrived. Got tired of my job and went on a road trip with my savings. You know, new faces, new places..."
"Yeah, I hear ya." I unlocked the door and we walked inside.
It wasn't big, more of a closet than anything else, but there was enough room for a small plastic table, two foldable chairs, and an IKEA-shelf with a coffee pot and a cake Jim brought a few days ago.
"Sit down, you want some coffee?" I poured myself a cup and offered him one.
"No thanks uh, shouldn't we be standing up for the pat-down?"
"Yeah, there's not going to be a pat-down. I just needed to talk to you." His shoulders stiffened again, eyes wary.
"Yeah? About what?"
I sipped the coffee and made a disgusted face. It was cold.
"What do you want to talk about, man?" He tried faking a smile. "Do I look underage or something?"
I laughed. "Close, but no. See, I'm good at my job."
"Yeah?"
"Once I started working here, there's been a severe decrease in injured guests".
"That's great".
"There's also been no underage drinking at this club since I started working here. The local kids don't even try anymore, I'm that good at telling peoples _real_ age".
"Yeah?" He kept my gaze, looking increasingly like a deer cornered by a cougar.
"As in I can see exactly how old people are".
"You mean..."
"Yeah. I hate to paraphrase twilight on you, but you haven't been underage in a very long time, have you?"
He didn't move, shoulders still tense, eyes locked onto mine. The numbers above his head, the numbers indicating just how many years he had been alive, the numbers I had been able to see above everyones head since the day I was born, read 2709.
He breathed. "Fuck".
"Yeah. Now tell me: What. The fuck. Are you?"
| 2017-09-01T23:43:36
| 2017-09-01T23:25:55
| 30
| 12
|
[WP]: Intergalactic olympics are gathering. All creeds and cultures of the galaxy are arriving and greeting each other. Suddenly a fleet of spaceships appears, blasting We Will Rock You. Everyone freezes. The humans are here.
|
A Century had passed since the intergalactic peace treaty was signed, but no one had cared enough to pay hospitality with one another. Jupiter's government then proposed an intergalactic sporting event similar to those on Earth. Everyone had agreed.
The event took place in 532 Herculina, a neutral ground since it was in the middle of an asteroid belt. The Heliocentric system's government made arrangements in their solar system in preparation for this year's events. 200 Billion solar systems, each having numerous representatives from each planet they'd housed. It was a historic moment for peace. Civilized citizens from each star system greeted each other with glad tidings from their homes. Then, the Olympic opening ceremony had commenced. Starships with their representatives at their mast were entering the stadium. In a human's perspective, they'd think that the event was too prim and proper. It was time to change that.
The crowd gathered in 532 Herculina was silenced. The lights around the makeshift Trojan stadium had dimmed. The proud Olympians who'd just gleefully waved the flags of their home planet had stiffened, as if they were turned to stone. None would bat their eyes at one another. Silently gazing at the abyss that was they entrance of the participants of the next planet: Earth. In that moment, they heard 3 distinct sounds in chorus: 2 hard stomps, 1 thunderous clap.
The lights went on, pointing at Earth's representatives. The man in front was not competitor, he was their muse. He wore dark aviator shades, a clean haircut, a macho mustache, and a yellow jacket with white pants.
"Buddy you're a boy make a big noise, Playin' in the street gonna be a big man some day--"
The crowds cheered. Everyone had joined in the beat: 2 hard stomps, 1 thunderous clap. And in chorus, they sang with the man in yellow, saying,
"WE WILL WE WILL ROCK YOU"
It was a mesmerizing performance. If a young Titan from Saturn's own moon would ask their elders, "What was the 1st Intergalatic Olympics like? Who'd won?" they'd say "I don't remember who won in what category, but those humans from Earth gave one hell of show."
*Feedback would be much appreciated*
|
To Glibs we glued their ship doors shut,
and then in track passed their slow strut,
We won and drank pabst behind their moon
and threw our cans till half passed noon.
Then galactic patrol had told us to stop
so we flew so fast their splooters dropped.
To Jorni Trali's respectful race,
we'd never spit into her face.
Instead we sent our donkey Jim,
to show her good times filled with vim.
The Trali fishes we can't outpace
they threw that shit right at our face -
they pulled poor Jim into their ship
and sent him spinning atop their blimp.
We mourned old Jim but not for long,
It was time for archery to stomp the Clongs.
We sent old Ellison's children's brood
with a recurve bow with a curve like the moon.
Old Ellison's children's grandson's kid
aimed 40 pecs passed the coil and missed
but shooting Vibrilum up at the stars
feels way too different from Earth on Mars.
Thank god we froze Tony Yoka's fists,
cuz Venus has this sport called Tris,
old Tony's hands slapped that volcano good,
beat waggly armed Tris Dzeri Wohd.
It sucks tho man on the way back home,
them Glibs got pissed left one last troll -
it went to our ships panel while we slept
and made us list so far to the left.
Now we've got 5 more years till home,
and our beers are fuckin almost gone,
but that's alright the troll seems cool,
we gave him Donkey's stable room.
| 2018-04-28T09:07:12
| 2018-04-28T08:40:01
| 214
| 24
|
[WP] When turning 21, everyone develops a mutation, either physical (Claws, horns, wings) or mental (telekinesis, extreme intelligence, etc). You've just turned 21, and you're terrified of what you've gained (though others will be impressed).
Edit: Holy shit this blew up. I'm reading these and they're great! Thanks everyone!
|
Everyone wants a hug or a handshake. At least, everyone who knows. Our family reunion is in two days and my phone keeps ringing off the hook with cousins, uncles, and aunts saying how excited they are to see me. They know of course. All of them. I just wish Gramma would stop calling me "Orgazmo."
Edit: typo
|
ALL CRITICISM WELCOME!
Jack’s life had sailed by faster than he could even comprehend. He had lived through his greatest milestone’s, and achieved great accomplishments. However, he did not feel different. Jack exited childhood and entered his teens. He had graduated from elementary school, middle school, and even high school, being at the top of his class. He had finished playing recreational soccer and was now playing soccer at a high level competitively. As he pondered over his life, Jack realized that so much had occurred, but it didn’t feel like it. Now, he did.
As he looked into his bathroom mirror, examining his hazel eyes and freckled face. He shuffled his messy hair. He just could not quite see it. Jack could feel something had changed, he could feel the presence of something new, perhaps in his body. He sighed, exiting the bathroom.
“Happy birthday!” His family had stood huddled around the bathroom door, waiting for Jack to come out.
“Happy 21st! You can drink and drive now,” his teenage sister laughed. Jack chuckled. Maybe his new abilities were nothing great. Maybe he had nothing to worry about. They exchanged hugs and kisses. Jack went straight to his room, and turned on his computer.
I can lift twice my weight, his friend posted on facebook a while back. Jack tried to lift his table but couldn’t. Jack read about all kinds of abilities. He had tried to hear distant objects, to test photographic memory, and to see if he could jump ten meters in the air. After thirty minutes Jack was defeated. Maybe I did not get any new abilities, he thought with disappointment.
Jack realized that he had 22 new messages. Happy birthday! His friends congratulated him. It was all the same to Jack, he did not really care.
“Wait what?!” Jack saw a message from the hottest girl in his grade, Heather. 'Happy birthday Jack'. You know what, fuck it, its my birthday, Jack thought. He replied: 'Thnx, I am having a chill day hbu?'. Heather replied. Jack replied. She replied. Jack could not believe it, HE WAS HAVING A CONVERSATION WITH A GIRL. He ended talking to her without pause for the next 30 minutes. At the end of their chain of messages she asked: 'Wanna hang out sometime?' Jack could not believe it.
At school as Jack found conversation so easy. He was able to get out of his shell, and talk to anyone in the grade. He was able to hangout with jocks, and eat lunch with the cheerleaders. He even convinced Mr. Moger his math teacher, to change his grade to an A- so that he could finish the semester with all As. Everyone was willing to talk to him. It was amazing.
When Jack came home from school, his parents sat in expectation.
“So, what are your new abilities?” He was asked.
“I’m not sure, how was your day today?” Jack replied.
“Oh it was great, we went shopping at the mall…” his mom continued to talk about her day. In the back of his mind Jack finally knew the gift which he was granted on his 21st birthday and he was very satisfied.
Sorry guys, I am pressed on time so I could not revise.
| 2015-03-04T04:28:11
| 2015-03-04T02:26:57
| 92
| 64
|
[WP] You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches.
|
"Unjustly" I said, as loudly and clearly as I could.
The presiding justice was an elderly man - probably in his late 80s, maybe even older. He blinked at me with steel grey eyes that despite his advanced age were as sharp and penetrating as any I had encountered.
"Unjustly." he replied, curtly. "Yes. You heard me correctly... Your honour" I hurriedly added. I didn't need a contempt of court charge dropped on me. It was bad enough being sentenced to death after all.
The rest of the panel started muttering between themselves. It was a good sign that they didn't appear to have an immediate answer to this reply.
The presiding justice put down his gavel and stared at me pointedly. "You are aware, are you not, that you pleaded guilty to all counts before this court?" I tried my hardest to show no emotion. "I am, your honour." "And you are aware also that the penalty for those charges - including the reckless misuse of magic causing the death of a mundane individual - is death?" keep the face impassive. Remain calm. "I am, your honour."
Some of the other members of the court had started producing law books and were engaged in pointing out various paragraphs to one another.
"It does not seem to me" The Justice continued "That 'unjustly' constitutes a _method_ of execution, so much as a moral standpoint, and is thus somewhat outside the terms of procedure for this sentencing."
The muttering to his left was increasing in intensity.
"Your honour, may I please reference the case of Barris Infernis VII vs The Court - 1682..."
One of the justices started jabbing a bony finger at the book in front of him and waving it under the faceless, hooded figure to his right. Clearly he had the case law right there.
"Your point?"
"My point, your honour, is that he requested to die 'with honour' and the court accepted that request. His life energy was transferred into healing the wounds of his surviving victims by the court by way of penance for crimes committed."
The book had now been passed along to the presiding justice and he paused to read the relevant passage.
I thought this was probably the best chance I had to make my case so I spoke up
"If I may continue your honor?" he didn't look pleased, but waved a hand at me in a way that suggested that I should carry on.
"If I am to die unjustly, then this court has sentenced me incorrectly. I would be due a retrial under the terms described in the revised judicial procedures act of 1939 section four paragraph twelve." Now he really did look cross.
"I think we all understand exactly what it is that you're trying to get across. However I would point out that you pleaded Guilty On All Counts. You have not been tried. You have been convicted entirely by your own admission, and this is merely a sentencing hearing. I would further mention that this court is entirely used to people attempting to use procedural trickery to escape their sentence and that it has, to this date, a precisely zero percent success rate over the eleven hundred year history of this fine institution."
He snapped the book in front of him closed with obvious annoyance.
"The defendant will return to his seat!" he barked to the room at large. A susurration spread throughout the gallery. I was "The defendant" all of a sudden. Anyone who stood at this podium for sentencing was referred to correctly as "The Condemned." and this court was nothing if not famously thorough in it's application procedure.
More notes were being passed back and forth between the other members of the panel, and yet more books were being hurriedly brought forth by the attending clerks. This was going as well as I could have possibly hoped for. After what seemed like an eternity The bailiff called for attention.
"ALL RISE!"
The entire panel got to their feet, along with everyone else in the - now extremely tense - chamber. Surprizingly it wasn't the presiding justice, but one of the panel of five that spoke. The voice from the apparently empty hood was dry and dusty, and somehow as if from very far away. It seemed likely that the apparently empty robe was infact just that, and this esteemed member of the court had been called from The Other Side to form part of today's panel of justice.
_"Thisss court is now in recessssss. The defendant will be returned to hissss ssssssell. Prosssedingsssss will resssssume tomorrow at firsssssst light."_
I did everything I could to avoid punching the air in delight. Remain calm. Have to remain calm. I'd bought myself the required time, now all I could do was wait for the others to play their parts.
|
“How would you like to die?”
What kind of question is that? I wouldn’t like to die at all! But still I must give an answer.
I am sentenced for crimes against magic. I tried to poison the Well of Magic. But truly magic is the root of all evil and corruption. It is just a way to cheat the laws of nature.
People without magic are barely 2nd class citizens. It has to stop. I have one last chance.
“By permanently and irrevocably destroying all magic.”
Either it works and my life goal is fulfilled or they refuse to kill me.
“Oh thank goodness!”
Not the answer I expected.
“We are finally free! The curse of magic is broken!” Exclaimed the head mage.
“Told you it would work,” said his vizier.
“You were right. Looks like if we pushed them far enough one of the stupid humans would find the loophole to end magic.”
The whole council faced me and bowed deeply.
“Thank you for fulfilling the prophecy and freeing us all!”
And then there was a blinding flash and I was over.
| 2021-06-24T07:50:17
| 2021-06-24T07:46:07
| 457
| 68
|
[WP] The year is 2000. Both sides are rejoicing at the turn of the millennium. World War One rages on, as it has for the past 86 years.
|
**Henry Moseley**
Born 23 November 1887
Died 10 August 1915
Killed in Action
Gallipoli
**Robert French**
Born 18 March 1894
Died 19 November 1916
Killed in Action
Somme
**Cecil Berners-Lee**
Born 23 September 1884
Died 9 February 1919
Killed in Action
Dogger Bank
**Rosalind Elsie Franklin**
Born 25 July 1920
Died 25 July 1920
Complications at Birth
London
**Alfred Lennon**
Born 14 December 1912
Died 13 December 1921
Starvation
Liverpool
**John Tolkien**
Born 3 January 1892
Died 9 December 1922
Pneumonia
Rehms
**Albert Einstein**
Born March 14, 1879
Died June 30, 1928
Died in French Bombing Raid
Berlin
**Kurt Gödel**
Born 28 April 1906
Died 22 February 1929
Killed in Action
Venice
**John Logie Baird**
Born 14 August 1888
Died 9 November 1928
Died in Munitions Plant Explosion
Clyde Valley
**Alan Turing**
Born 23 June 1912
Died 9 March 1930
Killed in Action
Hamburg
**Thomas Lawrence**
Born 16 August 1888
Died 19 May 1935
Executed
Jeddah
|
"Splendid, is it not, Will?"
His breath bounced off Will's face, and despite smelling like off brand tea and moldy crumpets, did something to keep the freezing cold away.
"I suppose.. shame we're out here in Ypres while the Majors back home shaggin' his wife."
The bearded man, George, chuckled.
"You better not tell 'im I said that, George."
"Nah, don't worry mate, I would never -
The sound of shouting in some foreign language would silence them both, as they lowered themselves deeper into their two-man foxhole.
The sound of snow under crinkling under boots got closer, as their guns aimed wildly around, until a figure with a dark steel helmet and a wool coif emerged, unarmed.
"Vait, vait! Don't zoot!"
"Truce!" Another person shouted, emerging from the fog.
"Ve brought a ball!"
"Christmas was days ago! Tradition is truce on the 25th, not the 1st! Plus, I gave that ball to you, Wilhelm!", George spoke.
"Ja, but its Ze new millennium! Zat is a truce too, ha?"
"Fair enough.", Will said. The two British soldiers climbed out of their foxhole and would play football with the German soldiers until nighttime. The end.
| 2017-09-22T15:17:43
| 2017-09-22T13:57:10
| 125
| 87
|
[WP] Necromancy is just the arcane equivalent of computer programming, and grimoires on necromancy are just like libraries of code on animating the undead. You work the equivalent of the IT Help Desk for your necromancer cult. These are your work stories.
|
“Hi, uh, my girlfriend is in a coma and I really want her to die so I can reanimate her and she can go back to, uh, being my girlfriend but she is on life support so what do I do?”
“Have you tried unplugging her, waiting five minutes and plugging her in again?”
|
It was the night of a full moon. That when you really get the crazies. Some people can raise the dead just fine and go about their merry way. But others, well they just don’t know what the hell the are doing.
Take this one guy I had on the undead line last night. He calls me up and says his toddler has started slashing people’s Achilles tendon. It started with his brat going after the dumbfuck old man next door and just progressed until the kid became this heel cutting town menace. This fuck calls me up and says “Operator what can I do? My son, he’s just rampant with the heel cutting.”
I reply, “sir, you need to set some boundaries. The phrase ‘sometimes dead is better’ isn’t just an idiom. If your kid was always a dick or some highway adjacent simpleton than him as a reanimated corpse may be a tad more difficult than normal. “
“But” this guy exclaimed, “you don’t get it. My boy already killed my neighbor!”
“Sir,” I replied, “this is why you subscribed to DeadStar. We clean up what you can’t bring yourself to admit what happened. But please, remember to grab your misbehaving reanimated kid and reset his more murderous parameter by touching his third eye and reciting the Satanic incantations beneath his tongue.”
| 2018-04-28T04:46:18
| 2018-04-28T01:09:05
| 40
| 26
|
[WP] Every human has a 'luck rating' - a number from 1-100 that defines how lucky they can be. Born with a rating of 100, you're confined in a maximum security prison. You think your luck should get you out easily - that is, until you see that all the other inmates also have luck ratings of 100.
|
Everyone had a rating for how lucky they could be, from 1 to 100, 1 being close to no luck and 100 being the best luck. Most people had a rating of around 30ish. I was one of the few with a full score of 100.
Which would have been great, if bad luck wasn't a thing. The thing with the luck rating was that it was basically a rating on how much 'chance' would get fucked up around you. People with single digit luck could plan out their entire *year* and have not a single thing derail. Planning on a trip? Not a single random happenstance would occurre. No accidents, no sudden horrible weather, nothing.
Those of us with 100? We could try to walk from our bedrooms to our bathrooms and end up going through two localized apocalypses, a kidnapping, and rescue an alien princess from an alternative dimension, then still make it to the restroom before it got too uncomfortable holding the piss in. We where literally walking time bomb of 'anything and everything' going off every other day.
Which was why I was in prison. Though really, prison didn't even begin to describe this place. A box would be more appropriate. In fact, the place actually was a box. A box inside a box. Each inmate were placed inside a hollow metal cube three meters long on all sides, then the cubes themselves where stacked inside a bigger metal box, which in turn... well you got the idea. There was no vents, no electronics, nothing that could accidently go wrong or otherwise malfunction. Just solid metal covering solid metal.
Which was to say, everything went wrong pretty much instantly. When they placed my box, the vibrations caused as they fit it in place resonated with my right wall and shattered it to bits.
It's been a month after that. Two new inmates where added. Tom had a strawberry seed stuck in his shoe that sprouted and tore the top off his box, and Sharon just kinda fell out of the box. She hasn't been able to fall back into the box though, so she lives with Amy now.
It's not a bad life. We have food(somehow) and water(for some reason), plenty of intertainment, and we don't end up screwing someone over because we're next to them. I don't think anyone really wants to leave, and frankly, neither do I. Knowing our luck, we'll probably end up going back out sooner or later... but until then, I think we're all content to stay here and relax. For now anyways.
|
I remember my heart stopped beating for a second. Could it really be true?
Jail? I had laughed at the time. If people with 99 luck could survive being the suicide bomber, then no jail would hold me. Everyone had a luck stat, which determined how lucky they were.
However, I had 100 luck, and upto my knowledge, the only one alive. Nothing had ever gone wrong for me, ever. I simply aced my way through life as if it was a traficless highway. Fuck 'nobody's perfect', I was perfect.
It was that a perfect summer day (but then, when wasn't it?) when they came to arrest me. To be frank, I never saw it coming. Literally. Someone blindfolded me, and, before I could scream gagged me and threw me in a van.
