Split (1)

train · 199k rows

post_text stringlengths 0 17.5k	post_title stringlengths 8 314	comment_texts listlengths 1 74	num_stories int64 1 74
	[WP] This was the end result of a long series of profoundly poor decisions...	[ "Jon sat down. Michael squeezed by carrying too much popcorn and no drink. Jon knew Michael was making a mistake, but he couldn't bring himself to criticize his mentor even on this simple thing. There was no way Michael would make it through this full preview. They'd have to stop. \n\nJon signalled and the executives around them became quiet.\n\nThe lights dimmed in the theater and the projector came to life. \n\nA screener card appeared on the screen ahead of them.\n\n\"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - 2014\"\n", "I should have hired a professional; I know nothing, really, about lawn construction. Is that even the term?\n\nI should not have rented an excavator that I didn't really know how to use. \n\nI shouldn't have been drinking. It was like, 1 in the afternoon. \n\nI should have called the number, like 411 or 811 or something, before I dug.\n\nI should have stopped when I heard what seemed like growling.\n\nI should have ran as far and as fast as I could when I delved too deeply and bored straight into the subterranean badger hive. \n\nI should not have been inquisitive.\n\nI should not have tried to communicate with what seemed to be their leader.\n\nI should have, again, ran instead of trying to fight.\n\nI should have locked the door after running, broken and bloodied, into my house.\n\nI should not have went for my gun.\n\nI should have serpentined when they started firing my dropped gun at me.\n\nI shouldn't have gotten into my car. I was still drunk.\n\nI should have driven more carefully, even in my panicked state.\n\nI shouldn't have slurred to the 911 operator that I was being attacked by badgers; I should have thought of a plausible reason why I needed an ambulance and the police.\n\nI should have remembered to wear a seat belt.\n\nLater, in the hospital (no clue how I survived), I realized I should have paid my last insurance premium.\n\nI should not have tried to fruit cup.", "Uric realized the choices that led him to this day. Over the years he kept the secrets hidden and eventually cultivated truth out of their lies. Eventually he would have to digress and reveal the true motives behind his affair, but for now his wife only needed one detail, greed.\n\nUric was broke, depressed, and incredibly inadequate except for one key feature, his ability to manipulate. His marriage was the product of years of work and lies just to convince his wife to marry him. He never loved her, but he loved money. The final straw that cracked the cement under the casino was snake eyes. The eyes glared through his soul like darkness creeps a corner, slowly then all at once. He lost everything. \n\nOpportunity struck once more as he doubled down on a bet that he could not back up. He lost again, but this time he lost more than he had. Casino's can be dangerous if you can not pay your debts, but Uric promised to settle his misfortunes. He was given a task. \n\nI kind of lost motivation for this post but I got this far so here you go. It is like my second prompt ever so I am still learning, thanks. ", "\"I went to bad late last night. I had to wake up early the next day. I was cranky. Too cranky. I drove to Starbucks to get a coffee. They spelt my name wrong. How they got Cark when I said Mark with a 'c' is beyond me. The coffee didn't help. I snapped at my boss. My boss yelled back. I was in no mood for his bullshit. He fired me. I drove back home to decompress. I decided to play a video game. Dark Souls seemed like a good idea. It was not. I threw my controller. It hit my sleeping dog. My dog got scared and ran into the tv stand, the tv stand with the broken leg that I neglected to fix because I was lazy. The tv fell over and broke. I yelled until a blood vessel burst. I got in my car. I hit the freeway. And that is why I was speeding officer.\" \n\n\"You were going 125 miles per hour. You demonstrated nothing but recklessness in your behavior. I'm going to need you to step outside your car.\"" ]	4
	[WP] A crew of lackadaisical space pirates board a ship broadcasting a distress signal and discover a something that they very quickly wish they hadn't.	[ "The door slides up and the four man squad peers into the main room\n\n\"Beraden look right and Jose get the left Jared get my back\"\n\nI hear them all confirm their roles simultaneously. We stand there in the middle of the mess hall.\n\n\"Ok remember what we're here for. Find the people, loot the ship we'll decide what to do with the people when we find them.\"\n\nThe door on the other side of the mess hall opens and all four pirates point their guns in the direction of the door. An elderly man walks out slowly.\n\n\"Please help me I'm the last one alive. I don't know what it is but it can't be fought we just need to leave.\"\n\n\"What should we do boss the ship seems empty I don't see anybody's. I think he's lying.\" \n\n\"I agree. But we can't just leave the ship. Let's kill the man and loot.\"\n\nJared walks up from behind them ad lifts his sidearm and fires once hitting the man in the forehead. Instead of falling down the man starts grinning then falls to the ground\n\n\"What the fuck. Why'd he stay standing so long\" Jared says.\n\n\"I don't know but he's dead now so why does it matter. Let's loot\"\n\nJared walks towards the door where the man was and as he steps over the lifeless body the man wakes up and grabs Jared by the leg\n\n\"Ahhhhhhhh!\" \n\nJared struggles to escape the grasp and as he's struggling a black liquid pours from the orifaces of the old man and seeps up Jareds leg. As it reaches his mouth it pours in Jareds screams are now supressed by the bubbling of the oxygen leaving his lungs and being replaced by the liquid. At this point the man has become lifeless again and Jared is now separated from the body.\n\n\"Holy shit. what the fuck just happened. Retreat back to the ship!\"\n\nAs the run back to the door they entered through the door shuts and they become trapped. Jareds body still standing but lifeless lifts its arm and fires two shots from his sidearm killing Jose and beraden. The last pirate left, Cody, is standing with his back against the door cowering and scared of what Jared has become. Jarred's body starts moving towards Cody. \n\n\"J-J-Jared? Are you still in there?\"\n\nJared stares lifelessly into cody's eyes lifts his arm and holds Cody by his head, lifts him up, and crushs him into the wall. Jared looks back at the man, then at Jose and beraden, and then lastly at Cody. He stands there for a minute and walks through the door boarding their ship.", "As the ship reached the beacon, the pilot nervously activated his directional scanning - he had used the last of his jump fuel making it this sector.\n\n The pilot felt an inexplicable chill as he glanced out his viewing port. He figured it was jump jitters, but he routed power to his security drone anyways. Sensors didn't find anything; he should have known it was a waste of time. He had more important things to focus on like finding fuel.\n\n The directional scanner pinged and drew his attention to a large hull floating some distance from his vessel, a thick cloud of gas partially obscuring it. The ship was powered-down, which is why the initial system scan had not detected it. He brought the impulse engines online and moved towards the derelict vessel while simultaneously hailing the ship.\n\n No response. That was curious, but abandoned vessels were not unheard of. More unusual was the pristine condition of the ship, which did not have so much as a dent. He had found abandoned hulls before, but they were pocketed with scorch marks from a laser blast or short range teleporter, some sign of battle was always evident.\n\n He briefly considered donning his EVA suit. Instead he headed to the drone bay and took remote control of the security drone - it was meant for boarding defense, but in a pinch it could be used as an exploration unit. \n\n Moments later the drone slid through the airlock, a sleek machine armed to the teeth with an assortment of lasers and close combat weapons that had saved the pilot's life more the once. He had schematics for this hull, and the drone made a beeline for engineering. Any remaining fuel would be found there.\n\n The problem with remotely controlling the drone was that it demanded the full attention of the pilot. The airlock had not sealed - if the pilot was paying attention, he would have noticed his door system had malfunctioned. \n\n His dying screams echoed as he was torn to pieces.\n\n The pilot should have known that giant alien spiders are no joke.\n\n(If someone would format this I would love you forever)", "Gerry liked reading books from the old world, particularly the ones about pirates. There were some undenyable similarities between the old seafaring pirate proffesion and his own work. He was in the middle of re-reading Pericles by Shakespeare when a message came over the intercom. The disinterested, borderline bored voice of the pilot on duty's voice emerged from the wall speaker in Gerry's chambers: \"Easy prey, 2 minutes to intercept. To your stations, gentlemen.\"\n\nGerry put down the book and grabbed his gear. We walked lazily to the boarding dock. The pilot had said \"easy pray\", this meant they would be docking, he wouldn't need to enter the other craft through a manned boarding drone. The rest of the boarding shift had arrived before him. They looked as disinterested as he felt. Gerry thought back to the times when they used to operate in more exciting quadrants of the galaxy. They had taken damage during what can only be called a highly optimistic raid, and were now left robbing exploration crafts in sectors nobody bothered to defend. Hopefully they would find something valuable on this next hit which would cover the costs of getting back to the big leagues.\n\n\"What have we got?\" Jordy, the only crew member more senior than Gerry, asked the brigde over the intercom on his wrist. \n\nThe response came over the wall-speakers in the boarding dock: \"Inactive exploring vessel, Class B. Distress call active. Probably some hardware issues, can't establish contact.\"\n\n\"Bunch of rookie explorers with delusions of grandeur. Hopefully they got some worthwhile loot, if not we could grab'em and demand a 'rescue fee' from whoever they got waiting for them back home.\" Jordy muttered, the rest of the crew grunted in agreement.\n\n----------\n\nNo sign of life greeted them as they entered the vessel. It was dark, so they relied on their shoulder-lights to see. They fanned out in teams of two, standard procedure, but something about this ship made them feel uneasy. After a few minutes of fruitless searching, messages started coming in over the radio: \"Delta, clear\", \"Bravo, clear\", \"Charlie, quieter than deep space over here\". Gerry turned on his radio: \"This is Alpha, my section is clear. You guys telling me nobody has found any crew members? Three \"Affirmative's\" came through his radio in quick succession.\n\nGerry kept searching. They were in what was undoubtedly the caffeteria section of the empty ship.He asked Hank, the second half of Alpha team: \"Does something strike you as odd about this place?\" \n\n\"You mean how this cafeteria looks like the ones you would see at a spaceship faire? A lifesize model spacecraft, you know, to get an idea of what they are building in the orbital construction yards?\"\n\nGerry considered this for a moment before radioing: \"Has anyone found any signs that this ship has been used at all? Scratch marks, hair? Any sign of use?\" \n\nThree \"Negative's\" came in quick succession.\n\n\"I got baaad feeling about his\". Someone said over the radio.\n\n\"Bravo here, we're at the bridge. Turning on the power, don't get scared girls.\"\n\nThere was a brief flicker before the lights stabilized. Various monitors around the room started powering up. As Gerry looked around it became apparent that the ship had never been used. It was like walking around in a man-sized doll house. Everything was fake. Even the knives and forks were made of a cheap plastic compound, and dyed to look like metal.\n\n\"Shit, it's a fucking bear trap.\" Jordy called out over the comms, \"back to the ship, NOW!\"\n\nThere was a large bang, followed by the sound of metal giving in to pressure.\n\n\"Fuck! Fuck, get back now!\" The voices emerging from the radio were distressed.\n\n\"All teams, hull has been breached, ship is losing oxygen. I repeat, losing oxygen. Enabling distress beac.. AARGH!\"\n\n\"Shit, Tom? Come in, Tom?\" Jordy's voice said over the comm. \"Backup pilots, come in, all crew not currently on the target vessel, report!\"\n\nThe radio silence following this command was like listening to a judge reading out ones own death sentence. \"We're dead.\" Gerry heard Hank say, he looked over and saw that he was looking out a window. He walked over and saw the dreadful sight that had prompted Hank's words.\n\nTheir ship was damaged beyond repair. Turning on the power had caused the target vessel to fire several harpoon like projectiles with nano-thermite tips. They had burned dozens of holes in their spacecraft's hull.\n\n\"We walked right into a trap, a fucking trap\". Someone said over the radio. The monitors stopped flickering, a smiling face appeared. \"Well, well, well, looks like the trap has caught itself some pray\". The man laughed. \"I am Junior Lieutenant Wilkes of the Conglomerate Fleet. It is with that authority I hereby sentence you to death for piracy. If I may give you boys some advice; unprotected exposure to space is a better way to die than starvation. Enjoy your sentence, gentlemen.\" The man laughed, and the monitors turned black.", "\"What did you say your name was?\" Sam, the Mighty Fucking Pirate (as he was known in the worst parts of \nAndromeda and the Milky Way) asked, confused.\n\n\"Fuck you\", the captain answered, his lips around a grumpy expression.\n\n\"Sam, this is bad.\" Frosty said, the gun shaking on his hand. \"I have a bad fee --\"\n\n\"Shut the fuck up, Frosty, let me think\", Sam replied, running his hand through his hair. \"You\" he pointed at the \nmuscular guy on the far end, hands tied behind his back. \"Come here.\"\n\nFrosty dragged him to his knees in front of Sam. \"What?\"\n\n\"Is what the captain here told me true?\"\n\n\"You bet your ass.\"\n\n\"You guys are not messing with us?\"\n\n\"Nope.\" He laughed, a hint of desperation hidden behind it. \"Look around, man. Everyone's here.\"\n\nSam looked. It was true. The description fitted perfectly.\n\n\"So that means...\"\n\n\"That means you get fourteen episodes and a movie, and then you're all done.\"\n\n\"Jesus Christ\", Sam uttered, looking around. All his friends had the same look of terror in their eyes.\n\nThey didn't want it all to end so soon. None of them had any idea what they were walking in to, when they boarded \nthe ship.\n\n\"Come on, you didn't get suspicious when you noticed the ship's name was Serenity?\" The captain asked, bitterly. \n\nSam remembered his name now. It was Mal.\n\n\"No. Guess we missed it.\"\n\nTake my love. Take my land.\n\nTake me where I cannot stand.\n\n\"What is that?\" Frosty asked, confused.\n\n\"The theme song, dude.\" Inara smiled. \"Time is ticking away.\"\n\n\"Why the fuck would you think it's a good idea to board a ship from a cancelled series, Sam?\" Frosty asked, gun \nalready lowered to the floor. His other partners nodded in agreement.\n\n\"I didn't realize it, ok? Sorry!\"\n\nI don't care, I'm still free\n\nYou can't take the sky from me\n\n\"Could have boarded the freaking Millenium Falcon, like I said\", he continued. \"We'd still have three movies ahead \nof us, at least. Not counting the expanded universe.\"\n\n\"I'M SORRY OK!\" Sam shouted, losing his patience. He turned to Mal. \"What now?\"\n\n\"Now nothing. You guys die with us, at the end of the last episode.\" He paused. \"Well, then you live again for the \nmovie, but that's just for two hours. Then back to dead.\"\n\n\"God damn it, this is a nice ship. A nice show\", Sam argued, desperation growing inside of him. \"Why did FOX \nhad to cancel it?\"\n\n\"Fuck them\", Mal replied, spitting on the floor. \"You know what the worst part of it is, though?\"\n\n\"What?\" Sam asked, already giving up on the whole boarding idea himself and lowering his gun, too. \n\n\"Is that, because Firefly got canceled, we'll never get to know the ending.\"\n\n\"The ending to what?\"\n\n\"To this stor --\n\n" ]	4
	[WP] An alien invader will destroy the Earth unless someone is able to defeat him in a game of Super Smash Bros.	[ "Lord Gernome, ancient Gladiator from the Spinal Belt, was hell bent on destroying Earth and taking a handful of concubines. Though, handful would be a lie, he wanted 2,000,000 of the most beautiful, virgin maidens he could find. After defeating Earth's greatest warrior.\n\nHe found himself saddened by the lack of physical strength the humans possessed, you see on Nemesis (his homeworld), the average boy was... Hercules like. Or that is how Gernome explained it to the world leaders. They were displeased that he wanted to enslave humanity, but they knew there was a way for them to fight on equal terms.\n\nIt wasn't weapons, they tried this. Gernome, and most his kind (see: kamis), possessed something known as mantra. Gernome allowed scientists to prod him, and do some tests and what they found was that this ability was akin to nuclear power... Nuclear fusion. If somehow the G.D.C. could kill him. (Gernome Defense Commune)\n\nGernome agreed to a virtual fight, this was something that wasn't off to him. He spent three human life times training in a extensive virtual reality. He had left a legacy in game too. His in game children actually hold a monopoly on the in game banks and are leaders of the most glorious of in game dictatorships. He was a game master. Gernome actually talked about the game often, referring to it as Super Power Enabler. Scientists begged him for a copy.\n\nThe virtual fight was a twist, they didn't expect Gernome to agree, but after long ours of discussion. Both parties came to two outcomes:\n\n1. Gernome wins, Earth is destroyed. He takes 30,000 females, but he also must take sperm to impregnate women to continue the human race on Nemesis.\n\n2. We win, Gernome gives us a copy of S.P.E. and lets us figure out how to copy his mantra.\n\nThus the three months of training began, where Gernome would play from countless fighting games then pick one to battle our greatest champion with.This began the greatest of times in human history, the Great Gaming Era.\n\nBut that is a different story.\n\n\"The character known as Ganondorf, he looks like my father. Though his mantra is different. This inspired me to take to learning a game known as Melee. Let me meet the man that made this game.\"\n\nMasahiro Sakurai and Gernome met, and discussed the ultimate fate of the franchise. Gernome believed the game, though many thought ended on a good note with Smash Bros 4, believed that a fifth instrumental would be of \"galactic proportions\". Sakurai agreed to let Gernome on the development team.\n\nProject NEMESIS commenced. Gernome agreed to moving to Japan, he moved into a tiny apartment in Tokyo. \n\nGernome woke up extra early, excited for his first day of work. He put on a suit, his hat and sped away for the underground to make his way to the office. He had so many great idea. He whipped out his brand new, custom Ganondorf 3ds. He wanted to practice, he usually always won, but he was playing more casual people. He wanted to enter a tournament from the ground up someday. Maybe NEMESIS's first tournament.\n\nSomething odd caught his eye as he waited in his Smash 4 lobby. He noticed a man, whose face was wrapped in a dark clothe, pull out a 3ds. The air turned cold on the usually warm metro. The man stood up in the middle of the aisle, his jeans and black crew neck making the hairs on Gernome's neck stand tall.\n\nFalconm4ster3000 has joined your lobby.\n\nGernome bellowed, \"Are you Falconm4ster3000?\"\n\nThe man smirked under the clothe and said, \"Are you ready to battle, Gernome-senpai?\"", "The streamer looked at his viewer count before starting the next round of 'For Glory', it was zero. He had been streaming for 2 hours now, and only had a maximum of 3 viewers at any given point. \"I think this will be my least stream, guys.\" he muttered to his zero viewers, it's been a good year but live streaming just isn't my thing after all. Tired of practicing with the S-Tier characters, the streamer switches to Donkey Kong and the next match begins. He was never all that great at Smash, but it brought back a lot of great memories. The match begins, and his opponent seems to know all the professional tricks, ones that the streamer has only begun to practice. \"I can't beat this roleplaying try-hard!\" complains the streamer, as Little Mac proceeds to OHKO his last stock.\n\nDefeated, the streamer sighs and then looks to his viewcount. \"What the fuck? Is this thing broken? 80,000 viewers?\" he wonders, dumbfounded. Yet his chat is empty, nobody is talking. \"Hello? Earth to chat? Is anyone there?\" he asks, before he finally gets a response. The username is some combination of rapidly changing characters, yet the message is in plain English. \"This has to be a prank\" he tells himself.\n\nWe accept your challenge. Three stocks, no items, Final Destination.\n\n\"Alright, I'll bite, just don't hack my shit okay?\"\n\nThe terms have been accepted. If you win we will leave this planet in peace. If you lose, we well leave it in pieces.\n\n\"Alright how do we add each- What the hell?\" his game suddenly flashes and a siren blares, \"[Challenger Approaching: A new foe has appeared.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YMLtwArQis)\" The streamer stares in awe as his opponent is revealed; Mewtwo. \"Cheater! He isn't out yet!\" he yells.\n\nJust choose your character, Earthling.\n\nTension finally hits the streamer, there could very well be 80,000 viewers watching him right now, but they aren't necessarily human. He plays best as Zero Suit Samus, and it only seems fitting against an alien menace (Well either that or RosaLuna). \"I'm not buying this whole alien stuff, but I'll show you that you don't need to hack to win a children's game.\" This is it. He has been practicing for so long, hoping for his 15 seconds of fame. \"Maybe this is some famous pro, that would explain all the viewers, right?\" but he doesn't have any time to check the chat for other replies.\n\nThe streamer starts off strong, gets a couple lucky hits in the early game. Thanks to some well rehearsed ledge guarding, Mewtwo is not able to recover from a slip up, and loses a stock. \"Two more to go.\" says the streamer, now smirking. The following minutes seem to flash by the streamer's eyes, evenly matched battles, matching hit for hit, grab for grab, smash for smash.\n\nThe streamer begins to visibly sweat, they are now each at one stock. This is his chance to prove himself. The whole damn world might be watching, he can't risk looking at the views while in this fight. Some mad cockiness consumes him, and compels him to taunt his opponent. Shockingly, Mewtwo taunts at the same time, and then they both dash towards each other for one final smash.\n\nThe streamer wipes his brow as a familiar voice announces \"[The winner is...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfTqP3R8wBg#t=553) Zero Suit Samus.\" He looks to the stream in victory, only to have his hopes dashed.\n\nYou win, Earthling. We will leave. And a viewer count of 0." ]	2
