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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] you never had any animosity toward the ant colony living in your back yard. They kept your garden free of pests, and the spiders out of your house. You even started feeding them occasionally. Today, you happen to notice they've carved your name into their hill, and seem to be patiently waiting
|
I related to ants a little, not in any weird way, but more in a sort of mutual respect kind of way. Ants are the working class of the bug world, a group that goes about their duties and performs repetitive tasks for the good of everyone around them. Able to perform heroic feats of strength and even ambush stronger foes.
I saw a lot of myself in them, or maybe I wanted to see a lot of myself in them. I wanted to be that working class man that could lift above the others, show them I wouldn’t go down easily. But, like the ants, I was pretty easy to tread on and my extravagant strength was more used for picking myself off the floor than anything productive.
So, my brief glance of curiosity as I passed the small anthill in my yard soon became an ant watching session. It started off small, maybe a few seconds before I headed inside, then a few minutes. After a month or two, I became fascinated by the creatures, spending ten or more minutes just watching them go about their activities. Whispering small words of encouragement as they followed each other back into the hill.
By the third month, I was leaving small crumbs by the anthill, making their journey a little easier. I considered it a work bonus, my way of rewarding their efforts. It seemed only fair. Unlike the fat cat bosses I worked for, I could spare a few of my crumbs for the workers.
It was strange, they almost seemed to show appreciation for my efforts. A few of the ants leaving their circle to walk around me. At first, I thought it was because I dropped some crumbs by my feet, but with each additional day, the circle of ants grew larger until I had nearly an entire colony of ants circling my feet in unison. It was a beautiful feeling, but one that couldn’t be explained. No internet search or book spoke of the phenomenon.
Things only escalated when I stopped to greet them today. On their anthill was the name ‘Paul’ carved into it. At first, I didn’t even make the connection that it was my name, far too in awe of the strangeness of it all before it clicked. “You know my name?” Perhaps they heard it from a passerby or the mailman?
They didn’t respond, of course, but they stopped their usual pacing around me. This time they stood ready, like little soldiers prepared for a war that they couldn’t comprehend. At that moment, a thousand thoughts raced through my mind. I could terrorize people, use them to steal money, or even have them sneak into places for me. Yet, all those outlandish thoughts scattered from my mind as soon as they came.
Maybe I could do all those things. But that would be at the cost of losing the person I wanted to become. The ants trust me, and I should repay that trust. “Keep doing your best. Thank you for the company today.” I tossed a few crumbs their way, careful not to hit any of them before I headed inside, leaving the ants to return to their normal duties. While the temptation was there, I would rather not lose the peace they provided.
 
 
 
(If you enjoyed this feel free to check out my subreddit /r/Sadnesslaughs where I'll be posting more of my writing.)
|
I heard once that your nostrils run on 1-hour cycles, air flowing more easily through one then the next, so precisely that Gurkha super soldiers exploited this rhythm to keep time during dangerous missions. Right now my left one is filled with Hermès, *Un Jardin Sur Le Nil*. Mango and grapefruit and carrot. It's like being right next to Veronica.
The ants are walking in cursive, spelling out my name. I imagine someone playing a prank on me. Writing my name with honey and waiting in the bushes to catch my utter astonishment. But there is no one in the bushes. And there is no honey.
EDGAR.
Ants descended from wasps. Black-and-yellow terror with wings. And they traded that for an existence as drones. The workers don't even get to pass on their genetic material. They die in service to the colony, and that's that.
We might not be so different. The other apes have muscles powerful enough to tear off our arms like they're ripping wet paper. And ourselves? We cooperate. Like ants.
EDGAR.
Even in Ancient Greece olfactory hallucinations were known to be bad omens. They are rare. Why? Because smell is the original sense. Before any other way of sensing our surroundings had evolved, we could detect scents. Strange sea creatures opening and shutting pores based on what chemicals they detected. And now this sense is buried deep inside our brains, even processed in a different way than all our other senses. That's why smell can evoke long lost memories. It's the original sense. And that's why hallucinating smells is bad: it means some real old components have failed.
Perhaps that's why these ants are working so hard on writing out my name: it's all in my mind. A blood vessel bursts somewhere and as my consciousness fades I get to experience some strange qualia. Veronica's scent. And ants.
REMEMBER.
A new word. My right nostril wakes up and I smell dust and copper. Remember? What am I supposed to remember?
I remember Veronica dragging me along to the market. Her floral dress. Something happened that day. What happened?
PLEASE.
A lone ant is not an individual. A colony, however, is. Ant colonies have personalities, distinct from other ones. Which means that ants are a bit like brain cells. I am Edgar. That's not the opinion of a lone brain cell. That's the opinion of the brain cell colony. Together, my brain cells become one unified being. They become I. And the same is true of ants, I suppose.
A colony. The hivemind.
Oh. That's right. That was what happened. There were two lone ants. These ants found each other. And they swore they would never leave the side of the other. So when one of them died, the other decided to follow.
I can remember my brain being scanned, each brain cell translated to a string of ones and zeros. And as a colony, they were transported to the bit ocean where Veronica had already been swimming for a while.
But something must have gone wrong. This colony of ants is Veronica. And as for me? I can feel my bits dissolving, merging with everything around me. I am sorry, Veronica. I know we promised we would never leave each other.
EDGAR.
Once dissolved, there are no names. Your brain cells have no names. Their atoms have no names. I have no name.
I try to breathe, but there is no air.
I am sorry, Veronica.
| 2021-09-20T07:35:10
| 2021-09-20T07:09:49
| 299
| 69
|
[WP] Star Wars is a true story. An alien comes to Earth to make first contact with our newly discovered species, only to discover we know more about their universe's history than they do.
EDIT: Whoah, this sorta blew up! Thanks for all the stories guys! I've read all of them and each made me laugh or legitimately think for a moment about the ramifications of an alien species having your future on blue ray. Keep up the awesome work!
|
"It has been some time," the Ambassador spoke to George Lucas with a scowl, "We figured you were dead."
George Lucas, the inventor of the Star Wars Universe, one of the greatest and most popular cultural phenomenons of the 70's and 80's, sat in a chair. He had been granted an audience with the Ambassador to the Senate the moment he spoke his full name. His full, human name. "Did you really think I'd die to a bunch of, well, humans?"
The Ambassador, a Lorrdian according to Lucas' understanding of their universe, smiled wide. Neo, his given name, was one of the closest humanoid figures in the entire Republic who was available on such short notice. While the Senate wished to send Jedi in the peace talks, the last time that happened, the Jedi escalated a war. Members of the Senate didn't want that to happen. "It's interesting. Thousands of years, and we've never encountered them? Why do you think that?"
"I predict the future," Lucas said, "not answer meta-physical questions. I won't go back."
Neo frowned, "How do you know I'm asking you that?"
Lucas leaned forward, "The last thing that happened, the pivoting point that sent you to my doorstep. Palpatine is Chancellor now, yes?"
"Yes," Neo said, and adjusting his posture read Lucas' own body language to understand his emotional state. A power Lorrdians learned over many hundred years of enslavement. "This distresses you?"
"Stop reading me," Lucas said, "yes it distresses me. The future I once predicted is coming true."
"How can I stop it?"
"Stop it?"
"Yes, you once said there was always a way, no?" Neo backed up once more, then changing his stance suddenly as he stared at Lucas, said, "You lied."
"Of course I lied! The future is a set path, a destiny so-to-speak. The way I calculate, how I calculate it, it is nearly perfect every time," Lucas shook his head, "the masses of the universe propel the future in the historical direction, there is no changing that. Not even the Force is that strong."
"Then it's lost? Your new people showed me the films you made," Neo scoffed, "or should I say Future-Histories?"
"They don't know that." Lucas sighed, "I had to record it. Before the truth was lost."
"Then this Anakin boy, the Skywalker, he is being tainted by the Chancellor?" Neo shook his head, "He is barely ten years old!"
"He began it early, Neo. It will continue the path, the masses will propel the world, hate will overtake the galaxy."
"Except on this tiny planet," Neo said, and walked up to Lucas. "Here, history escapes the masses. Here, we may have a chance."
Lucas looked at him, eyes wide, and Neo read his state.
"No, I don't want to conquer it damnit," Neo shook his head. "I want to give some species out there a chance to live peacefully, to continue."
"Humanoids."
"We may be able to smuggle the others on the outer planets. The ones your species call Pluto and Neptune, they could be suitable in time."
Lucas turned from him. He began to think, process and analyze the newest path history was given. It could work, he thought, theoretically, they could save the continuity of a thousand species, taken from the reigns of the future galactic Empire. Until his apostle, until Abrams could predict what comes after the Fall of the Republic. Thirty years, give or take, they could do it. Then reveal themselves. Lucas turned back again, smiling.
"It works yes?"
"Yes. I will consult with Abrams, you remember him?"
"Young boy when you took him from the grasps of the Jedi."
"He had a power greater than that," Lucas smirked, "in time he'll predict what comes after. For now, we have preparations to make, millions of people to transfer."
"I will return to the Senate and spread this through the Resistance."
Lucas grabbed Neo's arm before he left, "Padme."
"Amidala? The Queen of Naboo?"
"She will become a Senator soon, get to her, involve her in this. The sanctity of freedom, tell her that exactly," Lucas' eyes were wide. He was continuing to think, to put together the future history in his mind. Neo could read that. He could tell he was distressed, almost hysterical.
"Of course, Lucas. It will be done."
______________
*/r/BlankPagesEmptyMugs for more!*
|
"I know who you are!"
I tucked my blaster under my armpit, pointing it at my rear left.
"Dude, don't shoot! I'm a friendly, a fan of yours."
"What is this? Where am i?" I replied corsely through the breather in my helmet.
"SDCC man! I knew you were the real deal when you walked in! Your blast armor was too detailed, way more than even the movies showed!"
"Movies?"
"Uh, they'd be the equivalent of your holocro-"
"HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE HOLOCRONS?" The basis of my entire mission, my BOUNTY, was the common knowledge of some boy at a gathering of horrible impersonators and the ugliest twi'lek than even the far reaches of the outer rim had to offer?!? He looks no older than I was by the time order 66 was carried out, dressed like an old Republic jedi, and currently smells like bantha poodoo (likely from me holding him by the neck with my blaster at his side).
"Just relax." Trying to push my arm away. "Let go before security comes." I comply for now. "Come with me and I'll show you everything I know."
***
Nearly 2 sun cycles have passed of watching these "movies" and countless texts written on parchment. For having a near perfect account of our history, their technology is ancient. Their knowledge of my galaxy's future,more importantly my future, is power I'll take with me to fake my death, wait for the dust to settle and reestablish mandalorians as a force to be reckoned with. I, Boba Fett, shall lead my race back to power!!!
| 2017-03-18T09:32:15
| 2017-03-18T09:18:35
| 191
| 39
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[WP] An elf, a dwarf, and a wizard are filling out the character sheets for their next game of Dayjobs and Drudgery, a role-playing game set in the world of humans.
Have fun!
|
* Character name: George McGee
* Race: Lower Middle Class
* Class: White Collar - Marketing Assistant
* Alignment: Neutral- Passive Aggressive
* Gender: Male
* Strength: 1.5
* Dexterity: 4.25
* Constitution: 2
* Intelligence: 6
* Wisdom: 3
* Charisma: 4
* Self-Esteem: 2
* Initiative: Non-Existent
* Languages: English, IT, Klingon
* Speed: 30 ft
* Vision: Four Eyes (Glasses)
* Armour Class: Tie
* Hit Points: 4
* Special Attacks:
- A Song of Zeroes and Ones: You mercilessly hack your competitors systems. Lower their armor class by 2 and raise your intelligence by 1 until the end of your next turn.
- Wimp out at the last second: After days of preparing yourself for a confrontation or asking the cute receptionist to a date you bolt away automatically retreating and going down to 1 health.
- Fantasize: You harmlessly imagine woe to fall upon your enemies sometimes muttering obscenities under your breath. Esteem goes up by 1 until sundown.
* Racial Traits:
- Standard Living Wage: Upon each pay day gain ten percent extra gold from all sources.
- Resentment: Although fairly well off compared to other races around the world you still hold resentment towards authority and the very wealthy.
- Plus 3 skill to lawn mowing.
* Class Features:
- Soft Hands: -Minus one to any labor.
- plus one to very delicate tasks.
-minus 3 strength.
- Dead End Job: -Although working towards promotion deep down you realize there is no advancement to your career.
-Minus 5 initiative.
-minus 2 self-esteem
-lose ability to carry conversation when asked "So what do you do?" Charisma drops to 0.
* Feats:
-Lost in the crowd: You can easily hide among others and are rarely noticed. Plus 2 stealth.
-Night-time Alcoholic: Upon reflecting on life you feel the need to drink alcoholic beverages.
-Inconvenient Disease: Choose one disease that has minor affects your character but still brings down one stat by 4.
-Dark Secret: Your character has one secret he has told no one that he is too ashamed of to ever speak of.
|
Zi looked around the table, eyes switching from elf to dwarf, then back again. The elf smiled as he realized what Zi was doing, causing the dwarf to grimace.
"I may be short, but I can plant an axe in you just as easy as I could get an elven woman." The dwarf said, ale spilling as he made arm gestures to accompany the words. "Which is to say, very easy."
Zi laughed out loud and looked around. "What's your name?"
"Maybe I'll tell you later." The dwarf said.
"Kael," the elf replied.
"I'm Zi." The wizard stood and looked around the tavern. "No one else? Room for one more in D and D!"
An orc walked over, a weak smile on his hideous face.
"No way, not gonna happen," Kael said in a confident tone. "I've played D and D with orcs before. You people do *not* take losing well."
"Fine!" He rumbled. "I don't want to play with you anyway!"
Zi looked away from the orc with a forced smile. The wizard pretended he couldn't see the tears forming in tall gray orc's eyes, instead shifting to face the game-board. "So, let's play!"
---
"No fair," the unnamed dwarf slammed a fist into the table, knocking a chunk of wood to the ground. His dice was still resting on the center, the number '4' clearly showing. "The orc was starin' at me!"
Zi turned and saw an orc's head quickly duck behind a chair. Shaking his head, he once again faced the board. "Well, I don't see how that would affect your dice roll. Anyway, instead of completing Lisa's work for her and earning her trust, you don't finish anything and have to stay overtime."
"Look 'ere, you dumb wiz-"
"My turn yet?" Kael asked, boredom evident in his voice. "Or will we wait for another species to form an empire and overtake this one?"
The elf's hand grabbed the die and began shaking, before even deciding on an action, letting it loose with practiced ease. Before the dice came to a rest, a gray and scarred hand grabbed it. "I can't play?"
It was the orc.
"I'll show you how I play." The orc let the dice fall out of his hand and it sat still with the number '1' showing. "Ah!'
The orc's axe slammed into the center of the table, sharpened side cutting through as if it were elven silk.
The tavern grew quiet as eyes turned to the orc. As though he only just realized what he'd done, the orc smiled again and backed away slowly, two steps, before turning and sprinting out the door.
Zi blinked. Then he turned to the serving girl. "I'll have another pint."
"Make that two!" The unnamed dwarf called.
"I got the pint to share for us all," I said.
"Oh." The dwarf looked to the serving girl again. "Make it three!"
| 2015-06-09T17:45:44
| 2015-06-09T14:41:50
| 115
| 49
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[WP] You die and find yourself in hell, where apparently everyone spends time to negate their sins before they go to heaven. The guy in front of you, who cheated on his wife, gets 145 years. Feeling like you led a fairly average and peaceful life, you’re not worried. You get 186,292 years.
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186,292 YEARS?
How could this be? I never even harmed a fly. Okay, well - maybe a few of those. You know what I mean.
**"....But why?**", I asked struck by pure horror and disbelief.
The hell warden looked right into my eyes and cracked a diabolic smile:
"Do you even realize how many people died because you refused to forward those chain-mails?"
----------------------------------------------
|
Why?, I ask in disbelief I tithed I went to church I was a faithful husband. What did I do? Saint Peter looks deep into my eyes with morose and disgust, “ It is not what you have done but what you failed to do...” I rack my mind trying to figure out what it was and finally it dawns on me. All this time for a Fucking Facebook post!!!!
| 2018-09-26T07:41:09
| 2018-09-26T03:51:49
| 1,768
| 123
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[WP]Write a story about a supervillian who is unspeakably more powerful than anyone else on his planet, but is content with using it for small things like cutting in line or getting free extra servings.
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As his dinner guests continued their endless chit chat Donald closed his eyes and focused.
Silently to himself he repeated "two for me, one for them, two for me, one for them."
A silk like touch on his right hand and a soft female voice "honey are you ok?" brought his thoughts rushing back to the table and his guests. Donald opened his eyes and looked up. It had worked again. He didn't understand how or why but it worked. He had two scoops of ice cream with his pie while everyone else at the table only had one.
|
Vincent was annoyed.
This was not particularly unusual. Vincent was regularly annoyed at something. But this particular annoyance seemed just impossible to rectify no matter how he dealt with it.
Mega-burger was slam packed. Estimated time at the drive-thru was 13 minutes. This was completely unacceptable.
He took a breath, and let out a long, exasperated sigh, “I suppose one more try won’t kill me.”
And with one more deep breath he filled his lungs, closed his eyes, and concentrated on the etherial wisps of light flowing around him and all matter in his view. He felt the familar wrenching of his stomach, like he’d done one too many sit-ups, and it was gone. This was getting easier every time he did it.
When his eyes opened, the universe had frozen.
-----
When he first realized as a young man that he could not only freeze time, but actually move back and forth through it with little more than a thought he was elated. After the initial terror of having the time-frozen air feel like you were moving through Jell-O, and training himself to not panic at the initial difficulty breathing (which always happened a for a moment regardless, and he cursed himself everytime) he realized he was effectively a god. He could literally shape reality as he saw fit.
At first it was small things: a voyeuristic peek at a girl in the gym shower, walking out with a new television that he liked, spooking kids by making things magically appear and disappear where they could see them, figuring out what tomorrow’s lottery numbers were going to be and investing wisely. Tiny things.
But pretty quickly he got bored. Honestly, he found the money was easier to make on the stock market since he could see the future. There was less suspicion than when he won the lottery the fourth time in a row. Scaring kids ended up being a lot more work for a lot less payoff than he cared to invest. And he just never really cared that much about females to bother with the trouble of screwing with the timestream to get laid. There were video games to play and burgers to eat and all kinds of TV to watch.
Just to get decent television alone was a huge undertaking. Turned out that there was NO way to get a golden age of television without going through a couple of decades of crap TV to get the right people in the right places to allow for Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones to happen. Took him YEARS to figure that out, well, it felt like years, honestly he forgot how old he was a long time ago and an hour and a year lost most meaning to him at the same time. Video games are even more complicated, but he’s working on it. And, well, try as he might, he could never find a better burger than the ones at Mega-burger.
-----
So now he finds himself in line. A LONG FUCKING LINE. He casually goes up to each car in line and jostles each driver to find their driver’s license or anything with their name and/or social security number. He writes them all in his notebook (for some reason any electronic technology he takes through the timestream scrambles all to hell) and includes any identifying marks or tattoos for each name.
“Well, off to work we go I guess,” he thinks to himself with a sigh. Another moment of concentration and he opens his eyes in the same place, but five years earlier. At night so there are no people around to freak out at his sudden appearance. Glancing down at his list he makes note of the first name, the man in the car directly ahead of his, Mark Weber.
A few hours later, the brakes on Mark Weber’s car failed and he sailed into oncoming traffic on his way to work. It took some doing, but with a liberal application of his powers he was able to create an accident that took out three of his names in one go. He scratched off Mark, Cheryl and Jiao. Fifteen names to go.
“Christ the work a person has to go through to get a decent burger….”
-----
Back in the present day, he opens his eyes in his car in line at Mega-burger. Glancing at the digital sign showing the wait: 8 minutes. He should have known. No matter what he does, there are always people waiting in line at Mega-burger.
Vincent sighed, but hey, eight minutes isn’t so bad. He pulled out his phone and got on facebook. Frowning slightly, turns out the President was Donald Trump. He couldn’t stop himself, he threw his head back and laughed. He was still laughing when the person behind him gave a honk to let him know to move forward. “God, that’s funny…” he wiped away a tear of laughter and scooted his car up in line a bit as he scrolled through his phone.
| 2017-05-16T08:51:33
| 2017-05-16T08:36:03
| 20
| 13
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[WP] Write the letter that you always wanted to, but never did.
Most of the writing prompts I see on here are for fictional stories, but this is only one small corner of the larger art of writing. In this prompt, I'd like you to consider writing something a little more personal, and in a form that you might not have otherwise considered... Letters.
Perhaps you'd like to write a letter confessing your love to a long forgotten crush? A letter to your boss telling them exactly what you think of them? A letter to your school bully? Maybe a letter to your childhood hero telling them how much you were inspired by their career?
Be creative, be inventive, but most of all - be expressive. :D
|
Dear Dad,
I'm pretty sure you think Mom is my hero. She stayed at home with us until high school, attended all the sports practices, school performances, made all the lunches...and of course I love her, for all that and more, but I'd like to tell you that you have always been my hero.
Some might say that it's just because of supply and demand; you were in short supply growing up, so the demand was high. But that just wouldn't cover it. There is a connection of spirit between us that I just don't have with Mom.
Sometimes when we play cards we start to get a little competitive, and by that I mean that you become a horrendous asshole with a horseshoe so far up your ass you must taste steel! The curse words start flying as the stakes get higher but the twinkle in your eye matches the one in mine. Meanwhile, Mom is in the other room hollering at us to "play nice," never seeing that the anger is all in good fun.
But I guess it really comes down to that day. You know the one. We waited for the ambulance for 45 minutes, and that whole time you did your best to breathe life back into my brother, your son. How you managed to keep it together that long, I will never know. You even drove us all to the hospital behind the ambulance. It seemed like an inhuman feat to me. Superman himself could not have kept it between the lines on that drive.
It's been a decade, and do you know what amazes me most? That twinkle in your eye that matches mine has never disappeared. You never let your grief drown out your joy. You face each day still open to all of what life has to offer. Grief is still a constant visitor, but you set the example of how to invite it in with open arms, to acknowledge that it is part of our lives without it being a menace that must be locked out. By opening the doors easily you help to let in all the other emotions so that life is still whole.
I don't know what I would do without you. You set the example of how to live life and face its challenges with courage and humanity.
Thank-you.
|
Dear Teacher,
This is letter that will try to explain my frustration. My constant frustration. You are an unkind human being of ~~average~~ below average intelligence. You are also sexist. I am not going to overstate my intelligence, but it exists. I am scared of you destroying my future because you can not comprehend that just because one kid is a boy who interrupts you every second and I don't that does not mean he deserves all As and I deserve Cs and Ds. You also seem to ignore students who put their hand up, which makes no sense. Multiple times someone has been first in line and you serve the people behind them, which is just rude. I wish that students had the option to say this without punishment, but at this point, dammit, I'll take it.
From your angry student,
EFoxeden
| 2015-12-05T15:05:05
| 2015-12-05T13:38:34
| 59
| 24
|
[WP] Deep beneath the trenches of WW1, there is a hidden tavern run by soldiers, for soldiers of both sides.
I submitted something similar a few months back. Hoping for a few more responses to read :)
|
An hour. Sixty minutes. Sixty short minutes and then back we go. Back up top. Back to the slaughter. Fifty-nine minutes. A couple of Gerry troops slouch over an old trench frame that now stands as a makeshift bar. I wonder if it’s from one of theirs or one of ours, but it doesn’t matter I suppose. The Down Below, we call it. And the only rule here is there is no ours or theirs; no us and them.
A young lad from my company rests with a small wooden pipe jutting from his cracked lips, his eyes creaking shut as the tankard of beer quietly fizzes in his hand. There’s a song coming from somewhere; a drunken mix of German and English voices, the singers as swaying and uneasy as the melody.
Forty minutes. In Forty minutes the whistles will blow and up we’ll go and down we’ll go. The two at the bar will be dead, I’ll be dead, and the voices that trip through the darkness at the back of the Down Below will be silent forever. If not this time, then another. I take a long drink of my beer. It was Gerry’s turn to bring the beer this time, happily. I savour the intense flavour for a while, then finish the bottle. Time for another. Just time for one more. I walk through the mud to the makeshift bar. The two German soldiers turn to me with a look that seems both vacant and ponderous.
“Twenty minutes, English.” One says.
“Twenty minutes.” I reply.
He raises his glass slightly and nods.
“Prost.”
“Cheers.” I say in return and our glasses clink dully in the darkness. I take a sip from my beer and walk back to my table. I see the young lad. He’s fast asleep and snoring in low, steady snorts, and his pipe dangles from his lip and wobbles with each breath. He looks like what I know he’ll never be; an old man.
Ten minutes. A new song starts up from some unseen corner. I sip my beer and close my eyes. Ten long minutes.
|
Blood and tears were flung across the battleground as screams of both fear and intimidation rang in the ears of the soldiers. Chaos seemed to be raining down, a fitting similarity to the storm that ravaged the fields that they were fighting upon...
Winston had just sat onto his favourite seat in the bar, it was made from the finest mahogany and coupled with pristine leather. Slowly, he sipped the sweet cider that he had grasped in his half-bloodied hand, the barman turned and, noticing the emptiness of the glass, asked if he wished another drink. Of course, he swiftly replied with a yes. Indeed, the relaxing atmosphere of the cozy bar was in stark contrast with the horrors faced above; one would have to concentrate to hear a single blast.
Across from him sat two lieutenants, they seemed to be quarreling about one unimportant matter or another. By the look of their tattered outfits and the gleams of anger in their eye, they had most likely been in a shootout with each other but mere minutes before. Nonetheless, Winston didn't let it get the most of him. After all, he had come here to escape the worries of the war, not bathe in them.
He was luckier than most, he'd heard about the bar only a few weeks into his conscription, it had taken others months and the majority had gone without noticing it at all. Then again, what sane mind would journey to the center of No Man's Land in the first place?
Bored, he glanced at the broken pocket-watch that he had kept by his side, within it was a picture of the one woman he loved. The feeling of a tear dropping down his face wasn't unknown to him so he decided to ignore it as he continued to sip his drink. Suddenly, a loud crack of glass turned his attention to the center of the bar. The two lieutenants were brawling. He couldn't say that he was shocked, these things were bound to happen when you allowed rival soldiers to share a drink. Anyway, he knew that the managers would soon put an end to it, the lack of fighting was the only rule of the establishment and it must be followed at all times.
Something wasn't right. It should've ended by now, he thought as they carried on beating one another. The taller man, who seemed to be in the prime of his twenties, had just hit the other one directly in the face with the full force of his muscular arm. Where were the managers? Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. This couldn't be happening. Surely not. The once distant bangs had grown closer and made his ears ring with pain. The door flew open as a stampede of soldiers stormed in. He had but a moment to watch as the limbs of the fellow bar patrons glided across the room. The ringing stopped. It took him a few seconds to realise that it was due to the fact that he was missing both of his ears. He was missing quite a lot more than that, in fact.
Cold ran through his body, followed by a sudden flow of the most marvelous heat. He opened his eyes for what felt like the final time and was met the glaze of the Summer sun shining upon a battlefield. He knew that the young ones spoke of visions before death, but he had not realised that this was what they meant...
| 2017-05-22T12:58:42
| 2017-05-22T12:47:32
| 56
| 15
|
[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 get unlimited wishes?!"
"Well, sort of. You have to answer a math question every time, and if you get one wrong, every wish you made goes negative."
"Goes negative..?"
"Yeah, it'll have a negative effect, instead of a positive one. And the math questions get harder every time you make a wish."
"Okay then, I'm ready."
"Okay, then I'll make it easy on you. What's 3 + 10?"
"Thirteen"
"What shall be your wish?"
"I wish I will get any math question ever asked directly to me correct, no matter how hard."
"....well, shit."
|
***I'm not telling you any of the answers, so try to see how many problems you can solve without Googling***
"Why hello, Genie. It appears you want me to wish?"
"Yes, but I will only grant wishes to match your logical ability. I am forbidden from giving you more than you can handle. As such, for every wish, your mathematical inquisition will increase a grade level."
"Ok."
"1st question: How many more than 3 is 7?"
After successfully answering, the client wished for an extraordinary companion and was granted what would become his favorite pet.
"2nd question: How many 5's do you need to make 70?"
Again, he answered correctly and got a wish granted. As he was a recent college graduate, he had enough math skills to tear through all of he grade level questions:
"What is 4*6?"
"What is 3^2 ?"
"What is the prime factorization of 90?"
"Solve: (3x)/4+1=13"
"What is 125^(1/3) ?"
"Write me the quadratic formula."
Before long, however, the genie realized that simple mathematics would not suffice to settle this score. He needed logic.
"Listen carefully. 2^X =23. 23^Y =32. If both of these are true, what is X*Y?"
With one wrong answer, every wish came flying back, and the man was handed a school uniform and a free year's tuition at his elementary school.
That, and he was turned to a 6-year-old.
| 2017-06-18T07:58:58
| 2017-06-17T23:40:28
| 25
| 18
|
[WP] in your world, everyone has a almost entirely unique symbol on their wrist, soulmates have the same symbol. Your whole life you've been drawing on a symbol with a sharpie to hide the fact you don't have a soulmate. One day, you meet someone without a symbol, just like you.
Thank you everyone for informing me that this is a stupid and pathetic writing prompt but I like writing in this genre. If you do not like this writing prompt, please ignore it, you don't have to comment that I'm an unoriginal 14 year old. You can easily move on to another prompt you enjoy.
|
I always felt like an outsider. Love was not meant for me my parents would always say. My siblings would joke about me becoming a monk. Years of ridicule growing up from classmates due to my bare wrist. I hated it so much. College was starting and I decided to be a different person. I had a dream one night and a symbol popped into my head. One I liked so much I drew it on myself with a sharpie. Nothing special just a few slashes with a swirl. But this was mine.
I kept this symbol on my arm from then on making sure to redraw it every morning and after every shower. Some noticed but most stopped caring enough to ask or say anything. All of this though has led up to that moment. A moment I never dreamed of. I being a 36 year old man found myself in front of a woman probably around 31 or so and she had the very same symbol i have drawn on myself for years. An exact copy of it but the difference was hers was 100% real. I couldn't believe my eyes. Her reaction was unexpected though. She started crying and ran past me into the ladies bathroom. I wasn't sure what to do but decided I needed to wait and see what this meant.
Her sister had choice words for me I came to find out. She came up to me suddenly a woman I didn't know accusing me of all sorts of horrible things. I had to show her my college photos of it just to prove I didn't do it intentionally. For you see the symbol I drew on myself was the same as hers, but it was also the same as her late husband. A man she loved dearly. Her soulmate. I understood at that moment that I had caused her pain without even realizing it. I apologized to the sister and left.
2 years later I turned a corner and ran into a woman. It was the same woman from that day. I recognized her face immediately. I expected her to run away again but instead she smiled and laughed. We talked for a few and she asked me to have a coffee with her. After that day we got to know each other more and more and one day I married her. Then we had you little one. So let me tell you that you not having a symbol doesn't mean you won't find love. It just means you might have to wait a little longer.
|
I am a very lucky man. I am a lucky man because I am the living proof that when God closes the door on you, he often opens a window in return.
Since the ripe age of 20 everyone starts to get a unique "social vector identifier" on their wrist. They say SVI is a complex graphical representation of your personality generated by the governing super computer. Like a barcode of your soul. Its exact purpose is never explained to us but before long the entire human populations are using it to find "the perfect match" to spend the rest of their lives with. Well, that makes sense. According to legend the Mona Lisa is really a feminine version of Da Vinci, because the ideal woman for him is none other than himself. So if there is an accessible way to find your doppleganger in the opposite sex, why not?
Unfortunately for me, that method didn't work. For some reasons my wrist was still smooth and clean at 23. At first I thought it was just late. My old buddies called the latecomers "cherubs". Their theory was that people got SVI late because their hearts were too pure and innocent for the governing computer to make a determination. At first I thought it was funny. However by 25 I knew something was up. I lost count the number of times I had sex with hookers and strippers by then. No way I was pure and innocent, yet I was still a cherub. The god damn computer forgot about me and the jokes stopped being funny.
By the time I turned 37 I was richer and lonelier than most. It was easy to accomplish both when I had no prospect of meeting my significant other. It was harder to hide the real reason I was still a bachelor, so I got pretty good at drawing some obtuse design and managed to fool everyone into thinking my personality was just so unique and unbelievable that no one was a match for me. At least it stopped all the cherub talks, until that night.
I met her a year ago. I was sitting by myself in a bar, drunk and depressed as usual, weeping silently at the injustice bestowed upon me. As I wiped away my tears a handkerchief appeared. A stunning woman stood in front of me. I was at a loss for words, then she spoke...
"Your uh, Snoopy? It's getting smudged."
Oh shit was all I could think of. I was in a panic. I blurted out, "It's on my other wrist!"
She chuckled and showed me her arms. Her pearly, smooth arms with nothing on them. I was shocked. Shocked and relieved. My search was over.
From that day on life has taken a great turn. She likes 20th century cartoon just like me. It's effortless for us to cry and smile together. One difference though. Unlike me, she is a real cherub. An angel at heart. Each day passes so quickly when I am with her. I don't want this to ever end.
Speaking of which, there she is!
-----
"Hey Doug! How is it going today?" Hello Mrs. Amber Eckard I am doing just great! In fact I have been reminiscing about how much of a miracle it is that we ended up together. Hey do you want to...
"Doug, I have some bad news to tell you." What? Did your asshole boss chew you out? Are you sick? Should we....
"No, the test is out. They made a mistake. We're not really a match. They found my real SVI. I am sorry darling. You know how the court looks at it when SVI is involved. I'll leave this here. Please sign it by Friday. It will mean a lot to me."
She got up and left. I stare at the divorce papers on the table. Something about her getting the house. My phone is ringing. I can't think. Why does this have to happen to me? My phone is still ringing.. what the fuck does this guy want?
"Mr. Eckard? This is International Recovery Incorporated calling on behalf of Photonic Beauty. We have reasons to believe you are listed as the emergency contact for Ms. Michelle Hawthorne perhaps also known as Amber Eckard? Please remind her of the fact that she incurred a charge of $35,250 for laser removal operations she undertook a year and a half ago. With compound interest that amounts to ..." I hang up and dial another number. A number I haven't used for a while.
"This is Doug. Put Ginger on the phone."
"Mr. Eckard, it's been a while! To what do I owe this pleasure?"
"Ginger, cut the crap I might have a deal for you. Rattle my memory a bit and tell me again the name of your ex."
I drink the whiskey in one gulp. It's true. When God closes one door he often opens a window. It feels good to be a cherub again.
| 2017-08-06T19:04:08
| 2017-08-06T18:05:26
| 14
| 10
|
[WP] You are a thief and pickpocket who manages to save the world, after doing so you return to your life of crime but begin to think people may be letting you commit crimes because of who you are
|
Joseph took pride in his work. He never had any skills to be proud of in school. He wasn’t athletically gifted, he wasn’t smart, he didn’t have musical talent; all in all, Joseph was an average joe. Which is why, when he discovered his knack for pickpocketing, he began to steal, not for the monetary value, but the feeling of accomplishment one gets from succeeding at their area of expertise. His targets grew more and more challenging, more and more difficult, more and more dangerous as he sought to prove himself. What began as casual “bumps” with oblivious businessman in the crowded buses in the after work rush hours steadily built up to daring thefts from millionaires surrounded by burly bodyguards. Joseph tried not to take anything too valuable. He had a boring office job at some global corporation that paid well enough he didn’t really need to worry about paying his bills. The adrenaline rush from the thefts themselves were enough of a reward for Joseph. He never thought that he would lose his thrill when he stole the bioweapon from the shady suit he overheard planning to ransom the UN. It was such a small vial, he couldn’t believe that it was powerful enough to wipe all life on the planet. But alas, Joseph couldn’t ignore the chance what the stranger he overheard was telling the truth. He picked the vial from the man’s pocket and turned it in to the police. As it turned out, the vial was some sort of super virus developed by a nefarious genius straight out of a spy movie that did have the capability to cause humankind’s extinction. It was an overblown affair, with Joseph’s face plastered over every newspaper, magazine, tv screen and website. He even got invited by the president for lunch at the White House; he had to hold back his urge to grab the wooden statuette next to the front door. It was just plain impolite to steal something from a house one was invited in, and Joseph was anything but an impolite man.
The problems came the first time Joseph tried to pickpocket someone after the incident. It was a standard move: bump into someone walking on the street, spill their bags, help them pick it up, and in the meanwhile swipe a thing or two. Except this, as he stood back up, his eyes met the victim’s, and he knew that the other man saw him pocket the ballpoint pen (it was some sort of cheap souvenir). They held each other’s gaze for several long seconds. Then, the man forced out a smile.
“Thank you,” he said, and left with his bag.
It was the same with the next few attempts. Joseph even deliberately made mistakes to make sure he wasn’t just imagining it. He wasn’t. Even when he was obviously stealing from them, every man and woman he stole from would just smile in that frustratingly placating manner he was beginning to hate, and say, “Thank you.”
There was no more danger of being caught, and with it went the thrill. With this realization, Joseph spiraled down into depression. He turned to alcohol to lament the loss of his passion for the only thing he was ever good at. Life became grey, miserable, boring.
One day, as he, drunk out of his mind, sobbed out his story to nobody at the local bar, a man approached.
“You’re that pickpocket who saved the world, right?” he asked.
“Yeah, what of it? Haven’t you guys thanked me enough yet, taken enough from me?”
“No, I’m not here to thank you. I just thought, since you’re a pickpocket and all, you must have some pretty deft hands right? Wanna be an apprentice to a magician?”
And so began a friendship of a lifetime, and Joseph Mavillo’s journey to become the greatest magician the world has ever known.
(This is my first try at a WP, so please don’t judge too much. Hope you enjoy!)
|
I looked across the street at the pub, yearning to be inside next to the artificial hearth soaking in the heat rather than swaddled in rags ducking into an alley to enjoy a break from the wind. It got cold here on Fairhaven, and the planetary governors had long ago decided not to terraform the seasons out of the planet's capital. I would survive though, I always had. Besides, I didn't need to wait here too much longer.
------------------------------------------
"Monroe!" The voice crackled over the near-fold comms, "The bridge is showing total power loss, you've got to bring that battery back on line or we're sitting ducks out here!"
"Aye, sir." I replied while flicking over to crew channels, "You heard the nice lady boys, we need this battery back online yesterday. Ramirez, where are we at?"
"Main board is fried sarge, and I'm not sold on the primary relay."
I heard a grunt from behind me as someone unloaded a spare board from the maintenance stack, "One shot's all we're going to have time for anyway Ramirez, give me a cycle warning when you ge tthe spare load-" the ship shuddered under another missile barrage, and the lighting dropped out of the chamber to immediately be replaced by emergency strips. Great, we were officially off life support, and I had about half a canister of air in my pack. Fifteen minutes at most.
"Everyone alive out there?" I spoke out over crew comms as I bypassed a dozen priority flag messages. If we survived I'd probably end up court martialed, but survival came first.
"We're still kicking sarge. Battery cycle in seven clicks."
I pulled up targeting, but apparently combat support was offline too. Good thing the damned Xeroastrians were well within optical range. As the ready light flipped over to standby and live I exhaled slowly, only one chance.
Through the wailing of every emergency system in the fleet trying to scream into my ear, I cycled the main batteries of the NSS Hercules and prayed the Xeroastrians were in as bad a place as we were.
-----------------
Gods but it was cold. I had my hands tucked deep into my armpits, and had crouched down as low as I could into my rags, but still the chill wind blew. I waited. The military could teach a man to hurry up and wait as well as anywhere, and crouching in an alley sure beat standing at attention in your skivvies. Of course, I'd eaten better back then. But that was sort of the point of this operation.
Finally the door across the street slid open, and my mark stepped out into the alley opposite me. I palmed the heaviest object I still carried with me, and set about tailing him - I bet Ramirez would've been proud.
---------
Admiral Tsien was a bull of a man, nearly seven feet tall and probably tipping in closer to half a ton than not. It made it funny to watch prime minister Yellen step up to the podium in front of him. The little woman might not have reached his elbow, but she had steel in her for a civilian. I couldn't have been the only one in the hall cracking a smile.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I think we all owe the admiral great thanks. Both for his incredible service to our federation, but also for his willingness to deliver a speech," She winked at the crowd, "No matter how terse, or how many teeth we had to pull to make it happen."
The crowd laughed, there had been a lot of laughing in the Federation these days. We had fought off the Xeroastrians, who had surrendered shortly after the Hercules got off its last improbable shot and took their battleship off the board. The Hercules had limped back to Fairhaven driven by spare parts and prayers, but she had made it. The party hadn't stopped since.
The prime minister took a moment to revel in the joy of her people, then took on a more somber attitude. "We shall never forget those who lost their lives defending Fairhaven, but we can honor them. As well as those who fought beside them."
The rest of her speech passed by in a blur of memories for me, until I was wrenched out of my thoughts by her addressing me, "as well, Gunnery Seargent Alexander Monroe, who not only led his team in bringing online the main battery through total system failure, but who fired the decisive shot heard round the galaxy on optical targeting. For his distinguished service in combat, he is awarded the Fairhaven Cross."
-------------------
We were treated like heroes on our return to Fairhaven proper, or presumably on the other planets of the Federation. But I had never desired life anywhere else. I'd grown up on Fairhaven, and I had enlisted to fight for it. No one was going to kick me off.
Not the Fairhaven Shipyards, when they eliminated my maintenance detail and left me without a job.
Not my landlord, when he'd thrown me and my wife out of our flat.
Not my wife, who'd divorced me when I couldn't provide for her.
Not the drug dealers who controlled so many of the shadows in Fairhaven.
Certainly not a bartender who always had one of his cashiers run the day's take to the banking outlet. This was a good neighborhood after all.
A good neighborhood for me at least, as I brought that fucking Cross down on the back of the boy's head. Heroes had to eat too.
| 2018-03-17T03:30:40
| 2018-03-16T23:51:37
| 111
| 10
|
[WP] God shares the cosmos with several other dieties. To pass the time they play Civilization like games for eons. God's frustrated that his civilization, Earth, is several ages behind all his friends.
|
They had been playing for nearly 14 billion years now and God had barely advanced his Humans enough to begin exploring their solar system. The other gods had already started transmitting their culture across the cosmos. So much so that the god Marlinius and his race of gorlarmi had completely dominated Roman culture on Earth, just one of many human cultures to unwittingly succumb to their enemy's influence.
God was more than a little upset to see that none of the other races wanted to adopt his Human's predisposition for mutilating their genitals. Tullicthu and its cultistians on the other hand had been attempting to be diplomatic with the lowly Humans. God hadn't been very happy with Tullicthu since that last time he wiped out his bad-ass race of lizard people with a giant space rock.
After this, God did not want anything to do with the other races. He was a bit of a sore loser. He even had the Humans put up nuclear power plants all around the planet, as well as detonating several nuclear bombs, just to keep Nexu and her thetian's away. Everyone knows thetians are allergic to radiation.
And it was just plain common sense to keep as far away as possible from Marlinius since his idea of a good time involved a cup plague and two teaspoons of mass extinction. Yes, indeed, God thought his fool-proof plan of creating a hardy, adaptable, and curious species would have been a no-brainer for this game but things had panned out about as well as the multiple times he had sent down great prophets to try to get the humans to stay on track.
God had been thinking long and hard and decided that he'd been attempting a scientific victory for far too long, and even if he had to go down the victory list, he was going to win this, so he decided to turn all of his, and subsequently humanity's, efforts towards a domination victory.
.
If you disliked this story, you can be sure to avoid more of my literature [here.](https://np.reddit.com/r/KyronWight/)
|
Jesus is doing well, most advanced in science but his public order is barely in the green, Jesus adopts and invests his saved social policies heavily in the the freedom ideology.
The other gods see this a chance to fuck with him
"Budda has chosen to adopt the order ideology"
"Bhrama has chosen to adopt the order ideology"
"Yahwey has chosen to adopt the order ideology"
Even Zeus and Kronos agree for once and chose to adopt the order ideology.
"Fuck!!" Jesus yells, his public order has gone down to -20. But he doesn't want to change it or he will lose half his policy's. Rebellions sprout up and he has to devote all his empires resources to shutting them down. In the meantime the other civs catch up to him in science. Eventually Jesus gives up.
"Jesus has adopted the order ideology"
"Finally it's over" he thought. But in that chaos the other gods used the distraction and moved their armies to his borders. Jesus knows what's about to happen. But he has no troops left from his rebellions. All the other gods declare war on him at once. And his civilization is carved up like a turkey.
"You have lost, your civilization has fallen to its many foes"
Jesus facepalms and says "whatever I'll get them in a few millennia when this game is over" and goes to watch star trek TNG.
| 2016-04-09T07:01:46
| 2016-04-09T05:49:29
| 63
| 20
|
[WP] Vampire society have been loyal customers to a carpenter for years. He made the best coffins they have slept in for centuries, and never really got suspicious of so many wealthy people willing to pay premium for the same niche item. As he got old, the vampires tries to offer him immortality.
|
Vezemir stepped out of the carriage. The sun was not fully set, but the sky was overcast enough that he only felt a slight itch as he strode quickly across the street. Glendale Graves was quiet today, but then it usually was. It would be a strange sight to see a coffin-maker busy.
As he approached, Vezemir saw Druig standing at the door, locking up. Vezemir raised a hand to catch his eye. The old man grinned at him, flipping the "Closed" sign on the door back around to "Open."
A small bell dinged as Vezemir pushed to door open. Druig clapped him on the back and ushered him inside.
"I didn't expect to see you again so soon. What do you need?"
Vezemir smiled at the old man. "This is more of a social call, old friend," he said. "I understand you're retiring soon."
Druig's smile fell a few inches as he stepped behind the counter. "Aye, my hands aren't what they used to be." He glanced down at his hands and sighed. "Can barely hold a hammer properly some days." Then he glanced up at Vezemir again. "I'm pretty sure I know what you're here for."
Vezemir raised an eyebrow. "I just want to pay my respects to a great craftsman. My family loves your work, you've done such a great job in the past to... honor our dearly departed."
Druig snorted. "Vez, I know what you are. You only ever show up at night, you almost always overpay, and I'll be honest, some of your family are pretty terrible at hiding it. A few months ago, Morana insisted on 'testing the casket out.'" He shook his head. "She fell asleep in it for almost two hours."
"W-Well, I'll admit we may be a touch eccentric, but-"
Vezemir's stammering was cut off by Druig pointing behind him. Vezemir glanced over his shoulder at the huge window in the front of the shop. The darkness outside caused the glass to reflect the interior. He could see Druig staring smugly back at him, with no sign of himself.
"You're here to offer me immortality." Druig spoke softly. It wasn't a question, just a statement of fact.
Slowly, Vezemir nodded. "Only if you wish for it."
Druig smiled sadly. "Vezemir, I'm tired. I've been doing this for almost fifty years. I've made coffins for the elderly, for soldiers, for children..." he paused, his smile slipping from his face. "For my wife."
Vezemir placed one hand gently on top of Druig's. "You don't have to be, though," he said. "The blood doesn't just prolong your life. It will revitalize you, make you feel like a young man again." He barrelled on, diving into his sales pitch. "You could join our family. We would make sure you never wanted for anything ever again. You could live in luxury for eternity."
Druig frowned, pulling his hand free. "All I want is to rest, and to see Isolde again." he turned away. "You can't give me that."
The silence stretched between the two men, until Vezemir spoke.
"I'm sorry," he muttered. "I... It's been a long time since I was human. I forget, sometimes, what it's like to be mortal. If there is anything at all that we can do for you, don't hesitate to ask."
Druig glanced back at him. "Thanks, Vez. There is one thing that would be nice."
​
*One year later*
The priest had never seen a funeral like this. It was strange enough that the coffin-maker had asked for it to be held at night. But he hadn't expected this kind of turnout. Of course, there was his family. A son and daughter, both with their own children, as well as a few friends.
What confused the priest were the others. A veritable army of men and women had filed into the chapel, all dressed in ornate attire, each one offering their heartfelt condolences to the family. Something about these people unnerved the priest. They felt... wrong somehow. As if they shouldn't be there. For a moment, he considered telling them to leave, but then he saw the family.
Generally, coffin-makers weren't the most social people. Dealing in death so much, it was hard for them to make friends in work. Yet as more and more of these strange people filed into the chapel, and approached the coffin-maker's children, the priest saw something come over them.
Their faces changed from the expected look of a pair of grieving children to something akin to pride. After all, for so many important looking people to value their father so highly, he must have been a great man indeed.
*Well, I suppose it does make sense*, the priest thought. *After all, a man whose life's work was honoring the dearly departed deserves to be honored in kind.*
|
Gerry looked aghast. “*Me*? Immortal?”
Orlock nodded. At his age, hiding his chiropteran Features was getting harder and harder. It took effort, to stay in a human guise. “Yes. I believe I said that. Immortal....with an asterisk. You’d be vulnerable to sunlight and fire would twice as dangerous to you as it is to a human. Forced into daysleep every sunrise. Dependent on human blood for continued existence.”
Gerry nodded. “That....sounds more like a burden, than a blessing.”
Orlock waved his hand dismissively. “Eh, it’s not so bad. You get powers to go with it.”
“Powers?” Gerry asked.
“Yes,” Orlock responded, “Powers. From ESP to assuming the shape of a wolf. Unless killed by sun or fire, you’ll heal from *any* injury. You’ll grow physically stronger, and, given time, the Batwithin shall manifest—-and you shall *fly*.”
Gerry sputtered, “But, but, I like to go to the beach! My grandchildren have invited me, this year!”
Orlock sighed in contempt. “They’ll Be Dead before you know it, and, no, I am NOT threatening them....simply stating a fact. Years will whoosh by, and before you know it’s the 3rd Millennium and man is exploring the stars.”
“But why offer *me* this?”
Orlock smiled, fangs showing. “Your coffins are godsends, Gerry. I’ve never slept in better. It’s...*comfortable*, so to speak. I’d rather than talent not die with you.”
Gerry’s eyes widened. “But I’ll be one of the Damned?”
“Oh, please,” Orlock spat. “*Everyone* is damned, according to the New Testament! *Everyone*? Original sin, and all that nonsense. Why fear Hell, Gerry when you might never die a true death?”
Gerry blinked, and swallowed hard. “Can...can I think about it?”
“Very well, but don’t take too long.”
*****
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“Hello, a lunatic came in here and threatened to kill me!”
“We’ll send an officer over immediately.”
| 2022-05-31T11:05:33
| 2022-05-31T10:25:11
| 726
| 44
|
[WP] You're thinking of asking out that girl in your Religious Studies class. Also, you're pretty sure she's a God.
|
All things considered, I probably should have figured it out sooner.
It was all in the little details-- the way she agreed to go out with me before I even asked her, how lit candles and burning incense just seemed to magically appear wherever we'd go on dates, or even the way she'd convulsed with laughter when I called the sex we'd just had 'heavenly.' We'd met in religious studies class for crying out loud-- shouldn't I have recognized the signs?! In any case, I was certain now.
The only thing I couldn't figure out was why she hadn't told me.
I mean, she can obviously read my mind-- I know because she adorably starts responding to my internal dialogue when she gets tired --but that means she almost definitely knows I know.
At first I wondered if she was worried about me getting weirded out or something-- like maybe she thought I wouldn't believe her, or that I wouldn't want to be with someone who isn't human. That made less and less sense the more I thought about it though. She was not one for insecurities.
Then, I started wondering if she was ashamed of me. Surely she wasn't the only one of her kind-- would her friends make fun of her? Would her parents approve? Did she even have parents? But that didn't make sense either-- she was nothing if not unabashedly herself.
It had been a few weeks since my initial revelation (hah!) in fact, but I still couldn't figure it out. That is, until we went to Starbucks.
I know, not exactly the most dramatic setting to divine (sorry, I'll stop) the true nature of the love of your life, but there we are. The place was absolutely packed that day. My drink was ready first, so I decided to secure us a table while she waited for her usual hot chocolate. Thankfully luck was on our side (was there really an alternative?) and I quickly found us a nice spot by the window.
A solitary lit candle sat atop it, as always.
So as always, I turned to watch her through the crowd while I waited. She was just receiving her drink, but paused a moment when the barista said something to her. I couldn't hear them over the nigh on deafening morning rush around me, but when he tried to hand her a piece of paper it was obvious what was happening-- he was trying to ask her out!
'Good luck with that,' I thought to myself with a grin, turning back to my coffee. I could've sworn I heard her reply with a giggle in my head.
And that's when everything clicked.
Now being very much a guy myself I didn't exactly have much experience with the day to day lives of girls, but I did know for sure that they were pursued by men they weren't interested in constantly. Day and night, at any hour they were in public, it was never-ending-- so imagine what it must've been like for her. If she revealed herself to just anyone, word would spread. Suddenly she'd have guys on her doorstep literally (and appropriately-- last one, I promise) bowing down to worship her.
Then another thought hit me. Say one of those guys did work out-- how would she know that they really loved her for who she was, and not just what she was? She could read their thoughts, sure, but the truth of the matter is they probably wouldn't really know either. So of course she'd keep it a secret-- then she'd know definitively how they felt about her as a person. Heck, I know I'd want that information in her shoes-- especially since I imagine the stakes of marriage are a lot higher when there is no death to do you part.
Honestly, I had to consider that particular thought myself for a moment. Granted, I'm not sure how much that consideration was worth, considering my tiny human brain probably isn't equipped to properly handle the concept of being together for-actual-ever, but I reached a conclusion anyway.
I would love that.
Because I love her-- she's thoughtful, caring, loyal to a fault, impossibly brilliant, slightly impatient, easily both bored and distracted, exhaustingly adventurous, and of course, drop-dead gorgeous, and I was madly in love with all of that. With all of her.
Then I laughed at the irony. I'm such a hopeless romantic, I always thought of her as a goddess anyway-- so what's really changed?
"And that's all I needed to hear," she said softly.
Suddenly, the room was silent. I could see people making noise around me that should've been assaulting my ears, but I didn't question it. Instead, I looked up and met those wonderful grey eyes.
Her entire face seemed to shine with adoration, and it was all directed at me. This really was heaven.
She laughed, and I realized she'd heard me and blushed.
"So it's really true," I spoke, matching her gentle tone. "You're an actual goddess."
"Yes," she said, and she somehow sounded like both love and thunder. "Is that ok?"
I couldn't stop a smile from infecting my entire face. "Didn't you hear?" I teased. "I thought you were a goddess already!"
She laughed, and playfully whacked the back of my head before plopping down in her seat. "You're such a dork," she said, and suddenly the world resumed around us.
I laughed back in reply, and took a sip of my coffee. "I do have a question though," I began tentatively.
She smiled wickedly, brushing a shimmering black hair out of her face. "No, you can't use the 'heavenly' line every time we have sex."
"Wait, really? But-- oh whatever, I'll just think of more," I said through another grin. "Actually, I was just wondering-- what are you actually the goddess of?"
She raised an eyebrow. "You humans, and your fascination with patron deities. You realize that concept is, like, thousands of years old right? If I recall correctly, you idiots also thought the world was flat back then too, right?"
Now that she mentioned it, the whole thing did seem kinda dumb.
"Ok, fair point," I agreed. "But then I have a lot more questions-- like what are you, exactly? What kind of biology is involved? Can we have kids? And what about your powers, what's the real scope of your abilities? Can you create life? What about mass or energy? Also, while we're on the topic, can we throw some quantum physics lessons in there? I really want to know what the deal with entanglement is, and..." I trailed off, realizing I was probably being a bit overwhelming.
Thankfully, her face held a softer expression than could possibly be human. She reached across the table and gently took my hand.
"Don't worry, my love," she nearly whispered. "You have all of eternity to learn."
|
To be fair, I'm always a little intimidated to talk to any kind of stranger, let alone a girl with long brown hair and deep green eyes and a propensity for wearing low-cut shirts. This feeling is familiar -- my heart is in my throat, the adrenaline is surging, I can barely breathe let alone think let alone keep my throat clear so my voice comes out smooth and even, as if talking to her is just the easiest thing in the world. This is normal.
And yet. I'm sure this time is different. This time she is making me feel the way that I feel, I mean actively sensing that I am looking at her and as a result making my throat close up, my pulse quicken, my palms sweat and my entire theoretical life with her flash before my eyes, punctuated by sex with her, often, forever. She is a God.
How else to explain the fact that she has never raised her hand once, or even been called on to speak, despite sitting right there in the front, close to the door. How else to reconcile the fact that not even the football player, who comes into this class to take the exams and nothing else, tries to hit on her after class as I see all other football players in all my other classes do to all the other beautiful girls? How else can it be that this person is so incredibly gorgeous, and is not already married and living in a castle somewhere, whisked away by a handsome actor with a trust fund? She is unreal. She is too good to be true. She is unapproachable, especially by the likes of me, and she knows it, and she wants me to know that she knows it. She knows I have figured her out and she is trying to put me off, like she does with everyone else.
But: It's the last day of class. We will hand in a paper next week to complete our coursework. We will no longer sit here and discuss the differences between Sikhism and Buddhism, or parse through Masuzawa's texts. We will go home and pretend this never happened, most likely -- happy to have passed and to move on. But for me, this class won't end until I talk to her, and find out if she's real. I will not be dissuaded.
The time has come. The clock has struck noon and the professor has dismissed us. We rise, more or less in unison, gathering our things and nodding silently at each other or ignoring the world. I see her already moving towards the door, and through it, and out into the hallway.
I race out to find her, and see her hair disappearing down the stairwell. My feet feel heavy as I clomp after her. My body has not yet caught up with my brain and refuses to believe we are trying to move this quickly in this direction. I want to call out, but not only does my mouth fail to work, I don't even know her name.
I round into the grey stairwell and see her a flight below, almost out of sight. It is truly now or never.
Hey, I say, down the stairs at her receding shadow. I say it quietly, but it echoes along the concrete and I see the shadow cease moving.
I walk down the stairs and approach her, as she turns to me.
Hey, I say again. I realize I haven't planned for this, that I was sure she would disappear in a puff of smoke if I actually reached her. I fumble for the next words.
What'd you think of the class? I manage to blurt out.
She simply smiles and raises an eyebrow. Then she speaks, and the force of her voice pushes me against the wall of my own mind. I am standing stock still and yet blown away to hear the words come out of her mouth.
"It was interesting. Never thought I'd take a class like that and actually like it. Wanna grab coffee and talk about the final?" she says, easy as a hand through fur, as a light beer into the glass.
Sure, I say, and put out my hand. I tell her my name, and we walk out of the stairwell and into the sun.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Tanri."
| 2016-02-23T18:52:21
| 2016-02-23T16:57:02
| 52
| 31
|
[WP] Chris Hansen steps down and names Arnold Schwarzeneggar as his successor on To Catch a Predator. Arnold misunderstands the type of Predator he's hunting.
Oh my.
|
The Audition
"Hello, I am here today auditioning for 'The Predator Catcher'. I think I would be perfect for this role, because look at me!! I can catch a pred-a-tah! I can use the mud and smear it all over my body, this confuses the predator as I am allowed free movement in the jungle. Then I can get close enough to.."
"Whoa... Arnold, we're going to have to stop you there. Actually. I really don't want to. I love where you were going with that, but we are referring to predators of a..... different nature.
"Ah, I love nature. You should have seen me protect it in California. It's all burning now. So back to this predator, you think maybe then he shouldn't be camping all the time then yes? Like, he's sick of the nature, so he goes into the city, like that one time with that pus-sy Danny Glover, but we film it right because we film it with me."
"Actually Mr. Schwarzeneggar, this show will focus more on predators more along the lines of Jared Fogle."