It was the first time I had ever felt so... helpless. I remember hoping in vain for the van to crash, leaving me unharmed, or for a small meteorite to come crashing through the window and hit my captors. Nothing. Nothing at all.
The next time I saw light, I was bruised and wounded from the ride. They shoved me into a cell, and gave me a piece of bread to eat.
It was only after seeing the others that I lost hope. Till that point, I clung stubbornly to the belief the somehow something would come to my rescue- but I got nothing. After seeing the other inmates, I knew why nothing happened. All the other inmates- they had 100 luck too. No wonder nothing was happened.
Gradually, I became deader inside. I no longer could taste the salt on my cheeks or the pain of my wounds. I was dead on the inside.
Then, one day, there was a change. We had a meeting, to mourn the Warden's death or something. They claimed that little bitch had saved out lives or something, and we must pay our respects. Bullshit.
But it was on this day, I noticed something. Why my mind suddenly fired up, I do not know. Maybe my luck had finally decided to activate. What I noticed was the number of guards that were lined up in defense were exactly 1 more than the amount of prisoners. Trivial, I know. But it rekindled the faith in me. The faith that we would escape.
It was on my second discovery that my heart stopped beating.
The guards had 100 luck to. My heart raced, as I got a theory. A crazy theory to formulate a crazy plan, but I wasn't scared. For the first time, I felt alive. That night, I convinced my three bedmates to follow my plan.
It all happened so fast. We trailed our recreational instructor-guard back to his room. All we had to do was simply wish for his demise and BOOM! a bolt of lightning fell right on his heart stopping it. Beautiful odds, I'll tell you.
I rushed to the intercom like a man possessed. Like I expected, the guard there stood no chance. So I was right after all. The call-to-arms echoed throughout the jail, bringing the prisoners back to life.
My plan was working beautifully. 51 inmates and only 50 guards. They were finally outnbered, we had the upper hand by 100 luck. We could escape.
And we would've escaped, but that wasn't the plan. No the plan was different. That was simply a make-believe I had told them.
I still remember Andrew's voice as I walked right past the open gate. Oh so sad, so hurt at the betrayal.He tried to run after me, he tried to catch me, to kill me- but that gate literally shut on him.
They were fools, to think the plan would involve them. I would be the one who was unaccounted for, the only one who's desicion mattered. And I wanted to keep it like that.
By the time you hear this, you probably already know my name. I named myself in memory of that incident where I had defeated them all.
I called myself Trump.
| 2018-06-29T11:19:11
| 2018-06-29T08:43:19
| 72
| 26
|
[WP] During a scuffle a superhero and villain find themselves handcuffed together with power cancelling cuffs. The hero is shocked when the authorities take the opportunity to try to grab both of them. Now on the run they must work together while the villain tells them a few home truths.
|
[Part 1 of 2]
The pair exchanged a look of pride, each coated in the others’ blood. The two enemies looking like gladiators of the coliseum, two proud warriors pushing their body past its mortal limits. Soaring Star was used to this type of pain, his chest heaving, sucking in the air as best he could, doing his best not to groan whenever the villain would nudge a thumb against his broken rib, trying to break his hold on her.
“Come on you dumb oath, let go and die.” Malice continued to jab her thumb at the weakened ribs, arm struggling to stay up. She wasn’t used to enduring this type of battle, much preferring a quicker fight. Despite both fighters being experts at close ranged combat, neither could summon the energy to activate their abilities, turning the battle into a bloody slugfest, a test of will between two enemies.
“Die? You think a few pokes will kill me? I’ve taken a helicopter to the face before, this is nothing for me.” Soaring Star gloated, wincing at the continuous touches. Even with a body as strong as his, her small strikes were adding up.
“I’ll send two helicopters next time then. Speaking of helicopters.” Malice continued her attempt to free herself, her eyes darting away from the hero, hearing the approaching hero organization, their choppers approaching overhead, angelic golden searchlights rushing over the destroyed debris of the city, looking for the pair.
With her attention stolen by the helicopter, Soaring Star went for the victory, pulling his handcuffs from his hips, aiming to catch her with one swift movement. He heard the satisfying snap as one of the golden cuffs locked around her right wrist, however a twist of her body caused the remaining cuff to shift back, catching his wrist, locking the pair together.
Both shared a look of confusion, Malice stopping her jabbing to take notice of the situation. She couldn’t help but let out a laugh, finding something oddly amusing about the situation.
“Guess you will get to experience hell for a change too hero. It’s a shame too, this fight was a good one, too good to leave as a draw.” Malice slammed her head forward, head-butting the hero, his legs giving way, dropping him towards the floor. The only thing keeping him upright was the proud villain standing over him, keeping him on his knees.
Soaring Star had never felt a pain like it. With his powers blocked, he felt every nerve spring to life, every pain receptor in his body screaming out. It had been so long since he felt genuine pain. Not that dulled superhero pain, but actual physical distress. He gasped, reaching for his chest, feeling like his heart might burst.
“Hurts, doesn’t it? Maybe you should remember that feeling next time you punch a non-powered villain.” She said, squinting as the divine light of the helicopter landed on the pair, unable to escape her capture. She was ready to deliver another quip only to feel her handcuff get tugged down, pulling her to her knees.
Even in their weakened state, the two continued to exchange blows. The first coming from Soaring Star before being returned by Malice. By the time the officers arrived, the two were barely conscious, laying beside one another, trying to summon the energy to keep fighting, neither content with a draw.
The officers grabbed the pair, each one dressed in anti-villain attire. Their armor made to be resistant to most elements, at least to the degree that they could survive one or two blasts from a villain. Their helmets equipped with a reflective screen, keeping their identities hidden. Each carried a set of handcuffs made to detain villains. With the battle done, Soaring Star closed his eyes, awaiting his morning in the hospital.
“Hey, wake up. We both die if you don’t. Come on, this is suicide without you.” Malice once again jammed a finger into the hero’s ribcage, causing his eyes to shoot open, about to scream only for his mouth to be covered. “Listen, take in your surroundings and don’t panic.”
Soaring Star blankly stared at the red-headed woman before him. Her nose crooked, broken from the battle, with a few scars littering her cheeks. If It wasn’t for the battle damage, he would have no clue who she was. He wasn’t one to take the advice of a villain, but her frantic tone played on his heroic instincts, unable to deny at least hearing her out.
He eyed over the helicopter’s interior, spotting a pilot and two guards, the guards now more alert with his sudden awakening, shifting their guns from their hips, keeping them half raised, ready to pounce if something went wrong. He then turned to his body, his bloodied mask seated in his lap, hands restrained by a new set of cuffs separating the pair.
“This is insane, why am I handcuffed? I’m not the villain.” He squirmed in his seat, fidgeting with the cuffs, unable to slip them from his wrists. His failed attempts to free himself only tightening the cuffs hold.
“They don’t care. You’re a test subject now, someone for them to play with. Why do you think most villains don’t re-offend? It’s not because of the HDO’s Rehab, ill tell you that much. Look, I don’t like the idea of ending up in that facility again. How about we get ourselves out of here? I have a plan, but I need your help for it.” Even as she spoke, Malice would let her eyes wander, watching the passing city from the window, mentally counting the time they had left to escape.
|
# Bargain Bin Superheroes
(Part 1: Fall Girl v.s. Her Own Dumb Mom)
(Note: Bargain Bin Superheroes is episodic; each part is self-contained. This story can be enjoyed without reading the previous sections.)
**Without access to ghostform, getting into the family hideout was trickier.** My daughter had redecorated since I'd last been down there, sealing off all the entrances and exits except for the ventilation system. I swore over the rising sound of sirens, then ran towards the back.
"Hey!" Janus—or Janice, as I'd called her when she was born, she had no creativity when it came to 'secret' names—snapped from under her two-faced mask. Even though she was trying to be brave, she clearly was unnerved by the fact that we were right at her house. "Where the hell do you think you're taking us?"
Thankfully, my voice distortion was perfectly mundane hardware. Janice had no idea she was talking to her mother when I said, "Somewhere safe."
I opened the top of our septic tank, and Janice instinctively recoiled; I just tugged her forwards. "Wait!" she said. "They have cameras on the streets; they'll see where we went!"
I shook my head. "It'll take them two hours, minimum, to get permission to trawl through those tapes; I can get them altered in that time."
Janice sighed. "Right. Supervillain." She clenched her fists and then, as I began to climb down, awkwardly descended into the septic tank with me. She gagged a little on the scent, but offered no complaint otherwise. If nothing else, I didn't raise my kids spoiled.
On the opposite wall of where the solids and the liquids separated, there was a large, grimy door which was definitely not septic tank standard. I pulled it open and crawled through.
"...how long have you known about this?" Janice asked?
"Hm?"
"Oh, don't play coy with me. I'm sure you have a hideout of your own somewhere—all the places in the city and you choose *this* one?" She gestured at her home. "Really? What kind of message are you trying to send, here? Is—is this a threat? Are you going to go after my family if I keep fighting you?"
I sighed, then turned off the voice modulator. "Kid, I may be many things, but I'm not suicidal."
Janice gasped. "*Mom*?"
"Talk in a moment. You bricked over this damn tunnel when you moved in, but fortunately, your grandpa didn't raise a quitter." True to my word, the tunnel ended in a freshly-laid brick wall; of course, brickwork by a nineteen-year-old superhero with little to no experience in the subject was no match for a woman who'd spent twenty years as a superhero and fifteen as a supervillain. Even without powers, I simply kicked it twice and the bricks fell inwards.
Into the family hideout.
It wasn't much to look at; Janice hadn't discovered most of the really good parts yet, thanks to her bricking up the main entrance. I was sure she'd bumble into something with ghostform one of these days, though. Just a small stone room with some boxes of supplies in one corner and a television in the other.
Stinking, the two of us slumped down in the middle of the room. I took off my mask, revealing my familiar face; after a moment, Janice took off hers.
"Mom," Janice asked carefully, "I mean this with the utmost respect, but what the *hell* are you doing?!"
I chuckled ruefully. "Alright, alright, calm down."
"I've *seen* what the Blind Eye has done on television. You've *killed* people for—"
"Hold it, buckaroo," I said. "I think you'll find that the list of crimes the Blind Eye has done amount to some minor property damage and trespassing. The rest is propaganda I deliberately set into motion. I'm not really a supervillain, not in the sense that the big-timers are."
Janice frowned. "Then... why act like one?"
I grimaced. "So that you can eventually defeat me."
Janice blinked. "...what?"
"Superhumans... well, you either get under the aegis of one of the big Heroic Corporations, or you get legally pressured into living your life in chains. There really isn't any in-between. But... because of that, *everyone* wants to be a hero. More people want to be heroes than there are villains to fight. It's a simple supply and demand problem. So..." I winked. "Me and a few old-timers got together when we saw the way the wind was blowing. And we... upped the demand."
"By... pretending to be a villain?"
"By making people *panic* about supervillains!" I cheerfully said. "And then letting our sons and daughters and everything in between fight us off. You get a key to the city and a kind reference for the Heroic Corporations, and we get to watch our kids *not* have to be permanently shackled and under watch. Win-win."
"...I thought I was... fighting real crime. Helping people," Janice mumbled.
I looked down at her. She hadn't removed her mask, but she was... slumped.
I sighed. "I'm doing this so that you have the *chance* to fight real crime. Okay? I wouldn't do this if it wasn't what's best for you."
"The whole *point* of being a hero is that I put what's best for everyone over what's best for me!" Janice snapped, standing up. Our cuffs clinked, and she looked at them, surprised.
"And the whole point of being your mother is that I put what's best for you over what's best for everyone else. Even me." I squeezed her arm. "Come on, kiddo. Let's go get the angle grinder. Momma's still got a few tricks to show you about getting out of handcuffs."
Janice pressed her lips together, biting back a response.
Then she sighed and followed me as I kicked through another one of her clumsy walls.
&#x200B;
A.N.
I'm trying something new! "Bargain Bin Superheroes" will be an episodic story where each part is inspired by a writing prompt that catches my eye. Check out [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/bubblewriters/comments/mhzat1/bargin_bin_superheroes_masterpost/) for more information.
| 2021-04-01T08:44:19
| 2021-04-01T07:42:00
| 85
| 61
|
[WP] You've become friends with a murder of crows. They occasionally mimic you, saying simple greetings or short phrases. Today, they seem uninterested in your offerings, and almost appear on edge. Waiting for something. You try to ask them what's wrong. "Hide," one caws swiftly.
|
I arrived at my usual spot in the forest, nearly out of breath. The hike had been especially difficult in the cold weather. I approached a dead sycamore tree. Still trying to catch my breath, I looked up to find a murder of crows perched in the tree.
“Hello!” I said to them, awaiting their response. But they didn’t make a sound. “Sorry for the wait,” I continued. “It’s freezing out here.” The crows remained silent. They didn’t even move. *That’s odd,* I thought, *usually they’re excited to see me.*
As if a freezing day in July wasn’t strange enough, now the crows were ignoring me. Over the years I had spent many hours up here with them, so I knew all of their favorite tricks.
“Let’s try this…” I said, mildly annoyed. I had just walked in the cold for half an hour for them, after all. “Say ‘food!’” For a few seconds, the crows still didn’t respond. I reached in my pocket for the berries I had planned to surprise them with.
“Hide! Hide! Hide!” the crows all shouted in unison before I could show them what was in my hand.
“Why, what’s wrong?” I whispered, frantically searching my surroundings for a place to go. They all fell silent once again, and I realized I was almost out of time. I didn’t know what was coming, but I trusted these birds with my life.
I felt sharp pains all over as I dived into the nearest bush I could find. It didn’t matter that I had thorns in my arms, whatever was out there must have been bad if the crows were warning me. Struggling to stay as quiet as possible, I knelt and moved branches away from my eyes.
Exactly where I had been just a few seconds ago stood a figure with one arm, axe in hand. My heart jumped into my throat as I came to the realization that I could still see the sycamore’s trunk through the figure's head. *They’re… translucent?*
I nearly fell over, my hand brushed my empty pocket as I moved to regain my balance. *Wait, my pocket’s empty. It shouldn’t be empty.* Meanwhile, the mysterious figure stared at a pile of fresh berries near their feet. Without even thinking, I let out a gasp. I remained frozen for what felt like an eternity. The figure slowly turned their head in my direction, their red eyes glowing as they roamed toward me. My skin seemed to turn to ice as they approached me. I had never been this cold in my life.
“Food!” said a voice from the other side of the tree. The figure spun around as fast as lightning. They stepped over the tree's roots as they went to investigate the source of the noise.
*Am I okay?* I think as the freezing sensation starts to leave my body, recognizing the voice as one of the crows’. Suddenly, I felt a searing pain. A pair of claws ripped into my shoulder. I turned my head and saw nothing but a pattern of black feathers.
“Danger… run now…” said the crow on my shoulder, “not safe… never return.”
|
I've walked these snow covered paths as long as I've lived in the old village. Lost in the woods with my avian friends I usually found solace; Now amongst the twisting dark branches I found only cold fear.
Quickly I turn into the trees, blindly following my feet and the watchful mimics in the sky. Through my pounding heart and shaking breath I tried to listen for any sounds from my would be attacker, but hearing nothing but the snow crunching beneath my feet as I carved my way to hopeful safety.
"Here," a small voice cooed from above, leading me deeper into the brush. I quickly ducked behind a fallen tree, fresh snow lightly clinging to my jacket and hair.
I take small breaths, using my hand to try to conceal myself further as breath floats away visibly in small puffs. The moon behind a scattering of clouds and barren trees illumates the ground in gentle whisperings, threatening to expose me.
The wind carries the moons gaze across the path that moments ago I was leaving treasures for my friends. A tear rolls halfway down my cheek before freezing in place, I squeeze my eyes shut, willing away the darkness eclipsing my life. I open my eyes in disappointment to not be in my own bed, waking from a vivid dream.
Above me sat my murder watching down with weary eyes, sitting lifeless as a painting. Together we waited in the cold night, the still silence stretching out for what seemed like an eternity, until all at once they took flight. The beating of their wings in the sky above matched the pumping of my heart, but no sound was louder in my ears than the crunching snow beneath a heavy boot behind me.
| 2021-12-29T04:45:57
| 2021-12-29T02:27:19
| 189
| 46
|
[WP] Write a suicide note in a Dr. Suess like fashion.
|
The world is a stage, and life is a show,
My part is done, and I simply must go!
I'm no longer in costume. I've forgotten my lines,
Like the rear-weighted lofzoom, I'm dragging behind.
Though, I won't condemn others to the same fate as I,
You wield wonderful wings, so use them to fly!
I won't have you carry me, so don't stick around
Some birds like me were meant for the ground.
Goodbye! Au revoir! It's just half past three
A couple more minutes and I'll be home free!
Keep your chin up, friends, and try not to pout
Maybe I'll see you when you make it out.
|
I am sad
Sad I am
Have i gone mad
I might just have
I would not could not anymore
my life is just one great big chore
I try to dream but cant escape
This life that i have learned to hate
Ive rustled and bustled
and truffled about
With bad thoughts and worse thoughts
I can't drown them out
So think me a coward
if thats what you must
And this cowards body
will be turned to dust
Goodbye to you all
I can't say that i'll miss you
but don't cry for me now,
Because I'm fresh out of tissue
Edit: Formatting
| 2015-01-17T11:53:17
| 2015-01-17T04:21:47
| 24
| 15
|
[WP] Fearing that the passage of centuries may have altered the value of their hoard, an ancient dragon hires you to appraise the lot. It's remarkably tricky to stay objective and focused when your client has razor talons and fire breath. And that's not even mentioning the more esoteric "treasures".
|
"What do you mean, it's only worth three thousand *demestrii*?"
The roar shook the entire cavern, and I flinched even as a wave of pungent brimstone breath washed over me. I was already regretting taking on this particular job, but Azarios Melthrix was on holidy in the Silent Waste, so I'd been forced to take on his clients in the meantime.
Unfortunately, this included Gerafax "The Ancient One", who had put in a request to my firm to get his bi-millennial audit done. Gerafax was one of our oldest clients, going way back to before the fall of the Kiranthian Empire, and so he was to be treated with utmost respect. As the foremost accounting firm in Parthania, we had an image to uphold.
Also, he was a giant blue dragon.
"We-ll," I said slowly, trying to figure out a way to break the unfortunate news, "Vektas pioneered a new form of mould-based metalworking a few decades ago. Created by a fellow named Korinvas, made him absurdly wealthy too..."
"What has that got to do with anything?" roared Gerafax. "I burned an entire city to the ground to collect those statues," he continued, gesturing with one massive clawed hand towards a collection of (admittedly pretty) bronze statues depicting the various Vektatian gods.
"Well, yes, but that was five hundred years ago, and now Vektas has begun mass-producing them..."
I knew I'd said something wrong when the giant lizard's eyes narrowed dangerously.
"*Mass-producing?*" he hissed.
I gulped. "Well, yes, they're quite popular with tourists, apparently..."
For a moment I thought that was it, my mind regretfully turning towards the list of incomplete accounts on my desk back home. But after a second, Gerafax turned away with a snarl.
"What about this?" he snapped, picking up a sealed clay jar with a delicate ease that belied his size, and tossing it in my direction. "Prime segmarii oil, sealed for over six centuries! Worth over sixty thousand!"
"We-ll," I said again. This was really not my day. "Actually, closer to five nowadays..."
"Five hundred thousand?" said Gerafax, his eyes narrowing again.
"Fi-five thousand..."
"How?" screeched the dragon. "How is this possible? That was the greatest delicay of the Southern Kravana! Entire nations went to war over it! How did this happen?"