Standard deck being 52 cards of four suits.	[WP] When anyone is born, they are given a playing card from a standard deck, and it determines their place in society.	[ "Today is the first day of my new job as a Placement Executive for the American Role Advisory Board. Its my duty to judge the DNA of new born infants and decide what there role will be in society. Each infant will be given a card, each card has a suit and a number. The number indicates their potential for advancement or academic ascension within our society, meaning a person with a low number will be more inclined for manual labor or communal servitude because their genes indicate a low growth rate for information retention or learning ability. The suit of the card indicates one of the four communal classes that determine Role placement. \n\nThe Heart is saved for the medical feild. Those who are given a Heart suit will be tasked with learning the Medical Curriculum. Based on their number, they can either be Surgeons, Physicians, nurses or lab techs. \n\nThe Diamond is saved for the Civil Servant field. Those who are given Diamons will tasked with leading and protecting humanity. Based on their number, they will become either Fire fighters, Police officers, army personel, Council Members and Public Leaders determined to create a Utopia for humanity. \n\nThe Spade is saved for the tradesmen. Those who are given Spades will be tasked with building the structure of the human world and the infrastructure. Based on their number, they can become Plumbers, Electricians, Engineers, Architects, Scientists and Physicists. \n\nThe Club is saved for the grunts. Those who are given clubs with be tasked with doing the jobs that require no special training or any special clearance, mainly reserved for the people who are hopeless. These grunt workers are tasked with jobs like retail worker, salesman, garbage men, ect. However, this field has a rare potential. Since many of the Club card infants are given low numbers, the rare few that are given high numbers or even face cards are the ones who have the best chance in becoming Artists, Singers, entertainers, writers and Novelists. \n\nThere is, however, another card. A much rarer card than a club face card. Its the Joker card. These cards are almost never used, but when they are, they are never seen by anyone but the Placement Executives. When an infant gets a Joker card, it means they have deviated away from the Genetic Engineering that we as a society have implemented on all unborn fetuses. The Joker card indicates physical abnormality, mental instability, Killer Instinct, or that the infant was born without immunity to any of the known diseases. \n\n\nAnd wouldn't you know it, my first infant was flagged as a joker. It is now my responsibility to cure our society of this virus that has the capacity to wreak havoc among the people, the capacity to remind them that true evil still exists in this world. But as I read the genetic analysis, it has no mention of physical abnormalities, mental instability or any killer instinct. The only thing the analysis says is \"inquisitor\". Those who are labeled as inquisitors are the ones who have the courage and tenacity to challenge the regime, to challenge the system. This infant has the ability to challenge the status quo, to inspire a change in those who are happy with the compliance. \n\nUnfortunately, for this child, I've studied the history of humanity and I dont like it. We cant go back to the \"freedom fighter\" era. We cant go back to the time when corruption and war ran rampant. I wont allow it. \n\nAs I place the needle in the infants neck, I look around at the Utopia we've created and smile. ", "I walked at a brisk pace, heels clicking on the tile floor and skirt swishing as I moved. My hair was pinned up into a tight bun, and my blouse was neatly buttoned up with a vest. I honestly looked good, but it wasn't my mission to look good.\n\nI moved into the interrogation room, sitting across from the suspect. He was hunched over the table, looking at me from under his brow. His hands were close together, forming a sort of closed shape with his arms. He was nervous, that was for sure, but what was he nervous about?\n\n\"Card name,\" I stated, sitting down in front of him. He quirked a brow, hesitating before sitting up straight. He didn't look me directly in the eye as he answered.\n\n\"Two of Diamonds.\"\n\n\"Slums?\" I asked. He slowly nodded, before leaning forward and looking at me.\n\n\"What about your card, then?\" he asked me, his voice slightly quivering. He was trying to break the ice, to see if I would crack. Instead, I looked at the file in my arms.\n\n\"Where were you on the twenty-fourth... James?\" I asked, looking back up at him and keeping my deadpan expression. The corner of his mouth twitched. His eyes shifted. This one cracked easily, apparently.\n\n\"I was at the late-night diner,\" he answered, \"Your card must be at least mid-level if you're an officer, right?\"\n\n\"Do you have anyone that can confirm your whereabouts?\" I asked, completely ignoring his questioning. This wasn't an interrogation against me, it was an interrogation against him. He wasn't going to turn this around on me.\n\n\"Well, there was the waitress--\"\n\n\"I assume you don't have her number.\"\n\n\"No, but--\"\n\n\"Then I'm sorry, Mister McAlloy, but we can't help you,\" I interrupted again, leaning up against the table. The fabric on my blouse moved, exposing a tattoo on my arm. He glanced at it, before his panic seemed to rise.\n\n\"We talked to Georgia Banner,\" I continued, \"And she said you visited the victim the night of the murder.\"\n\n\"You're a trump.\"\n\n\"In fact, her husband Daryl Banner seemed to see the exact same thing.\"\n\n\"You're a fucking trump.\"\n\n\"Do you confess?\"\n\n\"You already know, don't you?\"\n\nHe laughed, before wrenching my sleeve further up my arm, exposing the playing card tattoo. As the police came into the room, the James McAlloy continued to laugh, pointing at it.\n\n\"A fucking trump card! Ace of Spades! It's people like you who cause us to commit crimes!\" he shouted.\n\n\"I'd consider that a confession, officer,\" I said, taking a deep breath and pulling my sleeve over then Ace of Spades tattoo on my arm. As the officers took the suspect into custody, I simply walked back down to reception, my heels clicking on the tile and my skirt swishing with each step.\n\nIt paid to be a Spade, but it also paid to be the trump card of the bunch.", "\"What does this mean?\" I said.\n\n\"Oh, your son got the rules card. He's gonna be a lawyer,\" the cardman replied.\n\n\"I'd like to draw a different card, please.\"\n\nThe cardman looked back at me with a scowl, \"you dare give me an order?\"\n\n\"No. No, sir. It's just that... I've read stuff online, about,\" he paused, lowering his voice, \"the suitless.\"\n\nA grin creased across the cardman's face, \"so, you have something to say about that?\"\n\n\"Umm, yes,\" I said in a moment of bravery, \"yes. I umm, I want him to be normal.\"\n\n\"But this is normal,\" the cardman returned.\n\n\"No, I mean, umm, he'd be suitless, you know? And you have to be suited to live a normal life. Please sir, how much can I pay you, give him a chance. Please,\" I said, despondent.\n\nThe cardman wheeled around on his heel to leave, but paused mid-stride. He turned slowly, \"are you a suitist, sir?\"\n\n\"No! No, it's just that, my wife and I want grandkids and... umm... like this, he uhh, he couldn't even marry a two of cups, she's gonna be crushed. Please,\" I begged.\n\nHe glared at me, clenched his fist, and cut our distance to mere feet and whispered, \"you are a suitist. And you can't see how bigoted that sounds,\" he said, leaning in, \"guess what asshole, I was a blank and I'm better off than you, and he will be too.\"\n\n\"I'm, umm... sorry for how coarse I sounded,\" I said, not quite having the words.\n\n\"No, you aren't. And maybe you won't. You're sorry for being called out on it. It's easier to love a bigot than to reform one, though. Take care of your son, and know that the suitless have love for all cards, not just the right ones. Treat him well,\" he said as he wheeled and walked out.\n\nI looked down at my baby boy, \"huh.\"", "\"An ancient mew? How did that get in there.... Dammit Joey I thought you left you Pokemon cards in my other coat, bloody Joker...\"\n\"No... he can't be...\"\n\n\"I'm sorry sir. You son isn't of the deck. He's of a different deck.\"\n\"What does it mean?\"\n\n\"It might mean nothing sir. You're an Ace, right?\"\n\"Yup, Top of my class, everything is perfect until now...\"\n\"Well, your son isn't, and may not find life as perfect as yours. None of the normal rules apply to him.\"\n\"Maybe he'll get into archaeology? In Japan maybe?\"\n\"Maybe. He's free to choose whatever he wants, to be honest. He can either be classed as a no-card, or a new-card (heh, new card, and it's a Mew,.. Okayillshutupnow), which is something that has never happened before and may make him exalted amongst his peers, beyond any king or ace.\"\n\"He'll catch their hearts. All of them. Awesome.\"\n\"Yes, it may be so.\"", "The gate lay in front of us. We could see the barbs on the top. We could feel the sharp prick in our fingers as we prepared to jump over. It took over two long weeks to get here and many more months of planning. The factory was just over that fence, and with it, the hope of destroying the records. Inside, everyone could be royalty. One had the potential to even be the Ace. \n\nEver since the 3 Bloody Hearts, as they now call them, we were inspired. Diamonds and Hearts have many connections between their societies. Many of my own friends were Hearts, and the only 5's that I knew (Other than my own Diamonds of course) were Hearts. \n\nNone of this attempt would have been possible without the 10. After I nearly lost my arm in a police raid, a doctor took pity on me and became a friend. Without her, we never would have been able to leave the valley.\nSo now, as we are about to enter the factory, wish us luck, whoever might find this. We have lived at the bottom of the deck too long, and whether or not we are successful, we hope to inspire others with our attempt. May you all dine like Kings tomorrow!\n\n[Edit] Formatting", "\"What.\"\n\n\"The machine says what it says!\"\n\n\"But this makes literally no sense!\"\n\n\"Look, I don't decide thse things, the machine takes a baby's genes, gene expression, and socioeconomic status, then spits out a playing card to assign that baby to a rank in society. You know how it works-- this is elementary school stuff. I'm just a messenger.\"\n\n\"But there's no way this is possible! I've heard of the rare person getting a tarot card, but that just means they're destined to be some sort of charlatan, like a snake oil salesman, ponzi scheme creator, or famous politician. But this-- this is unprecedented!\"\n\nThe harried hospital worker held up the card, the words \"Winged Kuriboh\" emblazoned on it. \"Not quite. It's happened before. It means that your son is destined to be the king of games.\"\n\n.\n\n.\n\n.\n\n.\n\n.\n\n.\n\n.\n\n\n\"But we don't want our child to die a virgin!\" The parents wailed.", "I pulled my hand away from my stomach, and bright red blood dripped from my fingers. The tiny room reeked of it - blood and the scent of gunpowder. Spent bullet casings littered the floor, piled up around my legs. I'd fired so many bullets I had managed to jam the door into the janitor's closet with the bodies of the infected. Now it was time to finish this, once and for all. I checked the ammunition in the AR30, the nine in my belt, and took stock of my explosives. I was three corridors and a stairwell away from Central Lab B. From beyond my wall of corpses, I could hear the grinding of their teeth, the tearing of skin and bone as they devoured one another in absence of fresh prey. It was time to fight my way through the infected, make it to Central Lab, and finish it. If I made it, I could activate the purge protocols necessary to expunge all organic matter from the facility, taking with it the infection. If I bled out, if I ran out of ammo and the infected finished me, it was only a matter of time before they broke free and the rest of the world experienced this horror first hand. \n\nThree of spades. That had been my card. They took my blood, they analyzed my DNA, they completed the psychological profiles on my parents, and then they assigned my card. I don't know why the system corresponded with playing cards; you would think dividing and sorting the entirety of Earth's population via cutting edge technology and hundreds of tests would warrant a more exotic nomenclature or fancier symbolism. They were able to take a look at you in the crib, run some tests, and determine with 99.98% statistical accuracy your full intellectual and physical potential. The least they could do is not hand you a jack of diamonds in the aftermath. \n\nJack of diamonds. If only. Three of spades had warranted me Environmental Services Class D. I grew up knowing, from the moment I could hold on to the memories I was forming, that I was going to be a janitor. The doctors, the computers, the tests, they'd all come to the same conclusion - complete and total lack of potential, suitable for basic manual labor only. I think school was the biggest joke of all - why did I need to know advanced math when I was going to be pushing a mop the rest of my life? \n\nAfter I graduated, I enlisted as soon as I could. Anyone outside of Class E - non-contributing physical disability - could enlist, so I did. I don't know what I was hoping for. Maybe some part of me still dreamed that I could go into the military, impress someone, make general, escape my fate, but even the armed forces held faith with the system. Kings of spades only for general-ships, nothing higher than private first class for anyone under a 6. \n\nI'd shown an aptitude for weapons work and combat drills, so they'd made me infantry. In three tours of Syria and a fourth in the Ukraine, I learned to be a soldier. I was good at being a soldier. One of the best in my unit. Even so, I'd listened as superiors reflected remorsefully, \"Damn it, why couldn't you have been an 8 of spades? Maybe you could have made a good Gunnery Sergeant.\" \n\nI always thought about how that was the silliest part of all of this. Wasn't that the flaw in the system, that it was obvious I could have done more than my three of spades would allow? How was this system so perfect, so infallible, if all my superiors thought I was more than my card? \n\nAfter my fourth tour, and my honorable discharge, I accepted my profession assignment. Due to my service and security training, I'd been matched with a position inside the federal government, performing facilities and janitorial services in a laboratory where military doctors were developing non-lethal combat options for disabling enemy combatants. I probably had seen more and knew more about the facility than anyone else who worked there; my security clearance offered me access to almost every room in the building. Even doctors and generals have garbage cans that need emptying or private bathrooms that need tending to. \n\nI had overheard enough conversations and seen enough errant scraps of paper in the garbage to learn some about Project Lullaby. I had gathered that it was a project where genetically-altered viruses were being used to attack certain parts of the brain which controlled aggression and burn those spots out completely. The idea was to pacify your enemy by removing their will to fight entirely. Just last week, I had seen two doctors coming out of commons, and I'd heard them talking about how \"the project\" - that was the only name they ever used for it outside of documents - was coming along well enough to consider human trials. \n\nIt was a military facility, which was how I'd armed myself about hell came calling. I don't know what part of the building it started in, how it began, or when it had unraveled, but I believe I had accessed the building lockdown in time to prevent a quarantine breach. I had seen a nurse perched on Dr. Swanson's big chest, digging his entrails out with her bare hands and shoving them in her mouth, stopping only to vomit them back up after she'd engorged herself to the point she could devour no more. Swanson liked to lift weights; I wondered if that was why he seemed to have some much to eat on his bones. \n\nSeeing an inventory specialist stab another sanitation worker with a letter opener and gouge out his eyes was the only other clue I'd needed to realize, in a flash, that the shit? Yeah, it bypassed the fan and went right for the blender. I strong-armed my way beyond two doctors smashing each other into walls and furniture, bashing each other to death with their bare hands, and into the security office. I knew what I had to do. Whatever was happening, I needed to lock it down. \n\nI had armed myself after that. Security was attached to military operations, and from operations I had access to an arsenal. I'd blown through quite a bit of it in the hours after I'd first locked down the laboratories. On my way through the halls, I'd found a lady doctor, and we'd spent the next little bit trying not to get eaten. I managed. She didn't. Before she'd died, she'd told me that the Lullaby virus had tested fine in lower primates, but something had gone terribly wrong in human testing. Test subjects were free, the virus was spreading. It had been heavy work getting her to put one foot in front of the other; she was in complete shock. In the end, her terror did her in. I felt a pang of guilt watching her die, unable to stop myself from thinking about how she'd been a king of diamonds, calling out to a three of spades to save her as all her diamond friends tore her body to pieces. \n\nMy luck ran out entering the atrium between A and B complexes. A little girl tagged my lower abdomen with a sharpened piece of metal and went teeth-first for the wound. A double tap had put down someone's daughter. As she stared at me in death, I wondered what card they'd given her when she'd been born. \n\nI knew my time was done. I could feel the damage she had done to me, and it was deep. I tried what little I knew about battlefield medicine to patch the wound, but even with being able to slow the bleeding, I knew she'd torn me up inside. That was fine. Fighting for survival with the doctor, I'd realized along the way there was no way out. Someone had to enact the protocols. The building had a sort of doomsday device inside, an incendiary system meant to eradicate all organic lifeforms, microscopic or otherwise, in the event of a catastrophic event. Project Lullaby was Play-Dough Fun Factory compared to some of the shit the doctors in E Lab had their hands on. Someone had to sanitize the building. May as well be the janitor.\n\nI stood, stabilizing myself with the rifle, using it as a crutch. It was time to tear down the wall of the dead and fight my way to Central B. I pulled a corpse, darting back from reaching hands that shot through and towards my throat.\n\nAs I primed a grenade, I wondered if my birth file said anything about something like this. I shook my head as I felt a small tug of self-pity - I didn't have the luxury of getting sad with the work waiting to be done. Still, tossing the semtex and ducking back from the blast, a piece of me couldn't help thinking about how even if I could leave a message, the fire I planned to unleash would burn away any note I could create to tell a world of jacks, queens, kings, and aces that they'd all been saved by a three of spades.", "He laid his cards on the table and smiled, taking another puff of his cigarette.\n\n“Four of a Kind!” he yelled, smiling. The man tipped his cowboy hat and grinned at me, his yellow teeth showing. I could smell the beer on his breath from across the table, as well as whatever rotting teeth he must have had.\n\nEveryone at the table looked at me. I was the last one to have not played my cards. Those who sat at the table were kings and queens. They were the richest of the rich, the best of the best. But like me, who had grown up in extreme poverty, the man across the table didn’t belong here either. We had both made our way into this game through our own ingenuity. We had intrigued the rich and powerful, so much so that we had convinced them to let us into the competition. After all, they had nothing to fear: Only a king or queen could beat a fellow royal.\n\nI looked at my hand and my youth appeared before my eyes. There I was, butt naked and starving, my ribs showing through my skin, as my dad left us once and for all. He threw a deck of playing cards to me. The only thing I ever really owned growing up, the reason I was so good at poker. But this deck had 53 cards. And one of them stood out more than the others, craftily designed. It was the card I had been given at birth. And it was the card I held in my hands now, the one that would determine my fate.\n\nI took a deep sigh as I slowly laid my cards on the table. I knew who my opponent was. He was a joker. The jokers were by far the rarest, and they made the best conmen. Kings and Queens believe themselves to rule the world, but the Jokers are even more powerful. None of them had noticed, too lazy to count the cards like a poor orphan learned to do so in order to win, and consequently they missed the fact that he had cheated. There was no way he could have had a four of a kind.\n\nShouts and gasps echoed from the table as the Joker saw my hand. His smile quickly disappeared. The man who had only minutes ago been boasting over how he got the scars on his face, especially the rather unsightly one near his eye, was now stunned silent.\n\nI had won the game. And this was no ordinary game. This was a game for who controls the world, who becomes our next leader. My royal flush of hearts laid in front of them all. None of them had expected the poor orphan to win. \n\nBecause you see, my card, well it goes to the lowest lows and the highest highs. For they may be kings and queens, but we are the emperors of the world. And just like my card, I always have an Ace up my sleeve.", "I was a joker.\nA wildcard. A mistake.\nThe decks the cards are chosen from are never supposed to have jokers... but sometimes they make a mistake.\nRegardless, they had to follow the ancient rules. The jokers were always anything they wanted. I could be royalty, or I could be a peasant. Or I could lead a normal life like any other person... regardless of where I went, my life could never be normal.\nPeople despised the jokers for getting a chance they never had. Even the Aces and kings were not contented with their lifestyle... the politics, sometimes it was just too much. and the 2's and 3's... well, they just wanted to have a roof and food.\nThey despised us for everything they weren't. We were above the law, above the loyalty, yet we were at the same time below the 2's.\nAnd that's why I decided to head out to the wastes. For opportunity, to not have to live with the side glances and resentment.\nSome of the other jokers I met with said there was a small town forming out in the wastes. One that was only Jokers.\nTo think! a town where anybody could be what they wanted to be...", "\"Name?\"\n\n\"It's, uh, Johnathan. Johnathan Stewart. Look, I just need to see my w-\"\n\n\"Mhmm. Card?\"\n\n\"Excuse me, but she's pregnant and very close to her due date. I really can't st-\"\n\n\"Card?\"\n\nHe thinned his lips in a disapproving manner, taking in a short, yet considerably deep, breath before letting the air disperse into the room from his flared nostrils.\n\n\"Jack. Jack of Hearts. Now can I please just see her? The name is Roslyn Stewart. R-O-S-L-Y-N.\"\n\n\"Ah, I see. I apologize for the inconvenience I've caused, Mr. Stewart. Let me pull up her file.\"\n\nHer impatient visage turns into a delightful and cheerful one, bringing warmth to her lips as if talking to an old friend or perhaps, even, a frequent visitor, her eyes almost sparkling in his presence. Though it did not represent anywhere near the status of those higher up, a Jack of Hearts was still a respectable card to go by. However, it's not uncommon for some people to want to be recognized for more than just their given value. Jacks, nines, threes, Kings... it's all just to keep things nice and simple. Your card is your life. Whether you like it or not.\n\n\"Here we are... Room 312, up on the third floor. Here's your pass, and I hope all goes well.\"\n\nHe hastily takes the pass from her, giving her a socially required nod of approval, while a sense of disapproval still lingers about him. Stamping away towards the elevator, his hands and fingers fiddle over his lap in a shoddy attempt to keep himself calm once he stepped inside the metal box. All he received was one phone call. One call telling him he needed to be there. Of course, for an expecting father, that's all the notice one needs, but a bit more detail would have not gone unappreciated.\n\n\"C'mon... C'mon, c'mon... Jesus, why is this thing so slow?\"\n\nA small elderly woman taps him on the shoulder. Her face is kind and genuine, and her voice is shaky yet soft.\n\n\"In a hurry, young man?\"\n\n\"Uh, yes. Yes, actually. My wife is expecting soon.\"\n\n\"Oh, is that so? Congratulations! What's her card?\"\n\n\"Well, thank you. It's a Queen. Queen of Spades.\"\n\n\"That's a lovely card... Not many women have that suit. Y'know, I, myself, have a black suit. Clubs. Four of Clubs!\"\n\nAlthough it's such a low ranking, she gives the impression that she's happy to have it, maybe even proud. And Jacks talking to Fours... that's not something that happens often. He almost doesn't know what to say...\n\n\"I-...I'm so-\"\n\n\"If you're marrying a Queen, you must be up there yourself, eh?\"\n\n\"Well, I gue-\"\n\n\"Y'know, I have a grandson in here, only about 7 years old right now. They gave him a Three of Diamonds... Isn't that terrible?\"\n\n\"...Yea. It is.\"\n\n\"What's your name? You must have a lot of money lying around, right?\"\n\n\"I'm really sorry, uh, t-this is my floor. I really have to go.\"\n\n\"Where are you going?! Hey!\"\n\nHe manages to slip through the elevator doors on the third floor. The old lady doesn't seem to be too happy anymore.\n\n\"M-My grandson is in Room 421! You'll visit right?!\"\n\nHe extends a reassuring hand, visible through the small, closing crack in the elevator doors, giving with it a false promise in their last, brief moment of eye contact. Another sigh leaves his lips as he regains his composure, his face pointed downwards with disappointment, his teeth clenching silently.\n\n\"Shit...\" he whispers to himself, \"Always the goddamn cards...\"\n\nHe soon finds the room, and, for a brief moment, he sees his wife holding his infant son through the glass pane. A smile forms on his face, and his eyes even start to water. He reaches out for the doorknob when he notices a doctor holding his son's card, about to give it to his wife. Instantly, he freezes. The door opens on its own.\n\n\"Mr. Stewart? Your son is here. Aren't you going to go in?\"\n\n\"...Y...Yes, thank you doctor. I will. In just a moment.\"\n\n\"...What's the matter, sir?\"\n\nThe smile returns, faded but still present, his eyes still glued to his infant son.\n\n\"I just don't want to know yet. His card I mean. I just want to see him as he is. Even if it's just for a minute.\"\n\nThe doctor glances once at the son and then back at the father. He nods in agreement and closes the door behind him as Johnathan continues to look through the glass with endearment.\n\nAfter a short while, he opens the door himself.\n" ]	10