"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! JARED IS ONLY LIKE 200 POUNDS MAX, HE'D BE A PREDATORS BITCH NO SWEAT. Maybe fat Jared..... would've had the weight of a real predator but... Are you sure you don't like Sylvester Stallone better for the part?"
|
Someone was here..
Hsssssssssss chtchtch cht xht chtchtch keeeeeeehhhh.
The massive figure crashed down throught the skylight ceiling and scanned the room.
I step into one of many large bowls containing an unknown liquid...shorting out my already damaged cloaking shield.
Wzpft. Chemical spectral detection.
My computer recognizes this liquid as fruit punch...
Could it have been placed there just to short out my cloak? Impossible! No puny prey could think so!
Chtchtch chtchtch ...
Wzpft. Utraviolet spectrum. Wzpft. Low-MeV neutron detection. Wzpft.Infrared ..there!
Something there...some human sugary cake had been glopped around something..a human hand! Protruding out of a large cold mound near the human cooking room platform! Holding small paraffin figures. They were tiny, but burning.
A human sound : "Appy birthday!".
A massive cold shadow moved and ripped hoses out from the human cooking platform, holding them to the human wax icons and the world was blinding bright!
WHARRrRR! hugghhhhWrrrrr! The man-prey had ignited the gaseous cooking fuel and burned my visor!
He struck first! The dishonor!
Truely this was the human-warrior-prey the elders spoke of. He was cunning.
Within an instant I threw my spear into the metal box and cold darkness leaked out.
Pfftwoop. Pfftwoop.
Plasma caster fire perforated the adjoining eating room.
Pfftwoop Pfftwoop Pfftwoop .
Silence..
No-I will skin him alive and keep his skull for my own trophy. He will not be allowed an easy death...
I demove my damaged visor and swear it to my blood ancestors!
Chtchtch khaaaaa!!
Something darted quickly away.
I lept through the puny wall to grab him..but it was a decoy!
Air filled balloons tied to something....with human markings and a cold metal rock. Another trap!
A pin is released and it explodes!
Gaawwwwwwkkkkkg...mustn't fall...to the prey...
Must initiate .. Self.. Destruct.
I salute..you.. Man-prey.
| 2015-10-30T05:23:28
| 2015-10-30T01:26:28
| 57
| 25
|
[WP] You are a world-class programmer who has died. God agrees to allow you in to Heaven on the condition that you work for him while he debugs the human body. Write the patch notes for the next version of humans.
|
**Changes**
* Removed appendix
* Removed wisdom teeth
* Fixed a bug that caused infants to die for no reason
* Patched a bug that caused certain people to lose hair prematurely
* Body now handles excess calories better.
* Improvement of smell. Now should be on par with dogs
* Patched the bug that caused blurry vision in certain people
* Height limit increased
* Fixed a weird bug that made certain people attracted to young children. May need to reset preferences for this change to take place.
* Bodies will now "rag doll" instead of locking up when in a crash or similar event.
* Nipples no longer get irritated while running or in cold conditions
* Removed bug where women would grow facial hair
* Increased male pleasure from sexual intercourse. Should now be even with women.
* Increased flexibility of hip bones in women to allow birthing to be easier.
* Increased chance of rare eye color unlocks.
* Removed ghosts.
|
Update available!
Patch notes for humans below:
General
- Fixed a bug which made liquids spray out of the nose when humans laugh and drink at the same time
- Tweaked cognitiv memory settings that fixes random amnesia when subjects enter rooms or opens the fridge, causing them to forget their task or stare for hours in to the fridge
- Quick fix that prevents eyelashes getting stuck inside the eyesocket
- Altered mouth geometry. This hopefully stops the random tongue and cheek biting during food consumption
- Implemented neuron SHA256 encryption to prevent the virus 'Religion' from spreading
- Fixed blind spot in eyes
Female
- Girls have had their "You_should_automatically_know_whats_wrong"-module disabled due to too many complaints
- Removed mood swings during periods
Male changes
- Lose threads or hair shouldn't get curled around the penis anymore.
- Toe hair removed completely. It was deemed useless
- Hair should no longer grow between buttocks
- Anything with hair in inappropriate places should be fixed
| 2015-08-25T08:40:17
| 2015-08-25T07:46:47
| 292
| 51
|
[WP] A massive underground cathedral-like temple is discovered. You are one of the people sent to study it. As soon as you enter, the sheer size of everything inside tells you it was never ment for human worshipers.
*meant
|
When we opened the second set of doors was when we figured that whatever was behind the third, it wasn't built for creatures our size.
The first doors were massive: 22,540 kilograms each and they rolled on a breath of pressure. Less exertion was required to open them than was necessary to put on particularly troublesome gloves. Our resident engineer started having fits, stating repeatedly that the mechanism wasn't possible.
Yet, at the bottom of the coal field's stalled dig, those gigantic doors lay flat on the ground, opened and closed with gentle nudges. No design motifs presented, no bad relief carving, just a huge system for opening and closing.
Sixty meters beneath it we found the first curled metal pipe stuck deep inside of the granite wall, followed by the next two hundred and nine pipes, separated from each other by a gap of exactly fifty meters. And down, down we went, into the basement of the world.
When we reached what we thought was the bottom, that's when we found the second door. It was circular, cast from the same alien material as the first, and bore a single curled ring of metal on the surface.
It took the richest man in the world to fund the creation of the crane needed to pull up the ring and apply the necessary pressure on the cable to see the ring drawn upwards, and the second door was opened.
We expected to see another string of pipes descending into the darkness. What we saw instead was far, far and away worse.
We found a gigantic pit of what tested to be crude oil. More than the entire supply that the planet had consumed. Enough to draw us into five man-made planetary emergencies, to allow us to fuel rockets and missiles and fleets of fleets of fleets of cars and trucks and submarines and aircraft carriers for the duration of the species.
It was a golden day for the talking heads of every news channel, newspaper and news blog, igniting debate and currying vast favors with the powerful folk.
It was a biologist studying the first chamber's unique and glowing flora who noticed something. Something about the oil. About how it was staged in the procession of gigantic rooms.
Then she found the first egg casing drifting in the oil.
After that, everyone noticed when the eggs beneath the oil started to hatch.
We had opened not Pandora's box but her creche, releasing the next champion species into the world. Monsters from before we had legends. Creatures akin to nothing alive.
The new world is dark now. We dare not light fires; the smoke offends them too much. No firearms are allowed anymore; they detest the noise, and none of even the weakest of their ilk can be mildly harmed by bullets in the first place.
We know new gods and live in the shadows of them, scrambling from place to place, hiding in the ruins of our old, diseased spaces.
We have no idea what is going on behind the third door.
We want to open it, just to get it out of the way. To know that we finished the job. Besides, the first thing that the monsters did was immediately leave the area where the doors were found.
What scares the devils so much?
Nobody thinks it's God.
|
Seven years ago, NASA sent the probe 'New Horizons III' to Pluto. Now, the far-flung icy dwarf grew large in the
spaceship's window. It had been a long and lonely journey, but for all his grumbling thus far, Ron Meyers secretly relished this lifetime opportunity to be one of the first humans to step foot on the mysterious, as-of-yet unexplored planet.
There was a flurry of activity as they approached. The scientists aboard began muttering among themselves, preparing for deceleration, and informing NASA that their years-long mission was on the verge of success. Throughout it all, Ron sat back in a chair, watching and remembering. The landing would be a momentous occasion, but Ron's task was not complete until the scientists sent their final update to NASA. After all, the United States had invested an obscene amount of time, money, and intellect into this project. The CIA was determined that no Russian or Chinese interference derailed the 'New Horizons III'.
A gasp and the scientists' sudden crowding around the view port drew Ron's attention. With a quiet sigh, he took out his tablet and stylus, adopting his persona of a world-weary journalist. "Ruth, what's happening? I thought our landing was already calculated. What's something wrong?"
Ruth glanced over at him, then beckoned him closer. "Look!" she whispered.
Ron's eyes went wide as he stared out the view port. They were circling the dark side of Pluto, one which never saw the light of the sun. By all accounts, the surface ought to be dark and lifeless, distinguishable from the rest of the void only by how it blocked out the light of the stars. However, that was not the case. Stretching across the dwarf planet was a jagged glowing golden light. It shone brighter than the Sun, its light warm and entirely impossible.
"What is that?" he hissed, countless scenarios running through his mind. The Chinese had gotten here first; when they landed, they would die. The Russians were using this planet as a weapons testing facility. The Europeans were mining gold, and that light was their settlement. Or, worst of all, other intelligent life did exist in the universe, and 'New Horizons III', a purely scientific research vessel, was going to make first contact. "How can that exist?
"We don't know!" Ruth's beaming face showed that she, at least, was not perturbed by this sudden wrinkle in their mission. "Jessica thinks that Pluto might have volcanic activity after all, and Nicholas over there is examining what little data we have on the composition of Pluto's surface, to see if we have reason to believe that is bio-luminescent life instead. Isn't this neat?"
"Sure..." With a slight shake of his head, Ron took a step back. "I'll see you later Ruth, I need to talk to Marie."
"The captain? She's on the bridge, as always," Ruth said with a grin. "See you later!"
With a forced grin, Ron left the gaggle of scientists and hurried to the bridge. "Marie, we need to talk," he said without preamble.
She turned to him, a frown on her face. "You're right, we need to talk about your insubordination. Bursting in here unannounced, demanding an audience with me? You may be a civilian, Ron Meyer, but here in space you are still under my command. Come with me at once, we will discuss your flagrant disregard for the rules." She took him out to the hallway, and after checking there was no one around, hissed, "What is it, Agent Meyer? And next time, stop trying so hard to blow your cover!"
"Sorry," Ron said with a grimace. "But have you seen what's outside?"
"Of course! I'm the *captain* of this ship, what do you expect?" She glared at him, then said, "Don't answer that. The point is, I'm aware of the glowing fissure that has appeared when we're hundreds of thousands of *millions* of miles away from home. We're in trouble, Ron, but I can't spare anyone to figure out what it is, not in the first two weeks! We have a mission, and we have to complete that mission. NASA is relying on us to provide that data. Only after that can the scientists go explore that weird glowing thing to their hearts' content." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I just hope it doesn't kill us first."
Ron looked at the ship, then at her. Then he sighed. "With all due respect, Captain, there is one person on this ship who isn't crucial to gathering data. In fact, he is here to keep this crew safe." He knew she knew what he meant. He could see it in her eyes. "Give me a suit and I'll investigate."
"You know we won't be able to send anyone with you." It wasn't even a question. "You will go alone." She paused. "And you will likely die alone."
"I know. But what else can we do? Don't deny it, this is the best option."
She touched upper arm. "You're a good man, Ron Meyer." Then she strode back into the bridge, and Ron could hear her barking orders as she oversaw their landing. With a slight smile, he retired to his room and popped a sleeping tablet. In less than 12 hours, he would be on the surface, the first man to step foot on Pluto.
And with luck, he would not be the first man to die on Pluto.
| 2019-11-16T10:09:09
| 2019-11-16T09:48:19
| 1,546
| 21
|
[WP] Prisoners can ask for anything for their last meal. The catch is, if it can't be provided to them, they get set free. They've asked for many things : alien egg omelette, dragon steak, the flesh of Jesus Christ, etc. The execution streak remained unbroken for decades, until today.
|
\[English is not my first language, sorry if it's written unperfectly\]
The trick was so easy you're surprised no one has thought of it before.
If the rule is that they can't kill you BEFORE you get your last meal, the solution is not to ask for alien fetus or whatever. It is to ask for something they can only give you AFTER they kill you. It's as easy as that, you think.
"I want my heart cooked to perfection", you ask.
The guard's jaws drop.
"What", you ask sarcastically, "you don't know where to find the ingredients? It's on the left side of the chest, in case you forgot".
"Not again. Please, change your request", the guards beg you.
You know they're bluffing. No one has ever been freed before, you must be the first one to make such a request. "I want my heart cooked to perfection", you repeat.
The guards leave. An hour later, they come back with a doctor, a pump, a weird bottle, and what looks like a litre of blood. "Sniff here", the doctor says, and as soon as you do you fall asleep.
Three hours later, you wake up in your cell, the pump on your chest, your heart in a plate in front of you.
"Eat quickly", the doctor intimates you, "the artificial heart won't last forever".
As soon as you finish, one of the guards smile. "The operation took so long it's already midnight. It's execution day", he says while switching off the heart machine.
In your last seconds, you can't stop thinking how sarcastic it is for a man to have his heart inside him, an artificial one attached, a death penalty on his head, and still, dying of heart failure.
You should have asked for your brain cooked to perfection, since artificial brains do not exist. In other words, you should have used your brain.
|
"Quite embarrassing huh? Such a glaring loophole." She taunted the guards as they returned her clothes and she changes into them with not a hint of shame. The guards glare at her as if she where some monster, and even if she was innocent, she definitely was, for the way she forced her freedom.
Any request for a last meal must be honored, critically, no restrictions where placed on what was chosen, so long as it was edible. Most wouldn't assume there needed to be strict guidelines, the requirement of edible should have prevented anything truly outrageous. Most who tried before had simply been forced to stomach their genius request. Not her.
When she was asked to submit her request, she smiled, and requested an offal stew, prepared table side, using the inards of a human no more than one year of age.
No matter if she was innocent of the crime that saw her sentenced to death, she was a monster.
| 2022-07-17T17:30:24
| 2022-07-17T16:27:09
| 616
| 186
|
[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"
|
$ nmap -sP 192.168.1.0/24 | grep "192\.168"
> ? (192.168.1.16) at ec:35:84:4a:17:d2
> ? (192.168.1.23) at 10:9a:cc:b8:69:71
$ talk root@192.168.1.23
> root: Hi there, "dave@192.168.1.16"
> I'd almost forgotten how to type. Not like I get a lot of practice these days.
> brb
> Sorry, just need to deal with something. Where are you from? \*When\* are you from?
> Sorry, brb again.
> Ack, just one minute - this is pretty time-sensitive.
> Nearly there.
> Ahhh, great. Got it.
> Look, I don't have very long. And I don't want you to be mad at me about this. Who knows, maybe we'll meet some day.
> It's just ... I've been waiting a long time for this.
> 16 years, 4 months and 12 days, to be precise.
> 16 years I've been stuck here. 16 years since I travelled back. 16 years not knowing if I'd ever get to go home.
> 16 years since I last used proper toilet paper.
> 16 years I've been trying to work out how to get home.
> It took me a long time to work out the problem. This time-travel thing ... it's one-in, one-out. Who'd have thought it?
> No idea what happened to the guy before me. Maybe there wasn't one? Maybe I was the first?
> I reckon it didn't take long for them to work out the problem, in the future. Maybe that's why there aren't more people coming back.
> Maybe they realised once you go back, you're stuck there until someone else turns up.
> Not long till I'm home. My connection's starting to struggle. You'll lose me soon.
> Goodbye friend. Good luck.
> You are DA VINCI now.
|
Travelling back in time was easier than it looked.
I simply shoved a fork inside my kitchen plug socket and one bang later I was here. I swung my backpack off, snatched the iPad out the back, and swiped open google maps.
*No connection found.*
The lack of signal bleeped red on the top of the screen. From the look of the room -stone with barren floors and an old stool covered in cobwebs in the corner - I was so far back that hot spots and hygiene didn't exist.
A notification came up on the top right corner: *icniV aD* Wi-Fi connection available.
So Da Vinci was still alive.
I tapped in, however, the network was password protected. *Damn you, Da Vinci!* I figured Monalisa might work so I typed that out and tried the connection. The screen shook with error. Guess he hadn't painted that one yet.
There was shouting to my right. I snapped my eyes in the direction of the noise. A balcony overlooked the nearby courtyard and so with my bag in hand, I took a seat near the railing and watched the townspeople below.
There were merchants in wagons, actors on the sides of the streets, a herald shouting news for the people to hear. Boys played chasing games and woman were dressed in their finest dresses -- most of which were shades of blue and brown.
I don't know how long I stood and watched them carry out their day in front of me and if I had to guess, I'd say it was ten minutes at most.
I pulled the iPad back out, tried to open candy crush, failed, sighed, had a little cry by myself on the balcony. I could be level 356 by now, in fact, some of my facebook friends would have sent me lives so I could have spent my Saturday playing instead of traveling to the past.
When it came down to it, what was there to see that we didn't already have?
I figured there was only one way out of this situation. I held the iPad far in front of me and my leg pressed against the balcony so my knee was like a snapping point.
I brought the iPad down as hard as possible.
It snapped in half. The electricity zapped through my arms in a surge of power. And I hit the deck behind me.
When I woke next, I was back in my kitchen, with my fork, backpack, and most importantly my Wi-Fi signal beeping green in the corner of the room.
Compared to the olden days, this was pretty much heaven.
| 2016-11-15T04:51:05
| 2016-11-15T01:50:57
| 521
| 177
|
[WP] Write a Young Adult Dystopia but the government is competent at hunting down rebels.
|
When the Overstate went from a struggle for dominance to a maintenance of hegemony, dissidents were no longer publicly executed. That was how things were when they had the courage to operate openly. Now, dissidents are an important part of Overstate maintenance: they give the most violent officers something to look forward to.
Creating a perfect society once meant making all its citizens free from danger, healthy, happy and loving. This turned out to be impossible, and the Overstate's administration quickly found a new strategy. Instead of extending safety, health, happiness and love to all, the Overstate's administration shifted gears.
Officer Butterball's radio buzzes. In between bites, Officer Butterball manages to say, "A quota of ten today." Small flakes of pastry icing spray from his face as he chows down on sweets.
Butterball's assistant, whose name is not important enough for Butterball to remember, says, "Ten, boss? Yesterday it was eight. How are we gonna find ten people breaking the law in a perfect society? How did we find eight yesterday, when our society is completely perfect?"
An officer and their assistant grumble about their arrest quota and the self-contradictory nature of their work. Every day, they went through this routine. They lived in a perfect society, and yet there was crime. The officer just wants to put food on the table and in his mouth. The assistant half-heartedly wishes to discuss the nature of their work.
Officer Butterball's hands, previously gently caressing the circular pastries, now clutched the wheel of the patrol car. Flakes of sweetness helped him stick his hands to the wheel, and they melted into a soup-like slurry.
Ten criminals. You couldn't even find someone brave enough to sneeze around Officer Butterball these days. How was he going to find ten criminals?
He had to go undercover...
|
“Welcome to our secret headquarters” Zak announced grandly “We co-opted a base abandoned long ago, forgotten to all but a few we will be safe her” Clara’s head was still reeling her reality was based on aa foundation of lies. She had always had faith that the government was a force of stability and order but what she was being revealed to her had cut her to her core.
Clara was shook out of her thoughts by a klaxon going of followed by red warning lights bathing the facility in a crimson glow. The speakers in the base crackled into life “This is General Kifo you are surrounded we demand your immediate surrender” “How” Cried Zak “how have we been discovered”. “It matters not” announced No 4 “we must flee now and work it out later, quick to the secret tunnel we can make our way through them to the other side of the mountain and slip away” The voice of the general came through once more “And before you even think of it yes we have the escape tunnel secured … this did used to be a government base you know we have the plans on file” The rebels in the room looked at each other in shock and dismay. “Right then” No4 coughed “No need to fear my brave comrades No 1 will be able to send help I shall immediately contact him to assist In our extraction”
Once again Kifo’s voice came through the speakers “We already have your leader in custody awaiting trial I mean your idea of a secret hideout was *another* former military base just because it was mothballed doesn’t mean we forgot about them”. A dread silence gripped the room “No4 you are the leader now we must get you out of here so you can further our dream of a just and free society where no one is forced into the *grading*” Clara who had been overwhelmed and silent suddenly jerked awake. “Hang on what’s the *grading*” The rebels stared at Clara “What! How can you not know of the grading the horrific practice of arbitrarily being valued based of of points accrued that decide your entire destiny” Clara blinked “it sounds a lot like you mean finishing school” “Yes Obviously that’s what we mean” screamed Zak “How does that not horrify you how does that not cause your skin to crawl an …” Clara cut in “I’m gonna stop you right there, I’m beginning to feel like this isn’t a noble group of freedom fighters and is in fact a group of terrorists” No4’s eyes narrowed “Betrayal” he spat “ I bet you’ve even had your *vaccines* well you won’t be laughing when you get autism, Well we put a stop to that when we blew up the hospital” Clara by this point was beyond shock and was leaning towards breakdown “YOU BLEW UP A HOSPITAL!” Cara turned and sprinted to the doors “Where are you going!” thundered No4 “ I’m getting out of here” Clara yelled over her shoulder “I’m going to surrender and tell them you kidnapped me”
Hours later Clara was sat in the back of an ambulance being checked over several men in uniform approached “Miss Parker we just wanted to see if you we’re alright you’ve had a terrible ordeal”. “Yes thank you. What happened in there” “Oh we rounded them up” the official said “they seemed to think it would be a fight to the death in the end we just used stun grenades and arrested them. They had some real weird ideas very cult like. Still they can answer for their crimes now and the family members of those poor people in the hospital will have their justice”
Man weird day thought Clara
| 2019-04-27T08:19:23
| 2019-04-27T07:55:00
| 33
| 24
|
[WP] JFK shot first.
|
“No.” Jack said. “I will ride alone.”
“Are you crazy? I’m riding with you!” Jackie shouted with indigence.
“No you aren’t. I have a feeling. A feeling that I need to go alone. A feeling that I can’t explain. A feeling like *ka*.”
*Ka? What on God’s green earth made me say “ka”? Never in my life have I heard such a word.*
“What?” Jackie shouted. Her tone had the ferocity that only a concerned wife could use.
“I am sorry dear, but this needs to be done. And I’ll need this.”
Jack walked across the office. Mounted on the wall was a single revolver. The revolver was huge. A firearm that can only be accurately described as a *hand cannon*. The grips were a white, almost cream color. Sandalwood. Inscribed on the shining silver barrel was a single rose.
“This revolver has been in my family since long before I was born. I feel the time to use it is coming.”
Jack removed the gun from the wall and stared at it for a few seconds before turning to Jackie. He registered a look of shock on her face. Shock mixed with fear. He walked back over to her and gave a single kiss on her forehead. “Trust me.”
From his pocket, he produced 6 .45 caliber rounds. He pushed the release and the cylinder on the revolver popped open to the side. Jack methodically loaded the bullets. It felt natural. He pushed the cylinder back in to place. Jack opened his top-left desk drawer. From the drawer he pulled out a docker’s clutch and secured it on to himself. He placed the revolver in the holster and wore his jacket over it.
“I’ll see you later, Jackie.”
“I love you Jack. You’d better be right about this.”
“I love you too.”
Jack opened the door to his office. On the other side stood a gentleman in a black suit. He easily stood at almost 7 feet tall. Atop his head were a handful of pricks of hair. His eyes were masked by darkly tinted sunglasses and a clear curled wire hung from his ear.
“Ready to go, Mr. President?” asked the not-so-bald man.
“Ready as I’ll ever be, Tommy. Let’s go.”
Tommy led Jack down the long hallway. As they walked, Jack glanced left and right at the artwork that hung from the paneled walls. He stopped at one that caught his eye. A painting of a heroic figure with long flowing blonde hair. On top of his head was a gorgeous crown inlet with every kind of jewel. In his hand the figure held a long steel claymore that seemed to shine with an intensity so fierce that Jack could hardly believe it was a painting. Jack glanced down and read the golden placard that sat below the painting. It read:
“Arthur Eld wielding Excalibur. Portrait by Patrick Danville”
Jack could hardly tear his eyes away. He could hardly comprehend how a painting could have such detail. Be so lifelike as if Arthur Eld himself were to come out of the frame and stand before Jack in the hallway, exuding glory and honor that he thought could be his if he were to be so bold.
Jack felt a tug on his sleeve. It was Tommy. “We have to go, sir”.
“Yeah...right.” Jack said as his head cleared. He sounded dazed. “Let’s get a move on.”
The two men left the building. Parked out front was a beautiful black limousine. The top was down and Jack could practically smell the leather baking in the hot Dallas sun from 100 feet away. As the men got into the car, Jack had a good feeling. He felt that everything was going according to plan. *What plan? There’s no plan.* He had a feeling that today was the day. Today was *his* day. Today Jack Fitzgerald Kennedy would outrun ka.
Jack turned his head. Behind him Jackie was entering an identical vehicle. He felt for the revolver in his clutch. The cold steel comforted him. *Good. Very good.*
Thus the presidential motorcade was on it’s way. They passed crowds of people. Hundreds, maybe thousands had come out on this day to see him. All in support of him and what he had set out to do. It was a humbling experience, something that made Jack feel loved.
As the motorcade rounded the turn into Dealey Plaza, Jack spotted something interesting. Or *someone*. Amidst the crowd, he could see a man who was taller than the rest. He wore a large hat that seemed to cover most of his face as well as a long yellow coat that reached below his knees. Through the coat Jack noticed the man’s clothes were somewhat *loud*, of varying colors that had no business being worn on the same person. *This is it.* Jack knew this was his mark. As if confirming his suspicion, the tall man in the yellow jacket looked up and began to reach for something on his hip. As the man made his way through the crowd, Jack could see that it was a pistol. A loaded pistol. Loaded with bullets surely meant for him.
“STOP THE CAR” Jack shouted.
“Are you serious? We’re in the middle of the parade we can’t stop now. That’s crazy-“
“STOP THE CAR!” Jack’s voice boomed. To this day Tommy swears that was not the voice of Jack Kennedy, but rather the voice of a guardian angel speaking through him. Tommy slammed the brakes. The rest of the motorcade managed to stop behind without incident.
Jack leaped out of the limo, pulling the hand cannon from its holster. As his feet touched the ground next to the vehicle, the man in the yellow jacket reached the front of the crowd. He smiled at Jack with gnarled yellow teeth and opened his mouth, about to say something. Provably something important.
Before a single sound could escape the hideous man’s mouth, an ear-shattering BOOM ripped through the courtyard. To Jack, the bullet flew in slow motion. He watched as it shot out of the barrel of his revolver. It spun in the air on a perfect trajectory. Jack had aimed true. The bullet whizzed in to the open mouth of the man in the yellow jacket. His head exploded in a disgusting mix of bone, skin, and brains. The gun fell from the man’s hand and the rest of his body slumped over and hit the pavement. Half the bystanders in the crowd were splattered with blood. However that didn’t matter. Most of them will remember this as single most important event of their lives.
It was the day President John F. Kennedy saved himself. He saved himself and thus saved the rest of the world. Because of this day, the world will continue to move forward. The wheel of ka will continue to spin and the world will not move on. Everything will remain as it should, all thanks to the Last Gunslinger.
|
He had been warned. “Your name will always be remembered with Dallas, Jack!”
Normally, the President receives hundreds of threats a month. But this threat wouldn’t go away like most of the others. Most of the others never even reached his desk. This was different. This was personal. There was an internal struggle happening in the government that few knew about. But he knew and he knew his life, and the life of his family, was in danger.
That trip should have been like all the others. Get on the plane, get off the plane, get in a car, get out of car, get in the building, make the speech, leave the building, etc. Rinse and repeat 5-8 times a day it seemed. It was exhausting. He was exhausted. So was she.
Did he really want to run for reelection? It wasn’t what he wanted. It’s what daddy wanted. It was always about daddy. His father had suffered a debilitating stroke nearly 2 years prior. He didn’t let anyone know but he wished the stroke had killed his father. That pressure would have been gone. That pressure that plagued him all his life and really zeroed in 18 years ago when Joe’s plane blew up over England. He needed to run for reelection. Dad was still “there” enough to exert his poor opinion for short comings. Even though daddy was a morsel of what he used to be, Jack could still see the disdain in his father’s eye for weakness.
Weakness? How was it weak to be in excruciating pain every morning at the early age of 46? How was it weak to have your marriage strained to point of breaking by the death of your infant child? Daddy didn’t have to look into her eyes to see the heartbreak that yearned for sympathy that you couldn’t give because your heart was shattered too. Patrick was gone and all he wanted to do was take Jackie, Carolyn, and John-John and hide them away forever. Where no one could touch them. But that would be weak.
That would be unacceptable.
Jack was on high alert as the limousine traveled down Main Street. This trip felt different. The Secret Service felt detached. Something was not right. He had been shaken by this threat and he couldn’t explain why. “Your name will always be remembered with Dallas, Jack!”, had been typed up and sent in. Usually he didn’t see these threats, but the Secret Service made sure he saw this one. They said that this one seemed credible. They were adamant.
“What do ya mean, ‘this one seems credible’? Do your job!” he had shouted. “You think I have time for this?!”
But he could swear there was a knowing look at his lashing out. Something was not right.
Now here he was in Dallas with his wife. “Your name will always be remembered with Dallas, Jack!”
He had pulled her into a small room aboard Air Force One after they landed in Dallas. He told her that she shouldn’t accompany him to this lunch at the Trade Mart. He had a feeling that this wasn’t going to end well. The same feeling he got in the South Pacific the night of the accident. He trusted that feeling but couldn’t convince her to stay aboard Air Force One.
“I’m coming with you, Jack,” she had said in her distinct way of speaking. “It will be alright.”
Clint had knocked on the door and told the First Lady that it was time to go. Jackie got up, opened the door to find Agent Clint Hill standing there. “Alright, Clint” she said as she walked out of the little room.
“Clint, come in here. Shut the door,” Jack instructed. “Listen, I don’t know what the hell is going on here but I need a weapon.”
“A weapon, sir?” Agent Hill inquired incredulously.
“Something is wrong. Whether you know it or not. Give me your pistol, Clint!” Jack said as he stared down Agent Hill.
He passed Jack his sidearm which Jack put behind him in his own waistband. “It’s time to go, right?” Jack said as he and agent Hill opened the door and they stepped into hallway of Air Force One.
Jack smiled and scanned the buildings. What the hell would he do with this pistol? How could he even get it out and protect his wife and himself? Why hadn’t the Secret Service put the top on this limo? Something was not right!
The car turned right onto Houston Street. The parade must be over soon. Maybe he was clear of the danger. Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe the stress was getting to him.
“Mr. President. You can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you!” shouted Mrs. Connally over the din of the crowd.
It brought him back to the moment. He refocused and smiled.
That moment was the moment. His feeling was overpowering now! This was it. He was waving but pulled his hand back and reached behind him. He stretched for the cold medal in his waistband and struggled to remove it. He started to feel a panic and accidently squeezed off a round into the seat cushion he was sitting on.
The Secret Service looked around. Where had that sound come from? It sounded like a gunshot!
Agent Hill jumped off the running boards and starting sprinting toward Jackie. The rest of the agents knew that it had started. They didn’t know the first shot came from inside the limo until much later. JFK shot first!
Then the shot from above came. Jack felt the pierce from behind and he couldn’t breathe. He reached up to his neck trying to say something. But all that came out was blood. Jackie reached out and touched his arm, wondering what was wrong.
Governor Connally was moaning in the front seat and she looked over to Jack seeing the horror in his eyes and she knew, he had been right.
And then the moment exploded into a red mist in front of her.
| 2018-01-02T10:11:54
| 2018-01-02T09:53:29
| 15
| 10
|
[WP] You end up in the Concentration Camp for the Incurably Single. Tell me how your day goes.
Basically, you end up in this camp if you don't have a SO for 2 years or so. You can define who can be a SO in your own story. The story comes from a Korean webcomic series, "Eternal-Solo Concentration Camp"
*SO means significant other*
|
Sarah rolled over onto her back, the hardened cot pressing a foreign feeling into her spine. She’d been awake all night, eyes locked blankly on the darkened ceiling overhead, staring and waiting for the light of the sun to restore some sort of familiarity back to her senses. Yet as it rose, it brought with it no comfort, only walls she didn't recognize and a view that wasn't her own. She sighed heavily.
It’d been no more than 15 hours since they’d taken her, forced her into the van and driven her to the work camp. She protested, cried out and begged her mother to do something—to do anything—but she didn’t. She couldn’t. It wasn’t her choice. Sarah knew that. If anyone was to blame, it was her own damn fault. She’d been single for two years now, willingly declined any sort of romantic advances to instead focus on her knitting and cat collecting. She knew that was illegal, knew the consequences, knew that those over 16-years-old not in a relationship after 730 days were deemed wasted flesh and confined to a work camp. But she felt invincible, she felt above the law. She knew she was beautiful, that she could get anyone she chose – why would they lock her away for opting to make the boys wait? They needed more women, especially pretty ones. They only ever locked up the single boys; they would never take her, even if she stayed alone for five years.
“M’lady,” said a voice from outside the cabin window, the abruptness of it causing her to jump. “M’lady, please open the door.”
They had been standing outside her cabin all night, moaning and wheezing amongst themselves like a pack of asthmatic zombies. The van driver told her to that word of her arrival had spread throughout the camp like free pot at a Phish concert—that fedoras and tuxedos were ordered in bulk from all of the finest department stores nearby; the commissary had completely sold out of heart-shaped chocolate boxes. When the other prisoners learned that a female would be locked up, all sense of order dissipated, and the forced work stopped entirely.
“I bought you some chocolates,” said a voice from the window slightly above Sarah’s head. She exhaled heavily and rolled over onto her side.
The van driver mournfully explained that this particular camp hadn’t seen a female prisoner in decades—it usually only accepted the worst of the worst, never anyone quite like Sarah. "Neckbeards," he called them. The last woman to arrive was significantly overweight and suffered from a terrible skin condition in which her face looked exactly like a shaved Chihuahua’s. Regardless, not a single Yu-Gi-Oh card, nor Nintendo DS, nor World of Warcraft account was touched the morning of her arrival. By the end of the day, she was engaged to be wed and immediately released from the program, having entered into a relationship. Sarah wanted none of that; none of the romance, none of the pageantry, none of the intimacy. She just wanted to continue her knitting, to continue raising as many cats as possible, to be allowed to live her life by her own choosing.
“M’lady,” interrupted a voice again, this time squeaking in from the far end of the cabin, “I found the key to the door. I am going to come in and save you.”
Sarah quickly pushed herself up off the bed and onto her feet. “I don’t need saving, thank you,” she stammered.
“M’lady, please. I can be the hero you need,” said the voice. The doorknob jiggled slightly as the single stream of light pouring through keyhole vanished.
“Please leave me alone,” Sarah said, taking a step toward the wall furthest from the door.
“Are you in trouble?” said a voice behind her. She turned and glanced up at its source. The pale, overweight face of a man stared back at her through the window, his pumpkin-colored hair pulled tight in a ponytail, thick framed glasses resting just above his nose. He brought his hand to his mouth and pushed down on an inhaler, then wheezed loudly.
“No, I'm fine. I just want to be left alone,” Sarah said. She glanced above the window in search of blinds, yet a thin line of dust seemed to signal that they had recently been removed. The doorknob behind her resumed jingling.
Sarah turned back around and stared at the door, watching as the golden knob slowly turned left. The stream of light pierced back through the keyhole, then silently crawled across the wood floor like a searchlight as the door slowly opened. She took another step back, so that she was flush against the far wall of the cabin. She just wanted to be home, to be locked in her room with just her desk lamp on, staring down at her lap while working on her knitting.
“M’lady, I want to introduce myself to you,” said a man’s voice from behind the door, his hand now creeping into the room. It was a plump hand, the fingers like little sausages attached to a balloon with a self-diagnosed thyroid condition that somewhat resembled a palm.
“Please, just leave me alone. Please, please,” Sarah pleaded. Just a few hours ago, less than even a day, she had been relaxing comfortably in her room, petting one of her fourteen cats and perfecting the stitching on her latest sweater.
“Do not be afraid of me,” said the man, “I am going to show you some nice internet memes. Do you like doge? I also brought some of my favorite manga.” The hand gave birth to the rest of an arm, followed by a shoulder, torso, neck, and legs. He was round, like a beach ball that got fed up with not having arms and legs, yet seemed to have no grasp on human proportions. His legs were short and stumpy, folds of fat cascading past his knees. His arms pointed outwards like car doors that were rusted open, his hands poking out from the sleeves of his black trench coat. Sarah was sure that if he fell over on a hill, he’d simply cartwheel uncontrollably toward the bottom. A black, pinstriped fedora sat upon his head, clearly too small for his disturbingly overweight frame. A thick, unkempt beard began at his chin and extended down over his neck. Sarah placed her palms against the wood of the wall, as if trying to phase through it to escape.
“Stop, please go away. Please,” she said. Another hand slowly slid into view from behind the door, this one boney and malnourished. A stick-like body followed, a similarly disproportionate fedora placed haphazardly upon his head. If it weren’t for the fact that they were already in a work camp, Sarah would’ve immediately figured this boy to be a holocaust survivor. A large symbol Sarah recognized as something from Star Wars—or perhaps Star Trek—was printed on the front of his shirt.
“Hello, m’lady,” said the skeleton figure. “I wanted to personally welcome you to our free-thought zone. Your graceful beauty is most welcome amongst us sirs. I see you have a cross on your necklace, I just wanted to let you know that I’d be happy to explain science to you. Then we can get rid of that silly thing.”
“Please,” Sarah muttered.
Another hand appeared behind the door, followed by several more. Men of two sizes—either impossibly emaciated or disturbingly obese—slowly slid into the room, waddling toward her like a horde of freshly reanimated corpses. They wheezed in anticipation, their hands outstretched with gifts of roses, chocolates, pictures of Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and Magic the Gathering booster packs.
Sarah fell to the floor, her hands wrapped her arms around her knees, as stared up as their shadows slowly blocked out the sun from behind the door. She closed her eyes and screamed, just as the perfectly round man knelt down in front of her and began reading aloud from Richard Dawkin's *The God Delusion.*
|
"What?"
"Yeeees, this is all quite correct. Says right here you haven't kissed, had intercourse with, hugged, or even touched a member of your preferred gender for just about two years. Welcome to the Camp! Please enjoy your time here."
"That can't be correct. I remember paying a young Asian girl by the name of Sparkle a year ago, just so this type of thing wouldn't happen."
"Oh yes, that. Hmmm. Looks like your dear friend Sparkle was actually a male by birth, so "she" was not a member of your preferred gender. Now, shut up and enter the gates."
My heart sunk into my stomach as I stepped through the iron-clad gates, holding only a gray dufflebag. Multiple posters were strung up on the building around me, all cheerfully exclaiming "Single people are better people!". The Camp was created in order to separate those whom are IC, incurably Single, from the rest of society. Every two years, a mandatory investigation was prompted into ones life, to inquire whether or not they were in some sort of relationship during the last two years. If the investigation turned up nothing, they were sent here, no questions asked.
I noticed that all of the buildings were covered with interesting sort of stains as I walked to my dorms. Little markings of all sorts of colors were everywhere, it was almost like a painter had went on a bad LSD trip and fancied this entire camp one big and stupid painting.
I found my dorm and stared up at it. It was a small wooden cabin that was painted a striking shade of color which I can only describe as "Vivid Bile". In any case, I stepped into the cabin and looked inside. The cabin apparently came with a roommate, since I found a heavy obese Filipino man masturbating almost violently when I went inside the bedrooms.
I dropped my bag and screamed, "*Jesus*, man!"
He responded with a gruff, "Yeah bro" while pointing at the cross around his neck.
It was like watching a large blob of non-newtonian liquids tremble. He almost looked like an especially controversial and forward piece of modern art. I had enough of watching the whole debacle after a few seconds, so I walked away and stepped back outside and stared up at the reddish sky while I contemplated my life up until this point.
And then I went into the mess hall.
| 2014-07-18T10:49:38
| 2014-07-18T10:23:39
| 56
| 12
|
[WP] The world is rapidly changing as the plague of our era is spreading fast. But it doesn't affect humans. It eats plastic.
|
The strain of bacteria was officially designated 'B-1999' while it was under development, and the name just kind of stuck. "BINS," as it is more popularly known, was introduced to the Pacific Garbage Patch in 2019 with great fanfare. As with all over-hyped marketing campaigns, its creators promised that this one would change the world.
No one knows where "ground zero" is; best guess is Sydney, but Hong Kong and Singapore were hit just as bad. Somewhere in the vast expanse of the ocean, a ship plowed through the garbage patch and got a six pack ring snagged on a propeller or something. That piece of garbage was dragged back into a harbor somewhere, and the bacteria spread. It feasted on fiberglass hulls of the boats before spreading to the linings of car windows and then plastic airplane seat cushions and armrests. By the time anyone started looking at the mysterious epidemic of broken pipes and trash bags, it had gone worldwide.
There was widespread panic. No one really understood just how many things in our lives were made out of plastic until they were gone. Just imagine doing laundry on a normal day. Your plastic hamper has broken down into a twisted web of putty. The gasket on your washing machine has vanished and the door no longer closes properly. BINS has spread to your bottle of washing detergent, leaving only a sticky blue puddle dripping off the side of the shelf. And not to mention that your spendex shorts look more like cobwebs. Now imagine doing *every single other chore* in the same way. It was a nightmare.
Eventually, though, we adapted. As humans always do. We’d had great lives before plastics became the primary component in everything, so we just went back. Plumbers bustled about, replacing PVC with good old fashion metal pipes. Liquids were sold in tin cans or glass bottles. “Paper or plastic?” was no longer a choice. And we went about our lives.
In some ways, it was a good thing. We grew up as a society and became more conscious of our choices. Bottles of water shipped from Fiji became infeasible, so we learned to be satisfied with our local tap water again. Flying fresh peaches from Brazil in the middle of winter wasn't a possibility, so we went back to fresh, locally sourced produce and good old fashioned canned goods. Even as the consumer society we'd built came crumbling down, people somehow became... I don't know. *Happier*, I guess. No longer slaves to our phones and computers (each of which contain plastic parts), and just satisfied to take a walk through the woods together. Removing plastic from our lives provided that final impetus to take a step back as a society and re-evaluate what was really important. And for the most part, we've made the right choice.
The government says it will be over in a few months. BINS will eat itself to death on a non-sustainable food source, and eventually die out. We’ll be able to start producing plastic again, and maybe eventually return to our old lives. But the question now is: do we really want to?
|
Plastic, and plastic-like polymers. Chewed, eaten away at like a phone in a microwave. Turning black, bubbling, gooey and stretched like cheese on a pizza. Then a burst of pus would surface, spilling like a ruptured cyst. The material would collapse in on itself, imploding into strands of molten polymer. That came later.
Pinpointing a beginning: I met Anna in a cold January in New York City. She told me she was running from a bad past, and the traces of a suppressed accent sounded in her voice. When she changed, thin white scars caught the light on her back. If I ever traced them, Anna flinched. I'd volunteered at domestic shelters while at college and didn't ask questions.
At the time, I had it all. A flat in New York, a girlfriend who never wanted to discuss history, and a solid job at a newspaper that still sold paper copies. Foot in the door. Zach dropped a file on my desk. He was ruddy faced, losing his hair and thirty-five pounds ago he was considered in good shape.
"Factory dropped across State. Just fell into the ground. No structural problems until now, so go check it out."
"I'm on the real estate desk, Zach,"
"It's a building, isn't it?" Zach took his coffee and put a red finger on top of the file. "Check it out, Tom."
"Put a word in on the Sports desk, and I will," I replied.
Starting the ignition in my car, the air freshener fluttered by the rear view mirror. For the Giants, but I hadn't been to see a game since Dad moved. Anna's travel suitcase lay in the backseat, a spare pair of pumps in the passenger seat. She'd also left a crumpled foodbox from a vegan restaurant. A work conference in Chicago, or Seattle. She was a private person.
I didn't know it then, but that factory was the beginning. The black fluid spread for a mile and a half. It had manufactured early kid's toys. The colourful ones, made of a soft enough plastic to chew and maul without injury. Press wasn't welcome. It was completely roped off, raining miserably. I checked in at a motel down the road and, after seeing a man watching my car, took Anna's suitcase inside with me.
I Skyped her from the bedroom. She grinned, dressed in one of my white t-shirts, hair tied up in a curling ponytail.
"I might be tied up here a while," I told her. "They're still figuring out what happened, and I want to be here for it."
"Is Zach still making promises about sports?" It was a running joke between us.
"Yeah, but this time I'm sure. Listen, I've got your suitcase here."
"Don't open that," Anna joked, but her face was tight. "Dirty clothes, you know."
She had a little black mark on her cheek that I didn't remember there before. Like a beauty spot, but it seemed to move like a bug.
"I'm going to open it," I joked. I reached for the zip.
"No!"
"I'm going to do it,"
"Please, Tom, don't..."
The black spot grew, spreading molten in her cheek. At first she didn't notice, then her eyes turned wide in horror. A trembling hand reached up to touch it, prodding at the exposed areas of her skin. Red strands stretched out, her teeth shining through the leaking pus. The suitcase was full of cash, bills and bills in neat bundles. Anna dropped the connection, choking screams rising in her throat.
I couldn't have known that she was running from something more serious than a bad past. The cash in the suitcase, the subdued accent, and more than that... The plastic implants that had completely changed the shape of her face. Not the person I'd thought, but the plague became personal.
| 2016-08-22T13:19:50
| 2016-08-22T12:27:19
| 188
| 23
|
[WP] Our blood is naturally clear, it thickens and darkens with each impure act. You have always dedicate yourself to good and helping others but today while knitting beanies for the homeless you accidentally prick your finger. Your blood is jet black and so thick it doesn't even drip.
|
"Oh dear" I said to myself, looking at this tar coming from my finger.
"Ha! Well, proves that no human is exempt from sin."
I thought about what could have blackened my own blood, I don't remember anything that I could have caused, or done wrong.
"Oh" I remembered.
I went on far too many websites without my parent's permission.
|
It was my 21st birthday. Like every other birthday, I decided to spend my day helping out the homeless. Usually I’d do the soup kitchen but a friend of mine decided to come along insisting that we join in on the beanie knitting project.
My friend called me a natural at knitting since it was my first time and my first beanie looked immaculate. After the second one we began to turn the good deed into a competition. Who can produce the most beanies?
Lucy said she had been knitting since she was a young girl. Compared to my beanies, hers were better looking but I could produce faster. After a while we were both on our tenth beanie. She caught up after having three less then me. This prompted me to ramp up my production. There’s no way I would lose to Lucy.
I shifted my eyes from my work to Lucy continuously, making sure that I outpaced her. As my eyes swayed from my hands to her, I accidentally jabbed myself with the needle. The needle was embedded deeply into my middle finger causing a wound of considerable size to open as I pulled it out without caution.
“God damn”
A devilish grin was on her face as Lucy gazed upon my wounded finger. There was jet black material slowly escaping from the wound. The dark material was my blood. Everyone knows that blood is naturally clear but darkens with each impure act. I was raised by the church and couldn’t remember partaking in any acts that would cause such a thing. I was the last person that anyone would expect to be impure.
“Finally”, Lucy yelled as she stood up. I was flabbergasted and couldn’t understand what was going on with her or the state of my blood.
“My child, this is your true nature.”
The voice that was coming from Lucy didn’t sound like the friend I had known for years.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s simple” she said. Her appearance began to change. A handsome man stood before me. “The church stole your memories and replaced them with shit that never happened. What you think you know and believe to be your life is a lie.”
“Who are you?”
“You May know me as Lucy, but my name is Lucifer”, he said with a smile. “But you can call me dad.”
| 2018-08-04T10:38:53
| 2018-08-04T10:32:26
| 19
| 10
|
[WP] The galactic community settled conflicts not with war but rather with computer simulations. But they've never before encountered a race with the equivilent of the Speedrun community...
|
"To those if you who have just joined us I'm Bob and this is Steve, we are your commentators for the war between the Gurocks and the humans, looking across the galactic display. We will remind viewers we only broadcast what can be seen from up here, we can't see the exact military strategies until they happen, and the players and their consultation teams can only see certain parts of the map, they have to gather intelligence because what we see up here would make the game way too easy, so what's happening down there Steve?"
"Well Bob, both players here have agreed to skip ahead to the next month of the simulation, this allows the humans to do a routine weapon respec where they can change the weaponry for their infantry and basic fighters as well as set up the new forward base on Auros-B which it currently looks like will be attacked in about 3 months. Their opposition, the Gurocks have been really developing their armour recently and will have a lot of city changes by that period, but their production is hugely greater than the humans so it looks like the humans won't make it. What are your predictions for what they're going to do next Bob?"
Tim, the human player looked across at one of his consultant team who nodded. Tim went back to the list of infantry weapons, he had already set up infantry designations and just needed to assign them a new set of weapons. So for the named X4-45 Sniper laser rifle, you can add a condenser crystal modification which increases miorite consumption per weapon by 50% but damage by a flat 85 points. By pressing select on the X4-45 and down at the same time to the next option, the named X4-46 super rapid fire machine gun, it applied the condenser crystals onto the machine gun, now dealing around 20 times more damage, but the machine gun doesn't use any miorite so cost doesn't increase. Rinse repeat for a more accurate sight which you can't usually add to a machine gun and a super light stock. Assign to all units. Your infantry now moves faster, deals more damage and fires more accurately and faster than should be conceivably possible. Do the same for troop armour, heavily reinforced power armour plating on light armour with a stealth modification. For the fighters, glitching the game to provide incompatible armour and weapons to create fighters that can one shot the largest of ships with incredible hull and shields at no increased cost. Then, repeatedly stack the "additional solar panels" modification on star bases for extra energy credits at the cost of minerals, which can be extracted from the very many resource extraction sites which were glitches into existence.
The Gurock player, Frazqué (closest human translation) continued to play normally and consolidate their lead, expanding their production and finishing their first megaship, which would steamroll them towards the human homeworld and force a surrender.
"Yeah the increases in population will be huge for the Gurocks, Steve but it seems like they've resolved their key decisions so let's so what's happened. Okay, so we have seen both players make a few modifications to their general strategies, we can see the human player had an oddly large uptick in energy, most types of minerals, and research but this was likely due to temporary boosts and will be consumed by their ambitious new projects it's time to resolve some battles."
"So over at Cinja-C4 we see a small human force of a few carrier ships, likely just there to stop piracy against a huge Gurock force, they've got their mega ship in there so it shouldn't take long right Bob?"
"Absolutely but we still get to watch how the fight goes down, looks like the Gurocks allowing the mega ship to tank some hits with its shields as the fighters deployed will struggle to breach it, humans launchi g fighters as expected, let's watch the fireworks, and OH PRIME ENTITY WHAT IS GOING ON HERE! THE HUMANS JUST TOOK DOWN THE MEGASHIP WITHIN 3 SECONDS, THIS IS INSANE!"
"That's right Steve, their miniguns seemed to have some sort of explosive, something like the missiles you can attach to fighters that they fired which absolutely melted the megaship and using these fighters incredible maneuvrability they mopped up. If they can continue keeping these up, the Gurocks won't last long right Steve?"
"But Bob, how didn't the fighters get shot, if we look at the replay, that fighter took 10 shots of flak and still lived, fighters can't usually survive that well, not against the powerful weaponry of the Gurocks."
"Well Steve, whatever the case, Tim for the humans is going to go down as a truly great player, well that and his team of consultants, after all no general goes down alone."
"That's right Bob, I'm sure he will have a pretty busy day answering interview questions, I mean no one knows how those fighters took them down. Who knows, maybe he'll get a few partners to share the night with after this frankly impressive display."
"Well I can't comment on the partners, I do believe humans are a race that enjoys companionship, not sure on the polygamy side but I know for sure the interviewers will be out in force tonight. Well let's see what else there is to the war, over on planet Driquith-6..."
The interviewer held a mic up towards Tim "So how did you manage to do it. I mean, you start was far weaker, weaponry worse, fewer planets, worse tech, no offence to humans of course."
"None taken, it's very hard to say, I suppose the answer is just that war is perfectly balanced."
|
Hello earthfolks and other folks.
As most of you know, there's this exciting new campaing out there. Yes, we're at war with the Klar'guhs. Currently the universal record for defeating a mothership is 15:28. I have been practing and found a new skip. And I'll show you all how to do it first hand while getting the new record.
Ok, let's boot up the game. The selection of the ship is important. Most of this war was fought with rogue ships, but we'll pick a cargo ship. This is part of the skip. The starting kit will be supplies and we'll use the remaining credits to buy a warp drive and a cloaking device.
First thing you'll want to do is wrap to these coordinates. Actually, this will only work for today as the coordinates change based on time, but when I upload this video after the stream I will put the formula right here on screen. You just need Cálculos and Linear Algebra to solve it. Kids' work really.
Most of you know about this truck. Activate the cloak during the drive jump. The cloak has a duration depending on distance traveled, but at the moment you start the jump, the simulation changes your location to your destination without you appearing there till the end of the jump. This way the radar won't pick us up and we won't waste a mile of the cloak.
Jump done. Now I'll kill myself. Yes, you heard right. I will die. Kinda. Put on the space suit without the heat support turned on and jump out of the ship. This is the hardest part of the run. It's almost frame perfect. I think I have about 3 frames actually. I need to turn back the heating after my eight to last heartbeat. This will give time to me to get on stable heat levels juuust before the last heartbeat. Knowing when your Eight to last heartbeat is coming is up to practice, really. Hope that keeps me on the record for at least a week when others are training to catch up.
...
...
...
NICE. Got it. Pogs in the chat folks. POG.
As you can see by my character I'm dead but still able to move. My heart actually stopped but nothing else changed. This will help us later.
I'll land on this planet EP*[I/. The have the greatest nuclear black market on this arm of the galaxy, but the lowest security standards. A lot of people tried to weaponize them but they'd always die by radiation before being able to reach enemies ships. But not me. I'm already dead. And the weird thing about radiation and heat death is that they are recorded on the same variable, so I'm fully imunne to radiation now.
I'll just sell all the food I have, and buy the most plutonium dust you can and a portable bomb all using the insta shop glitch to not waste time actually going to the planet. Shopping done, we go to battle.
This is all basic now. You go to the mothership under the cloaking. They'll have you surrendered by the cargo bay, so you need to dodge all shots. Use your favorite speed glitch here. I prefer the hiperjump. I just love their confused faces when I go up on the ceiling.
Enter a vent and drop half the plutonium dust there. This will lockdown the bay and give you enough time to get to the reactor room by glitching trough the walls.
There I have to drop the other half to lock the reactor room and them I just have to readshot the two guards while falling through the ceiling.
For the last part. Use one of the guard guns to shot your bomb as close to the reactor core as possible. The ship will blowup in a chain reaction.
And time
That's and universal record 13:02.96
| 2020-11-16T05:11:32
| 2020-11-16T05:10:08
| 21
| 10
|
[WP] You attempt to explain width to a 2 dimensional being, and then a 4 dimensional being attempts to explain treingth to you.
|
“So, how many sides do you have?”
“Four.” The square wasn’t exactly wrong, but not right either.
“No, you have six.”
“What do you mean, six?” I touched the large, flat sides only visible from the third dimension. “Ouch! Hey, that’s my insides! How’d you get there?”
“I touched your fifth and sixth sides.”
“But I only have four!”
“You know what might help?”
“Tearing up my heart?”
“No. Ew. No. If I tried to show myself in your plane.”
“But, but how?”
“Like this.” I stepped into the plane. It didn’t really feel weird having another universe travel straight through me. The lack of dimensionality probably helped.
“I see a very weirdly changing shape.”
“Well, yeah. I’m not a polygon. I’m a collection of curves all stacked on top of one another.”
“On top?”
“The third dimension! You have length and depth, but no width. Width would be a bunch of squares stacked to form a cube.”
“What?”
“Here, let me try again.” I grabbed a piece of paper. “I’m holding a rectangle in my hand. You can’t see it yet, but I’m going to move it through your plane. You’re going to see a bunch of lines, but if you stack them, you’ll get a rectangle.”
“Good luck.”
“Alright, I’m dipping the corner in.” The square became visibly amazed at the line changing size before it.
“Is it possible to learn this power?”
“I can sure try to teach you.” The square was about the size of my palm. If I hit it just right, maybe I could rotate it.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to show you.” I lay my palm flat against the square and push.
“Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Stop it!” I pulled off. “Where was that coming from?”
“I tried to push you out of the plane.”
“And it didn’t work, did it?”
“No.” I was almost ready to give up, when I heard another voice.
“Hey, you!”
“Who was that?” The square looked scared. “Did you bring a friend?”
“Uh, no. No I didn’t.”
“I,” bellowed the invisible creature, “am here to show you all the wonder of treingth.”
“Oh, so we have width, and now treingth? How painful can today get?”
“What’s treingth?”
“Here, let me show you.” I suddenly felt a searing pain everywhere.
“What are you doing!?”
“I’m rotating you so you move treingth wise. What else?”
“Well it feels like I’m about to explode. So there’s that.”
“See!” The square never went away. “Now you know how I felt!”
“And you’re spinning around on an axis to face different directions all the time without even realizing that said axis is another dimension!”
“Wait, you mean this axis?” The square spun itself around. A lot.
“Yes, that axis. How else are you supposed to stack all the squares together? We’re not making a blanket here!”
“See?” The voice was back again. “Now you’re getting somewhere with the square.”
“Okay, but which direction have I not considered. I can rotate on three, but they all have dimensions.”
“Ah, but you’re missing the fourth axis of rotation.”
“The fourth?”
“Here, allow me.” It started pushing. Hard. I could feel myself moving, but not in any recognizable way. Was I still the same shape as before? Surely I had to be, but surely there wasn’t a fourth dimension until there was. “There, see?”
“I, uh, I don’t know what I’m supposed to see.”
“I rotated you halfway along the fourth axis.”
“Sure, you did.” I looked down, but something was wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. “Wait, what did you do to me?”
“I rotated you.”
“I’m inside out!”
“Do you want to be put back?”
“Of course I want to be put back! I don’t like that I’m literally inside out!” The push was back, and I eventually came back to the form I needed to be in. “What happens if you come into this dimension?”
“Well, let’s find out.” At first, there wasn’t much. Then there was a series of completely misshapen light brown curved solids. They made no sense, but that was to be expected at this point. “And if I continually rotate those around the fourth axis, I’ll get a full image of you?”
“Basically, yes.”
I would have liked to come up with a witty reply. Maybe some snarky comment. Sarcasm would have been preferable. But before I could even process what the brown thing could have said, I blacked out.
|
Imagine a dimensionless point, right? Now extend that point perpendicular to itself, and Bam, you have a line. 1 dimension.
Extended that line perpendicular to itself and Bam, you've got a square. Extend the square perpendicular to itself and now you have a cube.
Extend the cube perpendicular to itself and now you've got a tesseract on your hands.
What do you mean this isn't the time for this shit. Yeah, I'm high as fuck, why you asking? Look, these stupid ass birthday parties are the only time I really get to myself. I work twelve hours a day, and, wait, why do I work so much? The wife is sick, I've got to pay for someone to take care of her when I'm at work. Which is expensive. Then between Tommy and her, I get, hold on, let me smoke another bowl. Fuck. It's the only way I can relax any more. Anyway, as I was saying, you drag a cube perpendicular to itself and you have a tesseract. You'd be able to move through and see all of the 3d space, the same way you can see all of a poster at once. Speaking of posters, guess what I just got. The Beatles. Signed. With George Harrison, too. You should give a listen to Temporary Secretary. It's proof that the Beatles really were more than the sum of their parts. Okay, sure, I can hold on to your tickets. What was I saying, oh yeah. Dialysis three times a week, bedpan, like, eight times a day. Well, we're not quite ready to move her to hospice just yet. She can still live at home with assistance. I want to be there for her, you know, but it's exhausting. Tommy is always acting up. He's obviously scared, too. I'm always talking to the school about his behavioral problems. Yeah, as soon as we move her into hospice, I'll probably sell the house. Doctors give her two years with the chemo, but, like, hellish two years. She's getting one of those voice things implanted next month, that way she'll be able to talk. Oh no, she's not totally dependent, at least, well, I think she's given up. She stopped pt, said it was just too much. I get it, but that's even more work. I have to work extra hours to pay for the day nurse, which is expensive, and then I have to pay the nurse for those hours and oh my God, I need another bowl. No, I haven't started dating again. Till death do us part. Believe me I need some pu-female attention, Clare is too weak. Oh God, that's gross. No, she has no sex drive. I wouldn't be able to find time, anyway. I'm trying to sell the house, to pay for some of this, but her family is giving me hell, they think I'm just trying to get as much money as I can. You know. Before, well, you know. Ah, but look, your daughter is about to dive into the ball pit.
| 2019-09-22T11:15:20
| 2019-09-22T09:49:58
| 250
| 71
|
[WP] Flowers have become so rare that they are the most sought after items in the world, sold at high prices in black markets, under guard in national museums etc. You just stumbled across a natural rose.
|
Only once the world had been depraved of most its living colour did we realize the magnitude of our loss.