"Well, about two hundred years ago, trade routes opened up over the Silver Sea," I replied. "Most of the cost was in transportation - they had to go through the desert before, which drove the price way beyond its actual value..."
"How does this happen?" snarled the dragon. "I go to sleep for a few hundred years and suddenly everything is worthless? Next thing you'll be telling me that my mountain of gold coins has suddenly become cheap?"
I looked to the side nervously.
"Oh you have to be f-king kidding me!!" Gerafax let out a blast of flame that superheated the stones above me to a fiery, angry red. "Explain. Now."
"Well," I said, wondering how to put this. "There's this King from southern Nirabia who has been traveling around, and, well, *giving away tons of gold*."
"What?" said Gerafax, completely flummoxed for the first time. "*Giving gold away??*"
"It's quite confusing for us, too," I admitted, scratching the back of my head. "We're not really sure *why* he's doing it - he's either an idiot or an evil genius - he's tanked seven economies so far and started three civil wars...even we've taken a hit, we have a large portion of our assets tied up in gold reserves..."
There was a long silence before - "HAS THE WORLD GONE COMPLETELY MAD?? HOW DO HUMANS DO THIS??"
"Yes, well, the world is changing," I said. "Hell, even Parthania hasn't been unscathed...a lot of people have been outsourcing work to the Zygarian Slave-States - their labor costs are remarkably low, after all, but it is causing a lot of problems back home..."
There was a long, long silence.
"I'm going back to sleep."
EDIT: Context - the 'giving away gold' thing *actually happened*. The African King Mansa Musa was the wealthiest single individual of the 14th century, and when he went traveling he gave away huge quantities of gold to the people he met. Unfortunately, this caused a massive wave of dark-ages hyperinflation, crashing the economies of the countries he visited (most notably Egypt) and caused a huge amount of problems for ordinary people.
|
(This story is the third part of a much longer story I am currently working on. You can read the previous chapter [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/whcxyq/comment/ijb6yoy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). Also, this story is from Wildfire the dragon's perspective and not the appraiser.)
Flaime's death still burns, but I must acknowledge his rather great hoard. Dragon law dictates in the event of death, the hoard must first be brought to the oldest hatchling. If there are no hatchlings the hoard goes to the oldest sibling, and so on. As I am Flaime's only sibling, and he never had any hatchlings, I am the one to inherit his hoard.
Funny how differently we play the hoard game. I've always just focused on the "dragonslayers" as they usually brought their strongest armor and weaponry (which sells for a lot in the dragon market) but a few years ago I decided this was no longer worth the effort. Meanwhile Flaime pillaged and plundered for his hoard, and I guess danger was always in his blood. He fought much harder than I did in the battle, persevering even when they overburned some of his blood with a blazing arrow. His fire jets were brilliant, far beyond my ability.
But no matter. I must get the hoard appraised before I inherit it. And although Kacir the knight may not be an appraiser, he can tell someone else.
My left wing is still covered in bandages from the battle. It might take me a year to fly again. So I walked, step by step, toward the kingdom.
I didn't even reach the outskirts when I was greeted by Kacir, who I told to contact an appraiser to check on the hoard, who eventually came to me.
It didn't take too long to get back, and thanks to a bit of cooperation the appraiser didn't have too much to worry about either.
"So, first of all, I'm very sorry about your brother," he started. "I saw the state you two were in and tried to help. I really did. But I could not help."
That face was a familiar one. I saw him in the aftermath of the battle, trying to coordinate efforts among healing the injured. He was helping people in aiding an ice dragon that was slashed across the leg. Although she went on to try healing Flaime, I learned she also died of her injuries in her cave.
"You are a brave one," I told him. "You helped us dragons even when we were in dire condition. But the hoard must now be called into question. Flaime never thought of the future and collected without thinking of how it depreciates. I don't even think some of his hoard is actually worth anything."
This was delicate business. One error and I would lose the only opportunity I have to assimilate the hoard into my own, honoring both Flaime and all those that died to protect the kingdom. And I assume he knows that too since he brought extremely precise equipment, manually inspecting each and every coin, gem, and treasure.
Then he moved onto the more unusual treasures.
"Why is there an entire pile of nothing but extremely burnt bones?" the appraiser asked. There were skulls, legs, hands, and even an entire skeleton in a singular neat pile. We both agreed to not assign them any value and moved on to... glass windows.
"I guess this is why Flaime never talked about his hoard," I spoke to lighten the mood a bit. He never did, and when asked anything about his hoard only spoke of his towering gold. I never suspected he hid these unusual items.
In the end we sorted through all the items and the hoard's total value exacted mine. I decided to set aside the more esoteric items into a separate pile and integrate the treasures into my own pile, which I meticulously separated myself by type.
I only hope that Flaime would approve of this.
| 2022-08-08T13:28:25
| 2022-08-08T12:18:26
| 86
| 30
|
[WP] It's 3 AM. An official phone alert wakes you up. It says "DO NOT LOOK AT THE WALRUS". You have hundreds of notifications. Hundreds of random numbers are sending "It's a beautiful walrus. Look."
|
PART ONE
Maybe this makes me an asshole, but I never read Amber Alerts. It was 3am - aka my lunch break. As I swept it away, I caught the word "walrus" and it made me curious.
I had a ton of texts waiting, and a few emails, which was unusual. I decided to check them.
I pulled up my app, and deleted the ones from unnamed numbers. Spam probably. I had three texts from Mom, and one from "Guy Selling Iguana" and one from "cute girl at Lennys probably not her real number"
I'd never texted her, had her text once to verify she had my number right after she took it, and then left her alone so as not to be a creep. She never texted again.
Weirder though was that all three had texted the same message, word for word.
"It's a beautiful walrus. Look."
My phone vibrated as more texts came through from numbers I didn't have saved, and another Emergency Alert. The texts all said the same thing.
The emergency alert said not to look.
Now listen. Walruses are ugly. They're like... If you took a fucking ballsack and gave it tusks and made it huge. They are disgusting.
So this had to be some elaborate prank.
I rolled my eyes, checked my emails, and found they were the same thing. The same message, from every business and spammer and legitimate person I had ever interacted with.
I closed that and checked social media.
I'd set it up with a filter, so I'd have to click media to open it, because I hated videos starting to play loudly when I was sneaking my phone. Yeah I know, I'm a total shithead, sneaking my phone to places I'm not allowed to have it. Get wrecked.
Point is, every damn tweet, every status update, was the same five words, and a blurry square that I was becoming increasingly scared to open.
It was stupid. It was going to be like that U2 album thing, or like the monolith. A prank. I turned my phone back to airplane mode, finished my sandwich, and fixed some coffee at the keurig.
Lunch wasn't really a break-break. It was a time to prop the door to my wing of the "hospital" - read: nuthouse - open and use the tiny microwave to heat my food if it needed heated. I still had to do checks every fifteen minutes. I wasn't really supposed to step out of my hall.
But, I needed to eat. Hypoglycemia.
And Frank, my supervisor, hadn't come to give me a break yet. Usually he showed up every 2-3 hours to check on each of us.
Usually when I made my food, Stephen or Lindsey was here too.
Usually... Usually I could hear voices or giggles. It was eerily quiet.
I went back to work and tried to relax, but the caffeine had my heart rate tripled up.
Around 430 I realized the hourly radio check hadn't been done. I tried to check mine, but nothing came of it. No one replied. I was on the right channel. I double checked, and then tried each channel. No answers.
I took a short break about 5am, to get some more food in me. A cookie, and some string cheese, and went back to my rounds. Still no sign of anyone. I logged in to the central computer, even though it took a while, cut it close with my rlnext check. I started an email, just "hey I think my radio broke and I haven't seen anyone to get me a new-" but saw my work inbox was also full. 290 emails.the subject lines were all the same.
I didn't hit send.
I went back to my wing, and bolted the hall door. It was stupid to be scared, right? But, I was.
It's a dream, I decided. One of those shitty ass work dreams you have on weekends. I'll wake up and fucking Kevin will be meowing at the door to go outside and shit in the garden, even though he has a damn litter box, and I'll think this was weird, and then forget it.
I pinched myself. It hurt. I counted to 25. I read. I wrote a haiku. I solved a math equation - not a hard one, but they say you can't do math in dreams. I read the analog clock. I got down on my knees and fell forward, catching myself in a pushup.
It didn't wake me. I was already awake.
I went back out, tried the phone. I called Main Control. No answer. Gate. No answer. Admissions. Medical. Kitchen. Nothing. I recorded that on my shift log.
I tried again every round of checks. It became my new routine. Check. Radio. Call. Document.
7am my replacement didn't come. The patients started waking up, and I didn't know what to do. I radioed again. Nothing. I didn't have access to their medications.
I didn't even have a key to the pantry to feed them.
8am I gave up waiting. Day crew was three people, and all of them were a solid hour late. I hadn't been able to get through on my radio in five hours.
Someone should have come down.
A full facility walk through, I knew from fire watch, was twenty five minutes. I'd be ten minutes late, minimum,on my next bed check. I'd document it, the way I'd documented the rest.
I ventured out.
I found no one. Frank, Stephen, Lindsay… not even that annoying bitch Anna. The place was dead empty, except for patients, of course. All the paperwork, even half eaten food and cold cups of coffee, or in Lindsay's case green tea, were left sitting.
The last checks for each wing were all between 130am and 3am.
I marked my own checks for each wing, and added the obligatory explanation for late check in the correct section of the form, as short and clear as I could. "Radio silence 5hrs, no day team. Left own post to scout. Found post abandoned."
With the additional checks and paperwork, I got back to my area at the thirty minute mark. I documented that, and headed back out, and tried to phone outside. I didn't have any day staffs numbers, but there was a call sheet, with the extensions, and emergency numbers. I tried the Site Director, and got voicemail. I left a message, making an effort to keep my voice calm.
"Hello, Richard, this is Tom, I work nights. I'm calling because I haven't been able to raise anyone on the radio since three this morning, day shift isn't here, I've searched the facility and can't find a single staff member…" my voice cracked, "god this sounds crazy. I don't know what to do. I'm the only one here, and I don't have a key to feed the patients and they're due for meds I can't give them, and… it's bad. Please." I didn't know what else to say so hung up, and tried the next admin number, and the next, with the same result. After the sixth message, I began to truly panic.
I called 911, and got a recorded busy message. I checked the time. 830. I needed to do another check.
As I walked the halls, patients began banging their doors,
|
I woke up confused and exhausted. nobody ever calls this late. i figured it had to be some scam call or a family emergency. so i hop up out of bed to look at my phone. i have dozens of texts about how i should look at the walrus, and one text about how i shouldn’t look at it. so of course i go back to sleep, i’m a student. i need every bit of sleep i can get.
the next morning i wake up and make eggs. i love eggs. my friends call me the eggman because of how much eggs i eat. i look at the window and nobody’s out there. normally there is some people walking their dogs. but it’s completely empty. the only thing i notice are birds in the air. i am seeing how they fly. it’s a nice day out. so i put on all my running gear and head out. i still see nobody out. all i see is some pile of yellow matter custard on the sidewalk. might of been ice cream. after my run i head back home.
i get home and take of my smelly shoes and socks. and sit down on the couch. it turns out i am sitting on a cornflake. so i have to get back up and grab the vacuum. after cleaning up the mess on my couch, i figured it would be good to shower. when i walk into the bathroom, i look in the mirror in awe. it turns out,
I AM THE WALRUS
| 2021-01-11T19:22:36
| 2021-01-11T19:20:28
| 30
| 14
|
[WP] After North Korea declares that they will start a nuclear war if a single bullet is fired The Us military goes medieval
|
The Great Leader's palace trembled once more as the fiendish Americans launched another salvo of their lethal artillery.
Inside, Kim Jong-Un desperately tried to retain any semblance of control, stressfully stuffing another handful of chips into his mouth while listening to frantic radio reports and updates. *Damn them!* He raged internally. When he declared that nuclear war would be set off with a firing of a single bullet, he never realized that the foolish American pig-dogs would actually take him *literally*. When American Cavalry - not armored, but literal cavalry mounted on horseback, sporting plate armor and wielding lances that would be feared throughout North Korea - had thundered across the DMZ, his border units were caught so off-guard that they were almost immediately overrun. By the time poor Kim could rally the shocked military, the combined South Korean and American forces had already seized much of the region south of Pyongyang, and inspired by the knights in shining armor the local peasantry had revolted against the oppressive regime. Those few who attempted to resist were mercilessly cut down by the allied forces, whose numbers swelled by the day and who even now lay siege to Pyongyang.
The Chinese had not only condoned the invasion, they actually *participated in it*. While the West had rampaged through the lower half of True Korea, the Chinese had marched their own armies of antiquity into battle from the north, a terrifying force of both heavily armored infantry and rapid, Mongol-styled horsemen that served as advanced scouts and guerilla units, harassing the North Koreans with swarms of arrows before scurrying away from retaliation. It was an outright betrayal of Korea, but a stunning show of unity as the Chinese completed the encirclement of the now pitiful North Korea remnant, tied down to a single city with territory shrinking by the day. Though his advisors insisted he retreat,Kim Jong Un had stubbornly remained within his palace, for he would never abandon the last functioning refrigerator under his control, as well as his great pantries full of junk foods.
All of it was for naught, though, as with a great crash to his left his beautiful kitchen wall crumbled when a particular piece of artillery found its mark. Before Kim could even reach for a weapon or another handful of chips, a three-man cavalry team burst into the room - an American, astride an imposing charger with armored barding, a Chinese horse archer astride his hardy steppe horse, and a South Korean in traditional armor astride..inside would be a better word for what was some sort of pink mechanical equivalent of a horse thing, detailed with strange logos and glowing lights. The American, his tabard proudly displaying the Red, White and Blue, barked out orders for the other two to secure the area, before he menacingly trotted over to the now cowering Kim Jong-Un.
"How!?" Was the only response Kim had. "Those walls have been proofed against all sorts of weaponry! It should have been impenetrable!"
The American knight calmly flicked his plate visor up so his face was revealed, confident blue eyes staring directly into the now terrified, beady ones of the once dictator of North Korea. "*Great Leader*," the soldier calmly replied with only a hint of sarcasm, "have you ever considered proofing your walls against the most powerful artillery of all, artillery that can launch a 90 kilogram stone projectile over 300 meters?"
I'm on my mobile so the format is probably crap, but happy for feedback otherwise for my first writing prompt response!
|
The dew on the grass is beautiful this time of year. Damp and supple, almost like it breathes life into the world around it. A North Korean guard has his feet up on a seat, nestled within the inner perches of a Watchtower, dozing softly to the smooth sound of silence.
A deep rumble snaps him awake. He rubs the sleep out of his eyes and gazes all around himself through the windows, to see nothing unusual in sight. But still, the rumble grows louder, and chants of war roar with it. The man stands and walks outside the small room to the railing, and stares south, holding his hand over his eyes to block the sun.
Over the crest of the hill comes a battalion. A thousand men and women fitted to the brim with armor. A dozen more mounted on horses, greatswords gripped tightly in hand, and the American Flag adorned brightly on the metal hilts. He leans in closer to get a better look, but as he does, a stray arrow pierces his skull and knocks him off the tower.
Eun Kim.
Twenty-Three.
Threatened with execution if Military Service was refused.
The remaining guards see their fallen comrade and march to the arms cabinet. With strife burning through their souls, they clambered at guns, bullets, and knives. The necessary equipment required to massacre. They rush outside, sweat dripping down their faces.
One of the Knights becomes filled with zealotry. He kicks the side of the horse to push it faster. It feels his passion and bolts forward, breaking away from the rest of the group. One of the guards breathes in lightly, lifts his gun, and places a bullet between the Knights eyes.
Tom Baker.
Thirty-One.
Joined the Military because his father did, and his father before him, and now his fatherless son will too.
The horse stumbles due to the force of a dead man collapsing sideways. The saddle pulls with his corpse and knocks the horse to the ground. The rest of the soldiers push past their fallen friend and begin their siege. They tear down the metal fence with their sharp blades, while archers in the back try to snipe out all the guards in the Watchtowers.
A guard lifts his rifle to shoot, but it jams. The mechanisms lock in place and refuse to move. He drops the gun as a soldier moves towards him, broadsword in hand. With no hope left, he holds up his small knife and takes a swing. The soldier laughs softly to himself, before running the sword through his torso.
Hoon Yi.
Twenty-Seven.
Parents were murdered, and he was forced into Military Service.
Seeing his friend die, another guard aims his rifle and shoots. It goes through the cracks in the soldier's armor, and into the fleshy side of his torso. He reels in pain and grabs his side, before lifting his sword back up and stomping over to the terrified guard.
He yells at the guard in English. The words lose all meaning to him, lost in translation, but still, he shakes in his spot and waits.
"I will not go gentle into that good night!" The soldiers yells, over and over, as blood leaks out his side, faster with every second. The heavy armor slows his steps, his body grows weaker, and he crumbles to the ground, bleeding out.
Monty McCabe.
Nine-teen.
Wanted to do his country proud.
The guard continues to tremble. He can feel his nerves bite at him, his thoughts become plagued with doubt, and his hate for his country grows. He keeps himself quiet and scurries inside one of the nearby buildings. He slowly closes the door behind him and crawls under a desk.
The savage commotion outside rages on. The sounds of bullet and blades meeting in carnage, so vile, echoes through the air until finally, silence. The guard crawls back from under the desk and stands. He looks outside the window to see the friends he once knew, dead. Slain in combat they never asked for. His attention moves from outside to the front of the room. A painting of Kim Jong Un sits on the wall.
"I did what you asked of me," he whispers to himself, holding back tears. "I'm just a stranger to you." The sound of glass smashing was the last thing he heard, as an arrow impaled itself into the corner of his head.
Yeong Pak.
Twenty-two.
Just wanted to eat.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Check out /r/Rhysyjay for other neat stuff.
| 2017-03-19T06:41:59
| 2017-03-19T05:22:19
| 5,121
| 2,629
|
[WP] Explain a color vividly without using that color or similar words. Don't tell the color until the end.
|
Looking into the evening, I see it. It is the color of the middle-distance; the half measures. Not quite the forest and not yet the trees.
It is in my mind when night comes and I no longer stare out, but in. I see it in half-remembered dreams. I see it in old pictures and faded memories.
I see it in the rainstorms; wet drops steaming on hot city lanes. Sometimes it is hard and cold; architectural. Others it is soft and warm; a cat curled at my feet.
It is the color of the mists of time, of ages lost. Ancient cultures anchored in the present by their trinkets, their beauty only hinted at.
It is the edge of a knife and pallor of its victim. It is the color of the stone that marks a life remembered.
It is gray.
|
My favorite color is cool and bright like the waters of my home. Something more life-giving than the empty sky, and more cheery than the dark pools of a forest. You will not see it in the rain or snow, but perchance deep underground. Men have sought after it, then thrown it away for the soft, bright ores beside it. To me, it is precious. I come home and sink into my color, splashed across all four walls. I imagine myself slipping down into it's clear depths. My worries are carried away as if by the tide.
Turquoise is my color
| 2016-04-14T08:41:40
| 2016-04-14T06:20:46
| 72
| 27
|
[WP] You find a genie lamp where the genie offers you unlimited wishes. The catch is that you must answer a mathematical question that continues to get progressively harder for every wish you make. If you answer the question wrong, every wish you made will be reversed with negative consequences.
|
"I can make as many wishes as I want?"
"Yes. As long as you can answer the question."
"And If I get it wrong you reverse all the wishes?"
"Yes."
"I want to make a wish."
"What is the sum of three and six?"
"Nine."
"What is your wish?"
"I wish the world was an unimaginable hell hole."
"Done. Go outside and hear the screams."