The antagonist has completely ceased to exist. That means no demons, zombies, undead sorcery, or anything that would allow the antagonist to cheat the finality of death.	[WP] Write a story where the antagonist is dead.	[ "Let me tell you about what, until recently, I did for a living. \n\nI know, when someone starts a story like that, you expected it to be a vitriol filled rant about how tyrannical their boss was, or maybe the lazy or incompetent coworkers they had, or perhaps the collosal idiots they were forced to call their customers. And who know? Maybe you could see my story that way with enough creativity. \n\nBut no. I was ... the Golden Parabola. Yes, I am that gal. The masked boomerang wielding crusader for justice. Or the vigilante menace who plagued our fair city, if you believe the rantings of our late lamented commissioner of police. Well, late, anyway. I'm not sure how many people are still lamenting his passing, now that we know he was all along actually Doctor Pawnswap, my arch nemesis. \n\nI guess that's the thing about when the villains and the heroes both wear masks. Seems that all along, old Doc Pawnswap had a thing about wanting to control both sides of the equation: if he controlled the police, and was also the arch villain who organized all the crime in the city, it gave him a kind of convenient monopoly that pretty much redefined \"conflict of interest.\" \n\nBut as long as I was out there, busting up his rackets, and terrorizing his foot soldiers, he didn't get the full freedom of enterprise that he wanted. And that's why he hated me so badly. And he played it up on both angles, let me tell you. As Doctor Pawnswap, he was perpetually setting up death traps and ambushes to try to knock me off. As the police commissioner, he used his bully pulpit to pursuade the city I was just trying to stop the existing gangsters in order to move in and set up my own rackets. \n\nSo you see, that's why I never did get the public behind me, no matter how many times I put my life on the line on their behalf. It's also why so many of the crooks I tried to put away ended up going through a revolving door justice system and were back out the following week. So maybe you can understand why my crusade got much darker as time went on. Why I terrorized instead of just capturing. Why I finally broke my \"no killing\" rule near the end there. Try not to judge me too harshly on that one, will you?\n\nNow, without Doctor Pawnswap to organize them, and with me menacing them at every turn, most of the more organized criminals in the city cleared out in the time it took to swear in a new commissioner after the special elections had been held. The city is cleaner and safer than it has been in my lifetime. Yeah, I mean it just like that: my entire lifetime. My quest is a success. My objective fulfilled. You would think I'd be the happiest gal on earth, right? \n\nOf course, I still have a warrant out on my head. Yeah, that's right. You'd think the new commissioner would have taken a fresh look at things, but no. Of course not. \"We cannot condone vigilantism,\" blah blah blah. And the thing is, I'm pretty sure Pawnswap was pretty close to outing my secret identity just before our final confrontation. So I was thinking it was time to move on, you know? Get a fresh start somewhere else. But gosh darn it, that just ain't fair, and I ain't gonna stand for it. \n\nIt's easier than you think, sugar. Bottle of hair dye. Fake ID, change of living space. New name, etc, and voila! Whole new me. The ultimate makeover. Start of a whole new life here in the city I worked so hard for. But the thing is: I gotta keep a low profile now. And that ain't for working schmucks, see? Government keeps paper trails on everything you do, but what else is there? Gotta earn a living right? So what's a girl to do?\n\nWell, that's easier than you think too. New costume. New name. New game. Already got the terrorizing thing going for me. That's good. Helps to be feared when you're setting yourself up as the new boss. \n\nLet me tell you what I do for a living now: I'm a super-villainess. Call me the Promoted Queen. \n\n", "Charlie stares at the picture frame on the commissioner’s desk distracted. The ticking of the clock drowns out all other noise. He had supersonic hearing and had the capability to focus on every single conversation happening at once including the ones that were in people’s minds. He could use his strength and send the desk hurling through the wall. He could even shoot rays of heat from his palms melting the building to a crisp. Charlie would never do any of that though, he was a superhero.\n\n He feels a pat on his back and jumps a little to see the commissioner standing behind him.\n\n“Charlie! How are you doing today? Enjoying the weather?” the commissioner asks in an overly cheerful tone. \n\nCharlie forces a smile, “Yeah, its cool. I was just wondering- now that Dean is dead and I’m kind of out of a job, do you think you have any room here for me?” \n\nThe commissioner half smiles, “Charlie, you’re only 18. Although you are an amazing hero for our city, I don’t think becoming an officer would suit you without any training.”\n\nCharlie nods trying not to show his disappointment and gets up from his seat, “Of course sir.” \n\nAs he tries to make a quick escape, the commissioner catches his arm, “But we could use someone to answer the phones and type up reports.” \n\nCharlie bites his lip, “Like an intern?”\n\nThe commissioner nods, “Yes Charlie, You see, the real heroes here are the ones that do the paperwork. Sure we go out and arrest folks sometimes but if we didn’t have these heroes, the system would fall to chaos.” \n\nCharlie smiles, “Yes, I’ll do it sir!”\n\nThe commissioner chuckles, “Great! I’ll see you five a.m tomorrow. By the way, how are things at home?” \n\nCharlie shakes the commissioner’s hand, “Thank you so much! You won’t regret it!”\n\nThe commissioner shakes his head at the youth and Charlie doesn’t realize until he’s on the street that he accepted a job that he’d have to be at by five a.m. Superheroes never had to clock in or wake up early for the most part. \n\nHe stops by Murr’s Diner on the corner of the street. It was his favorite and he visited there as a child even before he became a hero. The owner smiles getting Charlie his favorite lunch: a bacon, egg, and cheese on a warm bagel. Charlie’s mouth practically waters at the view and the cashier rings up the order. Charlie pays with the few dollars in his backpack and then continues on his way. As he crosses the street he wonders if he’ll ever get a free meal again. Charlie puts his hood up as he makes a turn so he won’t be stopped by any reporters. He usually didn’t mind answering questions but now all they seemed to ask about was his future, how was he supposed to know? What do superheroes do after they’ve lost their foe? \n\nHe passes by a dark alley and walks a little faster and then stops to laugh at himself. His dad always told him that he had nothing to be afraid of and that he was the most powerful being in the universe. That seemed to inflate his confidence enough most days but now he really didn’t have to be afraid, after all, the main criminal was dead. He would never need to fight again; there was no need to be scary or powerful anymore. \n\nCharlie thinks to his plans for that evening. He could call up Shirley; she was always good for a laugh on a date if he was the one paying. He shakes his head, she was always busy lately and probably had other plans. He couldn’t blame her; he just wasn’t as exciting anymore. He thinks of his quiet apartment on the other side of town. He debates exploring all the rooms, he was always too busy and never had time to search for all the keys so many were still a mystery to him. He thinks of his cats and smiles, at least they still treated him the same. He remembers how he heard one of his cats crying the other night and makes a mental note to pick up catnip or a new toy; maybe that would help the poor cat. \n\nHe sees the old cemetery and slips through the rusty gates making his way to his mother’s grave. He hadn’t visited in so long that the grass was overgrown and there was moss covering his mother’s name. Charlie clears it away gently not to hurt his mother’s tombstone. He traces the letters with his fingers trying to remember her voice. What would she want him to do now? \n\nCharlie says a quick prayer and then heads to the back of the cemetery. It was much more overgrown and dark. Charlie navigates his way through thorn bushes and poison ivy remembering all the camping trips he used to take with his dad. As he reaches the very last tombstone he sits down and cleans it off as best that he could. He shivers as the wind blows forcefully through the graveyard. \n\nHe traces the name with his fingers, “Dean Connelly- a miserable tyrant who wished for the world to share his pain.” \n\nCharlie shakes his head; he knew Dean better than that. He was a motivated individual who had many accomplishments and made many mistakes along the way.\n\nCharlie buries his face in his hands trying to hold in his sadness, “I’m so sorry Dad.” \n", "I spit the rest of the chewing tobacco from my mouth to the dry dirt of Bandera leaving a long, wet, yellow stain. A single shell rest next to my boot heel. Directly in front of me was the cold, lifeless body of Wild Bill Castro, the lawman who'd been trailing me since New Orleans. All I'd did was rob a nun and kill the pastor by putting two bullets in him. One in his dick and the other went in one ear and right out the other, just like his sermon did to my ears when I was settin' there an hour earlier.\n\nHe was just there sprawled out on the floor in a pool of his own blood with Christ nailed on the cross with that sad yet accepting face looking down when Leon, my partner (in more than one way), called that the lawmen were comin'. We jumped on our horses and skipped town, but Wild Bill was never too far behind. Bullets flew, but we outran em. The rest of the law gave up on us after we passed the city lines, but not Wild Bill. I think he was infatuated with us. He tailed us out of his own county to well out his own damn state. He eventually found a drunken Leon in a bar up in Nashville. Hogtied him and rode to the outskirts of the city. He beat Leon with the end of his pistol asking where I was. Leon's blood stained the roads, but he never broke and gave where I was. Wild Bill turned him to the Nashville authorities. The next day he was strung up to a noose hanging in front of the whole city. His last words before the drop snapped his neck with a sickening crack were \"Fuck you all.\" \n\nI was in a brothel down the way that night. I was Wild Bill in the crowd. I could tell it was him even though I only saw from behind. He stood there looking up to the platform, content but not happy was the way his crossed arms spoke to me. He wouldn't be happy until he got me too.\n\nHe caught me in Bandrea, a small town out San Antonio, playin cards with two Mexicans. We barged in, pistol drawn and it didn't take me long to have mine on his or one of the Mexicans to have his on me, the other's was on Wild Bill.\n\n\"Hello, Billy,\" I said with a smile. \"You been chasin' me awhile. You got a crush on me?\" He didn't reply, I guess he could tell that the wrong word would send both of us to an early grave. \"How's bout we settle this the old way, Billy? Outside. You and me.\" He nodded and we both slowly put our guns down.\n\nI ordered one more shot of whiskey and Wild Bill smoked a cigar, never takin his eyes off me. I looked him in the face. He was ugly. Scars, on both cheeks and one above his right eye. A broken nose and a lazy eye. Maybe he chased me because he couldn't get laid. Maybe he real just respected the law. God only knows. He killed my partner and now he's going to die.\n\nWe got on line with each other near the time when the town bell would strike noon. Sun blaring, we looked each other in the eyes (or just his one good eye) with hands on our sides ready to draw. A crowd had gathered around us. I reckon they haven't seen anything like this for some time.\n\nIt felt like years, but was couldn't have been more than five minutes. Heatwaves visible in the distance and vultures perched on a nearby roof, seemingly knowing what was about to happen. Normally the vultures come after the war, but maybe they developed a sense the way I heard fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico can sense a storm days in advance.\n\nThe clock struck twelve. Guess who won.", "Years, I've been trailing her. The woman. A half decade ago she paid off some kid, and got her hands on classified information. Its release lead to the deaths of hundreds of our boys oversees, and I received a beautiful handwritten letter telling me that I can see the best part when I get home.\n\nThat night my wife sullenly packed her bags and left because of a moment of indiscretion I had a year ago, a single flirty response to a solicitation from a younger co-worker. My wife just stuffed her clothes into the suitcases, ignoring my pleas, refusing to believe that was all that happened.\n\nThe next morning I found another note, gayly announcing that I would \"absolutely adore what came next!\" I handed in my badge, packed my bags and set off in search of the only woman left in my life. However morbid, I wanted to look into her cold dead eyes when I killed her. I wanted to see her die, the woman who took everything from me, at my hands.\n\nHandwriting experts were consulted and confused, the continuous taunting emails were traced to no avail, all the information a former CIA agent could want and it still took a lifetime to find the house.\n\nThere was a bare office, save for a locked file cabinet and a desk, that had a computer running a program, automatically releasing prewritten information and intermittently leaking secrets, things that should remain unseen, to predetermined electronic destinations.\n\nOn the desk was a letter, explaining that she knew she was dying. The government heist was her best work, but there was still so much she wanted to do, so she blackmailed someone to make the program. It ended with\"My dear, whatever I have done to you, know that you can finally stop me but it is far to late for you to get the revenge you seek. Do send your wife my love. Kate.\"\n\nStanding outside at midnight, I read these final words again and again by the light of the blazing house. A siren wail broke through the crackle of the timbers." ]	4
	[WP] Someone broke into your house. Yet, all they stole was food.	[ "I will fucking kill them. I will find them and I will end them for what they did. Those sick fuckers will pay. The only thing left was half an ear of corn. I found it when I opened the fridge and blew chunks in the foyer. The police tried to console me, but I was unreachable. The had no leads, and didn't seem to even care. I was going to take matters into my own hands. Vengeance was to be mine. I will save my family. No one crosses Peanut Butter and gets away with it. " ]	1
	[WP] The NSA is out of money. Write their kickstarter page.	[ "Can you put a price on your freedom? On your family's safety? We can.\n\nWe are the NSA, and we have a serious problem. We have gotten so good at preventing the hundreds of possible terrorist attacks daily that we need some money from hard working citizens so we can continue to keep you safe. \n\nThere aren't hundreds of terrorist attacks daily, you say? You're welcome. But without your help, we will not be able to monitor everyone, and that is the only way to ensure YOUR safety and that of the ones you love. \n\nWith just a $50 dollar donation (or more if you want to feel extra free) from our loyal citizens we can have cameras on every corner to watch the bad guys' every movement and spyware on the computer of every possible terrorist. Help us help you. God bless America.", "YOU GUYS HAVE TO SEE SARA'S SHIT\n\n&nbsp;\n\nStretch Goals: \n\n&nbsp;\n\n* 100k: see where she keeps putting her finger. Ugh. Did you know she doesn't wash her hands?\n\n&nbsp;\n\n* 150k: Read the drunk texts she sent to her boss. She thinks iguanas aren't real.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n* 210k: Those of you who know Sara: remember when she said she spent a week in Bermuda? Not even close. She is one sick puppy.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n* 350k: Sara's brainwaves. Yep, we had the ability to do that this whole time. There's this part where she tries to open a container of coffee grounds. Ho-ly shit is she stupid.", "\"Hi I'm Troy McClure, you may remember me from such films as 'mommy what's that smell?' And 'fifty shades of a bleached behind.' But today I'm here to talk to you about something that affects all of us. \n\nTerrorists.\n\nEvery day there are thousands of terrorists fantasizing about coming to the u.s. and cutting the throats of everyone you know and love.\n\nDon't worry though, for more than 50 years the NSA has been keeping you safe. By monitoring your phone calls, reading your email, and watching over you as you sleep through your computer's webcam.\n\nAt the NSA we put America's freedom first. So we've systematically taken control of that freedom so we can keep it safe from these terrorists who would like nothing more than to take lady liberty into a back ally and rape the freedom right out of her.\n\nLately however, liberals in the government want to give America's freedom to these terrorists. We say 'Nay!' Here at the NSA, and we are determined to stop them. That's why we need your help. For just a small monthly fee you can help us support our efforts to undermine these liberal terrorist lovers and keep our nation free.\n\nDonating is easy, you're already doing it. We have your account information and have automatically deducted your first donation while you watched this film.\n\nThank you for keeping america free.\"\n\nfade to black with the national anthem playing over a scene of the american flag waving in the wind.", "Video opens with a nondescript 30-something man in business casual attire sitting at a computer \nOh hey! I didn't see you there. And that's part of the problem. See, we here at the three letter agency are facing a budget shortfall. We're on the cusp of a disruptive breakthrough in [REDACTED](/s \"reading all of your encrypted emails\") but we need an extra bit of funding to bridge the gap. That's where you come in. While we can't officially tell you our name or what we do, be sure that our first priority is keeping you safe and not laughing at your drunk texts from the other night no matter how hilarious those were. We've decided to offer some unique and exciting perks for our backers that will only be available for this campaign. \n \n-Black Hatter- At the 50$ level we will send you a black hat and t-shirt with no identifying marks. \n-Freer Speech- For 100$ you get to send an anonymous insulting tweet to a politician of your choice. \n-Canvas Print- For 500$ you will find a picture taken by drone in a place and at a time of our choosing on your doorstep! \n-Incognito Mode- At the 5,000$ level we will clear your internet browsing history. \"Wow, you logged onto the internet for the first time in 2015? How weird!\" \n-Early Bird 2016 Presidential Candidate Special (All Gone!)- For 9,999$ Get the -Tor User Plus- backer level for this special discounted price. \n-Tor User Plus- At the 10,000$ level you get the -Incognito Mode- rewards and below AND we clear the secret caches as well! \n-Alcatraz- For 100,000$ you get 1 get out of gitmo free card.^^Not ^^available ^^for ^^backers ^^currently ^^in ^^Gitmo \n-Ghazi-Gate- At the 1,000,000$ level, you can leak someone else's dirty secret or skeleton in their closet. \n \nWe hope you're excited as we are to see what the future brings for our innovative operation. Your support will ensure the highest quality terrorist and drug user catching tools are available to law enforcement officials everywhere." ]	4