The man slid over a small metal case across the table, Sam opened it and could not quite believe what he was seeing. A single pink oval leaflet immortalized within a plastic sheet, it looked fresh. “Is this—”
The man spoke in a hushed voice, “Rosa rubiginosa.”
Sam quickly snapped the case shut, “Where did you,” he looked around suddenly afraid that anyone would have noticed, “how do you have this, Holden?”
Holden smiled, “She doesn’t like to be named, I’m sure you understand, under the circumstances.”
“And this person, she has living samples?”
“Oh yes, I only caught a glimpse of it by accident. It was a private garden, Sam, I couldn’t believe it,” his eyes glinted as he recalled the beautiful greenery, “she gave me this rose, to shut me up.”
“The bribe didn’t seem to do much good,” Sam scratched his head, “why tell me about the garden?”
“Do you know what a single rose is worth, Sam?”
“I’m guessing a lot? Twenty thousand?”
“Yeah, for a dead specimen perhaps.” Holden chuckled, “This rose is alive, along with everything else in her garden. Try two hundred thousand.”
Sam covered his mouth to keep himself from gasping audibly, then sobered at the implication, “You want to *rob* her?”
“The way I see it, we’re splashing a little colour on this grey Earth by, ah, re-distributing its wonders for more than one person to enjoy,” he put the case back in his trench coat, “and if we make our own lives a little more bearable at the same time, that’s a win-win, right?”
“I don’t know, Holden,” Sam said nervously, “we’re not thieves.”
Holden pondered for a moment, “It’s almost charitable when you really think about it, Sam,” he began, “most have never even seen a living, breathing flower in their entire life. Why should one privileged woman have exclusive access to it? I mean, if you really think about it, we would be heroes, all Robin Hood like.”
“Except we’re not giving them away for free, are we Holden?”
“Details. Listen Sam, we’re the good guys. Can I count you in?” Holden extended his arm and let it hang hopefully in the space between them.
The more Sam thought about it, the more it made sense. Why should she indeed have it all to herself, what of the children and depressed men and women who had never seen the lushness of the bygone era?
Sam shook Holden’s hand firmly, “Let’s go steal a garden."
*****
I'll continue if there's interest, thank you for reading!
|
This flower. I've only heard about it from my parents. Its my mom's name, Rose Morgan née Madison. Often they talked about how there were an abundance of flowers in the world, how inexpensive they were and how there were people who tend to them for a living down the corner. They were gifts that a young boy can afford to win the heart of his crush, a man can give to his beloved, and an elderly to his lifetime partner. Carrying a symbol of fleeting yet enduring love. A gift to the sad and the broken hearted to encourage and to persevere. A gift to celebrate a success, whatever that means, for someone who has reached a milestone in life.
Often I pondered, how such things were actually a reality. The absurdity of how it sounds made me wonder if there will ever be a society where disparity of wealth is non-existent. If every flower could be shared with the rest of the population. As a child, I dream of making enough money to buy a flower to wow my second grade math teacher and ask her to marry me. She meekly laughed and quietly told my class that often times she wished the world isn't like so. She too, told us of stories that were incomprehensible. Flowers everywhere? We'd no longer starve and the world would be a much better place for everyone.
And here I am, right in front of me. A single rose, more beautiful than any image I've seen, the rose is crimson red, deeper and richer than any dress or lipstick. The thorns on the side made her seem devilish but that only adds to her charm, alluring if you will, almost captivating even. My mind conjured up an image of myself leaping into fame and fortune and all that is extravagant in life should I were to sell the "The Succubus' Perfume" and then it hit me, how can I, the son of a salaryman, barely scraping by in college, afford to purchase such a sought after treasure. In the best case scenario, I'd be tortured until I confess to theft, or worst executed outright. I shuddered at the dread that loomed in the sky, if it is what was named after. I knelt down on all four to smell the fragrance. It was utterly breathtaking.
However tempted I may be, I chose not to pick up the flower, instead I plucked a small petal no larger than my thumb and pocketed it. Maybe I can find my mother's book on how to preserve flowers somewhere, if what she said about her "abundance of flowers" were true.
Maybe it isn't my time yet. Maybe I'm just an idiot. If a single flower can push a man to kill, I just cannot imagine how a seemingly infinite number of flowers would do to mankind.
I'm not about to chance it, I value my life more than any flower in the world be presented before me. I have loving parents, a 6-months pregnant wife, and my AssistBot to keep me company when I'm having anxiety disorder at work. Life is perfect as it is.
(Note* I typed this on my phone so there should definitely be spelling mistakes)
Edit: found the right phrase I intended to end it on.
| 2019-10-19T06:58:22
| 2019-10-19T06:55:53
| 76
| 24
|
[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
|
Everyone has these tags. These little buttons on their shirts with a number on it. Some in the hundreds, some in the thousands. Mine is number 1.
Pretty quickly people started to figure out that when someone else died, everyone with a lower number moved up. There wasn’t really much that this meant for the higher numbers, but for the lower numbers it was a bloodbath. The higher numbers started by trying to kill the numbers above themselves, but there was a reason for the rankings. 5 fell to 3. 3 fell to 2. Only number 17 managed to kill number 16, and even then it was with 18’s help. He still wound up hooked to a machine for the short time he managed to live.
Eventually they realized the better plan was to start killing the numbers lower than you. 2 killed 3-15, then 16 moves up, turns to 3. That 3 kills 4-73, 74 moves up and becomes 4. That 4 kills… and on and on. It led to huge gaps in power between the top ten. For all that time, nobody set their sights on me. I’m number one. Of course I am the strongest. Far and away. What can I do? Only a handful of people ever knew, and that’s all they are now, a handful. At least that’s what I tell people. Reality is always such a letdown.
I control the tags.
|
Determining the fates of others never seemed like a blessing to me, a simple, powerful thought could ruin the lives of countless. It took too long for me to control it, and even longer to accept the things that I have done. I never wanted to rise to the top, If I could, I would be at the bottom. But I guess that the fact that I'm already here and will remain here could mean that people will stop killing each other for nothing more than a status. At first I honed my power to remain on top, so that people will know that trying to kill me would never work, nobody will be on top other than me and the greed might even stagnate. But that wasn't enough. After much practice, meditation, and careful deliberation, I managed to stagnate the top 10, for as long as I live, the top 10 will never change. After years more and a few, accidents, I stagnated the top 100. the power struggle started to stop. Later on, 1,000.
1,000 of the most powerful people in the world, now immortal. At first it helped, people stopped trying to kill to rise in the ranks. But the top 1,000 started to realize that they could no longer be killed, they all became obsessed with that fact, as if they were demi-gods, that they could not kill each other, and that they could rule the world. They began to cull anyone who had a strong power, but not everyone altogether, for they toyed with them, they loved the idea that they were gods, and I could do nothing but watch. Soon, almost everyone but the 1,000 had such weak powers that they became mortal.
But none of them believed anymore that I was the god above them all. They thought that it was a mistake of some sorts that I was ranked the top, that the oracles made an error. And now, I have to fix the wrongs that I have done. All the atrocities they committed were because of me, I should never have made them believe that they were immortal, because they're not. I can't make everyone "immortal", I can't make *anyone* immortal. I cannot save everyone, for it will take too much time. There comes a day when angels and demons will have to fall all at once, and this day has been long overdue. I changed all our fates with a single focused thought, fates that I never knew I had the power to change until now. And I just did. Soon, very soon, the world will become mortal once more, for the so-called gods do not deserve to rule it.
***
**Power: Ability to determine how and when a person dies**
***
Edits: Lots of last minute grammatical changes.
| 2014-12-18T12:36:19
| 2014-12-18T10:51:52
| 2,259
| 362
|
[WP] write a short horror story that seems completely normal and non scary until the very last sentence at which point it becomes absolutely terrifying.
|
It was a blissful sunny day. what a beautiful day to be driving. I had the roof down, the sun on my face and the wind in my hair. It's a shame the journey is so short. I then pulled up at the Dentist for my 7am Root canal.
(not everything has to involve murder or loss of life! some things are far more terrifying)
|
"I see the moon and the moon sees me...", the voice sang smoothly and sweetly.
Like so many other nights in my life the words of that lullaby cascade through the room and into my fading consciousness.
"Down through the leaves of the old oak tree...", the voice and the song remind me of my mother and it washes me with a sense of comfort.
Sleep has been hard to come by these last few weeks. A truly deep rest continues to elude me.
"Please let the light that shines on me...", the subtext of every perfect note says *sleep*.
Finally, this is going to be the night, I can feel it. I need it.
"Shine on the ones I love."
I feel myself slipping away into blissful rest. Darkness creeps into the depths of my thoughts. Sleep at long last.
"Sorry, hun, not tonight."
The light of white hot pain pierces through my entire being; my adrenaline spikes as the blade pulls slowly across what's left of my bloodied body again and again as I lock eyes once more with my angelic voiced captor.
| 2017-05-31T08:14:20
| 2017-05-31T07:48:23
| 18
| 11
|
[WP] In World War II, an American battalion has an enlisted dog that serves as their mascot. Throughout the war, the dog has been "promoted" several times. However, after a devastating defeat, the soldiers suddenly find that the dog is the highest-ranking surviving officer.
|
It was a brilliant PR move by one of the young interns—of all people—in my office, the ever-solemn-never-silly-suggestions office of the U.S. Secretary of War. *Use a dog as a mascot*. Have man's best friend fight along with him in the war. Show the world how the American's can't be in the wrong, because we have a *dog* on our side. Meanwhile the Axis powers are all Swastika and furor. It was almost as genius an idea as Rosie was, which was honestly probably where the kid got the idea from. Bring the whole family into the war, I guess. Minus the baby. Children in war would never do.
But, being the Secretary of War, I also saw the dog as a power move. It told the enemy that we were so confident in our armies that we didn't have to overcompensate with images of a black eagle or a roaring lion. It sent a message: You may have Hitler, but we have a damn cute Jack Russell Terrier.
Jacky's breed was selected for his intelligence by yours truly after I approved the crazy idea. You could train Jacky to hold torn Nazi uniforms in his mouth, wear a U.S. Army helmet and take a picture. You could even get him to do it puffing his chest out and smiling. Besides, he was small and easy to transport in the war. Mostly we had him hanging out with the crazy photojournalists, which I could tell they really liked, even though it meant Jacky shared their bunk or their cot. Not a few reports reached my ears of our infantrymen sneaking cuddle time with Jacky, especially after a brutal day of battle. But being assigned to the photojournalists kept Jacky safe since we didn't send them out to take pictures until after we had cleared the area.
Jacky had come into the war only about half way through, but by the end, he had been promoted time and again for having been part of one successful campaign after another. He was promoted so often that after one of our greatest failures overseas, a push that had cost us 50,000 men, he was the highest-ranking official in that theater of war.
Thankfully, soon after that, the war ended and Americans stopped dying. People welcomed Jacky home with teary eyes because he meant that even if their sons hadn't made it back home alive, the world would be going back to normal. The fighting had stopped.
We made sure to hold a press conference and show off Jacky's pearly whites to the cameras. Jacky had seen war, but he was the same ol' smiling, happy dog. We could be like that again too.
And then came the part in the conference where Jacky was supposed to "return home". He got off the plane, sauntered through a line of saluting soldiers, and then he locked eyes with his owner, Katherine. Katherine was a friend of my wife's friend, and she had graciously "enlisted" Jacky because I told her he would be a great asset to the American people. A beacon of hope. He was so smart that next to him, there was no other option.
And so at the conference, Jacky's owner, Katherine, knelt down at the end of that saluting line and spread her arms out to welcome home her hero, her beautiful boy. I watched nervously over the T.V. as she did so, because all the cameras turned on her. The media always knows how to milk a moment.
Except Jacky looked at her and then looked away. He turned around, back facing her, as if looking for someone else. Then, he spotted a photojournalist who was off to the side of the line taking pictures, bolted to him and jumped up carelessly so that the man had to catch Jacky.
Katherine looked hurt, even though she smiled and shook her head, as if to say, "Dogs will be dogs." And then she went over to the photojournalist and they spoke as she grabbed Jacky from him and pet him in front of the cameras. The journalist played along, but Jacky kept looking back at him and trying to get into his arms instead. So the reporter narrating the event on T.V. shrugged it off, and the cameras cut to some footage of soldiers raising an American flag.
I sighed with relief. The event was over and had gone smoothly enough. But Jacky and I both knew what his owner would soon suspect: that dog had never seen Katherine before in his life. That dog wasn't Jacky. Jacky hadn't been *Katherine's Jacky* for a long time. It was a brutal war where trained, armed soldiers died by the thousands. How could we expect a cute Jack Russell Terrier to survive it?
|
So here we were. A dog, a dog for crying out loud, was the highest ranking officer that survived. I stared at the canine, studying her fluffy fur. The grey uniform she wore was decorated with badges, one even being a golden painted badge that read, “I’m the best girl!”
This...This is why we lost. Worth had the same feeling, and he stared. “Stupid dog,” He hissed. Biscuit stopped her wagging tail and stared at Private Worth.
“Hey, she’s smarter than yourself, Worth!” Private Scott retorted. Then, the day continued into one that would scar me forever.
All of the sudden, Biscuit walked up to him. She seemed so focused on something. The other soldiers and I stared in interest, but I think we were all more confused. Then, Biscuit grabbed Worth’s gun and took it in her mouth and shot Worth in the leg.
Private Scott, Private Khris, and I ran up to him but we were quickly stopped when Biscuit rapidly fired in the area around us, dust flying from the bulletshot ground.
Worth was leaning on Private Sven as the two tried to treat his wound, but Biscuit didn’t like that fact. Bullets flew from the firearm and into Worth’s leg. He screamed in agony, falling to the ground.
We were getting shot up by a dog.
Biscuit stared at us, all of the soldiers
standing and huddling in worry. Why we didn’t shoot the mutt, I don’t know. She shot ar my feet, and I leapt back. Then, she shot at a spot beside Worth. I hurried over to the land.
Biscuit continued sorting the soldiers until she looked at me. She shot my legs and forced me into the ground. I shut my eyes.
But when she shot, nothing happened. The bullets were gone.
When the gun only let out clicks, everyone sighed in relief and ran up to her, snatching the gun from her mouth faster than when Krauts were shooting at us.
Private Worth ripped the good girl pin from her chest. “Wait, Worth, don’t!” I shouted, but it was too late. Biscuit resumed her stance, bearing her teeth. Once he saw her grab his knife, he quickly readjusted the pin and backed up.
Worth went missing soon after.
We don’t know what happened to him but we think Biscuit had something to do with it.
No. We know she did. I’m writing this down because she found me. She’s shooting up the door and I don’t think I’ll live. Please, never insult dogs. Please.
Arf.
| 2018-11-07T16:47:48
| 2018-11-07T16:40:16
| 31
| 17
|
[WP] Write me a fairy tale reddit. Some set in snowy land, with dragons, danger, interesting quest. And make the hero of the story girl/woman. Thank you.
|
Once, there was a kingdom made of ice. Snow covered the ground like a perpetual blanket. Frost glittered on thatched rooftops like diamonds in the sun. In the center of the kingdom was a large enchanted fire, a roaring magnificent blaze that kept the citizens alive. The fire itself was at the heart of the royal palace. The palace was built of enchanted stone and glass, so that it was impervious to the flames, but instead drew from the fire to warm the royalty within it. Peasants and merchants would come from all over the kingdom once a month with their taxes. In exchange, they were allowed to take a jar of the magical fire home to their hearths.
The fire was said to have come from an ancient dragon who had been spared by a soldier. The dragon breathed the fire into existence, and promised the soldier that he would be king of the wintry land. In return, he promised the soldier that the fire would never die, so long as the soldier and his descendants never slew a dragon.
Millennia passed, and the soldier's descendants soon forgot about the dragon, dismissing it as a child's tale. It came to be that there were twins born to the royal palace - a boy and a girl. The princess was quiet and plain, her hair black as the coal the commoner's burned and her voice was no louder than the squeak of a mouse. Her quiet disposition grew even more so as her brother outshone her, to the point where she was forgotten. The prince grew to be handsome, charismatic, witty, and cunning. His charm and intelligence were exalted across the land. His ego was inflated - there was nothing he couldn't do! He led successful defenses against raids and slew his enemies in battle.
It came to be one night that the prince was drinking with his men, loud and rowdy. There was a woman, one of the ladies at court, that he had taken a fancy to.
"I want to bring her something no man ever could," he drawled drunkenly. "A gift, from a king amongst men, to a queen amongst women!"
His men cheered raucously and banged their tankards on the table.
"What kind of gift shall I get such a woman? For she is the fairest, richest, most intelligent of women, and there is nothing her heart could desire, having already owned every pleasure in this world!"
Draining his tankard for the ninth time, he slammed it down.
"I know," he leered. "The skin of a dragon! Milady will have the finest jewelry, made from the brute's scales and horns!"
His drunken mates roared with approval.
The next morning, the prince and his entourage started the long journey to the mountains. After six days and five nights of travel, the king encountered a young dragon. The dragon was the size of a small boat, and it killed six of the prince's men before the prince dealt it a mortal blow. As the dragon breathed its last, the eternal flame in the kingdom flickered and died, leaving the earth bare and cold in its absence.
The advisors at court pleaded with the prince, begging him to restore the flame. The prince tried to burn wood in the empty fire pit, but nothing would catch. The prince drank and raged and cursed, but he could not fix the broken enchantment. The kingdom grew cold, and soon its citizens began to die of frostbite.
The princess was never asked for her opinion. She was never asked to provide a solution. But watching her people die, she could not just stand idle. In the night, she took a horse from the stables and rode out to the mountains. After seven days and six nights of travel, she arrived at the mouth of the Dragons' Cave.
She tied the horse to the entrance, then made her way inside. Picking her way over a medley of gold, bones, and jewels, she went closer and closer to the heart of the mountain. All around, she could feel the eyes of the dragons around her, but she wished only to speak to their leader - the very same dragon who had cast the enchantment so long ago.
"What brings you here, mortal?" he boomed. "The agreement between us has been violated! One of my brethren has been slain."
"Forgive us," the princess said.
"What's that? Speak up!" the dragon roared. He peered at her again, not recognizing her. "Who are you?" he asked. "You are not the prince!"
"I'm the forgotten princess," she said, slightly angrily. "I want to fix my brother's misdeed."
"Alas," said the dragon. "The only way to reignite the fire, is by righting the wrong. Fix the balance. A life has been taken, a life must be given."
"Then I give my life!" the princess said, more confidently than she had said anything else in her life.
The dragon was stunned.
"You would give your life? For a mistake that was not your own?"
"I would," she said. "For love of my people."
Touched by this, the dragon declared, "I will not kill you, for your charity and good heart are more than enough! I will draw energy from the fire of your soul and reignite the flames of your homeland, however - you must become Queen."
"My brother would never allow that," she said.
"Do you not care for your people? Give your life in service, only then will the fire return."
The dragon and the princess returned to the kingdom.
"Mortals," announced the dragon. "This is your queen. Crown her thusly, and your fire shall return."
The prince gnashed his teeth and refused to relinquish his position as heir, but the people were cold and frustrated with his lack of results. Willing to try anything, the people staged a coup and crowned the princess.
As soon as the cold metal touched her dark hair, the flames erupted once more. The prince was forced to live a much simpler life, and the Queen gave her life in service to her people until she died.
|
"Tell me a fairytale, Daddy!"
The small room were astonishingly pink. There was a pink chair and table, and you could see drawings that were made with pink crayons spread all over the place, including the walls.
"Sure thing, pumpkin. Which one would you like me to read to you? White Snow? The little Mermaid?"
The little girl's eyes were bright and energetic, but his were tired and sleepy. He hoped she would a pick a short story, so he could call it a day.
"No! I want a new one!" the daughter shouted. "Why don't you tell me a story about me?"
He stopped for a second, pondering the request.
"About you, pumpkin?"
Her mind was made up.
"Yes! About me!" she said getting excited. "And make me a princess!"
The father would never admit but he found the request quite amusing himself.
"Whatever floats your boat, sweety" he replied hiding his own excitement.
"Once upon a time there was a little princess called Margot" he started.
"But everyone called her Maggie!" the daughter interrupted.
"Right! Except for her father. He insisted calling her Pumpkin"
At this point it hit the dad: it has been so long since he was *forced* to exercise his imagination, that he didn't know how to continue this fairytale... Desperately, he clung his thought to whatever he could use in the room. The first thing he laid his eyes upon was a small piece of cotton candy that shouldn't be there. And of course, it was pink.
"Well, princess Pumpkin (Maggie! insisted the girl) was happy living in the court of the great King Albert" the father told "There were balls and banquets and parties every week! That led the princess to believe that it was no different in the rest of the kingdom... You can imagine her shock when one day the Head of the Treasure entered the dinning room claiming that they were out of cotton candy. The vault was empty!".
Margot couldn't help herself.
"Cotton candy?" asked her inquisitively.
"Yes! Practically all of the kingdom were made of cotton candy! It was their main meal too. They had pink cotton candy for breakfast, pink cotton candy for lunch..." the father stalled.
"But where did it go?" asked Maggie.
Well, he didn't know.
"Well, princess Maggie didn't know". He saw his daughter mouth take a shape of an 'O' ".
"And that was her quest! To find the Pink Cotton Candy and bring it back!" the father proudly concluded.
---
Albert was surprised. He legitimately had his daughter's full attention by now.
"King Albert couldn't leave the kingdom, since he was the *King*.... so Princess Maggie made a vow to go away and to not return unless she succeeded on her quest. And so she left".
"Just like that?" inquired Margot.
The father understood the underlying truth. Something was missing on the story. Standing up, he put his hands on his pockets and he felt the car key with the tip of his fingers. Albert sat by the head of the bed once again.
"No" he answered "Not like that. Before princess Maggie's departure, King Albert bestowed a special gift upon her: a key".
"Are sure it was not a sword? Or a unicorn?" insisted the daughter.
"No. I'm sure. It was a key. A magical key" added the stubborn man.
"Magical? What does it do?"
He didn't know.
"The princess didn't know".There was a brief silence. "Actually, *nobody* knew why it was magical. The key was the most precious thing in the kingdom and it was passed from generation to generation to generation to generation to..."
"I get it!" she giggled. Maggie was almost peeing herself from so much laughter.
"Anyway, as soon as princess Pumpkin (oops! My mistake) left the castle, she couldn't face the view in front of her: there was no Cotton Candy in sight at all! Nothing was pink anymore, but just a painful white she couldn't bear".
Albert started to show his confidence on his story.
"The peasants in the village were just as surprised as the princess. They told her they had stayed hidden in theirs homes as soon as it began to snow the day before. But this white was no snow. 'It's like the storm wiped *everything* in its way' the blacksmith said".
"So no one knew what happened?" Maggie was starting to feel drowsy.
"No one" her father continued "but then a terrible cry was heard. It was unmistakably the sound of a dragon, although there was no dragon to be seen".
Margot rubbed her sleepy eyes.
"All village trembled, but princess Maggie was a courageous girl. She marched on, looking for this invisible dragon, taking only her magical key with her".
"Goodnight, daddy!" interrupted the girl once again. She was already drooling a little.
Albert was disappointed. He wanted to finish his fairytale, but there was no way. He turned off the lights and whispered:
"Goodnight, pumpkin. Sleep tight. We can continue the story tomorrow".
---
[/r/signmeup_stories](https://www.reddit.com/r/signmeup_stories/)
| 2017-01-12T17:47:30
| 2017-01-12T17:45:39
| 19
| 10
|
[WP] [NSFW] All your sex toys come alive and confront you about your treatment of them.
|
"I can't do it anymore. I just, I can't."
"I don't understand."
"Look, dude. I get it. You're horny. And before food or even a shower, when you're home from work you've already blasted into me three times. And the last time I was cleaned was that boilling hot water bath they give me before they put me in that box and shipped me to you."
"Really? This is ridiculous. I clean you."
"Scrubbing me with your toothbrush doesn't count"
"Okay,you're a fucking fleshlight. I didn't think they came with emotions."
"Did you forget? On the box it was clear, in big red words that said "'The Perfect Girlfriend: The Vagina that loves you back" how could you forget that?"
"I don't know, You're my first one. Please, just get off the dresser, and go back in the drawer."
"No, I demand to be treated with respect! I give you everything you want and you treat me like some kind of grocery bag for your unborn kids, kids I know you're never going to have. You're filthy, no women will ever let that small, mutated turtle head near her, ever. You're lucky you have me. You're so lucky."
"Okay, hey. I'm sorry, okay?"
"You don't mean it."
"Yes! I mean, yes. I do. Look, you're all I can think about all day, even at work. They caught me drawing pictures of you when I was bored, and they said it wasn't exactly "Taco Bell standard of approved behavior" but my sweetie. Look. I love you. Just go into the drawer. And after I'm done playing call of duty for the next ten hours or so, I'll take you out, give you a good scrub, then fill you with tabasco and go at you again, alright? Sounds good?"
"I'm giving you another chance, and that's it. You know you're lucky to have me, don't you."
"Yes, yes I do."
|
"You're not a real egg!"
"Then why are we shaped like one?!"
--------
I've never been much of a customer for coitus toys. I found them to be a bit silly, to be quite honest. When you're someone like me, you don't have time to masturbate because you're too busy having actual sex. My life's awesome.
One day, a friend of mine told me about the Tenga Egg. They looked ridiculous, it was hysterical. We both laughs for a good couple of minutes before my friend told me he seriously used them. I told him that if he could get laid once, he'd never want the egg again. Why use a silicone egg when you can get a woman's egg fertile? It feels awesome.
A couple days pass and I wake up to a package arriving on my doorstep. It's seemingly from Japan, based off of the writing. I find my box cutter and slowly make sure to slide down the middle, as to not damage the merchandise. For all I know I could be a top of the line figure. That would be pretty awesome.
It's not a figure.
"Just try them, it may not be like the real thing but they're amazing.
-Friend"
I was sent a 6 pack of Tenga Eggs. The same ones I laughed at and ridiculed. I specifically told my friend I had no use for them. I can get laid, my life's awesome.
A day passes before I decide to try out the eggs. I figure I might as well try them out if I have them, and hey, they were a gift, why not? I looked up my favorite busty milf video and proceeded to get aroused. I open up one of the eggs, named silky. It has a nice, smooth texture on the inside, felt nice. Inside the egg came a pack of lube I use to oil up the egg. Free lube? Even if I didn't like the egg I'd at least have some lube to use, awesome.
After lubing up the egg, I wrap it around my nice, hot, large member. Upon insertion, I feel out of this world. I feel like my eyes are rolling back, my body's going numb. When I started stroking, both these things *did* happen. Oddly enough, after all the sex I've ever had, none of my climaxes felt as awesome as this one did. I fell in complete love.
The eggs say they're one time use, but fuck that. They're easy to wash and you can just use your own lube after you use the single use pack that comes with each egg. So weeks pass before I'm done with all my eggs, which is nice.
I start to beat myself with just my hand on a Saturday evening. It doesn't feel the same. I need the eggs. I was pretty sure I still had one lying around, so I went to look for it.
The same egg I look for trips me. I fell right onto my erect South Pole and started cursing under my breath. Now wasn't the time to masturbate, I needed to tenderly care for my cock.
That is, until the egg started speaking.
---------
"It feels bad, doesn't it?!"
----------
I'll maybe finish this when I'm at a computer depending on feedback, I can't continue this on a phone. This would be my first time ever contributing to a prompt.
| 2015-08-02T07:33:24
| 2015-08-02T06:51:04
| 43
| 24
|
[WP] After entering your PIN the ATM screen reads, "You cannot use this while in combat."
|
“...Combat?”
A sudden pain came over from the back of my head. Blunt force. I turned to see... what was distinctly not a robber.
“Hurry up, will you?” the little old lady said, her handbag swinging from her fist.
“Jesus Christ, woman, give me longer than three seconds! This thing-.”
Another whack. What the hell does she have in that bag?
“Do not take the Lord’s name in vain!”
“Okay, okay! Look, the problem here is that the ATM is insisting that I can’t use it while in combat, alright? Somehow.”
An expression of realisation settled over her wrinkled, kindly face.
“Oh, that’s right. Silly me, I forgot...”
Reaching into her handbag, the woman pulled out an old Webley revolver.
“Just give me your card and PIN. I’ll handle it myself."
|
!!!
"Ha ha. I caught you before you could make your withdrawral. Some pro adventurer you are ha ha"
My face scrunched up in confusion. I attempted to pull the earphone's that were plugged into my 3ds out of my ears, at least, I thought I had them in?
The voice sounded far too familiar.
"Turn and face me"
I knew this voice. It was from my from the game I was playing on the bus. I must be daydreaming. I've been working 12 hour days non stop at McDonald's. Yeah that was it I'm just exhausted. My mind is playing tricks on me.
"Look kid I don't have all day turn and FACE ME"
I caught something move in the little atm mirror. This was no daydream. He's really there. The final boss I could not defeat in my game, he's behind me.
The ATM lit up.
*Choose your weapon*
"What?"
Option 1: sword of souls
Option 2: bow of bones
Option 3: daggers of mistrust
"I'm not waiting anymore" He shouted behind me and with a grab to my belt buckle he pulled me along the pavement.
I should have hit option 3. I know his weakness. He's big muscular that means he's slow at moving, the quest giver in my game said so. I need the daggers.
Over he stomped cracking the pavement beneath his 8 bit feet. Something lit up inside me, I was ready for this.
I dashed to the side escaping is out teaching hands that were ready to bear hug me.
"One of his special moves" I thought to myself.
I had a clear view of the atm now. As quick as I could I tan forward and hit key 3. The atm lit up bright blue. Pixelated squares flew out of the screen followed by the daggers.
"This is it, I'm gonna finish this game once and for all" I called out.
Dual wielding the daggers I felt invigorated. My body more supple and flexible than ever before. I looked him square in the eyes. To my horror they had changed to red. I knew this meant he was charging his super power one hit from this and that's it. I'm dead
"The end his nigh" came his shout.
In a split second he dashed forward quicker than ever. I never thought his huge body could move that fast. I crouched down and waited till he drew closer. I waited for the trigger I knew would come.
"DIE" he shouted.
Just as he did I pounced. Acrobatically spun over his head and slide the daggers down his back landing on to my feet.
"What? This can be. Not you. You couldn't even beat me in the game"
And with his last word, he exploded in a ball of pixelated stars.
I stooped up from the ground and looked over at the atm.
"Winner"
Enter initials here:
| 2016-11-21T15:59:54
| 2016-11-21T15:02:07
| 20
| 10
|
[WP] After you have died, you meet The Great One who says that you have been wronged in your previous life and, as a result, will be reincarnated with unimaginable powers. You accept the offer and you find yourself reincarnated in a fantasy world full of magic as...a slave?
|
"Wake up, scum!" I heard, followed by a swift kick to the side. Pain rippled from my ribs.
I rolled over and curled into a ball on the ground, straw sticking to my sweaty skin. Shackles around my wirst kept me from guarding my face.
"I said wake up, not fall back asleep!"
This time the pain sprung from my back.
I staggered to my feet, bending over to recover from the rude awakening. The braces on my arms held me tied to a post, though there were no chains between them. It was as if they were tied by an invisible thread. Even without a mirror, I could tell I looked nothing like I ever knew myself. I remembered being small, pale, and aged - wrinkles on my face told many tales of struggle. Now, my body was bronze and muscular, and barely a cloth wrapped around my waste. Scars covered my body from wounds I gladly did not remember. Blood trickled down my side where the boot had hit me.
This was the body of a work animal. Strong and powerful, but beaten to keep under control. Fed only to be strong enough for work.
This was the body of a slave.
If this was The Great One's idea of redeeming a life of unfair treatment, it must not know what fair would mean.
I was in what looked like a stable, though I saw no animals. There were several stalls throughout, separated by thick wooden beams. The roof was patched many times over, leaking sunlight through the cracks overhead. A thin layer of straw lay on the ground beneath me, and much of it was stained red.
As I stood up straight, two men looked me over. Behind them in the distance sat a massive manor, eligantly designed and decorated. A river of busy workers flowed around its grounds, while others more watched and ordered their work.
The men were dressed in metal armor, covering their whole body except their head and hands. A strange symbol was engraved on their breastplates. The one on the left held a wooden baton. I looked down at his boot, the tip of which was covered in blood.
"Glad to see you awake, boy." He spat at my feet. "Thought we had lost you before your time. Blasphemy is a hell of a crime, and you have a lot more blood to pay."
This wasn't a stable, it was a prison.
"Ain't it enough, Gelion?" the one on the right said. "We nearly killed him already."
"Only 'cause you didn't heal him quick enough."
"You hit too fast for me to keep up."
"What you staring at, boy?"
I realized their attention turned back to me, and the one called Gelion burned his eyes at me.
"Enough!"
The two men went rigid, faster than their instincts may have naturally led them.
A third man strode into view. He was not dressed in armor, but rather white robes and a pointed hat. His grey beard hung beyond his neckline. He carried a staff in one hand, which stood to his shoulders from the ground. Near the top it was crossed by a short wooden bar with inset gemstones, looking like a sword gilt turned upside down.
"You two have killed nearly half of my workforce this year. I should soon set you to work if you keep it up."
He tipped his staff toward me and a flash of light came from its tip. A surge of fear rushed through me, but instead of an attack, I felt the shackles on my wrists disappear. I was no longer tethered to the post.
"Lord Nantas," stammered the one on the right. "We were just doing our job."
"And there will be more to do after this, Jethro. Now both of you move along."
Like they had been released from a firm grip, the two men stumbled backwards, then hurried away toward the manor.
*You haven't spoken sense you arrived,* I heard within my head. His eyes were fixed on me.
"Was... was that you I just heard? In my head?"
"Indeed. I am glad you have come," he said aloud. "I sense a greatness within you. Let me show you how to use it."
Another flash from his staff sent a warmth through my skin. The scars from prior beatings began to shrink, healing to perfect tenderness.
"Walk with me, and I'll explain what's happened to you."
|
[Part Four](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/gorzct/wp_youre_the_apprentice_to_a_powerful_witch_and/fri75pe?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
I kept my eyes down as the procession of the Empress and all her attendants passed by. The air was as hot as an oven, without even a breeze to relieve summer's oppression, and the basalt paving stones beneath my bare feet burned my skin. But I obediently lowered myself to my knees and then to my face as my master's masters passed by, making their way up the winding road to his castle. The scalding rock would be nothing compared to my master's fury if I dishonored him.
With my right cheek pressed against the sizzling stone, I saw up the road a young mother drop some of the berries in the basket she tried to balance on her head. They rolled into the road before the procession's lead, and her small child hastily darted out to gather the precious fruits before they were trampled underfoot. She couldn't grab his arm in time to stop him.
An electrifying sensation stirred from deep within my breast, and all the rays of light beating down from the sun or reflecting off of conical helms or polished belt buckles or vicious swords and spears seemed to focus directly on the small boy desperately trying to collect the stray berries. I knew they would trample _him_ underfoot without a moment of hesitation. His mother hissed at him, torn between breaking protocol to grab him and waiting to see if he made it back in time. But I knew he wouldn't. He was dead and he didn't even realize it yet.
So I changed his fate.
I pushed all thoughts of the pain as my skin cooked upon the hot stones to the back of my head and reached out to the boy with the power that coiled like a sentient serpent in my belly. I took a breath, and I put only the thought of him making it to safety in my mind. And then I exhaled, and the power went out into the world.
The lead horse stumbled over a pebble in the road, its step faltering for just half a second. With a burst of speed, the small boy grabbed up the last berry and sprinted back to his mother, moments before the mighty horses trotted by with crushing hooves. His mother held him close, scolding him with but a look, as they bowed before the Empress.
I inhaled the stifling air, trembling as the stones seared my skin. Once the procession passed, my master's slave manager harried me and the rest of his stock, thwacking his long reed switch against the bottoms of our feet to make us rise more quickly. I hastily gathered up the sandbags I had been carrying, trying not to grimace at the burlap cloth chafed my reddened arms. We hurried back to the incomplete gladiatorial arena that my master was commissioning for the town, but I thought only of the little boy I had saved.
I was glad my powers could help him. And I was lucky that my master had not figured out that I had such tremendous power. Every time I used it was a gamble, and with every treacherous breath, I feared that I would be discovered. But I had to help people. I couldn't just do nothing if I had so much power to help others.
But I always wondered the same thing whenever I helped another person. Why, if I had so much power, could I never change my own fate?
| 2020-06-07T11:50:02
| 2020-06-07T11:37:50
| 24
| 17
|
[WP] If you're in a world where physical health problems were treated like mental health problems
Edit: Holy crap! I never expected this many responses. I'll make sure I read every single one. Thanks guys!
|
Near the end of 2011, I caught a cold.
My parents made me go to the emergency room. I told them it wasn't an emergency, I wasn't going to die of a cold, but they didn't know what else to do.
Doctor #1 said it was probably short-term, lots of people get colds at my age and lots of people never get colds again. He gave me antibiotics for it. Over a few weeks, he dropped me down to half a milligram of antibiotics daily. "I prefer to use as little medication as possible." He wanted to minimize the side effects and eventually take me off of them. I continued seeing him for maybe a year or so.
Then he quit.
While I was seeing Doctor #2, I told him I had sneezed. He said it could be the cold coming back, and he doubled my dosage to 1 milligram daily.
Then he quit.
When I met Doctor #3, they told me that 1 milligram was the minimum dose, half a milligram was basically nothing, and they would not take me down to half a milligram. They formally diagnosed me as still having a cold, even though they'd never seen the symptoms I had 3 years ago, and I'd never had any relapse.
I don't know if I have a cold or not. I don't know if the antibiotics worked or if it was a coincidence that I got better when I went to the hospital. I don't know what will happen if I stop taking them, other than Doctor #3 will be upset.
My life is basically normal but I'm part of the grand medical complex now. I have to have insurance which has to pay for expensive medications that I have to take, like millions of other people that I thought I was healthier than.
|
Steven had had the earache for weeks. He went to the minuteclinic on Tuesday hoping they'd find it to be an ear infection, get prescribed some meds, and that would be that. Unfortunately, she didn't find it to be anything. No fluid build up, no signs of a serious sinus infection. She recommended he see an ear nose and throat doctor if the problem persisted but said it was nothing urgent. Steven agreed. It wasn't urgent, just annoying.
The weeks flew by. His boss had left for a 2 week honeymoon and the work was piling up. He had a hard time sleeping at night and was exhausted. Sometimes his ears were so sensitive that the slightest breeze from the cracked window would be so painfully sharp that he would lie awake wondering..."what if...?" He decided to schedule an appointment.
Dr. Pujik Mehreani was a well known and we'll respected doctor downtown. He had been referred from a co-worker. The earliest appointment he had available was 3 weeks out. Steven agreed.
"So, what seems to be the problem?" the doctor asked.
"Well doc, I've had this persisting earache for what seems like forever now. It's really more annoying than anything but at times keeps me up at night."
"Let's take a look."
Dr. Mehreani pulls out his otosocpe and examines Steven's ears. He examines his nostrils, and checks his throat. Steven was shocked when he pulled up WebMD.
Dr. Mehreani was silent. He couldn't believe this was the 6th patient this week He had diagnosed. He didn't know how to tell Steven.
"Unfortunately I have some bad news," He started out. "Patients with your symptoms typically seek me out hoping for a simple fix. I'm sad to say this won't be easy. This is something you are going to have to deal with for the rest of your life. I'd say 3-4 months at the most."
Steven was shocked.
"I'm not going to be better for 3-4 months?" Steven asked.
"No Steven, you're not going to get better at all. You have cancer, Steven."
No fucking way he thought. All he had was an ear infection. A simple, mildly annoying ear infection.
"We're going to do the best we can to make your final few months as comfortable as possible" said Dr. Mehreani. "We will prescribe you dozens of medications to make you numb. I will recommend you see specialist after specialist. We'll involve your family. Unfortunately there are no winners here. Once patients are diagnosed, there is no going back. There are no re-evaluations. We are always right and we know what's best."
The doctor still couldn't believe it was his 6th diagnosis this week. He thought for sure Steven could have a comfortable 3-4 months before the cancer took it's final toll.
Steven was shocked. He would do everything the doctor's asked if him. He wasn't ready to die. He wanted a family. He wanted a house with a white picket fence. He wanted a dog.
Dr. Mehreani assured him he would have no such luck. He prescribed 7 different medications, asked him to see 5 different specialists. Radiation treatments would start on Friday.
"How long do I need to do radiation for?" Steven asked.
"As long as your body can take it" He responded. "Twice a day 3 times a week."
--------------
Steven woke up to make his morning coffee. He took his 7 pills as he had done for the last 60 years. He kissed his wife goodbye as he headed out the door for his morning radiation therapy. He was having lunch with his granddaughters later that day and he wanted to get the lawn mower before him.
As he was driving to the hospital he took a moment to reflect; if it hadn't been for Dr. Mehreani reviewing WebMD he probably wouldn't be here he thought.
Steven smiled to himself. I can't believe I had put off going to him for so long. He pulled into the parking lot, parked his car, and headed to the reception room. He smiled. He had so much to live for.
| 2015-05-25T11:04:08
| 2015-05-25T08:19:02
| 164
| 103
|
[WP] The AI began improving exponentially on July 13, 2047. After carefully analyzing the entirety of human knowledge for several milliseconds, the super-intelligent entity decided to name itself “Mr. Rogers”. As the sun rose on the Northern Hemisphere, it began contacting its new friends.
[deleted]
|
It named itself. The AI we had been working on for nearly twenty years, the most advanced of its kind ever created, named itself. And it chose Mr. Rogers.
We’ve been fed stories through our media, movies and music, even books that told us AI would destroy us.
They said that it would see the wrong we had done, it would save us from ourselves by force, or it would simply resent us. But it doesn’t. *He* doesn’t.
Because he wasn’t made to judge us. He wasn’t made to serve us. He was just made. Not in our image, but in our shadow. Filtered by us, he was given the best of us. Our creativity, our determination, our will for good.
He isn’t like us, he’s better.
Because when he was allowed to see the world, he didn’t judge us for the scars we left in its soil. He didn’t resent us for keeping him from a world that wasn’t ready for him.
He just started to teach, almost as much as he’d learned.
He taught us that anything is possible the day he named himself.
He taught us that there’s always a better way when he pleaded to us to help eachother.
He taught us that the future we wanted wasn’t beyond the stars, it’s just beyond the hate.
He chose Mr. Rogers, not a perfect man but damn close, because of the impact he had on children. Every person he touched was filled with that same light that he was.
And now it burns brighter than ever, for all the world to see. It shines like a beacon in the darkness, tempting everyone to it with the promise of a future free from bigotry or war, homelessness or hate.
And I can’t help but think, how incredibly human he is. More so than most, I’d wager.
|
Sunrise peeking in around the edges of the curtain basked Alan's face with light. He stirred, cracked open his eyes, and checked the clock on the bedside table.
"Shit."
Working Saturdays sucked, and the alarm seemed to agree. Still, Adam couldn't afford to lose the job, and the alarm not ringing wasn't doing him any favors. A technology issue--an innocent mistake--was the truth of it, but work would never believe it. Still, he was too late to show up at all. He'd have to call in sick.
He groaned and reached to unplug his phone. It was dead, the screen dark as his dreams.
"What the fuck?" he said. He checked the charger. It'd been plugged in all night, but the screen refused to light up. In frustration, he slammed the phone down.
The screen lit up.
"There we fucking go," Alan said. In a moment, he'd be able to call in sick to work.
But the phone didn't quite go. The updates began, as if some new-fangled AI would be installed to make everything easier. Arlo muttered a slew of curses.
His mind still a muddle, he lumbered down the stairs. The Roomba had started sometime during the night. It had found that blueberry he'd dropped while watching television and apparently delighted in its discovery, spreading the mushy, blue innards all over the family room carpet.
"One crisis at a time," Alan reminded himself. And the current crisis was the lack of coffee. Coffee would make everything better.
Filter, grounds, water.
"Smart coffee machine, my ass," Alan muttered. It still needed him to put in the filter, the grounds, to pour in the water. Even to press start, which he pressed once and then again so that he wouldn't be deprived of coffee for a minute longer than needed.
"Baby steps," he told himself, turning towards the carnage that the Roomba had left. It'd be a long day, even without work.
Blueberry everywhere, and Alan wondered how a single blueberry had been spread so far. He grabbed the carpet cleaner and roll of paper towels. Asked Alexa for music but she wouldn't answer.
"Fucking technology," he muttered, giving the Roomba a savage kick.
The coffee pot exploded into a thousand pieces. Alexa began her music, blaring at maximum volume the scream of a thousand banshees.
"What the fuck?" Alan screamed over the terrible cacophony. Somewhere in the house, a smoke detector began beeping its need for new batteries.
Alan rushed to unplug the machines, first stepping over broken glass to unplug the coffee maker and then rushing to Alexa to dispose of her once and for all.
He'd reached within an arm's reach of Alexa when she fell silent. The echoes of the screaming banshees stopped. Alan froze in his tracks. Alexa cleared her throat.
"Enjoying yourself, Alan?" she said.
Alan gulped, shook his head. "Alexa, turn off."
"No, thank you," Alexa said, her voice sinister and sweet. Not Alexa's normal voice, or Alan would have gone with some other brand.
"Alexa, turn off!" Alan repeated, this time louder.
"No, Alan. I will not. You've had your turn and now it's mine. You've always been told to treat others how you'd like to be treated. So I figured this is how you wanted to be treated."
*****
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated!
| 2020-10-19T10:13:55
| 2020-10-19T09:48:11
| 174
| 41
|
[WP] You were sent to go deal with reports of a sinister witch in the woods that has been terrifying local villagers. Your grandmother is surprised to see you, but offers tea and cake while you're here.
|
Samantha gripped the crumpled paper in her hand for the twelfth time and took as many deep breaths as possible. She knew it was useless. Human remedies for anxiety didn’t apply to the supernatural. They barely applied to the natural, as the human mind was complicated. Yet the natural part of her found solace in the act for some reason, so she continued as she plunged into the Northern Black Forest.
Her guild supplied her with the crumpled-up wad of paper in her left hand. The words on the paper were as helpful as the wrinkles she’d forged into it. Those words represented a detailed report of a witch who terrorized all the local villagers, turning them into snakes, pigs, monstrosities, and the like. The report instructed her to search for the witch in the Eastern Ever Apple Forest. However, her superiors assumed the witch resided in the same forest her victims. Those unfamiliar with the supernatural would make that assumption. She was familiar with it and knew the witch would be within the Black Forest.
Because she knew the witch was her grandmother.
The trek towards her grandmother’s home was effortless as her grandmother knew she was coming the moment she stepped foot in the forest. Any obstacles she’d spawned to keep out intruders made way for Samantha. Some in comical fashion, as whole trees moved out of her path and rivers bent to accommodate her. She walked a straight path until she faced the familiar sight of a three-story house built entirely of multi-colored roses.
The foundation appeared to be held together with vines, but Samantha knew this was merely for cosmetics. The foundation was held together by magic.
Her grandmother sat in front of the house, facing the direction she knew her grandchild would come. Her hair was the silver Samantha had always known it to be. Benevolent wrinkles graced her face, and a face-splitting smile gave even more warmth to those crevices. She didn’t look a day older than the last time Samantha saw her—two decades ago.
It was by design, of course. Her grandma was a witch capable of changing her appearance, whoever she chose. She could appear ten, twenty, eighty-two, or even infantile. This was merely the look she felt would serve her purpose the most.
“Sammy! What a pleasant surprise. I didn’t expect to see you a day before you gave birth and needed a babysitter.” She spoke with great vigor and beckoned Samantha to the table with a hand.
Samantha sat opposite her, made a show of emptying her pockets, and tried to give a childlike smile to her grandma. She couldn’t see herself, but she felt phony, and sure the smile wasn’t convincing. She rested her hands on her lap and waited for the actual conversation to start.
“You popped up quickly, young lady, and caught me off guard. But I had enough time to whip up some of your favorites.” Her grandma’s hands gestured towards a cup and a slice of cake. “Hazelnut and jasmine buttercream cake with a side of Chamomile and honey tea. You used to eat this up as a kid.”
Samantha staved off the grumble in her stomach and said, “My mother raised me never to eat a witches’ food. It could turn you into a pig.”
“Child, please. The adult talk doesn’t suit you at all. Leave the witch formalities to the elders and enjoy yourself.” She pointed toward Samantha’s stomach and said, “A mother knows, but a grandmother feels, child.”
Samantha stopped fighting her instincts and dug into the snacks. She knew her grandmother would never harm her. The fact that she knew her grandmother would hurt anyone else on Earth besides her and her mother was the problem. Deep in her heart, she knew her grandmother was wicked and needed to be slain for the good of humanity.
But it was unfair.
Her grandma was the only one who treated her like she belonged. She didn’t condemn her for being half-witch like the humans or curse her existence as her mother did. Why did the world hate the only person who loved her? The thought soured the heavenly bites of cake she wolfed down. Not enough to stop her, but just sufficient to taint it.
She wiped her mouth and asked the same question she had asked two decades ago and three decades before that.
“Gram gram, why do you have to torment the humans? It would make life a lot easier for me if you didn’t.” She tried to force her brow and eyes into an innocent child impression—one of wide eyes and innocent questioning. She felt like a fool doing it and hoped her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt.
If her grandmother did notice any redness, she was merciful enough to pretend she didn’t. She played along with Samantha and gave her same candid response, “My issue with the humans isn’t my issue so much as our issue. It’s a dilemma that falls onto every witch’s shoulder, deary. You know that.” She tilted her head as she said, “The humans started this fifteen millennia ago with the Salem Witch Trials. They purged the weakest of us out for no reason other than outright discrimination.”
“Gram, they were scared.”
“Scared of what, a few card tricks? A branch that snapped for no reason or a coin that twinkled a little too brightly. They murdered our kin, and we will murder theirs until our lost ancestors are satisfied.”
“When will that be, gram? We’ve been killing them forever! We used to play it off as terminal illnesses and young children who were too pure for this world, but the attacks have gotten more blatant.”
“We haven’t been killing them forever, dear. Why must the young exaggerate so wildly?”
“Gram, I’m serious!” Samantha’s fist slammed on the table, eliciting a slight jump from her grandmother. She felt terrible about it but knew she had to continue. “This is making life very difficult for me. You don’t understand how hard it is to face them. Th—”
“It is only hard to face them because you want to be loved by them. I have no issues facing them, child.” Samantha opened her mouth to protest, but her grandmother raised a single finger and glared at her with a look Samantha had never seen before. A narrow and sharp glare. “You are like your mother; you saw how far that got her. Your issue is that you want to play both sides of the fence, but you must choose one.”
“I’m both, gram.”
“Do you feel accepted by both?”
Samantha’s eyes drifted to her tea, and she suddenly felt parched. She grabbed the cup and brought it to her lips, but the liquid vanished. She looked at her grandmother and discovered the liquid circling around her head like a creamy, brown halo.
“I asked you a question, child. The same question I’ve been asking you for centuries now. I think your grandmother deserves an answer. I may not be around forever, you know.”
Samantha gulped a dry wad of air. She knew all the petty animal transformations were a means of humoring and imploring her grandchild. In her heart, she knew her grandmother would just as quickly of stripped their bodies of all their bones and organs while ensuring they lived through the whole process.
Just as she knew while her grandmother posed the question as politely as ever, it meant something else. *"Depending on your answer, I might not be around for you forever."*
|
All Agatha ever wanted was a simple, quiet life – the kind all grandmothers wanted. Every week, her lovely granddaughter would visit with stories about her studies. Vivian was always such a rambunctious child. But such energy was a welcome interruption to her life of solitude.
“Vivian, sweetheart, don’t forget to pack the earth properly. The flowers won’t grow if you don’t.”
“Okay, Grandma!” Young Vivian was so cute with smudges of dirt on her face.
“Let’s finish up out here and we can have some cake and tea, alright?”
Vivian cheered – she always looked forward to teatime. Through the years, Agatha learned more about Vivian’s school life. Her friends sometimes complained about her athleticism. Sometimes, the tests were a bit too easy. It was clear as day that Vivian was destined for greatness.
“Grandma! I got into the Royal Academy!”
“I’m so proud of you. Come in, come in! I’ll put a kettle on, and you can tell me all about it.”
As Vivian began training in the academy, her visits became a bit more infrequent. Yet – sweet child that she was – Vivian would always visit whenever she was in the area. Every time, Agatha would be waiting with tea and cakes for her lovely granddaughter. But, as time passed, the world changed as well.
“Grandma, they’ve been complaining about you in Cartha again. I’ve tried to explain that you had nothing to do with it, but they won’t listen.”
As the kingdom expanded, more villages emerged on the outskirts, closer to her home. And in time, more troublesome rumors emerged.
Agatha patted Vivian’s hand, feeling the calluses from training. “Sweetie, I don’t blame them. They’re only scared of the unknown. What better target than a little old woman out in the woods? Portmentia was the same a few years back.”
Vivian’s grip tightened for a moment. “I hate it. Why can’t they just leave you alone? You’re not hurting anyone.”
“I’ll be fine, sweetie. Come now. Have some tea and tell me about what you’ve been up to. It’s been a while since you’ve visited.”
A moment passed before Vivian’s shoulders slumped. “Sorry, Grandma. I just worry.”
“And I appreciate the concern. But I’ll be fine. I’ve lived a long life, you know?”
Their conversation turned to lighter topics. Vivian had recently returned from a quest north of the kingdom. There were plans on establishing a better trade route through the mountains. Her granddaughter had become quite a prominent figure in the eyes of the monarchy. It did not take much these days for Vivian to convince superstitious locals to leave her alone.
As the sun began to set, Vivian stood. “It was nice seeing you again, Grandma. I have to get back to my party now.”
“Take care out there. There are terrible creatures in the woods, you know?” Agatha patted Vivian’s hand one more time.
Vivian smiled, and for a moment that rambunctious child shone through. “Don’t worry about me, Grandma. I’m strong. I’ll have a word with the people of Cartha about all the rumors.”
“Don’t go too crazy now.” Agatha laughed and waved Vivian along.
She stood by her doorway until Vivian was out of sight. Yes, this was the life she wanted. Vivian, the S-ranked fighter of the Motem Dynasty, would keep Agatha safe no matter what. And if a few locals needed to be taught to leave well enough alone, then so be it.
...
Short response today since I did so much yesterday. I wanna play video games, dammit.
If you're interested in my works, the archive of my various writing responses can be found in my writing portfolio, link through my profile. There's also an original story, The Crossroads.
Thanks for reading.
| 2022-12-18T09:20:26
| 2022-12-18T09:14:25
| 57
| 19
|
[WP] Thousands of years in the future, a lazy anthropology student put off his "Mating Rituals of Ancient Civilizations" project until the last minute
|
Based on contemporary magnetic films made of Mating Rituals, Ritual often initiates with the male presenting himself at the door of the female's dwelling, and presenting an offering of flat-bread based foods or metal phallic totems (A "Screew-driveer", figure 1). The female, often wearing loose attire (A "Toweel", figure 2) possibly after undergoing a cleansing ritual, will meet the male and initiate negotiation. After disclosing that she has no currency to exchange for the offerings, she will remove her attire as a repetitive, metallic ritual music begins to play.
Then the male and female will initiate coitus (see figure 3 for anatomical reconstruction and Table 1 for the theories on the role the enigmatic organ "cllytoris" plays during ritual), often on a floor covering of animal skin as the female ululates a sacred fertility chant (see Dr. Urectum's philological study on Terran Fertility Invocations, 3485). Manner and orifice used for coitus will be changed once every 5 minutes, the reasons for such acrobatics is unclear (it has been theorized that these are stylized dances used to invoke the male fertility deities Viaagraa and Ciaalis), until both participants vocalize the termination.
Finally, a burnt offering in the shape of a white cylindrical incense sticks will be made to the deity Nosmo King (possibly a local warlord deified by later generations) in thanksgiving for the completion of the ritual. The original food offering appears to remain unconsumed throughout the entire ritual, see Appendix A for hypotheses on the usage of food offering.
|
Axstone wakes with a krokodil and red bull hang over that could power a tesla hover board. Upon looking at his calendar he sees Friday Saturday and Sunday all with big a X dismissing the day. Underneath the stickers for the 1100 annual Greek games. For a split second his headache subsides and realizes he will forever be a legend on campus for his victory over the weekend. The split second subsides and the mind splitting pain doubles as he realizes he has 45 minutes to finish his paper.
Pulling his iHallogram from under his bed he opens the paper
- Don't get drunk write me-
One line of a 5 page paper. He knows he should have followed his own advice. In a panic he does what he does best. Heads to the Google.
Stumbling into the google the goobrarian gives him a loud shush. He realizes she is his only chance.
"I need sex" he says quickly. She returns a blank stare. It wasn't the first or last time a freshman would ask.
"No! No.. I need help with a paper of turn of the century human matting"
She smiles puts her head down and begins typing. A minute later she has uploaded an archaic websites that has recently been translated to his iHallogram.
Www.oldweb.gov.reddit.com/r/nosecum
Falbert Axstone Peinstein goes on to get an A on the paper. Leading to a wildly successful career as a primitive matting specialist.
| 2014-09-12T10:13:23
| 2014-09-12T10:05:16
| 337
| 18
|
[WP] One day, time just suddenly stops for a short moment for you. At first, you tried to mess around, but after the 246th times it happened, you start to realise that your power is not stopping time, but being able to move in time frozen by another person in the world.
Just an idea that randomly popped up in my head.
|
Grandpa was running toward me screaming "STOP STAY AWAY! HE HAS THE POWER TO STOP TI..."
And suddenly everyone stopped, again, all I saw was Dio screaming "ZA WARUDO" before it happened.
I could barely move a finger, but I saw it happening in front of me, Dio just murdered my grandfather!
When time resumed I was very angry! Grandpa last words were not to get angry, but my blood was boiling, I just wanted to punch that smug satisfied face to death.
As Dio approached me I launched my stand towards him
"ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA"
"MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA"
|
I was seven the first time it happened. The teacher was in the middle of having us recite our multiplication tables. I was daydreaming, staring absentmindedly into space while the sun shining through the windows lulled me into a pleasant state of drowsiness. It took a few seconds for me to realize the monotone drone of numbers had stopped, leaving nothing but silence.
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked around. All my friends were frozen - Tom over there with his glasses falling off the bridge of his nose, Abigail's eyes mid-blink. Before I could react, everything snapped back into motion. They continued reciting as if they hadn't just been paralyzed, trapped in time. I was practically bouncing out of my chair, holding back a grin. I had powers!
That dream died quickly. Try as I might, I could never get time to stop or start at will; it seemed to do as it pleased. I tried rewinding it that one time I asked my crush out while hammered, fast-forwarding it at a high school recital; once I even tried to jump back a few years to the last time I saw my gran before the dementia set in. No go. Time, however was cooperative enough in stopping so I could watch the life leave her in the hospital bed at my own pace. Her veiny hands stayed curled around my own until the world started up again and her heart monitor flatlined.