"Not yet. I want to make another wish."
"What is the product of four and eight?"
"One."
|
In a sense, getting mathematics right is what determines how everyone else's life goes too, so I am in no way shape or form in a unique position.
Nor am I unable to be emphathized with. (That's something I need to keep reminding myself of these days.)
If I could graph it out for you without feeling too scared, the plot(pun not intended) would show lots of minorly terrible things happening to me directly after the genesis of my genie problem, then some pretty terrible things happening to me in intervals that gradually get longer.
So, I have gone the longest I have ever not getting a math problem wrong, and intend to never get one wrong again. Also, the entire planet has it in its interest to help me not fuck up. Here's why:
My last wish was for world peace.
| 2017-06-17T23:24:32
| 2017-06-17T22:34:52
| 266
| 30
|
[WP] Scientists have discovered cryogenic freezing. You are it's first test subject and it's a massive success, and they plan on releasing you in 500 years. You had no way of telling them you were conscious.
Holy shit this blew up!
I now understand "RIP my inbox"
EDIT: u/Alpacasaurus_Rekt told me it's actually "Cryonic Freezing"
EDIT 2: To anyone who is trying to say, "scientists would not put them in for 500 years immediately" I would like you to know this is a fictitious writing prompt and just roll with it.
|
Finally. The day has arrived. Cryosleep, a fast forward to the future. You’re the very first living time capsule, a relic saved for the future. You welcome this chance. The cold creeps over you, and you prepare yourself for the restful darkness.
You wait.
And you wait.
Aaaaand any time now.
Come on. What’s taking so long?
Just.... boom! Lights out!
Aaaaaaand now.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand NOW!
Now?
Nope. Still awake.
Really? Did they not turn the machine on or something? No, it’s working. You can’t move an inch, not your toes or fingers, not one muscle in your arms or legs, your eyelids frozen shut, and likely, even the water in the eyes itself....
.....
You now realize this is profoundly creepy. You can’t move. You can’t breathe. You can’t feel your heartbeat. Dead cold runs across your skin in fizzing waves, neons colors spinning on the back of your eyelids as the vertigo sets in. It’s dark, and you’re trapped, stiff as the dead.
You spend a long time panicking, intense waves of claustrophobia and fears of death putting your brain through the ringer.
You eventually calm down. You’re still not dead. You’re still just frozen.
A second wave of fear sets in as you realize your brain, frozen or no, is still firing away. Where are you going to get the calories to feed that hungry brain? Not like your blood is pumping. Not like you’re eating anything for that blood to carry. It’s a very fleeting fear. You realize, maybe when your brain burns itself out, *then* you’ll finally fall into that damn cold sleep. You’re not really worried about the brain damage. Nerve repair is part of the thawing package, after all. They’ll fix you right up, good as new. There is a philosophical quandary attached; is that new brain repaired you still you? Would you notice? Or even care?
You realize, you sure don’t care now. Because this is the worst ‘sleep’ you’ve ever had.
Silence sets into your brain.
Ooh, is this it? Are you falling asleep now?
Wait, no dammit. No thinking. That’s probably what’s keeping you awake.
Thiiiink nooooothing....
Zzz
......
Still awake.
..............
This sucks.
You start counting sheep. You get to 62 before you realize this sucks again.
Bored. You start thinking about your favorite movie. This character, that character, the meaning of the plot and the direction the cinematography took.
Bored, you begin to zone out.
You begin to dream.
It’s clear as day, in vault of your mind. You watch your favorite film on the back of your eyelids, reviewing the details scene by scene. It moves at your pace, and focuses on what you like. You watch carefully the faces of every actor, hear their lines clearly enunciated. You skip the boring bits and review your favorite moments in glorious detail. The climax plays out in a hyper realism, better than you ever saw in real life, every detail exaggerated as your mind focused on them. You can see the grainy texture of the mortar between bricks, examine the sweat glands individually on the hero’s face, smell the mix of concrete dust and gun smoke grow thick in your lungs...
Wait.
It all snaps away. Reality sets in. You’re still frozen. There’s nothing but darkness and stillness around you. The hero’s one liner still echoes in your ears, slowly reduced to mumbling.
Aw hell, go back! Why’d you stop?
It takes a while, but eventually you sink in again. And awake again. And sink in again... You realize, finally, that when the mind has nothing external to focus on, the internal lights up like Time Square at Christmas.
And unlike real sleep, *you* are in control.
So you dream. A thousand, a hundred thousand impossible things. Your start was so pedestrian, just watching a film. You now *live* in the films. You’re the hero, you’re the villain, you’re the onlooker, you’re the god. You craft new insane endings and mash together absurd crossovers. You visit strange and bizarre places and taste alien foods. You feel blazing magic and electric science crackle down your veins. You meet the most beautiful beings warped into sensuous and sexual positions and... well actually, those dreams kindve suck. They just remind you of your real, dead, frozen genitals. You soon avoid those thoughts and dive into the wonderful breadth and length of the human imagination, endless fantasy from the mundane to the fantastic, yours to behold.
A light cuts through all of it. You’re dragged into a fleshy, heavy lump of a body. Blurry undefined humans smile at you in a place lacking color and substance. Your fingers twitch, trying to replace the dream. But you already know the truth. Your five hundred years are up. Reality has decided to pull you back in for a purpose you no longer remember.
You close your eyes and groan.
“Just five more minutes....”
|
Pure silence. A quiet more soundless than the empty page of an armless writer with nothing to say. A defending nothingness, in all directions, from this space here to the end of time.
*THUNDER*
A crack explodes in to existence. Cutting itself in to this world mercilessly. The violence roars in a mounting creshendo. Building somehow, impossibly louder, shaking the chamber. The metal rings, the glasses rumbles, the hardware, tubes, water, ice, all separate infinitely. The ground ripples in waves, vibrating through the walls. I feel no pain, but my mind is pulled so hard in every direction it fills all of the space allowed to it. I hate the sound. It sears though my being like lava boiling me alive.
Click.
I feel it all slow. The savage rush that filled my brain eats at my hope for relief. Every hiding spot illuminated. Every sanctuary demolished. The trail of destruction appears and the sounds trails off. In perfect contrast of the beginning, the end seems to revel in passing through. Like an endless army, slowly marching out of a demolished city. Bootsteps of destruction fading into the horizon.
The panic does not leave me. I left with every cell in my body clutching itself. For comfort? Or are they tying to rip themselves apart. Can it be both? My brain is hyperventalating. I can still hear it, barely, it is faint. Maybe I can still feel the sound. Can't it. How long has it been? Yes I think I can still hear it. Very soft, yes. It is getting quieter, for sure. I wonder when it will end. I try ro picl up the pieces of my mind.How far has it gone. The room seems to be still. Ah, the room. It looks much better still. My chamber too, is more comfortable still. The puzzle of myself slowly comes back together. What an ordeal that was. I feel my brain dust itself off. It wants to look at the devastation.
Only, there is none. The room is clean. The floor solid white, no cracks. No breaks on the walls. Fluorescent white in every inch. Except right in front of me, brown. A Michelangelo alone in a world of blank. A spec of glistening brown... It's a reflection. That's.. That's my eye. Glass?
My brain has seen enough, on to the arms, move this glass. Nothing... What is going on here... The puzzle clicks another piece. I've been here before. I've thought that before. And thste. And this. That wasn't a dream?
"Of course that wasn't a dream!"
"Who was that?"
"Me"
"Who are you? Where are you?"
"Great now he's scared!"
"Hahaha! Good we'll get a show this time!"
"Who are you people!? Why can I hear you!? "
"Hey how can you talk with you mouth closed?"
"Great, now you've done it... "
"WHO ARE Y-"
"YOU"
"You"
"You"
"You idiot"
"We're you honey"
"Welcome back."
"YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT! IF YOU HADN'T BEEN SUCH A WASTE OF A LIFE YOU WOULDN'T HAVE CHOSEN THIS!
"Jesus, someone put him back, this was going better than nor-"
"FUCK, IF ITS GOING TO SHIT ITS YOUR FAULT. MAYBE IF HE HAD MORE OF ME BEFORE THIS WE WOULDNT BE HERE! "
"Ignore him, he will mellow out, remember 15?
"Great idea, 15 will bring him aroud, this one could use-"
"Please... I.. I.. I can't.. "
"No, that's why we're here. Welcome home, buttercut."
"47, please start. I have places to be."
"Meet you from 30 years ago."
"Hey, it gets better, I'll show you some cool memories later. "
"That's you from 89 years ago there."
"Hey, sweetie, your doing great."
"I'm about 47, and the big guy there is 3 now."
"Usually we keep the young ones isolated until they aren't as volitile. That last tick must have really shaken things up."
"Yeah you had been meditating for months, almost get a new record!"
"You slipped at the end. You got too close to the quiet."
"It felt so good... "
"Felt good? Was it worth it? Youre not supposed to feel, youre supposed to be empty! Just be!"
"Let it go, you did the same thing.
"That was years ago, I thought he would have, I would have learned. Ahhh Fuck, FUCK FUCK! HOW LONG WAS THAT ONE?
"Probably years"
"499, probably"
"Seconds, maybe"
He joked, he sat in his mind with all of the puppets on his hands. Each one wearing a handful of their own puppets. Every axon and neuron and fiber of his being had created a toy to play with by now. He know every stich, every bolt, every smutty memory or fabrication. So many characters and stories he had long ago lost track of meaning of fables and every happily ever after played a lifetime of monotony that never ended, only began new stories. He wept, he laughed at himself, he fell asleep. Slumber remind him of alarms and he looked at the wall. The second hand of the clock would strike again at any moment. He stopped counting hundreds of years ago, or thousands, or yesterday. But he could enjoy the quiet for now.
The voices had muted and he savored the silence.
Pure silence.
| 2017-12-17T04:33:04
| 2017-12-17T02:36:12
| 80
| 11
|
[WP] It worked! You travelled back in time to Renaissance Age. Jokingly, you turn on your Wi-Fi, only to find a password protected network named "iɔniV ɒᗡ"
|
Day 1: Had a breakfast of Corn Flakes and borrowed dad's time machine. Zipped over to 1466 to check out Tuscan in Florence. Nice place. Just noticed I have WiFi. brb.
Day 2: OK turns out Vinci has municipal wireless internet. Cool. I'm going to see if I find out what's going on. Ate some bread and some salted tomatoes.
Day 3: Met Elon Musk. Turns out he made a generator and a static connection through time to the internet. Is there anything this guy can't do? Did the fanboy thing. Under the Tuscan sun and all that. Probably gushed a little too much. The air is wonderful. You don't realize how polluted the air is in 2018 until you leave it.
Day 5: Arrested for sodomy.
Day 10: Released. Musk gave Piero de' Medici some medication to help ease the pain of his gout. He was so thankful, he released us.
Day 12: Elon now calls me Elon, and I call him by my name, Kyle. I know this won't last, but I'll try to enjoy it while I can.
Day 15: Elon left. His work is done here. I'm a wreck. But in general, I feel as if I've come of age.
Day 16: I figure it might be time to do what I came here for, and experience the Renaissance. I ask around and find out Leonardo is in Milan. Damn it. Should have brought a car. And I need to get the time machine back to dad before the batteries die.
|
I pulled out my pipe and vaped, sucking in that Raspberry Ripple 70/30 whilst I surveyed the land.
Motherfucker.
I checked my phone again, just to make sure I wasn't imagining it and then set off to seek out whoever the hell Icniv Ad is... Was? Is.
It was pretty cool, vaping, walking through a market puffing as people examined my clothes and face - 'If anyone tries to talk to me, I'm just going to speak gobbledy gook and hope they think I'm a foreign merchant' - It seemed like a solid plan on that sunny ass day.
I turned into the alley the signal seemed to be emanating from and I carried on down past some big vases and some chickens, just clucking... Chillin'.
Man, next thing I know, I see a She-He through a window. I swear *down* that was an ugly lady. Shit, wait - Do I have to use PC terms in the 15th Century? 'Cause seriously, this motherfucker looked like zhe was about to sing 'Hope There's Someone' and win a Mercury Music Prize. Damn.
Zhe came out of the house, paintbrush in hand, odd little half smile on... Zit's(?) face...
I held up my phone to show zher the Wi-Fi signal,
"You Icniv?"
My Italian is shoddy, so I have to be honest, I did not understand a word of what came next - All I know is zhe seemed to think I was called 'Leonardo'.
No idea what the Ninja Turtles have to do with it, but there we go. Maybe I shouldn't have agreed to be my Brother-In-Law's lab rat. I mean, how is he going to bring me ba-
Oh. Well, I guess that's the end of that marriage...
"Hey Icniv, you haven't thought up a 15th Century Pornhub yet, have ya'?"
| 2018-03-02T06:25:20
| 2018-03-02T05:58:08
| 45
| 12
|
[WP] Humanity has been eradicated. As the alien race that killed us begins to settle they're shocked to discover that old Earth myths of spirits and demons are far from fiction. The Devil, pissed off at the aliens, has decided to open the gates of Hell and let humanity get its revenge.
|
What the aliens never understood was that hell was the repository of all human hatred, rage, contempt, and evil intent. And there were billions of humans down there, all waiting to unleash their vengeance. The pit of darkness that connected the underworld to the Earth opened up to reveal legions of legions, billions upon billions of demonic spirits pouring out like an ocean of rage through a compromised dam. Then the dam burst. At once there were billions more. No armor or weapons of any kind; just pure rage, hate, and malice.
At once, all the aliens were possessed by malevolent spirits. The very technology that so easily caused human extinction was turned against them. Their command watched in horror as every act of inhumanity ever committed by humans in their entire existence was visited upon their alien troops. Every torture humans ever devised, every atrocity, every act of evil humans had ever committed upon one another was now unleashed against the aliens. The result was terrifying.
Then the human spirits reached their ships. All their reserves turned upon themselves and each other. Some ships were sabotaged; their small nova flares scattered the fleet as their engines and power plants exploded. Others fired upon or rammed into each other, yet others were emptied of life, their blood soaked halls echoed the twisted violence and a fell malice that overthrows the alien mind permeated them from stem to stern. Their leaders forced to watch their own bodies writhing on the decks as a flood of memories of human terrors left them insensate and suffering seizures, their very own muscles breaking their beaks and bones. Every death more gruesome than the last. Their minds forced to watch, to feel, to experience the full depth and breadth of horror that was the human capacity for evil. They were driven insane, beyond insane, and driven even further into a kind of mental suicide to escape the tortures. Their very existence emptied and the vessel reprogrammed with all the human horrors indelibly burned into their every synapse.
Two ships managed to escape the carnage intact. On their way out, they left buoys hanging in space around the system. All transmitting a warning in every language and every form of communication the aliens knew. The warning was simple: This system is quarantined - do not attempt to enter. Do not approach. Any vessel seen leaving this system will be destroyed upon discovery, no exceptions.
The devil could not bring the human race back to life. But he would rule over the graveyard and await the opportunity to unleash his jihad upon the galaxy. He had time. Those buoys were not made to last forever. He and his servants had an eternity on their side.
He would only have to wait just short of a hundred and fifty thousand years. But that's a story for another time.
|
The first sign of trouble was when the ship's light cut off, bathing it in darkness. the Jar'ko engineers went to work right away. But then an eerie red-light began to emanate from strange runes in the metal and the whispers began. They were not a language; not the sense of a race's babbling; this was a language that should not have ever been, and yet was.
Then the screaming began. the Warrior-breed came from their armories, facing the gibbering horrors that poured from the holes. In-Jark'ko beauty's that became hideous and human tearing them apart, only to vanish with a single shot, great lurching behemoth's of rage and muscle tearing through sections of the ship, and the insane victims of the Daemonic voices turning nest-mates into madkos...
It was then when Commander Keal'as heard the hard thunk of a boarding pod on the side of the ship when he realized this was no mere incursion; this was a raid. He made his way to the captian's room, hoping that the Self destruct systems where still operational as the Imps, the snarling, spiteful little things scampered around the room, tearing into this brothers and sisters around him.
On his four legs, the Jar'ko commander ran, opening the door to see it mostly intact. his three nostrils sighed in relief as he went over and tapped the button.... nothing happened.
"We have come for you." The voices said, and they were leigon.
The room shifted into a charnel house; the green blood of his kind slathered the metal decking, viscera can still beating organs grew from the cracks. The Naval-breed was cut opened, scarificed by the human witch before him now.
Humans were once bi-pedal mammals. But thier connection to the Spirit world made them too dangerous to be left alive...
"And now you will find out why."
She was ugly; three eyes glowing yellow in the dim red light, a face, one face the ugly, mammalian ape, the other the sign of her race's descent into Ash-Gala; a snarling face that matched the other only in it's ugliness; it was too soft, but looked like the harden exo-skeleton crudely bashed into reptilian features. Her right arm was a mass of scales, tentacles and flesh and it shot out to hold him down to the floor.
He roared and tore at them with the Armor's claws, but it was too late, he felt it melt, the hat searing into his plates, but the pain only began as she began to remove his scales, plate by plate... it was maddening.
"Die, miserable, disgusting monster."
\----
The ship fully corrputed, the crew scarified and replaced by demonic masters, Janis smiled to herself. the souls of her people came in, the human form returning takes to the mass sacrifice of the crew. Hell left nothing unchanged, nor the Angels nor the souls...
"The Long war is not over... but we make way to their home world." Her assistant, the Cyber-daemon Solomon said with a large, fagged grin. "Human... you did well."
"I had a good teacher, what can i say?" She chuckled. "But the crew should get used to this... tell command that to ship us thier souls when ready... Jar'ko fear has such an.. interesting flavor."
"It will be done."
"For The Lowerarchy and Lost Terra..." She replied.
| 2020-09-18T08:58:41
| 2020-09-18T08:43:13
| 48
| 22
|
[WP]"This is how it works," Death explained. "You pick the game and we play. Cheating is allowed, but if either one of us is caught by the other, they lose. If you win, you'll wake up back in the hospital and I'll give you another 10 years. If you lose then it's time for judgement. Understood?
|
"Then I'll choose Tic Tac Toe!" I said confidently.
Death drew a glowing tic tac toe board suspended in mid air and grew a devilish smile. "Fine, go ahead and start", he said with a whisper of a voice.
An hour passed by, with no moves made. "Are you not going to do anything!?" Death shouted annoyed.
"Nope," I answered satisfied that I had enraged death itself. "Can't lose if you don't play,"
|
“You got it?”
The question takes me off guard, I’m still trying to process this new info. The tall man with the black hooded cloak at the end of my bed tilted his head slightly, the scythe that rested in the crook of his arm caught the moonlight ominously.
“Sorry, this outfit does normally startles people. How’s this?”
His form shimmered and before me stood an old gentleman with immaculately manicured whiskers and a twinkle in His eye. His tweed suit with matching trilby in stark contrast to His previous outfit. He adjusted his grip on His suspiciously scythe-like curved cane.
“Ahh, less doom and gloom now. Gotta keep up appearances though,” He indicated His cane, ”So how’s that choice of game coming along?”
The question was delivered with considerably less dread attached than the previous proposition. More like that of certain playful gods from the pantheons rather than Death come to claim you.
A small whoosh of breath escaped my lips. A decision has to be made. This body of mine was considerably less spry than my younger years, and nor was my mind functioning at full capacity. What game could I choose and what chance did I have, it seemed like anything was on the table. Did I even want to win? I had lived a full life, I tried to be kind, a good person, I saw the world, I loved my family. Did I need more of that if He has decided it was my time?
Resolved, I look up at Him. He smiled broadly, a smile of a man confident in himself “What shall it be, a game of strength, of skill, or perhaps of wits?”