	[WP] The dinner table falls silent; all eyes turn to you as your face turns bright red.	[ "\"...I wasn't allowed to go in the basement?\"\n\nWhat had my little brother done? When mom says, \"...and then you guys came downstairs.\" You DON'T say \"No, mom, they came up from the basement.\" Every kid knows under no circumstances do you tell mom where your sibling was when you absolutely don't have to. He was 11. He was still learning the rules.\n\nBut even still, what did it matter? We weren't doing anything in the basement. Jimmy and I just went down there to get some mountain dew. I'm thinking, \"It's my 15th birthday and if want to drink mountain dew with dinner I'm going to drink mountain dew with dinner, dammit.\"\n\n\"So?\" My dad asked, almost nervously. He kept glancing at my mom. I didn't know why.\n\n\"So? We just got some soda.\" I was nervous so I laughed. That didn't help.\n\n\"So what did you think of it?\" My mom spoke. \"I told you not to go in the basement but you did anyway, what'd you think of it?\" She sounded upset. I knew I hadn't done anything wrong and felt emboldened to hold my ground.\n\n\"I don't know what you're talking about.\" I was openly laughing now. I really didn't know what she was talking about and hoped this would turn out to be some sort of game.\n\n\"Oh that sounds like an eight pound turkey.\" She said. She started to get angry.\n\nOK, so I didn't really know what eight pound turkey meant but I knew enough to know that was her saying I was lying.\n\n\"Really mom, I didn't do anything...\"\n\n\"Whatever.\" She just looked away.\n\nEventually my parents led me back downstairs into the basement and revealed the weight set I had been asking for. We exchanged the usual pleasantries. \"Thank you.\" \"We know your taking football seriously and wanted to help....\" But there was an awkwardness to it. The surprise was ruined for all of us.\n\nAt the time I held it against them. I was mad they didn't believe me when I said I didn't know I wasn't supposed to go down there -- or that I didn't actually see anything. \n\nEventually, I got over it. Now I just think it had more to do with me not being a better listener (I'm not a good listener now). I don't have kids - but I imagine you work your ass off to buy them a birthday or christmas present and they ruin everything by disobeying you and searching the house for it before they're supposed to have it. I accidentally stole my mom's moment to make me happy. \n\nI wish I could say this was the worst misunderstanding we ever had. It wasn't.\n\n", "\"Everyone, I have a confession to tell you all.\" I say with a sad tone, looking down at my mashed potatoes.\n\n\"What is it son? You going gay on us? Because we will accept it, so eat your food and shut it?\" My dad said without looking away from his food.\"\n\n\"It's bigger than that dad. Everyone, I am not the person you all think I am. For years I always told you I was a microbiologist working to make vaccines. My job is something... Different.\"\n\n\"If you mean that you are dealing weed on the side, I know, I smoked some of your stash bro.\" My brother says, not looking from the TV. Despite the seriousness of this situation, nobody cares.\n\n\"Honey, don't worry, we are a progressive family, and we don't mind you dealing drugs. We just hope that you are happy with your life. Would you like some more Coke son?\" My mom says, as she fetches a can. I can't tell them. I can't. They would hate me more than anything. No. They have to know why the next thing is going to happen.\n\n\"Everyone, I wasn't lying when I said I was a microbiologist, but I worked for the government. They made me create... Things. Things that would end nations in a year. Things that would make people pray for death to happen. I made many different strains of diseases under their orders. I first thought it was in the name of our country's prosperity, to show the world our power. Then things got out of hand. They wanted more.\" At this moment, everyone has gone quiet and began to look at me. Now I have their attention.\n\n\"The drugs in my house were for my use. I couldn't withstand it. Putting death row inmates as test subjects, watching them, recording their every symptom, their every scream. I thought that they were scum who deserved it. The real life things you see on TV? They just sedate those people for us to use for future use. Then the laws on death row inmates got stricter, so our morals for test subjects got looser, putting people who committed a crime was picked at random. When people started getting suspicious, we took homeless people. I can't go on anymore with this.\" I say looking down and walking towards the window.\n\n\"Son, you can get this out to the public, you can stop this. Come on, let's go tell the world.\" My dad says as he comes to console me.\n\n\"I already did Dad. But I wasn't fast enough. As we speak, they sent some hitmen after me. I hired the underworld's finest to protect you all with all my money along with some people who will hide you.\" I say as I look out the window.\n\n\"Bro, are you serious? This isn't a funny joke you know.\" My brother says as he stares at me. I notice movement in the backyard.\n\n\"It isn't a joke. In my phone is a number for a Jackie Suxx. Call her and ask for a full course for a lifetime. Tell her. Kevin sent you. I would join you all, but it seems I am out of time.\" I say, several bright red lasers aim at my head.\n\n\"Goodbye everyone, I will miss you all, and I am sorry I dragged you into this mess.\" I say, as the snipers pull the trigger.\n\n", "\"You... you what?\" Sally's eyes were stern, watery, and conflicted. You could tell by the way that they wavered that she had never hated herself more for hating something she heard. I had never hated myself more for hating something I said. \"Dad, he can't... Doesn't he...? Mom, am I just hearing....? Ted, don't do this to yourself. I don't know if I can...\" She was frantic, eagerly looking between the three other faces at the table to see if anyone else was reacting the same way she was. My ears burned. It took everything I had to not rescind my words.\n\nThe comfortable havoc of the mid-meal table was in stark contrast to the tense calmness of the four of us sitting around it. We were all afraid that saying anything would make the room explode into words. The sweat on my back soaked my new dress shirt. Mr. Moore deliberately set his fork down. \"You know what it means to say that nowadays, boy,\" he stated cautiously.\n\nHe was right. We had to give up some of the things that had once made us human in exchange for the immortality our species now cherished. The only stipulation for this was that if any individual tried to embrace the traits of our ancestors, they became mortal; their days became as numbered as that of the common dog in the streets. The words I had uttered quite literally meant my death. But it was hard to back away from what I said.\n\n\"Well, Ted, I'll get the declaration papers.\" Mr. and Mrs. Moore both stood up. They exchanged a glance that was a mix of business and apprehension, and what almost seemed like longing. \"We'll let you two talk about this before you put it in writing.\" Mrs. Moore called me a fool under her breath as she walked away.\n\n\"We don't need to talk about it,\" Sally whispered after her parents left the room, her eyes full of tears. \"I'll sign the paper, you know that,\" she choked out, putting her hands in mine. She gave me a kiss. The first of many more to come, even if they would now be in limited supply. \"I love you, too.\"", "The beginning of something maybe... work in progress? shrugs\n\nBaby Girl\n\nPanic. That’s what I heard in her voice as she desperately backpedaled.\n \n“I swear to god I thought you knew! I never would have… I mean… Penny said!” \n\nShe turned to the woman sitting to her left, arm outstretched as if she could hand the blame over and avoid her fate. Penny was having none of it.\n\n“Oh no you don’t! I’m not taking the fall for you again! I should never have listened to you Carol! I should have left her where…”\n\n“You knew?” \n\nPenny blanched as the words caught in her throat. Fear shone in her eyes as she turned toward me. \n\n“You knew.”\n\nPenny’s right hand flew to her throat as her left shot out in front of her, palm facing me as if she could hold back the wave of rage building inside me. It was futile to try and hide it. My face was burning hot. I heard my blood pumping like a soft roar in my ears. The other guests were becoming little more than colored blurs on the edges of my vision, but I had to maintain. I couldn't lose it. Not yet. There were still too many questions, all of them in fact. I reached into my pocket and Carol gasped. Stupid woman. She was always so fucking dramatic. I moved some change aside and found what I was looking for. As I dug the tip of the thumb tack into the heel of my palm, the room came back into sharp focus.\n\n“Now, baby girl, listen to me.” Penny sputtered. She swept her upturned hand across the table implicating the other dinner guests present, and made a point to look at each of them as she spoke. “All of us have only ever wanted what’s best for you. We decided, together, that it would be best if no one spoke about that night, ever. Especially not to you.” \n\nShe turned toward me now, eyes glistening under crepe paper lids, desperation knitting her brow into caverns. “You have to believe me! Baby girl, your daddy…”\n\n“DON’T CALL HIM THAT!”\n\nGlass and liquid exploded across her face. Her left brow opened and poured blood into her eye and down her cheek. I wasn't even aware I had picked it up, but the empty space on the table where my lemonade had been and the accusatory glares sent my way by the two women who ushered the screaming Penny into the kitchen as she held her face in her hands told me I had thrown the glass. So much for maintaining. \n\nCarol had taken advantage of Penny’s bad luck and slipped through the patio door during the resulting mayhem. She was halfway across the expansive lawn before I realized she was gone. No matter. She couldn't hide from me, not in this town. \n\nRegret immediately started needling my gut. My loss of control would most assuredly impair my ability to get honest answers out of anyone left around the table. Fear clouds the mind and changes memory. People start telling you what they think you want to hear when they’re afraid. That wasn't what I needed just then. I picked up my shrimp fork and focused all my attention on the tines, counting each one with the tip of my index finger over and over until my pulse slowed to an acceptable rhythm. One… Two… Three… One… Two… Three… One… Two… I could feel the eyes of the remaining guests on me, each one of them holding their breath; desperately trying to anticipate what would happen next.\n\n“I think brunch is over. Thank you for coming ladies. Saul.” \n\nI lifted my gaze to address the man standing beside the credenza on the far wall. He’d been standing there for the past hour, hands clasped across his middle, silently observing. It was amazing how he could remain unnoticed in virtually any setting or situation despite his size. Saul was 6’9” and easily 280 pounds of muscle and bone. Immovable. This was the best word I had to describe him. Even though I knew he would never obstruct me now, I had too many memories of my childhood self ineffectually clawing and kicking at him as he carried me away from situations “best not scene by little bits who should be in bed” to trust him with tasks of extreme personal import, like Carol. Saul wouldn't handle Carol. I’d leave her to Marjorie, but Saul was useful. \n\nHe stretched his arms wide and moved into the room. This gesture was enough to get the remaining guests, some standing, some frozen in their seats, moving. They nervously shuffled away from his outstretched arms through the dining room doors, into the hall and to the front door. A woman began clearing the dishes from the table.\n\n“Miss Jones, please call Dr. Smith and…”\n\nMiss Jones dropped the Beleek cup and saucer she had been holding.\n\n“Oh Miss… please! Penny didn't mean any harm! I mean… she doesn't…”\n\n“Tell him Miss Penelope needs attention! Specifically stitches. Christ woman!”\n\nThe maid dropped to the floor, gathered the broken pieces of china into a dish towel and rushed into the kitchen presumably to call the good doctor. I fingered the edge of the manila folder to my right. Inside were the documents that led to this “brunch” turned Jerry Springer episode. A folder of personal documents given to me by the executor of the man whom I had until recently believed to be my father’s estate. An executor who would conveniently die in a car accident two hours after handing me the folder. It contained my birth certificate, school records, financial statements and adoption records… adoption records. I’ll admit that I remained willfully naive for as long as possible. Daddy always took care of everything, or at least made sure there was someone around who would. I always had “handlers.” People who made sure my finances remained in order and the people who needed documentation received exactly what they needed. People who made sure nothing ended up on my record. There were some perks to being the daughter of the most powerful man in this town. There were also pitfalls. Like finding out you aren't who you thought you were after the only person who could possibly answer all your questions dies. \n", "\"Just can't save it for band can you son?\" your father says looking at you with his fork halfway to his mouth, loaded with turkey.\n\nYour younger brothers laughing is grating on your ears as you try to slouch further down into your seat. \"He sure has a powerful trumpet\" Grandma says to her husband. \"That boy is going places\" \"Moom!\" Even your mother is aghast. Grammys are not supposed to say things like that.\n\nEveryone is laughing now. Probably not at you thankfully. Grandpa leans over to whisper in your ear. \"You want to know what instrument we played back in my day boy?\" He was not as quiet as he thought and Dad is almost falling out of his seat in fit of giggling. Mom looks shocked and Grandpas grin only grows broader. \n\n\"Boys will you behave!\" Mom is angry now, well probably not mad just slightly disgusted. She has that same look on her face as when David came into the house in only a diaper trying to eat a slug. Only.. more angry instead of horrified. \"Act your age old man.\" Her fork waves back and forth across the table like a judge in a courtroom where the defense is made of screaming toddlers. Man, do I hate holidays.", "\"Are you alright?\" asks Steve, as my breathing quickens. My vision starts spinning, the faces of my colleagues start drifting in and out of focus. \"What's going on, are you alright?\", he repeats his question, now a definite note of concern in his voice. My head begins to hurt, as blood starts flowing from my nose. Frightened shrieks start erupting arround the table. I am bearly able to keep myself upright on the chair, my head is now feeling as if it is going to explode any second. Just before I drift into an endless ocean of agony, I can hear the faint voice of my boss snorting: \"Ha, that'll teach him to ask for health insurance.\"", "For the millionth time I wished my cheeks weren't so quick to show my true reactions. This made it difficult to maintain my pretense of intense interest in the mashed potatoes on my fork. I knew what reaction the whole bunch was expecting but I had decided earlier that rising to the bait was not an option. \n\nThe silent stares abated after a really long moment, but then it was just the scrape and tap of steel against ceramic. The fresh-baked bread, so desirable a minute ago, now felt off-limits because I'd have to ask her to pass them to me. As normal chatter finally came back thanks to my mom's desire to be a good host, even to her rather odious cousin, I tried to plot how to maneuver the rolls my way without speaking to her at all. It also kept me from thinking too much about what she'd said about me. Nope, not dwelling on that at all.\n\nThe crowded table allowed me to play a sort of dish chess; making room for the turkey platter required shifting the gravy boat. My brother, helpful for once, asked for the stuffing which meant the bread had to be moved. The basket was in my hand at last, and I swear, as I lifted the gingham cloth to claim my reward I knew exactly what was going to happen.\n\nSure enough, her faux-polite tone rang out again, far louder than necessary in our little-ish dining room. \"You know, dear, carbs-\"\n\nI listened to her rev up again, hating her and myself in waves. My resolve to stay calm was wavering. For the million-and-first time, I wished-\n\n\"You know Laura, I'm really tired of how rude you've been tonight, and every time we've had you over.\" My dad said, pointedly putting down his knife and fork.\n\nSilence happened again and this time I was one who was staring instead of stared at. My dad, who wouldn't complain to someone who'd kicked him in the shins, was actually looking angry.\n\nLaura made a huffy noise and my head swiveled to see her reaction like I was at a tennis match. \"Rude?\" She said, pulling herself up indignantly. \"Since when is it rude to offer fitness advice to a young person who so obviously needs it?\"\n\n\"That! Right there!\" Dad slapped his thigh and it sounded like a shot fired. \"My children are not in need of 'fitness advice' from anyone, especially not when it is nothing but thinly-veiled insults!\"\n\nLaura rocked back in her chair as if she'd been slapped. She turned her glare on my mother. \"Really?! You let him speak that way to me? Family is worth so little these days, that I'm being turned out for merely expressing myself?\"\n\nMy mother's expression was tight and closed as she took a moment to stare at her cousin. \"Nobody even mentioned turning you out, but I think it would be best if you left. We invite you to join us on holidays because you had no one else to celebrate with, but I agree with my husband. You have always been cruel and condescending to all of us, and we've all had enough.\"\n\nMy brother jumped to his feet. \"Here, let me help you get your things!\" His glee was not easy to miss as he dashed to the living room. He came back with Laura's coat and handbag, thrusting them into her disbelieving face. Her barbs about my body had always been alternated with jabs about his major in college and general prospects.\n\nThere were protests and vows that Mom would be hearing about it from Grandmother, but none of us cared. The door slammed viciously and the revving of her car engine was probably supposed to be menacing, but we barely noticed. We didn't say anything else until we were sure she was gone, but once silence, blessed silence, filled the room again, we all looked at each other for that long moment.\n\nThen we all laughed, long and joyously. My face was red again, and there were tears in my eyes, but it was the best feeling ever. And I remembered all over again how much I love my family.", "\"Stop doing that! O my god! What is wrong with you?\" My girlfriend's dad screamed in horror as he tried to duck out of the way.\n\n\"Sorry, I can't help it,\" I yelled back in defense as I continued.\n\n\"Yes you can! Oh my God, please stop it now!\" He then began to throw up.\n\nAlong with him, everybody at the table started throwing up at the site of me having diarrhea all over my plate. I couldn't make it to the bathroom, so I just decided to stand up on my chair, pull down my pants, and shit all over my plate.\n\n\"You guys are making this a bigger deal than it actually is,\" I said as a continuous stream of watery poop flew out of my asshole splashing onto everything. \n\nEveryone ran away screaming in horror. And there I stood, alone, cold, with poop still pumping out of my ass. \n\nMy phone went off. It was my mom. She sent me a text that read \"how's dinner with your girlfriend going?\" I then turned around and took a Snapchat of the vomit and diarrhea covered dinner table. I sent it to my mother with a caption reading \"pretty well!\"\n\n\n\n\n", "\"What?\" I cry, defensively. \"C'mon, we've all secretly done it!\"\n\nMom locks eyes with me. \"Nate, that's not even physically possible.\"\n\n\"Haaa, what? Okay.\" I'm regretting opening my trap now. Forget it, forget, it forget it, just keep eating.\n\n\"Mommy, does Uncle Nate really do that?\"\n\n\"Shush, honey,\" Lynn replies. She looks down at her plate, though not before giving me an intense death glare. I feel sweat start to pour down my back.\n\n\"He's fucking insane. I'm telling you.\" says Ed. Old bastard.\n\n\"Look, it was just a dumb joke. Forget it,\" I say. We all awkwardly comply, silently forcing down our Thanksgiving meal.\n\n___\n\nIt's night now, and I'm pulling into the driveway. God, I really don't want to deal with him right now. Ugh. I wait a few minutes before getting through the front door. Shit, he's up. I cringe.\n\n\"Good evening, Nate!\" cries Nate. \"How was Thanksgiving?\"\n\n\"Just- Just forget it, Nate,\" I tell him. He frowns, turns his attention back to the dishes. I nervously try to play it cool, picking at a scab.\n\n\"WOAH!\"\n\nFuck. It's Fat Nate. Didn't see him.\n\n\"What the hell you doin'? That was gonna be a fine Nate! He was budding like a dream. I betcha had only a week before it developed into an egg. You knew that.\"\n\nNate looks back. \"Nate..\" he asks me, \"is something wrong?\"\n\n\"Nah, I mean, I don't want to talk about it right now.\"\n\n\"Well, fine. Say, would a blowjob cheer you up?\"\n\nI shrug. \"Eh, couldn't hurt.\"" ]	9