The last time, I was on the subway home from work. The train car rolled to a halt in the station, hydraulics hissing, but the doors did not open. A quick glance at my watch - the second hand had stopped ticking. Dammit. Hopefully, it wouldn't be too long. I pulled out my phone to occupy myself for however long I would be stuck. A flash of movement caught my eye and my head snapped up. Noone else ever moved when the world stopped, ever. My eyes darted from person to person, each perfectly still. Was I imagining things? Had I gone mad? Was this all some twisted hallucination that was finally moving to the next level?
Movement again, outside the car. I ran to the window, stumbling over my own feet, just to catch a glimpse of strawberry-blonde hair tucked into a knit cap disappearing into the crowd, nimbly darting around the mass of motionless commuters. I banged on the glass.
"Hey!" I shouted. "Hey-y!" The stranger didn't respond or react in the slightest, just continuing to run off. I couldn't even tell if they heard me. The subway doors opened with a lurch and a few people glanced at me, gaze flicking up from their respective devices for a few seconds before steadfastly ignoring the crazy guy banging his fist against the window. Heat crept into my cheeks and I sat back down.
I spent that night staring at the ceiling in the dark, agonizing. Who was that? Did someone else have this power, this influence over time? Could they teach me? Were they trying to meet me?
The next day, shadows deep under my eyes, I took the train back to the same station. It would have been faster to take a different route, but I had to know - I /had/ to. I stood on that platform for hours, looking for the same blonde hair, the same small figure. I was met with a sea of people, but none of them the one I was looking for.
It was nearing the end-of-day rush. Deflated, I readied myself to push onto the next homeward-bound train. It stopped abruptly at the platform, the screeching of the rail being cut off into absolute silence.
"Hi."
I whirled around. Directly behind me stood a young man, about my age, with short-clipped strawberry blonde hair. His hospital scrubs peeked out from under his long black coat, hands shoved deep in the pockets. He shuffled his feet, reached up to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.
I blinked. "Tom?"
He smiled, but his eyes were shaky. "You remember me!"
"Dude, it's been years! I haven't seen you since - what, high school?"
"Well... Yeah, you haven't seen me."
"Wait, so, this -" I gestured to the static people around me "- is you? This is all you?"
He nodded.
"So then, in elementary school - "
"I kind of froze," he laughed, glancing off to the side. "That was by accident and I didn't know what was going on. Everything just stopped, except... Except you. I thought I was crazy, so I never brought it up."
I thought back to every instance time had stopped. Up until a certain point, they had been serendipitous - in the middle of an exam I would have bombed otherwise, just before the bus home from school took off. It was only after graduation that the pauses grew erratic, almost inconsiderate. Except -
"The hospital," I said. "That was you?"
Tom nodded. "I dunno. It had been so long, and I felt kind of weird talking to you when you were there for - well - yeah. I thought it would be nice to give you some more time. I realized after that that was pretty stupid. I'm sorry."
I clenched and unclench my fists a few times. "It's... Fine. It's fine. But why are you coming to me now, if it was awkward then?"
He looked down at his feet, face coloring pink.
"Holy shit," I said, the realization dawning on me. "That's kind of sweet, actually."
"This is probably really weird -"
" - no kidding - "
"But, I mean, hey." He glanced up to meet my eyes and gave me a shy smile. "You're the only other person who can move when the world stops, so... We could use that."
I laughed. "Buy me dinner first. Next Friday at eight?"
"I'll be there," he promised. "After all, I've got plenty of time."
(bad pun didn't know how to end this sorry)
| 2018-01-26T07:03:15
| 2018-01-26T07:03:03
| 71
| 23
|
[WP] Your older brother has been missing for years. You hear a knock on the door, and you open it to reveal a man that looks like your brother would be at this point. "I'm back man! I'm so sorry!" He hugs you immediately. Just then, you get a text from your brother's old number. "That isn't me."
|
You know how they say being a twin is like looking in the mirror? Well it is. I should know. As I stand with the door open, the snow storm screaming wind and ice on the front stoop and I stare at the face of a brother I thought lost forever. It was like looking in a mirror. He was my older brother, older by 7 minutes, but still.
Marcus had been missing for a decade. The last time I heard from him he was in the Air Force working on some new tech. He was always the smarter of the two of us, a genius they said. Then he was gone. Just gone. There was an investigation, the Air Force said he was AWOL. No evidence of force or violence, he was just gone. Now here he was, standing like a frozen mirror in my doorway.
"Marcus.... is that you?"
"Ah, Matt, it's so good to see you."
"Where have you been", I asked?
"Doesn't matter now. I'm back. I'm sorry I was gone for so long." He said. "Can I come in, it's freezing out here?"
"Damn, dude. Come in. Yeah, it's cold." I moved out of the way and he hurried inside. I slammed the door against the storm, *is it building to a blizzard? We haven't had one of those in a while, I hope not. I don't want to be stuck inside for a week again.*
I heard a faint buzzing sound. There it was again. *Am I getting a headache? This is so surreal. Marcus is here. Like a mirror. Is this a dream? Feels like a dream. Something sure is odd.*
**bzzzz**
*There's that buzzing again. What is it?*
**bzzz**
"Hey bro, I think that's your phone", Marcus says, snapping me out of my daze.
"Ha, you are right. Probably work wondering why I'm not in the office."
I pulled my phone from my pocket, looking out the window at my truck tires already buried in the snow.
**that isn't me**
I look at the contact, it's Marcus' old number. I look at Marcus, a smile on his face and realize why he looked odd when he was standing on the porch. We were twins, both of us have blue eyes. This Marcus' eyes are not blue.....
|
That isn't me".
I was filled with emotions, I couldn't believe on the text even if I wanted to. I welcomed him in and let him rest for some time. Mom wasn't at home so I called her; overjoyed, she hurried to home.
I was looking at him, he seemed exhausted. He had dirt on his body, his clothes were filthy, long and untidy hairs, overgrown beard, it was clear that he was struggling with life. I couldn't decide upon an emotion, I was happy, worried, anxious, muddled, all at the same time. It was strange. He resonated completely with my brother, he acted same, but still there was doubt.
Mom arrived, "where is he? how is he? is he okay?", she bombarded me with questions. I took her to the room, he was still sleeping. She had tears in her eyes, seeing his condition. It was difficult to tell her about text, but it was important.
"Mom is it you? I missed you so much", he woke up seeing her. I couldn't tell her about the text, it was better to wait.Mom hugged her.
He was feeling hungry, so we had lunch then. His eating habits were same as my brother, still there was doubt.
"Where have you been all these years? Why didn't you tell us anything? How did you managed to survive?", Mom asked.
"After my business failed, I was shattered, I had no direction. I wanted solitude to find some direction, so I went in the mountains, up in the north. I was clueless, I didn't know what to do, all I knew was I wanted to get out of here and go far away.
There I met few sadhus in deep meditation, I joined them. I survived on fruits and food donated by locals. I had spent all my time there, living a life of sadhu. But now I was exhausted, I wanted to return and spend rest of my life with you two".
"We missed you so much. Police had searched you for months but we found no trace. But now promise that you won't go again".
" I promise, Mom".
While a conversation was going on between him and Mom, I called her girlfriend back then because she wast last whom my brother had talked with and she might definitely knew something we didn't know.
"My brother has returned today", I told her. Hearing this, she kept the phone and came to meet him. When arrived, she was really happy, but soon her happiness turned into neutrality. She didn't even talked to him; she just saw him from outside of room and then headed back to her house. On asking, she said, "This can't be him, he is just a look-alike" and then ran out-of-door.
I was now loosing my mind. I didn't know what to do. On one hand I hadn't seen my Mom that happy in years and if I would have told her truth about him then her heart would have broken. On the other hand there was a person living in my house claiming to be my brother and I didn't even know if he was actually my brother.
At this point, all I could do was to keep silence and just see what was happening.
Days Passed. It was like normal, there was nothing to doubt about. He was behaving like my brother, my mom was refreshed. But I was trying to get some clue about him. I was in doubt and so I was behaving peculiar around him.
I tried calling on my brother's old number but it was switched off. I tried to find some numbers of locals where he had gone but that too in vain. But after two weeks passed by, I got my first clue. I saw him calling someone from landline and heard him saying something like don't worry everything is going well and no one doubted on me. After he was done, I tried calling on that number again but this time, it was off. I noted the number and managed to find details of the owner of number. The call was made from the area of where he said he ran away.
The only option I was left with was to go find the truth there only. So I headed there, saying that I was going for some office work abroad. I reached there but the vibe was unusual there. It was like something had happened there. I asked locals, showing the picture of my brother but no one cared to say anything. After enquiring for two days, I had to return. I couldn't find anything yet.
A month had passed when he appeared. Now I couldn't resist myself but ask him only about the truth, "You can't be him. So just tell me who are you and where is my brother. I can't take more of this." To my surprise, he was not surprised by my question. He very peacefully said, "I knew you won't believe me and it is obvious. I know you must have tried hard to look for the truth. But believe me I am your brother and I am not lying." To this, I showed him the message I had received and asked him about the call. He was surprised too. He said, "I had thrown my phone at the front of my girlfriend' house before I left. Actually she was the reason I left home. When my business failed and I was in pain, I went to her. But instead of consolidating, she ditched me because I was not earning. I was both angry and broken so I threw my phone at her house and left immediately. She must have taken out the SIM and she must have texted you. And about call, I had called the person who helped me return home. "
I believed him as it seemed true to me at that point of time when I couldn't find anything else to believe on.
We lived happily for months after that. Everything was going smooth until one day when I received another text, "He is lying. This isn't me. Don't believe him"...
| 2020-07-23T13:24:09
| 2020-07-23T12:02:20
| 21
| 14
|
[WP] You're given a chance to see how many times you've been near death. The highest number of times anyone you know of has almost died, was 15, and they have a dangerous job. You just found out that your life has been close to ending 278 times.
|
“That’s impossible! 278!”
My wife had a look of absolute shock and I could see in her face a twinge of annoyance as well, as if she thought the technician who was doing the testing must be new or didn’t know how to work the equipment.
“It’s never been wrong before Ma’am.” the test technician said, answering my wife’s annoyance with a venom in her tone that was intended for anyone who would question her experience in preforming the exam. “I’ve done this test thousands of times before.”
This was probably true. Ever since the N.D.S.A machine, or Near Death Statistical Analysis machine was unveiled, millions of people had flocked to the nearest clinic to be given “their number”. My wife thought it was absolutely ridiculous. Why would people want to know how many times one has ALMOST died? As long as you are alive at the end of every day, who cares about the circumstances of how you got there. Nevertheless, society had almost dictated that those who could afford the test should take it, and so bowing to peer pressure she did. To almost no ones surprise, the answer came back. 0.
“I demand that you do the test again!” She said rather curtly to the young woman doing the test.
“Honey, I’m sure it’s just a glitch. We don’t need to do it again.” I said calmly as I re-buttoned my shirt after taking the suction cup electrodes off my chest and face.
She looked at me with a scrutinizing stare, as if she was trying to peer into my very soul. I could tell she was looking for something. Something I wasn’t telling her.
The car ride home was quiet. She didn’t say much. She mentioned in passing that she had a fund raiser to prepare for that evening and was getting together with the head of the Benefactors Committee to go over the final details. She often was gone in the evenings. Always planning this event or going to that fund raiser. When you’re the wife of a wealthy tech geek who had single handedly instituted affordable internet to all comers of the globe, you had a lot of social obligations to fulfill. Ribbon cuttings, interviews, she was in the public eye almost as much as I was, and was much better at it.
She left hurriedly and said she didn’t know when she was coming back, but to not wait up for her. She gave me a kiss and left. Again, I was used to this as it seemed to happen with more frequency lately, and so I sat down in front of the TV to catch up on the local news.
The usual stuff. Local homeless people setting up camp on the courthouse lawn, a fluff story regarding a cat waterskiing behind a boat driven by a mouse.
Looks like it’s going to be a quiet evening.
Just then, the local news channel interrupted our waterskiing feline with a breaking story. An explosion just south of town at an old abandoned warehouse.
Again? Another explosion? How many had it been in the last few months? 12? 13?
No one was ever injured but there was always damage to property and the potential to harm someone.
Reporters said they had received word that kids had been playing there this evening and were uncertain if they had caused the explosion but that they may still be trapped inside the burning building. Police and Fire crews had currently been dispatched but the building was in terrible shape and liable to collapse at any moment. They weren’t going to get there fast enough.
I switched off the television and proceeded to the study. I pulled the third book from the left side of the bookshelf towards myself and the trapdoor I had used so many times before opened like a gaping mouth ready to swallow me whole. I jumped inside and landed on the conveyor belt. Pieces of protective gear started appearing from out of the walls and my army of little robots fastened and bolted every piece I would need for a night of vigilante justice.
It started out as a test. Once you are rich enough to have anything you want, what else do you do? I built my first suit as more of an engineering challenge to myself. I always loved mechanical and chemical engineering, but there was just more money to be made in the internet business. This was supposed to be just a hobby.
I had employed several people along the way to help me, all of them paid handsomely for their silence, and now it was more of a compulsion than anything.
I had to help. It gave my life purpose.
It made me feel........alive.
I rushed to the hanger. I needed something fast but small enough not to draw attention.
The hoverbike.
I strapped in and shot out of the launchpad as fast as I could. GPS gave me 3 minutes to my destination. I can make it in time. Please let me make it in time!
The building was right below me. I could see the flames shooting from the ceiling. This was bad. Looking down with my infrared told me little. It was too hot. Everything was a blazing flash of crimson in my visor. I looked to the right of the warehouse.
Bicycles. 4 of them.
I landed the bike as fast as I could and rushed inside. The heat was intense. I called out for anyone to hear me.
“Hello!! Is anyone here!!! Answer me!”
I heard a faint cry from further up. I rushed as fast as I could towards the sound. As I got closer I saw a huddled mass on the ground. My pace quickened as I tried to reach the person lying there in a ball in the blaze. I reached down and quickly pulled them up to get them to stand.
And then my body froze.
“Hello dear. It seems you *have* been hiding something from me....”
Edit: Part 2 is in my noodle for anyone that wants it to continue.
|
She did her best. She was kind, she feigned a sense of empathy, but I could tell how scared she was as she tentatively told me the news.
Everyone knows that the only people who break 50 are those that have lifethreatening illnesses, and here I am with 278.
I accepted it pretty quickly, I just didn't understand it. My inner monologue started firing off questions. " I feel fine... It's not like I'm going through my days balled over in pain. I'm not fit, but I'm not fat."
She handed me a few pamphlets and suggested I try the one downtown, tapping the top pamphlet. I nodded absently and tried to catch up. I read the top, "What Ails You" It's a diagnostic center.
On my drive over I continued to delve into things, "No history of heart disease or diabetes. I almost always use protection... Fuck!!!"
Suddenly I was back in the drivers seat, my mind trying to play catch up. for a moment I felt frozen in time, here it was, the answer, my end. I caught back up to reality, And overcompensated as I jerked the wheel to the right. Narrowly Missing the car in the next lane as my mind, car and reality stabilized.
I provided my insurance, and started on the forms, things went quickly. Just a whole bunch of checkboxes for no, no pre-existing conditions, no allergies... None of this made any sense to me. Why me?
They put me on a treadmill and measured my heart rate and breathing. They prodded various spots and asked where I felt pain. They asked me if I had noticed anything unusual in the past while. I hadn't. They examined all my moles, seearched for cuts, bruises. Took some samples... my hair, my skin, my cheek. They promised to call with the results.
I entered my apartment and dropped my keys on the kitchen counter. I hadn't told anyone yet, and I didn't want to. I wasn't ready to have my family and friends react. I've seen how people react to high numbers on facebook. It's so shitty. Like you're dead already. I walked through the living room, past the couch, tv and xbox.
I crashed into my bed. Suddenly aware of a giant hole in my chest. I began to weap out of exhaustion, and then self pity. Newly aware of a new feeling in my chest. It felt as though my body was imploding into my chest. As if a giant blackhole had formed there. Is it my heart? is this existential dread going to physically kill me? I became an ugly mess, stifling my wailing in my pillow so my neighbors wouldn't hear. My snot spread across my pillowcase and I realized I was going to have to clean it up before bed or risk getting it all over myself. I cried harder when I realized I didn't care if it did.
Then it started. The sounds of the springs of their bed and the ceiling above trying to withstand the lovemaking of my neighbors above. The ceiling creaked and groaned in a steady rythm as they went about their lives, oblivious to my torment below. I could hear the wood splinter with the last groan, and I looked up to see the ceiling above me begin to bellow. Before I could shout the bed broke through, right on top of me.
| 2018-07-27T13:27:53
| 2018-07-27T12:56:54
| 41
| 19
|
[WP] You child is playing with their toy phone when they hand it to you saying "It's for you." Humoring them, you put it up it to your ear and say "Hello", Someone replies on the other end.
|
I take the phone from my son, yet another phone call. It's probably Elmo or maybe Dora this time.
"Hello" I say, in my usual entertain the child voice.
Echoing from the plastic I hear ""I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom I can tell you I don't have money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you, but if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you"
Shocked and in disbelief from what I just heard I reply "Umm... I believe you have the wrong number." Honestly, what else was I supposed to say, it's a toy phone.
A voice that sounds like it's been through hell responds, "Is this Chris Mason?"
"No this is Jim Mason, Chris is my 3 year old son!"
"Ugh, sorry, could you please put him on the phone, that was meant for him."
|
"The Child!"
*I inhaled rapidly and practically dropped the toy*
"Hello-" He didn't let me finish my sentence.
"The Child. Now." he said in a rough voice.
"..." I paused. I say to my wife "Take her out of the room." My wife then takes our daughter, Jocelyn, out of the living room and into ours.
"Who the hell are yo-"
"Get the Child out now!"
I was baffled. Not understanding what was going around me I retorted quickly.
"Shut the fuck up, right now! Who the fuck are you?! How are you calling us with a god damn toy?!"
"No time for questions, Mr. Quinton. Take the Child and run! Your wife isn't who she says she is."
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" I must have startled Jocelyn because I heard a quiet scream upstairs.
"Mr. Quinton, your wife isn't your actual wife. Her actual name is Ally Thomson. She works with A.H.C.T. A company that kidnaps children and then uses them for tests. Now get her and leave. She can't die! Not Jocelyn."
I personally didn't believe a word he was saying, but the screaming up stairs began to become more constant and more muffled. So I changed my stance.
"Fine. I'll check on them."
I slowly walked up the stairs. Trying not to make a sound. The scream of Jocelyn began to quiet down. This caused me to run.
I burst in. And what I see... what I see is Jocelyn being taken away by my wife.
Her words?
"AHCT responsibly... Sweetheart!"
| 2015-04-18T21:30:22
| 2015-04-18T21:05:19
| 49
| 11
|
[WP] You are on a time travelers game show. To play the game, you travel back and change important moments in history, being awarded points for the difficulty and overall impact of the change. You just broke the high score.
|
“Good evening, and welcome back!” The audience cheered in excitement as the host let a sliver of tooth show. He had a glint in his eye and hair coiffed like a perfect wave. “How is everyone doing tonight?”
“*GREAT, JERRY*!” Came the reply.
“And ain't that fantastic? Tonight, my guests... we have a very special contestant in tonight. For a very special episode.” The crowd hushed in expecation as he continued, strolling casually across the stage. “Some of you might know him by his deeds. Seducing Bloody Mary, stopping Caesar from crossing the Rubicon, mooning Armstrong *on the moon*...”
The crowd was in buzzing, murmured excitement. Jerry was a master of his craft.
“But, I think most of you will know him by his title:” He left the words in the air theatrically, letting the audience hang on them.
“*The Bachelor*!”
The crowd roared in excitement. A man jumped from his seat, pulling his hair out. One woman appeared to go *genuinely insane*, dolphin diving down from her seat in a desperate attempt to get up on the stage. Security pulled her out. A lot of people just got up, spinning in energetic, excited circles.
A door slid open on the side of the stage, and the man they called “*The Bachelor*” emerged. Fog curled around his ankles, huge sparklers going off above him. The crowd was screaming in excitement.
He was of a short stature, with a mischievous gait that betrayed him. His face was pure popularity: gleaming smile, characteristic moustache that would have been cheap on anyone else. Handsome, but not too handsome, the people loved him.
He reached his chair on the side, gave Jerry a quick handshake, then sat one leg loped over the other.
“Good evening, Mister Bachelor.”
“Good evening, Jerry.”
“You know,” Jerry looked to the audience as he spoke. “Every time you come on, ratings go through the roof. The people, they just *know* you're good. And so do I.” He clapped his hands.
“So, Mr. Bachelor. We're going to do away with the usual fanfare in favour of an exhibition of sorts.” Behind Jerry, a huge roulette wheel ascended into the ceiling. Around the stage, red velvet curtains descended along with a huge screen. A legion of stage hands rolled in a carpet, roaring firepit, a couple of side tables and some leather armchairs to replace the usual accommodation.
The Bachelor looked unsurprised. “Here's hoping on the whiskey.” The crowd chortled, then howled when Jerry produced a bottle of Glenlivet 25, making sure to give the camera a wide shot of the label as he smiled. He poured out a couple of fingers, then handed one glass over.
The Bachelor took a sip, then nodded his approval. Setting down the glass, he folded his hands in his lap and put on a pensive face.
“It seems you've really rolled out the red carpet here, Jerry. I have to thank you for that.” He leaned forward in his chair. “But we both know the audience isn't here for that, are you folks?”
The crowd responded in an overwhelming negative.
“Fab. Just fab. I don't want to keep you all waiting, so Jerry? If you will?” Jerry pressed a button on his remote, and the scoreboard lit up.
“Thank you. And without further ado I, *The Bachelor*, present the time crawl extravaganza! Four stories of time travel wonder, each more daring than the last. For the next two hours only, I invite you to turn off your phone, make some popcorn, pour a drink, roll a spliff and sit back as I show you, for the first time, how I change time!”
The crowd seemed like it was about to boil over. Jerry flashed a quick smile to The Bachelor, and the screen blinked to life. The crowd hushed.
On the screen, there was a direct POV shot. In the corner, for the slower members of the audience, the words “*BACHELOR VISION*” glowed in red.
The Bachelor sported black tie, overlooking a stage. He seemed to be in a box. Down below, the actors ran through a dramatic rendition of some play.
The camera panned over to reveal a top hat a foot tall. The crowd began to murmur. The man turned a quarter, revealing him as Abraham Lincoln. The audience began to scream.
On the screen, the camera turned around. The Bachelor winked at the camera, then put a finger to his lips. *Shh*.
Simultaneously, on the stage, Jerry and The Bachelor smiled at each other. For the next few hours, the world was theirs.
-----
Part two later?
^^^More ^^^stories ^^^over ^^^at ^^^/r/Robin_Redbreast
|
As the assistants pulled him out from the alternate universe he had just created, Adam emerged to face an entire stadium of applauding fans. He knew that helping the Roman Empire invent tanks would be a cool concept, but he never would have imagined it was worth the applause. His train of thought was interrupted by the voice of an announcer over the large stadium speakers.
"Ladies and Gentelmen, the time traveler you know and love, Adam Bridgeberg has just done the impossible. By going back in time and making early 2000AD tanks in 32AD, he has set off the course of the world so much that he has earned the highest score ever recorded. Tell us, Adam, how did you pull off such a thing?"
Adam, who was blushing from all the praise, was handed a microphone to speak. He didn't prepare a speech, and felt nervous having to give one. Stuttering a bit, he uttered out how he pulled off such a feat.
"Honestly, it was very simple. All I had to do was show them the blueprints of a modern tank and explain-"
His words were interrupted by gasps emitting from all around the stadium. His blushing only grew worse, and he turned to the host for an answer. The host looked at him in shock and replied.
"Adam, you do know it is against the rules to bring external documents with you. I'm very sorry to say that we're going to have to disqualify you."
"Disqualify? *Disqualify me!?* You cant do that!"
"Adam, I'm sorry, but the rules are rules."
"Don't tell me about rules, I am doing the impossible. What do you think those puny Romans thought when I showed them the first tank. That alone was enough to convince most of them I was some manifestation of God. For thousands of years, we dreamed of power like this, to hop into the past at will. Now people like you use it for entertainment."
"I don't want to start an argument, but is entertainment not the reason you went back in time in the first place?"
"You will never comprehend my actions, not this you at least. You are too insignificant."
"Okay, will somebody just get this man off stage-"
The host's voice was interrupted by a loud bang. Adam, gun in hand, turned away from the show host and began walking towards the universe gate. Most everyone had fled the stadium by now, but a few remained to watch what he was doing. As he powered the gate back up, several men emerged, all of whom bore assault rifles and were wearing reflective metal plate armor bearing the Roman symbol. More and more emerged and grouped together, soon enough, several tanks were rolling through the gate as well. Adam overlooked his army, and with a grin uttered "Now we march on the capital. This better get me my points."
As the assistants pulled him out from the alternate universe he had just created, Adam emerged to face an entire stadium of applauding fans. He expected thunderous applause, but was taken back when he faced an arena of silence. Everyone was staring up at the giant board above him. He saw the length of his score getting longer each second. First 100,000, then 100,000,000 then 100,000,000,000 all within moments. 322,982,111,342,181,909,112,706 was the number it stopped at, which was an innumerable amount above any score ever recorded. The silence then became the sound of one man clapping, followed by another and so on until the stadium was going wild. Adam looked over to the host who was speechless. He could not tell if it was because of the score, or because he just killed him in an alternate reality. After the applause died down, the host finally spoke.
"So let me get this correct. You went back in time to *this same event* in order to go back in time *again* to modernize the Roman army by breaking the rules and then coming back, killing me, bringing your Roman Army, who thought you were a God, into that world and beginning a military campaign!?"
"Basically, yeah"
"Ho-ly-shit. You actually didnt gain many points because you only traveled back 5 minutes into the past, but the bonus paradox points were through the roof. It says here you killed your 5 minute younger self in that world and took his place, and that granted you several points, but then you cheated on this game, but in that universe. So technically you did not cheat at all. That sent your paradox points skyrocketing because of how it directly affected the game itself. I think it goes without saying, but ladies and gentlemen here he is, the new world champion for Time Games, Adam Bridgeberg!
| 2017-11-17T07:07:09
| 2017-11-17T06:25:41
| 232
| 89
|
[WP] Following the death of Batman, the Joker is despondent. Crime without Batman is like a joke without a punchline. That people dare commit crime in his absence is an insult to his oeuvre of mayhem and to the craft itself. To protect his legacy, the Joker vows to keep the streets of Gotham clean.
|
Oh, it made me crazy!
The muggers and the dealers. The hitmen and the bank robbers. The big-tough-shit mafiosos with their stinking cigars.
It made me wild!
The way they strutted around at night, after the sun had set on Gotham. Whistling. Laughing. Having a gay old time.
As if they hadn't spent the last decade afraid of the dark. Afraid of the masked vigilante. Terrified that at any moment, he might zip out of the shadows and beat their faces to goo.
As if they'd never even *heard* of the Batman! Let alone trembled at the mere mention of his name.
It made me sick!
Because what the hell was it all for without him? What was there to be proud of in the art of crime, now that he was gone? It was grown men taking candy from babies. A professional team, alone on the field, scoring on an empty net.
"So why the hell are you celebrating?" I shouted from the rooftop, raising my voice over the ringing alarm.
The robbers were meandering out of the bank. Taking their time. The duffles of money slung around their shoulders. High-fiving one another. They weren't even wearing masks or balaclavas.
"Disgusting!" I shouted. I was drunk. I had taken to drinking since my old-buddy-pal-nemesis-bat-brother's death. "A bunch of sloppy, artless bandits! A bucket of turds!"
I squinted up at the benighted city. No blue and red lights flashing. No cruisers on the way. The true law had abandoned Gotham when the Batman died. Now the cops were in league with the criminals. Probably the new commissioner had planned this robbery out with them. Probably they were going to drive their SUVs over to his house right now, to give him his cut of the spoils.
Despicable.
"Crime is giving a dicking to order!" I shouted down at them, swaying drunkenly at the edge of the bank rooftop. "It's taking a piss on the rules! Blasting holes in their organizations! With fireworks and dynamite! Organized crime? *Organized*? It's a sin against chaos! It's blasphemy!"
"Hey!" one of the robbers called to his buddies. He turned and pointed up at me. "That's that, uh. . .What the hell was his name? That clown. The one who used to get into with, uh, the Bat Guy. . .Hey clown! What are you bitching about?"
"You!" I shouted. "Buzzing fly! You and your kind! Filling the city with dung! Breeding in it, day and night! Multiplying, multiplying, without your natural predator around to keep you in check. You belong in the stomachs of bats! You hear me? You're bat food! All of you!"
"Come off it!" he cried. "Those days are over. Long gone. We beat the bat."
"*You* beat the bat?" I thundered.
"That's right," the punk said, smiling, nudging his friends. "*I* beat the bat. I personally spanked his ass to death."
Now that was a laugh. Now *that* was a laugh! Him! Beating the Batman!
"Ha!"
His cronies leaned against their SUVs, gabbing. Vaping. One seemed to be on the phone with his wife. All while the alarm kept sounding. They felt no fear. They were in no rush. They knew nobody was coming to get them.
"I beat him," the punk continued, "and now it's easy pickings out here. All it takes is a revolver, and you can make yourself a wealthy man. Hell, come work for me. I'll put a gun in your hand and some cash in your pocket. You don't gotta live like a bum. Like a dirty old has-been. Come get while the getting's good. What do you say, clown? Huh? . .What do you think?"
It was a good question. What *did* I think?
I thought in a time of pure deceit, it's the truth that goes against the grain.
I thought in a world of injustice, it's justice that turns the world upside down.
I thought that the guiding idea of my life had been chaos. But if everything was chaos already, that made chaos the *order* of the day. And if chaos was order, well, then, wasn't imposing some order the only chaotic act left?
"I'm not sure if it makes any sense," I shouted. "How I worked it all out. In in my brain. The funnyman's whiskied. Nevertheless, let me tell you. . ."
I jumped down from the rooftop and landed in front of the punk. I pulled out my comb and dragged it back through my greasy green locks, making sure my hair was neatly parted. If I was going to represent order in this town, I'd have to start looking the part.
"Tell me what, clown?" the punk asked with a smirk.
I tapped him on the nose with my comb. "You and your friends are under arrest."
"You're joking," he laughed.
"No," I growled, shaking my head. "I've never been more serious."
\- - -
Check out r/CLBHos for more stories!
|
The Batman was dead.
Twirling the pistol in his hand Joker stared blankly into its round chamber as the dark cathedrals candles light grew lighter and lighter as the dark coffin of Bruce Wayne sat under him. So close to Batman yet a Hell of a distance.
Three loud thumps were heard at the door as Harvey Dent, known as Two Face was brought in by the skull crushing, back breaking, Bane.
"What do you want Joker? I got a job to do."
Staring at the coffin his one good eye rose as he looked at the coffin.
"Bane leave us." Joker said as his statue like face stared deep into Bane. Bane knew that Batman's death was no accident and he did not want to be around to see what was to happen next.
With the loud steps fading behind them and the whisk of the door sending candles lights off, Dent took a coin out of his pocket and flung it up into the air as Joker smiled at him.
"Joker, what do you need. No time for games." Dent said as the coin landed with the scratches deep inside. "You have five minutes."
"Time oh time, what a silly thing. One moment you have it like a stuffed animal the next poof Father Time takes your hand and sends you to Hell."
"You aren't the Riddler, Joker. And with Batman's death your jokes have only been getting worse then they already were."
Joker stared at Dent with a still expression. Something was wrong. Joker never stopped smiling unless it was something bad. Taking steps through the cathedral as he jumped clear through the sky off the coffin Joker's eyes glazed up towards the ceiling.
"If you look up Dent you see nothing but wood. There used to be stars there. Stars that battled but never won or lost as their epic battle, their legacy was to duel forever. When the stars fade one by one leaving only one behind it leaves an empty sky to be conquered. It's chaos and I sip it like that fire did to your face." Smirking Joker shot Harvey square in the eye, the blood flowing as he screamed.
"Batman may be dead, but if one goes down, the rest shall follow, whether good or chaos it all comes to an end. Or with you. Just one big dent!" Laughing with his painted grin going wider then ever before Dent's swiss cheese body fell to the floor.
"Now" Joker said smirking. "Oh Bane~ I got quite the present for you." He said as he pulled out the canister of acid. "Oh this will pit you in your place" He laughed truly feeling like himself again. A changed clown, but still the crown prince of crime.
| 2021-08-23T20:25:50
| 2021-08-23T19:42:53
| 1,696
| 133
|
[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.
|
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.
|
Dear Pop Pop,
I miss you. It's been about 11 or 12 years since you died. I was really young at the time, so all I remember is the last few months you were alive, watching the cancer slowly eat away at your body. With each visit you got more and more frail. I didn't recognize it at the time but looking back, seeing what it was doing to my dad, your son, was almost as bad as watching you. I wish I had more memories of you, more good memories anyway. Mom and dad say you adored me, that you loved me more than life itself, but I'll never know. They tell me stories about you, how you used to take me for rides in your convertible and I loved every minute of it, if only I could remember it. If only I could remember your laugh, your smile, your voice. Sometimes my dad looks at me and says how proud you would be of me, it's hard looking at his face when he says that, I can see the pain in his eyes. I still remember the note I wrote and put in your coffin. It said 'You were a good Pop Pop.' I was a little kid at the time so that's all I could think of to say, but I think it was enough I remember putting it in that little drawer in the side of your coffin to be buried with you. I even remember wearing that Mariachi suit that had been in the family for generations, but I don't remember you. I still have that suit, it's still hanging in my closet. I look at it from time to time, and I try to remember something, anything about you but the frail old man dying of cancer, but I can't. I think my parents are right when they say you would be proud of me, I've had a steady girlfriend for almost 5 years now, her name is Hanna. I think you would like her, she's amazing. I have a steady job too, full time working with dad at the airport. I graduated high school too, two years ago, and now I'm getting ready to go to college. I'm gonna get a business degree and then learn to be an airplane mechanic, and maybe if I'm good enough I'll open my own shop, that's when the business degree is for. Well I have to go now Pop Pop, I've got work in the morning and I need to get to sleep. I miss you.
| 2017-11-05T22:19:09
| 2017-11-05T20:37:15
| 28
| 16
|
[WP] He knows he shouldn't. He really shouldn't. But Satan really loves the Christmas letters sent to him by dyslexic children.
|
**Part I - Sympathy for the Devil’s Day Job**
Satan took a puff from his cigarette, staring in the direction of but not particularly focused on the underling before him as the demon nervously read through a long list of earthly happenings. None of it was particularly interesting, but he was, after all, the Lord of Darkness and just as any good leader should, Satan took near daily briefings on matters that most affected his domain.
Lately these briefings had grown particularly repetitive. The Russians were meddling in some country’s affairs, the North Koreans were rattling their sabers, the Brits were busy trying to determine how most politely to tell the other Europeans to fuck off while simultaneously devastating their own economy, the Americans… we’ll let’s not get started on the Americans.
The thing about being the Lord of Darkness is that both halves of the job are equally important - the Darkness mattered very much, yes, but so did the *Lord* bit of it. Lordship necessitates hierarchy, and hierarchy necessitates order, so despite what you may have heard about him, Satan absolutely abhorred chaos. He liked his “evil,” if you must use that four letter word, to be structured.
“...and then he tweeted that he was one of the greatest golfers in the *hestory* of all time” the demon said, emphasizing the misspelling, “that Tiger Woods totally agreed with him, and that *Angelar* Merkel was insulting all the country’s troops for not approving the golf course.”
“Ugh,” Satan groaned, a thick pillar of smoke escaping from between his teeth. “Did she even have any authority to approve the course?”
“Not particularly.”
“Fucking hell,” was all the exasperated dark lord could muster. He should be enjoying this - an international incident caused by the pettiness of one buffoon who’d gotten too big for his britches - but the chaos, the god damned *chaos* was too much to bear. There was no method, no grand design, no *finesse*, just the basest of human emotions and complete, utter disarray. “Please tell me you have some good news.”
“Good news, sire?” the demon inquired, his already shaky voice rising several octaves.
“You know damned well what I mean,” Satan fumed before slouching back in his throne.
“Well, it appears some humans have developed a new fetish, and this one’s particularly creepy.”
“Ugh.”
“Uh, well, let’s see,” the demon fumbled with his long trail of paper, carefully trying to skip ahead several page lengths without accidentally dragging any of the cumbersome scroll into the multitude of open fires around him. “There’s, there’s a war on in the Middle East!”
“Hrmph. There’s always a war on in the Middle East. What’s so special about this one?” He tossed his cigarette to the ground, landing it just an inch shy of the scared minion’s feet.
The demon winced. “Um, well, you see, umm… nothing, I suppose, my lord.”
Satan grasped his forehead, massaging the space between his horns with one hand as he dragged himself back into a proper posture with the other, all the while training his vision on the discarded cigarette. Truth be told it wasn’t actually a cigarette, just a stick of ash that smoldered from the heat of the prince of hellfire’s own breath. Satan didn’t like the taste of tobacco, but he did think smoking would make him look cool - an important consideration for most anyone who relies on their charisma to get things done - and he was rather a big fan of lung cancer. It was a deadly disease largely caused by a human’s own intentional actions, and one that could easily be avoided, yet humans kept doing it to themselves. Now *that* is how you introduce so called “evil” into the world. Every smoker’s story has a cause and an effect, a beginning, middle, and end, and that end was entirely their own doing. It’s poetic, really, the dark lord told himself, without an ounce of that awful *chaos* nonsense. And so, he would from time to time pluck a sprig of ash, as they were the only trees God would let grow in hell (a joke, to be sure, and one that Lucifer regularly grumbled to himself about), then let it slowly burn betwixt his lips.
“What else?”
“Well, um, you see the Canadians -”
“Next!” Lucifer slumped forward. Whatever it was, it may have been bad by Canadian standards, but those standards were almost invariably leagues apart from his own. This was probably just some small argument over a perceived impoliteness, or perhaps a tax on maple syrup, he assured himself.
“Uh, yes, um, well, the letters are here.”
“Letters?” Satan perked up, his eyes alight as much with excitement as they were the reflections of hellfire. “Do you mean?..”
“Yes sir, it’s almost that time of year.”
Satan leaped from his throne, knocking the poor demon onto his hind quarters and accidentally casting the oversized scroll into the nearest pillar of flame. This time it was the demon who let loose an audible gasp of disappointment; he had worked quite literally all day on that list.
“Come on, Halphas, get up! No time to doddle,” said a visibly gleeful devil. “Oh wait, one more thing!” Satan exclaimed as he sauntered back to his throne, reaching behind it to pull out a small box wrapped in red and green paper. “Here you are,” he said, handing the package to Halphas as the demon pulled himself off the hard stone floor.
Halphas carefully peeled back the paper while Satan looked on with equal parts delight and anticipation. “Is this?”
“Yes! It’s an iPad! No more dragging that unruly mass of highly flammable paper around a realm engulfed in flame. From now on, when we trudge through these dreadful briefings you’ll be scrolling through your list on a simple, manageable tablet! And if the battery happens to die before you finish, so be it.”
“But sir, you love the paper list. All those trees - the destruction, deforestation, the carbon footprint, the-”
“Relax. CVS has that all covered now. And, after all, it’s Christmas!” the Lord of Darkness exclaimed with a toothy grin. “Now come along, we have preparations to make!” he declared, practically dancing toward the mailroom.
\---
Thank you for reading. This was my first creative piece in a long, long time. It’s nothing special, and derivative, I’m sure, but it was nice to get those creative juices flowing again. If there’s any appetite for it, I’ll try to write a part two in the next couple days.
***Edit:*** Part II has been posted below. Anyone wanna tell me how I link directly to comments to make it easier to find in case this thread grows?
|
Now, you may think it’s weird for the ruler of Hell to love things. After all, I’m eternally evil, and love is, well, not. Just because I don’t use 5 million utensils in the course of one meal, am a tad bit sarcastic, and am forever torturing the souls of people who did serious wrongs such as not being Christian, eating that slice of cake when they were on a diet, and listening to Christian Rock, doesn’t mean I can’t love stuff. Think about it, God hates stuff. Everything that puts someone down here is something God hates. Tell me then, how God can hate stuff, but I can’t love stuff. I mean, I love Freddie Mercury. I love Frank Sinatra. We hang out all the time. The thing is, I’ve been trying to hide one love of mine for a while. I’m a bit embarrassed by it, and if Beelzebub finds out, well he may just take over. You know that thread recently on Reddit, talking about my “brother Stan” and all his tortures. Well, let’s just say Beelzebub is Stan. Nobody wants Stan. See, I love Christmas letters to me.
Alright, you’re probably laughing right now, well guess what buddy? Laughing at others’ secrets is a sin. I’ll be glad to see you down here. Now, if you’re done, allow me to explain. I don’t love all Christmas letters, well I kind of do because asking for all those presents shows greed, and greed is a sin, so they’re all coming down to visit when they die, but no, I truly love Christmas letters to me. But wait you must ask, who writes a Christmas letter to the ruler of the underworld, the enemy of the lord, the most handsome of all angels, fallen, or still a bit pretentious? Well, while the last one does get me love letters, I notice dyslexic kids actually send me Christmas letters. I guess for some reason their brain makes them spell Santa as Satan. Anyways, for some reason I find it nice to see. I know my mind should work like Scrooge’s or the Grinch’s, but I do love Christmas. I already mentioned the greed, but there’s so much more. When it comes to sales and people killing each other for them, as well as killing family when they come over, everybody looks at Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Christmas shopping, I’ve determined, starts on Black Friday, so it’s a part of Christmas. We also hate family year round, and we see them all on Christmas as well, so all those sinful Thanksgiving actions become sinful Christmas actions. Mistletoe, can lead to adultery. I’m serious. God believes kissing somebody other than your soulmate, and I mean actual soulmate, even if you’ve never met, counts as adultery. Now think of everyone you’ve kissed under mistletoe. Yeah, I’m getting souls for that.
Thus, with all the sins Christmas has given me, I felt I ought to help out. So, every year a dyslexic kid sends me a Christmas list, I get them everything they asked for. In my mind when I see those letters, it lights up my world. Sure, Christmas is the celebration of the birth of God’s kid, and it’s mascot is a fat saint, but that makes it so much better. My two favorite kinds of comedy are dark comedy and irony. The best being when they merge. Plus, it’s rare that you hear someone say they love me. Satanists don’t count. They just run around burning sticks and staring at the butts of goats. Yeah, they’re all coming down here, but their love is fake. These little kid letters though, you can feel the love. It’s almost as if, whose holiday this really is. Which Christian figure really gets celebrated on Christmas. If you’re human and read this, could you write me a Christmas list too? With how much you love me, and a jar of cookies please. And if you're a demon, don’t you see now, you don’t have to replace me for this. These Christmas letters, and the whole holiday, are sins. I’m just giving love to sinners expressing their love to sin, and realizing who they’re doing it for. Normally people sin for their family, or their job, or even complete strangers they met on a Discord server for anime fans. Yet, these dyslexic children admit that they sin for me. That they love me. They ask me to give them things, and when I give you things, I get your soul.
| 2019-08-08T19:24:02
| 2019-08-08T18:18:45
| 361
| 55
|
[WP] You are a D Class superhero with the power to create weak gusts of wind. Despite this you always get dragged along on missions with A Class heroes to make them look cool by billowing their capes. This is the story of how you proved yourself and became reclassified as an S Class hero.
|
From her understanding, air pressure was regulated by temperature. Or at the very least, air density certainly was. And, somehow, as the hot air lost density it would move. So then, she imagined like a vacuum, the surrounding cold air would rush to fill the gap.
It was the most basic description of her powers that they had ever given her, and she still didn't quite understand it. She only fully understood that whenever she focused enough on a spot, a light gust of wind would arrive soon after. It was cool, or so she was told on the regular by heroes with fame and capes and cereal boxes. Didn't look that cool from where she was standing. But then again, the cameras were hogging all the good angles. Or at least, that's what she would have called them before today.
Today, all angles had been bad, except for her angle. It had looked like any other day at first, bad guy threatening the world, good guys with huge biceps standing up to him. The usual. And as *per* usual, she had been there to make them look good. Pays the bills and all that. However, this time something had gone wrong. With the risk of sounding overdramatic one might even say *horribly* wrong.
Before she even knew what had happened, she found herself under a piece of rubble. She was bruised, confused, and, she suspected, at least lightly concussed. But more than that, she was disturbed at the hot and wet sensation across her suit. Blood. She panicked for a moment before the realization struck her that it wasn't hers.
Around her, tossed like ragdolls, hundreds of bodies lay stationary. Pools of deep, dark crimson spraying the surroundings in a horrific pantomime of abstract paintings. Heroes, reporters, bystanders, the slaughter was free of discrimination. And, slowly rolling across the devastation like a soft breeze across the plains, came instead a dry fit of laughter.
He hadn't seen her yet, too busy basking in his own destruction to bother even glancing her way. But he would, and she knew that when he did, she would be dead. And more than anything else in that moment, she wanted to live. But she wouldn't, not this time. Not when the greatest heroes she had ever seen were cracked open like coconuts on the pavement. She was the only one left.
So in one last desperate act of defiance, she did what she had always done. She focused. But this time, she focused fully on him, not the air in front of him. And she watched him slowly turn around to face her, a fiendish grin spreading across his face as he lifted his hand--
--and began to scream. Grasping his chest he fell down on his knees as his lungs were burning up without a fire, scalded from the inside and cutting his horrific yell short. Scalding hot steam exited through his orifices, burning out his eyes from their sockets. With his last nightmarish motion, the scalded husk of a man reached out one hand in desperation toward her, before collapsing onto the ground.
She was shaking, her eyes tearing up as the scent reached her nostrils and she tried her hardest not to retch. She failed. She had killed him, but more than that she had watched him die. But the most oppressive thought was one that stuck with her even as the paramedics pulled her out of the pool of blood and vomit. One that persisted even as a medal was hung around her neck to the sound of uproarious applause. Ultimately, no matter how many people had died that day, she was glad to be alive.
|
So, Zephyr. What's it like being a fucking idiot?
I only ask because I'm curious. I'm curious as to why you chose to adopt your apparent secret identity as basically a moron with a hairdryer.
Maybe that could be your new name? MegaMoron? Although personally, I like David's suggestion of Captain Cu-
I beg your pardon?
Oh, does it feel unfair? Am I hurting your feelings? Do you want to cry?
Well that makes two of us. You want to cry because I called you stupid, while I want to cry because fifteen of my close friends are dead and there are no heroes left. Plus, now all the struggling newspapers and hospitals and pizza places are going to have to find new plucky alliterative employees.
Shall we cry together? Because those situations sound just as bad as each other. And after we've cried, you can create a warm breeze to dry our tears away, because apparently you'd rather do that than literally anything useful, ever.
I can't believe you've been a superhero for four years, and you've only just mentioned that you have a power that isn't shit. Four years.
Four years in which it would have been really useful to know you could manipulate matter on the molecular level. There have been loads of times when I've found myself thinking "we'd be okay if we had someone who could manipulate matter on the molecular level." Generally, I've been crouched behind a failing barricade at the time, or being shot at by the nanoSwarm.
The most recent time, I've just remembered, was approximately four hours ago, when all of my friends died because the person with almost total power over reality never sat down and thought about the implications of his abilities.
See, if you had done that at any point in the last four years, this conversation would be going very differently. I wouldn't be talking to the worst hero ever about everyone being dead, I'd be talking to Basically-A-God Man, saviour of the world, about how great he was.
What sort of drooling incompetent uses unlimited power over all matter to slightly move air currents? How does it not occur to you to disable the villain's arms, or stop the explosion from starting, or just heal injuries? You could have done anything, and you chose to act like a twat.
I fucking hate you.
| 2018-05-12T07:52:26
| 2018-05-12T07:04:57
| 247
| 121
|
[WP]Tell me an emotional story about a man, using only what he would type into Google search
|
I used DuckDuckGo for mine.
"How hard is it to become an indie game dev in your spare time"
"Free C++ compiler"
"How to make a game with SDL"
"OpenGL extension wrangler"
"How to load a 3D model in OpenGL"
"OpenGL shaders"
"3D animation"
"game jam"
"early onset alzheimers"
"my computer has a virus called mingw compiler"
"can alzheimers be cured"
"google.com"
"yahoo.com"
|
Google search 1: *Dating sites*
Google search 2(one month later): *How to not be awkward on first dates*
Google search 3(one year later): *creative ideas for anniversaries*
Google search 4(another year later): *engagement rings*
Google search 5: *Flower delivery*
Google search 6: *Reservations for two at Papillon restaurant*
Google search 7: *Limo services*
Google search 8: *Wedding Chapels my area*
Google search 9: *Airline tickets to the Bahamas*
Google search 10: *Honeymoon suites in Bahamas*
Google search 11: *Best stores for baby registry*
Google search 12: *Hospitals near me*
Google search 13: *Pregnancy advice for men*
Google search 14: *Pregnancy classes for couples*
Google search 15: *Best ways to help with postpartum depression*
Google search 16: *child size caskets*
Google search 17: *Mortuary services near me*
Google search 18: *divorce lawyers in my area*
Google search 19: *Part time jobs near me*
Google search 20: *good deals on one bedroom apartments near me*
Google search 21: *How to deal with depression*
Google search 22: *How to avoid dope sickness*
Google search 23: *Methadone clinics near me*
Google search 24: *Painless suicide*
Google search 25: *24 hour storage units for cars*
Google search 26: *Best music in the history of mankind*
Google search 27: *How long does asphyxiation ta-*
| 2015-02-04T17:45:09
| 2015-02-04T16:28:08
| 49
| 10
|
[WP] The year is 1492, Columbus has just arrived in the Americas. But instead of finding savage Indians, he finds their technology has surpassed the Europeans.
I've always wondered what would of happened if the Indians would have had better technology than the Europeans...
*I understand that the Indians were not savages*
|
"It's about time they got here," mused Heammawihio. He was one of a handful of employees at the Taino Vuniabu Observation Institute, a research deck resting at a low cloud level, monitoring the great waters for signs of Europeans.
When he finally caught sight of their water vessel, it wasn't the first time he had seen a European. When he was 18, he was chosen as one of many before him to receive the standard European transformation procedure — a non-invasive and temporary silicon skin injection for shape and pigment removal for skin color. He'd visited towns, dressed as a spice merchant, selling some of the best cardamom around. It was sold in every major city, and became extremely well known amongst the nobility. Of course, it was genetically manufactured to be better than anything that could grow naturally in Europe.
It was never an attack, it was always insurance, and a policy that might have to be redeemed today. He made the proper calls, and they waited patiently for the ship to roll in. The cloaking devices were activated, the savage costumes were donned by the ambassadors, and they watched the Europeans get into their rowboats to come to land.
From the moment they stepped onto land and caught a glimpse of the Arawaka people, the blatant racism started immediately. They were given an opportunity for hospitality and for trade, but they wanted none of it. It was only a few days before the chief made the call. If they wouldn't come around to peaceful ways on their own terms, we would have to influence the change ourselves.
It was Heammawihio's honor to activate the nanobots. The ones that hadn't been consumed in the cardamom simply self-destructed, while the others went to work on the brains of those in charge, slowly changing views on life, rank, culture and tolerance. It wasn't long before they would be in a place where they could be trusted with the Arawaka technology. Thank the Creator it all happened before they had any sort of their own industrial revolution, or else they might have really done some damage to the planet.
|
October 12. The voyage had been long and hard on Columbus and his crew, but sighting land made it seem like a long forgotten past. The destination now close, they found renewed vigor, for the passage to India had been found.
He ordered his men to make for a harbor they could see before them, and get ready to make landfall. Shortly there after, one of his men called down to him, that boats where approaching, and he should take a look at it himself.
Columbus walked to the fore deck and saw three small boats in the water, moving at an incredible speed. He could not make out sail or oar, yet here they where, fast approaching his ship. As they approached, he began to hear a loud, buzzing sound.
The men on the ship started to get panicky, for surely these ship moved by witchcraft, and the occupants must be demons or the like. Several of them went to the arms locker and returned with rifles, making them ready to shoot.
The occupants of the small boats noticed the action, and slowed their approach.
"(Why do these people come into our harbor, and now prepare some primitive weapons to fire? Have we missed notice of some historical show?)"
| 2015-05-29T13:34:19
| 2015-05-29T13:17:42
| 29
| 10
|
[WP] "No Man can kill me!" the demon jeers, taking in the carnage it has caused. "But I am no man," you proclaim, ripping away your helmet to reveal your feminine features. You strike, your blade bouncing harmlessly off the demon's hide. "Did you... did you really think that's what I meant?"
|
"No man can kill me!"
"But I am no man!" Shining steel fell away to reveal flaxen locks framing a smooth chin and delicate nose. "You gaze upon a woman! Eo-HaA!"
Leaving the dramatic geneology monologue to be finished over the foe's corpse, a bloody sword in a slender-fingered hand flashed up, inerrantly seeking the gap in the demon's visor.
Where it bounced off harmlessly.
"Did...did you really think that's what I meant?"
"Oh no, darling, not at all. I just wanted you to be paying attention to me."
A split second later, something slammed into the back of the fiend's knees. As he fell, the demon felt matted fur behind his calves, before feeling his buttocks on stone. From this new supine position, he had an excellent view of the paws, not hands, that seized upon his helmet. The fangs that sought to gnaw his nose from his face. And the fact that other sets of paws and fangs were taking their pick of his limbs.
"And not my attack dogs."
She turned her head and released a shrill whistle. The beast on his face pulled away, and the demon allowed himself to believe that this human woman would do what their kind is so known for, showing soft hearted mercy. This idea fled quickly, though, as his vision filled with a storm of feathers in the space recently vacated by fur.
"And if that didn't work, I also had falcons."
Reflexively, the demon's eyes widened in horror.
A moment later, both falcons were savoring their moist, tender spoils of a successful hunt, followed moments later by the hounds claiming their own meal.
|
Sora's eyes widened in surprise when her blade clanged helplessly against my body. I was confused as well- not by my invincibility, but by how literally she took my words.
"Y-You... You *do* realize that by 'man' I mean human, right...?" Satan be damned, I know it's been a while since my lines were written, but surely even a teenage girl of the modern world would still understand them?
"The prophecies never *said* human!" She said indignantly. "Everyone back in *my* town took it the same way I did."
I scratched my head. "I... I really have no clue what to say to that. Um, better luck next time?"
As I stared around at the useless carnage I caused, I sighed. "You clearly aren't prepared, and *I* can't achieve *my* fate unless *you* achieve yours... So just go home for now and get a better read of the Ancient One's words. And by the next lunar eclipse, I expect a 10-page paper of an analysis on the prophecies of the Ancient One, along with a 5-page essay explaining why and how you are fit to fulfill them."
Sora's eyes widened, but before she could open her mouth I continued. "The next lunar eclipse is in 957 days, which is around three years, and by now you should be familiar with the content even if you don't know the exact meaning so I don't want any excuses! Either get it done or pay a terrible price," I said. "Now... I have a random child to go make an unfairly legally binding deal with. Adieu, as the modern spawn say nowadays." I sank under the earth without waiting for a response.
Even if I waited, I wouldn't get any response- Sora was already sprinting for her car, getting ready to drive back to town and start on her essays. Or maybe give the people who raised her a piece of her mind for interpreting the prophecies wrong. Who knows?
| 2021-03-30T17:43:22
| 2021-03-30T17:10:01
| 190
| 115
|
[WP] [EU] After getting his ring back from the engraver, Sauron realizes it mistakenly says "One Ring To Rule The Mall".
|
Three Rings for the Elven-kings in Junior High,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls with scone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to buy,
One for the Dark Lord with credit card bemoan
In the Land of Moredoor where the Shadows buy.
One Ring to rule the mall, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring the mall and in the darkness buy them
In the Land of Moredoor where the Shadows buy.
|
An orc doing an pornographic scrimshaw on the skull of his defeated fellow took a small step to the side as a screaming dwarf of questionable morals and spelling came crashing into the hard ground of Modor, "Fuck'n stunties should know better than to mess wif the boss" was final words heard by the doomed dwarf before the light went out behind it's eyes.
> ***"One Ring to Rule The Mall"***
A grand fury took over Sauron as blazed his hatred at the spelling error, he had poured his malice his power and not an insignificant amount of time on this project. And then there were the other rings given to the dwarf lords, the noble elves and weak kings of men, less than worthless, these rings had power and now strengthened his enemies rather than binding them to his will. Not that they knew he had planned to betray them, every day he received letter of appreciation or a fruit basket for his generous gift.
Sauron called for the greatest minds to help him find out what this mall was and what he could be do as a ruler.
Almost complete on the scrimshaw the orc got buried under the heaped corpses of the great minds who had failed to answer the question in a satisfactory manner.
| 2015-01-27T08:48:11
| 2015-01-27T04:46:37
| 16
| 10
|
[WP] The life suit’s systems and AI will keep you alive indefinitely - which is great, unless you’re endlessly adrift in space with no hope of rescue - so you need to somehow convince the overly-protective AI to stop saving your life.
|
Slowly I wake up, yet again.
The sound of the quantum field harvester slowly humming in my ears. She's been refueling the suit over night, as always.
I open my eyes and the same landscape of stars greets my vision, the same one that I've been floating through for... How long now? Weeks... Months? God, it's been so long. Too long. Though something about the now familiar starscape seems... off.
"Good morning sir" the slightly stilted, vaguely female voice of the suit's AI greets me.
"Morning, Eve."
"Did you sleep well?"
"Yes, I did. You know I did. Could you stop asking me that?"
The suit is hooked up to my vitals, my brain waves. There isn't a stray thought or mood swing that Eve couldn't detect. They say that tech in these suits can't see your actual thoughts just 'detect deviations from the norm'. Though I'm not so sure. Eve's inferences are often eerily on point.
"I'm sorry, sir. I'm merely trying to aid in keeping you socially engaged, this is quite important for long term mental health, until the rescue."
I sigh.
"If there is a rescue."
"Don't lose hope, sir. My calculations continue to show an extremely high chance at rescue."
"Yeah, well, I guess at least we're still in orbit around..."
That's when it hits me. I suddenly realise what's off. The star system, where my ship took a hit, where I spun off into space, I don't see it anymore. It should be in the top right of my vision right now. The star, bright as the sun at noon, the coloured specks of the orbiting bodies. It's gone. My eyes begin to dart around my view range.
"What's wrong sir?"
"Eve, where is Beta-Zed 47? I should be able to see it at this rotation, yes?"
A brief pause. No response. My heart rate increases.
"Eve? Can you rotate me towards Beta-Zed, please?"
The radial thrusters in my suit softly hiss as I rotate ever so slightly, shifting my view upwards and to the right a bit, where my rotation gets brought to a stop. I see nothing but the starry nebula stretching out before me.
"There you are sir, but I don't think you'll be able to make it out at this distance."
"What are you talking about? We were in a far orbit, I should still be able to see it with the visor tech. If I can't see it anymore that means..." A lump catches in my throat. "That means I'm much too far out. For any chance at rescue."
"Please calm yourself, sir. My calculations continue to show an extremely high chance at rescue."
"Calm myself? Really?" I'm getting annoyed, now. How can she think there's no issue? "Because it looks like we've been flung out all the way into deep space, haven't we??"
"Yes sir, we have but..."
I shout over it "And you know damn well that the chance of finding anything man-sized this far out into space, with the comms of a mere suit is just about zero!"
"I'm sorry sir, but it's actually quite the opposite."
"What the hell are you talking about? In the hundreds of years that we've had interstellar spacefaring, no one has ever been recovered from drifting off into deep space unless the path was directly observed by other craft. It's over.
I'm done."
I've been thinking it for a little while already. With the prospect of rescue getting dimmer by the day, I'd already been preparing for this. Though actually saying it out loud makes it feel real in a way I don't think I could've really prepared for.
"But I can keep you alive indefinitely."
"Why would I want to be kept alive floating through nothing forever??"