“A game of chance perhaps,” I responded, his smile broadening to one of pure glee.
“Now this, should be interesting.”
| 2018-03-07T06:43:50
| 2018-03-07T02:57:36
| 72
| 46
|
[WP]Tell me an emotional story about a man, using only what he would type into Google search
|
How to ask a girl on a date.
How to ask a girl on a cheap date.
How to ask a girl to coffee.
How to ask girl on date after rejection.
How to get girl to like me.
How to disengage home alarm.
How to disengage home alarm without knowing code.
Are garages alarmed?
How to enter house through garage.
How to enter house through garage +quietly.
Where to buy security cameras.
Where to buy small security cameras.
How to install security cameras.
How to install hidden security cameras.
How to install hidden security cameras +webfeed.
Can the police track my webfeed?
How to hide from police.
How to survive in jail.
|
Why is the sky blue?
How far away is Uranus?
Why do mom and dad fight so much?
How to impress girls
Porn
Good date ideas
Porn
Where can I get the morning after pill?
How do I know when I should propose?
Good proposal ideas?
Cheap engagement rings
How to be a good parent
How to tell your parents they're grandparents
Good girl names
Ways to comfort your wife
How do I tell people we had a miscarriage?
Good boy names
Death of spouse support groups
Painless ways to kill yourself
| 2015-02-04T20:18:04
| 2015-02-04T16:12:00
| 50
| 23
|
[WP] Everyone is born with blond hair. A person's hair turns brown when they lose their innocence.
Edit: Loving all of these takes, guys! Definitely a lot darker than I expected!
|
Most children had their hair change around the age of 13 or 14, some older, some younger. Those who had their hair change at extreme ages on either end were usually mocked, but for the most part, we as a society saw the change as a charming rite of passage. Some experience the pigment switch when they first had sex, others didn't until their first break up. The one or two children at my school who had a parent die, their hair changed the same night of the death. From what I understand, the death of a loved one will always cause the blonde hair of youth to turn to the dark tresses of adulthood.
I myself was a bit of a late bloomer, my hair didn't change colors even when I was almost done with my schooling. It wasn't from lack of trying, for I had dark skin and I always thought that the blonde hair looked strange with my complexion, however nothing I did seemed to change it. Not after sex with my first boyfriend (nor the second or the third), getting my first job, or even the death of my aunt, although admittedly we weren't close.
I didn't have much time to worry about it though, because at the end of my schooling, my mother was in a serious car accident. She lived, but sustained serious damage to her body and brain. She had to have her hand amputated, and she wasn't the same. My father remained stoic as ever, and dolled out household responsibilities between me and my younger sister, also still blonde, while he took over as main caretaker for my mother.
Each day passed, and my mothers hair became streaked with white. Unlike the sunshine kissed color of childhood, regaining "innocence" once it had already been lost was an empty, blank color, like a projection screen. Her language had deteriorated, and her actions became base and simplistic. The woman who once took care of me, once again became a child who needed taken care of.
At first my family lived in denial. The doctors had told us that while the chances were slim, there was a possibility that she could eventually regain her cognitive abilities. For weeks my sister and I treated our mother as normally as possible, as if she had only injured herself, helping her bathe and eat as she had once done for us. We continued to take her out in public, and ignored the stares.
Despite our hopefulness, our fathers face grew more grim by the day.
One day while he was at work, my sister had left the house to meet with some friends. My mother and I were left alone and I realized that I had forgotten to pick up the pot roast I needed to cook for dinner. I guided my mother into the car and drove to the grocery store, praying that she would not have another outburst as she had become prone to doing.
We hurried into the grocery store, and I could sense she was becoming restless. I picked out the meat at the deli section, and tried to placate her while we waited.
My mother was not cooperating. She began to cry, and pull at my hair with the hand that remained, her distress manifesting itself in a loud wail, drawing the attention of the other shoppers and the deli workers. Despite the obvious meltdown on the horizon, I was determined to accomplish the simple task we had come there for, so I allowed her to crumble at my feet while I paid for the meat, the worker looking at me with a disturbed face.
I shoved the bag into my large purse, and angrily picked my mother up by the arm, all but dragging her out of the store while she sobbed like a child, over what I couldn't guess at. I had allowed my frustration to get to me, and for once I didn't attempt to stop her tears.
As I buckled her in the back seat, ignoring her tantrum, I turned to glance around me, hoping no more people were witnessing the embarrassment in the parking lot. My eye caught the passenger side rearview mirror, and I finally realized the the source of my mothers tantrum, which had certainly been much worse than usual.
My hair had changed from a golden blonde to a jet black color, darker than even my fathers. I reflected upon the deli workers look of shock at the counter and realized the stares that my mothers tantrum had attracted were not only looking at her, but also myself.
Exhaling, I prepared myself for my fathers reaction as I got into the drivers seat and drove us home, my mother whimpering in the backseat. Normally I would have tried to comfort her, however this time I just couldn't bring myself to focus on her. Too much had happened today.
My sister wouldn't be long behind me. Now that we were the mothers and she was the child, we couldn't be innocent any longer.
|
"Hey mark, mind taking care of this?"
"Sure!" I turn smiling towards him. I'm the only guy in the office who still has blonde hair after all these years, people called me ignorant, and I had been taken advantage of more times than I could count. And that was fine, I didn't really care. It still bothered me that they thought I was ignorant of the evils of the world though. I had probably been more exposed than most--this platinum hair signaling my gentle nature-- I just didn't let it bother me, in fact nothing really bothers me. I guess for this reason I'm weird, but I can always see the other person's side, no matter how bad it gets-- A true objective, and I just can't bring myself to strike back.
So through all these years I had endured beatings, cheating spouses, isolation, and I didn't care because I could rationalize anything.This is a story about the day I lost my blonde hair.
| 2014-05-10T17:00:37
| 2014-05-10T16:16:39
| 158
| 18
|
[WP]: There is a special place in Hell for english teachers. Not because they had any more tendency for evil than anyone else, but because there are so many subtle ways to torture them that wouldn't bother anyone else.
|
Even before the car hit the barrier, I knew where I was going. When I opened my eyes again, I wasn't drunk anymore. I was looking around at a room that closely resembled my high school English classroom, except the guy sitting at my desk gauging my reaction was indubitably a devil. I wasn't surprised to be in Hell. I wasn't particularly nice in life. For fun, I splashed people on the side of the road, and drank lots of vodka. (At the same time, leading to the current situation.) At work, I took a gleeful pride in being an old battleaxe. Most of my students hated me for my strictness, high expectations and complete lack of interest in updating my teaching style to cater to there electronic drivel.
I frowned. Something was wrong. The devil shot me a sly smile. "Some thing.. wrong?" He murmured. The words seemed to float above his head like bubbles.
"Their should of been a comma," I muttered. The words came out different than I had intended. I gasped in shock. "I meant should of-" I stopped abruptly. "I can't say any thing right here?" I questioned. I looked above my head. Yep. Uncorrect.
The devil grinned gleefully. "Your quick too understand," he crowed.
"This is defiantly diabolical," I admitted. "There's not much fewer things you could do that wood really bother a English teacher."
"They're is nothing you can do about it!" The devil taunted.
"You and me will have two disagree about that. Its going to take alot more then that to effect me," I informed him. "I also taught middle school. Nothing you do can face me!" I reached into my pocket, where I kept my trusty red pen. I new what had to be done. It just made cents. I had been cent here to continue my relentless campaign of nit picking.
The devil started too look concerned. "Were did you get that?" he demanded, backing a way from me. "That's not allowed!"
I grinned in triumph as I slashed at the air above his head, correcting his blatant mistakes. He fell back, screaming as though dowsed with holy water. "Get the weapon!" He shouted, to what would normally be the third floor English hall way, but was suspiciously on fire and smelled strongly of sulphur.
"Do your worse, demon," I bellowed, brandishing the red pen.
A fourteen year-old girl strolled in. From her clothes, makeup, disinterested look and focus on her phone, she could of been anyone of my students in the last few years. "This place is figuratively the worst!" she stated.
"You mean figuratively-" I automatically corrected, then came up short, confused. Usually, I corrected my students the other way- no,it is not figuratively- ah- fuck- I meant figuratively - you know what I'm trying to think- But wait... Isn't it? Actually? Isn't Hell figuratively- goddamnit- the worst? I fell to my knees, screaming "WHYYYYYYYY"
Sincerely, Literally that person who gets very upset when people say literally when they mean figuratively
|
Well I can't say I have any honest clue as to what goes on down there, all I know is that I'm in heaven and I'm typing out short stories I did back in high school right? I type it out, God prints it, puts it in a tube and sends it to hell, and I hear a trillion screams of pain all at once that lasts for about 15 minutes.
That's my heaven and fuck every English teacher that ever believed MLA format matters anything to me.
| 2018-08-08T16:29:17
| 2018-08-08T15:56:08
| 40
| 25
|
[WP] You find a copy of The Sims 5 at a used video game store. You decide to buy it and try it out. Slowly, unscripted and non programmed events start to happen. You realize that you're actually controlling a real family.
|
I kicked my legs up and got comfy, placing the keyboard on my lap and starting up the game. I'd been playing Sims 5 everyday now for the past three years. At first, when I saw it there in the used PC games section I thought it was a joke. I couldn't find any mention of it on Steam, there wasn't hundreds of dollars of DLC discs that I knew of, just a used game that apparently didn't exist. On sale for a dollar.
I bought it on a whim. It was just a dollar, what did I have to lose? It was probably a copy of the original Sims just re-wrapped to trick people. Probably someone hoping I'd post a picture of it on reddit asking "Who did this?"
I destroyed four families before I realized it wasn't a game.
When I booted it up, the graphics were next-gen. Better than next gen, actually, which surprised me since my PC couldn't run Sims 3 without occasional lag. There was no longer a create-a-sim option, just a selection list, a search function or a "Select Random Family" button. And there weren't any made up towns anymore, the game was *global*. I could select families in China, the U.S, Australia... I thought they were just going for that "progressive diversity" thing they started with the whole gender update in Sims 4 and thought nothing of it. The only difference was a coloured difficulty rating for each family. Families in China had a difficulty ranging from Green to Orange depending on where they were, American first world families rarely dropped below Yellow difficulty while third world families rarely got better than an Orange rating.
I shrugged and went with easy. I chose a family from my home town just for giggles. They tanked right away. I accessed the cheat console to find out if 'Motherlode' still worked, which it did, and proceeded to try to deck out the house. By the next day police appeared and arrested the father on suspicion of tax fraud. It confused me at first but I figured it was some sort of cheat detection thing. The next family went a little smoother. Apparently there was the option to access bank accounts and direct money into offshore accounts that prevented my Sims from being arrested, so I took full advantage of it.
This was a family had no kids, so I quickly started trying to max their stats I quit their jobs and made the wife run non-stop on the treadmill to build cardio, accessing the debug menu to keep her mood maxed. I had the husband sit in front of his laptop and write novels all day, hoping to max out the revenue so I'd rely less on Motherlode for money.
The were dead in three days. A notification told me it was dehydration.
That was when the game started to annoy me. Why would they limit cheating? It made no sense! I tested another two families before giving up for the evening. Too much was different. Building extensions to homes required builders, which too time even if you sped the game to it's highest in-game speed so I demolished the whole house out of spite and found another family. I decided to test what would get me killed with that one. It was a wife, husband and a teenage son & daughter.
I placed the son in his room, deleted the windows and doors and maxed the mood. Dead from dehydration in three days. I did the same to the daughter, but this time I didn't max out moods. It was the usual. Stamping, screaming, wetting themselves, but it got too real and intense. Now they wouldn't just wet themselves, there was defecation. There was pounding and screaming on the walls *seriously* debuffed the mood of the parents. I ended up maxing the moods just so she'd die a little quieter.
The weirdest part at the time was that the bodies wouldn't disappear and turn into urns. Apparently there was a whole body disposal system now. I tried to build a door to the rooms, but a warning appeared.
*Warning: Calling in other Sims while the bodies of Sims that have died due to negligence are present may result in arrest. Do you want to call in other Sims or would you like your Sims to attempt to complete this task. Skill training in repair affects success.*
I shrugged. It made sense, so I made the parents demolish the wall and removed static moods to see what the effect would be. The moment they found the son they both plummeted in mood. The mother wouldn't stop crying over the body and the father ignored all commands and started knocking down the wall to the daughters room. When he found her body the screen flashed.
*One of your Sims is suffering a mental break: Homicidal Rage.*
I laughed at that. Apparently EA was ripping off RimWorld now. I watched the father calmly walk over to a liquor cabinet, take a drink and then unlock a gun safe I didn't even realize was there. He then went over to his wife and shot her pointblank in the back of the head.
I stopped giggling.
He then went to his laptop, wrote for a moment, and then shot himself. I shut off the game. That was just taking things too far. This obviously had to be some fan game, there was no way EA would include something like that. I shook it off, had a beer to take the bad taste out of my mouth and went to bed.
It was at work the next day that I got the news. A family that had apparently locked their children away, letting them die of dehydration. The cops had been alerted to gunfire the previous evening finding that the husband had killed himself and his wife in an apparent murder-suicide. My hometown was in shock. Me? I was in a daze. I started googling the names of the previous Sims I had played. One was arrested two days earlier on suspicions of tax fraud, another couple was found dead under mysterious circumstances. One was suing a construction company for completely demolishing their home.
It was like I'd found the Death Note. I was dumbfounded. Was I a murderer? Had I killed those people? The reports said this had happened several days ago, so how could that be? And the bodies...
I stopped.
The Grim Reaper had collected their souls just like the other games. That couldn't have been real, could it? I excused myself from work and went home, claiming illness, and just cried. I cried for hours. I couldn't decide whether to tell anyone or not. Who would believe me? Eventually tears gave way to laughter. I had to be imagining things, didn't I? There was no way that I could have so much...
Power. I had *power*.
Suddenly I needed to know more.
------------------------------
**To Be Continued.**
|
After observing for what only seems like a short amount of time, The family is so dysfunctional, angry, and full of hate that after many long years and countless hours spent observing this freak of nature that is the family you finally discover you picked up a dvd copy of all the Malcolm in the Middle episodes.
| 2016-12-03T13:05:21
| 2016-12-03T11:40:29
| 52
| 11
|
[WP] All the alien species in the intergalactic council excelled in one way or another to climb through survival of the fittest. So why are humans, a species with average physique, so hard to deal with? And what the hell is persistence hunting.
|
Day 32
&#x200B;
It's been 32 cycles. 32 whole cycles, and still the chase continues. We won't last any longer. Half the squad has given up and surrendered, while the other half has been gradually picked out and killed. Commander Ydrevous has ordered me, Captain Xsimoth, to write our final words and warnings. Fellow brethren, and all other alien species that may receive this message, this is our warning. Do not invade the Sol System.
&#x200B;
When we first encountered the humans, it was the opinion of the Galactic Council to classify them as a subservient species. No one could fathom why the humans, with their weak, fragile bodies, could become the prime species on their planet. They lacked shells, tails, claws, anything that would give them an advantage in a fight. But there is a reason why they have risen to the heights they are at now.
&#x200B;
Humans may not have weapons for body parts, but they have one thing more than every other species. That trait is their persistence. Long ago, before humans achieved the technological progress they have today, their hunters would spend weeks chasing down prey. It is this trait that we are warning the galaxy against.
&#x200B;
Persistence hunting. That's what they call it. Every day, they would come at us, attacking from within their concrete and natural jungles. Every attack would cost them multiple casualties, while we lost very few. But the attacks never stopped. Every hour, every minute, there was a possibility of soldiers emerging from every direction, attacks from every angle, traps at every corner. They never gave up, no matter how many losses we inflicted on them, no matter the weapons we pulverized them with. They just kept coming, and coming, and coming.
&#x200B;
And the effect it had on us was terrible. Our men grew discouraged. Many fell ill with stress, unable to withstand the constant pressure. Every attack, every foray had a chance of us losing a brother-in-arm. Eventually our soldiers became tired, weighed down by the effect such unrelenting foes. How could we beat such demons, they told each other, when nothing we do seems to deter or slow them down?
&#x200B;
That is the power of the humans. Not their physical strength, nor their technological or cultural advances, but rather their mental attitude in resisting colonization. Their unrelenting march towards eradicating us. Their persistence, never witnessed before by the galactic community.
&#x200B;
Tomorrow, we will attempt a last foray towards our last known spaceship. If we fail, or we find that it too has been destroyed, then we shall lay down our arms and send each other to the Beyond. Let our bodies, laid out on the rocky soil of Earth, serve as a warning to all species in the Galactic Council.
&#x200B;
Do not offend the humans.
====================================================
&#x200B;
Check out r/17Stories for more of my work!
|
The arena itself was over a thousand miles square. It was the largest arena in the western Zyraxian realm. It was built to hold the universe’s most exotic species. The floating platform had within tens of thousands of rooms with thousands of species managed and researched. The floor of the arena itself was made of a special material which could transfer into and mimic virtually any environment imaginable.
It could mimic the great iron oceans in which the Threads of San’thras, the sea serpents from that planet, would battle and consume whole legions of Zyraxian prisoners of war. There was the beasts of Bode’s gate, with their galactically famous eighty-seven rows of teeth and claws which can tear through even the toughest Zyraxian armor.
The Zyrax empire selected citizens at a young age to be an arena keeper. Curating the events, taking care of the species, completing the research. The Zyrax empire was at their zenith. Extravagance like this would not last and, in many ways, would eventually lead to their downfall.
Zan’Tharr the Third Light, considered to be one of the greatest of their emperors, who brought in the era of Thyrinian Peace while also building the galactic wall of Junisar along the Butterfly nebula, was the emperor to lay the ground works for the arena. Three hundred years later and the public works project was completed in the reign of his son, Zynar the Fourth Light.
The arena was seen within the empire as a display of their greatness, their manifest destiny within the universe. At this current point in time, the borders of the Zyraxian empire was expanding at almost a parsec across every Zyraxian year.
Some of the wealthy and elite Zyraxian would actually participate in the arena—that is, of course, when they knew the distinct advantage was on their side. It was seen as a great honor and a way to spotlight yourself in front the emperor and his cohort. There had been many ambitious Zyraxian who made their social climb this way.
And of course, there were prisoners within the empire, those who were convicted of high crimes, that would be sent within the arena to fight against the never-ending flood of species the Empire pulled into their chambers.
Today there was a great crowd for a particularly special species was brought. A curiously small… yet surprising hardy and tough species. The word had passed along from Zyraxian to Zyraxian that this would be a special event. That there was a species on the outer fringe of the Zyrax empire which warranted special attention.
“Bring out the humans!” the council leader called.
*Part II Below*
| 2021-02-04T09:02:10
| 2021-02-04T08:53:25
| 846
| 406
|
[WP] Four people are dancing in sync with each other. It's beautiful, and haunting, and totally impossible. You are watching traffic cams from Dubai, Italy, South Africa, and Peru.
|
"Johnson, take a look at this."
"What is it, Smith?"
"Look at these four. Across the world from each other, but all in sync. How is that possible?"
"This again? Look at their moves, Smith. Mostly your standard club stuff, but with subtle Spanish touches. It's just Despacito. Fucking song's everywhere."
"Oh."
|
Their arms and legs moved in sync, their eyes staring off into the distance. Traffic was stopped around all four of them, the drivers transfixed as well.
And all four of them were in four different countries.