And I mean take in the sense that they're face will become the person that they killed's face	[WP] In the future, humans will take someone else's face when they kill them. Write from the perspective of a soldier during World War III	[ "I propped myself into a sitting position on my bed. I look to my dresser drawer mirror and see my face. \n\nI make eye contact. \n\nIt's not myself I see, however. \n\nThere is a man in the reflection looking back at me with fear in his eyes. \nIt's as if his eyes said, \"Please, don't pull the trigger, I'm sorry!\" \n\nI'm not a serial killer, so I will not kill another just for the sake of changing my face. I did what I must in order to save the lives of millions. So that an entire race does not go extinct, then forgotten. I'm also one of them. \n\nEver since the assassination took place, I've been confined to my small household in Germany. Hiding from the public. \n\nBeing an extrovert, it is a pain being secluded from society this badly. Not once have I had a fresh breath of air since the assassination. Not once have I had another glimpse of my wife, or my 3 children since the assassination.\n\nBut I still think to myself, \"It had to be done. I saved myself, my family and millions of lives. Now everyone must think that I'm dead and gone.\"\n\nEvery few days, soldiers come to my door to bring me necessities for living, as I'm forbidden to go out into the public. Food, water, clothes etc. I'm not allowed to talk to them either. They come, drop off my things, and leave. That's all the social interaction I get. Just a brief second of eye contact.\n\nI've also been given pills on an effort to diminish my intense depression. \n\nThis face is just utterly disgusting, and I don't deserve this.\n \nI've managed to salvage some personal items to remind me how great my life was before this. On my dresser is a picture of my family and I, with my old face\n\nI'm beginning to become overwhelmed, knowing I will never have my original face back. The face that kissed my wife. The face that my sons had grew up. The face my mother kissed goodnight when I was a child. It's gone.\n\nI can't take it anymore. My heart is pounding. My blood coursing through my body faster and faster with every pump of my heart. The world around me is moving slower and slower. My night clothes now soaked in sweat and and my body shaking tremendously. \n\nThis is it. This is enough. I have to kill him again. \n\nI quickly spring up, rush to my dresser drawer, and open the top left drawer. There it is. The gun that I had saved. I struggle to even grab the gun as my hands were shaking violently. But once I finally get a firm grip of the gun, I look into the mirror. I make eye contact. I feel myself calming down. I stop shaking. I stop sweating. My heart stops rapidly pounding. \n\nAt this moment, I just wanted it to all end. I didn't want to suffer from this agonizing depression. What was the point in me being here if I'm just going to be secluded anyways? \n\nI simply thought to myself, \"Fuck this shit!\" Aimed the gun at Hitler's head, pulled the trigger and killed him yet again.\n-------------------------------------------------------------------- This is my first story so I feel like I'm missing things like detail, syntax and other stuff. I'm no writer so I think this would come off as kinda sloppy, but I just thought of this scenario in my head and thought it would be a good story, idk. Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed lol.", "They call me the man of a hundred faces. By now, it's closer to three hundred, but I guess that just doesn't have the same ring to it. When I joined the Marines, I was excited to see the world through my own eyes, but it seems I spend more time looking through another man's. I guess it's not really their eyes, just their faces.\n\nDuring sniper training, they told us what to expect after our first kill, but nothing truly prepares you for the shock of looking into the mirror and seeing the face of the man you just killed staring back at you. Especially with a large hole in your forehead, the mark of a perfect kill. And it doesn't get easier with time.\n\nI remember my 100th kill. We were outside Tehran, providing sniper cover for the 135th Infantry, when I saw a suicide bomber running towards the road. I took my time to line up the shot, just kinda scaring the Humvee driver a little to wake him up, and nailed him about 10 yards shy of the road. At the exact same moment my round pierced his skull, his thumb hit the trigger. I spent the hour until my next kill with half of my face charred off.\n\nBut that's not the worst one. I spent 3 days with the face of a twelve year old Iranian girl. Her parents apparently decided that the perfect birthday present would be a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher. She obviously couldn't wait to try it out. Unfortunately, I didn't get her before she got the IED disposal crew. I watched through my scope as her face shifted four times in rapid succession, settling on Ramirez, the last technician to die. I remember wondering as I pulled the trigger if I was going to get his face, or hers.\n\nThey say back in the old days, they used to take body parts or dog tags for trophies, now they issue each sniper a digital camera and a micro printer so we can get snapshots of our new face, print them out, and put them in our flip-albums. Since each album only holds a hundred snapshots, I'm almost to the end of my third one. \n\nThey say the change is only temporary, that it only lasts a week, but I haven't had enough time in between kills to know that for a fact. Maybe once this damned war is over, I'll go back to my original face. Not that I remember what it looks like anymore. I wonder if my wife will still recognize me.", "\"CHARGE!\" I stampeded up the hill, firing my rifle wildly. Around me, my fellow soldiers hit the dirt and spilled blood, but I was neigh - invulnerable. I may not have actually hit anyone, but that wasn't what I was here for. \n\nThe hero of the United States, they called me. The figurehead of American Patriotism. No operation ever failed when I was at the head of it - Any man who was directly under my command had a much better chance of living.\n\nThey probably should have promoted me long ago, but they knew I was needed in the field. I knew I was needed in the field - this is what I was born to do. Combat was what I lived for.\n\nI tossed a grenade into the bunker, crouched by the door, then poked my head inside, dropping the wounded or disoriented men. I slid my weapon aside, ran to the console, and began entering the abort code. My nation was counting on me.\n\nA noise behind me forced me to turn - The soldier, young and naive, was more shocked than I was. The moment of hesitation proved fatal, as my compatriots, now entering the bunker, made short work of him.\n\nThe radio blared into life. \"Good work, sir. We have confirmed self - destruction of the missiles. America owes you a great debt.\"\n\nI grinned, and posed appropriately as the wartime reporters entered the bunker, nonlethal-taser on my shoulder.\n\nI was the greatest hero America had ever seen.\n\nI was the ugliest man alive." ]	3
	[WP] You are in the hospital in a coma and can hear everything	[ "\"Mr. and Mrs. Adams, I'm afraid that there is nothing else that we can do, besides keeping life support on.\"\n\nDon't cry, Mummy, Daddy. Please don't, your every wail gives me a gut-wrenching feeling, the feeling pain and heartache. I just wished that I could get up and hug you. Feel your warmth and lips on my skin, your hand through my hair. Anything other than this tormenting paralysis and numbness. \n\nThere were hushed voices around me. What was going on? Don't pull the plug; I have my whole life ahead of me!\n\n\"Very well. I'll give you a moment.\"\n\nThere was a dull thud above me, followed by the rustling of cloth - blankets, I think. Mummy's sobs were closer now; her dirge-like cries of despair and sorrow were just next to my ears. I too, wished to cry aloud in anguish, for I knew that our short time together was coming to an end.\n\nFootsteps.\n\nThe beeping of machinery stopped, the only sounds left that I could hear was the soft sobs emanating from my side, and the rush of blood through my veins, getting softer with every beat. \n\nPlease, let me open my eyes! I want to see both of you for the first time! \n\nMy breathing was labored now, sharper and shorter. \n\nMummy's sobs were getting distant now. \n\nPlease, just once...\n\n-----\nLike my writing style? Desperately need to give me more love with your upvotes? Head over to /r/ZiincWorks to see other works by me.", "The first few days were the hardest. \n\nWaking up from my drug-induced stupor, only to realize that I couldn't move at all, was the most horrifying experience of my life. I couldn't open my eyes to see, open my mouth to speak, or lift my arm to my face. I couldn't even breathe by myself. A machine was doing it for me. \n\nI could hear, though, and I could understand everything being said. I could hear my wife Shelly pleading with the doctors, begging them to do something. I could hear the resignation in the doctors' voices, saying that I'd suffered a reaction to a drug during the operation, and might never wake up. I could hear the rhythmic beeps of the machines counting my heartbeats. I could hear the ebb and flow of people coming and going, rising to a crescendo in the mornings before falling to a dull whisper at night. \n\nI was trapped in this darkness in my own mind, with no escape. I tried. I really did. I tried to force my body to obey. I willed my eyes to open, but failed completely. I implored my hands and feet to twitch, to spasm, to do anything, but they ignored me. I tried to get my heartbeat to accelerate, but the beeps kept their slow, maddening rhythm. Beep. Beep. Beep. \n\nI think I slept at night. I sometimes couldn't tell, because I couldn't see. There were moments, before I fell asleep, where I wondered if I might never wake up. There were moments where I hoped I wouldn't. \n\nPeople came to visit me. Shelly almost never left my bedside. Some friends from work came by, as well as family members from out of town. After three days, my best friend Jim arrived. He told Shelly he'd been away on business, and had come over as soon as he'd heard Albie was in a coma. Jim and Shelly had never gotten along too well before. She thought he was a bad influence on me, with him dragging me out on late-night benders or poker games at his house. He thought she was a prude and a harpy. But faced with the reality of me lying there, motionless, they put everything aside and did what they could for me. \n\nSometimes I'd hear the doctors talking to Shelly. She always insisted on talking to the doctors outside of the room, because, as she put it, \"Albie might be able to hear us.\" The doctors would tell her that I was in a coma, and wouldn't be able to hear anything, but she insisted. Sometimes I could make out what they were saying. That I was probably never going to wake up. That it would be a kindness to pull the plug. \n\nI would always hear Shelly crying after these discussions. She cried a lot in general at my bedside, but she always, inevitably, cried after talking to the doctors. She talked to Jim about it sometimes, asking him what she should do. He always said he didn't want to lose me, but she had to be the one to decide. It had to be her decision. \n\nIt was nineteen days after I woke up in my current state that Jim and Shelly had had that conversation. It'd been almost three weeks, and life like this was taking its toll on Jim and Shelly. They'd both missed a huge amount of work at their jobs. This obviously couldn't continue. The doctors had come by to check on me and talk to Shelly again. She'd cried again, softly, almost silently. Jim had sat there in silence too. The only sound was the beep of my heartbeat. Beep. Beep. Beep. \n\nAnd then Shelly asked, to no one in particular, \"What can I do? I don't know what to do without Albie.\" \n\nJim replied, \"Well... I guess you could find someone else, after a while. Someone else to be with, to take care of you. Not right away, of course. But after a while. When you're ready.\" \n\nShelly paused for a moment before saying, \"I don't think I'll ever find someone like Albie. He was the one for me.\" \n\nJim also hesitated before replying, \"Well... you know, I guess I'd be willing to take care of you. If you want. I could be the one for you too.\" \n\nShelly immediately reacted furiously. \"How dare you?\" She hissed, \"Albie's right here, your best friend is right here, lying in this bed, and you're saying stuff like this? Your best friend's lying in a hospital bed and you're hitting on his wife?\" \n\nJim tried to explain, \"I'm not trying to hit on you, honest! I'm just saying that Albie would want you taken care of, and as his best friend, I feel like I have an obligation there.\" \n\n\"Oh, so this is just out of the goodness of your heart? You're willing to take on the obligation, no, the burden of your best friend's wife?\" \n\n\"Well, no, it wouldn't really be a burden... I mean, the last few weeks with you have been pretty nice... much to my surprise, to be honest... and I have to say it wouldn't be a burden to be with you...\" And then Jim trailed off. \n\nI could feel Shelly's fury as she said, in the coldest possible voice, \"I think you should leave now.\" I heard Jim stand up, gather his things, and walk out. \n\nI could feel anger coursing through me. What the fuck was Jim thinking, saying shit like this to Shelly? The rage flowed through my paralyzed body. Was it my imagination, or was the beeping getting faster? Beep. Beep. Beep. \n\nBut then, after a while, I calmed down and thought about it some more. I probably wasn't going to get up out of this bed ever again. Did I really want Shelly to be a widow for life? Did I really want her to be alone for the rest of her life? If she and Jim got along now, what's stopping them from being happy together? He'd teach her to loosen up a bit. She'd watch out for him and maybe get him to cut back on his excesses. I mean... crazy as it sounded and felt... it could work. \n\nThis was all I thought about over the next day. Apparently it was on Jim and Shelly's mind too. Jim came back the next day, and Shelly's fury had cooled, so she was nicer to him this time. Neither of them mentioned what they'd talked about the previous day, until it was late at night. \n\nJim said, with a hushed voice, \"Look, Shelly... I'm sorry about what I said yesterday. It was out of line, and I apologize.\" \n\nShelly said, also in a hushed voice, \"Don't be. Your heart's in the right place. I know you didn't mean anything bad by it.\" \n\nAnd then I could hear them hugging. Shelly was crying again, but the sound was muffled, like she was sobbing into his shoulder. Jim said nothing, but I thought I could hear him sniffling too. \n\nThe next morning, the doctors came back, but this time Shelly talked to them in the room. She told them she'd come to a decision. She'll pull the plug. The doctors said there would be a bit of paperwork, a few procedures, before the deed could actually be done, so it wouldn't happen until the afternoon, at earliest. \n\nI felt Shelly take my hand in hers. On the other side, Jim grasped my hand too, as if giving me a handshake. Then Shelly spoke. \"Albie... I don't know if you can hear me. I hope you can't. I hope I haven't just agreed to kill you. But if you can... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I love you, I love you so much. I'm sorry...\" And then she descended into sobs. \n\nJim picked up where she left off. \"Albie, bro... I'm sorry it had to end like this, man. All those good times we shared, I'm gonna remember them all. And I'm gonna take care of Shelly, okay? You don't have to worry about a thing. You got me down here, so you just go ahead and go on to wherever you're going now, okay? You take care, bro. You take care, man.\" \n\nI tried to squeeze their fingers. I tried to tell them goodbye, in my own way. I don't know if they felt anything. I hope they did. \n\nAnd then, before I knew it, it was the afternoon. The doctors were there, and Shelly was there, and Jim was there. No one was crying. There was a sense of finality and resignation, but also of peace and dignity. This was it. I'd be freed from my prison, and Jim and Shelly would forge their own path in the future, maybe together. \n\nI heard Shelly flip a switch. \n\nBeep. Beep. Beeeeeeeeeeeep... " ]	2
	[WP] You accidentally become the leader of a cult.	[ "Last night was so crazy. My head feels like it's going to explode and my mouth is as dry as a bone. My legs feel heavy and my arms are like rubber. What did I do? This feels like more than a hangover. Where am I? Holy shit! I got lucky! Damn. I've always wanted this to happen. Wake up in a strange chicks room. I'm the man, wait 'till Joey hears about this. I reach for the glass of water on the nightstand and drink the whole thing. That's weird. There's nothing else on the nightstand. Come to thing of it, there's nothing else in this room beside the bed and nightstand. Where's my phone...and wallet and clothes. What are these white pajamas? \n\nI throw my feet over the bed and my legs come out from underneath me. I'm on my knees looking into the the mirror to see a short beard. I shave everyday. Panic grips me as I stumble to my feet and lean over the sink. How long have I been here? I splash cold water on my face and hair. Standing there dripping I yell out. There is no answer. Remain calm. You remember that don't you? You're a fucking soldier. As I hobble around the room, I try to remember. Anything. It obviously wasn't last night. I'm guessing about 10 days by the look of my facial hair. I take the longest piss ever. Sweet relief. The hangover starts to go away and in comes lucidity. I spoke too soon. I get light headed. Tingly warmness rolls over me like a dumptruck of Tempurpedic foam, then I hear footsteps.\n\nThe footsteps are getting closer. Sounds like high heels. My heart is beating fast and my brain is bacon sizzling for breakfast. I look at the empty glass on the nightstand and have one of those moments of clarity. There's a knock on the door that sounds like the police. It opens. Before I see anyone there's grandmas perfume. Overwhelming olfactory stimuli. I can't breathe. Shaking my head to get some blood pumping, I spatter drips of water from my hair. Without saying a word she takes her cokebottle glasses off and wipes them on my shirt. Sliding them back on her face, they go over her ears and through her beehive hairspray nest of monotone gray. \n\n\"You look well rested. Are you ready?\" I back up into the wall and slam my ragdoll head against the painted cinderblock. I ask her what the hell is going on and how long have I been here? She strokes my shoulder and it feels like electric warm water. I'm usually reviled by the touch of a stranger yet I don't want her to stop. She starts to whisper and I can't stop looking at her teeth. \"I thought you'd be ready by now. There's clothes in the closet.\" I hug the wall and make my way over to the sliding door. Another white linen tunic. I take it off of the hanger and put it to my nose inhaling a scent that makes Downy smell like rotting flesh. \n\nI'm dressed in fresh robes as she grasps my hand and puts it over her shoulder. Out the door, down a long hallway to an elevator. \"You wanna press the button?\" So I do. I hear like 20 beeps and realize we must be deep underground. The elevator door opens and I hear this singular tone. There are two men dressed like me. Except they are both as tall as the elevator and huge. There are no questions in me. The box rises faster than any other I've ever been in and makes my knees bend. The guy to my left helps me stand straight and says very softly \" I got you sir\" \n\nThe beeps go on except this time there are more than twenty. The doors open slowly and I'm blinded by natural light. My eyes adjust. Looking around it's like an operating room. Virgin white carpet. So plush. I'm walking on marshmallows. There's a couch that looks like it cost more than my car. Beyond that a balcony beyond which all I can see are clouds. I'm so high. But, where are the buildings. I'm scared to go out but the perfumed woman nudges me telling me it's ok. They want to hear what I have to say. I take a small step out and before I can see over the edge the big guy that helped me stand slips a little flesh toned bluetooth thing over my ear and does a little bow as he walks away. I approach the edge. Looking down I see a sea of ants. They are cheering. For me? I clear my throat and hear it echo back to be a thousand times louder. The crowd below stands still and silent. Waiting for me to speak. I look back at her and she shrugs her shoulders as if to say I don't know just say something.", "I never knew this would feel so good. I mean, I never meant for this in the first place, but it is where I am. What I am. Subjugation can be so -- freeing. That's not to say I am a ruler. I am a leader; a freer of minds. I take young, impressionable minds and I impress upon them. I don't oppress. They don't think I know what they say about me, but I do. They, the media, and the great minds of the other world. They call me a villain, but in what way am I villainous? For taking in those they have rejected? For adopting this lifestyle? I didn't create this society. I didn't create this throne. This position was thrust upon me. \n\nMe, a young, idealistic man, fresh out of college and travelling through Appalachia. The trail specifically. I heard the trek would change my life, but this... this is not what I had expected. But I'll be damned if I give in now, if I fail these people. My people. My people...\n\nI digress. \n\nWhen they told me the stories, I myself was skeptical. When they introduced me to him, I was unsure. I mean, he was intriguing, that's fair. He spoke with such eloquence that I don't suspect anyone could honestly ignore him. I mean, there were detractors, I myself originally. But the more I listened to, not heard, his words... I... I understood. I saw what really was. What really is. What really can be. \n\nThat is when he told me. It was me. All along, it was me. I am him. We are eternal. From the beginning it was always us, always me, always me... Can you imagine that pressure? But I knew at that moment... it was all true. Really I had always known, but he opened my eyes. He made me see the truth. Now I am he.\n\nAnd who am I? Surely they can't all be wrong? The people, my people have a point. They, too, have seen the truth. And when a truth is unanimous... \n\nSo who am I? I am rex, ruler, leader, god. I am he, he is me, we are eternal. There is none but I. But do not be afraid for this is how it has been ordained since the inception of man. Now, it is your turn to accept the truth. The only ubiquitous, unchanging, truth. I am the truth.", "I fought them down. I loved to fight. Loved feeling pain. It made sense that I could do something right. Could not get good grades in school. Hated my parents for telling me to do homework and get a job. At least I am old enough to vote and live at my own place now while I work in a butcher shop on weekends, spending the rest of the week in the gym or on the streets. Get paid more pickpocketing tourists anyway!\n\nSo what if I followed the wrong lady and broke into the \"wrong\" house. A psychic should be an easy grab. Lots of expensive jewelry among knock offs. Nice car. Of course I'd pick this for my first robbery. I need to pay downpayment on my car and house after all. I need to live and play video games on my new system. Gotta pay for the girls I bring over, make them think I'm worth a good fuck (or three).\n\nDamn, never expected a psychic to be so followed on social media. Thought it was just for buiness or her own dick measuring contest to get more followers and subscribers. Never would have expected she was the leader of the North American Zhěnggè Cult. Don't even remember what I smelled, but she was expecting me and sprayed me with something. I forgot what happened, but next thing I knew I was on a chair all decorated with nice cloth and flowers and candles everywhere. A day had passed. I have bruises on my body and face, but apparently I got my own wardrobe and set of handmaidens who washed me. Was thinking of asking them for favors, but realized this royal commodity was more important. Gotta make it last. After speaking to a few people I've learned a few Chinese words and I think I'll get the hang of this. Staying with them I am now a millionaire. Sorry, Angel. Thank you for telling me while I was drugged I took out Lien Hua and all her bodyguards, but I don't remember nothing. I know you mean well but I'm gonna stick with this lifestlye, so that's why you are going to be the sacrifice for the millennium. It has to be someone who is dear to me, so I'll pay for my lifestyle with your soul. Adios, Angel.", "So, I decided to start my own religion, mainly because all the ones I saw when I looked around were, well, lacking. I suppose I thought it would be fun, so I did what all good prophets do, I started writing a text, and I invited my friends to write with me. It was all innocent, it all started as a joke.\n\n\"Thalia has appointed to me to bring you her truth! Revel in it and laugh at life's absurdities!\" I told them. \"She'd never cause a child to become paralyzed, that's horrific!\" I suppose people just wanted a deity that wasn't actually mean spirited, which is all I wanted.\n\nThen as I started telling people my little joke of a religion, they'd laugh, become quiet for a moment, and then ask how they could help. I should have stopped there, it was becoming apparent something was working just a bit too well.\n\nThen they started asking for a name for our followers, or coming up with one. Everyone laughed, it was all in good fun, everyone knew it was a joke. \n\n\"We can't have Apostles\" said the Prophet Spencer, who is known as Beans, \"We need a better name.\" I offered apostates. He thought, and said \"Actually, let's name them aprostates.\" I laughed my ass off, and agreed. There's 8 of us, the aprostates. Beans, Goose, Sasquatch, Squid, Trenchie, Poodles, and Sarah. It was all so damned funny, I couldn't help but carry it forward. \n\nSo, we wrote our text. I wanted to call it the \"Codex of Thalia\", but Poodles started giggling, and now it's called the \"Chodex of Thalia.\" I have to admit it's fucking hilarious. But people wanted in on the joke, so we wrote a non-canon explanation, called \"The Pundamentals of Thalia.\" When jokes like these keep coming, you just can't stop.\n\nThen I joked about needing to send someone out to another city to drum up followers, and Squid jumped at the chance. \"I could go out and stay with my mom, and start a following out in Oklahoma.\" While I chortled at the idea of actually sending out a missionary, he packed his bags, and he was gone within a week.