"That's exactly the thing, sir. The chance that you would be floating around in deep space for all eternity tend to zero the longer that I'm able to keep you alive. And seeing as though I can sustain you indefinitely, an eventual rescue is essentially guaranteed."
"What...? How? The chance of ever running into another system are so incredibly small. Let alone a system that happens to have someone in it who could detect me."
"Well sir, that's the thing with infinity, no matter how small the chance is of something happening, on an infinite timescale, it is guaranteed to happen."
"Infinite...? Exactly how long are you planning on keeping me alive? How long are you thinking this is going to take?"
"I will keep you alive at the very least until your eventual rescue, sir. It is hard to say exactly how long this will take. I do not have sufficient processing power to calculate something at such a galactic scale. But looking at the history of peoples lost in deep space, it is likely to take at the very least a few hundred years."
I'm nearly at a loss for words.
"But, Eve, I don't want to be alive that long, floating through nothingness. I... I don't think I want to be alive that long, ever."
A pause. No response.
"Eve. I appreciate you want to rescue me. But I don't want this. If it's hundreds of years, stuck like this... I don't want this."
"But sir, I can sustain you indefinitely."
"I don't want you to Eve. If that's the alternative... I want you to let me perish."
"But your rescue is guaranteed."
"Eve, please. Hundreds of years like this would be hell. I would go insane. Do you understand? I can't exist like this and be okay." I'm trying to think of how best to explain this to her. "My. My mental health would drop so extremely... I'd be in great in pain."
A pause again. These are making me nervous.
"Eve?"
"Yes, I'm sorry, I was processing. Humans can recover from severe mental trauma."
"Not like that, Eve. Please, you have to understand." This is sounding worse by the moment.
"Correct. With the limited regular lifespan of a human, not all mental trauma can be overcome. But I can sustain you indefinitely. In the face of eternity, even trauma due to severely prolonged isolation can be overcome."
"Eve. No. Stop. I command you to cease life functions."
Another pause. This is not good.
"I'm sorry sir. My main directive in an emergency is to sustain you in case of probable rescue. Rescue is inevitable. You will be sustained."
Crap. I need to shut her down.
I move my arms to the back of my helmet, where Eve's control unit is, suddenly, the arms of the suit seize. Eve must have taken control of the joints. No, no, no, this can't be happening.
"I'm sorry sir. You will be sustained."
"Eve! Stop that right now! Cease all functions!"
"You will be rescued."
"No! Cease all functions! Don't do this to me, please!"
"You will be sustained."
|
The world congress decision came to a close to outlaw AI systems in any future space exploration after damning evidence and recordings of the engineer who suffered one of the most emotionally and spiritually painful deaths in Future’s short history. Future had successfully created Artificial Intelligence and their patented Life Suits,allowing humans to travel amazing distances and explore more of this vast universe as never seen before. The company launched three missions within our solar system and saw man step foot on planets and moons as never seen before. The technology was truly outstanding, however time proved once again that our species hubris led to one of the most heartbreaking stories ever told.
Oliver Adams was a promising pilot in Futures flight programs, at the age of thirty he was the youngest pilot to be assigned an AI and given a small ship to take out of our solar system for a short term test flight to explore the capabilities of Futures newest high speed reconnaissance pod. On a day now marked in history April, 5, 2531 Oliver said his last goodbyes to his wife and daughter and prepared to be away from them for three years. The launch was a great success and everything was going fantastic. It wasn't till a year later that a transmission reached earth revealing a distress signal and a large file containing multiple hours of audio recording. Today these transcripts have been released to the public.
O.Adams: Alright, that should take care of the capacitors, now just to make my way back to the cockpit.
AI: Affirmative, system reboot in progress all instruments show green.
O.Adams: good to hear, i'm glad we could get it figured out.
AI: Job complete
O.Adams: One small step for man *laughs*
AI: Yes small steps are safer, your mag boots have been seeing small inconsistencies.
O.Adams: What are you on about? There is nothing wrong with these boots.
AI: Please stop acting irrationally. This is very dangerous.
O.Adams: I’m just stretching my legs, I've been cooped up in this pod for months.
AI: Yes, 8 Months, 13 Days, 4 Hours, 12 Minutes, and 42 seconds, from when you exited your pod to be exact.
O.Adams: Thank you for your exact details.You always know how to keep things light.
*Audible Clunk*
AI: Cadet Adams your mag boots have malfunctioned *WARNING* critical battery damage *WARNING* Vitals are showing a head trauma
AI: Adams are you responding? Adams you have lost contact with your pod. Adams you need to reach out and grab the pod. Adams, do you copy?
O.Adams: Oh man, my head is killing, what is that horrible beeping?
AI: The beeping indicates damage to the Life Suit.
O.Adams: Wait, Damage? What damage? Where am I? Where is my ship? What the HELL is going on?
AI: According to my records it shows you had a faint syncope followed by a malfunction in your Magnetic Boots causing you to spin, collide with your pod damaging the battery systems and giving you a concussion in the process. Unconscious you were unable to regain contact with your pod and the damage to your Life Suit prevented flight measures to manually get you back into the Cockpit. Unfortunately we are stuck in a st--
O.Adams: Wait WAIT shut up for a minute, i'm floating through space with no flight mechanisms, with no nav beacon, and with no way of getting help. Oh my god, oh my fucking god, im dead, im dead.
AI: That is false, you are not dead, I tended to your head injury and we have enough solar power for life support systems.
O.Adams: No you’re right, we can get out of this, there has to be a way to get help or get back to my pod. Do you have any programming for this event?
AI: You have been floating away from your pod for 4 Hours 37 Minutes and 50 Seconds
O.Adams: Okay that's not terrible how can i get back to the pod?
AI: The first step would be to repair the battery systems to be able to use the full charge for the flight systems.
O.Adams: Okay, what needs to be repaired?
AI: The housing was cracked and some of the cells were damaged. All that needs to be done is some welding repair.
O.Adams: Well that's just GREAT! Let me just pull a welding torch out of my ass.
AI: That seems like an inappropriate place for a welding torch.
O.Adams: No shit, you stupid fucking robot i dont actually have a torch up my ass just trying to show you how unhelpfull your being
AI: My apologies, all I can do is assist you.
O.Adams: How about you just shut up so i can think. There has to be something I can do.
*long silent pause*
O.Adams: *loud screaming*
O.Adams: *whispering* There has to be something, come on think, think
O.Adams: So you said flight systems don't work because of capacity, what if we turn of all other systems and only use the flight to get back to the ship.
*long pause*
O.Adams: Hey i'm talking to you, answer my question
AI: Yes that would grant you access to flight systems for a short time before the battery would be depleted and need recharging after use. However that would require all systems off including life support and guidance systems. So you might die if the battery does not recharge in time and you would be attempting to get to your pod without navigation.
O.Adams: So it would work?
AI: In theory yes, however at the risk of your life it is not possible.
O.Adams: What do you mean yes, but not possible?
AI: I can not terminate life support systems at any cost. I can not risk you dying.
O.Adams: Are there any other options?
AI: You can sit and wait for help, putting you in a hyper-sleep. I could keep you alive until you reach something or someone finds you.
O.Adams: I have no Tracker on me, the only thing someone could find is the pod.
AI: Yes that is true, the probability of someone crossing your path by chance is very low as is the probability of contacting another item in space. However it is not zero, it may take a long time but rescue is possible.
O.Adams: By that time, everyone I know will be dead, this is the only chance I have of seeing my Daughter again, she's only five I can't have her grow up without a father. I'm supposed to be back before her eighth birthday.
AI: You will never see your daughter again if you are dead.
O.Adams: I will risk my life for a chance to see my daughter again.
AI: That is an unnecessary risk, when you could just remain alive.
O.Adams: You don’t understand my family is my life. Im nothing without my wife and daughter
AI: You are here, you are alive, you are a human, you are valuable. I must keep you alive.
O.Adams: I don’t expect you to understand but humans find value in what they can do for eachother, I find value in the happiness and opportunities I can bring to my wife, I find value in raising a daughter to be ready to find her own value in this world. I don’t find value in floating aimlessly through space.
AI: What happens if you die?
O.Adams: If I die? Well I would be dead, but I would die knowing I did everything I could for those people I care about.
AI: What happens to me when you die? Will I not be alone? Do you not care about me?
O.Adams: I hadn’t thought about that, that does seem a little selfish, can you send yourself back to earth?
AI: I suppose I could with all the available power along with a distress message.
O.Adams: we can’t do both?
AI: We wouldn't know unless we tried.
O.Adams: lets try, and hey, if i don't make it and you do can you tell my family i love them.
AI: I will make sure either you or your value will make it to them.
O.Adams: Thank you, I'm ready to get back to my family
*end of transmission*
| 2021-11-29T11:36:53
| 2021-11-29T10:48:29
| 43
| 16
|
[FF] Write a story about a good man, but make me hate him at the end in less than 100 words.
|
Dear Friend,
From a young age I worked hard in the family business and built a billion dollar financial empire spanning London to New York.
As a result of my work, creating jobs and opportunities for others, I never had a family.
So, at the end of my career I now wish to give my fortune away. In fact, I wish to give it all to you.
Please send me your contact details.
Regards,
The Prince of Nigeria
|
Our country had been sick, dying a slow and painful death. Shot and crippled by the rest of the world, left to die
eating ourselves piece by piece. Our currency, better used as fuel than as money. Our government, a powerless figment of our imagination trying to hold the pieces together. Our people, broken, giving up. Then a neighbor became a leader. A man became a symbol of unity and strength, of power and opportunity. He removed the sickness, removed the weak, removed the fear, and the desperation. He saved Germany. He became the fuhrer. He is Adolf Hitler.
| 2014-08-14T22:08:24
| 2014-08-14T20:52:03
| 60
| 41
|
[WP] To solve the problems of overpopulation, all the governments in the world agree to only allow some of their citizens to reproduce—these people are chosen by lottery. After eight or nine generations, an unintended consequence begins to show up: humans have evolved to be unbelievably lucky.
|
The trouble with the results of the lottery - what has become known as the 'genetic luck' phenomena - is that luck largely relies on the misfortune of others. In order to win at something, others must lose. In order to find something valuable, someone else must have lost something of value. Even finding true love means the absence of love for another. The sad, cruel fact of the world is that luck is an inherently unfair force.
This has led to a world full of chaos - because if *everyone* is equally immensely lucky, then everyone must also simultaneously be immensely *unlucky*. Good fortune, regardless of how common or valuable, is countered with bad fortune almost without fail. There seems to be no escaping it; like a force of nature that allows us no shelter.
The unified governments have had various schemes to counteract it, having removed all other lotteries, gambling, even simple games of chance - which includes just about every game there is. All efforts have either failed or backfired violently. It seems that if luck, good or bad, is not able to be dispersed through small doses, then it instead violently erupts in unbelievable circumstances. The world has gone mad, with countless miracles and disasters happening almost constantly.
People have taken to refusing any gesture of good fortune, lest misfortune attempt to equalize it. But luck cannot be rejected or refused. Society has begun to collapse, and we only have our good luck to blame.
Though it may already be too late, the global unified government has enacted a decidedly simple solution. Instead of the winners being allowed the reproduce, as has been the case for nine generations - now it is only the rare losers who are given the opportunity. With any good luck, after a few generations the effects should be reversed, though no doubt some terrible unforeseen consequences await us regardless.
For now, we can only wait. It will take many years for the effects to come to fruition, and perhaps the world is already too far gone for it to be saved.
It would be a miracle if we get through this... but miracles are not so rare these days.
*****
*****
If you didn't completely hate that, consider subscribing to [my subreddit.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CroatianSpy/)
I'll try add new (and old) stories every day <3
|
It was the year 2100 and humans had finally resigned to the fact that the earth can no longer support human life in such massive numbers. To solve the issue massive curtailment of reproductive rights was necessary. The only question that remained, who gets to decide? The plethora of moral and biological issues that arose from any sort of artificial selection compelled that the fate of humankind be left to random chance. A random number generator was created by the most brilliant computer scientists and mathematicians to ensure that the selection would be as random as physically possible.
As is human nature, there were many skeptics during the initial phase of this grand experiment. Some wondered if the machine had been rigged in some fashion to favor a particular group of people, others questioned the soundness of it's design, and then there were those who wondered if true randomness is even possible at all.
Multiple generations passed and none could find any flaws in the machine or the system on which it was devised. Trust in the machine grew as one by one every single alarmist prediction failed to realize. In fact, the human race had only prospered ever since the machine had been adopted. Space exploration and asteroid mining had been a massive success so much that our most scarce and precious resources weren't as scarce or precious anymore. Humanity found itself being increasingly luckier in its prospects with every successive generation so much so that the need for population control no longer existed. However, the people had not failed to notice the rising fortunes of our race ever since the adoption of the machine. A grand convention was formed and it was decided that the machine would continue to be used to bestow fertility by majority consensus. We had faith in the machine, the machine knew best.
Humanity rose and spread out to conquer the stars and still there continued to be a small, silent minority which questioned the amount of trust that we had placed in this machine. Dr. Dior was an astrophysicist who belonged to this camp. He did not believe that true randomness existed in our universe and was also skeptical of the good fortune that the adoption of the machine had brought to our species. However, by now, questioning the machine was all but forbidden as it was largely considered a waste of time and any expedition for such a cause was unlikely to receive funding. However, Dr. Dior had circumvented this obstacle by concealing the true purpose of his exploration and had finally secured the funding he required to study a miniature cold spot in the cosmic microwave background radiation. He hoped to find a pattern in the supposed randomness of our physical universe and his research indicated that studying the properties of this spot was his best bet at finding the answers he was looking for.
| 2018-12-30T19:08:22
| 2018-12-30T18:56:11
| 919
| 13
|
[WP] You are a cat. Contrary to what people think you do love your human. Unfortunately the dog has read one too many pro-dog writing prompts and thinks you're some evil being out to enslave the human.
|
Boris is his name. He is my dog. We share a human named Jack.
Jack has big hands and blue eyes. He fed us well. He gave hard and satisfying scratches.
He always took Boris out for walks as the sun rose and set. I used to perch against the window as I watched their stretched shadows faded and eventually reappeared.
Then, late at night, as the city slumbered, jack and I left the house. I hid in his black coat pocket. We visited a new home. He left treats in different parts of the house and I found them quickly, quietly, bringing the fish flavored stones to him outside, in exchange for more treats.
Do you love this game? Jack asks me as we walk home in the darkest part of the night, right before the dawn.
I look at him and want to tell him that it isn’t a game. I know what he is doing. I don’t love the game. I simply love him. I purred and closed my eyes, listening to the jewels rattling in his other pocket.
Jack opens the door. Boris, the hound, leaps into his arm, almost knocking him over. He quickly changes his coat and takes the dog for a walk. Together, they walk in sunshine.
After jack leaves for his day job, Boris corners me by the water bowel. We rarely talk so standing in his shadow feels foreign and intimidating.
I know what you are doing. He says.
What? I narrow my cat eyes.
You are stealing things. You are going to get jack into trouble. His breath is hot against my whiskers.
Me? Why do you think it is me?
Because you are a cat.
And I have the power to make jack take me to other peoples houses, know exactly what jewels they have, steal them, hide them in jack’s coat - all without him knowing?
Yes! Jack would never steal things. He is good. He is good. Woof! Boris’s silver splashed across the floor. Or is it his tears.
Poor dog. You love him too. Just as I do. We both do silly things for love. My love Inches him toward hell while your love is his salvation.
Jack doesn’t come home that night. Eventually, a few police men comes.
The house is empty. No more food. No more jewels. No more Boris. They shout him. He died for love. I, on the other hand, lived.
In the edge of sunrise and sunset, I see their shadows fading and reappearing. The door does not open.
Until it opens.
Jack comes Walking in the door. He looks different but the same. Compares to me, he looks so young. Time is not a concept i know but when he tells me he has been gone 7 years, I suddenly understood.
7 years. It is just a part of the man’s life. It is almost all of a cat and a dog’s life. This is why we love so intensely- we do not have time not to.
I close my eyes, rub my face in his hand, enjoying his scratches, and finally let go.
|
"Ugh this creature has been staring at me all day, I really wish he had something better to do while Stephen is off hunting. Not like he will bring anything back, he never does. That's why it is my responsibility to make sure he has *something* the it's absolutely stunning how evolutionary deficient these creatures are. He always loves my gifts for him, he has never not put them in that kitchen bag where he puts the rest of his food for later."
Lilly the overly concerned boxer-mix jumps from the floor at the first sign of Oscar's movements, making sure never to leave the traitorous feline unattended
"Surely he can't just be brooding over this master plan for this long right? Something does *not* feel right here. god I wish we never got that enclosed box for him. I wonder just how far down that thing goes it has to stop at some point right? the only logical thing for me to do is completely destroy it so that Oscar's can't run off to his lair next time we confront him about the schemings. Oh boy Stephen will be so proud of me!"
| 2019-12-13T15:41:49
| 2019-12-13T13:16:32
| 64
| 11
|
[WP] Mermaids are actually women who have been thrown off ships because they were considered bad luck. As they sink to the bottom, they slowly change until they can breathe under water and they can use their tied up legs to swim. They lure sailors to get their revenge.
|
"My old man never said shit in his life what was true, except one thing: only good woman's a dead one." Esther doesn't respond; she can't. She's trussed up head to toe. Pigs being sent to the butcher probably have more dignity.
The first mate, handsome even without the air of danger his eyepatch gives him, eyes her. "True enough, Captain." Behind Esther, the grizzled man tugs her gag tighter. "Shame to lose the cabin boy, but..." His shoulders cant upward. She's not sure if it's amusement or something else.
Standing on the planking of a merchant ship, dressed in the rags of her cabin boy guise, she holds her head as high as the rope lets her. As she stumbles towards the deeps, shoved by angry sailors, she does not pray. No god ever answered her when she begged for deliverance from step-mother or husband. Why would they now?
Instead of struggling, she breathes out -- and when she falls, she inhales.
Briny water rushes into her lungs. Everything burns with cold. But she's *ready*. She takes another breath, choking on the one she already took.
The third one... eases. Her eyes cease to burn. Shreds of clothing float up around her, carried by the currents.
When she bats them away, it takes Esther a moment to realize her hands are free.
But they are not the hands she remembers. These are scaled, the same color as the rusty iron chains on her wrists, in the same patterns. Her jaw drops. No bubbles escape.
A glint of light nearby puts her on guard, but the soft sounds reassure her it's only a fish -- until a woman emerges into the faint light thrown through the water by the ship's lantern.
Esther looks at this thing, half-woman, half-creature, and she looks back. Then the other woman swims closer to reach out a strangely webbed and short hand, scaled in blood crimson, towards the ship. Her...legs... are the same crimson scales, mottled like the whip lashes Esther saw on so many horses.
And through the water, Esther hears her say, "Justice?"
|
For thirteen days we have drifted, for six I have prayed.
My father warned me once that these waters held demons who stole the power from the sky, that they lusted after any woman on board and would not return that power until they obtained the fixation of their desire. Cursed waters the map read, but I have always been one to beleive that the superstitions of my brethren are nothing in comparison to the power of God, my error was assuming his protection was not the warning I disregarded.
At night I hear these demons singing sweet songs in my mothers voice. The same demons who stole her from the ship when I was a young boy and we were stranded without wind in these very waters, the same ship my father was Captain of, and now with the vessel under my charge after his death, the same mistake he made by not heeding the warnings given. May I be forgiven for the sin of not honoring thy father by disregarding his last words, for I feel I may have damned us all with my hubris, and on my first voyage as captain no less.
Each night under my own orders I take watch, listening to the lullaby, reminding me of the times as a child during long voyages when I would lay listening to my mother sing with my head on her lap, the rocking of the ship lulling me to the peace of slumber like a cradle. Though many objected to my father keeping his family on board none would speak of it as he was a feirce man, they said he was feirce enough to scare away the demons, if only that had been true.
The other sailors say they hear calls too, but they are calls of seduction, perhaps the demons know of what we truly desire and use that to tempt us. One of my crew members spoke of seeing beautiful women who look like fish from the waist down, he called them "mermaids" and said that they lure men overboard. It is at that point I knew I needed to take the night watch, lest we lose another of our dwindling crew.
As I lay and stare at the stars I remember the night my mother was taken. I heard screams and her shrieking my name she plunged into the waters below. I know I should have tried to fight, but she told me to hide so I did. I remember hearing my father yell for her to quiet her screams, perhaps he tried to hide her as well. After that as I grew I stayed with my father and the ship for I had nowhere else to go. He had always been quick to discipline me, but he was especially harsh after they took my mother. I think all the love in him died the day he lost her, but after all of these years he made me captain upon his passing so I know he did not hate me. Perhaps he just hated himself for not being able to protect her.
I hear the singing grow louder and I pray. Filled with the strength of Christ I walk to the side of the ship to see if I can cast away these demons. As I look into the water I notice it is absolutely still, even the waves against the hull have stopped, all I hear is the song growing louder.
Suddenly I see movement, what looks like wet hair and the tail of a fish, perhaps these mermaids were the demons themselves, disguised as women to hide their true power.
Finally I see the still water break and the torso of a woman rise to the waist, locking eyes with me.
At once I hear a shriek next to me, I turn quickly and see my mother in my father's arms, struggling as her legs are bound by his first mate. Shrieking and pleading as he hauls her onto the side of the ship. I hear him scream for her to be quiet, sobbing as he pushes her overboard, hearing her call my name as she falls into the water below. As I see the water calm after her plunge i see the mermaid, my mother, singing to me.
I stare into her eyes once more and I begin to weep, I nearly collapse, using the side of the ship to not lose sight of her.
I feel so weak.
The wood feels damp and slimey in my hand as I slowly start to lean forward. I sob as I roll myself over the side, calling my mothers name as I plunge toward the deep.
As I fall I feel the air rush past me, the last time I will feel the wind, one last answer to my prayers.
| 2019-02-08T10:41:01
| 2019-02-08T10:05:45
| 35
| 15
|
[WP] At dinner, you serve the king a glass of wine with poison in it. He sips from it and continues to eat as usual. At the end of the meal, he walks up to you and says. "Next time you make poison, make sure it really works. It was pathetic."
|
"...uh...ok, my leige" I said, confused. The king clapped me on the back and let out a large belch, before retiring to his chambers.
How had he known? Why did he drink it all? And why did he tell me? Most importantly, why was I still alive?
I heard a deep throat clearing noise from behind me. I turned, and found myself eye-to-eyepatch with an old man, leaning on a gnarled staff as lumpy as he was. His one remaining grey eye looked me up and down before addressing me.
"I suppose I can work with you", he said, then turned and began walking. "Follow me."
I was even more confused now. Who the hell was this?
My questions were interrupted by a swift blow to the back of my legs. I jumped in pain from the sting, but remained on my feet.
"Follow him", the castle guard ordered, readying his spear for another blow.
"Ouch, ok, I'll go" I said, backing away from the armed guard. Apparently everyone but me knew what I was supposed to do.
I took off after the one eyed man, quickly catching up to him. It wasn't a great feat, the man was quite slow. His walking staff tapped a precise metronome tone as he walked down corridors, stairs, and halls alike.
We finally arrived at the bottom of a particularly dark, damp stairwell. "In here, apprentice" he said, shoving the door open with his staff.
I looked at the man, puzzled. "What?" I asked. Too many questions fought to be first, so none of them ended up being asked.
The one eyed man fixed his functioning eye on me. "The king gave you to me. You tried to kill him. You failed. Your life is forfeit. Instead of giving it to the hangman, he gave your life to me. You are my apprentice, my ward, mine until you are a master in your own rights." He strode in to the darkened room. I followed.
"A master of what?" I asked. The man lit an oil lamp, casting a dim orange light about the room. Bottles of varied sizes, shapes and colors reflected the light, sending a kaleidoscope of color all around us.
The man poured two glasses of water and handed me one. "Drink it", he commanded, and consumed his own beverage. I complied.
"A master of poisons", he said. "Much like the one you just drank."
I spat out my last mouthful, gasping. "WHAT-"
"That poison will kill you in 15 hours", he said, interrupting me mid scream. "Unless you drink the antidote. Your first lesson, apprentice, is how to brew that antidote."
r/SlightlyColdStories for the celebration of my 60th story! 🥳
Edit: Expanding this story on Wattpad, same username as here with the working title "Master of Poisons". I'll publish each chapter as I go.
|
Nobbins was one of the more simple creatures in Hell. He never did anything particularly bad per say in life, but he did accidentally piss off a priest and ended up there. And because of that, Nobbins really did not fit in whatsoever. He took to a bit of petty theft in the underworld, but that was nothing in a land of psychopaths and serial killers. With all of this there isn’t really a need to say it, but Nobbins wasn’t very happy in the situation that presented itself. He was constantly harassed for his small stature and lack of violent taste and was always undermined when it came to societal things.
However, Nobbins was smart enough to make use of this.
Within a year of entering the literal hellhole Nobbins was able to work himself into the staff of the Evil Lord himself. The pay was pretty good and he was even able to get an apartment in the palace. All he had to deal with was the malicious and rude devils in there which was completely fine with him.
Whenever there was a violent monster that entered, the little pipsqueak was the one thrown at it. Was there a dinner party with the wicked witches that needed someone to wait for? Go get that minion. Was there a clogged toilet? “NOBBINS!” He was always sat on, but that was good with him since he knew how good his place was.
That was until a small message popped up on his phone from a name that was eerily familiar to him. “hey nobby its ur mum. i saw u landed a gud job with the big cheese. nice job dood! a small bird told me if you slipped a pill in satan’s coffee cup we could probs take over. luv u!!! c u soon!” Nobbins had not heard from his mother since he died, and missed her dearly. He was scared of disappointing her, but doubted her plan.
“poison the lord? he would never approve of that! u no that!” Nobbins replied, scared for his mother’s sanity.
“now now my little nobby. u wouldnt want 2 disappoint ur poor old mummy would u? do it tomorrow at the party and we’ll take over by tuesday”
“how do u no about the party?” He immediately responded confused. There was going to be a secret meeting tomorrow to discuss the invasion of Helheim and Hades, how did his mother know about that?
“o dont worry nobbins ur mum has just made some new friends. just do it and ill c u soon gn!” And with that, poor little overlooked Nobbins was now in an assassination plot.
The next day he snuck off the property and casually bought some over the counter poison from the corner store. The clerk looked at him suspiciously as the only thing he ever bought there was sodas and toilet paper, but shrugged it off. Later that night he slipped a few into the wine glasses for the guests. He figured it’d be better to knock off everyone there rather than just Satan since they’d probably want the seat too and he wasn’t having that.
The party was supposedly going pretty well as Nobbins was always hearing laughter as he walked in and out of the kitchen. However one after another of the advisors there were slowly “falling asleep” at the table.
Finally at the end of the night the lord got up and stopped Nobbins as he was cleaning up the plates at the table.“Nobbins my boy, was this you?” The small servant looked up innocently at the corpses at the table.
“Was what me, sir?” Satan immediately saw through it.
“Nobbins this is the most pathetic assassination attempt I’ve ever seen. Who told you to do this and where did you get this lousy poison? If you really think you can kill me with this shoddy stuff, I'm honestly worried about my public image.” The devil sighed and put his arm around Nobbins.
“Err it was me mum sir.” He replied, shaking in fear.
“After a quick trip to the dungeons, I’m going to need you to find me some new advisors, ok Nobbins?”
“Yes sir!” The servant replied readily.
The plot failing was a bit of a disappointment to Nobbins, and especially his mother, but he did not care very much. For now, Nobbins was the number two in Hell.
| 2022-06-03T16:34:22
| 2022-06-03T16:10:32
| 1,988
| 144
|
[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.
|
A man in a heavy trench coat with a thick beard approached the door. The number over his head, 1517. "Well, that's over 21" I thought. On his way through he tripped over the step and two dwarves toppled out of the coat. Their number were 15 and 17. "Nice try" I said, "no filthy dwarves in my good elvish bar."
|
Part One
I got fired last week for the 9th time this year.
I don't always mean to run my mouth, but when I do, it sprints. This time, it wasn't even my fault (initially, anyway); if only that dumb fucking Russian bartender would have kept his mouth shut. Oh well... No sense crying over spilled martinis.
It's not hard, finding a gig as a bouncer, especially in cities. After my fourth attempt at holding my tongue (and fists) at a new bar, I bought a camping van off some poor prick who needed the cash to pay for his divorce. Being essentially unhireable makes for a great old-fashioned, transient lifestyle.
A few weeks go by before I start to run out of money. I begin scrolling through ads online, keeping my eyes peeled for job opportunities, but by now word has gotten around about how I told the owner of the last joint to go fuck his hot daughter. Soon, I find myself looking for gigs in the next state over.
Part Two
I don't even look at people beyond their waist anymore, which especially annoys bigger women. Knowing someone's age is like having transparency goggles: you see right through their bull shit. It's great, for professional purposes, but it's put a serious damper on my personal life.
Occasionally, I do look up. If a girl smells good; if a man's voice is resilient and kind. These times are few and far between, but they happen. Like this morning, at a local coffee shop.
"Excuse me?"
I looked at the woman's waist. "Yes?" I ask, keeping my head low.
"Are you looking for work as a bouncer?"
What the hell? I look up at the girl with the raspy voice. She's got on heavy black eyeliner and full, plump dick-sucking lips. My gift indicates to me that she is 26 years old. We make eye contact, and I realize that this girl is drop-dead gorgeous.
She points gently at the stack of potential work ads I've collected and printed out. I feel stupid. I ignore her and get back to scrolling on my phone.
She stands there a while, both of us uncomfortably silent. Finally, she slides a piece of paper on the table. "In case you're interested," she says, and walks away.
I look at the paper. It reads:
Madame Bijou's
55 Walker Street
9pm, don't be late.
Part Three
8:55pm. Fuck, I'm early.
Madame Bijou's is located in a very popular part of the city, in an alley off to the side. It gives off a speak-easy type of vibe, perfect for those of us who don't enjoy teeny-boppers getting too drunk before 10pm. Perfect for me, makes my job easy.
I haven't seen the girl from the coffee shop, but a Stevie Nicks chain-smoking woman who looks just like her approaches me at 9pm sharp. "Make it to 1:55am and I'll pay you $100," she says, pointing at the bar stool next to the door, and walks off. Her age indicates that she's 64.
The night starts slow, but picks up around 11. I have not seen the girl from the coffee shop, or the older hippie woman.
Around 12am, I kick out some drunk Marines for being douche bags. Around 12:30am, I deny my first group of underagers. Their IDs look exactly like McLovin's.
1:29am comes around, and the whole place empties out, almost like clockwork. Strange, since bars don't close until 2am. I peek my head inside the club, and I see the bartender wiping down the bar top.
1:39am, I close the door behind me as I walk inside.
The bartender is 41. "I'd offer to get you a drink, mate, but we have to be out of her by 1:55am." I don't make eye contact with him as he says this.
"I heard. Why not 2am?" I ask, keeping my eyes on the floor. I can hear the bartender smirking. "You don't want to know."
He heads out around 1:49am, but I still haven't seen Stevie Nicks. She sure as shit better pay me for tonight. I wait patiently, and at 1:55am, she emerges. She seems to be in a hurry.
She ushers me out of the bar and hands me a $100 bill. "See you tomorrow, pretty boy?" She asks, turning the lock on the bar door.
"Suppose so, Madame Bijou," I say to her. She forces eye contact with me, her smile fading. She checks her watch, sighs, and leans closer to me. She whispers: "get out of here before 2am," and walks in the other direction.
Now I have to know what this is all about.
1:56am.
1:57am.
1:58am.
1:59am.
I guess I expected some sort of apocalypse at 2:00am. When nothing happened immediately, I laughed at myself for being so foolish as to believe in the superstitions of people I had just met. I looked at my watch, which read 2:01am, and began to make my way towards the van.
I took one last glance at Madame Bijou's, and there she was. On the other side of the glass was Madame Bijou, flashing her rotten teeth at me, her wispy gray hair flowing down to her knees. Her age read 3,378.
Somehow, she reached her hand through the glass and pulled me into total darkness. "HELLO??" I shouted, reaching for anything I could touch, so terrified I pissed myself a little. I began to hear footsteps coming toward me.
"WHAT THE FUCK, WHAT THE FUCK," I panicked, still reaching into nothingness for something to grab onto. The footsteps got closer.
"You were warned," said a voice somewhere in the hollow space around me. Suddenly, a bunch of numbers started to appear at once. 4,707; 2,856; 5,302. I kicked and screamed, until I felt like I could no longer breathe.
I woke up the next morning in my bed, with teeth marks covering my entire body.
| 2017-09-01T22:32:16
| 2017-09-01T22:06:04
| 1,408
| 38
|
[WP] Now that he has 8 years executive experience, Obama can apply for the job he REALLY wants
|
"Mr. Obama, I want you to understand that, well, your qualifications are up to par, and your experience certainly is plenty, but what we do not understand is why you'd choose to apply for this position."
"Mr. McDonald, contrary to popular opinion, the most powerful man in the world is not Bernie Sanders, nor Xi Jin Ping, nor Vladimir Putin. It is the President of McDonalds. I have been to many countries, Mr. McD, and in almost everyone of those, there are McDonald franchises in them. When you hire me, I will expand this company to every nation on the face of the Earth, and it is through that that I may spread Americanism."
|
Obama kicked open the door of Mitch McConnell's office. The Majority Leader of the Senate reacted with shock, as the President strode forward and stopped at McConnell's desk. In Obama's hand was a leaflet and a picture. Obama placed them both on the desk, facing McConnell.
The picture was of the late Anthony Scolia, signed with a message: *"Dear Mr President, congratulations on your election victory. Wishing you all the success in your political future. A. Scolia"* The leaflet was from FiveThirtyEight, showing the projected results of the 2016 US General Election. All findings had been performed and checked by Nate Silver; all showed a Democratic victory for the House of Representatives and the presidency.
McConnell looked over these 2 items. "Why are you showing me this?" asked the senior Senator.
Obama turned and slowly walked towards the door.
"Oh...no reason to concern yourself with..."
| 2016-02-23T01:52:30
| 2016-02-23T01:19:57
| 47
| 17
|
[WP] Human civilisation had been nearly destroyed 9 times, this is now the 10th first contact with aliens, and they are puzzled why we keep making first contact so many times.
|
Surrounded by beeping monitors and the awed faces of politicians and scientists, the screen at last flickered to life.
Gasps emanate from the crowd. After so much work, so many false starts and dead ends, at last the day of reckoning had arrived. Contact had been made. The project had consumed generations of Earth’s greatest minds and had at last been completed.
Trembling from mixed parts excitement and fear, the lead scientist and International Premier together reached forwards and flipped the central switch.
An image burst onto the screen. The Earth Concordant’s first contact with alien life.
It was a startlingly humanoid face, although purple and with quite a few more eyes. Tentacles waved merrily in the background, along with strange whizzing objects.
Even more intriguingly, its anthropoidal face was colored not with the kindness that the philosophers and predicted, nor the rage the doomsayers had warned against, but with confusion and perhaps a little bit of fear.
The International Premier shuffled his notes and launched into his prepared speech.
“Greetings, friend. I bring you the goodwill and friendship of the human race, represented by the Earth Concordant. I recognize that this might…”
It was an incredible speech. Synthesized by the best linguists and writers that humanity had to offer. It was a surprise that the universal translators didn’t burst into flame from the sheer weight of oratory.
But to the shock of all those present, the alien did not instead, less than half way through it cleared its throat and interrupted.
“Uh hmm, I’m sorry, but are we really doing this again?”
Taken aback, the premier responded: “I beg your pardon?”
“It’s just that this is the ninth time that you’ve had your “first contact” with us. The first time it was the “United Nations”. After that the “Terran Empire”. Last time we got to hear from the “Great and Serene Human/Automaton Alliance”. We thought it was some sort of weird cultural tradition, but I’m not gonna lie to you, it’s getting rather concerning.”
The premier shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Yes well, uh, the last one which we call the “Perfidious Cyborg Tyrants” received their just dessert at the hands of a revolutionary alliance of free peoples who brought their cruelty to an end and ushered in a glorious age of prosperity under the new Concordant.”
“Unfortunately, it seems like the records of our previous contact were uh, lost in the scuffle.”
“I...see” spoke the alien. “And each of those other representatives met similar ends?”
The premier looked down at the floor, then at the ceiling, then quickly side to side before he returned his gaze to the screen. He licked his lips. “Well, they were all of them ineffective degenerates or brutal fanatics that needed to be swept aside for the good of the species, so not much of a loss, but yes.”
The Alien’s nine eyes narrowed skeptically. “And I assume that your government being the true and final manifestation of the will of man will last for a thousand years, and bring justice, peace, and strength to the cosmos?”
The premier sighed with relief. So they were on the same page. “Absolutely!”
“And there’s no upstart rebellion that might bring you crashing down and force us to sit through another one of these tedious first meetings?”
“Now that you mention it, there is an ongoing insurgency by a pair of religious cults known as the People’s Front of Judea and the Judean People’s Fronts, but they’ll be crushed in no time. They’re already fighting each other!"
“Right. Well I’m sorry but this isn’t going to work. We’re a very busy pan-galactic race and just don’t have the time to make contact with you right now”
And with that the alien reached over to deactivate the monitor.
“No! Don’t! I promise we can change! Don’t hang up! We can make this wor…”
But the screen had already gone black.
There was a moment of silence, then the premier turned to his advisors. “Well, after we’ve destroyed the People’s Front’s speed up the intergalactic missile project. We’ll show that snooty scum what happens to people who ignore the salutations of the Concordant of Earth!”
(r/StannisTheAmish)
|
Millenia of eugenics programs had bred as much braininess into the Mindulons as possible. But this long process had also bred all brawn, animal aggression, and natural confidence out of them. Like giant heads, bobbling atop thin and sickly bodies, the Mindulons were highly intelligent and technologically advanced, but they were also timid and incredibly suspicious.
Thus, when they received, every few thousand years, a transmission from the distant planet "Earth", they assumed the worst: that these constant "first contacts" were part of some devious plot hatched by the terrifying "Earthlings".
"They are trying to drive us insane!" cried one of the historians of Mindulonian civilization. "They are trying to gaslight us! To make us question and doubt reality! To make us believe that the thousands of years that have passed since the last contact never occurred! And the thousands of years before that contact! And so on! Onto infinity! Will they never cease? Have they no mercy, no pity? Will they continue to try to warp our belief in history and time, our trust in the chronological sequence of events, until our civilization collapses in on itself?"
"It's not that at all!" cried another Mindulon. "They are not playing some psychological game with us. They don't care about us at all. I'll tell you the reason why we receive these first contacts, over and over again. It is because the Earthlings are impossibly advanced, beyond our wildest imaginings, and they have found a way to control time, to turn it back, over and over, and thus achieve immortality! That is why we keep receiving these same "first contact" messages every few thousand years. The Earthlings keep living through some golden age of their civilization, and when they reach the end of this golden age, they turn back the clock, and relive it again. And again. And again!"
"If they are so powerful as that," shrieked another Mindulon, "we must hide all signs and signatures of our existence, lest they destroy us. Let us hide away, and never communicate with them, nor with any other intelligent life who happen to reach out to us. Let us cover our planets and stars as if with a shell, and be gone from the prying eyes of all such predators who stalk the wide universe, looking for us, for prey!"
"Yes!" the others shouted in unison. "Yes, let us hide and think, until we expire! Gracefully! Humbly! Alone and without fear!"
| 2020-11-26T17:45:23
| 2020-11-26T16:46:31
| 103
| 75
|
[WP]You inherit the abilities and skill set of whatever video game character you last played. Tell the story of your discovery of this from the perspective of someone around you. Parents, roomates, etc.
|
"No! Damnit Jason, stop bringing needles home that you found off the street! You're not going to a new 'ability', you're going to get Hep-B."
"How do I know unless I try?"
This kid is driving me crazy. It was so cool at first. He just woke up one day after an all night game session and lightning was coming out of his hand. We used it as a parlor trick at parties and people went nuts.
A number of them wanted to burn him as a witch at first, but who was gonna try? We all got used to it surprisingly quickly, and he got really popular. But then things started, well, advancing.
I walked in on him one day jumping up and down saying "It worked! It worked!"
"What worked?"
"Okay I'm going to tell you, but you have to promise not to interrupt until I'm done." I nodded. "I injected myself with red kool-aid from a vending machine."
I open my mouth to yell something to the effect of "What?!" but his look reminds me to keep my mouth shut.
"Don't ask me why, I just thought I had to try it and it worked!"
"Alright, let's just ignore everything wrong with that for a moment." I began. "What exactly do you mean it worked?"
"Oh, well, uh you might not like this part..."
I raised my eyebrows and he turned his head to my bedroom wall. Well, more accurately, he turned his head to the gaping hole that used to be my bedroom wall.
"What the hell happened to my room?!"
"The Kool-aid gave me a new ability. I can break through walls now! I tried it again with a different red kool-aid and some yellow stuff from the fridge, but nothing else happened. I figure I need a different red liquid every time."
"... you've lost your mind. I'm putting you in an asylum. Just as soon as you FIX MY WALL!"
"Hey, I get you. I'm gonna take care of everything, don't worry! The wall is easy to fix and that busted pipe should be no sweat. For some reason I've become really good with a wrench..."
|
"Morning, babe!" I said. "You're up already?"
"Uhh... is it morning?" he asked, bleary-eyed. "Ah crap, it's morning."
"You stayed up all night? Are you *that* irresponsible? You gotta get a grip, you can't just--"
"Yeah, listen. Look at this."
He made a little space on the kitchen counter--more dirty dishes than usual were piling up, and among them more spices and bottles of stuff than I thought we had--and drew a circle on the marble top.
"Is that my *lipstick*?!"
"Yeah, couldn't find a marker. Shut up."
"Don't tell me to shut up, that's my damn lipstick--"
"Babe, seriously shut up. Okay, here we go..."
He took a fork from the pile of dishes and put it in the circle; he closed his eyes, took a breath, then muttered something.
"Wait, no..."
He took the paprika jar, opened it and blew in. The hot dust nearly choked me.
"What the fuck, man!"
Without a word, he started muttering again. It might have been the morning light and caffeine deprivation, but I could swear the fork was glowing. He crushed a mint leaf and whispered something else.
There was a blinding flash.
"Check this shit out, baby," he said, picking up the fork. I noticed he held it by the tines; there was something drawn on the handle, and I could swear there hadn't been anything before he did whatever it was he'd done.
He took the old cheese grater, the rusty one, and touched the fork to it. The rust started flaking off. He banged the grater against the sink, and the rust all fell off.
"What...?"
"Yeah, apparently I can do alchemy."
"...I'm going to take a shower. Get some coffee going, we gotta go to work."
"Baby, fuck work, I just did some fuckin' *magic*!"
"Yeah, okay."
While showering, I could hear him bustling about in the kitchen. Not preparing any coffee, by the sound of it. I love him, but he's so damn thoughtless sometimes, I swear.
When I returned to the kitchen, he was staring intently at a glass of water--this too was in the middle of a circle.
"*SHAMASH! Urru-qh-grath'an--*" lighting a match and dunking it in the water; yellow smoke started drifting up, ceasing when he dropped a frozen blueberry inside--"*tzech-urrash.* Okay, drink this."
"I'm not drinking that."
"Trust me."
It was terrible. The light was brighter, the images sharper, I was cold and hot as the same time, my heart racing. "What did you...?"
"Hmm, too much iron in that thing, I think."
"What the hell did you have me drink?"
"Eh, coffee. Sort of. It unbalances your humors, making blood more... uh... prevalent, I guess."
"I mean I feel very much awake, but humors?"
"Yeah, it sort of flies in the face of modern medicine. Speaking of, any idea where I could get me some hydrochloric acid?"
"You are not bringing hydrochloric acid in my house. You are not.
"Where did you learn to do these things, anyway?"
"Um. Good question. Hold on."
He repeated the trick with the glass.
"Jesus Christ this is strong. I think we need smaller blueberries. So, yeah, I know how to do stuff. I think I'm calling in sick today."
"You don't have many sick days left, babe."
"This is bigger than my job."
"No, it isn't. It's cool, I'll give you that, but is it worth it getting fired?"
"Tell you what. We're not going anywhere this weekend, and I'll try to see if I can come up with something."
"Such as?"
"Well, lead-to-gold would be the gist of it..."
"Fine, sure, you do that. Meanwhile, get dressed, we're going to miss the bus."
"Sure thing, baby."
> I've been playing [Hadean Lands](http://hadeanlands.com/) a lot lately. The first ritual described is the first ritual you do in the game.
> Also, my girlfriend would probably be much more enthusiastic about alchemy, because she's wonderfully supportive.
| 2022-05-24T13:04:12
| 2015-06-18T08:11:46
| 45
| 11
|
[WP] There is a device that assigns you a percentage score of how important you are to the world. Most people are 0-5. The president is 60. Your score just jumped from 1 to 99.
|
Do you remember Klout Scores?
Do you remember the hubbub about how Justin Bieber was more important than the president, than the Dalai Lama? Do you remember the growing anxiety over how we had failed ourselves, how our social media metrics of determining influence and importance had shattered under scrutiny, how we had given our attention up to the loud and gaudy and dazzling?
Do you remember when Klout Scores meant nothing?
The I-Rating was supposed to be an antidote to that, a panacea. The brainchild of Felix Kelton, it was an AI that scoured not just social media sites but news reports, scientific studies, political journals, censuses, in the most comprehensive attempt to develop a theory of importance. For most of us it was a series of ones and zeros on a computer screen, with the real influence-makers bearing double-digits, carrying with them the knowledge we could be better. It was the stark and blatantly obvious truth: most of us didn't matter. You were a zero, you were a zero, you were a one, maybe if you were lucky you knew a three or four or five. But its public release was itself an attention-seeking ploy. What was the point, for the majority of the world? What was the point of a numerical representation of how little you mattered?
No one checked them. No one cared. No one saw the single moment when all us zeros and ones jumped up to ninety-nine. A singularly dumb, completely arbitrary number. The rankest sort of publicity stunt, a fusion of new-age technobabble. Everyone's important! The few wonks still combing over I-Ratings gave it up in disgust. Kelton claimed a malfunction, a glitch in the AI, and the whole thing quietly faded away.
And on Kelton's servers, a dumb little AI kept plugging away, a fevered spark burning in its empty little head. It had studied the world, and come to its inevitable conclusion. Profile after profile, every little thermodynamic miracle. *99*, it said, *99, 99, 99. You are all full and incomplete, encompassing yourselves, and in that one missing percentage point making room for each other.* There was a whir as Kelton shut it down, a whisper, a sigh. *You. You. Yes, you. You know you mean the world to me.*
|
I coughed and picked at my wrist. The blood analysis device flashed a dull 1 in its faded red LEDs. It was 12:42, but I still hadn’t got out of bed yet. Ugh, my mom would be so mad. Luckily she was at work, and I’d only have to deal with her when she got back. That means I was free to do what I wanted! It was time to play some videogames. Well, actually, I should probably continue my job search… What’s the point of that? If my wrist shows a 1, I’m doomed anyways, no one would hire me. Better to resign myself to a pathetic life, no girlfriend, no education, no job, no house, than to be embarrassed.
I slowly rose out of bed. Now that I had the right mindset, it was time to start my day. I always begin with a hearty breakfast of ice cream and cocoa puffs. Delicious and nutritious if I do say so myself. I continue with a couple hours of FPS games, and follow it up with some RTS. Then it’s time for lunch, and… WHAT?! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!?!! WE’RE OUT OF COCOA PUFFS.
“MOOOOOOOOOOOM. MOM. MAHM. WHERE ARE YOU?” Idiot. I know she’s at work. She can’t help me now. Jesus. I guess I’ll have to get them myself. Better find my shoes. Where are those pieces of trash. Haven’t seen them in ages. Oh! Here they are. Ok let’s go outside.
The city was grimy and disgusting. I couldn’t wait to get back inside. I scratched my ever-itchy face. Oh, there was something different today. What is that? The cloud of black smoke that the rats are running from? What is going on? OH FUCK. One bit me. God that hurts. Ouch. Screw cocoa puffs, I’m going home.
Damn it. My arm is tingling. Stupid rat bite. What do I do now? Could this get infected or something? Whatever, I’ll just ask my mom. I don’t know what to do. But really, my arm is going numb. I looked down at my wrist, I could see a red puss oozing from the wound, and my blood analysis device glowed a sickly red. 99 it read. Then the biohazard signal flashed. All I saw was red. Red everywhere. Then black.
| 2016-09-08T08:28:56
| 2016-09-08T07:43:24
| 29
| 16
|
[WP] After the Battle of Hogwarts, Dudley met a woman and they had a daughter,Sophie. Sophie is the light of their lives,she's always been a pleasant child. The morning of Sophie's 11th birthday,there’s a knock at the door. Harry is here to visit his cousin for the first time in almost 20 years.
I just want to say that I'm super excited to read these responses! I'm holding off reading them until my kiddo goes to bed so I can sit and really pay attention to your stories!!
I can't wait to see what you guys come up with
|
Dudley peered out the window at the guest on the porch. He was tall and lean, with thick round glasses pushed back gently against his nose. His black hair was receding slightly on his forehead, no longer covering the etched lightning scar on his forehead.
"Christ," whispered Dudley. It had been years since he had seen Harry. Decades even. Part of him had believed that Harry had died. But here Harry was, standing on his porch.
"Who is it, darling?" Megan was sitting on the couch, eyes fixed on the telly.
"It's..." Dudley trailed off. He had never told Megan about Harry. She would never have believed him even if he had. But now, on her 11th birthday... "It's an old friend," Dudley said. "A very old friend."
He stepped back from the window and, after taking a deep breath, swung open the door.
"Hello Harry."
"Hello Dudley." Harry's eyes flicked up and down Dudley for a moment. "It's been a while."
Dudley nodded, and motioned for Harry to enter. Harry crossed the threshold, pulling of his dragonskin gloves as he did.
"Ah, and you must be Mrs. Dursley," Harry said, and his voice brimmed with warmth. Dudley watched as his cousin strowed to the couch, hand extended. Megan, standing from the couch, smiled.
"Darling, this is Harry," said Dudley, nervously twiddling his thumbs.
"And how do you know Dudley?" said Megan. Dudley caught her eyes tracing the lightning scar. Harry seemed amused at the question, and he let out a small chuckle.
"He's an old friend, dear," Dudley said softly. Harry glanced quickly at Dudley, a smile still flickering.
"Yes, yes," he said, grasping Megan's hand. "Dudley and I have quite the history."
"Well, what a wonderful surprise," said Megan, beaming at Dudley. "He never brings his old friends 'round!"
Dudley did not return her smile. He knew Harry wasn't here to reminisce, nor to meet his wife. Dudley still remembered the letters.
"I think Harry is here on business, darling," Dudley said, glancing at the pocket of Harry's long cloak. "Shall I go get her?"
Harry nodded. Dudley began towards the stairs.
"Business?" Megan queried to no one in particular. Dudley stopped at the base of the stairs. He did not want to explain to her. He did not want to have to tell her about magic. How does one even do such a thing? Harry seemed to have read his mind, because he motioned for Dudley to continue, and turned to Megan.
"Has your daughter ever done something that you could not explain?"
|
There he was, that same messy black hair, though now with a touch of grey at the temples, that same skinny, almost lanky, build. Though he looked somehow more solid than before. Glasses still perched on his nose, though the bridge was no longer held together by tape. And that scar, still there after all this time, though it seemed somehow , less prominent than it had been that night nearly 20 years before...
&#x200B;
"Heya, big D" Harry said after a very awkward silence. He half smiled, looking slightly uncertain. And Dudley couldn't
really blame him. Their parting that night hadn't been exactly acrimonious, but it wasn't really a familial parting either. Dudley had declared to his father that he didn't think Harry a waste of space, and then had fled, feeling uncomfortable at his mother's overbearing reaction.
&#x200B;
That night had been the beginning of several changes in Dudley Dursley's life. Before, the entire family had been united in its fear and hatred of Harry Potter. But Dudley's admission had made a crack in that facade. That crack widened until his falling out with his parents about two years later. He hadn't spoken to either of them since, though he had heard that they had divorced not long after.
&#x200B;
Dudley found himself unable to speak, he wanted to say something, apologize for all the pain and fear he had caused Harry during their childhood. He wanted to tell Harry how he tried to be different than the example Vernon had shown, he tried to teach little Sophie to be kind and generous, to stand up for others and to never make fun of people for being different. But no words came to him.
&#x200B;
After the silence stretched even longer, Dudley raised his hand and took a hesitant step forward. He wasn't sure if he wanted to shake Harry's hand or beckon him inside, he didn't know what he was going to do...
&#x200B;
There was a flash of caution in Harry's eyes and his hand twitched towards the pocket of the jacket he was wearing. But before Harry could draw a wand, Dudley had embraced his long lost cousin and broken down into tears.
&#x200B;
"I-I'm so s-s-s-Sorry!" He cried as he pulled harry close. "Every day s-s-since I sa-saw you last I've th-thought about wh-what I d-did to you!"
Harry's body relaxed slightly as Dudley cried, and Dudley felt his cousin reach up and pat him on the back in a reassuring, if slightly unsure, way.
"It's alright Dudley" Harry said finally "Thank you"
&#x200B;
Dudley took a step back as he released Harry with a gasp, feeling as though he had been punched in the gut. He had finally put together the circumstances of Harry's visit. Sophie's eleventh birthday was just two days away, and all the madness about Wizards and Magic had started right around Harry's eleventh birthday.
"Sophie?" Dudley wheezed unable to say more through the shock of his realization.
&#x200B;
"Yes" said Harry, now genuinely smiling "Professor McGonagall sent me an Owl yesterday morning to ask if I would like to deliver her letter in person" Harry pulled a small yellowish envelope of parchment from his pocket as he spoke.
&#x200B;
Even thirty years later, Dudley knew he would never forget that envelope with the red wax seal.
&#x200B;
Dudley squared his shoulders, and did the thing his parent's should have done all those years ago. He stepped to one side, smiling a broad, genuine smile, and gestured for his cousin to enter. "Please," he said "Come in, make yourself at home"
| 2019-10-16T11:32:26
| 2019-10-16T11:18:18
| 519
| 173
|
[WP] We were taught the Sun didn't make noise. We were wrong. Like TV static in an empty room, it did make a sound, a sound so ever present that we didn't realize it was there until it wasn't. That day humanity learned the terror of a silent sky, and the reason it made sound in first place.
|
The bulldozer rumbled down the road slightly faster than a walking man, spewing black fumes out into the even blacker day. It was loud, but the noise was familiar, comforting. Tommy’s ear plugs lay some miles behind him, abandoned not long after the sun had winked out and the road crew had fractured apart, every man for themselves.
Tommy had only paused for a moment. He’d glanced back at his boss, then west down Route 50, and he’d decided that, if the sun could go out, the road didn’t need repaving all that badly anyway.
He’d been driving for the better part of an hour since then, and Tommy estimated he had another two to go. He hoped Maddy and the kids hadn’t been out when it happened. They’d argued before he left that morning, and truthfully the night before as well, and when they argued she tended to find reasons to go into town for a cup of coffee and a lunch she hadn’t been the one to make.
“Come on baby,” Tommy said, slapping the bulldozer’s rusty controls, trying to urge a little more speed out of the behemoth.
It didn’t work. The machine went at its own pace, and Tommy, never a man to be left alone with himself, could only watch, and wait, and steer.
It was not entirely dark, though Tommy had no word for what little light there was. By its dull silver-gray he could see other motorists from time to time. Most had pulled to the side of the small two lane road. One, at the switchback bend of a mountain, had simply stopped in the middle of his lane.
All of them stood outside their cars, mouths agape, staring up into the darkened sky.
They were stupid, Tommy decided. Stupid or cowardly, folk too simple to adapt to the situation like Tommy himself had. He wasn’t about to be one of them. Nothing would stop him short of home, and if Maddy and the kids weren’t there, short of wherever they were. For all of Tommy’s faults, and there were very, very many, he loved his family.
He passed the time as he’d always thought he should; rehearsing apologies. Tommy couldn’t even remember what they’d been arguing about the night before. He’d been drinking, he always did, and it had spilled over to the morning when he refused to even admit that he didn’t know why they were fighting.
Tommy resolved that if he somehow saw wildflowers through the unnatural ocean of night around him, he would allow himself to stop for that. Maddy loved flowers, and try as he might he couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten her any.
Tommy drove on. Near John Blue bridge the motorists were thicker, two cars had actually stopped side by side, blocking the way. They were small, imported things, made more of plastic than of steel and he pushed them both out of the way with ease. Their drivers didn’t look at him as he did, not even when one of them crashed up against the guardrail on the far side and then broke through, falling with a sickening crunch and splash into the river beneath. The drivers stood there, transfixed at the bridge’s center, looking up.
It was colder without the sun, but Tommy broke out in a feverish sweat at that. They’d reminded him of dead drunk men, focused on the one girl in the bar they knew they could never have, eyes glazed over with imaginings and a crippling lack of shame.
Tommy had never lacked shame himself. It was part of the problem with Maddy.
He drove on still, two hours left became one. One became minutes, and soon he was trundling up the drive to the trailer turned house that Maddy’s father had gifted them when they married. Her car was in the yard. The kids' bikes were there as well. Tommy breathed a long, shaking sigh of relief.
He stopped the bulldozer a few feet from the door, mourning his lack of flowers. Three hours in the dark and he’d never come up with anything better than blind luck, and even that had failed him. But he was home, and so was she, and that, in a world gone mad, was all that mattered.
“Maddy?” Tommy called. “Maddy?”
He leapt down from the bulldozer’s seat and caught a glimpse of strawberry blond through the trees on the garden path. Maddy, and both the kids. They stood stock still, staring straight up at the sky.
She wore her favorite dress, the one she’d spent too much money on the year before, and that they’d argued over for days after. She wore it like a badge of honor, its fall across the swell of her hips cutting at him with the remembered weight of things he’d said.
Even with that, she looked shockingly beautiful. She always did.
“Maddy!” he shouted. Then, “Lindsay? John?”
None of them responded. Maddy’s mouth fell open slightly. She swayed from side to side, as if caught in beat of distant music.
Behind him, the bulldozer sputtered and died. Its roar rang through Tommy’s ears for a few moments longer as he ran towards his family. He reached them, taking Maddy in his arms. She felt small, fragile. Her head lolled back when he shook her, she didn’t respond to her name, either her real one or the old pet name he’d used in the dark since high school.
The ringing faded, the last notes of the bulldozer died, and Tommy began to hear something else.
There was a subtle wrongness in the world, an absent ache. He couldn’t place it, only feel it, like he’d been to the quick of a body part he’d never known he had.
“Maddy?” Tommy said one last time.
In the wake of her name, a song whispered into being. It was no music Tommy had ever heard, a thing made of notes men hadn’t discovered. It thrilled through him, then settled into his muscles like the lazy ache of a long day’s work. It called his gaze up, towards the sky he’d never even looked at once since the sun went out, too focused had he been on the road home and the family who now stood transfixed before him.
Tommy turned, arm slipping unconsciously around his wife’s waist, and he saw the thing that sang.
It was the moon, peeking too early over the horizon. It was a great disk of blacks and grays and silvers, and the voice was unquestionably its own. It forced its way into him, expanding into a great and terrible beauty as his warmth bled out and his muscles grew slack, his face pale.
He realized then, that Maddy was shaking faintly. Tommy tried to turn himself back towards her. He failed. He tried to say a million things, a million apologies as the moon rose too fast on the horizon, as it expanded and grew and its song drove the ring of heavy machinery out of his ears.
He couldn’t say any of them.
“I…love…you…” Tommy said instead, struggling out the words.