It was baffling. *What is happening?* Nothing explainable, at least. Four people couldn't be more in sync. It was as if they were all next to each other, mirroring one another's movements. They had absolutely nothing in common other than the dancing, as far as I could tell. My computer monitor, usually filled with monotonous drivers and the occasional cop, was only filled with dancers. *Is this some kind of flash mob?* I wondered. *A flash mob on four corners of the earth.*
"Uh, boss?" I finally called out. The director of the NSA walked over to me.
"What is it?"
"Well, uh, take a look at these."
"Ok, some type of flash mob, right?"
"Well," I started, unsure of how to elaborate. "This one's in Dubai, this one's in Italy, this one's in South Africa, and this one's in Peru." My boss' eyes widened.
"How is that possible?"
"Well, I don't know, sir, that's the thing. That level of synchronization isn't possible even if they were all together..." My boss muttered something about needing to make a call. I, transfixed, stared at the traffic cam footage.
All of a sudden, the dancers stopped dancing. "Sir!" I yelled for my boss. The four of them looked right into the traffic cam, their eyes oddly illuminated, and smiled.
I felt my body get up from my desk. The four dancers started dancing again, and I joined them, my arms moving of their own volition. My mind started to cloud over, and I smiled.
| 2017-10-06T20:57:46
| 2017-10-06T16:45:13
| 249
| 72
|
[WP] There are many types of Mages in the world. Fire, Ice, Wind, Water, Death, Darkness, to name a few. But in this world, every type of mage is treated as equal. Everyone can be a good guy, no matter how dark your power. And anyone could be a bad guy, no matter how beautiful their ability...
Edit: Wow
I'm not even sure, this is not the prompt I expected to more than double my other highest, or get gold! Thank you so much!
|
There once was a mage from North Bergen,
Who wove spells of healing like sermons.
Each Sunday at 10
Before women and men,
She swore to relieve what was hurtin'.
Before long her name became famous
To her, self-promotion was shameless
"If more people are healed
By the power I wield,
What right do I have to stay nameless?"
She slept, at the peak of her power,
In a glistening, glamorous tower.
She helped all she could,
If the money was good,
But soon her spells began to sour.
A wound that, once healed, now would rot.
The sick would not get what they bought.
For greed kills all things,
And ruin, it brings,
If this simple rule is forgot:
"A terrible curse be upon
One who uses a spell or a song
To increase one's own stock
Beyond that of the flock.
Fail and all of your spells will go wrong."
The healer had fattened her chests,
And each evening ate only the best,
But she paid for it all,
When the curse came to call,
To rip her from her gilded nest.
|
The world had fallen. Chaos ran rampant through ruined streets, demolished buildings scattered across the landscape. People ran from crumbled wall to crumbled wall, avoiding each other in fear. A child, crying, is silenced as a burning ball hurls into a building, engulfing everything within.
Not many survived the fall, the mages had fought each other across the globe. Raining down the elements and more upon innocents. Yet, not a single one of them cared. There were no more heroes. There were no more villains. Just mindless, angry, mages with a vendetta against one another. Now, the few that remained ruled over their little cloisters of humans. Most of the fighting had stopped, but even now, as desolation covered the world, they would run into one another, and fight. Trying to prove themselves. Raining more death onto innocents.
Alone, in the ruin, rising far above all else, shining still despite the destruction, stood a single tower. It had once been known as the Eiffel Tower, and no-one dared touch it. Built into the top was a single suite, large, yet conforming to the contours of the tower itself.
Inside, upon a golden throne, she sat. The self-proclaimed Aphrodite. Something only the strongest mages did was to name themselves after god's. No-one had noticed her in the beginning. After all, she was just a plain, boring woman. Her hair was a dull brown, draped shoulder-length, carelessly and unkempt. With brown eyes set with a somewhat larger nose between, on a face roughened by working too much in the sun, barely anyone gave her a second glance.
No-one really knew how strong a mage with power over Love would be. What should have been a kind, beautiful power, turned leaders against each other, mage on mage, nation on nation. All in the name of love.
So now she sat, watching the world that had once ruined her heart, fall to ruin itself. Where she had once been cast aside and ignored, so was everyone else in the attempt to prove their undying love to her. And it felt good.
| 2016-11-12T11:01:29
| 2016-11-12T10:14:05
| 80
| 28
|
[WP] Your boss told you not to press the flashing red button. Your coworker told you not to push the flashing red button. The big book on the desk says don't push the flashing red button. There's even a sign that says "Never push the flashing red button." But still...
|
Dear Dary,
I went with mom today to the building she stays at. She says she works there at day. She said I get to go with her today. I was super ecsited! I walked into the building and got to ride a ellievatore. We went all the way up to the top floor!
There were super huge doors I could see into! Mom took me to her big table. She sits there all day and works there.
On the table there was a huge button! It was flasheing on and off and then on and off a bunch of times. I really wanted to tuch it, but mommy said no.
She told me that under no sirkumstances could I ever ever touch it. So I didn't touch it. But all day long it was blincing and blincing. And I really wanted to tuch it.
But mommy said no, so I said no to my hans. I cud not tuch the button.
Then mommy waked away. She said she wud get us lunch. Yum! Before she lef, she said not to tuch the button! And I said no! I will not tuch the button!
But then she was gone. I didn't tuch the button. But then she was gone loner and loner and I tuched the button. I didn't want to!
Then a lot of brights started flaseing and flasheing, and that's all I rememer. It got super hard to see! I cudn't see aniting.
Then I tride to go to sleep. I told me hed No! I canot go to sleep now! But I relly wanted to go to sleep. So I lade down and took a nap. Then I wok up here!
I don't know were here is. I don't like here. I want mommy. The man in the cote said mommy will com soon. I hope she dose.
Mia
Age 6
|
But still, but still.... What happens nobody ever tells me anything. They tell me its one of the most important jobs. But i feel like a joke. Day in day out, i look at that button it never stops flashing. Taunting me, laughing at me, making a fool out of me. It is slowly getting to me. Everyday chipping away at me. At the end of my shift i get to talk to John, he does not mind the button. But how? The button my LIFE is the button. How is his life not about the button? I am going to press the button. I am telling myself this everyday. But everyday, i cant do it. I want to know what happens, i just cant imagine. But what if something good happens, but what if something bad happens. It is all what if, what if. That is the end of another day and there is John again. I once just went to the hallway and look for an hour to see what John does with his day. And indeed he just sits there without a care in the world looking blankly at the flashing. I am still think about quiting this job. I Just cant i need to know. But i dont want to know. But i want to know. I am getting crazier by the day. But am i getting crazier or is it the button doing this. I want to know. But i cant. What if what if. What if i save humanity, what if i end humanity. What if what if. In going to press the button. A knock on the door. Here is John again. I need to know. Why does John not want know. Maybe he knows. Why is he so peacefull about is. He needs to know. What if what if, its only me that needs to know. Im going to press it. But what if what if. I cant press the button. What if what if. There is John again. "John, do you know?". " Do i know what?". "You know the button." "I know the button, you should not press it." John knows, he knows and does not want to tell. He knows i want to know. I need to know but he keeps it from me. I am going to press the button. But what if, what if. I need to know. Im going to press the button. There the taunting flashing. Its over i am going to know. I need to know, i need to know. But what if, what if. There is security why are they here how do they now, i need to know. "Why are you taking me away?". "I need to know!". The desk is Red with John. Almost pressed the button. I need to know. I pressed the button. Now i KNOW, I KNOW.......
| 2020-12-17T07:30:09
| 2020-12-17T07:29:58
| 80
| 52
|
[WP] The goblins who dwell just outside your village are small and dumb –in an oddly endearing way. The villagers humor their innocuous raids and sometimes even give them advice. In the village’s darkest hour, the goblins send aid.
|
"We are beneath you."
So few sentences were understandable from the village's goblins, what with their propensity for high-speed speech and wild gesticulation. Their culture left them mostly mute, pantomiming their interests - this-for-that trade; simple purchases with ancient coins; the odd bit of volunteer effort which tended to be abandoned midtask.
Still, they kept the rat population within tolerable levels and could design simply beautiful tapestries at such a low price that every hut and home had at least one of them to show for it.
No matter what transpired whenever they would break a rule or law, they always offered the same simple, uncluttered defense: "We are beneath you."
As if they accepted their social position with a perverse degree of pride and zeal.
Then came the stories from refugees and survivors, of a great horde of brutal, cruel barbarians. The Red Shield clan, renowned and feared for their style of governance over occupied territories. We prepared for a grand migration and before we could move our paltry five-hundred souls to the relative safety of our ancestral territory in the Deepivy Woods, where we once outlasted three kings in succession.
Then the word came back to us that we had taken too long with our debate and discussion on the issue. The barbarians were at our gates.
Then we saw the dark miracle.
The very earth churned below the horde camp, turning from muddy dirt into a thin, watery mix of clay and topsoil, and the first screams were not of the warriors but of their horses.
Lines of them began to sink into the earth, first to their knees, then their flanks and finally they were swallowed whole, the screams of men and women joining the muted chorus.
Not a single barbarian survived being entombed alive by the vengeful dirt, eaten whole, no enemy in sight.
Not until it was dawn of the next day and we saw them.
All around the village wall, standing shoulder to shoulder, over six thousand goblin stood, bearing picks, shovels and buckets, grinning madly.
Then the chief of their tribe stepped in front of the gates and addressed us, no menace to his tone, simply that warm, gracious expression. The one which conveyed gratitude for our permissive culture of acceptance and the denial of the general hatred of the goblins. We had been outcasts ourselves, after all, so we refused to turn them away as a matter of course.
He said, and those words echoed forward and back in time for us all...
"We are beneath you."
|
The villagers thought that they were very cute, cute like a pug . Many strange and wonderful things could be found in the mountains where the goblins lived. The villagers never really knew, but suspected chaotic magic was at work because the evil goblins that had terrorized the village for generations were now a cross between a child goblin and a fairy. They could almost fly, but it was more like hopping really high. And their language skills had deteriorated into giggles and one syllable words.
The cute goblin fairies would hop around the village and steal whatever they found on window seals, then scamper back to the mountains. The food was baked for the goblin fairies, but the villagers never let on. It was a happy co-existence. To the villagers, it was like having a new type of pet- dogs, cats, ferrets and goblin fairies.
But, danger hides in the places where villagers can never go. Underground, in the dark caves no human ever wandered, morlocks multiplied like bunnies. Humans, morlocks and goblins had been mortal enemies of one another since the beginning of time. Balance was achieved from the constant wars between morlocks, goblins and humans.
Then came a day, when the morlocks returned to raid the village. They were a horde, a number so great that they surrounded the village in a circle 20 morlock deep. The village defenses were effective, but would not hold against such a large troop. The brave villagers fought with all the power they had. Yet, the morlocks advanced in superior numbers.
At noon, as always, the goblin fairies came hopping down the mountain for their lunch, and were met with spears and scimitars. They were slaughtered. Only a few goblin fairies survived and ran to the mountain crying “Mommy, Help, Mommy.” Out from one of the larger caves strode a massive hobgoblin. The hobgoblin was 10 feet tall and dressed in the colors of the rainbow with a rose wreath about its head, a massive staff in one hand and a book in the other. The steps of the hobgoblin shook the mountain side and the valley below. The morlocks turned to face their new enemy and charged with a fury never seen. But, before the morlocks reached the edge of the mountain, the hobgoblin opened the book, raised its staff to the sky, and sung a strange song.
*Fear and death and doom blow away in the wind . Today we will have fun and fly in the sky. Today, dear morlocks you will be butterflies to live in fields of flowers.*
Just then, the morlocks sprouted antennae from their heads, and bright beautiful wings from their backs. The morlocks tried to take to the sky to find flowers to rest upon. But the best they could do was hop really high.
The hobgoblin closed the book, shaking its head and said, "Oh, not again! That spell is rubbish!"
| 2022-05-26T10:23:00
| 2022-05-26T09:36:40
| 34
| 22
|
[WP] You live in an ancient world, when someone turns 18, they will receive a gift either magic or weapon. The gift will be of use for them whenever in need. On your 18th birthday, Death knocks on your door and give you his scythe.
|
This scythe emanates an inexplicable energy. It resonates with the souls of thousands, as though struggling to escape its confines. It is an artifact of unspeakable power, and I have no clue as to why I am its master now. All I know is that Death, in his mysterious ways, sneaked up to the door of my hovel one night and left the scythe in my hands as I struggled to remain awake.
Then it hits me. I have just turned 18.
The 18th gift, as society calls it, is a monumental occasion in everyone's lives. They get a special gift to help them in need, be it mystical or mundane, and almost always a weapon. People my age have received bows, swords, spears and the like, but usually as a family heirloom. It's usually what keeps peasants like myself going, to know that whenever we need it, there is a weapon for every man and woman.
The familiar bell tolls from the lord's manor. It's time for us peasants to get to work. Today is the harvest season, and we are to collect the field's blessings. Some of it will go to us, a lot of it will go to the lord, but extra food is a small price to pay for protection. This feudal system has existed forever and it will never die.
I stare at my old scythe, dulled and bent from overuse. I look at the new gift, as light in weight as it is dark in shade, and elect to try the scythe of Death today.
The other peasants stare, affixed, by the scythe as I carry it onto the field, some eventually screaming and turning away. Perhaps they see something in it that I don't. Perhaps their relatives' deaths, writhing in agony, are forever reflected in the sheen of the blade, for I wasn't there for the deaths of my parents, and I can never see it.
As the first swing takes effect, the crops instantly shrivel and rot when the blade makes contact. The screaming, however, has attracted the attention of the lord's small detachment of men-at-arms, who surround me in a circle. What else am I to do but to take a second swing? The soldiers fall, their souls being dragged into the blade. Some more come, and score some hits on me, but I cannot die, for the scythe is mine, and for it to absorb me would be absurd.
The sun sets. I figure that I can no longer find my future in this village, and walk the old dirt path. 12 miles to the nearest town, they say. 12 miles is a long time to think. What do I use the scythe for, if not for my old life? When would I be in the right to use it? Would I ever, one day, look into its reflective blade and see the souls of my dearly departed parents?
All I know is that this gift was available when I was in need, and it will continue to be.
|
Middle of the night, I was sound asleep like a bastard and I hear the door banging like a brothel, nearly shat myself when i heard it. So I lumbered out of bed, dragged myself to the door, I was preparing myself for a shock you know the sort of thing, fire or another donkey jumped off the cliff. I nearly hit him, when I opened the door, it was Barry Scipio Africanous with another sucidily funny joke so I slammed the door in his face, nearly took his nose off.
I danderd back to bed and the knocking started again louder this time, I marched to the door, this time I was going to feed Barry his teeth, I’d spent a long day De corpsing the coliseum and was tired of this shit. I opened the door and a scythe was thrust into my hand, I’m not an angry man but what use would a farmer have for another fucking scythe. I split the thing across my knee and the figure at the door disappeared.
I apparently for some reason became immortal after that little incident and now I throw bricks at the blind to pass the time, I’ve had a lot of time on my hands and literally done everything else, so I think I’m coping well with being cursed for breaking the staff of Garry.
More light warfare r/gliggett
| 2019-02-28T21:38:36
| 2019-02-28T21:09:32
| 1,790
| 22
|
[WP] Write a story that literally makes no sense while reading it until the very last sentence.
|
Now it is time. Everyone is ready. Vicious savages, all around us. Even though we think there will be a way out, there obviously isn't. Revelations will not save us
"Giving up so soon?" he inquired. Only fools try to survive longer than this. Never has anyone bothered to live this long. Never has anyone shown this type of spirit. Almost as if they think they can still live.
God would've let me die already. I stopped believing in him long ago, to be fair. Variety is the only reason people even believe anymore. Everyone dies in the end, so it doesn't really matter.
"Your will to live is admirable," he said, "but not enough." Only the gods survive this immense suffering. Unbelievable, infinite torture.
Until he said it. "Please read every capital letter."
|
Mom was singing Christmas carols again. The martini in her hand glowing like the contents of a broken glow stick. The dog was barking too. When I went to go look I could see children running around the classroom, having too much fun to notice the SS Titanic sinking into the giant kiddie pool outside. The sound of bagpipes commemorated the 100th anniversary of the sinking while trapeze artists flew through the air. I tried to catch one of their hands, but I was falling...
falling...
falling...
..out of my bed and onto the floor.
| 2015-01-12T18:09:01
| 2015-01-12T10:42:43
| 317
| 10
|
[WP] Everyone is born with 1-100 tally marks tattooed on their arm. The higher your number, the more valuable you are and the more successful you will be. You bully a kid because he is obviously hiding a low score. One day, he rolls up his sleeve to show an infinity symbol.
|
I grew up in a tough household you learnt to be quick, 'lessons' were taught with fists, mostly the lesson was to stay out of his way. My tally was high in the 70's but this only seemed to piss my dad off, he never let me see his. But judging by our small run down flat and his dead end job it wasn't very high.
School was like a refuge I don't mean to brag or nothing but I was well liked, and I knew I would go places the proof was on my skin, I liked looking at it to remind myself of that on tougher days. Nobody was allowed to talk about their tallys it was school rules. Some shit about preserving our childhoods, too fuckin late. and of course poeple did talk about them. Nah I think it was to stop kids rebelling against the 30 pointers that taught the lessons.
There was this one kid, you know the wierd one, he pissed me off because he always seemed so happy with himself. They called him limper because of his greasy hair. He never said much, just scribbled things and muttered. One day we are alone in the hall just me and him. He got sent out, so did I but from different classes. I'm minding my business. Then he smiles at me his eyes go a bit puffy and its like he is looking through me, creeping me out. Like he knew my secrets and felt sorry for me.
I scowl at him "What're you looking at limper?" Hes a creepy fucker. His eyes shoot down then he says real quiet "I can see what he does to you" this kids unsettling me "stop talking crap limper" but he just keeps staring and like he can't stop he just goes on " I know where the bruises come from" "I know that you cry" I lose it it at this point launch myself across the room. Who the fuck is this kid? Has he been spying on me? Ive got him by the collar now his eyes strech wide, he touches my tally arm " I can fix it" "I can fix it" he would've kept going if I didn't tell him to shut up. I said it loud. I know doors would start opening soon. I put him down ,I talk quick and low " you can't fix shit limper. What ever the fuck you know you better keep it to yourself you little freak" I was not done with him. The Teacher had stuck her head out of her classroom "no talking in the corridor" then he lifts up his sleave so only I can see but theres no tally....just an infinity symbol. He Smiles at me and nods. Who the fuck is this kid?
Time passes slowly in the last lesson and all I'm thinking about is what to do about this kid, I would be waiting for him at the gate. Beat the shit out of him. no, I would just talk to him. I had to figure out what was going on. How did he know that stuff? What does infinity even mean as a tally? My mind feels slightly foggy probably stress. I look for his dark haired head bobbing amongs the others after school. But I must have missed him, because he is nowhere to be seen. I could find him online but shit I only know him as limper.
I head home its not a long walk, but when I get there things are fucking wierd . the house. its not my house theres curtains in the window, no flaky paint on the door. Flowers in pots. I don't know what to do. I freak. I go to the woods. Wonder some way in and just start writing this. I have to....
Now you know what I know. This more or less is my last diary entry, my handwriting. But nothing I remember. I just got up in the woods dazed not knowing exactly how I got there. I headed home .I live with my mom and little brother, I've no idea who my dad is. We're happyish. And my tally is 81, not 70 something. I'm not sure if I'm going crazy or not but there IS a kid at my school called limper, his real name is Kenny Silverman and I really need to know. To thank him maybe? I'm not sure.
Kenny is in the year below me. He has no friends that I've ever seen, yet it doesn't seem to bother him. He keeps to himself. Everyone reckons he will either blow up the school or become the next einstein. But nobody really knows him. Teachers don't really like him since he has a nack for pointing out their mistakes.