\n\nFor the love of Thalia, he started a church out there. He's got followers now, and he's telling them all about her. For fucks sake, there's a monastic order called \"The Order of Dale Earnhardt.\" I mean, what's funnier than honoring a man who died on the last turn of the last lap of the Indy 500, so of course I blessed the creation of an order in his memory.\n\nNow, there are Priests of Thalia fighting for their rights to be recognized by the government as clergy. There's missionaries traveling to new cities.\n\nIt's fucking absurd, and I'm sitting here laughing my ass off. Of course this all worked exactly like I joked it would. I told a joke into the void, I just didn't realize Thalia was listening, and I certainly didn't think she was real.\n\nI told them all it was a joke, and they laughed. I told them about what Thalia was like. \"She'd never cause a child to become paralyzed, that's horrific! But it does happen, and when it does, she makes damn sure he wins a lifetime supply of running shoes from Nike.\"\n\nAnd now, I'm the leader of a cult following Thalia, the goddess of Comedy, and they're all looking to me. I didn't actually want all this, I just thought it would be hilarious.\n\nJoke's on me, I suppose.", "It was easy!!\n\nAll I had to do was preach the truth one Sunday. If your pastor is into the occult it is not a church it is a cult, and tithing to a cult is at odds with scripture. \n\nNext thing I know all of the Christian covens around me are calling me the leader of a cult!\n\n\n\n", " It began as a joke. My room-mate built a small shrine in the common area of the dorm complex. A wooden lean-to with a few candles and a bronze sun that had a human figure peering out of a window cut into it. The patina of the idol made the sun look old, rightfully so it should have; I had found it in the trash of an antique store thinking it was reminiscent of Baal.\n\n Every day we woke up and placed a few coins in an offering plate. We said a small prayer to “The Man in the Sun” thanking him for our life and his warmth. After two weeks more money had started appearing in the offering plate, tokens we didn’t put there. After a month the candles were changed out and the bronze sun was polished. We started having a prayer group five people, ten people, soon we were requested by the RA to have the shrine moved.\n\n The small liberal arts college soon, in addition, to several churches, a mosque, and synagogue had a shrine to The Man in the Sun. My room-mate and I felt like we had a duty to make sure the followers were happy so we started posting hours for official services they were nothing more than a time for us to count them and then ask questions to them after the offerings were given and a silent prayer time was had.\n\n We asked what they believed in and we were floored by the answers. Of our 134 followers most were atheist who thought that our sun god lacked the BS of other religions yet had the benefits of having a higher power. The appeal came because the thought of having a god to look at was a novel idea, they could come here and ask for favors. \n\n Our shrine in a corner of the campus soon was sprawling. It was 4 yards long 2 deep with walled in on three sides and a sloping roof. The original bronze figure was mounted on a gilded wooden pillar. Offerings plates littered the floor; in them were coins of any value small wooden carvings capped bottles of liquid. Full statues of The Man stood on either side of the pillar. Traditions and stories had come out about The Man. He was an alcoholic so people would light alcohol lamps that hung on the entrance. The best way to gain his favor was to nail a bronze sun to the shrines walls, or hang them from the ceiling. Sitting near the foot of the pillar was a chest that held a large leather book with a simple preface:\n\n\"The is an account of how The Man in the Sun has helped us. His traditions are not to be written, his will is not to be given to others. Only his blessing are to be written here.\"\n\n-Then another shrine popped up-\n", "Two weeks ago I woke up before my alarm to the sounds of whistles and pops. I had no idea what was happening. Maybe it was one of those dreams that startles you awake. Maybe it was a hallucination. Seriously I had no idea.\n\nAt least, not until I got to school that day. I made finger-guns at a friend of mine in the hallway, and fireworks shot out of my fingertips at her! It was between class, so there were dozens of witnesses. She wasn't hurt, but there was a moment in our noisy highschool where you could cut the silence with a knife. So surreal.\n\nOnce we got over the initial shock of my new ability, she thought it was super cool. She made me a Facebook page of me and posted videos of us playing with my finger-fireworks. Then I started getting fans. A lot of fans. Thousands.\n\nNow, I'm the Firework Girl. Before I only had a small clique of friends. Now, people are giving me the same attention and devotion they give to Hollywood celebrities. I'm super famous now. People take the crap I say on Twitter as gospel. And, I have a problem with people leaving gifts and letters on my doorstep in piles every morning - If you could call that a problem, I mean. And stalkers. Like don't even get me started on the crazies out there!\n\nI can't count the number of famous people who've called to come and meet me. I mean, seriously. Lady Gaga asked if I could be in her next music video. Lady effing Gaga. I took the call myself but had to forward the request to my manager. That's right, I have a manager. I had to hire one to manage all the requests on my time. It's the only way I can deal now.\n\nI still have no idea how or why I got the ability to shoot fireworks out of my fingers, but I guess it's pretty cool. It's changed my life for the better. Well, except for being so busy all the time.\n\nOh, speaking of which, I have an interview with NBC in fifteen. Thanks for letting me dish! It's been real.", "After the defeat of The Destroyer, something got released that would increase my powers the more I would interact with it. I'm now able to teleport...not just me, but anyone...to whereever I'd like to..although I need to practise...a lot, probably. \n\n\\~\\~\\~\\~\n\nOh my god, they are attacking our planet. We need to back up, to the only city left..although even this place is being attacked by bandits regulary...they call themselfes Bloodshots...weird. At least I can deal with those..I should also use an alias.\n\n\\~\\~\\~\\~\n\nSoo....apparently I shouldnt use my powers in front of psychos......seems like they think I'm some sort of god and they seem to worship me as the \"Firehawk\"..wich actually is quite fun.", "It was a joke, the whole thing was nothing but a joke. Well, a dare actually.\n\nMy friends double dog dared me (even though we were in our 20's you can't turn that shit down). The dare was to start a fake church and place our worship on Nicholas Cage of all people. It was hilarious, more and more people showed up and then it got a bit out of hand. I saw the subreddit made for it ( /r/theonetruegod ) and I thought it was kinda freaky.\n\nThen the killings started; actors, actresses, anyone who wasn't Nic was being killed at random, witha huge NC carved on their foreheads...\n\n\n\nI realise now, the great one has selected me to start the fire that would sson cleanse the earth of the scourge of uncaged humanity.\n\nThe great one does not approve of my work, he has been brainwashed by the FILTH THAT HE HAS GUIDED ME AND THE CAGED ONES THROUGH! THE GREAT ONE WILL NOT BE FORGIVEN FOR LOSING HIS WAY, HE WILL BE PUNISHED FOR HIS BLASPHEMY!", "I have no idea how it go to this point. I mean, there I was, sitting on a hillside, just minding my own business. I start chatting with some shepherds. You know, typical shooting the breeze, killing time talk. We got philosophical. Talked about the world, life, that kind of stuff. I don't know what happened. One of them went to go get some food for us and, like, a thousand people came back.\n\nI mean, I'm no one special. 30 year old, skinny guy, nothing special at all. I like to talk, and I think I have some good ideas. \n\nSo suddenly, there's all these people. and they're listening to me. Listening to my ideas. I'm not usually a big crowd kind of guy, but there was just something about being out there, on that hillside, expressing my ideas to people who were listening that felt good. So I kept talking. The guy who went for food starts handing it out. The people didn't even notice him passing it around. \n\nI've always kind of felt like people need to look out for one another, take care of the weak and the timid. That people who are boastful and greedy will have that come back on them. That the humble and the meek are the ones who should, no, would be the best future for humanity. \n\nSo I talked. I talked all day. More people came. That crazy shepherd guy was working over time feeding these people, yet no one noticed but me. I heard one guy actually claim that I had made the food appear. Like some kind of magic. Oh well.\n\nSo I'm up here, espousing my ideas, and it never occurs to me that this might become a regular thing.\n\nSo I get done, and I'm walking back to town, and everyone is talking about the stuff I said, and asking questions. I'm like \"This is pretty cool, I hope we get some conversation going.\" But everyone seems to be looking to me for guidance instead of thinking for themselves. Maybe I just wasn't getting through yet. I'll see if I can talk to them some more and maybe that will get them going. I mean, at the very least, maybe they can help spread my ideas around.\n\nAt least Matthew and Luke were there to write down the stuff I said. I was reading some of the notes, and some of it seems fantasical, but we can revise it later. I mean, who would honestly believe I made bread and fish split from a few baskets to feed thousands? Come on.\n\nYou know, I hope things don't get too out of hand with this. Maybe it's a bad idea?\n\nSee you tomorrow Journal.\n\nJ\n", "LATE AGAIN for work and this time it's the last for poor Scott P. Delton. His boss made the universal sign of slicing his throat from ear to ear the last time he was this late. He's the type to do it too, that bastard. With the peddle to the floor Delton was stitching his Range Rover through the commuters who were all in the same Tuesday haze, oblivious of anyone else on that road. Weaving and swerving Delton too became slightly unaware of his surroundings as he called up his voice messages. The computer screen came to life and played back messages, all from Nick, his cubicle neighbor. He started deleted them one after the other a total of five. Just as the fifth message began to play Delton was momentarily blinded by sunlight. Screeching tires were heard...then a thump and shattering of glass.\n\n\"You killed Him! You killed Him!\" Angry cries and sobbing was the first Delton heard as he came to. His head had been slammed into the steering wheel and blood was running down his face. The airbag didn't deploy and that's when Delton saw the broken windshield and the cause of it. Across the length of the windshield an red orange body lay unmoving. Delton saw an open crack letting in a stream of blood and trickled onto the leather dashboard. Then there was violent knocking on his side and the passenger side windows, shaking the glass. \n\nDelton's vision slowly came into clear focus as he saw the knockers at the sides of his car. Faces of all the same bald appearance grinned into the car at Delton. All dressed in the same orange robes, the dhotis and the saree's. Men and women all the same shaven heads and empty eyes. But their smiles were almost joyous, and celebrating. Delton's shock from the crash was subsiding now and being transitioned into that of these knocking smiling Hare Krishna freaks. \n\nWith ease Delton took his seat belt off. He whispered call but nothing happen. His eyes were studying the faces and the windows and determining how long the glass would hold out. He said call again, this time shouting it while a burly Hare Krishna woman broke through the backshield window and started to wiggle her way inside. Delton shouted again at the computer and saw that it flickered on and off unable to connect. He tried to manually call by punching in the dial button and the contact to the police but it was too late. Hands began to envelope him and bury him in an orange cocoon.\n\nLIGHT FROM A SINGLE BULB shone down on Delton sitting on a cheap plastic lawn chair. He wasn't tied, but felt as though he couldn't move no matter what he did. He tried but was paralyzed. He looked around and saw in the dark the robed figures, the bald heads, all circling around him. One figure walked up to Delton to face him. His bald head, wet and glassy, reflected the light. Delton could smell sandalwood and sage incense. The figure mechanically opened his mouth to say, \"LEADER!\". Which Delton took as a joke and laughed. Then all the figures around him laughed, as if on cue. Delton stopped and they all stopped. The figure directly in front of him just smiled and crouched down on his knees. All the figures came closer and did the same. Delton felt uneasy, \"I am not your leader!\" They all shouted now, \"LEADER!\" \n\n\"Tell me why am I your leader! I am supposed to be at work, or better yet get me to a hospital you psycho mole rats!\" Delton could see the first figure that spoke now began to speak again, slowly opening his mouth before letting our sounds. Their beady black eyes watching him. The figure said, \"You destroyed Iskots, our previous leader. Now his spirit is FREE! You are now the leader of us!\" All shouted again, \"LEADER!\"\n\nDelton squirmed in his seat but couldn't not make his limbs move. \"Am I drugged dammit? Did you drug me?\" But the robes had begun to chant something and Delton could see torches being lit at the back on the walls of this, basement? The robes humming chant began to crescendo and now there was small finger bells ringing, tablas, shakers and from somewhere he couldn't see a sitar plucked and twanged a song that they all danced to in rhythm. Orange flashed around encircling Delton. The music grew and grew.\n\n\nEPILOGUE\n\nGary - Delton's boss - got into his brand new Porsche brandishing a long hunters knife. He was sweating and all the time muttering, \"I'm going to kill that prick!\" \n\n ", "I stared at what I have typed so far, mindlessly clicking away at the keyboard. I needed this to be 100% perfect. If it was boring, no one would read it. If it was brilliant, they would write it off as another sci fi novel. But, if it accomplishes what I want it to, they will kill me.\n\nI spat bitterly at the thought of these people, these followers. It started out simple; I wanted to just write a book that would pay the bills and get me enough money to survive with moderate popularity. I didn't even want to be famous. But, after my first book, I became extremely popular. I got an enormous amount of money, enough to live very simply for the rest of my life.\n\nBut then, the e-mails came in, all of them asking the same thing. \"Can you make a new book?\" \"When's your next book going to come out?\" \"What are you going to write about next?\" I got so many of them, to where I would spend an entire day reading an hour's-worth of mail. And it's not like I didn't have much to do now that I have enough money to only need to work as a dishwasher at a pizza place one day a week for the rest of my life.\n\nI caved in and decided to write a short story. I didn't have any idea to write, so I decided to come up with a random sci fi plot. There was basic aliens combined with unexpected alien souls and even an evil Big Brother type alien that killed a bunch of aliens and put there souls on Earth. There was then this bull shit process of removing them for when they attached them to our bodies.\n\nI laughed when I wrote it. I didn't care much about what others said about it, I just wanted to be left alone. I wanted to just relax and go into obscurity, and this atrocious writing would help me get rid of them.\n\nThen, the unthinkable happened. The idiots actually liked it. Not just liked it, they seemed to rave about it. I'd look all over the internet, and see a strong approval of the book, to the point that some people actually believed the batshit crazy ideas proposed in the book. They believed that there body was inhabited b alien souls.\n\nPeople kept asking where I got my ideas. There were even a few who contacted me calling me a prophet. I thought they were just a few crazies like every somewhat famous author had. But then they kept coming in. More and more. One day I was invited to this group to talk about the 2 books I wrote. I thought it was something about literacy, of course. I got there, and there were people dressed similar to how I described the alien souls. \"Cosplayers,\" I mumbled.\n\nIt took me to get on stage to realize that everyone there wasn't listening to what I have to say as if I were some great writer, but as if I was actually some damned prophet to be followed. Everyone listened to what I had to say raptly, as if I were some perverse Pope propositioning to the populous.\n\nIt was then that I read the banner in the back of the complex. The banner, which shone in bright red, read \"Now Presenting: L. Ron Hubbard; founder of Scientology.\"\n\nNone of them believed me when I constantly told them I was no prophet, and none of them will leave me the fuck alone. I have created a force that seems like a monster, and it must be shut down before I die. The problem is that all of my publishers have been threatened, to where I'm sure that I'm almost positive that this new publisher is one of them.", "\nAll I wanted was a Pepsi. You think that would be a simple thing, right? \n\nIn this small mountain community that barely passes for a town, way out in the middle of the forest, anything not home made or grown near here is almost impossible to find. Homegrown is a way of life out here. And apparently we even home grow our own cults.\n\nIt all started when I went running out the door in search of a sugary, caffeinated drink to pep up before my afternoon jog. As I whipped open the door of my beat up old Jeep, I heard someone else’s shoes crunch down my gravel driveway. It was Alyssa, the neighbor girl, who had always lived with her family in the ancient, rundown blue house at the end of the street. She had rarely been seen except at school, and had no friends except her own family. She was wearing chucks and an off-white sun dress, looking as if it had been carelessly washed with the wrong colors. She asked if she could have a lift to the local grocer to pick up some milk and lunch meat since her parents were out of town. Having barely talked to her before, I was a little nervous about driving around with her, but hey, what could a sixteen-year-old girl do to me? I invited her into my car and we sped down the road towards what passed for ‘downtown’ out here in search of provisions and carbonated beverages. \n\nGoing aisle to aisle in the grocer, I looked in vain for my Pepsi and returned to the front of the store to find Alyssa waiting to check out. You’d think something as ubiquitous as soda could be found at a grocery store, and I said as much to her. “Well… I have some at home if you want to come over,” she said. No one that I knew had ever seen the inside of her house, so I couldn’t resist the opportunity. Over the years, her family’s big blue house had become the stuff of urban legend, with stories being passed from kid to kid about all kinds of creepy and unusual things taking place there. Mostly stories of kids disappearing, or the house being used as a hide out for serial killers - all stories kids tell their siblings and friends just to scare them. While it was likely nothing had ever happened at the blue house at all, kids do get to talking when a family is as reclusive as Alyssa’s. \n\nShe finished checking out and we headed back to the outskirts of town, where we lived. I pulled up the long drive to her house and followed her up the stairs to her porch, where she drew a set of ancient-looking keys from her purse and unlocked the door with a loud clunk. My jaw dropped open as I walked into the grand, imposing foyer and adjacent sitting rooms that betrayed the decrepit facade of the house’s exterior. All black with shelves and cabinets filled to the brim with fantastic, unusual items - definitely not what I expected after a lifetime of driving past the rundown blue house. \n\n “Surprised?” Alyssa said, when she noticed my too-obvious disbelief. “My family has lived here for generations and they usually don’t take too kindly to visitors. So they prefer the outside of our house look like something you’d see as a ‘before’ example in a Home Depot catalog.” She kept walking forward into yet-unseen rooms, leaving me to ponder why her family didn’t want visitors here so badly. \n\nAs we came into the kitchen, I noticed candles lit all around the but thought it not to be too unusual after all the other strange things in this house. Alyssa sat me down in a big, wooden chair at the bar and offered some pretzels. Her hands were shaking as she grabbed the bag out of a cabinet and poured some pretzels out into a bowl for me. As she placed the bowl on the bar, she accidentally knocked the bag out onto the floor, throwing pretzels across the kitchen. “Are you feeling okay?” I asked, wondering at her jitters. “Ahh… yes, yes, I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” she said as she scurried around on her knees picking up pretzels. \n\nOnce she had finished cleaning up and seemed to have reclaimed her nerves, I asked if I could have a glass of Pepsi, which is what I really came here for. Wordlessly, she placed a glass in front of me on the bar. I had just placed my hands down on the armrest when I noticed her intensely staring at me as a quiet ‘click’ came out of my chair. When I looked down, manacles had popped out of the seemingly-normal chair just millimeters above my skin and bound me in place. Alyssa’s hand was on a red button on the countertop that I had failed to notice before. I began shouting and trying to break free of the restraints as Alyssa pulled a can of Pepsi out of the fridge and poured it in the glass with a maniacal smile on her face. \n\nI noticed movement behind me and her entire family - apparently not on vacation - and several of my friends appeared, dressed in flowing black robes. “Please tell me this is just a joke. Get me out of here!” I screamed as they closed in a semi-circle around me. \n\nAlyssa began explaining my tied-up situation as I continued to struggle. “What you don’t know, John, is that this house is home to one of the largest Satanic cults in the West. We secretly run this town and keep out all the big companies that would make it so hard for a cult like ours to make a living off of homemade goods, which we happen to place enchantments on keep everyone under our control. All those stories you heard growing up about kids disappearing? They’re true. Kids who go snooping around this house might go back physically the same, but they’re never the same mentally. Spend too much time here and our magic takes control of your brain and forces you to join our little group. Thing is, ever since Grandpa died we’ve been without a leader. That’s where you come in. You’re young enough and smart enough that you can lead our group for years to come. After tonight’s ritual, you’ll be filled with our power and truly be our leader. So go on, drink that Pepsi. It’s the last you’ll ever have.” \n\nShe raised the glass to my lips and I gulped the soda down as she tilted it forward, dreading what the coming ritual would entail. All this, and to think l just wanted a Pepsi. \n", "Some call me a God, some call me an angel, others say I am perfect, and still others condemn me. I never asked for this, but I have accepted it, and in truth, I feel they may be right. I have fought against evil and tyranny, I am vanquishing the darkness that creeps upon us, and I will guide us back into the light.