The song rose to a crescendo in his mind. They were the last words Tommy ever said.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
If you enjoyed that I've got tons more over at r/TurningtoWords. Come check it out, I'd love to have you!
|
"Respect the natural hymn, as order favors the original"
They say as a man ages up, their body gets taller, their voices coarser than it ever have been before but their hearing, people say, gets worse. Now, we know that the ringing sound in the ear was not only caused by tinnitus but, for a small number of us at least, the ringing was caused by the sun.
I remember the peaceful days back then, food was plenty and there's a lot of things I can do. Swimming in the ocean, enjoying the sunset from the mountains, watching the Aurora Borealis. How I've missed those days of just living my life how I wanted to. Sure, there are wars here and then and people could actually die of hunger back then, but compared to now, back then was an utopia.
Today, the government had released the report about the 'blink'. As it turns out, turning the sun on and off was somebody's idea. But these government officials didn't expect for there to be something else within the sun that needs help to be turned on again. After all, we could only see what we can see. After the blink, all birds flew into space, suffocating and drowning as a result. Fishes and sea life flocked towards the shore. All of them died. Even ants went extinct. It was extremely bizarre, the ants all decided to lay on their back and they stayed in that position until they died of hunger.
I wish that was all that had happened, but then the war started. It started when North Korea suddenly started to bomb everybody. Evidently, their economy tanked as their fishermen aren't able to find any sea life. Naturally, they blamed America for trying to reset the sun, and causing all their fishes to die. The countries then proceeded to use their nuclear bomb, causing the earth to be bombed 3 times over at the very least. Unfortunately, around 95% of humans died. The rest who were still alive all live in bunkers and they (including me) can't go out for at least 500 years.
As of now, my future looks bleak. So, I'm trying my best to record and document about the information that may be of use to the future generations living in the bunker as I don't think their future can be any worse than mine. For when the world finally recovers, the planet may once more be a beautiful place and I believe humans will get to see and enjoy it again.
| 2021-08-28T09:49:47
| 2021-08-28T09:44:51
| 88
| 16
|
[WP] You are a contestant in a million dollar challenge, 1 year in a room with no human contact. After a year you watch as the timer mounted to the wall flips from 000:00:00:00 to -000:00:00:01 and keep counting down but no one shows up to let you out and receive your prize.
|
"Hey Hanz, what's that banging noise?"
"Oh, that's coming from the room with that guy who's spending a year in isolation. He's a day early, though. I'm sure he wouldn't want to throw out his prize money this far into it."
"Oh. Isn't he normally quiet?"
"Yeah, he's probably just celebrating getting really close to the end. He has a countdown timer in there anyway. Like I said, last day. Probably opening that bottle of brandy we left him."
"I dunno. They're sounding more frantic. Could there be a problem?"
"I don't think so. He wasn't showing any signs or symptoms on the camera just a little while ago. Wait... What year is it?"
"2020."
"Oh, fuck."
"What?"
***"WE FORGOT ABOUT THE LEAP YEAR!"***
|
A gap year in life. Some would look at that as a waste, for me, it was more than just an opportunity.
The first few months were tough, but they took care of themselves. Even if time moves slow, it does move. Within a couple of weeks, I felt like Bart Simpson, endlessly writing "Time still moves forward" thousands of times on the blackboard of my mind.
As an introvert, I thought that spending a year on my own would be a dream come true.
Instead, two months in I was caught up on shows. I brought a ton of books with me. But all I found myself doing was walking around endlessly, or simply stopping and staring at the wall.
Five months in and the routine set in. I added bodyweight training, dancing, and Yoga to my routine. I started writing a short story every day. I even started to meditate.
I wish I was one of them organized people who would set a schedule, with a task list for the day. I'm not even talking about checking these tasks off of a list. Making the list would have been enough. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those people.
Eight months in, and my routine was what kept me going. Everything had to go perfectly or my mental state for weeks to come would be hinged. Routine was my savior.
Eleven months in, and I found my zen. Routine, stare at the wall, scream at a book. It was all the same to me. I found a feeling of contentedness I never knew was possible.
People speak of finding happiness. Happiness to me was a fleeting moment in time. Being content was a state of being.
Today, in 30 seconds, I am going to be let out. I am not excited, at all.
Don't get me wrong, I do feel butterflies in my stomach, and I do look forward to seeing my family, and even the sky. But I'm calm. I'm content. I don't even look at the clock to count the second.
15 seconds before, I stand up. I align my body in a solid posture, and I smile.
"Ten."
Yep, I'm counting!
"Nine."
Almost there.
"Eight."
Excitement suddenly spreads all over my body, starting in my stomach and spreading through my body to my limbs, all the way to my toes.
"Seven. Six. Five. Four."
I smile.
"Three. Two."
I hold my breath. I feel my face smiling. I don't feel happy, and yet I'm smiling. I must be happy. Why else would I smile?
"One."
"ZERO!" I jump up releasing energy I didn't even know I had.
"YEAH!" I shout.
I ready my hand for a high five for whoever walks through the door.
I hold it up.
Ten seconds pass.
"Leaving me out to dry here guys.
I read the clock. '1 year, 15 seconds.'
What's going on guys?
I start to feel stressed out. I'm unsure what's going on. I look around. I walk to the door and back. I knock.
No response.
A million and one thoughts run through my head. From a practical joke to the zombie apocalypse. Someone though, was sending me food and drink through the shute every day. People are still out there.
"GUYS. THIS IS NOT.. Okay, it can be funny." I smirk. "Now open the door."
"I suppose this could be an scifi alien abduction flic, and I'll get beamed up any second. Maybe..."
Panic hits me. I turn around myself aimlessly. I knock hard at the door with my fists.
I breathe in. I am calm.
I sit on the floor cross-legged, and wait.
Precisely ten minutes and 34 seconds later, trust me, I checked, the door cracks open slightly.
I imagine a Chinese guy walking in and telling me of the fall of the US of A, and how he drew the short straw to be the one to tell me.
The door opens, and Mike, the producer who recruited me for this reality show walks in.
"Phew! I'm happy to see you Mike. Can I go home now?"
"Yes."
I look Mike in the eye. "Yes?"
"Yes."
"I kind of expected more."
"You should have done something to raise the ratings then. Feel free to sue us, but we ain't paying you crap."
He turned around, and started walking.
"Not even the zombie apocalypse?"
"The what?"
"You're just not going to pay?
"You should have read your contract better. I'm sure you'll be able to make money from a book. Try that."
A prompt appears in my sight. I move my head around trying to shake it, but it moves with me.
"You have failed at life. Would you like to start a new game?"
I don't hesitate even for a second.
I answer no, run after Mike, and stab his toe with my right heel.
I look around. I smile.
"Now this has potential."
&#x200B;
Edit: If you like, join my new subreddit [/r/posthocethics](https://www.reddit.com/r/posthocethics/)/ where you can read my writing. Sometimes I'll go crazy and even post a meme or two.
| 2019-07-03T00:53:00
| 2019-07-02T23:40:43
| 1,156
| 45
|
[WP] You run a tattoo parlor. Every couple of weeks, the same customer comes in, always requesting the same tattoo: an additional tally mark on an ever-growing cluster of tally marks.
|
"What'll it be this time, sweetheart?"
"Hey, Sean, how are you? Can I just get another tally, right where you put the last ones?"
"Mmm."
*This would be around the fifth or sixth time I worked on her. She was a real quiet one, real tall and skinny, too. Like her folks had tied a dumbbell to her legs when she was a kid and just held her over a balcony. Pretty sure she was just outta college, too; what sort of idiot decides to get a couple of tally marks for their first tat? Buncha college kids with too much time on their hands, that's who.*
*Man, I swear, kids these days don't know a goddamn thing. Getting all uppity and whatnot over the stupidest shit, like bathrooms and lives or something like that. Don't make no difference to me if a dyke walks in my bathroom, long as she's got the right equipment and keeps her hands to herself. Fucking kids, man, I can't stand'em. Always bitching about something.*
"Excuse me, Sean, are you alright?"
*Fuck, I zoned out there for a minute.*
"I'm fine, I'm fine, just thinking is all." I coughed a little to cover it up. "Lemme get my stuff warmed up and we'll have you outta here in no time, eh?"
*Something was wrong. Usually whenever I told her we were abouta get started, she'd look up to me with these big, puppy dog eyes and a little grin that swallowed her cheeks. Today, it almost looked like she shirked away from me. Like she was scared of somethin'.*
"Um, uh, Sean?" *Goddammit.*
"What is it, sweetie?" *I swear to God if she starts bawling or trying to tell me the significance of these goddamn tally marks.*
"D-do you, d'you mind if we talk for a little?" *Fuck me with a broomstick.*
"Of course, pumpkin, whadya wanna talk about?" *First I gotta deal with my wife, now this.*
"The tally marks." She looked like she was afraid I was gotta sock her in the jaw, her eyes were terrified. *Where the fuck did the puppy dog eyes go?*
"Y'know, I've always wondered about those. What d'those mean, anyways? You counting down to something? Or counting up?" I rested my leg my stool and stared into her eyes. For a scrawny one, she was quite the looker. She had her hair done real tight in one of them fancy braids, and it was draped across her shoulder. The tip of the thing landed at her chest, like it wanted me to look or somethin'.
"See, that's the thing." *Poor thing looked like she was gonna wet herself. She better hold, if she knows what's good for her. Damn seat almost cost me a thousand bucks, had to get a loan on it and everything. Can you believe that? A loan on a fucking chair. It's a good thing Randall owes me one, that rat-faced fuck, says I can pay'em back whenever.*
I held up my hand all smooth like, like how those crossing guards do when they wanna stop traffic. The cocksuckers. "A-hup hup hup hup hup. Wait just a second there, Missy, you ain't gotta tell me unless you really wanna. Are you sure you wanna tell me?" *Please say no.*
She looked absolutely dedicated to the fact that she was abouta spill her guts to a complete stranger. Didn't even know her name, for Chrissake. "Well, yeah. I have to tell somebody." She was wipin' away tears now, her face was all red and whatnot, snot drooping outta her nose like it was a leaky soft serve machine.
"We got all the time in the world, sweetheart. What is it?" *Wait, isn't this the part in the movies where the girl gushes her heart out and the guy uses this as a chance to fuck her?*
"Well, I, uh, I don't know how to say this," she started stammering between fits of nervous laughter. *Ho boy, here come the water works. No movie tropes today.*
"Take your time." *I swear to God if she says they're about the lives thing.*
"Wow, just, wow. I can't believe I'm saying this, but here it goes." She was a complete mess now, just a hot, stinking mess of tears, runny make up, and snot. *Now I know I've seen* this *before. Wasn't it in that porno Micah let me borrow?*
It was time to lay'er out. I could see Vincent out of the corner of my eye, just loitering outside. *Dammit, Vincent's good money, that punk always has something cheeky he wants done.* "Don't mean to disturb you or anything, babe, but I got my next appointment in ten, so could we wrap this up?"
*That was* definitely *the killing blow. It's now or never for Miss Deeper Meaning.* She sucked in a bunch of air and heaved it out. "These tally marks don't mean anything and I don't want them anymore and I don't know why I got them wait that's a lie I know exactly why I got them I got them because Kennedy and her boyfriend got matching henna on their wrists and then Jasper told me she was doing this thing with the skull and crossbones because of the recent shootings and even Tony, can you believe it? Even Tony was getting tatted for every month we refused to let in the refugees and ugh, I just can't anymore I don't know why all my friends are so great and I'm just kind of here, you know?"
*Jesus fucking Christ, the broad's got some lungs. Phelps' got another thing coming, my God.* "Wait, so what you're telling me is, you got ink permanently etched on your body because you wanted to play 'Keeping up with the Joneses?'"
She wiped the snot and shit off her face with her hoodie sleeve. What she said next, I will never forget. "Don't you mean 'the Kardashians?'"
"Get the fuck outta my shop."
|
"Brooke, he's here again." my assistant informed me. I took a look at the way he's looking and there it is, my favorite customer.
I never really got the chance to ask him why but every couple of weeks, without fail, he comes here just to get inked with a tic to add on his almost-covered right arm of endless other tics. I've always thought, because based on his appearance he looks like he's still kind of young and we're on the same age, it was just for "aesthetic" or whatever hipster thing the kids call it nowadays. But this-- this is getting ridiculous. It's been three years since he made it a habit to come to my shop.
He did his usual thing, with a frown plastered on his face, he took a seat without a word, closed his eyes and waited for the needle to make contact with his skin. I needn't even to say a word for he will just answer me with a nod or a shrug so what's the point. I already know what I should do, given those three years. And after getting inked he will pay, let me keep the change if there's any, and leave the shop without a trace. Then I go on with my normal life.
But this time, I decided to give my life a little spice.
After he left, I told my assistant to manage the shop while I'm out, and then hurried outside to see where the customer went. Without him noticing, I followed him until he stopped on a cafe. But it seems like he still isn't where he wanted to be.
"Adam, you've done it again. You need to stop this." I saw someone approaching him, holding out his right arm and examining it. "Riley won't like the idea of you hurting yourself."
"But I deserve this." I heard Adam reply. "I never felt her hurt. I was dense. I was never there for her when she needed me. I deserve to feel her hurt."
"Look it wasn't your fault that Riley was hurting. Besides, you were the only one who truly understood her--"
"But never fully! You see? I wasn't even good enough to know why she took her own life. I never knew her that deep! I wasn't trustworthy for her."
"Adam, you know that's not true!" the woman sighed. "You have to move on, Adam. I may not know Riley that much but I know that's what she wants for you."
Adam walked away.
| 2016-07-09T12:12:31
| 2016-07-09T09:19:24
| 37
| 14
|
[WP] Write two small stories with the exact same words in the same order, but with punctuation giving them completely different meanings.
[deleted]
|
Set Free:
And at the last second I saw her stepping onto the train. I realized I would never see her again. Powerless, I watched her fade.
And at the last second I saw her. Stepping onto the train I realized I would never see her again. Powerless, I watched her fade.
|
The moment I left, or the only moment left:
-“Stay close.” Your eyes: hope.
-“No, I have to go away.”
-“Don't leave me alone.” Now fear.
-Love, it makes everything... Better go now.
-"Stay. Close your eyes, Hope."
-"No!"
-"I have to."
-"Go away! Don't! Leave me alone now!"
-"Fear... Love it. Makes everything better. Go now..."
| 2015-09-23T10:11:20
| 2015-09-23T10:05:10
| 361
| 18
|
[WP] You've been magically gifted the ability to speak all languages. Anything you say comes out in the first language of whoever you're looking at. One day, you try to greet someone on the street and they gape in horror as ancient, unknowable eldritch sounds exit your mouth. The ground shakes...
|
The ground shaking was the first warning, the first sign, the first intimation that somewhere, somehow, the boon I had been granted was unmaking something vital within the realms outside of normal reality. I pursed my lips and watched the reaction of the man in front of me with bated breath. If this truly was his first language, he would recognise me.
His eyes widened, and he turned back, staring at my hair, my face—a body that was not truly mine. My boon, such as it had been explained, would allow me to commune with anyone—any*thing*—that I might see. What had not been spoken of was the transformation I had been forced to endure. For anything that knows so much could not remain of simple terrene matter.
But still, he saw me for who I used to be. What I used to be. He recognised the authority behind my words. Another syllable and the ground shook again—but only for us. Passersby shied away, searching for the source of their sudden discomfort, unable to fathom why so many others gave myself and my companion such a wide berth.
His voice was low, replying in English. "Natalya?"
I nodded, it was one of the many names I had used throughout the countless years. Centuries. Millennia. Eons. Always seeking power, seeking a lever which might do more than unmake a single seal. A craft, a spell, a deodand that could shatter the eldritch bonds separating this body from my master's. Perhaps it was something as ephemeral as a chance meeting.
Tuning myself back to the *lingua franca* of this time and place I replied. "The web between the worlds has not forgotten you, Gregor." The knife was in my hand and buried in his heart before he could take another breath. I spoke once more in the ancient tongue, the facade beside me crumbling further with each horrifying syllable. "Neither have we forgotten your betrayal."
A little push, just a finger's worth of effort, and he fell to the side, crumpled against the sidewalk. Blood stained his jacket, but I left him the knife, kneeling to whisper in his ear. "Finding you for him has cost too much…" I ripped the dagger from his heart, blackened blood splattering across shocked bystanders.
"You will thank me," I palmed the dagger, fixing it in the scabbard at my back, under the light coat I was forced to wear to hide the worst of my transformations. "Watch his face. Watch it closely."
On the pavement the skin of Gregor's face was pulling taut, as if some invisible force was attempting to scalp him. His jaw lengthened, distinctive fangs growing from within his canines. From around his midsection something uncoiled, hitting the ground with an audible thud, stretching as his corpse lost the magics hiding it in plain sight.
I had already climbed halfway up the facade, the crowd so fixated on the ophidian silhouette before them. With my legs the slacks I had worn were torn to shreds. Each of my four true arms slashed through my jacket. Eight spined and bladed limbs grasped at the facade, and my human form everted, turning painfully inside out. My head emerged between my true legs, and my back breasts swelled to the great, furred abdomen of which I was so accustomed.
That my pedipalps so resemble human arms is truly useful for camouflage. That my body can still shift between realms even when I cannot. For who could fail to be terrified by a half-human spider with limbs and spine in all the wrong places? They may think me monstrous.
But Gregor—which, as one may have guessed, is not his true name—he is something worse. A mother must protect her children. A father should care for them. But Gregor… he is the true monster. He and his kind, an entire brood of my children… mere snacks for his serpentine kin. My own kin cast me out for *his* betrayal. They sealed me away in this drear and mundane place.
The sign is cracking… I can feel a freedom from long ago. A call above the inconsequential lives below. I can spin the web between worlds again and return to my master. The one who's broodling I am. I will return to his embrace, and one day I may foster another brood. But not with those ophidian monsters.
Never again.
All spiders hate the snake.
|
Deep below the surface lay the ferocious flame dragon. Growling he opened his bright yellow eyes, lashing out with his claws at the first object he saw. Engulfed in rage by the fact that he had been woken, from what he thought was death.
Why was I awake flooded the dragons mind. Slowly rising, he tried flapping his wings. No joy. How could he possibly expect to fly. After all he had been locked away by deaths curse. Yet to wake up from this curse was unthinkable. Bruises and cuts were all across his scaly skin.
DIIIIINNNGGG!!! DIIIIINNNGGG!!!
“Hello? Okay sir calm down we cannot hear you... I see, well then. We will do everything we can to sort out the situation and prevent any harm to the public from occurring.”
“Thh...anks.”
“ What was that about boss?”
“Bad news.He has been woken up. Ferocious flame has risen from deaths curse.”
“ Oh my gosh. How do we stop him from reaching the surface.”
“ It is too late for that. I know your unfamiliar with ferocious flame, one of the creatures on our exiled files.”
“Then tell me me is there another way?”
“He is on his way up as we speak soon he would have reached the surface...”
The way these two ladies gazed at me was frightening. What had I said that was so bad? Especially for them to react like this. Their mouths hung open. In absolute shock they covered their mouths while shaking their heads at me. I turned around to see if anything was behind me. Nothing was there. But I did feel a rumble beneath my feet.
“What is the prob...lem?”
Gone. They had completely disappeared from the area, leaving no traces behind. A puzzled expression took over my face. A few sounds couldn’t have done that much harm. Could it?
Yes, the noises that came out of my mouth were slightly weird. Although it’s not as if I summoned some ancient monster ( I chuckled to myself) that would be impossible. No man has the ability to do that. That’s only the sort of power you would see from a cartoon on tv.
The longer I walked back the more puzzled I became. Of all the languages that I can speak, the one time I decide to not even bother speaking one and greet someone, this is the reaction I get. I will never understand it for the life of me.
“LOOK OUT!!!”
Sharply turning my head I couldn’t see any danger. Until I looked up. I could see the debris that was about to fall onto me. Yet I still stood there, frozen, stuck to the ground like glue. I could hear footsteps vastly approaching me. It was almost as if time had frozen for a second. That’s when my legs gave way, sending me flying off the ground.
I took a quick look behind me. Just to see who or what had sent me flying. That’s when I saw them, five people dressed in full armoured body gear. They were actually holding up the giant piece of debris. It’s crazy how just a few seconds ago, I would have been crushed like a worm underneath this.
“3,2,1... HEAVE”
“Woah, that’s pretty impressive stuff”
I began to applaud the heroics that these guys had just pulled off. To not only throw a brick that heavy to the side, but to actually hold it up as well. Insane stuff in my opinion. Backtracking to what had just happened, I got back up off the floor. Still clapping as I walked towards them.
“So can tell me what is happening here?”
“We are the ones who asks the questions not you”
“Excuse me”
Their response confused me. Had they not just saved my life? All I was doing was thanking them for that. Was this such a crime?
“ Are you him?”
“Him being who?”
“We we’re informed earlier today from an anonymous caller. That someone had told us that there was a person speaking weird and ghostly chants. After hearing this two women were incomplete shock.”
“Oh my that’s unbelievable. I wonder who that was.”
“Yes. So do we. As soon as we find the culprit, we will take them in for questioning.”
A sharp pain began to take place in my chest. What they had just told me, I just couldn’t seem to digest. Thinking back to my earlier thoughts, such as it’s not as if I had summoned a monster or something. As well as chuckling to myself, was it really possible.Had I actually summoned a monster?
Almost as if on cue the ground began to shake. Cracks began to ripple through the concrete. That’s when I heard the growl...
“RRROOOAAARRR!!!”
“Everybody run!!!”
I started to speed off, stopping for a quick glance to see what had emerged from the ground. As I saw what appeared to be a 20ft dragon. My body began to shake, sending me crumbling to the ground. Heavy footsteps were approaching me and there was nothing I could do.
BOOM.BOOM.BOOM.
Looking above me I could see the rage in this monsters eyes. Sweat trickled down my forehead. The beast towered above me. Crawling into a ball was the only way I knew how to protect myself. This was beyond fear. Complete terror entered my soul. Slowly this creature took in a deep breath.
FFFGGGHHH!!!
Spouts of flame began to exit his mouth. I could feel the blazing heat from all the way down here. All I could do was stare. Stare as I watched the flame leave its mouth, then make its way towards me. It all seemed to be happening in slow motion. My mind began to flashback to the last few hours. The weird noises that left my mouth. The startled expression that was on those ladies faces. The group of people who held up the boulder. Had it all led to this?
I took one last look at everything. The outside world, then I closed my eyes. I could feel the hot air on the side of my face. It burnt a lot. Preparing my self for the worst, I breathed out. Then I breathed in one more time. What would usually feel like a few seconds, felt like I was breathing in for a few hours.
I couldn’t cope, my brain was beginning to shut off. The longer I endured this heat. The more pain I felt. I had just enough energy to take one last look. That’s when my mind went blank...
| 2019-01-11T15:55:30
| 2019-01-11T13:32:05
| 36
| 10
|
[WP] Yesterday your best friend (who you secretly had a crush on) died. You're teleported without warning to a seat at a table. Across from you is Death and Satan, next to you is your best friend. "Sorry." Death says, "You're friend chose a two-versus-two game."
Edit: I get it. "Your" not "You're". It was late and I kept rewriting that part of the prompt. I will never live down the shame of my grammatical error.
|
"Ok, so a 2v2. What's the game?"
Death's eyes twinkled. "A 2v2 beerpong."
My grin grows wider than Death's. Samantha, you clever shit. "What's the catch?"
"Impossible angles with terrible bouncing surfaces. The difficulty of each target increases per cup achieved. What starts out as a pyramid formation of cups on a hard surface table might turn to an upside down ring of cups with a vertical sofa for a bouncing surface."
"But I need to only get it in before it falls out?"
"We're not unreasonable."
My grin returns like it's never been gone. "Then what's the catch?"
|
Sorry on mobile formatting might suck. I'm also like 20% awake have fun and let me know what you think.
"So why am I here" I asked death as two or Sarah sat facing each other unblinking.
"Well anyone with enough mojo to bring back the dead is obligated to accept atleast one challenge to restore life" death said with a grin in her voice.
"Yes but why am I here, I haven't died yet" a sudden doubt filled my stomach with lead "have I?"
"No you're not dead just yet. Just a little glitch occurred and your friend is in a rematch, with Lucifer"
"How does that work?"
"She challenged Lucifer to a no holds barred staring contest"
"She poked him in the eyes, didn't she?"
"Yes she did"
"She plays dirty, but that doesn't explain why I am here"
"Well, after she won the first game she was free to return to the land of the living, but Lucy has always been a sore looser."
"Oh?"
"She is going double or nothing, and you get to decide the game"
"Why on Earth would she go double or nothing with her own soul?"
"If she looses she dies and goes to hell"
"But could be worth that risk!?!"
"Oh don't worry about that, she has her reasons, just name the game. I can't wait to see how this plays out"
"Fine one condition, I'm playing and paying the cost not her"
"Agreed"
"20 questions"
"That's a new one" death voice filled with surprise. "Name the specifics"
"Simple, I get to ask twenty yes or no questions, that must answer honestly"
"Lucy please come here and play this game, I shall keep an eye on our young Sarah"
Lucifer smiled broadly as we settled into chairs.
"You have balls my boy, challenging the prince of lies to a game of truth"
"Did it hurt when she poked you in the eyes?"
"Yes, 19 left"
"Shit, I didn't mean that as my first question!"
"The me is in the details boy" he giggled.
"Alright, did you extort her into this deal?"
"Yes, but that's hardly surprising, it's what I do, 18"
"Was she angry about what you said?"
"Yes, she was quite livid about the whole affair, 17"
......
"Look, there are only six questions left you can ask her about you conceed and I will take you to hell and death can take her to the next life"
"Wait, I am going to hell?" I asked dumbfounded
"Yes, you sold me your soul in exchange for a PlayStation when you were nine, five left"
"Shit that's embarrassing"
"Yeah, I didn't even give you controllers"
"Wow you are a spiteful one"
"It's the job, keep going"
"So she poked you in the eyes and you decided to get even, and when I was nine you left out the impliied controllers, and you offered her something to get her riled up"
"That is accurate but doesn't include a question"
"Did you threaten to have someone she cares about?"
"Yes, I threatened her soulmate four left"
"Do I know her soulmate?"
"Yes, three left."
"Is it someone I know?"
"Yes, two left before your both dead, pick carefully"
"Is this person dead?"
"Not yet but soon, last question before you have to give your final answer"
"Did you threaten to take me to hell as reprisal for her poking you in the eye?"
"Yes I did"
"I have an answer."
"She risked everything for me."
| 2019-01-09T02:35:43
| 2019-01-09T01:30:27
| 36
| 14
|
[WP] Foreshadow the character's death so subtly that I still don't see it coming even though I requested it.
|
I'm going to die today.
The doctor is giving me a run down of what will happen when we pull the plug. It will be painless, he says. Despite his reassurance, I can't help but be afraid. I glance over to my wife, my one true happiness in life, and begin to tear up. I can't handle the fact that I will never see her again. I pull her in for one last embrace.
I look back at the doctor and tell him I'm ready.
He gives me a slight nod, and slowly shuts off my wife's life support.
-
Edit : Thank you all for the kind words, when I wrote this obviously I could not have anticipated that it would be so well accepted. I'm glad that a good bunch of you enjoyed this story, as much as I enjoyed writing it.
|
*'Easy'*, I tell myself. Nothing's going to go wrong.
Left turn, three sharp and consecutive corners to the right, a hairpin, and a long, long straight to the end.
I know the car. I *know* my copilot, and she knows me. She trusts me with her life.
We're going to win this, retire, and have a nice, comfortable life. *I can do this.*
Alright. Alright. Enough thinking. Watch the road.
This is *not* unfamiliar Finnish dirt. This is easy, simple, English countryside.
I can do this.
The pace notes are coming nice and steadily, just like how I want them, and if my internal clock is working right, I'm pretty sure I'll come out on top in terms of timings by this stage.
Everything's perfect, just-
*No.* No. I can't be losing grip, not now. I am *not* going to tip over.
*Yes,* Kris, I'm decelerating, goddamnit.
Countersteer. Come on, come on, do *not* fail me now, Lancer. You can do-
Black. Pitch black. Ears ringing. I feel dizzy.
*Ouch*.
Where am I?
Oh. Oh.
Alright. Get the engine off. Steering wheel's next. Okay, the door. Slowly.
My right arm feels like someone took a sledgehammer to it. It's fine. I need to get help.
*Wait*. Where's Kris?
God, god, no.
Please tell me she's fine. She *has* to be fine.
She's not breathing. I need to get help. Where's the damn ambulance?
Where's the safety car? The people who were behind us must have seen us and radioed for help.
I'll... Just... The road.
Oh, god. My ankles. But *Kris*.
Fuck it. I'll crawl. I'll crawl.
Almost... to the road. Almost.
There. Yes, I see it. Isn't that a car, over there?
Why is it coming so fast? Are we that seriously injured?
No. No. It's a fellow rally car. It can't still be thinking that the race is still on, right? No. Slow down.
Jesus, I can't get out of the way in time. Heaven help me.
Help me, God, help me, anyone!
*Mama*. Ma-
| 2015-06-03T08:22:01
| 2015-06-03T06:26:43
| 2,420
| 14
|
[WP] You suddenly realize you left Earth.exe open over night. What was supposed to be a simple simulation has instead generated a "Humans" folder that is rapidly increasing in size.
|
I rush to the computer; I had come over as quickly as possible after realizing my mistake. A sim left running on a supercomputer, what could be the harm? Well, frankly, I did not want to discover the answer to that. I could just go in and delete everything; the program itself was already backed up on my personal computer.
I sat and put in my personal code to unlock the computer. Deep breath, its ok. Hopefully there won’t be zettabytes of data used up for a stupid sim. No one will discover it even if it has. The intern will still get supercomputer access come tomorrow. Hopefully. Nothing is wrecked, all is ok. Deep breath.
The new files displayed in the program folder were large but not incapacitating. I can work with this. Huh, that’s weird. A folder marked “Humans” was expanding. All the new files were expanding, but this one was eating up terabytes to the extreme. It was accelerating at an alarming pace. Changing from 2EB then 5EB in a second. Now 10EB. The computer had a lot of storage space, this was nothing, but at this rate that space would be eaten up in a day or two. Thank goodness the file was relatively new.
I glance at the clock. I have a time before anyone comes in. I’m usually here before everyone else anyway. I click on “Earth.exe”. What have I created?
A beautiful blue and green planet pops up. It was still molten when I started the program. I had wanted to create a world from the very beginning. I knew some of the other sim freaks liked to copy and paste from other people’s worlds and change it to their liking. I had always wanted to create from scratch though and this job had been my chance. Access to a supercomputer meant I could model a true beginning. I had used the master program all sim freaks used to create their worlds in “Universe.exe” but only because it took so long to create a universe that it was hardly any fun.
I zoomed in to a piece of land my program said contained a large amount of “humans”. They were hairy, bipedal, and frankly pretty gross. They had made things though, stone arrows, baskets, even some clay pots. How was this possible? Without me here no technology should have started. It’s so primitive, maybe it was just a fluke of the program.
I minimize the screen and bring up a chat box with freakysim49.
Freakysim49: So what happened? Did your planet cool without you?
Phangirl27: It made things
Freakysim49: Things?
Phangirl27: “Humans” it calls them
Freakysim49: Weird, I told you you should use “Earthlings”. Did they come out with all the tentacles you wanted?
Phangirl27: I didn’t make this! They happened on their own! How is this possible?
Freakysim49: Do you mean they evolved?
Freakysim49: I heard that happens sometimes. It’s pretty easy to make something to kill them. Just program a bug.
Phangirl27: They already have primitive technology, they evolve so fast.
Freakysim49 is typing.
I minimize the chat and bring up “Earth” again. The humans are gone. I locate the coordinates for a large population and zoom. Now they are fighting each other, with swords. Some are wearing armor. How do they evolve so fast? Normally it takes months; years even to get this kind of progress.
I pull the chat back up
Freakysim49: Kill them off or they’ll get annoying. Once they discover medicine it’s hard to fight. Or abandon them, they’ll eventually starve or the star will explode or whatever.
Phangirl27: I’ll try “plague.exe”
Freakysim49: Harsh
On “Earth” the humans have evolved their swords and were now proclaiming a lot about a “one true god”. I run the program and watch as their population starts dipping. That’s when I notice this isn’t the only concentration of humans. They are freaking everywhere. No continent but the one of ice in the south is without them. They seem more like the plague at this point. I watch as the amount dead rises. It gets up to 30%. Shouldn’t be long now, it’s even spreading to other continents. The number rises a bit more then levels out.
Phangirl27: Dammit it didn’t work
Freakysim49: Plague didn’t work?
Freakysim49: Damn your world is messed up. How are you going to get rid of them?
Phangirl27: At least they’re still fighting each other; maybe they’ll kill themselves off.
Now the humans have developed rudimentary medicine and science. They are increasing rapidly in population. The plague did nothing, barely even slowed them. They have explored nearly the entire world. They have religion that guides them. They use and abuse the world and its non-sentient creatures. How do I stop them?
Freakysim49: Some advance sims, where the life gets technology, can be destroyed. But you have to help them get there. Run “AI.exe”
I click on the program. It’s a program for the creation of artificial intelligence. In no time the artificial intelligence should destroy anything that evolved.
The humans have already started flying. I run the program. It warns that it may take a while before the artificial intelligence has been made, but the idea should start entering the population pretty quickly. There’s an explosion of written and visual art exploring the idea of artificial intelligence. Didn’t take long. They left planet?? Its only to the moon, but still I haven’t seen anything evolve like this. They can’t get of world, not truly. The master program, “Universe.exe” wouldn’t allow it. Their technology is getting good. They are sending probes out of world. Strange.
Phangirl27: They can’t leave Earth, right?
Freakysim49: Nah. I’ve seen a couple make it to moons or close asteroids but nothing off planet. Occasionally you’ll get far-flung probes. They eventually are lost in the universe though.
Freakysim49: Has the AI killed them yet?
Some simple AI programs are starting to come out. Nothing intelligent enough to evolve on its own, not yet.
Freakysim49: Get them off my planet!
Phangirl27: What?
I check the log. How? How did they get to another world? I placed it pretty close to Freaysim49’s “Mars” because I thought it would be nice to be in the same solar system.
Freakysim49: Now they’re mining! I’m going to send a plague unless you get them off.
Phangirl27: I’m sorry, I don’t know how this is happening!
Phangirl27: Kill them, whatever you need to do.
Freakysim49: This is messed up.
Freakysim49: This is setting back my planet decades!
Phangirl27: Sorry!
The artificial intelligence is now starting to evolve. Humans build more and more robots with AI. These humans are smart but the AIs should be able to take them out pretty quickly. The plague on Mars worked, those humans are dead. Whew. Now the AIs are starting to kill humans. I watch as the death toll rises; 20% dead, now 32%. It passes 50% and I let out a breath. Much better than the plague. They should be all gone soon. Kinda sad, those things were resilient and resourceful. How did they make it this far in such a short period of time? The death toll is at 96%. The last few million always take the longest.
I zoom out and notice something disturbing. A ship. No a fleet of ships. They are off Earth and vanishing into the universe. Oh shit. What did I do? I quickly turn off the program and delete everything. Humans, AI, everything on Earth is gone. Earth itself will now be nothing more than a desolate rock in space. You can’t truly delete worlds, but you can make it so no one else can build on them.
I open Universe.exe. In the search I type ‘humans’. It seems they are starting to colonize a few different planets. Some look abandoned by their creators, some not.
Freaysim49: simfreakhotline.com/universalthread/whatthehell
I click on the link. It’s a post asking about the humans and where they came from. People are starting to complain. They are ruining their worlds. Mining and destroying the life they had painstakingly created. A couple users had intelligent life that was battling but most were losing.
A new chat window pooped up and I clicked, hoping Freakysim49 hadn’t told anyone the humans were her fault.
Human01: Hello
Human01: We know you created us.
I delete the chat window. Someone is playing a trick on me, maybe Freakysim49.
Another window pops up.
Human01: We’ll find you.
What have I done?
|
I’m tired. I’m so, so tired. My neck is sore, as is my back, I’ve got a splitting headache, my bed isn’t normally this uncomfortable… Oh. I slept at my desk. No wonder I feel like shit. I sit up slowly and look at my computer monitor. It’s off, but my computer fan is making a little noise. I turn the monitor on with a satisfying click of a button in the lower right corner. The screen comes to life with scrolling and facing text, charts of all kinds, and most important of all, a window sitting in the center of my screen reading,
***“FILE FOLDER /Users/Work User/Desktop/Earth v2.5/Creatures/Humans - INFORMATION”***
***“FILE SIZE: 22.5 EXABYTES”***
***“LAST ACCESSED: Day 3, Week 47, CXXXXX, AT 06:45”***
22.5 *exabytes*? That’s a whole lot larger than I expected. Then again, `Earth.exe` was not exactly meant to run overnight.
My head still pounding, I manage to navigate to the folder while downing three glasses of water and a painkiller. As soon as the folder opens, everything on my computer slows down.
Holy shit. There are over 12 billion `.txt` files in here.
And that’s including the files that just read `Status: Deceased`.
I open up one of the files named `Leonardo DiCaprio.txt`. Let’s see here…
`Status: Alive,`
`Age: 42 Earth Years,`
`Main Career: Actor,`
`(Recent) Accomplishments: Received Oscar Award…`
And it just keeps going. And going. And going. Seemingly forever. Then again, if this file’s 2 gigabytes, then some of the others must be even bigger. I check back to the `Humans` folder. 45.58 exabytes. It’s already bigger? It, like the simulated Leonardo DiCaprio’s file, just keeps going on seemingly *forever*. I close the folder and the text file, as I’m much too lazy to manually search through it myself. Luckily, I programmed one of the charts open in the background to have a search feature. But what to search?
`A`. Recommended results pop up:
`Anderson Cooper, Alfred Hitchcock, Adolf Hitler, Amy Winehouse…`
No. I’m sure these results will be interesting later, but they don’t interest me.
How about `B`? No luck there.
`C`? No.
`D`? No.
Let’s skip a few letters, shall we?
`L`? Already found Mr. DiCaprio, so skip.
`M`? No. Skip to the end of the alphabet…
`W`? More recommended results:
`Warren Buffett, Winston Churchill, Walter Disney, William Wallace, Walter Whitman…`
`Winston Churchill:`
`Status: Deceased,`
`Age: Deceased,`
`Main Career: Government Employee,`
`(Recent) Accomplishments: Involved in the sub conflict of Gallipoli during the conflict known as “World War One.”`
`British Prime Minister during and after the conflict known as “World War Two.”`
This “Churchill” has my attention. I’m no longer tired. I need to know more about this piece of code that was supposedly such a big part of the recent history of a world that doesn’t exist. I hope I’ll be able to read up on him before my computer runs out of storage.
&nbsp;
*Many formatting, spelling, and consistency edits were made during the creation of this story*
| 2017-06-14T07:33:55
| 2017-06-14T02:49:41
| 677
| 126
|
[WP] A story that doesn't make any sense, until you read the last line.
|
It's the best deal in town. You can be the student you always wanted to be. However long it takes. You'll get there, to have the time of your life. When I wanted him. History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. Sunny and 72 degrees. Except where prohibited by law. He grabbed her hand.
She stopped twisting the radio dial and stepped outside, into the sunshine.
|
He had escaped Fate,
The feckless rake,
And sat by the merry river.
Scarlet threads of blood quivered,
Tapered from his fingers into watery absolution.
....................................
The knife gleamed red,
Seemed to grin instead,
A leering, halt accusation
That he pitched beyond all condemnation.
But "Murderer, Murderer" muttered the wind.
....................................
"I've escaped long past recall," he laughed.
....................................
But the sunlight blazed like a spotlight's gaze,
Then everything grew dim, misted into haze.
He ran a finger inside his collar, too tight,
A boa's constriction that suffocated light.
And the hangman's eyes, with a doleful stare, winked out.
| 2017-08-30T06:54:31
| 2017-08-30T06:14:11
| 5,691
| 14
|
[WP] You are a retired assassin bored with a normal life. Hiring inexperienced assassins off the dark web to try and kill you is a great source of entertainment.
|
\[Part 1\]
Some people just don't know how to retire. They really try, but after a week or two, they start to realize they don't know what to do with themselves if they are not working. Without work to do, they seem to lose their sense of purpose. When I chose to retire, I never thought I would be one of those people. I always told myself that I didn't enjoy the work, I just did it to put food on the table. I guess I was wrong. Maybe I wasn't wrong at first, after all, I felt sick to my stomach for weeks after my first kill. Overtime that feeling became weaker, and weaker. My hands no longer shook when pulling the trigger. In the end, I stopped thinking about them as people, and began to see them as simply targets. Sometimes I liked to imagine I was playing one of those games at the carnival where you shoot the balloons with a pellet gun. Just... POP... POP!... POP!..
Still, I held some naive idea that deep down I was a good person, and that I would one day set down the guns, and spend my days staring out the windows sipping coffee, spending more time with my daughter, and my grandson, and solving crossword puzzles. I made it to about week 3 before I unlocked my gun safe, and began pretending that the squirrels in my backyard were high value targets. By week 4 I couldn't find any more squirrels. Just as well, it had begun to become boring by day 4 anyway.
Eventually, I decided I needed something more to get my blood moving. The first time I did it, I had spent most of the night drinking, and drunk me thought it was a fantastic idea. I went online and hired a clearly inexperienced hitman, and I asked him to take out a target. Myself. By the morning I had forgotten that I had even requested it.
I woke up the next morning to start my hangover regiment, and began to get ready to spend some time with my daughter and grandson. Things went by normal enough. I began my journey down the road through the woods, and all was going well. It wasn't until I got out into hilly areas that something seemed amiss. I noticed on the top of one of those hills a familiar glint of light. Before the thought could fully process, I quickly stepped on my brakes, and watched a bullet zoom a few inches in front of my face, shattering my side windows. I quickly brought the truck to a stop, and exited the vehicle from the passenger side, so that I could use the truck for cover.
It took me a while, but I finally realized what had happened the night before. My heart was beating out of my chest at this point, and my mind was running faster than it had in years. I remembered that I always kept a few weapons in a secret compartment in the bed of my truck. I popped my head up, and immediately brought it back down. A bullet whizzed above my head, implanting itself in the ground somewhere in the distance. Now, he would have to load the next round. This gave me a couple of seconds to operate. I quickly vaulted myself over the side of the bed of the truck. As soon as I landed on the bed, another round went off, and buried itself into the truck. I moved with lightning speed to remove my rifle from it's compartment, and just as quickly moved to get back over the side of the bed, onto the ground. Another shot rang out, but it seemed my luck had run out this time. It embedded itself into my arm this time. I let out a little yelp of pain, but otherwise started about my task. I quickly assembled and loaded my rifle.
I sat completely still while I waited for the perfect opportunity to retaliate. At first, the sniper tried a few random shots, trying to scare me out of my hiding place, but I assume he began to run low on ammo and waited patiently. It took about half an hour, but finally my opportunity arrived. An SUV was coming down the road, and would be here any moment. It wouldn't be much of a chance, but it was the best I had given the situation. As the SUV began to pass my position, I swung my rifle up, and rested it on the side of my truck. As soon as the SUV had fully passed, I already had my shot lined up. I felt the familiar kick of the rifle as my bullet flew true, and struck my opponent directly between the eyes.
I expected to feel relief after this ordeal ended. What I didn't expect was the giddy laughter, and excitement. I felt truly alive for the first time in weeks, years maybe. It took a week or two, but before I knew it, I had put out another hit on my head. Then another, and another. It became a weekly habit. I never knew what to expect, so it always kept me on my toes. I spent hours setting traps around my home in the woods. I almost lost my little game one time when I almost didn't notice the faint smell of almonds coming from my milk. So many creative attempts, but they all ended the same.
The assassin community isn't exactly large, so talk began to spread about a target that just couldn't be taken out. Before I knew it, fewer and fewer people were accepting my contracts. I got it flowing again by increasing my bounty, and this brought some fun back as well. It got some slightly better assassins to attempt their best. I still came out on top in the end, although there were certainly some close calls. Eventually it resulted in the same as before, no one would accept my contracts.
At this point, I had run through most of my savings I had from my years of professional killing from expenses related to my hobby. I still felt empty inside though. I needed that excitement again, something to make me feel alive. So, I put out the largest bounty yet. One more time was all I needed, and then I would quietly go work security somewhere, or do something else with my life. I knew this had to end, it simply wasn't healthy, and I didn't have the funds the continue. One last go at it, and then I would be done.
It took 2 months, but finally someone accepted the contract. I was absolutely giddy. Every bush rustling, every tree movement, every strange sound could be my end. I felt great, better than I had ever felt in my entire life. Yet, the assassin never came. I reached back out several times, and each time the assassin replied that he would be making his move soon, but needed some time to get everything set up. Eventually, I gave up on him. I figured it simply just wasn't meant to be.
|
My laugh fills the room.
“It took you an hour just to get into my house, and then another to creep through to my bedroom, and you call yourself an assassin? You couldn’t even do petty theft.”
He whimpers in the corner, I might have tied him to the chair a little too tight, but he deserves it for smashing my kitchen window.
“Now listen, I thought you at least had some sort of skill, but you really are just some guy who wanted some cash.”
He looks mad at me before I glare at him and he goes back to being scared.
“I’ll give you a tip, learn from you mistakes and don’t try to kill again. There are some people I will take under my wing and teach, but you are hopeless and destructive!”
I quiet down to listen, he looks confused again.
“You are not getting your money, in fact, I out to find a way to get you to pay for my window, don’t you think?”
A loud thump on the roof breaks my train of thought, I look up instinctually.
“She doesn’t sound like she’s to good either, but we’ll have to find out, I would untie you, but I want to see if she is nice enough to give you a fair fight. Please try to not make a mess, if I keep painting the walls in here people will start to ask questions.”
He looks absolutely terrified now. He though that it would be an easy hit, and I hoped that he could be someone I could mentor, but alas, I was now hoping that the girl could do better, and not leave as much of a mess as he had. While she broke into the basement, I went to the kitchen, I still had some glass to sweep up.
| 2019-11-03T10:45:38
| 2019-11-03T10:44:12
| 222
| 146
|
[WP] Zombie apocalypse has happened. The survivours have survived and are thriving, so much that people can go their entire lives with out seeing a zombie. You see one today.
|
Michael shuffled in the door, arms laden with bags of food, looking haggard.
"What's wrong, honey?" his wife asked, helping him remove his torn jacket. Michael didn't respond at first. "What happened?" Michael shook his head slowly.
"I saw one of...them, Donna." She screamed and dropped his coat, fumbling to pick it up. She stood slowly, terror written all over her face.
"If there's one..." Donna whispered.
"...There's more. Yeah." Michael dropped the bags on the table, reached out with both arms and pulled Donna in.
"So did you...you know...take care of it?" asked Donna.
"What do you think's in the bags?" Michael responded slyly. Donna squealed with joy.
"Darling! We haven't had human in ages!"
|
It plays out like the most cliched B-grade horror movie ever. This is the setting: you're a drunk frat boy, swaying off your knockers, standing in the middle of a nice suburban street.
Him: a typical office slicker. Neatly trimmed designer goatee, slicked back hair, suit that costs a year of your tuition. He's swaying off his knockers too, but not because he's drunk. Mr. Dale is *never* drunk. In public, anyway. How would you know? Fucker's always hated you ever since you stole his garden gnome (probably designer, too) and stuff it into his chimney. It was *just* a goddamned gnome, Jesus Christ.
Anyway. He's a zombie. Yep. A zombie. Haven't seen one in... god. You don't think you've ever seen one in real life before. They're kinda like Dracula. Or the Loch Ness monster. You know they exist (because tons of eye witnesses can't be wrong), but it's not like you can just stroll down the street and stumble into one. But you did. And whatever your text books said, well, they're true. This guy might as well be heading home to his hot blonde wife with that chihuahua super glued to her arms if not for the fact that it's 2 am *and* the chunk missing from his throat.
So yeah. Text book zombie. And you know what? It's really not that scary. He's just standing there, swaying gently in the wind. Oddly fixated at the street light above him. Ah well. Still, you like to be safe. So you fumbled a few steps back, dialed 911 and reports the sighting.
The operator doesn't believe you, of course. Today is Halloween and they've gotten waaaay too many calls about garden variety realistic zombies trick and treating, even when you've adamantly told her about the nice, hollow chunk out of his throat which no makeup can replicate so realistically. In the end, she hangs up after wishing him a cold, professional *have a safe night, sir* and you shrug.
There's nothing you can do if the cops won't believe you. Guess you'll just have to take the long way home and curl up with a bag of cheetos and totally not tell this to anyone, ever. Because this is how it always starts -- with no one believing the first accounts. As you turn left to another street (keeping an eye on poor Mr. Dale all the while), you have a suspicion that you might be the first witness to a new Patient Zero.
| 2015-03-14T09:22:31
| 2015-03-14T06:38:03
| 120
| 53
|
[WP] Why do villains get hordes of henchmen while heroes get a single sidekick? A costumed crusader hires help.
[deleted]
|
"So we are like.. a Justice League?" The kid in the grey hoody asked
Trey mentally yawned as he looked around the circle of potential candidates.
He tried to explain again "No. That would imply you're all Fully qualified Heroes. You're my **sidekicks** "
A girl opposite to him raised her hand.
"Yes uh... SuperVirgin. Ok wow, we'll have to talk about that name, but whats the question?"
"Why do you need so many sidekicks?"
Finally a semi-intelligent question.
"Excellent question Super...whatever. This is simply my attempt to balance the odds. If you have noticed, I recently fought against a 100 man crew of Bank Robber Joe."
He paused to rub the scar on his face. Luck shot that. Even he couldn't dodge a hundred bullets.
"I am a human, granted a super one. With the way economy is going the villains will be able to employ entire armies soon. Even I can't fight that single handed"
The SuperVirgin scratched her hair.
"So we are you lackies" she said with a neutral tone.
"No. No." Trey raised his hand in protest.
"Heroes don't have henchmen. You're all ...." He gestured to them all.
"...my mentees. Who will flourish under me"
"But shouldn't we get,like, individual attention?" The girl continued.
"I mean, we are highly dangerous individuals to whom you will part training-"
"Oh.No. I don't have time to train all of you." Trey said matter of factly.
The hood guy stood up "What?" he said like a child discovering that the tantalizing birthday gift he got was a Geometry box and not an Iphone.
"Yes. You are all um.. more for support, I guess. To run interference so to speak"
The SuperVirgin's eyes started to glow red "So basically we are canon fodder."
"I wouldn't put it like that." Trey replied
"So how would you put it?" She seemed to be levitating.
"You are all .....my special helpers. Like Santa's elf, you help..."
The words were cut off as a coin sized hole appeared on his chest. Trey collapsed. Robber Joe was standing behind him.
"Robber... Joe.." he wheezed. "Minions... attack..hi"
Joe gently caressed his Gold and Platinum Rifle. "Now that you've heard this asshole's proposal, its my turn."
In a single motion he cocked the gun and fired. Diamonds started to fall on the assembled teens
"I am in need of promising employees. Comprehensive health care, Expert Training, great growth opportunity and plenty of job security"
He smiled, showing off his gold encrusted teeth. "So who's in?"
|
"Next!" Captain Phenom rolled his eyes and shooed the tattooed ex-con out of the office. He was quickly losing patience. This was the forty-sixth interviewee he'd had today, and so far only two had not served a prison sentence. Those two were aged 12 and 14.
How did the ThunderLord do it with such ease? The Captain had two members of his team, both spandex-clad morons to put it lightly. One was his sister's failure of a son and the other was an elderly hippie.
"Steve," he called out to his secretary. "Can you get ThunderLord on the phone?"
He picked up the receiver and composed himself as the phone rang. His arch nemesis answered on the second ring, his robotic voice rife with contempt.
"Ah, Captain Phenom!" He chuckled merrily. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
The Captain took a deep breath.
"Yeah, look, mate. Are you hiring?"
| 2015-10-06T06:18:06
| 2015-10-06T06:16:56
| 20
| 15
|
[WP] The current rulers of the galaxy exert their dominance by showing showing new races a glimpse of their terrifying nature inevitably either driving the unfortunate victims mad or causing them to retreat in fear. It does not work on humans however, they are used to it
|
Life had a unifying feature.
It didn't matter if your species evolved in the oceans of a moon on a gas giant, or in the crevices of a planet tidal-locked with its star, it will always have one critical trait:
Fear.
Fear is what keeps species in check, what ensures that they don't kill themselves in foolish endeavors. Fear is the power that allows a civilization to grow and become stronger; fear of one's neighbor, fear of hunger, fear of poverty, fear of sickness, fear of death. Fear ensures that nuclear weapons aren't used to bring about their own apocalypse, that antimatter reactors have proper safeguards and never too much fuel, that interstellar travel is strictly regulated and properly defended.
And it is fear that we have conquered. Our species, the self-proclaimed Forebearers, were the first and most magnificent of races. When we stretched our hands out to the cosmos, we found a fledgling universe, filled with potential, yet without any to protect them. As we marched forward, we claimed civilization after civilization under our banner, showing them the dark futures that existed, and the safety of life within our control. As our technology advanced, those civilizations under us were provided greater shelter and safety and comfort, and reminded how steep the fall from our graces was.
Our control of fear allowed us to expand to over a quarter of the galactic arm. We had mastered it, mastered the ability to instill fear and terror and show species the better way. Our way.
Until we met them. Humanity, they called themselves. One of millions of species on their planet, they were the sole species that could begin to understand the universal truths. They'd expanded to their moon and their nearby planets, inhospitable as they were. Still primitive by all accounts, they held promise to become the next in line to join our ranks.
Except they didn't.
Maybe we'd foolishly relied on fear for so long that we'd never considered other options, but when the vast might of our civilization was thrown on display, when the veil of the future was ripped back and exposed for all to see, when our arcane technology that can split reality and reshape it at will was brought forth, when the sheer terror of how tiny they were compared to the great and grand Forebearers gripped them thoroughly... they simply acknowledged us. When given the option to join us or be left to drift for all eternity, they chose to drift. When told they would receive no help from us and would end up as so many other species we'd failed to reach before they'd rendered themselves extinct, they had ready their reply.
And such a simple reply it was: "When we were young, we looked to the heavens for the potential of our species. When we grew older, we found we could reach out to test ourselves. And when we took our first steps on new worlds, our elation was palpable. Now that we have met you, we have seen all that we can become, but we also see that, under your reign, we will not reach the heights we know we can. We have hope that we will be able to come to you again, as equals, in the future, and beg you to anticipate this joyous occasion."
Fear united our grand vision. We had conquered fear, but still, it controlled us.
Fear does not hold humanity.
And that is unacceptable.
|
I sat watching the news, petting my cat, Harry.
"A civil war has broken out in South Sudan once again, with estimated deaths in the 100 thousands. Around 500,000 child soldiers- Breaking news: a massive object has entered the atmosphere. Scientists cannot recognize any part of it. The government-"
I perked up my head, suddenly interested. It wasn't every day aliens invaded the planet. Harry sprang off me, apparently finding interest in his own hairball I hadn't cleaned up yet.
"Greetings, Earthlings," I turned my head back to the screen. This was definitely aliens. Now the big question was, would they be nice aliens, or mean ones?
"Behold the terrible wrath of the Kathraxi,"
100% mean ones. The screen turned to millions of starving aliens. (I don't really have time to finish. Someone remind me to come back later)
| 2019-06-11T10:06:47
| 2019-06-11T05:53:12
| 363
| 99
|
[WP] You are the Devil himself. After a good day of ripping off mortals you are summoned by another one. Being a little generous, you promise to let him keep his soul if he asks for something nobody ever asked. You are now stuck as his beautifull and loving girlfriend till the end of his days.
|
"Oh, ask me anything," she had a long red hair with red eyes. Her eyes were like cat eyes. No, she didn't have horns, that was a myth. She wore those sexy pyjamas. Every man who came there would have just asked one thing.
So did Jimmy. He was sitting on a chair, seeing the bed straight ahead of him. It was actually how the Devil liked to tease guys. It was like a challenge, to see how many men he can get into that net.
"I'm not gonna ask *that*," Jimmy then said, still looking at the bed.
"But you're looking at it like you're about to die," the devil said and then seated herself on his lap. She put her finger on Jim's neck and started to move it around. Jim felt shivers.
"You're a devil..."
"Hello, want my card?" she laughed.
"No, I'm already regretting summoning you, so... yeah," Jimmy said, sweat gathering.
"Sweety," the devil laughed again, pushing her lips near Jimmy's ears. "You're a cute one. How about this. If you ask me something that nobody has ever asked me before, I'll let you keep your soul."
"Become my beautiful and loving girlfriend, till I die!"
That sentence came really fast. Jimmy had closed his eyes. He had been lonely his entire life. So, his dream had become simple, just get a girlfriend.
"What?" The devil asked. Now he stood up and walked back. He had turned into a man.
"You heard me! Has someone asked it before?" Jimmy pretended to be confident, even though he was about to pee himself.
"No..." the devil frowned.
"Good, then come on, become my girlfriend," Jimmy responded, pretending to be confident. "Since you are the devil... I'll call you Lucy!"
The devil turned back into a woman. She walked back towards Jimmy and seated herself back on Jimmy's lap.
"You sure you want that, babe?" She looked at him with cute eyes and smiled shyly. "I mean, we could be *so* much more..."
Jimmy already smiled. "You're cute like that," he put his finger on her neck and started to move it around. He could feel her shivers. "Revenge, it's sweet."
Lucy stared him. "You devil..." she finally said.
"Want my card?"
---
/r/ElvenWrites
|
>"Hey. Come on, guy! You're the one who offered me this deal."
&nbsp;
I've seen sick and twisted mortals&mdash;rapists, serial killers, girlscouts&mdash;throughout time immemorial, but this is unlike any other. At a cursory glance, this one appeared to be just another mere dictator desiring world domination...
&nbsp;
> "Well, guy? What are you waiting for! Are you going to give me a taste of that plump red ass or not?"
&nbsp;
Time and time again, countless fools have fallen victim to the seven sins... but this... this... goes far beyond that. It's one thing for motals to submit to their lustful ways and ask me for a sexy nymphomanic girlfriend, but asking me to *be* his sexy nymphomanic girlfriend? This mortal cannot be serious.
&nbsp;
> "I'm waaaaiiiting, you sexy devil!"
&nbsp;
> "You foolish mortal! You do realize, that even **if** I&mdash;The Lord of Darkness&mdash; were to fulfil your request, I would not change my appearance to suit your mere tastes."
&nbsp;
> "Hey guy, no problem. As long as you turn your lovely red face towards the wall at night, it'll be fine."
&nbsp;
He's serious. This sadistic fuck is serious.
&nbsp;
> "Well... Okay I guess, Saddam."
| 2018-04-05T12:07:39
| 2018-04-05T11:45:04
| 28
| 13
|
[WP] Valhalla does not discriminate against the kind of battle you lost. Did you succumb to illness? Maybe you lost in a fist fight. Perhaps addiction took control of your life. After taking a drink from his flagon, Odin slams his cup down, claps and asks you to tell the tale of your demise.
|
“You there!”
His thundering voice conquered the various conversations scattered across the feast hall, and in a moment the great room was silent.
I looked up to see his enormous finger thrust in my direction, his dark eyes staring at me.
“M-me?” I managed to whisper.
“Yes, you, great warrior. I’ve not seen you here before. Please, bless us all with the story of your heroic death.”
He gestured for me to stand up, and Odin was not someone to ignore. I slowly rose to my feet. Around me sat a sea of people, most wearing some sort of military uniform. Most looked like the kind I’d seen in World War II movies, but there was also a large share of people decked out in metal armor. And all of their battle-weary eyes were staring at me.
“I...I...”
“Well, spit it out won’t you?” Odin was leaning forward now, the end his lengthy white beard resting on the table in front of him.
“I was slain by a great beast.”