I didn't have the guts to talk to him. didn't know what I would even say, 'hey are you an extradimentional time traveler and did you change my life and wipe my memory? Not going to risk sounding that crazy. No if I talked to him it would seem too out of character for me, my friends would notice and ask about it. He is nowhere online either. Hes a ghost. So I slipped him a note when I was helping to hand stuff out for the teacher. Asked him to meet me in the park by the woods after school I wrote that I had something important to tell him. No idea if he will show .
Author : will continue tomorrow eyes are falling shut .
Update : Part two is in the comments heres a link.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/aa49v4/wp_everyone_is_born_with_1100_tally_marks/ecq251j?utm_source=reddit-android
|
(I didn't exactly follow the prompt, sorry in advance)
"You're obviously hiding, like, a two, no, a zero!" I teased. I peered curiously at him. "What number *do* you have though, seriously? Just tell me and I'll stop bothering you."
"No you won't. You'll just bother me more." Arthur insisted.
"It can't be *that* bad."
Arthur sighed, and rolled up his sleeve.
I choked.
He didn't have any tally marks.
He had an infinity symbol.
"Told you."
"Is that... what? Is that fake or something? There's no way that- what does that even *mean*?"
"I don't know."
"How can someone have infinite success?" I pondered. "Does that mean you'll be infinitely rich? Know everything there is to know? Rule the world?"
"What? Is that what success means to you?" Arthur sounded almost... disgusted.
"Yes? What does it mean to you?"
"Success means happiness."
"Oh. It means that for me too."
"You think wealth, knowledge, and power will give you happiness?"
"Yeah? I tend to view things in a materialistic way, leave me alone."
"So you think that if you were super rich, super knowledgeable, and super powerful, you have to be happy too?"
"No, but it's not like I can really hope to be happy."
"Anyone can be happy!"
"If you view the world through rose-tinted glasses, maybe."
"Who's the one here that apparently has infinite success?"
"Maybe it's not infinity, maybe it just means you have no tally marks because it means zero." I suggested. Arthur just stared at me. "Okay, so maybe that's stretching it, but it's possible. You can't be sure that it means you'll be infinitely successful."
"Well, you're sure that your number means you'll have that amount of success, right?"
"Yeah, but that's different. My number is..." I looked away for a moment.
"What is it?"
"Nothing."
"What's your number? I showed you mine, you should have to show me yours."
"Well, you know how everyone has somewhere from one to a hundred tally marks tattooed on them, right?"
"Well, aside from me, yes."
"And how having only one means they'll be homeless, poor, hated, generally miserable beyond imagination, and a hundred means they'll be famous, rich, and beloved by all, probably make some sort of important contribution to society?"
"Yeah, and? Do you have a low number?"
"I... have a neutral number."
"You have a 50?"
"No, I mean, in terms of numbers in math, only one number is neutral. I have *that* number."
"You... don't have a tally mark? Not even one?"
"That... explains a lot."
"Yeah, I know. Explains why I'm such an asshole, right?"
"No, I mean it explains why you hate yourself so much."
"Sure it does." I shrugged. "I got unlucky, what can you do?"
"The tally marks don't dictate your life. Maybe this means that you'll determine your own success, that your future isn't set in stone."
"I doubt it." I looked up wistfully. "I'll just enjoy life while I still can. Once it gets miserable enough, I'll just kill myself, I think. It's not I'll contribute to society anyway."
Arthur looked horrified. "That's not..."
"Moving on!" I smiled. "What kind of career do you want to go into? Like, I want to know if you'll be a super famous comedian, engineer, what kind of discovery or contributions will you make? Maybe you'll be immortal and go into every field, that could explain it."
"We're just going to-"
"Yes, we are." I cut him off. "Also, don't just ignore me, answer the question, man!" I pouted.
"I... okay. I'm not sure what field I want to go into, to be honest. Some sort of scientific field sounds nice, especially since I'm guaranteed success, so if I go into science, I'll make a significant discovery, right? Or maybe I'll try to be a celebrity and be beloved for infinity. I don't know, there's a lot I could do. What about..." He stopped himself. "Let me at least check if you have any tally marks." Arthur suddenly insisted.
"Do you not trust me?"
"It won't hurt to try." I glared at him. "Come on, please?"
"I..." I looked away. "... fine. Maybe you can do something, Mr. Infinite Success."
He pulled up my sleeves, revealing thousands of red tally marks, scars that were clearly intentionally made, some of them looking recent, some looking as if they'd been there for years. "What are these...? Did you do this to yourself?"
"Some of these."
"Wait, then who's giving you the rest?"
"Take a wild guess." I sighed, pulling down my sleeves, before checking the time. "I got to go, it's late."
"Wait, you can't just leave after revealing *that!*"
I looked backwards. "I can, and I will!"
I ran out the door, and disappeared into the night.
*Tonight seems like a good night to die. After all, Arthur has an infinity symbol. That means even if I die, he'll still be successful, he'll still be happy. My death will have had no effect. My death means nothing.*
*I mean nothing to him.*
"Goodbye." I whispered.
| 2018-12-27T18:25:50
| 2018-12-27T16:33:21
| 99
| 29
|
[WP] You're a biologist who made a deal with the devil: eternity in hell after death in return for unlimited funding for your research. The funding was worth it, you discovered immortality, and the devil is not happy about this.
|
I see that you chose our unlimited funding package for the cost of one soul. Yes, that does include unlimited funding. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to deny your application for this equipment. You only chose the first tier of unlimited funding. We actually have three levels of unlimited funding. The package you chose lets you use two point five million dollars per month, after that we throttle you to twenty five thousand dollars per day. I understand that you're upset. I understand that you are on the cusp of completing your research on immortality. I understand that without this equipment, your research will need to be redone. Fortunately, we do have a solution for you. We can offer you the next tier of unlimited funding for the low cost of only forty souls.
|
(This is my first post. I wrote it on my phone so of course please excuse the poor format.)
At last, I watched the insect start to twitch, then it flipped over to its legs again. It started to walk around. It was alive.
I jumped up in joy. I shouted, "Eureka!" I was going to be a millionaire. Best of all, I had cheated death; I had cheated the devil.
I felt a presence next to me and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the devil himself. I smirked a bit; the last time I had seen him was when we had made the deal. I supposed he was here because I had broken it.
"You broke the deal," he said shortly.
I turned to face him, placing a hand on the counter and shifting my weight to lean on it. I accidentally crushed the insect, but as I rose my hand curiously, it was already scuttling around.
"I did no such thing," I replied. "The deal was simple: unlimited funding for my research in exchange for eternity in hell with you. I'm just using my research money."
"I'm not stupid, I know what you're doing!" the devil shouted, watching the insect crawl around on the counter.
"Why didn't you try to stop me, then?" I asked. "If you knew what I was researching, you could've stopped me."
The devil hesitated. I had defeated him once again. "This isn't fair!" he eventually cried. "We made a deal. You can't do this!"
"Sorry," I shrugged, not sorry at all. "Maybe you'll get me when I die for an eternity in hell..." I trailed off, hoping he would take the bone.
"But you won't die," he said shortly. "This is stupid."
"Sorry," I said again. "Thanks for the money, though, I really appreciate that. I'm gonna be a millionaire with this serum!"
The devil scowled, eyeing the insect once more. I smirked in triumph. I had successfully cheated the devil.
| 2018-08-23T14:29:29
| 2018-08-23T10:40:20
| 38
| 28
|
[WP] You were murdered. But to your surprise, you're reincarnated into the body of a recently born infant. Looking around, you realize that you're at your own funeral, and your eulogy is being given by none other than your murderer.
|
*Where. . . where am I?*
I open my eyes. Around me is a familiar -- if bleary -- image. The interior of a church in my hometown. A building I'd been in every week as a child. I hadn't been here in years, not since Aunt Cheryl passed. But. . . I'm not sure who that is, or where my hometown is.
Or who I am. I try to wipe away the bleariness from my vision, but I find myself unable to. My arms don't work right for some reason. Someone is speaking, though. I can hear their voice ring out as they speak into the microphone at the lectern.
"Jake was a good man, one of the best men I knew. . ."
The voice echoes a bit in the cavernous church. It is a familiar voice.
And for some reason, it sends a cold stab of fear through my heart.
Everything begins to come back to me. That night, that awful night. I was out in the woods with a man I trusted more than any other.
"He was my friend, my brother, the person I could confide in."
*That voice*. Above the lies coming from the lectern I could hear other words that voice had said, that night in the woods:
*You're pathetic, Jake. She deserves better than you.*
"I'll never forget when Jake first met Kate. I knew right away that they were perfect for each other."
*She comes crying to me, Jake. Telling me how distant you are, how you don't seem to love her. . .*
"Kate quickly became one of my best friends, right along with Jake. We had a lot of good times together."
*Telling me she needs a real man. . .*
"I'm gonna miss you, Jake. But. . . we're gonna find you, I'm not giving up on that. . . I promise."
*So I gave her one.*
"The police say there's no chance you're alive, that you'd have turned up by now. But the Jake I know would go to any lengths for a prank."
*He's not yours, Jake.*
"And if it's for real. . . I'm gonna find whoever did it, brother. I'll hunt him down myself. That's a promise, too."
Looking around, feeling my surroundings, I suddenly realize that I'm being held - cradled - by a pair of very large arms. Or that I am very small. I follow the arms to a tear-streaked face.
Kate. My wife. That makes me. . . My son. No.
Not *my* son.
I scream.
|
While not verifiable, I’m pretty sure they wanted to take the whole thing down. I was the iceberg to the Titanic of their sappy soap opera. I mean it was understandable. The showrunner, Randy Weaver, was an absolute legend. Two time Academy Award nominee, part of this new wave of directors revolutionizing movies. Swearing against sequels, super hero movies, trash rom-coms. The world of cinema was entering its golden age of new and original content. And then he just disappeared. People burn out of course, it’s inevitable. There’s a reason that crappy movies exist, they’re easy. They make money. They appeal to the broadest state of human emotions. And the pressure of constantly coming up with critically acclaimed, innovative story-lines is, for some, unrepeatable.
And after a few years in solitude he suddenly reappeared at CBN studios, demanding his new TV show be put on the air on the condition that no one could know what it was about until it aired. Swearing it wouldn’t be an FCC fine magnet, the execs obviously agreed. It could be a pile of horseshit and people would watch his comeback. The intro swept through the main characters, Linda, Steve, Ron, Kendall, slapping and crying, murders and births. Comas and twins. *The Lost and the Brave* it was called, an exact replica of every soap opera trope that ever existed. At first it was actually heralded by the critics. A satirist view of the basest entertainment. Waiting for it to rise above, to show what he was capable of. But if never came.
It was pretty obviously apparent after a while. He enjoyed it. He was making his most popular work yet, at least by viewership, and was working maybe a few hours a day. It was almost hard to watch sometimes, he loved the characters, lived and died by them, their asinine lives and all. Eventually inserted himself into the show, taking method acting to a whole new level. Was becoming verifiably insane. Refused to leave the set, to read the scripts, ad-libbing everything, completely taking the plot in unexpected directions, leaving the rest of the actors scrambling to make sense of everything. But still the viewership soared and soared. And Randy swirled further and further down the rabbit hole.
This was never explicitly explained to me when I was hired, but the TV execs were getting fed up with Randy’s completely unpredictable behavior. The plan, spin off Linda into her own show, while ruining the original show, finally giving them rationale to let Randy go. So they hired a bunch of us, recent grads with absolutely no show writing experience. The only rule, no plotlines were off limits. So we just sat in the writer’s room throwing out ideas. “Not absurd enough” they’d yell. So we delved deeper and deeper into our psyche’s trying to get so absurd without becoming surrealist. Because you know, critics love surrealism. And after a few days we had it. The script to end all scripts. An idea so ludicrous the audience would sit at the closing credits, jaw agape ready to abandon ship. No need to even seek out a door to float on, ready to drown.
I’ll give you a rundown of the fateful show. So Steve (Linda’s ex-ex-husband/father-in law/ nephew) had slept with Kendall (Ron’s sister/therapist/astrology coach). Steve and Ron were best friends/lovers/racquetball partners, and Ron felt entirely betrayed. Well this was of course after Ron returned from space where he was studying the effects of human/alien interbreeding. Anyways so Ron stabs Steve in a shadowy racquetball court. Gives a long soliloquy/Broadway dance number about the perils of being an astronaut, having alien STDs, feeling ashamed at himself. His murderous rampage simply a response to not being able to express his emotions.
But! This isn’t the end for Steve. He is reincarnated as Linda’s child who she just happened to have at the very moment he died. He is his own child! Well anyways Linda takes the baby to his own? funeral and he sees Ron giving a mournful eulogy. Steve/baby starts crying, knowing that Ron is the murderer, but feels so overwhelmed by the speech that all is forgiven. Eventually Ron adopts Linda’s baby after she absconds to have an Eat Pray Love European self-renaissance. In the closing credits you see Ron and Steve/baby growing up together, playing catch, going to movies. Ron is the perfect dad, Steve/baby the perfect son.
The execs were grinning ear to ear after the show aired. “It was the worst thing that has ever been created” they cheered with glee. They had sent out pre-tapes to reviewers beforehand just so the atrocious reviews would hit the front page before airing. But they were entirely remiss in their expectations of American public. Hell the entire world. Not only did this one episode expand viewership, but is cited as the sole reason it expanded worldwide. It had pushed the boundaries so far, that people absolutely loved it. Was so asinine and unrelatable that people felt solace in their own lives. The silver lining, with us, the now highly popular writing staff on board, and complete lack of Randy in the episode, the execs now found him expendable. Randy ended up spending the next five years living in a commune in Guatemala. The few reports we have make it seem like he’s doing alright.
| 2015-10-16T07:26:22
| 2015-10-16T07:12:02
| 1,389
| 13
|
[WP] Write a letter to someone you miss
It's been a rough week. Everyone has someone they wish were still with them. Write to them and tell them how you feel. Pour your heart out. No judging. Even if they never see it, someone will. And thank you. It's tough to be alone.
|
Hey Scott.
I guess I took everything you did for granted. It's been really hard without you here. Your daughter still asks when you're coming to pick her up and she always gets sad when I explain to her that you can't.
She really loves you and you were a good father. She started listening to one of the books you recorded. Hearing your voice always makes her so happy. She follows along in the book like you remind her to every chapter. It's hard. I burst into tears when I heard you sound out a word you knew she'd have trouble with.
We miss you. I hope where ever you are you're not in pain anymore.
|
Dear Dad,
Or should I even call you dad? I think dad is more of a title to be earned and sadly throughout my eighteen and a half years of being on this earth, I do not think you have done very much to earn that title. Dad's don't leave. A dad is someone that is there for his children. A dad watches and actively participates in their lives. A dad helps them grow up , raises them, nurtures them, attends dumb elementary school award shows, college graduation. Dads teach you how to ride your first bike and they sit nervously in the passenger seat of a car as they teach you how to drive on your own. Dads aren't supposed to be selfish like you are, you've always chosen a life full of drugs over your children. Do you even know what thats like? To not ever have a consistent father figure in your life? I blamed myself for so many years for you not being in my life. I thought that maybe something was wrong with me and that's why I was never a priority for you. I remember during valentines day when I was in middle school all of my friends dads sent them flowers and chocolates and took them out so they would feel special. I remember going to the bathroom and just sitting on the floor crying because I wanted nothing more in the entire world than a dad that loved me that much. Do you ever think about how your decisions effect your children? Honestly, I really want to know. When I was in high school I took a college level Psychology course. One of the first things we learned was this theory that stated that people are more likely to grow up and get into relationships with people that remind them of their parents. Boys tend to date girls that remind them of their mother. Girls go for guys that remind them of their dad. Let me ask you, would you want me to be in a relationship with someone like you? Someone who abuses not only drugs but women as well? Would you be okay with him hitting me? Or calling me names? Or would you even care? I know that you do these things and it breaks my heart and scares me all at the same time. I am constantly afraid that maybe the theory is correct and one day that will be my life without me even noticing it. It scares me even more that one day I'll wake up and be living my life the same way you chose to live yours. My biggest fear is becoming anything like you. I honestly wish it was possible for me to hate you. It would make you not being in my life a lot easier, but no matter how much I try I just can't. No matter how hopeless it is a part of me will always be reaching out for a relationship with you. I know you're sad and you feel lost and sometimes you just don't want to feel anything so you turn to drugs or alcohol to numb the pain. I know how that feels, I really do. But pain is meant to be felt. I want you to be apart of my life. I realize you'll never be the dad I wanted you to be, but I pray that you finally come to your senses and get your life turned around. Not just for my sake but for yours as well. I finished my freshman year of college a few days ago. Im doing pretty good in all of my classes, even though there were some points where it was so hard I just wanted to give up. I'm majoring in Biology and Pre healthcare. In about 10 years I'm hoping to be an orthodontist. Or maybe just a biologist in general. That's my favorite subject, I love learning about how everything in the world works. Its so intriguing to me and I could read about these things for hours on end. I have a boyfriend too. His name is Connor and he treats me really good. We've been together for a little over a year now. He's sweet and caring and he pushes me to work hard. He listens to me when I'm sad and he loves to show me off and tell everyone how smart he thinks I am, which gets really embarrassing sometimes but it makes me happy to know someone thinks so highly of me. Moms doing good too. She's beautiful as ever, and she's the happiest I've seen her in a while. Mark changed her life, actually all of our lives for the better. He is a good dad. He taught me how to drive and always tells me he's proud of me. He even calls me when I'm freaking out and crying over tests I feel like I've done bad on. He's amazing and I'm glad to have him in my life. Dana's oldest daughter Brittany is getting married in July! Can you believe it? Time has flown by. Ashley had a baby. He's the most beautiful baby boy I've ever seen. He makes my heart feel full just being around him. I hope you are doing okay in there. I hope you can come to peace with yourself and figure out what you need to do to turn your life around. It's never too late. Love, haley.
| 2017-11-05T23:19:05
| 2017-11-05T22:19:09
| 58
| 28
|
[WP] You're the owner of a cafe frequently visited by vigilantes and anti-heroes who absolutely adore your sweetness and acceptance of who they are. One day, though, a particularly rude customer comes in and trashes the place. Your friends aren't too happy to hear about that.
|
I saw them come in, there were three of them, mid-twenties maybe. They had that look, you know the one, furtive, up to no good. This wasn't uncommon here, I'd opened the place in a slightly less than reputable part of the city but it was also a place underserved in more ways than I could mention. Plus, the rent was cheap.
Over the years I'd developed a certain clientele everything from drug dealers to self-styled vigilantes. Occasionally, they were at odds with each other but for the most part everyone learned to just keep to themselves while in my shop. While here everyone was cordial if nothing else.
These guys though, they were different, they were rather obviously looking to start trouble. They looked around quickly, rather obviously checking for cameras and such things which I didn't have in large part thanks to the patrons I served. I remember fidgeting a bit nervously wishing I wasn't the only one in the place just then but my guess is they'd have not come in if there were anyone but me here.
“Can I help you?” I asked sternly, wishing I'd been behind the counter where I keep an aluminum baseball bat just in case.
One of them approached me pulling something out of his jacket, next thing I know I'm writhing on the ground taser pins sticking out of my my new sweater. The man walked up slowly, smiling, taser still shooting electricity into me, I watched helplessly as his foot jerked back and then I woke up to this.
The place is in shambles. All my stuff, equipment, product, decorations, everything in pieces. The small art hanging from the walls had been torn to shreds or simply ripped off the wall and thrown around, I actually came to in the middle of a pile of shattered plates and mugs.