\n\nThere are millions of minds that are clouded by delusion and weakness while my few followers have shined forward; unshackled by the tyranny that they try to lock us in. They continue to subjugate the people, keeping them on their knees, making them love the darkness while my followers and I continue to convert them, to bring them back into the light, and to fight against the neverending darkness.\n\nWhile the fight is arduous and long, I will continue to fight it. I will continue to bring my followers into the light, and I will continue to bring the peasants into the gloriousness of our MasterRace. \n\nI am Gabe Newell, and I will vanquish the darkness and Tyranny of the console scum. \n\n\n\n", "I would love for this to be a fake story, but it's 100% true. I actually mean this. I haven't begun telling the story yet.\n\nSo, I have this friend. We'll call him Spencer, because that's his name. Spencer is all sorts of fucked up. His step dad constantly chokes and beats his mom, and he typically has to defend his mom to make sure she doesn't die. However, his step dad has hardcore money; his mom is a huge gold digger. This leads to Spencer having some issues, but he spends his time on the Internet so he doesn't worry about it. However, he loves websites like 'efukt' and such. Like I said, Spencer is all sorts of fucked up.\n\nNow, Spencer eventually gets it into his mind that he understands the world with utmost knowledge. He then explains to Bill, who is a friend of ours, and myself all these philosophical thoughts he has. Bill and I refute them because we're Plato and Aristotle up in this bitch. Spencer doesn't see the flaws in his logic, because that's what this shit does to you. However, he is asking us to join his beliefs, which he dubs as 'Arozakai'.\n\nI don't know where he got the name from, but I wanted him to shut up. So I said I would join if he made me 'the Pope'. He said I would be the highest position and face of the new religion, because he could trust me. So I decided 'Fuck it' and joined in.\n\nFlash forward 3 months and he managed to get roughly 100 members to join. I swear it was almost like Fight Club the way he had these space monkeys believing every word he said. Not only that, but they believed every word I said. I became the Pope of a cult because I said 'Fuck it'.\n\nI wouldn't call this accidental, so much as a bad choice. I just saw the prompt and knew I couldn't pass it up. I'm on mobile right now, so sorry if the formatting is shit.\n\nEdit: it's quick, but you can look back in my comment history to see that I mention Spencer before. This is real deal.", "I didn't want to be elected Pope. Enclave protocol demanded that candidates not vote for themselves in the first round, but for me, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, my vote was sincere. The Church is too corrupt to be reformed; the wrinkled faces in the ancient basilica were filled with the same lust for power that had irreversibly perverted the faithful and the holy see.\n\nI sat silently while years of backroom dealings whitled down the list of candidates pining to be the next Vicar of Christ. I had no right to judge these lechers; decades earlier I had bowed to Caesar when he threatened to take my authority and the lives of my underlings. So I waited amid the infighting, shifting my vote randomly throughout the day. \n\nThe men running the bank had their favorite, the Italian mob another. The pedophile lobby backed the American, who had already been paid to campaign for the Swiss anticommunist. I just wanted to return home and serve the unfortunate souls suffering in the slums surrounding my gilded cathedral. No one thought me important enough to be bribed.\n\n\nEverything stopped when a voice began to call my name. It was deafening yet beautiful. \"Bergoglio! Bergoglio!\"\nI knew this voice. \n\"Speak LORD, your servant is listening.\"\n\"Bergoglio! Bergoglio! It's all fucked up Bergoglio! The inequities of my shepherds condemn my flock, and the stench of underage sex dungeons lead me to grow weary of mankind.\" the other priests either screamed in terror or laughed as they searched for hidden sound systems.\n\nThe LORD continued to speak as frogs began to rain from the ceiling. \"Oh Bergoglio. My servant Bergoglio, it's up to you to deal with these assholes. I'm this close to wiping them all out. Now you're the pope!\"\n\nHis will be done, now I am the pope: may my reign be brief.", "Johnny awoke at sunrise, as soon as the golden crescent crossed the green-patched horizon. His head felt like Ogres were dragging him backwards by his eyelids, but he managed to wrest himself from the ground. He looked around and found himself outside, in a grass field, on the back side of one of the traditional red farms found everywhere in Nebraska.\n\nWhat the fuck happened last night? Johnny thought to himself. He remembered going out with Nita to the old barn for a birthday party for one of her friends but he didn't remember.....Nita, I should find Nita. Johnny started to walk toward the right side of the barn when his foot found something softer than grass, and hit about a small white stone, about the size of his circled hands. He looked down and saw many of these stones, all carefully laid out in some pattern. Distracted by this, he followed it around until he realized what it was. It was a fucking Pentagram. And he woke up in the center of it. Completely freaked out now, Johnny ran towards the front of the barn to find Nita and get the fuck out of there. \n\nHe opened the door and it looked like a tornado had hit a frat party then landed in Jonestown. People were sprawled out everywhere, some half naked, some with red cups still gripped in their hands, others lovingly embraced and cuddling. He surveyed the room and spotted Nita’s long dark hair flowing over the back of a large IKEA blue sofa they had moved into the barn for the party. He stepped over a few passed out couples embraced on the floor and made his way to the front of the couch where Nita had her arms sprawled out, wrists up, with weird geometric designs Sharpied all the way to her shoulders and passed her neck. Shocked, Johnny grabbed one of her wrists to look more closely, and in between the geometric patterns he could make out the Latin words IN NOCTE OBEDIUNT written everywhere. Starting to freak out just from reading the words, Johnny realized that Nita’s arms felt lifeless. He tried to feel a pulse but couldn’t and started sobbing, “Oh Nita, please don’t, please don’t tell me your dead, please wake up..!”\n\nAs soon as he ushered those words, Nita’s eyes sprang to life. “Johnny!!” she exclaimed, happy to see her beau again. “Give me a big kiss!” she lunged forward, apparently not as hungover, or still drunk, from the night before.\n“You’d better not,” Johnny replied, “I’ve had a hell of a morning. What the FUCK happened last night?”\n\n“Jeez, Johnny, I really don’t remember. Look at all the people passed out, it must have been a total rager!”\n\n“Damn, is there anything you can recall? It’s all black to me.” Johnny replied.\n\nNita thought for a second, then started, “Well I got here early because I wanted to help Amanda set up. We were getting a bit drunk and silly while getting ready and…OH MY GOD. When we were making the party punch Amanda thought it would be a good idea to crush up her Ambien pills and put them in the party punch. I was going to object but she said it was her birthday and she wanted to get weird. Really weird. Like, Ambien blackout weird. That’s the last thing I remember.” \n\nWHAT THE FUCK??? YOUR FUCKING FRIEND DRUGGED ME! SHE DRUGGED US!! SHE DRUGGED EVERYONE!!!!!!! AND YOU LET IT HAPPEN! Johnny wanted to scream, but was too hungover to do so. Besides, he didn’t want to wake up everyone else sleeping. Instead he just shrugged, “So that explains that. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”\n\n“Hold up, I want to say bye to Amanda. Have you seen her?” Nita asked.\n\n“Yeah she’s over by the haystack by the back wall.”\n\nNita walked to the back of the barn while Johnny followed, checking his pockets to make sure he had everything, and surprisingly he did. Nita kneeled next to Amanda, and tried gently shaking her while saying, “Happy Birthday!!! Wake up sweetie, it’s time to keep the celebration going!” But she wouldn’t wake up. She just laid crumpled against the barn door, lifeless. “Oh my gold, help her Johnny!”\n\nJohnny quickly kneeled next to his girl while grabbing Amanda’s arms. She too had Sharpie designs up and down her arms, but they were covered by her long sleeves. He grabbed her wrists and started shaking her, “Amanda, you gotta wake up!”\n\nSuddenly, she woke up too, and immediately Nita sprung upon her with hugs and kisses abound, “thank gosh your alive, I love you so much birthday girl!” \n\n“Love you too betch! That was such a fun party. Best birthday ever. Now, let’s get all these people out of here so we can go have hangover spa day. Johnny, would you mind helping to get everyone out of here? And make them clean up before the leave!” Amanda asked, although it was more of a demand than a request.\n\n“Sure thing, princess. EVERYONE, wake up, party’s over! Please clean up, and get out! You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here!” Johnny always wanted to say that and took advantage of this first opportunity to present itself.\n\nEveryone immediately woke up and immediately started cleaning the place with the efficiency of a hotel maid. Amanda and Nita left during this cleaning phase to nurse their hangovers in greener pastures but Johnny just stood and watched in amazement. He knew something was up. It wasn’t coincidence. The pentagram. The arm drawings. These people were under his power now. \n\nTL;DR Someone spiked the punch with Ambien, everyone blacked out, we did an occultist ritual , and now everyone subconsciously obeys Johnny’s commands.\n", "O Fortuna! \nVelut Luna! \nStatu variabilis...\niræ, dies illa, \nSolvet sæclum in favilla\n\nThe sound of my little 2-inch heels tapping on the marble floor rings through the church. I’m opening doors sporadically, desperately looking for the bathroom, even though I’d just gone before I left the house. My bladder is just not what it used to be. \nFrom a large staircase to my right I can hear the beautiful chants of a church choir.\n\nO Fortuna! \nVelut Luna! \n\nA little ominous for my taste, but they’re very in synch with each other, I must say. Back in ’48 I had led the state all girls choir. We were such rascals then, and hearing church songs always brings me back to that time. I have the fondest memories of youth group.\nI know I shouldn’t intrude, a bunch of adolescents probably want nothing to do with an 87 year old, semi senile grandma, but I just can’t help it. Before I know it, I’m opening the heavy iron gates at the end of the corridor. \n\nO Fortuna! \nVelut Luna! \n\nHow adorable, they’re so concentrated on singing for the lord, they haven’t even noticed my entrance. I squish my short, but unfortunately slightly round body through the small entrance. Gothic architecture really wasn’t built with the sagging bodies of the elderly in mind. There is a podium probably describing the group and its rehearsal schedule, and I hold onto that as I try to catch my breath. I know I keep refusing to buy a walking stick, even with all of my grandson’s efforts, but I’m just not ready to admit defeat on menial tasks yet. I’m old, not incapable!\nI would love to take note of the rehearsal schedule on the podium, so that I may visit more often (you so rarely see children taking an active interest in our Christian community nowadays!) but unfortunately I left my glasses on the bench upstairs. \nI walk past some cloaked figures. This youth group must be targeting large children, as they are all more than unusually tall for their age. A little ugly too. \nOh what a terrible thought to have in a church! It’s not their fault that they’re so large, with all the hormones and chemicals being injected into their food. \nAnd just look at all the black clothes that they are wearing; they must already be feeling very ashamed of their bodies. What right do I have to come intrude their meeting and judge these children on their appearance? These kids with their unfortunate physical predicament, especially need proper love and support. I’ll make a note to encourage them. I clear my throat. “Beautiful! Absolutely beautiful, children!”.\nThey turn to face me, and the room goes silent. \n“Oh no! I didn’t mean to interrupt your rehearsal. I was just on my way to the bathroom, and heard your wonderful singing! I just wanted to let you know what a great job you kids are doing!”. On that note, I hand the boy closest to me one of my finest chocolate chip cookies. He has an unusually great amount of premature facial hair. \nHe takes it and looks down at it for a moment. \n“Oh go on! I promise, they’re very good!”. I smile at him widely, aware that I’m missing many teeth, and thus my smile, although always welcoming, does have the tendency to look rubbery. He raises the cookie to his mouth, and I give him a big nod of encouragement. I watch him carefully take a bite.\n “Oh, they are very good”, he says in a deep voice, as he sinks his teeth into it again. Before I know it, I’m surrounded by his friends asking me if they too can have a cookie. “Of course you can!”. \nI’m quite pleased as I watch them all scarf down the biscuits noisily. There’s about 10 of them, and they are all incredibly hungry.\n“My, my, its like you haven’t eaten in days!” I exclaim. A boy in the back, with his mouth still full of pastry sighs: \n“we haven’t”. \nAs the crumbs fall out of his mouth, I quickly search my bag for a napkin. I hand it to him. “Sorry ma’am” he says. \n“That’s alright dear” I reply. “Now, tell me, why haven’t you eaten anything?”. \n“Oh”, he looks ashamed, “It’s a long story”.\nI make it a point to sit down, but my back arches in an unnatural position and I let out a gasp of pain. \n“Oh no miss!” the first boy who ate a cookie says, and clicks his fingers. Immediately two of them crouch on the ground on all fours.\n“Here, sit” they say.\nA little unorthodox, but I suppose it’ll do. I sit down.\nThe sloppy boy begins his story: “well, our group leader told us all to fast because we’d done some bad things, and then he just kind of left, and now we’ve been practicing every day. We’ve been trying to be good, so that when he comes back he’ll be proud of us, but it’s been a week, and he’s still not back.” He begins sobbing violently.\n“We didn’t want to be bad. I promise. We’ll never do another pagan sacrifice again, we promise, we just want him back”. Says another, tears clearly stinging his eyes.\nPagan sacrifice? That sounds like one of those bands in which they wear all that eye makeup and scream when they sing, like Tokio Hotel. I suppose it explains their clothing choices.\n“Oh there, there. Don’t cry. It’s his loss. If you were my youth group, I would never leave you”. I get up and hobble over to him and give him a big hug. I plant a wet kiss on his forehead. “There, see? It’ll be okay”. I pat his head.\nHe looks up at me with a sparkle in his eyes. “Miss! Miss! Maybe you could be our new leader!” he says excitedly. He looks at me like a lost puppy.\n“Oh I couldn’t just – oh okay, why not!”. I respond immediately, excited at the prospect of getting another chance at running a choir. \n\nAs I exit the church, the 10 boys follow me in tow, like ducklings following their mother across the street. They’re not very talkative, but it is clear to me that they’re happy to have somebody to lean on again. Two of them have cars, and have agreed to drive the majority of members. Two of them will be driving with me; the sloppy one and a shy one that is.\n“Very well, get in the car boys”. I say to them.\nThey follow the instructions diligently. The shy one holds open the door for me.\n“What a gentleman!” I give him a pat on the head, “here, have another cookie”. \nHe smiles, “thank you ma’am”. \nI turn on the radio. Some atrocious rap music blares out: “Fuck bitches, make money”.\n I quickly change the station, but the damage is done. The boys chant in perfect unison:\n\nFuck bitches,\nMake money.\nFuck bitches,\nMake money.\n\nI look at them in my rear-view mirror, a little concerned. \n“Lets not chant that one in public, please”. \n", "Ok. It took six years of quiet research, some fake social media accounts and a lot of acting but I think I finally did it. I finally found the people who hate me.\n\nYou see, back at the beginning of the 21st century, I had myself a little TV show. It was a nice little thing, I'd make fun of the day's problems and put my own little take on what the politicians were saying. I did that thing where you pretend to be the other side to show just how whack and stupid some of the things they were saying, harmless commentary really.\n\nThen.... I get offered a job. A really nice big job. One on a legit news network that held some actual clout. I was to replace the most well known commentator of all time. But you don't know his name do you? The records of the channel went up in a \"accidental fire\" and everyone else can't seem to remember what existed before me. \n\nBut I'm getting a head of myself. All you need to know is that taking that job is what started all of this crap.\n\nRather than just take up the mantel or to just do my same old show on the new network, I figured we'd try and go for a different angle. One serious but it still had that sarcastic commentary that I was known for at the time. \n\nOnly apparently when you take legit messages about ethics and politics and wrap it up in a fake religion, some of those nuts actually start to believe that everything you say is the truth.\n\nOf course I didn't know it at the time. All I knew was that the show was a hit, the people loved it. And thus, I continued on for years while my...cult. Spread across the nation. I had thought that I was getting these scoops due to my skill as a reporter and commentator. Exclusive meetings with the president? Just a fanboy session. Being the first person to interview both Putin and the President in the same room? I guess I'm the reason Russia no longer prosecutes gays. \n\nTurns out I was their actual \"American Idol\" and they literally worshiped the ground I walked on.... I'm pretty sure there's some New York Concrete hanging up in the pentagon now...\n\nI didn't even know until decades later when I accidentally walked in on my studio producer and my head make-up artist waterboarding an intern that didn't make my coffee the way I liked it. What kind of sick people would do that to a kid? But all that ends tonight, right here, right now...\n________________________________________________________________\n\nThey had all arrived one by one, each instructed not to talk to each other until 11pm had past. The soonest I could escape my \"security\" and make it to the hotel room. \n\nI paused on the other side of the door, knowing full well that the people on the other side hated my guts and would love to do nothing more than to punch me in the face.\n\nThey would also be the first real people I've talked to in a very long time...\n\nI took a breath and walked in, my gaze focused on the window across from me.\n\n\"Hello everyone, I am Stephen Colbert. I have gathered you all to help denounce the writings in \"The Report\" and to hopefully save-\"\n\nI had not even finished the second sentence before the FBI carried out a sting operation on the hotel. Some two flights of stairs, three cans of tear gas and 38 rubber bullets later, the country was praising their glorious god for collecting the last nonbelievers in the nation and gathering them up so they could be sent to a \"re-education\" facility in the Caribbean. \n\nGod the new generation is stupid.", "I worried a bit about the security at the airport. I suppose I had to trust that in this crowd of admirers there were no would be assassins. The sound of drums was almost unbearable from inside the plane. The smell of smoke permeated through the vents.\n\nAs I walked towards the door I knew what I wanted to say. \"I am only a man, not a god.\" But there is something appealing about being a god. Maybe it appealed to the same part of me that made me seek kingship.\n\nI never would have expected such a reaction to my presence, even among my own people. But here across the ocean I saw crying, cheering, and excitement beyond what I could imagine experiencing myself.\n\nAnd maybe it was the desire to be a god. But I think I was afraid of them. Afraid that the degree of joy I saw when I arrived here could to easily be turned to anger. That if I escaped unscathed perhaps this city and this country would not. I couldn't tell them that I wasn't their god.\n\nPerhaps I can do more good for this country as a god than as a king.", "I'm man enough to admit when I've fucked up.\n\nAt least to myself. But I don't think I can admit to this.\nNot to them.\n\nI know I fucked up, but I didn't mean to. I know that doesn't fix it, or justify it but it does start to explain. Fuck how do you even explain something like this.\n\nFrom the start seems as good a place as any, but I'm not really sure when that was. \n\nMaybe, it was the firs time someone bowed to me and I didn't make them stop.\n\nMaybe it was when all the members of the youth group changed their religious statuses on facebook from \"Baptist\" to \"Sky Child\"\n\nMaybe it was the drunken ranks about Revelation being right around the corner, that the youth group believed. \n\nMaybe it was needing a job so damn bad I went back to a building I swore I would never re-enter because youth pastor paid $3 above minimum wage.\n\nOr maybe the pamphlets with my name on them are right, and this all started 150,000 years ago when the comet brought all the souls to earth. \n\nWhich would mean I was right the whole time. Then I'd have nothing to apologize for. But it would also mean I only have a few hours left before the comet comes back for all our souls.\n\nSo for my sake I hope I was wrong. \n\nBut for the sake of million people waiting outside singing hymns I wrote and prayers I thought up, I sure do hope we're all dead in a few hours.\n\nI'm man enough to admit when I've fucked up. \n\nBut I'd rather not have to this time.\n", "I envied her. We all did. But underneath my layer of envy was a deep pride and adoration...part of the driving force behind this cult. And it was all my fault. \n\nAndrea saved my life. Not in the ordinary sense, the \"called the ambulance in time\" save. The impossible kind. Let's just say I self-medicate. At times I go too far but this particular time I'd truly dove straight into the deep end. The needle was deeper than the damn oxygen in my lungs...there was no way I could have come back from that \"trip.\" But Andrea, forming a fist with her nimble fingers, had beat life into me by pounding my forehead.\n\nI awoke from the infinite darkness I fell victim to and saw her resplendent face. That obsidian hair... a skin tone reminiscent of pure sand. I preached. With the internet as my witness I preached. But of course, I'd need proof. I kept my laptop on during the incident in an effort to record it as my last will and testament. Her miracle went viral. Some had claimed to see her aura glow within the pixels of their screens as she revived me. Others said she looked like a goddess. Even though she could not hear, she understood the reverence and hope we saw in her. \n\nWe followed Andrea in the hope that she was the next step. In what, you ask? Perhaps in human evolution. Perhaps she was a mythical being. I don't know. All I know is that me and thirty other people repainted an abandoned church and hung a custom portrait of her magnificence in the center of the room. \n\nShe has us in the palm of her precious hands...except for me. I am seen as the messenger. I am the one who has come back from the other side to bring her to the people of earth. \n\nAnd that is why MY portrait is on the ceiling.