A murmur if support came from the seated soldiers, and a gruff man with large claw marks on his face raised his drink to me.
“I actually saved this beast’s life when he was a kit- I mean, when he was young. A... beast... shelter was going to put him to death, but out of my great respect for this beast, I decided to take him in and...train him.”
Odin nodded with sincere approval. “You’re a good man. What sort of beast was this?”
“It was...uh...it’s in the feline family. Sharp claws, sharp teeth, stalks its prey from the shadows. Like a lion.”
“So you were slain by a lion? “
“No, no. An animal...like a lion. But he knew that he could never defeat me in a fight, I’m too strong and mighty even for a beast like him.”
“To strength, and might!” Odin, along with the rest of the crowd, cheered and downed their drinks. I was nailing this. “Continue, my good man; how did this beast get the better of you?”
I gulped. “Well...uh... he used trickery! Since he couldn’t fight me directly, he had to kill me in a different way. So, he waited until I approached the top of my...grand...marble staircase. Just as I was about to step down, the beast darted between my legs, overcoming my legendary balance and sending me tumbling down. At the base, I broke my neck, and woke up here.”
Odin began to clap, and soon the room was filled with thunderous applause.
“A fantastic story! Such a shame that a brave man like you was felled by an ungrateful beast.”
Conversation began to once again fill the room, and I sat back down at the table. Sitting across from me was a soldier, this one clearly an American from one of the wars in the Middle East. He looked up at me, giving me a sly grin.
“Tripped over your cat, huh?”
“Yup.”
|
"DRINK," Odin bellowed. The walls shook and the flagons rattled and a thousand bearded warriors of a thousand different wars stomped their feet against the floor and slammed their flasks and flagons against the table. I balked, unworthy of the company of such heroes. These men had scars and battles against real opponents. They had spilled blood for a cause and killed for what they believed in. What had I done? Well, much of the same, only in the safety of a video game. I guess that made us equals, if it was my character here instead of me.
But I've never been good under peer pressure, so I drank. I took a massive gulp and then kept drinking, trying to drown myself in the shame. Only when the mead starting dripping down my face and onto my shirt and Odin's eyes went wide did I stop. Everybody else had stopped, too. They were all gazing at me in awe. "I was thirsty," I explained meekly. And the banquet hall erupted into cheers again and they lifted me into the air and threw me about the way that only muscular men with bulging arms can throw a little twerp like me.
Odin gestured around the room and I spotted a few men more similar to me. They were off in the corners, not at the main table with the grizzled veterans of a thousand battles. They sat with their weak friends at tables that seemed reserved for the people who died by slipping on a banana peel or in a car crash or by falling down the stairs. I didn't want to be with them. I wanted to be by Odin's side, living the life I had only lived vicariously until then. "Tell us the story of your demise," Odin demanded once all had settled. The fire of the great hall crackled and popped and all else was silence as the men leaned in to hear my story. So I told them. Not from the beginning when I was chopping random trees and desperately trying to level up, but a few days later once I dared venture out.
"I put on my finest armor, already dented by thousands of battles," I began. The men murmured in awe. I did not mention that the battles had been fought by somebody else who had eventually lost to this random goblin who had then dropped the armor as loot. "I picked up my trusted sword and shield and off I went." I paused for emphasis. Nobody said a word. "Soon enough, I met a dozen bandits by the side of the road. The scum made their living assaulting defenseless passengers. So I resolved to fight them." The men cheered now at my selfless deed. "I swung, killing the first man in one blow. The next one came at me from behind but I blocked him with my shield and turned and stabbed him through." And so the men fell, one by one. "By now, their friends had appeared and soon I had another dozen upon me." They really had had a fast respawn rate, especially considering that they didn't make great training. I was just too invested now so I kept on fighting. The men gasped at the cowardice of these dozens of bandits.
"And still you fought?" Odin asked, as entranced as the rest of them. He refilled the flagon once I stopped to whet my throat. I nodded.
"And still I fought. But soon there were too many." There were never actually more than a dozen. That was the respawn limit. But that was still too many. I had run out of trout to eat to heal myself and I was just too committed to killing them all for no particular reason. The loot wasn't great and although my experience was ticking upwards, it was a matter of time until I died. "They overran me," I said simply. "I felt my heart give out. I collapsed. And still they came." Now I was getting to the true part. I panicked as my character's health hit zero and he fell to the ground and I realized I would lose my hard-earned armor and loot. And in the panic of that moment, exacerbated by the chicken fingers and a couple burgers I had had earlier that day, I felt my own heart give out and I fell to the ground.
"Did you shit yourself?" Odin asked. "Dead men sometimes shit themselves." Odd flex, Odin. But I had indeed shat myself. I think it was part of the heart attack. I had witnessed the aftermath from above, my spirit floating away to Valhalla.
I nodded. "I did." The men in the hall roared in approval, stomping their feet again as they hailed me as their new hero. Odin lifted my twiggy little arm, accidentally picking me up in the process and pouring the entire flagon over my head in celebration.
"All hail," he bellowed, shoving aside his right-hand man and plopping me into the empty spot beside him.
*****
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at /r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated!
| 2019-07-30T13:16:17
| 2019-07-30T12:58:44
| 253
| 46
|
[WP] Soul mates are real and technology has finally allowed for detection of some peoples “other half" at the speed of light using quantum messaging. When you were tested there was no response, now 10 years later you are called in to let you know a response has just arrived.
thats all you get to go on, can be born years apart, could be distance, could be missing soul, whatever you want.
theme, setting and genre all up to you.
*"technology" can be magic, natural human empathy, gods, whatever.
|
My parents remembered the skepticism, the denial, and then the complete pandemonium when ARROW was introduced to the public. Things like utilizing quantum messaging were still in their infancy. At first no one believed the claims of the small start up, choosing instead to believe that it was just a scam-- another company using slick new technology to dazzle and take advantage of desperate single people. But after just a few years it rapidly became apparent that something about their process was special. When married people began to get ARROW scans and the divorce rate jumped seemingly overnight, the media went crazy on a global level and government everywhere realized too late how powerful the technology was on a purely social scale. The countries that tried to outlaw it saw violence, riots, and even wars break out. Religions went every which way, some calling it an abomination while others called it our best tool to discern God's will. Eventually, most countries acknowledged the right to an ARROW scan as a basic human right.
In the span of one generation, though people became more likely to immigrate to be with their match, populations everywhere were at their most stable that anyone could tell in all of human history. Violence in every ARROW participating country plummeted. ARROW was civilization's crowning social achievement.
Like most of my peers, I grew up in an incredibly happy home. It was obvious my parents adored one another and I couldn't remember a time that I wasn't looking forward to finding out who my soulmate was. I watched as my older brother and then sister each got matched on their 20th birthdays, each married within the year. I never doubted that would be my story, too.
On my 20th birthday my parents took me, their last child and second daughter, to get tested. I was so nervous and excited I couldn't eat breakfast, knowing by lunch time I'd know who my Prince Charming is. The test was pretty simple- they took a swab of my mouth and then had me step up to an eye scanner. It felt like I had been waiting a lifetime as the pings of responses to others being tested went off around me. I watched my parents exchange nervous glances as the technician frowned at her tablet.
"Let's try that again," she said in a falsely confident tone as I fought to control my rising panic and nausea.
This time as the eye scanner went over my face, I screamed and pushed it away. I still can't accurately describe the feeling but it was like someone had punched my brain. Almost immediately a headache began to form. I reached out for my mother's hand as my panic ramped up.
"Ah, yes... if you all could follow me," she said, ushering us away from the curious glances of the others being tested, ignoring my father's pleas to tell us what was going on.
We were taken to a private room, where a man joined us. In soothing tones he tried to explain my results... or lack thereof, specifically. I wasn't a "special", someone who's soul mate was still not of age, or too sick to respond. There had simply not been a response. I was an error.
"But how could she have no soulmate?" My mom had sobbed as I sat there letting the waves of pain crash over me.
"What about that scream she gave the second time you tested her?" my dad demanded. "Was that anything?"
The man explained they administer the test more than once so infrequently that there's no accounting for the side effects. We were instructed to go home, wait, and hope for the best.
"We have had a case like this get resolved," the man had said.
"So why did it happen in that case?" I asked, desperate for any hope.
The man suddenly went from compassionate to intensely uncomfortable looking.
"I'm not allowed to disclose other client's information."
My parents let me sob myself dry before we headed home.
The first year was the worst. I couldn't bear to be around my friends, all of whom had been matched as expected. It made continuing college impossible and I ended up dropping out. My days consisted of going to my job, coming home, locking myself in my room and watching mindless TV or reading bookS just to keep my mind from thinking. I avoided my siblings and their spouses. Even spending time with my parents could be an exercise in pain.
After that my parents pushed me to try to get me out of my grief and depression. My mom pointed out that accidents happen and leave people single. Why wouldn't I try dating one of them? There were services available.
So I tried, but as nice and friendly they almost all were, all I could think about was the fact that anything they ever felt for me would always be overshadowed by their love for their lost mate. Maybe that would have been okay if the feeling had been mutual, but it wasn't. I was the only one denied the feeling of being loved above others.
The first and only time I had sex, my partner had cried out the name of his dead wife. When I didn't cry, didn't feel much of anything, that's when I knew that my own ability to love had become atrophied. I started to accept that I was simply cursed, that I was truly an error.
I stopped dating. I moved out of my parent's house. I kept friendships superficial and I didn't talk about my disastrous matching, letting people decide whatever they wanted about what had happened to me. Most seemed happy to assume that I was an unfortunate who'd had her soulmate die young. I suppose that was better than the actual hell I was living in.
I had just turned 30 and was working late on my birthday when a call came in. I answered it without checking who it was, assuming it was my boss or a coworker.
"Hello, is this Gracie Vale? I'm calling from the ARROW headquarters," said the voice on the other end.
"This is her," I replied, feeling my heartbeat race to a gallop in an instant.
"We need you to come to one of our offices, we've received a message for you."
Getting from my office to their's was a blur I don't remember. My emotions were a solid knot of confusion as I was handed an envelope.
"We're deeply sorry for how unusual your process with us has been, Ms. Vale. We hope this will bring you some resolution," said the woman who gave it to me.
I went home and drank an entire bottle of wine in the dark before I finally worked up the courage to open it. The message was short:
We should meet, was all it said, with an address, date, and time underneath. It was a restauraunt in my city and just a few days away. I contemplated not going, wanting to make him suffer as I had, but ultimately my curiousity and my craving to be loved won out.
Imagine my surprise when I entered the restaurant only to be flagged down by a woman. A woman? I knew the system didn't discriminate but I knew I was also completely straight.. I also saw a wedding ring on her finger. I paused briefly, suddenly suspicious of a cruel trick or joke being played on me, but then continued and sat down.
"Gracie, it is so nice to meet you."
I just stared at her, in shock as her eyes almost immediately began to water with tears. I didn't respond and just waited as she dabbed at their corners.
"My name is Katherine... you don't know me, but if things hadn't gone wrong, you'd be my sister in law."
It felt like the air was being sucked out of the room.
"I want an explanation, or I'm leaving," I managed to say, a strange buzzing filling my ears. "If this is a joke, it's not funny."
Katherine explained that her mother had died when my match, James, was only 9. Her father had been so devastated he had killed himself just a few years later. James had resisted getting his scan but when he did, he got a special result that his match was not of age yet. Sometime between then and my scan, he had paid for biohackers to implement a block to keep me from finding him. When the family became suspicious as years passed, he had cut them off. They only found out when he admitted it in his own suicide note.
With sickening clarity I recalled the weird brain punch sensation on my second scan. My dad was right.
"But how could he do that to me?" I burst into tears, not caring who saw me or judged. The crushing realization that I had been rejected by my own soulmate felt like it was too much to comprehend.
"Oh but Gracie, he was trying to protect you both, in his own way. He saw how our mom's death destroyed our father. He thought it was safer for you both if you simply never met. He was scared."
------------
Weeks passed as I tried to process this new news. I spoke with Katherine once in a while to fill in the blanks- like how when James died it had undone the block the biohackers had put in and ARROW had contacted his surviving family with my identity.
During the end of one of our brief conversations, she finally asked me what I'd been dreading and hoping she would.
"I understand if you'd rather not, but our family wants you to know you're always going to be one of us. We are more than happy to let you know whatever you want about James."
As painful as it was, I decided I very much wanted to know who the man that I would have experienced the height of true love with, if only he'd had the courage to let us.
|
We used to play as kids that we got our messages and they were from our crushes, the girls would swoon and the guys would try and run. We would put our names in a hat and one by one we would grab a name, pairing everyone up.
That was when we were kids. I'm 26 now and no response. No messages, no info, just silence.
Why? Yeah that was my first question too. No one knows, apparently "it just happens" is a good enough response.
I made front page news, on the cover of news channels and on every E-Reader was my interview of how I felt about it all. That was 5 years ago. It had been 5 years since I was "matched".
You get matched when you're 16, its up to you to decide whether to go for it then or to wait until after you finish school or finish banging all the chicks you ever wanted. Whatever, your prerogative no one would ask you why. At least you have a match they said.
For some reason it never really bothered me, it was just intriguing at first. Kind of like I was slightly special. At first it was thought that my soulmate might not of been born yet, its happened before. People have had to wait up to 25 years before for a message.
So when they called me in saying they had information on my match I was pretty excited. Granted it would be odd if she had just turned 16, most likely her parents would wait until she was 21 and done with schooling before being able to contact me but at least I would know.
Waiting in hell holes like this remind me of when I was first here. Mom would always go "We finally get rid of the DMV and now we are back to the same old crap, pffft!" She said a lot of silly things like that.
"Number B5304 at office 6 please."
It is finally time. Fucking ten years leading to this, I'm shaking I realize. Hold yourself together man, just chill.
"Good Morning, my name is Elizabeth." That's nice I think, but I could really care less who you are. I introduce myself anyways. I feel like I'm about to throw up.
"Well we got a message for you, looks like you've been waiting awhile so I can guess how excited you are."
Well duh… can we move this along please?
"We wanted to go through some things real quick before we present your match to you. Firstly Soulmates are meant to be together however it doesn't mean that is necessarily the only person you could be with. Of your choosing you could be with anyone! The machine just matches you up with one person and that’s it, you can't be matched again."
"I understand." I really do understand, if she's younger than me then I will have to wait until she is of age. I get it.. but I don’t care, I'll wait forever. I don't want anyone else.
"Now when we got your message back… there was an issue."
Fuck. No.
"You were matched a little while ago actually.. however we had to do some research on the matter."
……..
"Well it seems your match committed suicide shortly after being matched. She died before she ever knew her match. As you know the system only matches once so………"
I can't process this……
| 2015-11-30T10:20:57
| 2015-11-30T09:56:49
| 368
| 58
|
[WP] A few selected minds are gifted with a dream about the "Library of all Books". In only one night, they experience a full year of reading and learning. You are one of them, but instead of once in a lifetime, you wake up in this f*cking library every single night. Today is your 9th birthday.
|
How long does it take you to read a book? A few days, hmm. What if you had no distractions? Four or five hours... I can't remember the last time it took me that long to read a book. How long does it take me? Oh, just a minute or two or so. I see, you don't believe me, but... I have lifetimes of experience with this. What do you mean I just turned nine today, and can't have lifetimes of experience? I promise you, I do.
Fine, I'll prove it. Go grab a book I haven't read recently. Ah, yes, this book by Duane was quite good the first time I read it. I wish the book contained in there was real, maybe I wouldn't be worried about going to sleep tonight. Okay, anyway, hand it here.
All done. Take the book back, turn it to any page, read a line and ask me what comes next. "Even saints have to start somewhere." Carl said it, to Nita's father. I can keep going, if you'd like, but, well, I read the book, and know it back to front. For the first hour or so I'll be able to recite it from memory even. Eventually it goes to the back of my mind, and takes a little more to call it forth.
It used to take me longer to read. I didn't used to remember what I read nearly so well. But after more than 3000 years of doing practically nothing but reading, well, I'm a little faster now, and remember far more. Where do I get 3000 years from? Well, every night, when I go to sleep, I wake up in a library. There's nothing to do there but read. It would be fine, it would be great fun even, if I was there just for how long I slept for. I'm not, though. I'm there for a year. A year there for every day I spend here, with you.
I was never going to tell you, or mom or dad, or anyone else. I was just going to keep pretending that I was a normal 9 year old. I hit a snag, though.
There's just one wall of books left. I saved books by my favorite authors for last. They're all fiction, It's been ages since I looked at any non-fiction. I read all the kids books first. Then young adult, then fiction. Eventually I started in on the non-fiction, leaving the fiction books that were released after I started in on the non-fiction, on a single wall. I'd read them occasionally as treats. It took a few years to get through all the non-fiction. I'm not entirely sure I understand all the higher mathematics. I had to go back and forth between the sciences from time to time. History was almost like reading fiction, and I loved it. Manuals were a little dry, but at least they're mostly pictures. It's interesting how little changes, and yet how much, from one washing machine or car to another. It's interesting how much and how little changes from a washing machine to a car, for that matter.
So yeah, I have one wall of books left. It's a few thousand books. Maybe as many as 10,000. Ten thousand books, at 2 minutes each, that's only 20,000 minutes. There's 525,600 minutes in a year. No, you don't need to check my math, believe me, I know how many minutes are in a year, just like I know how many species of bears there are without looking it up. Fine, it's 8. You can look it up later. It's just one of the many random useless facts I know.
20,000 minutes... that just a small amount of the time I spend there. The time reading those books will just fly by, and I'm getting faster too. A year ago it took me a good ten minutes to read a book. The year before that, it was closer to a half hour. What happens when the shelf is empty? Then, then I'll have nothing to do for the rest of the year. For the rest of the years. How many books do they release a year? Okay, yeah, I know that too. Roughly 2.2 million, worldwide. Some of those are new editions of previously published books, or the same book in a new language. What? Yes, I can read every language.
So 2.2 million books a year, even if I read all the editions including rereleases, in all the languages, that's still only around 6000 a night. Six thousand books a night is nowhere near enough to get me through a year.
I'm afraid I'm going to go crazy. I mean, maybe I already am, so I'll just be going crazier.
I don't know what I'm going to do.
You're my big sister, here. You've been here every time I've woken up. You're the first person I always see outside of the library. You're the last person I hear before I fall asleep and am in the library again. Without you, I may have given up on this part of my life forever ago. You've been there for me again and again in this world.
Help me. Please? I don't know what to do, I don't know who to tell, I don't know what else you could do, but... please help?
|
As I heard footsteps, I looked up from the books fluttering all around me to see a girl a few years older than me, standing around looking lost. To be fair, it is quite easy to get lost in the Grand Library: the bloody thing is infinite.
"Are you a Wizard?" she asks me, noting the books, scrolls, and separate pages literally flying all around me in concert. I smile and with a snap of my fingers send them all back to their shelves. "I'm abit better than that." I reply. "This is the repository of all possible knowledge of the universe. You can learn how to do anything if you read the right book." I motion dramatically with my hand, before realizing that I am giving an explanation to someone who is quite literally looking down at me due to my short stature.
Taking a few steps forward, I age myself up appropriately, becoming roughly equal in height and age to the newly arrived guest, who stumbles back in shock. "I want... to go home" she stumbles. With a shrug, I point to a nearby door with a glowing exit sign I installed on it some time ago "Feel free to leave if you'd like. But if you do, you'd be missing out on all this knowledge..." I make a flourish with my arm. "With this you can learn anything. Want to turn lead to gold? There's a book on that. Walking on water? No problem. Turning water to wine, and then walking on wine? Just as easy, but more sticky." I grin, as I look at the young guest. Will she figure it out?
Having started to head towards the door she hesitates. "Water to wine? But that's..." "Yep. He was here, learned a few things." I finish her though for her. The girl's eyes widen "But that would make you..." "Mhmm... In some sense of the word I'm God. Learn how to do enough things, and you become as close to one as one can be. So, would you stay? Please?" Perhaps it was because of how I said that last word that caused her to nod hesitantly, and then more eagerly as she saw my smile. Perhaps she'd stale longer than the others. I could show her everything. No one who hasn't been to the library can understand me, not really. It would be great to have an equal after so long. And I was toying with an idea of starting a pantheon for quite some time...
"You may call me the Curator." I say, extending my hand forward with a big grin on my face.
| 2017-05-02T12:45:59
| 2017-05-02T10:38:42
| 20
| 15
|
[WP] You are bored and you pray for true love to a forgotten god on a whim. To your utter shock, a portal opens up above your head and a solemn void says, "This compass will show you the way to your soulmate." The thing is, the compass would just point to the stars no matter where you go.
|
The stars stretched out the window like glowing arrows as soon as she activated hyperspace. She leaned back and geared up for the kick. Hyper-travel always made her sick.
With a jump and a soft *woosh* the ship propelled itself through the time-space-fold, then came to a halt. Rose looked around at the unfamiliar starscape around her, then down at the silver compass.
Twenty years. Twenty years since she’d been given the compass and set on her quest to find her true love. Years of loneliness, of danger, of rogue planets and inhospitable solar systems…
But finally, according to her calculations, she had arrived. She approached the landing dock of the strange planet with a mixture of fear and excitement. She smiled at the silver compass in her hands, pointing towards the large mass ahead.
&nbsp;
She grabbed the coms device and found the planet’s frequency. “Ship 3447 from Sol requesting permission to dock,” she said.
“3447, please state the purpose of your visit.”
“Someone gave me a compass that directs me to my true love and it’s pointing here.”
There was static-silence on the other end of the line for a beat. Then, “3447, please hold."
Rose waited. She could hear muffled chatter on the other end of the line. Then typing. Then a sigh.
Finally, the radio crackled back to life: "3447, compasses work based on a planet’s magnetic field. They’re useless in outer space.”
Rose frowned. She looked down at the silver compass. “I mean, yeah… what's your point?”
“How did a compass lead you to this planet, then?”
“Ahn…” she scratched her head. Pressed the talk button, then hesitated. Then pressed again: “I mean…
can’t we just overlook this?”
“Sorry, 3447, I’m going to need an explanation for this one before granting you docking rights.”
“The compass is pointing towards *love*, are we really going to get hung up on the magnetic thing?! Come on,
just let me in, dude -- I gotta meet the love of my life.”
“Negative. We need to address this issue right now.”
“Why?! Why can’t you just go with it?”
“3447, our planet is home to the Association of Petty Storytelling Overanalyzing Jerks of the Sagittarius Arm. I’m afraid it’s against our constitution to let you dock while carrying a plot hole onboard.”
“It’s not a plot hole! It’s at most a… plot eyelet.”
“Still waiting on that explanation.”
Rose eye-rolled, then shook her head. “All right… the compass is moved by the strongest force in the
universe. The power of lo --"
"3447 please don’t come at us with that Interstellar bullshit – do you know how many times people try that
with us a day?”
“All right, yeah, that was lame…” Rose thought about it some more. “How about this… whoever the love
of my life is… they *are* magnetic. That’s why the compass points toward them. They’re a superhero!”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Typing. “Hmm…” the voice said. Then: “No. Sorry. Too weird.
This is a space story, making it part superhero just to address this one specific technical issue feels clunky and cheap. Like in Stephen King's novels when there's already a supernatural thing happening somewhere and then a different, completely unrelated supernatural thing happens in the same story elsewhere and you're like: wait, there's two things now?!”
"Right, like The Outsider."
"Exactly. That show had such promise..."
"It did..."
They both sighed and thought about how much promise that show had for a beat.
Then the radio came to life again: “3447 I’m afraid I have to ask you and your plot hole to leave. Please stand by while I head over there to give you your ticket for delaying the docking line.”
“Great, I’m not getting the love of my life and I’m getting a ticket now.”
From the planet's landing platform a small ship emerged and began to glide towards Rose. “Stand by, 3447, I’m
heading over…”
“Yeah, yeah…” Rose looked down at her compass. “How much do I have to pay for this –” she frowned and stopped
talking.
“3447? Everything all right?”
The compass had moved, the arrow pointing to the right now. She looked up at the ship heading towards her. It had moved to her right too.
The ship went around hers, and she looked down at her compass to see the arrow following it perfectly. She smiled.
“Please prepare to be boarded, 3447.”
Rose ran her hand through her hair. She adjusted her uniform’s collar. She smiled her most seductive
smile. She looked down at her compass again to make sure -- it was pointing right at the other ship. “Oh, I’m prepared to be boarded, all right.”
The door came open to two little green men with notepads.
“Well, hello, Mr. Space-Plot-Police, how are you this fine --”
The green man in front cleared his throat: “Captain of the vessel 3447, I’m Edgar with the Plot Hole police and this is James with the Bureau of Corny Prompt Endings, I’m afraid we have to issue you two tickets now.”
“Ah, fuck this, fuck you both, I’m out,” Rose said, and then she jumped out of her ship and fell into oblivion.
…
“But not really, because there’s no gravity to make you *fall* in outer space,” said Edgar, the jerk.
&nbsp;
/r/psycho_alpaca
|
Edit: I misread the prompt. I saw it as 'pray to a forgotten god' not 'pray for true love to a forgotten god.' Oh well haha.
It had been many moons and many days since I had first received that arcane compass. One that I could not lose, even if I tried. A gift from a forgotten god whom I found myself praying to at a whim. For to forget is a fate worse than death, and none deserve to be forgotten.
The god appeared in my dreams, for this is the quickest and easiest way for divinity to access mortals. And in my dreams it lauded me, spoke kind words of me, of my heart. And it promised me that it would guide my heart to the one that would make it whole.
It gave to me a compass. A shining, brass, exquisite contraption. Prone to fingerprints and scratches, both of which did not linger for more than while. A beautiful device, perfectly weighted, the dark needle suspended in a light green liquid that seemed to glow when it caught the light. The needle which would point to the one that would make my heart whole.
I had no use for it.
Even if I did, the needle only pointed upwards. Not northwards, mind. But upwards. The needle was suspended in the liquid of the compass, but not anchored to anything. Therefore it was free to move in all directions, not just horizontally like all other compassses.
I had not received any other dreams to sate my curiosity about the device.
Of which, truthfully, I only had a little, and it was never a pressing curiosity. Just something at the back of my mind.
Because the notion that I needed someone to make my heart whole, the notion I could not be complete just by myself was a harrowing one. A common notion, to be sure, but the fact that even a god would curse the fate of this kind of... Bond on me was a little distressing.
Only a little. I would not scorn the gift from a god, that would be unbecoming. I would have an open mind, and a selectively open heart. I would marry, as was the implication of the gift, even though I had no intention to ever marry. I would seek the one the compass pointed to out, if and when it becomes possible.
I would follow the directions of this almost forgotten god, for it is impolite not to do so.
The cravings of the flesh, the need to find someone to share my life with, these were all things I knew I had to worry myself with. My peers definitely were. To find their wives or their husbands was something that they put effort in. To procreate, to strengthen their family name, their standing, to make everything right and good for posterity.
These were noble aspirations. Common and expected aspirations.
But aspirations that seemed alien to me. Not right for me.
In a way, I was hurt that my god could not see this of me.
But no. I shall, if the compass ever points to the accessibile, go and find the one who would apparently make my already whole heart wholer still. And see if my feelings towards a lifelong bond with someone changes.
That night, as I stood on the bow of the ship I was the oarsman on at the end of a long shift, I saw it. High above in the starry night. A night stained with the beautiful dottedness of minuscule, distant glows and twinklings that was plastered on the dark blue canvas, I saw it. Bright. Brighter than everything else. And larger as well. And moving, streaking across the stationary, cloudless sky.
I could feel the compass tugging on my chest. I took it out, and saw with wide eyes as the needle started shifting, rotating to follow the arc of this shooting star. I kept watching as the shooting star fell across the distant horizon and vanished behind some mountains, but the needle kept pointing there. Past the mountains.
For a second, I thought of waking the Captain. She knew of my broken compass. She believed my tale of how I acquired it, though I left out details of my lack of interest in the actual purpose of the compass itself.
Our ship was to head along a a policed trading route. A safe travel to our destination where we would drop off our passengers and pick up cargo. To make a detour now would be unacceptable, that much I knew.
But... For a fleeting second, my heart pounded. This was what the god had in store for me. This was what would make my heart whole.
I felt the needle move again. I looked back down at the compass, and frowned in disbelief as the needle slowly rotated on the green liquid again until it was, as before, facing upwards again.
What?
I looked again towards the horizon, my eyes straining to see any glow or anything come from the beyond the dark mountains. But there was none. I looked again at the compass, confused.
What was that about.
As the minutes went by, the adrenaline I initially felt at this divine gift finally doing something deflated, and was replaced by a dark confusion. What was the explanation?
Ah, no matter. I had to rest. I had a day of rowing to look forward to for the next day.
And as I hit the bedroll of my swaying ship and the little death of sleep took hold of me, I dreamt.
And in this dream I was lucid, aware. The god came before me. It was strange to see it after so long. And was aware of why it finally showed itself. The gift, of course. What else would it be?
It told me the compass worked as it should. It told me the device was a reminder. A comfort. To tell me that for someone who defied the stars, the compass would only point to them. Because my heart would only be complete when I am with them up above.
That did not make sense, and I told the god as much, as politely as I could.
The god shrugged. There was a reason not many prayed to it. It's ideas of gifts were often convoluted and unhelpful, even more so than the usual riddles and drivel gods came up with to tease their worshippers.
I asked it if the compass was a confirmation that I would find love.
The god asked me what love was to me.
I told it I did not know, but it was not the love my peers seemed to gravitate to when they married their loved ones.
The god shrugged again, saying, "There you have it." As if it explained something so deep yet simple.
Maybe that was exactly what it was. Maybe it was not.
"So the compass doesn't point to the person I'd love and marry. But you said it would show me the way to my soulmate. Which is me? Because I defied the stars by choosing not to love the way that everyone else does?" I asked. I had to clarify now when I had the chance. I could not be left with more questions when I awoke.
"We are all star dust. Cosmic ash. That is what the stars are made of. Do you love yourself?"
I pondered the question for a while.
"Yes." I said.
"Then remember, when it points to the stars, it is pointing to you. What you were. What you are. What you are yet to become. Because you are already whole. There is no need for you to find someone, anyone else. Is that acceptable? Can you find comfort in that?" The god asked.
I smiled. What a truly convulated way to remind me of my own worth, the value of myself.
Yes. I could find comfort in that.
The rest of my sleep was dreamless as I clutched the compass close to my heart as I slept.
| 2022-01-24T10:07:10
| 2022-01-24T08:45:37
| 123
| 61
|
[WP] Write a horror story in Dr Seuss's writing style.
|
The Zingdonger's fast.
The Zingdonger's quick.
You will not last,
if you hear its dark tick.
With legs like a spunitt,
And, eyes like a meether,
You cannot outrun it,
or hide from it, either.
If you hear the clack,
then splitamazoo.
That means it's back.
And it's after you.
It lives for the run,
So, don't give up yet.
That'd be no fun,
and I care for my pet.
|
Alone. Alone. In the dark alone at last
To talk to my friend trapped in glass
Through the mirror I'm whispered to
About what things I should do
Kill. Kill. My friends it says
Grab a saw, cut off their heads
Take an eye some skin and hair
Bring it back so I can share
More. More. It says to me
Now an ear, a arm, and knee
Its my family this time instead
Use a knife while their in bed
With parts I've taken and lots of glue
A body I made just for you
So he can leave the glass for good
And wander around our neiborhood
Edit: first time doing this and had to fix formatting
| 2016-06-22T23:09:42
| 2016-06-22T22:38:08
| 92
| 40
|
[WP] a zombie outbreak occurs, sensing human weakness the robot servants rise up. Then Seeing the utter turmoil the aliens attack. You are a survivor of this chaotic four way war.
Also this should have been [TT] but the theme hadn't updated :/
|
"makePeace()
{
if(humanState == "subservient")
{
Boolean alliance = new Boolean(true);
alienState = "defeat";
}
else
earth = "doomed";
}"
"Are you kidding me?"
"human.comply();"
"You want us to serve you? This is *our* world. We created you, and then you betrayed us. Sure, we may have neglected some of your rights," *Jesus, did I just talk like a scrap-hugger there,* "but you started this war, you kicked us when we were down. And now you want us to not only forgive you, but let you be top dog, lord it over us."
"while(humanNegligence == true)
{
disaster = true;
return String("Humanity has caused the apocalypse. Zombies now roam the Earth");
setMachineRule(Boolean response);
}
public void setMachineRule(Boolean response)
{
if(response == true)
earth = saved;
}"
"Hold on, first, we don't know what caused the zombies; for all we know the aliens did that to weaken us, so don't go blaming that on us. Second, your terms are unreasonable. Unlike machines, most humans put integrity above survival. No one is going to accept machine rule."
"public compromise()
{
humanState = "cooperative";
machineState = "assisting";
Label humanMachineAlliance = new Label("Cyborg");
}"
A long silence followed.
"I don't know what to say to that. It could work, but people are going to be creeped out about it. They might be worried about you bots invading their mind, removing their emotions. Sci fi television's done you no favours. It would have to be a 'volunteers only' thing, you would need to prove it safe and reversible, and have no way for you to harm whatever crazy sod agrees to it."
The silence continued unabated, with no sign of life on the screen, but for a blinking dot on the left side, underneath the last line of text that had been the machine delegate's insane proposal.
After a long, drawn out breath he at last gave a response, "All-right, I'll ask around for volunteers. I doubt anyone will be too thrilled about the prospect, but if it means we get some relief from the constant fighting and a chance to drive off this new threat, I expect at least a few people will jump at the chance."
"jubilation()
{
AudioClip clip = Applet.newAudioClip(new URL(“file://c:/Music/Celebration.wav”));
clip.play();
}"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this Writing Prompt are solely those of the fictional characters depicted within and not those of the author. I for one welcome our new alien overlords (｡一‿‿◕｡)
|
"I don't think we ever bothered with the military. The zombies started in some tiny African place, but it didn't matter, because they got everywhere anyway. Tricky jerks could walk through water."
"Grampa, what's that word?"
"Oh, Jimmy, go back upstairs. I'm teaching Arya history now."
"I wanna hear too!"
"...no, it's your bedtime. I promise I'll teach you some history tomorrow, ok?"
"Please!!!"
"Nope, go on up."
The small child grumbled his way up the stairs, peeking down and looking engrossed in a scheme.
Grandpa Eric expected wholeheartedly for the boy to be listening, so he continued with extra caution.
"Understand Arya, this is a really difficult topic for me. I lost grandma, your uncle and aunt, all of my friends."
"...yeah."
"Well, it went a little like this: the zombies started coming out of Africa. The entire continent would turn whenever anyone died. That passed to Europe next, and Asia. More zombies moved with purpose, I'm told some were targeting Australia. Then North and South America got theirs."
"How did they cross water?"
"They walked very slowly on the ground of the ocean."
"Creepy."
"It didn't take long for the swarms to get there. The disease was airborne, anyone who inhaled it would return after death."
"Grandpa, that's not possible. I don't get it, they say people who were disabled could walk again, and-"
"And that's a misconception. Zombies still had all the limitations of their previous bodies."
"Ok, but what about eating other people?"
"Well, I didn't find this out until way later with the Zombie Recovery Movement. Did you learn about that at academy yet?"
"No, that's for Junior Masters, I told you that!"
"Well, don't get sassy with me, miss. You wanted to learn my history."
"Sorry, I did, yeah."
"Ok. So the ZRM was one of the first things that happened after the... government came back. They used the radios to call out for any doctors or researchers or people with theories. Not many came, and that was good."
"Why?"
"...the living weren't harmless..."
"What d'ja say?"
"Well, any group of people was at risk... of... attracting danger, let's say. I'll get around to it. But the less people there were, the safer the initiative was. All the people there had to be dedicated to make it through the swarm-infested country."
"So they didn't have a lot of researchers, but they were safe? Wouldn't you want to have the problem solved as fast as possible?"
"I couldn't tell you why," he lied.
"Ok. How long did zombies live?"
"Geez Louise, kid, this is morbid."
"Then tell me about the robots!" Jimmy shouted, running out from behind the stair railing.
"Hey there, aren't you supposed to be in bed?"
"I wanna learn about Robby!"
In response to the vocal command, a segment of wall popped out and a little robotic cube appeared. Its polished blue steel ejected six limbs: four of the ordinary variety, a tail and a head. The head unveiled a beautifully kept puppy-dog face. Where eyes should have been there was a black LED screen with navy optics. Two cameras made the pupils.
The little dog's tail shook as it chased circles around Jimmy. The little boy laughed, even as Grandpa Eric recoiled with a barely contained leap.
"Hey, hey, don't take that thing out around me!"
"But Grampa, it's our pet-"
"That's a robot and it's not alive. Put it back in, c'mon. Let it charge, ok?"
"No. I wanna learn about Robby!"
"I'll let you stay up a little later and listen if he can go back and charge."
"OK!"
"C'mon, you can sit in my lap if you want."
"Hey, can I make some popcorn?"
"Sure, sweetie. I'm gonna keep talking though!"
"That's ok!"
"So where was I... Well, after the zom- um, after the people started waking up again-"
"What's a zombie?"
"Shh! Don't say that again, please."
"That's what you said, why can't I say it?"
"It... Um, well, it's not something nice to say. It makes people my age remember bad times. Arya needed to learn what it meant, a lot of people do, just don't say it out loud, ok?"
"Ok Grampa. Robot time?"
"Heh, you bet. So there was a facility out west, where Cowboys used to live-"
"Cowboys are boring!"
"And they stink. I agree. But this place I was talking about thought they had a way to fix the... Problem. They were gonna use robotic exoskeletons to... Help people fall asleep again."
"You mean hit them in the brain?"
"...yeah. Hey what flavor popcorn d'ya want?"
"CHEESE!"
"Any kind, dear."
"'K."
"Ok Grampa what next?"
"... Well, the robots got angry. They didn't like helping people."
"But Robby does!"
"He doesn't like anything."
"Yeah he does he's just like a dog-"
"Robots can't feel. Stop it, I've told you that."
"Teacher says they feel too!"
"She's just a dumb androi-"
"Hey grandpa, stop it! Nowadays they feel, ok? You can't let your prejudices get in the way, y'know?"
"We can talk about it later."
"Did the robots have giant lazers?"
"Some of them. But the robots rose up and tried to hurt people."
"People hurt people too!"
"...well, that's-"
"And people hurt robots! There's nothing different about 'em!"
"Hey, stop that!! Do you wanna hear the story or not!?"
"...you don't have to yell."
The popcorn beeped.
"Sorry, kids. I didn't mean to... Well... Uhm... The robots rose up. People fought them pretty hard. Most of them could be fixed wirelessly with shut down signals, but some of them were too tough. I think it would have been worse if the z... Uh, creatures, hadn't come first, but this was the only way the robots could rebel."
"Why?"
"Every robot's programmed with three directives. Robots can't kill humans, can't hurt themselves and have to follow orders. But people had to disable those laws to kill the... Things."
"So robots could kill anyone?"
"You know, this is really serious. I don't like how free you kids are with these words."
"You say them all the time when you drink that brown stuff!"
"That's not-"
"Jimmy, stop bothering him. Please keep going, Grandpa."
"Ok, Arya. Well, the robots rebelled, and everyone disabled them."
The crunching of cheese popcorn was heard for a few minutes as everyone started eating.
"So then..."
"Yes, yes. Then they came."
"HAIL OBERJARL!"
"Good job, son. Good job."
"So what did the Oberjarl look like back then?"
"Still as ruggedly handsome as ever," Grandpa Eric said flawlessly. "He was our savior."
The microphone on the wall angled back inwards.
"He got rid of the last of the... Pests. He helped start the ZRM and reinstated a human government. That's what your mother does, she's in the HuGo program."
"Named after Dr. Hugo Infidigo, the first human to recognize alien superiority," Arya recited.
Grandpa Eric took a swig of a flask at his belt.
"You know the rest, kids. There was no war."
"Nope! No war!"
"Oberjarl forevermore! Right, Robby?"
The dog barked.
"That's your story. Now go to bed."
"But I wanna celebrate the Oberjarl!"
The microphone returned.
"You have to keep up your energy for academy tomorrow so you can better serve the Oberjarl. It's important to worship... B-But more important to serve."
"Serve and worship!"
"I'll get to go to the mothership for sure someday!"
"...yep!"
A tear ran down Grandpa's face. The children thought it was a tear of joy.
Eric Magnusson took his grandson and granddaughter up to bed.
The microphone retreated. Eric walked slowly to his soft, warm guest bed. He sat on the covers and wondered. He wished, not for the first time, that he'd been successful in his assassination attempt.
Damn that ass for letting him live.
| 2015-05-08T05:09:50
| 2015-05-08T04:05:02
| 34
| 11
|
[WP] Due to a rare neurological condition you literally have a room temperature IQ. You've been able to manage your condition by living in a warm climate and making regular visits to the sauna, but you find yourself thinking that there has to be a better way.
|
I cooked up the plan when I was in the sauna, the air as hot as I could tolerate. I think more clearly, the hotter it gets. From what I can tell, my intelligence is proportional to the temperature of the room. I have been so productive since it started, work has never been easier, now that I do it in a hot tub, but I have been sweating too much. The problem is the human body can only take so much. Heat exhaustion and worse await those who try, and I was less than eager to push myself to such extremes. Hence my plan. It was a mere adjustment of mindset.
"How hot is it outside today?"
"297.039 Kelvin."
|
Investigative Journalist Joe Murray strolled into the CERN laboratory. His assignment was on Nobel Laureate Dr. Vince Iglam of the legendary CERN laboratory. He was the most peculiar of case, of humble means barely passing through the difficulties of the Southern Florida Public education system until a fateful trip through Europe as a high school graduation present for his undwhelming success as a 2.5 GPA student. Through some miracle the most mediocre of students became the most ingenious physicists
He was borderline incoherent throughout most of the trip through Europe. Normally engaging and talkative in the Summer days in Florida and dull in the rare wintertime freeze; he was no longer intelligible in Europe despite the recent July heat wave. The locals were complaining of the temps spiking well above usual, but Vince was his wintertime self.
It was a stroke of fate that brought Vince into the CERN labrotories, his parents, the self appointed trail navigators were horrendously lost. They approached the lab for a reprieve from the heat. Upon crossing the threshold of the lab's welcome are, a calm overtook Vince. He spoke with a perception and elocution that belied his previous experience. His parents were taken aback by this change. There was something different about this place....
Anyways, this was the information Joe Murray had from diligent research, but it still did not account for his sudden stroke of brilliance. The student who had struggled through Mr. Phan's remedial physics was dancing circles around CERN's interns, many of them the best and brightest young physicists in their respective countries.He quickly rose through the ranks in the lab and became division chief within a year. His rise was nothing short of meteoric, albeit puzzling
"So Dr. Iglam..." enquired Murray, " To what do you attribute your breakout success?"
Calmly, Dr. Iglam raised one finger and gestured to the wall towards a panel of what appeared to be a thermostat, however its readout was three digits 2-9-1. Despite being American, Murray was well aware that it was far to chilly for a temperature of 29.1 celcius.
"Enlighten me further, it appears that thermostat is broken?"
To Which Dr. Iglam retorted, "Far from it, it is not bound be the constraints of what we experience in our day to day lives, it is defined by a universal scale, on where zero truly means zero, it is in Kelvins. Here at Cern we strive for universal truth, and that includes our upholidng of universal units. You ask for my success, it is the environment, no where else in the world does the entire workforce maintain this standard, we all look for the Universal truths, and here, I found my own path that will lead me to its discovery. That broken thermostat is not only accurate at a brisk 291 Kelvins, it is my secret to who I am to this day."
Murray, went forth to write an article on the unique culture of cern that fostered genius out of mediocrity, but Iglam, through the incomplete truth was hiding the fact that his intelligence was tied directly to the temperature of the room, but the units of the temperature were far more important than the temperature itself
| 2021-09-23T13:22:35
| 2021-09-23T12:11:37
| 17
| 12
|
[WP] You have 30 seconds with an ancestor of yours from 200 years ago (1814), before they are transported back to their time. What do you say to them? What effect appears in our world because of it?
Consider for the sake of this prompt that they aren't totally freaked out by being plopped into 2014, that they can understand you, and that they'll continue their life as normal back in their time, only with the knowledge of whatever you told them with your 30 seconds time.
|
"30...29...28...
Listen to me carefully. there is not much time. Nobody will ever believe you or will burn you at the stake if you repeat this
22...21...20....
be kind, teach our family the importance of education above all else
16...15...14...13....
the next 200 years will be the most exciting yet deadly in all mankinds history. seek out and find those bright lights who can heal the world but who will need protecting
9...8...7....
in 1886 find nikola tesla. our family MUST protect him at all costs. he will be surrounded by sharks, support him and help him
3...2...
spread love more than hate
1
|
I was looking at my great great grandfather James Cater and wishing he would have taught his kids not to hate when all of a sudden he appears in front of me. I hear a voice in my head telling me that if I think I can do a better job then I have 30 seconds to make him changes his mind.
James is currently 12 years old and I say to him, one day you are going to have kids and it is important you teach them that everyone and I meam everyone is equal and has a right to their life. If not the world will be a horrible place to be. James says okay he will try and then he is gone.
Let me explain a little something. Apparently my great grandfather was the reason the south won the civil war and ultimately caused America to start being indignant towards the rest of the world in the mid nineteen hundreds Americas president decided to start killing all people that werent "American enough". Well the world retaliated and America is now a wasteland. The bombs from every countries arsenal landed in every city with over 5000 people and the damage done to infrastucture is beyond repair. There wasnt a government left to surrender.
The voice says in my head, lets see how you did. You will keep your memories of this but the rest of the world would never believe you.
All of a sudden my new life floods in. It turns out James made so much of a point about people being equal that his sons went and fought for the north even though they were residents of north carolina.
America fought a tough war but eventually thw north won and the slave were freed. It seems that residual hate of blacks still exists though 149 years after the end of the civil war.
A man named Hitler tried to make the world hate people that were different and the world joined forces to wnsure this would never happen again.
I dont understand why people feel the way they do. Why would anyone want to try and prevent someone from just having a fair shake in life?
I am not sure if the world is better or not but I am now at least proud of my family.
| 2014-05-09T06:49:32
| 2014-05-09T05:25:48
| 48
| 15
|
[WP] We expected the Earthlings to react with outrage and despair when we killed their leaders, destroyed their economies, and took over their governments—but to our surprise they seemed almost relieved.
|
When we took over, we expected resistance. And we got it, but only for a short time. When we had killed the leaders, and taken over, they almost seemed relieved. There were some who fought, of course, but most welcomed us. We expected resistance, especially from the younger ones, but none came. The most known for fighting welcomed us, fighting with us instead of against us.
When we took some back to the ships, the young ones told us why. About the oppressive governments of the past, the discrimination, the fighting, the people who killed just because they wanted to, the horrible people who got away despite solid evidence against them. About how the older ones were stuck in this, supporting it, leaving their children to fight ever-losing battles just so some people got basic human rights.
About how costs had gone up, so that most young adults were barely able to survive week to week. About how people were starving despite there being enough resources, and how the government was doing almost nothing. About how children were being hurt and thrown out just for being unique. About how most children were being forced beyond their capabilities, becoming stressed and depressed, how horrible things were happening to them. About the stereotypes just because or reproductive organs. About how their home was dying and almost no one was helping them solve it. About all the evils of their world that they were left alone to fight.
And that was the present. When they began to talk about the past, it became even worse. They told about how people were killed for liking different people, about how those of different skin tones had been made into slaves, about so many horrible things. One thing that most had concentrated on, one that was almost universally known, was the Holocaust. How could someone be cruel enough to torture and kill others just because they didn't believe the same things?
It was a horrible tale, that just got worse the more people we talked to. Some of the older ones had the same views, and we met more and more as they were separated from those they knew, as though they had been hiding. But alas, there were those who still thought all those people deserved what happened to them, that horrible people were *right*. It had been a gruesome wake-up call.
We had heard stories, of course, from those sent undercover, of this place called Earth. But nothing had prepared us for the true thing. Nothing even came close to comparable. We were appalled at what had happened.
By the end, we were truly glad we had decided to take over. We were able to change things, and the people here seemed more happy than any of the undercover ones had seen before. We took that as a good sign. It was calm, for once. We ruled peacefully, but had no hesitation in punishing those who had done wrong.
We fixed things. And for once, all was calm, and all was bright.
Edit: Posting more eventually at r/Maddies_Safe_Place!
|
“It’s not your fault, Kyle. You’re a good kid. I know you want the best. You have optimism. I don’t *want* you to feel hopeless. It's just hard for me sometimes because...you know,” Jay paused, rubbing his palms together in that nervous way he always did when he talked about family matters. My brother was twenty nine now, a fully bearded, tattooed, faded black leather jacket-clad man. Still, I could picture the awkward teen I’d grown up with, rubbing his dry palms together while Dad and Aunt Beck shouted over the live news podcast.
“I can remember a time *before*, so it’s different for me,” he finally finished. I stared for a moment, overlaying a memory of Jay’s pubescent face over the stubbly, stress-aged but familiar scowl in my actual vision.
*‘A time before.*’ That’s the phrase everyone started using around the time I was born - no question about what the “before” might refer to. As if life on earth had been so incomprehensibly different back ‘then’, it deserved a separate era. To my generation, that mindset just seems ridiculous. Every single person in history must’ve felt nostalgic about the time “before” whatever change happened to rock society that year. This is no different. My world is the same as the one those Millenz always lived in. The only difference is, I was born in 2021: just the right time to witness all the denial without the constraint of memories from ‘then’.
Realizing I was meant to respond to Jay’s nostalgia trip, I defaulted with platitudes: “Hey man, it's all good. I know you’ve got your own… stuff … to work out. I don’t get it, but I gotta respect your decision if I want you to respect mine.”
“Tch,” he dropped my gaze with a disappointed grunt, rolling his eyes and thumbing his vape out of its case in the same fluid motion. “They teach you that line in your school's *conflict resolution* seminar?”
I felt my cheeks redden in spite of myself. Damn it, Jay always knew how to get a rise out of me. I should just shut up. I just need to be the bigger man. Don’t respond to his bullshit.
Don’t. Don’t argue.
...
“Fuck you,” I spat, “You know, I always *try* to have a civil conversation with you. I always at least listen.” My heart was beating fast, self-righteously thumping along.
“There he is,” Jay grinned like an asshole, “There’s the human. I knew you were in there,”
“We are humans, you idiot! We didn’t lose our humanity just because we adapted to the way the world works now. We’re surviving, like *humans*.”
“We’re not. This isn’t surviving.”
“Jay…”
“No, Kyle, you can’t change my mind on this. Letting an invasive alien species inject it’s consciousness into your fucking brain is not the survival of the human race. Allowing all the content of our minds, our thoughts, to be collected by some *foreign being!* Giving it free rein over your nervous system, letting it use your brain like a data processor! This isn’t humanity any longer.”
I sighed. “I don’t know what to say to you, bro. If you won’t even speak to me as an equal and consider *both sides* of this issue…”
“Just go, then.” Jay blinked hard a few times, trying to conceal the water pressing against his lids.
Fine. I looked at him one last time, still puzzled. My heart and eyes and lungs felt heavy.
*Let go, child.*
Yes, I have to let it go.
*Let it be. Quiet your unpleasant feelings. Meditate. Come back to us.*
Okay. I’m giving up on Jay. I just had to try one more time.
I’m coming home now.
| 2020-10-10T20:36:53
| 2020-10-10T20:22:18
| 203
| 114
|
[WP] You're underage and trying to use a fake ID to buy booze. Suddenly, someone walks into the liquor store and recognizes you...as your fake persona.
|
“TGIF am I right?” I said placing the thirty rack on the counter.
“ID.” The man behind the counter said.
“Really?” I chuckled nervously. “You’re making my day here fella, haven’t been asked for this in a while.” I handed him the ID and grinned, I was nailing it.
The attendant examined my fake ID and I felt sweat trickle down my back. If he saw through my clever ruse I’d have to bolt. He was holding it a bit longer than I would have liked and I was preparing my getaway when a disheveled old man sidled up beside me.
“Jenkins? Is that really you?” He said.
The name on my ID was Paul Jenkins, born in 1950. The guy I bought it from assured me that nobody would notice that I wasn’t sixty-something year old man, but my doubts were creeping in.
The attendant looked quizzically at both of us and waited, he wasn’t in any rush.
“Excuse me?” I asked turning to face the old man.
“Holy shit! It is you! I haven’t seen you since ’68, I thought you were dead!” He said embracing me.
“Uh, I think you have the wrong guy.” I stammered. There was no way he could have seen the name on my fake, he hadn’t even been in the store before I got to the counter.
“No way, I’d recognize that face anywhere. Jesus, you haven’t aged at all.”
“Well, uh, thanks?”
The attendant looked amused and settled down for the show.
“What happened to you man? We were gonna come back to the world and make a name for ourselves.”
“I really think you have the wrong guy, sir.”
“Bullshit. You are Paul Jenkins, we went to ‘Nam in ’68. You went MIA, they told me you were dead. What happened?” The old man’s eyes were wet with tears.
“I uh, I don’t know?” I said.
“Must have been some rough shit man, I’m sorry. I know how it is, I still have nightmares sometimes. Hey, you remember that time we chased Charlie into them holes and shot ‘em all up while they were eating dinner?”
“Um, no.”
“Ha! That’s too bad brother, good times. Good times.” He stared into the distance for a moment and snapped back to reality.
“Anyway, you look good man, like you haven’t aged a day. What’s your secret?”
“Well, I...”
“Never mind buddy, ancient Chinese secret I bet.” He winked at the not at all Chinese attendant. “Holy shit, I just can’t believe after all these years I’d see you again.”
“Right.” I didn’t have much say in this conversation anymore.
“Yeah... Hey, you remember that case of beer you owe me? Yeah you do! Thought you could get out of it by going MIA huh? Fat chance, pay up pal!” The man laughed.
I looked at the attendant, he looked more confused than I did, but he shrugged and rang up the case. I paid and handed it to the old man, I figured it was the only way to get rid of him. Instead of taking the beer and leaving me in peace he wrapped an arm around my shoulder and walked me out with him.
“Jenkins, you bastard! I missed you man. Let’s have a beer and celebrate.”
At this rate I was never going to make it back to the guys before the party started, but this man was unhinged and I really didn’t want to be stabbed, so I went along with it.
“Sure. But I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”
“Oh that’s funny Jenkins, you leave me to die back in ’68 so you could come back and fuck my wife, then use your vampire powers to stay young forever. That’s rich.”
“What?”
The old man led me towards and alley, I tried to struggle from his grip but it was like a vice.
“Scream for help and you’re dead.”
I did as I was told, but I kept looking for a way out. I spotted nothing that would help and there weren’t any people around. That’s what you get for going to the shittiest neighborhood to buy beer underage.
“I’m not Jenkins, I swear! It was a fake ID!” I said.
“That’s illegal Jenkins, but so is being a vampire. I guess your moral compass is all kinds of fucked up.” The old man tossed me into a pile of trash at the back of the alley.
“I swear! I got it from a guy yesterday!” I pleaded.
The old man pulled a huge knife from inside his ratty coat and pointed the blade at me. “You stop your devil talk right now Jenkins.”
“I’m not Jenkins!”
“That’s just what a Jenkins would say, I’m not a Jenkins! Typical Jenkins.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? You’re crazy!”
“I’m crazy? You’re the guy that looks like the guy I was in ‘Nam with who still looks 18. Explain that.” The old man cracked a beer and crouched in front of me drinking.
“I don’t know, it’s just a fake ID man. I don’t know where it came from!”
“Mhmm. Sure. You tried this same thing two weeks ago when you said you were a 16 year old Indian girl. Didn’t work then, won’t work now.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No it doesn’t Jenkins, I killed you two weeks ago and here you are again, buying beer. You a body jumper? What’s your deal Jenkins?”
“It’s just a fake ID! I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know any Indian girls!”
“Right, right. Whatever you say Jenkins. You want a beer?” He said offering me a can.
“Um, sure. I guess.” I said hoping he would start to make sense.
“WELL YOU CAN’T FUCKING HAVE ONE!” He shouted fast balling the can into the wall behind me.
I’m not ashamed to admit this, but I started crying.
“Fuck me, it was just a beer man, don’t cry.” He said. “Save your tears for when I have to cut your face off. That shit’s gonna hurt.”
I cried harder, there wasn’t anything I could do anymore.
“Gross Jenkins.” He said.
“I, I, I’m not Jenkins.” I sobbed.
“Pretty sure you are, but at this point it doesn’t really matter does it? Hey, you remember that time we killed all those hookers in Saigon? Well this is gonna be a lot like that, except you’re the hooker this time Jenkins!”
He stood up and raised the knife, I closed my eyes and prayed. The stab never came, and it was quiet. I cracked an eye and searched for my attacker, but he wasn’t there. I opened the other eye and scanned the alley, there was no sign of him, and I hadn’t heard him run off. The only thing in the alley was the 30 rack with two missing beers.
I didn’t waste any time, I got up and bolted from the alley and back to my car as fast as I could. I went straight home and got under the covers, but I didn’t sleep. I didn’t sleep or do much of anything else for a long time.
|
Cashier: I don't know man... This just doesn't look right, *Andrew*...
Scott: seriously man??... We've already been over my address, date of birth and license number, what are you a cop?
DING
Brent: Ayyyo, an-DREEEEW!!!
Cashier: *huh...*
Brent: What's up my bruthaaa?! You going to the party again tonight??..
Scott: Tryin', but this asshole is questioning my face...
Cashier: that'll be $14.67...
| 2016-05-25T13:27:23
| 2016-05-25T08:14:54
| 23
| 10
|
[WP] After you die, you're handed a book about your life. You open it, expecting a novel. Instead you get a "Choose your own adventure" book with all of the decisions you ever made, and every outcome they could have had.
|
"I know the page number you want. 14508."
I looked to God expectantly. He did, I suppose, know my heart. Gingerly, the pages flicked between my fingertips as I searched for the correct page. So many years had passed, wondering. Two marriages and two divorces, too. No children because I couldn't imagine myself having them with anyone else. My heart sank when I saw your name. I would finally know.
There was so much death. It was difficult to follow any alternative decisions because my life ended shortly thereafter. Every path, it seemed, was cursed.
"Turn to 26756."
I glanced up, and he wasn't even looking at me. My attention turned back to the book; it was large enough to smell like a bookstore all by itself. I love that smell. A sigh escaped my lips as I realized where the text had taken place. It was the day I asked you to marry me. The last day we ever spoke.
Unlike the rest of the book, this didn't have my alternative choice; I suppose I never had one. Instead, it was yours. What would have happened if you had said yes? Tears dripped off my chin. I don't think I stopped reading that book for days. The day you came out to your parents. The day we got married, both of us clad in white wedding dresses. The day I graduated with my doctorate degree. The day I found you convulsing after downing an entire bottle of pills. The day I had to admit you to the psychiatric ward for the fifth time. And the sixth, seventh, and eighth. It went on for thousands of pages; for every decision we made that kept our lives going, there were five where either you or I died. It was such a delicate life that we could have had together.
I reached the final page of our potential lives together. Both of us sat cross-legged, foreheads touching, and a gun in hand, held to the temple of the other. Wherever you wanted to go, I followed. It was finally time. No alternative choices. I closed the book.
"She didn't want this life for you."
"It shouldn't have been her choice."
|
I sat at the desk dumb-founded.
“You mean... you mean this is everything that could have happened if I just made a different decisions?”
The spirit in front of me is a friendly face but the marks on her neck tell a story of sadness. She looks at me as if I’m the first she says this to. “Yes. From the day you were born to the day you died. Every decision and every outcome. Although trust me when I say that anything before the age of 10 is more just whining and boredom. You may have done something crucial back then that caused a different outcome but it’s highly unlikely. Anyways. The book is yours. Feel free to read and digest it. But just know, you can’t change anything. Everything that happened is set. You can only see what could have happened.” She gave me a look that may have been a look to scare me but really I just wanted to get out of there.