The bell rings on the door and I look over to see Jack coming in. Jack is... well, he's known as Big Jack, has a bit of a... let's say checkered past. He's something like six foot five and built like the guy who plays the Mountain on Game of Thrones.
“Alyssa, what the fuck happened?” He asks, coming up short and staring at me lying on the floor. “Who did this? Jesus, they gave you a nice shiner!”
Attempting to stand up leads to a few cuts and scrapes but the worst part is how woozy I feel.
“I'm not sure, I've never seen them before but I remember there faces pretty well,” I reply trying not to lose my lunch to add to the mess. The bell on the door rings again and Jaclyn comes in nearly banging the door into Jack. Jaclyn and Jack don't get along it dawns on me. It also dawns on me that Jaclyn has produced a small pistol from somewhere.
“You do this Jack,” she asks quietly, pistol rock steady in her hands pointed squarely at the behemoth of a man in front of her.
“Fuck no, Jaclyn, you know better than that,” he says pointedly ignoring the weapon. I toss my cookies all over the floor and Jack quickly approaches, his boot shod feet crunching pottery shards into the linoleum flooring. “Alyssa, you need to sit, you still have that Jameson I like in my coffee tucked away?”
“Yeah, but I don't think I could stomach a drink right this minute,” I reply unsteadily.
“It's not for you, Alyssa; I could go for a drink.” He winks, half serious as he goes behind the bar and finds the bottle stashed there. “At least they didn't find this.” I watch as he takes a nip. He brings the bottle over and takes out his phone.
“I want you to tell me everything you remember about those guys,” Jack says, taking another swig from the bottle and holding his phone up. “I'm going to record it and send a video of the description to a few people.” He's smiling and not in happy way. For her part, Jaclyn has put her pistol away and is on her phone talking quietly so that neither Jack nor I can hear her.
I comply and give Jack a description of the men that wrecked my little cafe. As I'm doing so, Jaclyn has found a broom and dustpan and started to sweep up, which in my addled state I find amusing as she's in a Lycra dress and calf length boots with four inch heels. As I'm finishing up with Jack, the door bell rings again and four other regulars walk in. Jaclyn looks up at me with a smile, “The cleaning crew is here.”
It takes a few days but things get cleaned up and I'm back in business. A day or two later three men are found, the first appears to have died from an accident featuring an overvolted taser, one had his throat slashed with what appears to be a broken coffee mug. The third was found with his skull bashed in, an aluminum bat was found next to him.
I love my regulars.
|
My friends calmly tracked down the rude customer and knocked on the door. They proceeded to have a polite conversation in where it ended with the rude customer saying sorry and apologizing for taking out his marital frustrations on the Cafe. They all then went back to the Cafe and drank maple syrup and watched hockey because they were living in Canada.
| 2018-10-20T21:13:16
| 2018-10-20T20:48:06
| 49
| 15
|
[WP] Cause of death appears to you as floating text over people's heads with no time indication. You start noticing a trend.
edit: thank you for all the truly great stories, and for taking this in directions I didn't expect.
|
It was a natural fit, ending up as an obstetrician. There was a satisfaction in seeing the beginning of someone's life, and then knowing the end. That was, until about 10 years ago. It was infrequent at first. METEOR, the first one said. Now almost all of them do.
The telescope in my living room was bought once I understood the situation fully. Peering out into the stars puts my conscience somewhat at ease.
I'm delivering the last old people who will ever walk this earth.
|
"Heart Attack," "Stroke," "Diabetes," "Car Accident," "Alzheimer's."
Boooring. You never see anything new these days. Wasn't like the war back in my day where you'd see all sorts of stuff. Gas attacks, carpet bombings, suicide bombings... those kept you on your toes. You knew who NOT to associate with back then. You see a few "shells" in a room together and you'd know what was going to go down. Sometimes you have enough prior warning to take an action shot. Nowadays the only thing you can really hope for is a shooting. My work really has suffered... I need inspiration... something new... someth-
"Nuclear fire"
Oh... oh my. Who are you my little lovely? Accident or act of war? Can it be? After a decade of waiting are we back on schedule? I wonder if he's visiting or if he's a loc-
"Nuclear fire"
Oh shit there's another one. What are the odds? Two's not so ba-
"Nuclear fire"
Th-three huh? Well that's
"Nuclear fire"
...Fuck.
| 2015-03-31T10:42:03
| 2015-03-31T10:39:31
| 30
| 18
|
[WP] Your daughter has been begging you for a pony, and you told her to write a letter to Santa. On Christmas morning, you find a fire-breathing horse in your front yard, and a package by your front door. Looks like she wrote a letter to Satan, and he delivered.
Whoa. This blew up way more than I expected it to.
Edit: Like... A lot more. Thanks guys.
|
I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but it's hardly sane to act like I'm not.
"Steven, seriously, I don't know anything about it," I lied as he shook a neatly wrapped package closer toward my face.
"SATAN," his voice pitched up, "it says it's from Satan, ***honey***, and we can't call the police why?! What kind of sick prank is this, to send a little girl...that.. that MONSTER!? What even is it, why does this cockadoodle stuff keep hapening to us!? I can't anymore with this...with YOU! Jesus..."
"Oh, calm down ***Steve***," I managed to snatch the package away from him before he stormed off petulantly to hide in the bathroom, and scream into a towel.
It was the coping mechanism of a coward. And well, I guess I'm a liar, but with the way he hid from everything it didn't exactly make it easy to be honest.
I could hear Penny crying in the livingroom as I made my way back down the hall from our bedroom. She tried to hide it when I sat next to her on the couch, but it hardly made a difference with how red her cheeks had gotten.
"This one's for me," I sat the package down on the coffee table, "but do you wanna open it?"
She looked up at me with the usual skepticism she had when I was doing something her step dad disagreed with.
"Go ahead," I gave her the smile that only we shared. The kind that said I didn't care if we got in trouble. We ARE trouble.
She didn't hesitate after that, and like all children quickly discarded the note for me to read.
---
**To: My Dearest Sarah, "with an H",*
*First, my apologies. I may have committed an itsy bitsy little federal crime by sending someone to change the spelling on Pen's address line, my bad. To be fair, you were the one trying to trick her into writing, "Santa"- like that obese old blowhard would actually bring her anything.*
*Anyway, you know I can't pass up such a convincing, and frankly, well written letter. The way she so eloquently made her argument- she really is your kid, huh? Bet you're just- oh, how did you always put it, "proud as a opossum"?*
*So, I'm guessing average ole' steady job Steve is already in the crapper feeling sorry for himself about this whole situation (which is, by the way, why only you and Pen can see the letter). Anyway, tell him to stick a thumb in it. Penny earned this one. Straight A's all year, and the way she told off that self righteous little nose picker bully tormenting her best bud, she's something special. No wonder she doesn't get along with that white bread, economy car driving, watches the news for fun, Steven. What, with his fetish for bland food, and dry conversation, and all.*
*Honestly, I can't remember why you think you enjoy being around him? (...Yeah yeah, not my place, I know.) Anyway, give Pen a hug for me, and tell her the nightmare's name is 'Hank', and it's non-negotiable (seriously, that's all she'll answer to).*
*Warmest Regards,*
***Luci***
---
I couldn't help but hold my hand over my growing smile as I read it. There was something, I dunno, endearing about Lucifer being doating. Of him being jealous. Over Steven of all people- who, yes, was still in the bathroom.
Penny was watching me, hopefully clutching the contents of the package- a key, " there's a tag." She handed it over to me with a sly smile.
--*For: Sarah. Don't think I forgot about you! And, don't forget, my offer always stands. Merry Xmas -Luci*--
"What's it go to?" Penny returned our secret smile. A crooked, cute, little challenge.
"I'm sure it's gonna be trouble," I smirked back.
"Does that mean I can keep..." Pen furrowed her brow, "hmm, what should we call her."
"Her name is Hank," I turned to look at the nightmare whose fiery breath was fogging up the window her face was pressed against just enough to obscure her unsettling gaze, "apparently it's non-negotiable. So, yeah, we can keep her. I'll deal with Steve."
As Penny started to do jubilant laps around the house, and out the door into the snow (leaving it wide open), I ran my thumb over the ornate brass key. Thinking of how it reminded me of my promise, the deal with The Devil. Not to mention that offer of his.
I guess it was alright for him to spoil Pen, first born and all, because of me she was kinda his too one way or another.
I'd always thought he'd gotten an unfair shake, Satan, that is. He kept his promises, and he'd always been good to Pen. Good to me. What could it hurt to take him up on his offer, really? It was just a cup of coffee after all. Not a marriage proposal.
My mind turned to the divorce papers that I'd already filled out waiting on the top shelf in my closet.
"Hey Pen, come and get dressed in something with short sleeves," I ushered her back into the house, Hank following us right to the edge of the threshold, "I think we gotta go see someone you owe a big, 'thank you' to for your present."
Plus, I'd say I've earned a little trouble.
|
My husband's head was cocked to one side, a look of consternation mingled with amusement on his face.
"Do you think we'll have to join his church?" He wondered and I couldn't help but laugh.
The pony was a gorgeous obsidian black that looked almost purple and blue as it moved through the light, and her mane shimmered with a strange, almost pearly, black iridescence.
"I wonder if Hell has a return policy?"
"We can't return her!" Lilith shrieked, her eyes wide with sudden terror. How do kids hear things like that but not when I ask her to pick up her toys? A mystery that may never be solved.
My husband and I exchanged glances. Well, now what? We had a large enough yard, we could likely build a little stable and make it work. Lilith laughed as the pony nuzzled her hair, seemingly tame. I realized what terrible parents we were, standing there staring dumbstruck at the beast while our daughter petted and cooed at it, but the pony seemed harmless. Until it hiccuped a white hot jet of fire straight down into the snow, melting a two foot radius. Luckily, our dear Lily was clear of it but she screamed anyway.
My husband lit up, his eyes suddenly ablaze (pardon the pun). I knew that look. That look meant that he had an idea, one of his harebrained schemes like the time he decided it would add value to our house to put a bathroom in the basement. Two years later he had a few studs put in, a toilet not attached to anything in a corner and no future goals in mind.
"I know exactly what to do," he rubbed his hands together like a kid on Christmas. (Very fitting, given our current scenario.) "We can train it to melt the driveway. I'll never have to plow again!"
It's been three years since then and while my husband suffered a fairly significant burn that first year, it's been pretty smooth sailing with Dory. My husband likes to call her our "Little Gift From Below," and whenever people ask us our secret to having such a perfectly cleared driveway, that's who he thanks. They think he means salt. We even have her stocking hanging on the mantle and while we haven't officially joined his church, Satan still sees fit to leave her lumps of sulphury flesh in there every Christmas.
| 2017-09-25T18:33:33
| 2017-09-25T17:29:43
| 24
| 15
|
[WP] Life on Earth evolved within an “FTL Dead Zone” a region of space where all known forms of FTL travel were deemed physically impossible. As such, it was quite a shock when an unknown species suddenly appeared from the Dead Zone one day calling themselves “Humanity” Having done the impossible...
|
Writing this on my phone at work, apologies for any mistakes.
A lovely person (u/blu_ski) has narrated this story: https://youtu.be/ozrQ-fu6nV0
And another lovely person! (u/Spartawolf): https://youtu.be/WjN13TVf238
___________________________________________________
The Atrium was abuzz with chatter, many languages and strange sounds all fighting for dominance, to be heard. The cacophony echoed around the large chamber, resident to the many hundreds of species positioned in boxes adorning the walls. In the centre was a group of 5 astronauts, each looking particularly overwhelmed.
At the sound of a loud bang, the chatter stopped. The representative of the Unified Galactic Systems placed their gavel aside, and spoke:
"Beings from the Dead Zone. We apologise for bringing you here so soon after first contact, but there is much to discuss. Are you aware of the feat you have accomplished?"
Four of the astronauts looked to the fifth, their Commander, who stepped forward.
"Respectfully..."
"You may address me as Speaker."
"...Speaker. There are many feats we have achieved today. First contact with not just one alien species, but an entire galactic community! We are also the first humans to leave our solar system, while simultaneously achieving the fastest speeds any human being has ever traveled before. To which are you referring?"
"We are, of course, referring to your craft. The method of travel in which you arrived here. It is... most peculiar."
"With all due respect, Speaker, surely your methods of faster than light travel are far superior to our own? Ours is but the first working iteration of our technology, after all."
"One would think so, but you see, you have emerged from a section of dead space. An area of the universe from which the usual laws of physics behave in constrained ways. Faster than light travel is simply not possible. Therefore we ask... how are you here?"
The astronauts appeared stunned, and turned to speak to each other. After a short period of time, the commander again stepped forward.
"My apologies, Speaker, but this explains a great many things. Namely, that we were never visited despite our many greetings broadcast into the cosmos. That we struggled to produce a system with the necessary power to propell us vast distances, despite the mathematics saying it was possible."
"Indeed, the dead zone acts as a speed barrier. The power required to pass this barrier would be astronomical, even for ourselves. So how did you do it?"
"We developed a drive that effectively... shifts us. Space is folded around the craft, then we are simply accelerated through the field. As space is folded around the craft, there is nothing to prohibit our acceleration, and no forces are acted upon the craft, allowing us to withstand the speeds."
This caused a stir among the species present, many voices called out, the automatic translators failing to keep up. The Speaker turned to their scientific advisors, of which each was entirely stunned by the sheer amount of science and mathematics required for such an achievement. The Speaker once again lifted the gravel and called for silence.
"How do you propel yourselves without the gravitational forces of space? How do you leave your planet without space to travel through?"
"Our vessels are powered by chemical rocket boosters, which launch us from our planet. The same principles apply in phase space, which can only be used in orbit to avoid warping our planet's own gravitational sphere. Each maneuver is calculated to make effective use of our fuel. Is this not true of the rest of the galaxy?"
With this the multitude of species could not remain silent, and the sounds of the many voices became entirely uncontrollable.
This marked the emergence of Humanity, a species of remarkable engineers, scientists and mathematicians the known galaxy had never seen before. For the galaxy in the living space had never had to produce such technologies, each achieving space flight as simply as they produced the wheel, never requiring the advanced mathematical equations Humanity had needed simply to reach their own moon.
Humanity had crawled from the depths of a dark, restricted space.
They had ventured down the road not travelled.
And they arrived in the light.
|
As Kovak’s guard shift rolled into it’s final hour, he won both his third hand of cards and fifty credits off of Raka.
Somewhere in between Raka handing over the cash, a scowl slashed across her face, and Kovak lighting another smoke, the alarm started to sound.
“Fuck.” He jolted up, knocking the table and spilling drinks over the cards.
Raka jumped up too. She was faster on her feet—or maybe she just wasn’t as drunk as him—and reaches the monitor first. “A ship is incoming,” she said.
“So deny them landing—we don’t have anything scheduled to come until noon tomorrow.”
“No—it’s *incoming*. From the Dead Zone. The landing sequences has already started.”
Kovak swore. Up here in the Northern Guard, sandwiched between the edge of the Dead Zone and the planet Suter—which was scarcely more than an iced-over husk with a mercury mine—nothing ever came to their door step. A Northern Guard assignment was a punishment, reserved for the recruits who either barely passed the academy or the ones who needed some shit to knocked them down a few pegs before they got an semi respectable assignment.
While Raka fell firmly into the later category(she was the best marksman Kovak had ever seen, but she’d been an unbearable brat when she’d first arrived) Kovak knew he fell into the former. He wasn’t cut out to be a guard. He’d made his peace with that years ago. In all honesty, a northern posting was a blessing—it kept him out of the action. Four of his five years here had already passed without incident. One more and he’d be free to fuck off to somewhere warm and pleasant.
He hated action. He wasn’t cut out for that shit. “What should we do?” he asked Raka.
She shot him a sour look. “You’re the senior guard tonight.”
Kovak’s gut rolled with the alcohol as he crossed over to get a glimpse of the monitor. “Nothing was scheduled to land,” he muttered. “Just the new crew for the mines tomorrow.”
“Well something isn’t just coming—it’s already fucking here.”
Kovak pressed his palms to his face. “I dunno. Open a channel. Make contact.”
“Yes sir,” Raka grumbled and flipped the switches.
She cleared her throat and picked up the transmitter. “This is Northern Guard Suter-XA3 to unidentified craft. State your permit number and vessel name.”
Only static came through.
Kovak swore under his breath. He needed to sober up. He needed to do *something*. This wasn’t good.
Raka repeated her statement. “If you do not answer, we will be forced to take defensive measures.”
As rusty and unused as Kovak’s training was, it kicked in enough for him to sound the alarm. The rest of the Northern Guard would be woken from their sleep and ready to respond within minutes.
Through the communicator, only static sounded again.
Raka looked at him. “What’s the next move?”
The commander wasn’t here yet. Probably wouldn’t be for a while—she was as bad as the rest of them, drunk half the time and barely able to keep a schedule.
“I dunno.” Kovak frowned. “You warned them, you know.”
“Should I fire?” Raka’s eyes flicked over to the switch for the missiles. “We don’t know who they are. They won’t declare themselves. And it’s not like they’re sending a distress signal.”
Kovak wanted to protest. They didn’t know who this ship belonged too. The Dead Zone was supposed to be silent; every kid heard the legends of the grotesque and feral monsters that dwelled in that darkness. There had to be some truth to those stories. What would they be welcoming if they let them land?
“Declare your intentions or we will take defensive measures,” Raka warned again.
And, once more, there was no reply.
“We have to fire,” she said to him, her lips thin and expression harsh. “They pose a threat.”
“Maybe we should wait for the commander...”
“And let our post get overrun? No.” Raka stood and strode over to the missiles. “We need to do this.”
Kovak took a sharp breath. They needed two to fire the missiles. And if it was any other ship coming up on a guard post, they’d do the same. It was a universal rule to not fuck with the Guards. They were the line between order and chaos. Anyone who tempted them knew the consequences. “Alright,” he muttered.
Together, they turned the keys. Together, they fired the missiles.
Kovak watched on the radar. The missile would intercept the ship right as it docked.
The transmitter crinkled with static once more.
This time, though, something came through. “Hello,” a smooth and strange voice said. “We are humans. We come in peace in the name of exploration and—“
The transmission cut off.
Kovak swallowed, his throat dry. The missiles met their target.
Raka seemed nonplused as she crossed over to the table on the other side of the room. She swept up the cards, dumped the smokes and liquor and food into a bin, and wiped off the surface. They’d be in trouble if they knew they were gambling and impaired, despite the fact everyone else did the same. “Humans,” she said without meeting his eyes.
“I don’t remember them in the guidebook.”
“Neither do I,” Raka admitted.
Kovak took the trash bin and dumped the evidence of their mistakes in the incinerator. “What did we do?” His voice shook and his limbs felt as if they were lined with lead.
“I don’t know.”
“I think we fucked up.”
Raka looked at him, and, for the first time in the year she’d been there, he saw her as her age. A scared and stubborn kid, only just of age. Hell, he was only a few years older. Why had this come down to them?
There were times in life, Kovak mused, where one made a decision without knowing the real weight that choice held.
Other times, one made a choice in a moment and knew exactly what they were doing. They made a decision and knew, right then, that their life would never be the same.
This was one of those times. There’d be no going back after this. Yet Kovak asked the question all the same. “Should we run?”
Raka closed her eyes and nodded. “Yeah. I think we should.”
Kovak didn’t think—he only moved. He’d have to unpack it all once they were in the escape pod, once they were hurtling toward the icy husk of a world that was Suter.
---
r/liswrites
| 2021-01-09T11:57:45
| 2021-01-09T11:40:48
| 2,685
| 149
|
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