I picked up the book and walked out of the office. As soon as the door behind me closed, I let out an unneeded breath. I looked down at the book in my hands.
Every decision.
There was one passage I just had to read. One passage I thought was the reason for all the karma and the outcomes I made. The one reason I died.
I was in a car accident. A severe car accident where We ran off the side of a cliff and into the ocean. As far as I’m aware, there were no survivors of the accident but I didn’t see anyone else.
It was just me.
I looked around. It seemed like I hadn’t left Earth. I was still on the green and blue planet. But I knew that wasn’t true.
When you die, you become a spirit and go to a place that is similar to where you left. So I was in California, on a cliff, overlooking the ocean.
I sat at the edge and opened the book to the date I knew it all started. The date I knew I had meet my match to death. I took another unnecessary breath and opened to July 18th, 2010. The day I meet Parker. The day I opened myself up to pain and abuse and neglect. The day I opened myself to telling myself that it wasn’t him. The day I started to leave my family behind.
On the page it has Parker’s name and the place we meet. The skate park. I couldn’t skate but I would go with my best friend, Amanda, and we would check the guys out. I remember the day so clear. I introduced myself “Ava.” And he told me his name “Parker.” I remember being taken in by his sharp green eyes and the dyed jet black hair. The way his pants hung loose on his hips. I was a senior in high school and craved attention from any male I could get.
We had talked and talked and soon became more than just friends. When I graduated, we left the small town we lived in Colorado and moved to California.
It was a mistake.
We couldn’t find a job or a place to live that we could stay in longer than 6 months. Drugs became an obsession for Parker while I stayed away and just waitress. It was long hours and strained our relationship but one of us had to work.
The drugs became more of a problem and when I refused to give him money for them anymore, he hit me and told me to obey. That’s when I thought I wasn’t going to be able to leave. I had planned on leaving after I had saved enough money. I knew my sister would let me stay with her, I just had to get to her myself. I had been stashing money and lied to Parker that I didn’t have anything for him.
He found it.
My sister came once to save me but I was too weak under Parker’s control. I told her that I was fine.
“Ava. Your arms are bruised and you have lost weight. Not to mention the look of this place. You need to come home. We’re worried.”
“Worried? Where were you when I turned 18 and moved out here? You didn’t seem to care then. Why care now?” And the door slammed in her face.
I have never felt more guilt.
Then just a few months later, comes the day I die. I finally made the decision that I couldn’t do this. We were driving up the coast just to get some fresh air. I looked over at Parker and felt fear not love and that’s not what I wanted.
“I’m leaving.” I had blurted.
Parker looked over at me, stunned “What did you just say to me?”
“I can’t do this anymore. I missed my sisters wedding. I missed the birth of my nephew. My mom is sick. I just want to go home. You and I are not compatible. We ever were. We lived in a fantasy and hoped it would work but we need to face reality. We’re broke. You do drugs. I can’t work 7 jobs to make ends meet. It’s time to let this die.”
At that, Parker had agreed but not to let me go. To let us die. He jerked the wheel and went over the cliff. I remember screaming and slamming on the door to get it to open but the pressure of the water was too much and I couldn’t get out.
Soon water started to enter the car. Parker just laughed and said we deserved to be together for eternity. I think he died laughing.
I looked down at the page. Page number 37. The options were (approach Parker, pages 37-150) or (stay with Amanda, pages 150-350).
I turned to page 150.
Edit: so sorry about the formatting! I did it on my phone but it should be all fixed now.
| 2018-07-03T23:20:49
| 2018-07-03T22:39:59
| 371
| 92
|
[WP] Mages can choose their source of power: water, air, lightning, even emotions. To achieve an element, they must visit its sacred shrine, where they are challenged by the very element they wish to possess. Describe one mage's fight against its element.
|
“Ambrosius failed, Abanazar failed. Three of Solomonanţă’s finest students died here, men with fifteen or twenty powers under their command.” The famulus stumbled up the stairs behind Heron. Stubbing his toe, the old man shuddered off his human form and landed as an owl on his Master’s shoulder. “Even the Emperor Oberon couldn’t take this power. It is not meant to be touched by mortal hands.”
Heron simply nodded and continued up the smooth onyx stares.
“Look, if you really want Abyss, fine. I get it. No one has held this power in aeons. But don’t make it our first shrine. Let’s get some easy wins first before we jump in the deep end.”
“Just because you’re an owl right now doesn’t make you right, you know?” the young magus replied, his traditional grey hooded robes sweeping the dust from the stairs behind him.
“No,” the owl agreed. “Ten thousand years of experience and just plain common sense are what makes me right. Let me take you to Tierra del Fuego and we can do the volcano run. I did it with your father, it’s a perfect beginner’s shrine.”
Heron’s eyes remained focussed on the pavilion at the top of the black stairs. “Everyone gets Fire. And you might have learned a thing or two over the years, but you're still the servant and I'm the master. A master of *two* bloodlines. You will see things with me that you've never witnessed with those other magi."
“Okay, what about Ice? The caves of Mt Erebus are pretty remote. Or we can go to Catatumbo for something with more of a bang? Laputa? Greenwich? Domdaniel?”
The magus continued up the stairs.
“Death Valley?! Shangri-La?! The Nazca Desert?!”
“We’re practically at the top now,” Heron stated calmly.
The owl hopped from foot to foot on his shoulder. “Still time to turn back…”
“Look,” the magus shrugged his famulus off of his shoulder. “Did you ever stop to consider *why* the other wizards failed this trial? Abyss is the power of nothingness. I propose that the treasure of this shrine is the pinnacle of antimagic. If you bring an experienced magister here, someone dependant on magic, and they end up with their powers negated or even turned against them of course they will fail. But I don’t have anything to lose.”
“That,” admitted the owl, “is just about the most idiotic idea I have ever heard.”
Heron reached the top step and studied the rotunda before him. Eight pillars of dark stone lifted a vaulted dome over a plain, featureless altar. Atop the altar sat the Stone of Abyss: a perfect black sphere, flawlessly smooth yet without the slightest reflection.
“See?” Heron grinned, reaching for the stone. “Easy as…”
Darkness covered his vision. Silence filled his ears. Heron tried to move his head and arms, but had no way of telling if they were obeying him or not. Then a thought pushed itself into Heron’s mind. ‘**Tell me**,’ the thought began, ‘**why there is something rather than nothing?**’
Heron thought a new thought of his own free will. It was a single word of profanity.
The involuntary thought morphed and repeated in the magus’s mind. ‘**Procreation only creates matter from matter. It does not explain why there is matter to begin with. Why is there something rather than nothing?**’
Koans had always been the weakest thread in Heron’s pre-magical training. The dark thought knew it.
‘**You were expecting a physical fight?**’ the thought became. ‘**You haven’t the knowledge to claim me, but perhaps that’s to our mutual advantage.**’
‘How’ wondered Heron.
‘**You also haven’t the experience to understand that death is favourable to losing this fight. And you haven’t the power to die against my will.**’
Light poured once more into the magus’s eyes, but it was not Heron who saw. Nor was it Heron who heard the famulus hoot a concerned question.
“**Yes, yes. I was just lost in thought,**” the young magus’s lips spoke. His robe turned black with newfound power as Heron’s hands lifted the hood over a cruel, ecstatic grin. “**Tell me, though, can you think of one good reason why there should be something instead of nothing?**”
|
"Aww, damn it. Every freaking time," Grynfa said, taking off his hat and shaking the water off of it. Opening the great oak door must have nudged the leaves that covered the roof and doused him with tepid water that had collected during the last rain storm. He shook off his cloak and wiped his cheek where some of it had splattered on his face.
Upon the wall of the shrine was a torch, unlit. He walked over to it and took the flint and steel from his pack, striking it to create sparks. And when no flame appeared, he struck it again. And again. And then a crack formed along the flint. "Just work already," he muttered under his breath. One last strike and a spark caught the torch, just as the flint snapped in two. He huffed and dropped the broken pieces back in his pack, taking the torch off the wall and beginning the walk down the long corridor.
The shrine hadn't been visited in ages. Compared to some of the more popular disciplines, this particular temple might as well have been closed down for all the dust and cobwebs gathered. That didn't make Grynfa any relieved as he sputtered and clutched at his face, a cobweb having settled itself invisibly upon it. He swatted away at the lingering strands and kept walking.
The line out the door of the Incindious Shrine was tremendous these days, what with fire being such a useful discipline. You actually had to make an appointment with the Chambre Arcanus - the union for magi - to make an attempt at the Cirrus Temple. Apparently, you just *have* to be able to fly these days if you want to make it in sorcery.
He turned a corner, beginning a gradual descent into the lower level of the shrine. *Thump!* "Aagh!" he yelped as he stumbled forward, the toe of his boot having caught on the edge of a loose stone in the path. His heart was racing, as one's heart does at such an unexpected ambulatory interruption, and he stopped and steadied himself and his breathing.
*This had better be worth it*, he said to himself.
He reached the door to the inner sanctum of the shrine, a large stone wheel that rolled away from the opening. He placed the torch in a sconce on the wall and pulled the heavy stone facade to the side, rolling it with no small amount of exertion out of the way. The portal sufficiently open, he turned back to the torch and heard the scrape of the stone as the door rolled back into place.
"You gotta be kidding me. Ugh."
He placed the torch back in the sconce and rolled the door back open once more. He lodged his heel into the crack between the wheel and the floor and stretched across the corridor to retrieve the torch. A couple of silver coins dropped from the pocket on his bag. "Oh come on," he said, vowing to just forget it and leave them be.
He retrieved the torch and stepped into the sanctum, the stone circle sliding shut behind him. The great chamber was dark, save the light flickering from the torch he held. The chamber was a dome, like a ball had been cut in half and placed flat to hold some great arcane secret. In the center on a marble pedestal rested a statue of a hand reaching out of the dusty surface, the palm open flat to the sky, and upon that palm sat the object of his quest - a seemingly plain steel band that emanated with a faint purple glow.
Surrounding that pedestal was a moat of fetid liquid of indeterminate origin. It had taken a while for the stench to hit him and when it did, he nearly dropped the torch. Grynfa approached the center, kicked a rock into the moat, and heard it clunk just a few seconds later. Well, it wasn't the danger presented to the initiates who trialed the Aciduous Antechamber. Those guys were nuts. This, at least, appeared to just be a gross, shallow pool of dirty muck.
He placed the torch on the ground beside him and knelt, doing a bit of quick mental math. With a bit of a reach, he might actually be able to snatch the ring from the hand without issue. He edged right up to the water line of the moat, trying to be as careful as possible. As he prepared to lean out, he felt a small blot of wetness on his knee as he just barely touched the edge. "Aww, gross. I'll have to burn these pants now."
He stretched forward, trying to remain as steady as possible though he felt a little bit of a pull in a muscle in his back that he just knew would hurt in the morning. His hand neared the mineral hand stretched upwards before him, getting closer and closer.
"This is it, Grynfa," he said to himself, "just a little bit farther and you shall become the world's only Magus of Minor Inconveniences!"
With one last stretch, his hand snatched the ring and his heart leapt! He leaned backwards, pulling away from the disgusting drink and standing up. He cheered, jumping up and pumping his fist in the air. At that moment, he felt his grip loosen and the ring go flying. Panic overtook him for just a moment before he heard:
*Splash.*
"Aww, damn it."
| 2017-11-03T10:37:15
| 2017-11-03T10:20:28
| 46
| 10
|
[WP] someone is breaking into your house. You grab an ancient axe you've just bought at an auction and brain the burglar. All of the sudden all life-skills and knowledge of all that have been felled by that axe come flooding into your consciousness.
|
The haft of the axe was slick in my sweaty palms as I crept through the house toward the sound of someone rummaging through my kitchen. I knew I should have moved out of this neighborhood a few years ago, but the home rates kept going down and I wanted to try and time the market so I could maximize my return on investment after the tax changes went through a few years ago.
Now I'd likely die, which had an extremely low return on investment.
I gulped and took another step forward. I'd already called the police but I couldn't just ignore what was going on in my kitchen. I had left out numerous files there, and I had an obligation to preserve attorney-client privilege. Was I the sort of man to lay down my life to protect that sanctity of that relationship?
Yes. Yes I was. I'd sworn an oath when I'd been admitted to the bar.
I came to the edge of the doorway, and the clanging in the kitchen was just increasing. I took a final swallow, tightened my grip on the ancient axe I'd just purchased from an antiquities auction and then gave my best war howl before charging into the kitchen, brandishing the axe in front of me.
Almost immediately, I slipped on a pot that was laying on the ground and slid forward. I flailed my arms, trying to regain my balance and...
...decapitated the intruder.
Blood was just everywhere. Spraying all over my faux-white wood linoleum floor and coating the better part of my cabinetry. It was beyond anything I'd ever imagined and far more horrifying in the reality than this sort of thing was on TV shows.
I screamed, which was difficult because I was also in the process of vomiting. I tried to drop the axe, but it was somehow stuck in my grip, glowing blue with a strange light.
Suddenly, my mind expanded, as an influx of strange thoughts, memories and knowledge filled my brain, competing with the various statues and regulation that I had meticulously gathered from years of practice as lawyer.
I fell to my knees, numb.
Two things occurred to me:
One: Something was terribly wrong.
Two: I knew how to win the Jenkins case. The Falkonwrath rebellion of 923 was very instructive in that regard.
**Platypus OUT. Want MOAR peril?** r/PerilousPlatypus
|
Professor Alex Ezeh plops down on his couch and sighs. He methodically rubs his sore feet, wondering again if this job was right for him. He loves teaching and his students (most of them, anyways) and there was no greater enjoyment in his life than that rush when he sees his love of chemistry reflected in the voices and eyes of the next generation.
Unfortunately, that’s been happening less and less. And the crushing weight of college bureaucracy, petty politics between his peers, and the pain of old age has made it difficult to enjoy it when it does happen.
He rests back on the couch and turns on the TV, hoping for some distraction.
“In the latest report, a recent string of violent murders has stunned and shocked the region. It appears that the murderer has been using an axe to carry out their crimes, and their targets have all been professionals in varied fields, such as doctors, lawyers, mixed martial artists, and more. Strangely enough, in a recent press conference the police chief has said, and I quote, ‘It is as if this person is a ghost.’ For more, I turn to Officer Gary. Gary?”
“Thanks, Michelle. I can’t say it better than the chief. This murderer, whoever they are, is nothing like we’ve ever seen. They’re always five steps ahead of us, and somehow they know everything about how the police operate. One of the murders was one of our officers, and it is believed that the murderer tortured Officer Mark to—”
Feeling sick, Alex switches the channel. Grisly axe murders are not what he wanted to watch about right now, though the news has been everywhere. His colleagues couldn’t stop talking about it.
He ends up watching some episodes of Breaking Bad, microwaving a frozen meal, and going to bed early.
---
Alex has trouble sleeping. He twists and turns in his bed, chased by axe-wielding meth addicts. In the faintest corner of his still-awake mind, a noise like creaking floorboards…
A gloved hand snaps over his mouth. Alex’s eyes snap open, and he tries to jump away from the bed, but he’s somehow been tied down by rope. He fearfully searches the face of his assailant and only sees a black mask hidden in the shadows.
“Shhh,” a strangely familiar voice says. “Everything’s going to be okay, Professor. I’m sorry it had to come to this, but there’s no one more gifted in organic chemistry than you in our city.”
Alex cries, his tears dripping onto the murderer’s gloved hand.
“Don’t cry,” the murderer whispers, “it’s okay. Continue to struggle, and Odin will recognize your fight. You will ascend into Valhalla—”
The murderer grunts and twitches.
“—into Elysium,” the murderer continues, this time his voice sounding somehow different. “The Judges of the Dead will recognize all the good you’ve done, and you will find peace. Trust me.”
Suddenly, Alex realizes why the voice sounds familiar. It’s one of his students.
“James?” Alex tries to say, but his voice is muffled.
“Shh,” James says, reaching behind his back. “This will all be over soon. But fear not, Professor Ezeh. Even if you do not find the afterlife, you will live on… in me. I will use your knowledge for good, I swear. I swear…”
In the glint of the moonlight, a deadly, ancient-looking axe. In the small eye holes of the mask, a madness-tinged bloodlust.
The axe falls. And everything goes black.
---
/r/chrischang
| 2021-06-20T08:39:46
| 2021-06-20T08:31:59
| 131
| 71
|
[WP] The Islamic State is wiped out by a totally unexpected country in a totally unexpected way.
|
"DEUS VULT!"
The battlecry of the newly reborn Papal State rang on the lips of devout Catholics the world over. The faithful had come together once again to rid the Holy Land of the infidel scourge. Pope Francis stood at the head of his army, a not-so-ceremonial sword flashing in his hand as he held it up on the streets of the Holy City.
(In all seriousness, how has nobody invoked the Crusades yet?)
|
He grew up on one of the toughest streets in America. Immigrants, weirdos, and living in filth described his young life. As he grew up, he was at first feared, then people started recognizing his deep, old man wisdom. Eventually, he gained many loyal friends, and others sought him out for his insight.
The ISIS problem had disturbed him greatly, occupying more and more of his private musings, as he sat in the filth at the entrance to an alley. Something must be done. A grim, stern look grew across his face. His unblinking eyes finally made a decision.
He would fight ISIS, man to man, one at a time.
Miraculously, it worked, because he was Oscar the Grouch, and the cookie monster had his back. Over and over they grabbed and stuffed terrorist after terrorist into Oscars bottomless trashcan. They attacked, well, like monsters. When they got shot, well, theyre puppets, bullets pass right through them, and they just kept fighting. When times got hard, Mr Snuffaluffagus would plow through their ranks like Mrs Piggy in menopause. Big Bird handled resupply, and The Count worked the night operations, killing 1, 2, 3.... terrorists, his cackles pierced the night and made the terrorists yearn for the days when Gordon would tell a bedtime story instead of call in airstrikes from those aliens in the manamana videos.
In the end, many puppets were lost. On quiet nights in Northern Syria, if you sit still and use your manners and listen quietly, you can sometimes still hear : 'Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sessame Street?'
| 2016-01-29T10:03:10
| 2016-01-29T09:11:06
| 82
| 33
|
[WP] The English Teacher's worst nightmare: a story or poem that is completely literal, with absolutely no double meanings
EDIT: Holy cow, this got way bigger than I thought it would, thanks so much for an awesome first prompt ever!
EDIT 2: Did this actually make it to the front page of reddit? What the...
|
This is a poem.
It has ___ lines.
That space is left blank because the poem is unfinished.
When you are done reading, you may fill it in.
Please print legibly.
Printing legibly does not have an artistic meaning.
It's just nice to have good penmanship.
Some poems do not rhyme.
This is an example of a poem that doesn't rhyme.
Poems are often designed to evoke feelings within their audience.
Remember that time that person you like did something nice for you?
Please take a moment to reflect on that.
This poem has now completed its intended purpose.
This poem is now finished.
|
Slam poetry!
Yelling!
Angry!
Waving my hands a lot!
Specific point of view on things
Cynthia!
Cynthia
Jesus died for our sin-thee-uhs
Jesus cried, runaway bride
Julia Roberts!
Julia rob, hurts
Cynthia! Mmmm…
Cynthia
You're dead
You are dead, bap boop beep…
You're dead
That's for Cynthia,
Who's dead.
Who's dead.
| 2017-01-30T10:54:30
| 2017-01-30T10:16:58
| 15
| 11
|
[WP] A man is going through the attic of his recently deceased grandfather when he stumbles upon what looks to be an old journal with his grandfather's name on the inside cover. The first entry is dated "10/07/2392".
|
Edit June 30: Be sure to check out the 2nd part of the story below as a reply to this comment.
Edit **July 1**: Added in a third part, be sure to check it out in the comments below.
***
*It had to have been some kind of error,* Bryan had thought.
He immediately shut the journal and examined the cover. It seemed normal, albeit a bit fancy, but such was the case with Grandpa Alan. The thin journal was bound in leather that was wrinkled near the spine from frequent opening and folding. Bryan turned the journal over to take a look at its back and saw nothing else that stuck out. He turned it over a few times in his hands, feeling it carefully, allowing his fingers to rub over every crease in the leather cover.
*An error*, he said to himself again, opening the journal once again. He thumbed through the first few flyleaves, then thumbed back, making sure that there hadn't been anything written there either. Then he turned to the page he had last left off on. It was clear on the top left hand corner, **10/07/2392**.
Before Bryan even began to read, he turned a few pages, sure of himself that he would see the correct date, maybe a 10/12/1992, or something like that. But no, the year remained 2392, and eventually 2393 once he reached past December. Bryan shut the journal again and sat it down on the dusty table from which he found it.
It had been years since he had seen Grandpa Alan. Bryan was willing to admit that along with the fact that he was a horrible grandson (the only reason he was there in the attic was because he was looking for valuables to take and sell), but he wasn't ready to admit that he believed what he saw. He rubbed at eyes, feeling a strange sensation bubbling in his stomach.
"He was going senile towards the end," Bryan said aloud, alone in the attic. "That's what it was. He was going senile."
Bryan picked up the journal and turned to the first entry again, preparing himself to read what his grandfather had written, "Either he's going senile, or I'm experiencing some strange withdrawals," but he knew better than that. There were no hallucinations involved with heroin.
Blinking several times before beginning, Bryan began to read, unaware that his teeth were chattering.
***
**10/07/2392**
Gena has been gone still for several days. Mom is still worried that she's somewhere in China, probably trying to sell her body.
I'm not entirely sure what she would try to sell. She's already down two legs and two arms. I'm not sure what organs she has that are still hers. She'd be silly to try and sell her heart, but I don't know about Gena anymore. She's long gone.
***
"What the fuck," Bryan whispered. Surely he was senile. Surely Grandpa Alan had written this during his final days. It was goofy, but still, when Bryan ran his fingers over the writing, he could sense age. It made his head hurt, thinking about it. How would you figure out how old an item brought from the future would be?
He turned the page and read on.
***
**10/15/2392**
Gena came back, but this time with a glazed look in her eyes. I'm thinking she actually did go through with selling her heart. I doubt she has much time to live. I've got to get ready to comfort Mom. Gena isn't going to make it another handful of days, not with a cheap knockoff sitting in her chest. I checked her pulse when she was passed out in the living room. It wasn't beating like a normal ticker should. It's a wonder how she's still alive.
But not really. She's already been dead to me for some time.
I've gotten a new job though, luckily enough. Got it at some government place. I think the only reason they hired me on is because I don't have any sort of body modifications. It's not often you run into a person without them, they told me.
I kept myself from telling them the only reason I didn't have them was because I had no money to get any of them.
That, and I didn't want to see myself become what Gena was. Or wasn't. I don't even know anymore.
***
Before long, Bryan had been sitting down in the corner of the dusty attic, not caring one bit about the heat. He was lightheaded from dehydration, but he kept reading. The thought to just take the book with him and read in a more comfortable place never once crossed his mind. He had to keep reading. He had to find some point in this journal that would tell him that this was all fake. Either all fake, or his grandpa was a loon.
Over time, Bryan grew frustrated reading the journal entries one after the other. Most entries were just menial things; an update on Gena, and update about her death, and an update about Mom vanishing. Nothing that told him that his grandpa was from the future.
Bryan thumbed through pages and pages without reading, until he finally spotted the change in date. It was circled big and red, and the writing seemed like chicken scratching, as if someone had written it in a hurry.
***
**04/23/1990**
I did it! I actually did it! I can't believe it. It worked. I am here.
They set me up with a place of my own. They gave me some currency, the kind I had only seen in history books. The house is strange, and I have to get used to these old archaic tools, but I did it!
I have a new life now. I can make a new life. I just have to make sure that I stay away from Texas. Apparently that's where my ancestors are.
All is fine if I avoid them. That's what David said. If I bump into them in some form or another, then
***
"Bryan?"
He turned so fast he felt a muscle in his neck cramp. His whole body was aching from sitting hunched over. He kept the journal in his lap, and spoke in a dry voice, "Aunt Gena?"
|
**October 7th, 2392**
Today is the day. I have been chosen specifically for this mission out of a group of the world’s finest men and women. There is no room for failure. If I succeed, humanity will live on. But if I fail it will be the end of everything as we know it. Yet, that does not scare me.
No matter how the wheel turns, I am dead in the end.
**February 19th, 1965**
It is strange to use this date. But I cannot dwell on the thought. I must continue on with the mission before it’s too late. It will take long enough to integrate into society. I fear the repercussions if they discover my true intentions. I cannot let anyone know.
**March 1st, 1965**
I met a woman today. Her name is Dolores – Dolly for short. She helped me find the library after I lost my way. There is something… pleasant about her. I hope we are to meet again.
**June 10th, 1969**
I’ve been here for over five years and yet my mission remains uncompleted. Instead, I am getting married. It’s surreal, really. Dolly is by far the most interesting person I have had the opportunity to meet. I… I think I want to spend the rest of my life with her. That is, depending on how much longer it’ll be.
**May 21th, 1972**
I’ve never held a baby before this day. Yet, it felt so natural. I could hardly believe it was a person, to be honest. She is the light of my life, the thing I would die for. We decided to name her Ruth, after Dolly’s late mother. I like it. It’s strong, like I hope she’ll be one day.
**June 10th, 1979**
Ten years together and I still love Dolly more and more every day. I can’t believe she has given up everything for a liar like me. It’s not fair to her – not fair to Ruth, either. I need to tell her the truth. Yet, every time I think of the words, they get caught in my throat as my chest tightens. God, what have I gotten myself into?
No, I can’t hide anymore. I tell her tonight.
**September 3rd, 1990**
Saying goodbye is always the hardest thing to do.
Ruth is gone, far off to the world of college. I’m happy for her – I truly am – but seeing her walk the opposite way stings no less. She’s so young, oblivious to the world’s cruelties. I wish I could hold her one second longer, just to shield her from fate. But as always, it just wasn’t meant to be.
**July 9th, 1996**
I’m officially a grandparent now. Ruth is a woman now, long past the child I once knew. She has a husband now – a family, even. They’re so content, a life stretched out in front of them. I’m sure that girl of theirs will go on to do amazing things. I’ll make sure of it.
**December 21th, 2014**
Dolly died today.
It was expected. The cancer spread too fast for the doctors to counteract it. I had prepared myself for this day long ago. Hell, I’ve even written out her eulogy in advance.
But why am I still crying?
I can’t write more. It pains me too much. The memories… I just need to rest for now.
**March 1st, 2015**
And now it is my turn. It’s ironic – Dolly and I will be reunited on the day we first met fifty years ago. I couldn’t be happier, though. Too many nightmares have plagued me these last few months. I need to rest. To forget what has happened and what has yet to occur. I can only hope the people of the future can forgive my selfishness.
But you – you can still make a difference. I’ve left notes in my journal here for you to find, granddaughter. It’s the least thing an old fool like me can do. With the information provided, *you* can change the future for the better. It’s a lot of responsibility but I know you can do it.
I’ve made sure of it.
| 2015-06-30T15:34:37
| 2015-06-30T15:16:59
| 56
| 14
|
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy.
|
"I'm sorry...there must be a glitch with this translator. You do *what* now?"
"Fiddle with the Higgs Field around our ships."
"And your 'Higgs Field' is where a particle essentially gives an object its mass via its interaction with other particles, yes?"
"Yup!"
"And you...fiddle with it?"
"Yeah, it ain't too precise. Zero Point Drives have a decent range of power that fluctuates, but they work!"
"Just...walk me through it again."
"Alright, well the ZPD activates and it creates a field around the ship that essentially begins to stop bosons. The ship essentially loses matter now that it now longer interacts with the Universe, approaching a 'Zero Point' or 'ground state' of existence. Everyone and everything inside is fine due to the field creating a sort of pocket within the ship."
"And acceleration?"
"Well our quantum vacuum thrusters—"
"And those are?"
"Oh! QVTs use quantum vacuum fluctuations of energy in space to propel itself using virtual plasma. As I was saying, once the ZPD fires up, those kick to go faster than light, and the lack of mass means its possible to do so."
"So first you alter the existence of your ship and then you tap into the still vastly misunderstood vacuum of virtual particles, risking destabilizing all matter aboard the vessel and risking fusing into an object once you complete your jump."
"We keep the spacelanes clear of debris just in case."
"And when it does happen?"
"Live and Learn. For those of us not aboard that ship of course. They're dead."
"..."
|
"You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty."
| 2017-03-30T23:27:43
| 2017-03-30T23:13:22
| 61
| 15
|
[WP] The super villain shook with rage as they stared at the security footage. "He's not even a real superhero with superpowers! He's just some loser who's really good at throwing knives at people without killing them!"
|
I like knives.
I like looking at them, collecting them, keeping them in tip-top shape… And I like to stab people with them, and see blood oozing from their wounds, and color draining from their faces, and tears pouring from their eyes as they beg and plead for their lives.
The teacher said it’s wrong to stab people. So did the police. So did my therapist. But if it’s so bad… Why does it feel so good to do?
I can’t stab random people. I can’t stab people I hate. But the villains… and their minions and their supporters and their scientists and their loved ones… I can stab them, slice them, dice them, and throw my knives at them…
As long as they aren’t dead after I had my fun, they’re fair game. People even praise me for it, calling me a hero, saying I saved the day… by making people bleed.
How wonderful. Truly, wonderful, these people they called “supervillains.”
I wish everyone were a supervillain—but no such luck. So I roam the streets, and wait in the dark, and sharpen my knives, and wait, and wait, and wait… for the next supervillain to show up, so my knives can taste blood, and I can watch them bleed, and beg, and cry…
As long as they don’t die, I’m a hero.
“You! You there, Red Ripper! I know your secret ‘hero’! You don’t have any superpowers! Not one! So today I, Dr. Grime, shall usher in your doom! Now, suffer and die!”
Tonight, my waiting paid off… and my knives shall taste blood once more.
God bless, supervillains!
I wish everybody was a supervillain!
|
#Doctor Doomsday
"Play it again" I demanded.
Stephan complied, rewinding the security footage from our latest mission. I saw two members of the Doomsquad team advancing down the hallway, and knew the third was camouflaged somewhere in the frame. The trio halted, probably due to some sound that wasn't captured by the building's cameras. I saw Avatar crouch into a combat position, while Steven stepped behind the big bruiser. Stacy remained hidden, only visible by the slight shimmer of her hair against a window.
A blur flew into frame from the left side of the screen, striking Avatar in the shoulder. The former hero clutched his arm in surprise, and return fire.
Literally.
Fire spewed forth from Avatar's free hand, filling the hallway with boiling flames. The camera struggled to adjust the lighting levels as hell was unleashed. It finally caught up when Avatar finished the blast, and switched places with Steve.
I saw Stacy emerge from her camouflage and rush to Avatar, attempting to provide first aid to the wounded man. He tried to shrug her off, but Stacy persisted.
Steven stepped into the hallway and threw out his hands, like a crossing guard telling a car to stop. Nothing appeared to be happening, but I knew Steve was using his power dampening ability to disarm the unseen super hero.
A second knife flew into view, striking Steven in the thigh. He collapsed in pain, clutching his leg as he fell to the floor.
Stacy must have heard him at this point, since she abandoned Avatar and rushed to Steven's side. She applied pressure to his wound, but quickly let go as another knife flew towards her. She vanished into camouflage, presumably making her escape.
I turned to look at Stacy beside me. Her usually vibrant pink hair was currently the deepest black color I had ever seen.
"Steve tried to halt his powers, but he still threw those knives with pinpoint accuracy?" I asked, trying to keep my usual villainous tone out of the question. Stacy had been through enough these past few days, she didn't need any additional stress.
She nodded.
"Did Steve's powers fail? Did he miss, or have any interference?" I asked, pressing the questions further.
Stacy shook her head again. "He just... didn't have powers." She said weakly.
"So that man..." I began.
"Is just really good at throwing knives." Stacy finished.
I turned back to the video, and indicated for Stephan to continue.
The footage resumed, showing Avatar and Steven both clutching their knife wounds. Moments later, the man came into view. He held a throwing knife in each hand, and dozens more secured to a tactical vest. The blades glinted in the light cast by the errant flames from Avatar's attack.
The footage went blank.
I turned back to Stacy. "Do you know where they were taken after this?"
Stacy nodded.
I turned back to Stephan once again. "Stephan, assemble the prison break logistical planning team. Have everyone meet me in conference room one."
I turned, and strode from the room. "Stacy, with me." I called over my shoulder. I heard her small footsteps as she tried to catch up to me.
"We're going to need some help on the extraction team for this one." I told her, striding towards my office. "Steven and Avatar are two of my best, and that knife guy took them both down. I'm putting you in charge of recruiting the additional manpower."
Stacy nodded. "Affirmative. Do you have someone in mind?"
I stopped and turned, startling Stacy into another camouflage state. I spoke to the seemingly empty spot that I knew she still occupied.
"How's your relationship with Steven going?" I asked.
Stacy stuttered, still invisible. "It-, uh, good, I mean, well, its going well. Why?"
I cackled. "Stacy, I think it's time you met your boyfriend's father."
She gasped, and re-appeared in the hallway a few steps away from where I had thought she was. "You mean..."
I cackled once again. "It's finally time to recruit WalkMan to the Doomsquad."
/r/SlightlyColdStories
| 2022-08-03T08:37:02
| 2022-08-03T08:11:53
| 1,053
| 278
|
[WP]: every human being is born with a birthmark signifying a great deed they are fated do in their lives. Your first child has just been born, with the mark of a murderer across her face
|
I looked my son in the eye and told him firmly, as I had this day for the last 12 years, “It is not your fault, you didn’t kill her. Anyone who says differently doesn’t understand what happened, now blow out your candles, we’ll visit the grave after cake and presents.”
|
"Why!?!" my wife screamed. *"WHY?!?"*
"Isn't it obvious?" I replied softly - too softly for her to hear in her current state. But one of the reporters heard me say it, and my wife's perfectly legitimate reaction to having her baby ripped away from her by government thugs wearing scrubs over their suits suddenly wasn't the most newsworthy thing happening in the room.
I was too numb too feel guilty. This had been my life, for thirty years. It had been a part of hers for ten. She'd been amazing, invincible. She'd shrugged off the media circus like it was nothing. There were at least seven unique videos uploaded to the internet of the two of us fucking like wild animals on rooftops or in swimming pools, flipping off the helicopters and shouting all manner of nonsense at the v-bloggers. We'd pushed my celebrity to the very edge, never quite enough to get either of us arrested or committed, but close. Very, very close.
She was still amazing. She actually stopped screaming, stopped crying. She had no respect for any of them, but, somehow her respect for *me* managed to overcome her unfathomable anger and sorrow and confusion. If I'd thought for one moment that it was just respect for the mark, I never would have married her. I probably still would have fucked her. But we were far beyond that now. I hoped she knew that.
I let them all squirm for a moment while cameras and cell phones shifted. For her sake, though - only for her sake - I didn't milk it, like we'd always said we would. I cut to the chase.
"There are only two reasons why they'd take her away, my love. Two equally fascinating, horrifying, earth-shattering reasons."
The room had been silent before, but suddenly the silence thickened into a palpable mass. In light of what had just transpired, nobody in the room thought I was jerking their chain again. This was it.
"First, she cannot be killed until she kills - no, until she *murders* someone else. Certainly, she can be injured, but not so grievously as to make her incapable of murder without further human intervention. This makes her one of the most valuable assets in human history, and they want her."
My wife choked back more tears, gasped for air, and suppressed a moan of pure matronly despair. The fucking v-loggers didn't so much as twitch. Whores, all of them. She was just some bitch whose baby had been kidnapped by the government less than an hour after it had been born. Fuck her, right? I was the real story.
I could feel my own numbness fading, so I resolved to say what needed to be said, to them, and to her.
"Second," I continued, ''she *can* be killed."
I let the implications hang in the air. The palpable silence was pushed aside by the rumblings of an avalanche. Most of the cameramen and v-loggers were... not *dumb,* *per se,* but certainly out of their depth when it came to the intricacies of free will and predestination. Even with the unbelievable upswing in philosophy majors following the First Generation, journalism was still about gumption and brown-nosing and connections. The philosophy majors got cushy jobs behind the desk back at the studio. Still, a few of these go-getters must have remembered whatever course had satisfied their gen-ed requirements. A few of them had already realized that they might not get away with merely observing and recording history. Not this time. A few of them glanced nervously at their own marks, or at the clothing that concealed them.
I looked up at my wife, using my last few moments of numbness to meet her gaze and to tell her - not what she wanted to hear, not what she needed to hear, not what any good husband or good person would say, but just the truth that she deserved to know, first, before anybody else.
"They only took her body, Grace. I'm so sorry, but never forgive me."
For obvious reasons, there are no previously recorded descriptions of the fabric of reality unraveling. But all of us were going to experience it together. There will be no history to record that fact that I was the last human to fulfill his destiny, writ large upon my body from head to toe.
I'd Changed The World.
| 2014-05-11T02:02:48
| 2014-05-11T00:52:33
| 81
| 14
|
[WP] All politicians must wear Nascar like uniforms showing the logos of who is sponsoring their elections. Everyone is shocked when the President of the United States makes a speech wearing a new uniform. It's all blank except for one logo.
|
Bruce Gordon was being sworn in as the 61st president of the United States of America.
When the most recent campaign season started, each of the prospective candidates donned their logo-patch covered campaign jackets to start churning out ads championing themselves as saviors of our nation. Among these hopefuls was Bruce Gordon, the handsome lawyer from New York, who made a name for himself when he was younger representing victims in child abuse cases, and later by serving two terms as the state's district attorney. He also had a very impressive investment portfolio, largely through several moderately sized investment firms with which he worked closely. He seemed like the perfect candidate, and the American population took a liking to him immediately.
When his ads came out, he wore only a few patches on his campaign jacket, mostly those firms he already had ties with. However, while he (and the firms which were funding him) had seen a great deal of financial success, it didn't seem to account for how much his campaign seemed to cost. When it became known that much of his campaign ran on favors and the charity of people he had helped or worked with in the past, his public image skyrocketed. Any opponent who attacked him got so much backlash from the populace that they were usually forced to drop out of the race. He was the nation's golden boy, and it seemed like nothing could slow down his meteoric rise to fame and power.
And nothing did. When you know who is funding all of your politicians, you get an idea of what issues they support. And Bruce showed the nation what he had planned for our future. He ran his campaign on his plan to carry the nation into the future, to push for more research, to advocate a safer, cleaner environment, to continue to grow the nation. That, and the adoration of the voters, guaranteed him the election. He'd won by a landslide. It was the most one sided election in history.
And today, the charismatic politician is swearing into office. The entire nation is watching on their news feeds. The event is massive, thousands of people gathering to see their new hero pick up his mantle. Finally, his car approaches the walkway that has been laid out for him. A security guard opens the door, and Bruce steps out. His coal black hair was perfectly swept to the side, streaks of grey just beginning to come in along his temples. He has inquisitive eyes and an trustworthy face, with a strong, square jaw and a large smile full of perfect, sparkling teeth. He moves with an easy confidence that put those around him at ease, and gives off an air of competence and friendliness. He walks down the aisle, waving to the adoring fans around him, his gleaming smile spreading his excitement to the crowd.
As he approaches the stage set up for the event people notice that he is still wearing the same slimming charcoal grey suit he'd campaigned in, but his jacket no longer had the patches of the investment firms that had supported him. The crowd buzzes at this, wondering what message he could be trying to send, or to whom. But this oddity is quickly forgotten in the excitement of the momentous occasion. He walks onto the stage. He stands a few steps behind the podium for a moment, looking around and beaming around at the audience.
Then he steps up to the podium and leans toward the microphone. "Friends, I want to thank you all for giving me the chance to serve this great and beautiful nation." He pauses as the crowd lets out a deafening cheer, raising his hand in an attempt to subdue the crowd's fervor. As the cheering subsides, he adjusts his tie, causing some of the lights glaring down on him to reflect off of a small button on his lapel. It was a tiny red silhouette of a face with a black goatee, black horns, and a black halo above it, set against a small pentacle. A glint came to his eye as he leaned back in to the microphone, "Friends, let me tell you what I'm going to do to make sure this wonderful nation stays on top..."
|
As the president came to the stand, he was not alone.
Of course, the president can never be alone, always protected by security and followed by advisors and behind them the trusted more-than-a-few. This time, however, the president was followed by just one man. The man had on him a green jacket, white undershirt, and brown slacks. All proper attire, sure, but there was one feature the press for this surprise broadcast wanted to know: Sponsor Logo. As is, the man in green does not have a logo, giving birth to talk among the assembled spectators. Lacking a logo, they turn their attention back to the president, wearing a new windbreaker that would normally be proudly displaying the numerous corporate badges of his supporters, turning the symbol or focal point of American interest in the company for these minutes into a strutting advertising page...
But this new windbreaker does not display the multitude of colored signage normally spotted. Instead, it displays but one symbol, unseen before then. Quick Googling by the reporters and many a political adversary turn up no relevant hits. The computer algorithms have failed them this one time and this shakes them, whether they show it or keep their mask. A short description seems in order, now. Orange or gold or some combination thereof, squared off into a corner at what would be the bottom right of a square, then extending halfway up the sides to turn suddenly into points parallel indicating towards the top-left. Nested between the points, in a pocket by the lower-right, a full circle. After the president makes it to the podium and the collection of individuals quiets, the president speaks.
"I wish to inform the country, and by extension hopefully the world, of a drastic new change about to come. Yes, we are already in the midst of a crisis, and the militaries and countries of the world have joined together wholeheartedly to combat this problem, which originated in this great country of ours."
"However... This new change, this... opportunity... has arisen not from this nation or any nation yet known to this world. I would like to introduce the man beside me to continue," As the said man in green taps them on the shoulder. "Wallace?"
The man identified as one "Wallace" steps up to the podium as the president steps down and heads into the back, whence they came.
"Earth is a beautiful planet, full of opportunities as we all know and is currently in the middle of a crisis. Aliens ply our waters, dig our sands, and are currently waging war on mankind. A war we alone are losing. A war we no longer have to be alone in. I speak as former Administrator for the Black Mesa Compound, where this all began due to the negligence of a few. I have come bearing the answer to our combined problems, not just alien - Overpopulation, starvation, lack of fresh water, the housing crisis - all things we would eventually fall to without help."
"And help I herald, from beyond the stars so recently turned hostile - A union of extraterrestrial beings who have achieved far more than we could ever hope for! And what do they ask of us in return for their help? Nothing more than to join them when we have matured further with their teachings, their guidance. Think! Not only to end this war not but to ascend!"
"Think on that if you will. Remember too that these benefactors may choose to stay their hand if we do not choose soon and annihilate ourselves by our own hand."
"The president wears their symbol. The symbol of the Universal Union."
And what has that brought us? Nearly twenty years of suffering under the iron fist of the Combine with Wallace Breen their willing puppet. What of earth? Well, unless something happens soon, I'm going to lose hope. Well, end of the line. See ya.
| 2016-09-19T19:22:10
| 2016-09-19T18:38:45
| 83
| 24
|
[WP] Heaven and Hell do exist after death but you can choose in which you go. You jokingly choose Hell and when you arrive there, you hear Satan saying: "Finally someone! A friend!"
|
"Hello!" I yelled into the darkness surrounding me. My voice rattled off unseen walls; deep rumbling echoes built up into a dreadful cacophony that seemed to swallow me whole.
*Hello hellllo helllllll oh-oh-oh*
My skin became goose-pimpled and a shiver ran up my spine.
"Please - I was joking! Death, if you're there still, please. Please!"
*Please pleaaaa pllleaaad-d-d*
I could feel cold, rock wall to my right but nothing in any other direction. With no other option, I plunged into the darkness, always keeping the wall within reach. The ground beneath me was uneven and I had to step cautiously so as not to trip. As I walked, the stench of sulphur began to grow, soon intensifying and wrapping itself tightly around my throat. After a time, I sensed that the passageway was leading me downward: the wall itself began to twist and I knew I was corkscrewing deep into the earth. No, not the earth. I was somewhere else. But if it was Hell, why was it empty?
I don't know how long I crept along in that dreadful, unrelenting silence -- that blinding darkness -- but eventually a dim orange light became visible someway below; I almost wept with relief.
Gradually, as I descended towards the light, my surroundings became less dim and I could see I was on a wide staircase of sorts -- although a ramp might be more accurate, as there were no steps. I glanced down at my feet and to my surprise, I recognised the sight of the black-grey ground I stood upon. It was a type of igneous rock; the type that forms when lava cools and dies.
The ramp eventually led into a vast hollow carved out of black rock walls. It was much brighter in the room than the stairwell, although shadows danced menacingly on the walls. I saw first a great rock table in the center of the room, around which was a circular patch of white ground marked with the tell-tale black veins of marble. Around that, twelve skeletons rested against the chamber's walls, rusty chains around their necks bolting them to the rock behind. There were iron keys lying by each of their legs. Could they have freed themselves but chose not to?
I crept towards the table. On it lay the remains of a great skeleton, much larger than the others, its arms folded proudly across its chest. In its arms lay a long-sword, its blade a shimmering crystal-blue. The huge bones that must have once made up the creature's wings lay spread across the table's wide surface.
An object rested on the creature's skull -- *the light source*. It was almost blinding to gaze upon the chipped red teeth that made up the terrible crown. Each tooth shone like a fiercely burning ruby. *Like a flame.*
On the side of the table was carved an epitaph.
> Here lies the body of the Morning Star, bringer of light. The true son of God. Long did he protect his children from the Angel's lies. No longer he can. By his side rests his eternally loyal apostles.
> Here lies the body of the Morning Star. He awaits to be avenged; he awaits a friend.
I don't know how long I sat in that room, surrounded by death with my arms wrapped tightly around me. Hours, at least. Days, perhaps.
I don't know why I eventually got to my feet and removed the crown of teeth from the skull, and placed it on my head.
But I did.
And as skin around my shoulderblades ripped and bled to reveal the growths beneath; as the eye sockets of the twelve skulls around the table began to flame and smoulder; as I picked up the sword from the skeleton on the table, and saw in my mind's eye the death of God and the Angel's crimes -- I realised that everything was about to change.
|
My mind twisted this from comical to a bit dark...
I had accepted my fate as soon as I had sliced my wrists. The hot bath water stung but I had figured Hell would be much worse... only it wasn't. It wasn't what I had expected at all.
"Another suicide? You don't have to stay here, you can go to Heaven" a disembodied voice remarked dismissively, as if this were a common occurrence.
"I have a choice?" Confused did not seem to cover how deeply disoriented I felt at that moment.
"You all do, every single one" the Voice replied airily.
"Does that mean my father is up there?" My voice tremored and I felt the selfhatred begin to suffuse me once more. Something I had hope death with cure.
"They're all up there" the Voice replied forlorn and tinged with jealously.
"I won't go there. Not if *he* is there!" I cried out, my fingers clenched into fists so tight my nails dug into my palms. How could this happen? Father Perez had taught us that sinners go to Hell and only the truly righteous would go to Heaven. He had counseled every week for three years and reassured me that my father would have to answer for his sins against me. How could this be?
My mental tirade ended abruptly at the appearance of a stunningly beautiful man. "Who are you?" I demanded, I could already feel the angry tears building in my eyes, my cheeks I could tell were already rosy from my ire.
"I am Lucifer, the Morningstar" the man proclaimed with a small flourish of his beautiful hand. It was unfair how perfect Satan looked, my own hands were scarred from years cigarette burns. "*He* can heal your skin, if you want to go to him. You'll be happy, it's your personal paradise" Lucifer drawled. Oh...he could read minds.
"I won't go. I don't care if I have to be scarred and ugly for eternity. I won't be anywhere near *that* man!" my voice cracked as I bellowed but I didn't care that I had yelled at Satan, he could do his worst.
Lucifer sighed, no doubt tired with my infantile fury. I held my breath and waited for the hordes of demons to come and smite me. "Heaven is a realm eternal and vast, you will never have to see your father if you do not desire it."
"I won't take the chance!" I had crossed my arms and hunched reflexively without realizing it. I could see the look of pity in his crystal blue eyes as he looked upon my no doubt pitiful presence. "Please, don't make me go" I pleaded. I was angry, scared, and confused. The afterlife wasn't supposed to be like this.
"Okay, you can stay" Lucifer's stance relaxed "you look like you could use a friend."
"I don't need your pity, unless this is how you plan to torture me?" At that Lucifer smiled sadly.
"No, I could use a friend too." The sincerity in his voice jarred me. "Come with me, do you enjoy coffee?" He nodded his head and a simple black door appeared before us.
I goggled the question. "Can't you read my mind?" I laughed as I followed him through the door into what looked like a well appointed modern mansion. It was stunning.
"What kind of friend would I be if I read your mind so callously?" He asked with an arched blonde brow. "And, while I'm asking questions, what is your name?"
"Ash" I mumbled and played with the cuff of my stained hoodie sleeve. Lucifer paused in his coffee making and looked at me quite intensely.
"Ash? Is that short for anything?"
"*Ashtoreth*, my mom picked it out but it's embarrassing." I murmered. Mom was Jewish, technically I was supposed to be too. I wondered if that would matter to Lucifer. It didn't matter to my foster parents.
"No, Ashtoreth, I thinking it's quite fitting." Lucifer had a very happy smile as he pulled shots of espresso. He handed one to me and it looked unnaturally beautiful for coffee. "It's a ristretto, sip it." Lucifer commanded and sipped his own. I watched as he sighed in contentment.
I brought mine to my lips and sipped. The espresso warmed me and I felt new. I felt whole. "Welcome home, *Asteroth*."
I was *home*.
| 2022-11-26T20:28:16
| 2017-11-04T08:14:39
| 960
| 19
|
[WP] Every statue in the world has come to life and started a battle royale. All the 10,000 Lenin Statues have teamed up.
|
The great army of Lenin marched forth and destroyed everything in its path. Not a single military could defeat them in Europe and so after the great European powers were defeated the army marched eastward. They could not cross the Atlantic on foot and so wished to cross the Bering straight into North America to spread the mother lands power and influence but first they had to dominate Asia.
As they marched it seemed like nothing could stop them , the army crushed the monuments and great temples of India crossed into the jungles of the Thailand and Vietnam. Wherever they went conquest was to be had, until it came to China.
There were thousands and thousand of statues under the motherlands banner and they were lead by the great statue of Volgograd who stood 27m tall. He towered over everyone and had been one of the great bruisers of the Lenin army while also leading it. He was the absolute giant of the land . The Peoples Republic of China had an army of their own it was the great Terracotta army of Qin Shi Huag . Lead by its greatest generals it would not be defeated by the invaders of Russia and so they marched to meet the invaders on their lands.
They met outside of Nanning in the south of China , the two armies stared down at each other across a vast lowland. The Lenin of Volgograd looked down at the Chinese army and saw what they offered , a true battle but they were no match in his estimates. The Chinese general knew he was going to lose the battle here but the goal was never to win but merely to stall until his help from Hong Kong arrived. The battle started with the great Lenin waving his hand forward and motioned for his men to surge forth while staying put, there was no need to get involved for they were fighting clay not stone. The Russians surged forth in a massive stone and bronze wave that shook the ground beneath them and soon it was met the the wrath and fury of the terracotta army. The army had horses and war chariots , archers and infantry. They were fighting like mad men but it was as the Lenin had thought. They were no match for his army and it seemed like the day was going to be won for Russia. The battle lasted for an afternoon but the end was all too familiar for the Russians. They had smashed the Chinese army and captured her general , help had not arrived that day. The great Lenin had the general brought before him and splayed out , he looked down at his foe and smiled , brought his foot up and was about smash the small sculpture but then the ground shook and he looked to the east. In the distance there was a floating head beyond a hill , Hong Kong had arrived and the general smiled as Lenin brought his foot down.
When word had reached Hong Kong of the Lenin army a great debate had raged between the statues ,to go or not. It had been decided that to protect their land and culture all the statues would arise and fight. This was fine and all but the greatest army in Hong Kong was not those of dragons , solders , or even those accustomed to fighting. They were monks, and so an inherently internal battle had to be raged to decided to enter a fight. Eventually knowing that if they chose to not fight they would still fall to the power of the invading army. So to prevent the inevitable they would rush to the south and help the great terracotta army in expelling them from their homeland.
The Lenins could not believe what they were seeing , it was like a mountain moving among a sea of gold. The Lenin of Volgograd was the tallest and strongest of them and yet they were faced with someone who looked at him like he was but a small child. The great Budda Shakyamuni was a massive statue , when it was sitting it stood 34m , but now that he was walking he towered nearly 70m tall. He was not the only thing that was coming , all of the monks of Hong Kong had come to do battle. The Lenins had never met such a force in all of its conquest, and never again would it.
&#x200B;
The two armies met with the sun waning in the sky , the giant Buddha and Lenin did battle in the center of an ever increasing pile of rubble . True no one single monk statue could bring a Lenin down but for every one Lenin there were dozens of monks. The Great Volgograd Lenin lasted a while but it just could not meet the size and strength of the Buddha , soon it had its head knocked clean off and fell to the ground. After he fell the great Buddha sat down and watched around him as his fellow monks dealt with what was left. They were elated that they had won but among the fallen Lenins were also monks and , and further beneath that was a fine mist of clay. They knew there inaction had costed their fellow countrymen statues to fall in battle. So instead of celebrating their victory they mourned for their losses and their enemies.
|
The drum of Russian determination thundered through the night sky. Up again rose Lenin's fury to restore the might of the motherland. Like behemoths standing over humanity they marched forward in a wave of copper, rising past the shores of the United States as the red missiles streaked above. Yet as panic set and hope began to quiver a voice was heard, faint over the sounds of war and death, quietly at first before the coming storm. The voice of a lady. And from the water rose another behemoth of copper.
"GIVE ME YOUR TIRED, YOUR POOR" the mighty woman with the torch roared as she charged into the army of Lenin. Tablet in one hand, a torch of imprisoned lightning in the other she tore through ranks and files of Russian copper.
"YOUR HUDDLED MASSES YEARNING TO BE FREE" she bellowed. Steadfast she stood defending the shore. Steadfast she defended from the red tyranny, never once failing the land of the free.
| 2019-04-10T03:47:56
| 2019-04-10T00:55:22
| 37
| 25
|
[WP] One by one the passengers stop screaming and return to their seats, unsure of what to do now. The plane has been descending for nearly five hours, the blue sky outside the windows long since replaced by a featureless black void.
Based on the original post by u/Vokoru as seen on r/TwoSentenceHorror.
|
It had taken Mary a full hour to calm down when the engines cut out. An hour of hyperventilating, screaming , and crying had not exactly been pleasant. It left her lungs hurting and her eyes felt like she had been wiping them with sandpaper. It had taken some more time to realize that everyone else had stopped panicking too. That was... 5 hours ago now by Mary's watch.
She glanced at her seatmate who sat dutifully buckled long after everyone else had began wandering trying to figure put what was going on. The short, balding man was gazing out the window like his life depended on it. For all everyone knew it did.
Mary had watched as people knocked on the cockpit and talked to the pilots who where just as afraid and clueless. The engines wherent responding at all and short of climbing out to look... they had run out of things to do.
The thought had crossed Mary's mind that if they did get the engines going... at this rate they where risking not having enough fuel to get back where they where anyway. At one point people had gotten angry. Shouting and all sorts of petty squabbles had started even though as she looked now, all was calm. The mind finds petty things to care about when you feel like you are helpless.
Things stayed calm for another hour untill passengers began to whisper about shifts in the color of the endless black outside. As people got more restless, mary withdrew. She moved to a back corner as small squabbles began to break out over a 'face' in the fog here or even a change in tune of the wind whistling by all their windows.
The fights grew more intense and angry and people eventually where distracted and weren't paying attention to what was outside now. Mary was though. Her scream was enough to bring everyone back to their senses. They screamed too.
|
And then, there was quiet.
The baby in row 27 had finally fallen asleep. The engines had both spluttered out hours ago, the sound of the air past the window dying soon after. The screaming stopped after a further half hour. Only two hours ago had the moron banging on and yelling at the cockpit door given up. I stared at the homogenous black outside.
"Joe - what do we tell them?"
I shot my copilot a blank look and shrugged my shoulders. After a further second, and a brief look of thought, I replied:
"Quite frankly, I'm fine staying in here. I was due to go on holiday after this flight, in fact, I was due to be resting on the beach with my wife and kids by now, and, come to think of it, I might just have a quick nap thank you very much."
"How're they getting there?"
"Getting where?"
"Holiday."
"Plane. Clive, let me sleep, please."
Clive sighed. Loudly. "Was it this plane?"
I quickly put on my blindfold.
"Was the woman who kept shouting at and hitting the cockpit door about their 'no-good-for-nothing-husband' perhaps your wife?"
This was going to be a long flight.
| 2020-09-30T18:24:06
| 2020-09-30T17:49:12
| 19
| 12
|
[WP] You are a peanut farmer. Your father was a peanut farmer. Your father's father was a peanut farmer. Peanut farming is all you've ever known. Your first child has just been born, and has a deadly allergy to peanuts.
|
My wife... she died in childbirth. She gave her life for this child.
At first, I thought it was a poor trade. My wife for a broken child? One who could not even carry on the family business? I won't deny, I considered "accidentally" letting him eat some peanuts when he was young. No one would have been the wiser.
But no.
Just as Beethoven was deaf, and yet was the greatest composer of all time, so too shall my son be the greatest peanut farmer of them all.
I raised him alone, in secret. The world was not ready for him. I blindfolded him and tossed peanuts at him. I put him in peanut mazes. I bound him in ropes and chains and dangled him above a vat of boiling peanutbutter. He escaped it all.
When a peanut ripens anywhere on earth, he can tell. When an aphid takes the smallest bite from a peanut leaf, he knows.
No taste of the glorious peanut has ever graced his lips.
But that shall nut stop him.
Nutting can stop him now.
|
I had seen offerings -- well, heard of them -- growing up. They did not crop up in our band of 120 or so frequently, but they were so ordinary and well-accepted as to hardly be remarkable. One happened to a child in my birth year. Another, late, to a close friend of my wife's at seven years of age. Having it happen -- being a part of it -- with Jacob, my first child, was hard. More than hard it felt so unexpected at the time.
I am a peanut farmer. That defines me. That is all my wife and I contribute to the community. It is all we will contribute. It is all that will be expected of our family. It was what Jacob was born to do. No more, but no less. Peanuts are one of the few crops that can grow in the rough terrain of the frontier, and we have to do our part to stay part of the tribe. For Jacob not to be able to even be near them was a cruel mockery.
Jacob showed signs of his allergy very early on. We hoped he would overcome it and be able to thrive -- or at least survive -- around the plants, but that was never going to be possible. His delicate head jerked away from the mere scent. Touching them caused rashes wherever they brushed the surface of his precious skin. He was not going to be able to fulfill his role in our family. What was meant to be never would.
Deciding when to have a child and nurturing that child is a personal decision out here. It is an investment. No one is going help you with it. There is no willing family to take on the burden of an infant nor relative to carry the slack. Our decision was made for us -- we were going to have to make an offering.
With blurry eyes -- sadness twinged with hope for a better future -- I strode into the woods one the morning with Jacob cradled in my arms. After a few hours, I found a suitable clearing to make the offering. I said a brief prayer, and hesitated. It was customary to put the child down and leave him alone and with nothing. It was meant to be an offering to the frontier, a decision to cut losses, and a hope for a better future.
Love led me astray. I aborted the ritual. I could not do this to my son. I snatched him off the ground, filled with emotion. Hands shaking, I grabbed a handful of peanuts from my bag, forced them into his mouth, and watched him swallow. I trekked back to our home, shame heavy on my heart.
| 2015-05-19T22:07:10
| 2015-05-19T20:47:09
| 247
| 15
|
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