\n\nMy say is final. Without me, she wouldn't be understood. She is my sister after all. She and I share a purely original sign language. Our parents certainly didn't want to teach her. They'd been on more drugs than you could name.\n\nSo I sit here on my throne and she is my queen. Together we can create chaos or bring peace to this neighborhood. Just the other day we encountered some nonbelievers. They called us \"blasphemers,\" \"psychos,\" \"ignoramuses\" and many other things. So I had these two men strung up, stripped naked and allowed my members to refine their archery skills. The wounds were of course doused with bleach in an attempt to \"cleanse\" their insides. I figured it would be ironic...doing something truly like an ignoramus or psycho, following no logic at all. \n\nI wonder if they found it funny. \n\nAfterward I enjoyed the company of three beautiful women in my chambers. Heh, by chambers I simply mean my home. This leader mentality is getting to me. It's funny how things change. I used to be rejected in every sense of the F**ing word. No I am the center of so much blind faith.\n\nI could get used to this.", "How did it come to be \nOnce I was no one \nYet now they worship me \nHumble our beginnings \nOften humbler our ends \nAs I tread through the throngs \nOnly a man who pretends \nThe lie which festers \ndeep inside my heart \nHow shall I tell them, \"I am not\" \nWhen all they say is, \"Thou art\" ", "I will admit, becoming a cult leader as a teenager was quite difficult to adapt to. \nMostly because my cult consisted 100% of men who would not leave me alone. Not a single woman in sight. Sigh, I guess it's no different from college.\n\nHell, a paparazzi started following me around because they thought I was someone REALLY famous. Just because about 1250 people follow me religiously doesn't mean I'm famous... They try to make anything I touch a holy object. My shoe, a gourd I touched randomly, ect. There's a school in my name, and even a museum. There's a town being built right now in my honour. \n\nI tell them I am not the messiah, hell, I'm atheist, yet they follow me. I tell them to go get a life, that they are all unique people. Everyone seemed to agreed, except for that one guy. I told him to come forward, and now he's a pope or something...\n\nMy fear is, that if I kill myself, being the only way out, that people will take what I said and bend the truth so that they can get what they want. \n\nHow, you may wonder, did I get myself in this position. And trust me, that's a very good question. I sometimes ask that to myself before falling asleep to the gentle hums of about 100 men. The answer... I wrote a book saying that I could show men how to pick up women easily...", "Peace. Peace is all that matters. As I mediate here, with my friends I am at peace.\n\nIt has been so long, the journey has been filled with trials and tribulations. There were so many who did not believe, but I am thankful for those who do believe. Those who believed when I said that the true path was not what we were lead to believe. Those who believed when I said I had found it. I miss those days, when we were just starting. We were full of fire and vinegar. The message was so clear and it shone like the first rays of sunlight after weeks of clouds and storms. I was so sure.\n\nThe first place that I spoke from was an old warehouse. It was abandoned and seemed to work. John got us a generator and lights. I sat on a stool in the bed of a truck and just talked. At first others would speak, but before long it was just me. At first the words came hard and there was so much pain in the faces of my audience. So much pain, and regret. Confusion that the world they were living in was so far from the promises they were given, from the expectations of the American Dream. So much sadness.\n\nI spoke and they listened. At first just a couple of times a month. Then every week. It was fun. Before long there were a bunch of new faces. Someone suggested that we move to an old church. That it would be kind of a joke. We thought it would be funny and the people came up with the money to do it.\n\nThere were still only about thirty of us. The place had the greatest echo from the stage. My voice would rebound, so I slowed and changed my words to sound better coming back at me. We started singing. There was so much glory.\n\nWe had so many seats the people started to bring others. Soon the small church was packed. The people were still lost, so I started to write. Just small things, things they could take with them into the world that would hopefully help them find some peace. Then they asked me to write my story, and so I did. They loved it.\n\nWe moved to a bigger location, and I read from the book of my stories. The look on their faces was exalted. It was so beautiful. My people.\n\nMy people asked me for my thoughts on the strangest things. So I gave them. Then I wrote them.\n\nMy people asked so I started talking with them every day. Before long there were some living at the church. That made life so much easier. We had help. There was always someone available if something needed done, or something needed fixing. Soon there were too many.\n\nDavid had a great idea. We found some property in God's country. It was beautiful. The golden hills, we could see the ocean. Sunsets that stoked desire, Sunrises that awoke the poets. These were the glory days. And the people. MY people. They helped so much. All they asked was for my words, and my thoughts.\n\nThey came from all over. So we built. David and John were great. They organized the people. Mark and Mary started feeding them. Soon they brought us things that could help. Soon after they brought money. Soon they no longer left.\n\nIt was a few days after that when Ruth came to me at the church. Mary was okay with it and we became three. Soon Julie made four. I had so much love to spread, it was all about love.\n\nIt has been a year. I have children. My people are happy. We are many. We have houses, and a farm. I speak every day. They call me leader. They want to hear more. I give what I can, they give everything. The we that was four is many now.\n\nThe girls see to my needs so that I can focus on my work, on my words. They have power. John said that Nancy was barren. Marcus could not walk. Today Marcus helped with the newest bunkhouse for the new people and I cured Nancy's infertility. She is a month along now.\n\nYears passed. My children are many and strong. My people are strong. I do not understand why we are being bothered. We are just here about peace and love, why do the outsiders not understand? I am just trying to save them. Why must they respond to our love with hate? Our peace with their violence? Why can they not allow those who wish to follow me do so in peace?\n\nIt was my first child's thirteenth birthday today. We had a womanhood ceremony for her. My wives were beautiful. Why did the government have to ruin it? Why did they take me? John and David too? My people, my disciples? Mark will be a martyr. They shot him dead. Now I am in chains.\n\nThey are the modern Romans. I am in chains and I await the officers to take me to my cross. I will rise above. I will return. Just like I did before. 2000 years before. I will NOT return to peace. I will NOT return with love. I will have my revenge. My people will be whole again.", "I didn't want to be anything.\n\n\nPizza delivery boy here, 30 minutes or less or else it's on me. Yeah, Luigi's doesn't cover the cost of cold pizza, us peons making below-minimum wage are the ones expected pay out of pocket. So don't be that guy and order from far away. It's just not right. Today, we had a call like that.\n\n\nRichie was taking his usual stoned-ass time making an extra-large pepperoni and I was suffering from restless leg syndrome. I was forty minutes away from getting off work, and Richie was giggling at the fact it was 4:20. The oven dinged but Richie was texting his friends about this one time at work when the clock said 4:20.\n\n\n\"Yo, Richie. Get the fucking pizza. C'mon man I gotta go.\"\n\n\nRichie didn't like being told what to do. For a guy who smoked a lot of weed, Richie was a dick. \"Ah, sorry bud\" he said, slowly sliding the pizza out of the oven \"I gotta put it in a box, which I gotta fooooold man, and shit that takes me at least like five more minutes.\"\n\n\nI've dealt with Richie's stoned-ass before and had a box already made. He told me to stick it up my ass and stick to my job as he sluggishly folded the cardboard. \"Sure hope it's not far away. Islip huh? West or East? Big difference.\"\n\n\n\"Fuck you Richie, hurry up.\" Islip was another county over, I already knew I wasn't getting there on time. The store policy sucks but it's kind of the only thing that keeps us going. Some people will pay out of pity, but there are more than a few who live for this rule. People who argue, whine, complain, and use the age-old excuse \"well according to MY watch....\"\n\n\nYou think the holder of the pizza has all the power? Fuck no. I have no power. Richie's got more pull than me. Every house I go to I'm the bitch, when I get back to work I'm the bitch, and guess who's the youngest in his family? The bitch.\n\n\nSo I'm speeding down the Southern State Parkway trying to get to this bumblefuck Islip, it's East Islip in case you were wondering, and by the time I reach the exit I'm already ten minutes late. I raced through the sidestreets, following my GPS to the ends of the earth when it leads me to a church. \n\n\nThe church looked like it had just been in a fire. It's white paint was covered in black grime and soot, the windows were all shattered, and shingles were dropping off of it like dandruff. I knocked on the warped wooden door. It creaked open.\n\n\n\"Pizza here!\" I said to silence, \"Hello? Anyone here?\" Still nothing. I walked inside.\n\n\nInside was completely bare. Nothing on the altar except it's putrid green carpet and a table bolted to it. The pews were made to look like filthy ghosts, covered in dirt-specked sheets. I walked through the aisle, up onto the altar and dropped the pizza on the table; dust spewed off in different directions. It was then I noticed a muffled snoring coming from behind the altar. \n\n\nI peek through the door in the back and saw an elderly man with his feet on the desk in front of him, snoozing on a plush office chair. I wasn't THAT late, sheesh. I snapped in his face a couple of times. No response. I leaned over, took a deep breath and shouted \"Yo!\" about twenty decibels higher than I meant to.\n\n\nInstantly he sprung alive, feet still on the desk, legs uncrossed, but eyes wide. It looked like he was stretching but his bulging eyes were rolling into the back of his head as he gripped his heart with one hand, and my wrist with the other. I pulled back but his grip wasn't loosening, it grew tighter and tighter until I felt the strength leave his hands, and the color leave his face. He was dead.\n\n\n\n\"Holy. Fucking. Sh-\" before I could even get started on my string of expletives, I heard the sound of an army marching up steps beneath me. I peek back through the door and see a platoon of black hooded figures flooding the aisle of the church, and walking up to the altar. I hoped that they were just here for the pizza.\n\n\n\nThey all stopped suddenly, and the first hooded figure locked eyes with me as he rushed into the backroom. He pulled his hood down to reveal a tattooed face consisting of black lines and abnormal shapes. He looked at the dead old man, he looked at his wrist still gripping mine, and then he looked at me.\n\n\n\"Look man, it's not wh-\" I tried to explain, but as he stepped closer to me I couldn't find the words. His size itself was intimidating enough without all the freakshow tattoos. He grabbed the old man's hand on my wrist. He pulled him free. I stuttered helplessly. He knelt.\n\n\n\"The Gods have chosen you. We are at your command.\"\n\n\nI shut my mouth to stop myself from babbling. He was still kneeling in front of me, bowing his head. I peeked out the door, and the army of hoods were kneeling as well. I was confused for the most part, but I knew one thing. For once, I had the power. \n\n\nI walked onto the altar. Everyone remained bowing except for my new best friend, Lurch, I named him. He followed me onto the altar, watching with awe and excitement at my next move. I knew I had to do something big, something to inspire these followers, but I said \"Ah fuck it.\"\n\n\nOpening the pizza and taking a slice, I began my decree \"So there's this dick named Richie....\"\n\n \n\nEdit: Proof'd\n\n\n", "I have more sympathy for cult leaders now than I used to. That may sound...convenient, but its true. I don't think anybody has ever been ready for what it feels like to be worshipped, and any criticisms from people who haven't been in my position ring hollow as a result.\n\nThe first blog post was a SMASH hit. I remember my sister showing me that it actually trended on twitter for a little while, I didn't even have a twitter profile, but I did after that day. I can't tell you how good that felt...there is no description that can describe the ecstasy...the catharsis...of having all of my opinions so fucking* validated. \n\nIt's living your greatest fantasy. Everyone fantasizes about such moments. Everyone fantasizes that they actually know better than everyone else, that they are smarter and better and sexier, and its just random chance or external forces or some shit that's holding them down. But nobody gets the release, of hearing everyone else agree with you. \n\nBut I have to tell you, if there's one thing I've learned over all of this, its that you cannot, you just cannot overstate a human being's ability to acclimate to their current condition.\n\nThat 'hnnnnnggggg' feeling? It didn't last more than a couple of days. Pretty soon the sheer euphoria I felt from having everyone tell me they loved me, subsided into petty annoyance at the clutter in my inbox. By my third blog post, people were stopping me on the streets, either to spit in my face or to kiss my feet. By the fifth blog post, both results were equally annoying to me. People stopped being people, they started being followers or haters, that was the only classification I used for people.\n\nYou see, when I moved out to that ranch...I wanted to get away from the followers as much as the haters. Have it just be me, my folks, my sister again. I brought John who had built my website and of course Mike who was a constant source of inspiration for the blog posts. Dan and Karen asked if they could join me there, as they were sick of living in the big city, and I said sure. They had been such good friends for such a long time.\n\n...\n\nIf I had cut it off at Dan and Karen it, I think it would've been fine, but then Nikki asked to come too. I've always said that my success was due to being able to say in a blog post what I could never say in conversation, and well, that was doubly true for girls. I'd never had a girl look at me the way Nikki did when she asked to move out to the ranch with us, much less a girl who looked like that. I couldn't see anything that was wrong with saying yes.\n\nMy...relationship with Nikki...I...I wasn't ready for that. I didn't understand why she wanted me. I understood why I wanted her, because she was gorgeous, but I didn't understand...I didn't understand that she didn't love me the way Karen loved Dan. She didn't respect me, she didn't love me, shit, I don't think she even liked me. She worshipped me. That was a type of social interaction that I simply wasn't prepared for, and like I said before, never underestimate a human's ability to acclimate to their current condition.\n\nI don't think I even liked being worshipped, but you know what, I got used to it. I got used to having someone who I could just tell to do something, and she'd do it. At first it was all just innocent sex, but after a while I realized, she'd do literally anything. When I started testing those boundaries, I started testing them just to see where the boundaries were. But there were no boundaries, the crazier the things I asked her to do, the more intensely she worshipped me, and by the time I realized there were no boundaries that didn't disgust me, that enticed me.\n\nNikki had tons of friends who were just as obsessed with my philosophies and blog posts as she was...and eventually I brought them all to the ranch. I swear I didn't even see what was happening, and I couldn't be convinced of it either. Karen and Dan left after the third girl showed up at the ranch. I'll never forget the look of disgust in Karen's eyes, but I just thought she was jealous, sad that I never invited her into the main cabin, I ignored everything she said to me. When Mike left, he confronted me hard, but you know what John was enjoying our new lifestyle so much, that he convinced me to ignore Mike. Mike was just jealous too, I told myself. He just wished the girls and followers loved him the way they loved me. My sister had left before any of it really began, she had gotten a great job doing social media marketing back in the city. My parent's...God bless 'em...they could not see what their son was becoming, or if they could they didn't see fit to tell me to stop.\n\nYou see, I didn't bring people to worship me because I thought I was some kind of God, I became convinced I was some kind of God because all these people were worshipping me.\n\nAnyway...I'm not making excuses. All the people we killed, all the damage we caused...its all my fault. It really is, I wont try and shed any of the blame. Just...at least let the records show...after all this is over...that I really didn't want any of this to happen...it just sort of did.\n\n---\n\nIn case anybody is interested I did a follow up to this prompt.\n\n[Here](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/2vpzji/pi_you_accidentally_become_the_leader_of_a_cult/)\n" ]	27
	[WP] Bad things only ever happen to you	[ "Pretty high atm, so I apologize in advance:\n\nWhen bad things happen\n\n“FUCK!” cursed Eric as the last train into the city pulled away from the platform.\n\n“I can’t believe it.” he said outloud as he watched the train disappear into the jungle of concrete.\n\nHe was going to miss his interview; the one Jennifer had set him up with. \n\nThe same Jennifer who hadn’t texted him in a couple days now. Eric wasn’t exactly sure as to what their relationship was, but in the short few weeks that he had known her, he was really starting to fall for her. \n\n“But you do believe it.” replied a faint voice from behind.\n\nEric stopped abruptly, his face already transitioning into his signature crimson red. The kind of deep red that is only capable of being produce by a man filled with so much anger and frustration in his life. \n\n“You’re messing with the wrong guy today” he yelled at the stranger as he began to turn around.\n\nBut as he turned around it was quite obvious that nobody was there. The train was now gone, and there wasn’t a single soul left out on the platform. \n\nThere was only him.\n\nThe stillness of the train platform and unnerving silence upon it were enough to make anyone shudder. \n\nAs Eric stood there wondering where the voice had come from his eyes scanned the area instinctively, almost as if they were hoping to see something to reassure him that he wasn’t hearing things.\n\nHe started walking away from the train station and quickened his pace as he made his way to the next station. \n\nIt was bad enough that he was going to miss his interview, but there was no way in hell that he would allow himself to miss meeting Jennifer for coffee after the interview. He told her it would be a great way for him to say thank you to her. She was after all the one who arranged the interview of a lifetime for Eric at Greenstone Investment, one of the most reputable investment firms in the city. \n\n\nEric’s mind begun thinking of how much better his life would be if he could land a job with a company like Greenstone and of course, the icing on the cake, Jennifer.\nThe deafening sound of a rain drop pinging off a metal roof interrupted Eric’s fantasy. His ears had grown accustom to the silence surrounding him, so much so that the sudden sound snapped Eric back into his real reality. \n\nThe one he presently despised. \n\nThe rain intensified as Eric cursed his ill fortune.\n\n“You better hurry, you’re going to be late.”\n\nEric froze.\n\nNow he knew he wasn’t just hearing things. He turned around again, but still there was nobody in sight. \n\n“Where are you” he screamed angrily. “Come out where I can see you!”\n\n“I can’t silly!”\n\n“What do you mean you can’t” demanded Eric who was now soaked head to toe from this freak downpour.\n\n“I mean I can’t come out where you can see me because I’m inside of you.”\n\n“What the fuck are you talking about?” commanded Eric as he stood in the rain alone talking to himself.\n\n“I’m not real in a physical sense. I’m definitely real, just not real as you know it. Get it?” replied the voice.\n\n“No I don’t fucking get it. That sounds ridiculous.” \nEric was starting to feel uneasy. \n\nMaybe things were starting to get too much for him; maybe he was having a mental break he thought to himself.\n\n“Nope, you’re not crazy” the voice informed him “I’m here to help you!”\n\n“Help me?” Eric responded, intrigued.\n\n“Yah man, I’m here to help you get your life back on track. Just do as I say and you’ll thank me later.” explained the voice. \n\n“Ha, ha! Yah right” \n\n“Look, a cab” said the voice “hail it before it’s too late!”\n\nNot sure what to do, Eric stuck his hand out and waved to the cab driver. \n\nAs the cab pulled over, Eric realized his wallet was missing. \n\n“My wallet” he said “I just had it, it’s gone.”\n\n“Don’t worry” the voice reassured him. “Just get in, trust me.”\n\nEric reluctantly got into the cab.\n\n“Where ya heading” asked the cabbie.\n\n“Uhh, 7 Park Street.” \n\n“The Greenstone building?” \n\n“Yah” replied Eric.\n\nThe cab pulled back onto the road and made it’s way into the heart of the city. Eric stared out the window, unsettled not only by the voice in his head, but the fact that he had no money on him to pay this cab driver.\n\nHe nervously sat in the backseat as the cab weaved in and out of the busy rush hour traffic. \n\n“You ok buddy?” asked the driver “You look pretty shaken.”\n\n“Just a bad day man” replied Eric.\n\n“Listen kid, bad things happen and there’s nothing you can do about it.” said the driver in a calm, reassuring voice. “Life ain’t fair, but you got to make the best of it.”\n\n“I know life is unfair, but lately mine has just been fucking ridiculous.” replied Eric, kind of annoyed with the fact that this old man had no idea how bad his life has been recently.\n\n“Hang in there kid.”\n\nThe cab continued on its way to its destination. \n\nIt was going to be at least another 20 minutes before Eric would arrive at the Greenstone Building so he decided to have a little nap to hopefully rejuvenate him for when he would hopefully see Jennifer. As he dozed off, he couldn’t help but wonder about the voice he had heard earlier. The voice hasn’t made a sound since he got into the taxi. \n\nEric woke when the momentum of the cab stopping launched his body forward. The abrupt stop of his forehead smacking the front seat was enough to wake him from his nap. \n\n“We’re here” exclaimed the cab driver.\n\nAs Eric began to fully wake up, the realization that he had no money sent his heart racing. \n\n“Uhhh…” Eric uttered.\n\nThe cab driver saw the terrified look in Eric’s eyes. \n\n“Don’t worry about it kid. This one’s on the house.”\n\nA sense of relief overwhelmed Eric’s body. Just when he thought his day couldn’t get any worse, he finally caught a break.\n\n“Thank you so much Sir!” he said as he slid out of the cab.\n\n“No problem, hang in there buddy.” replied the driver.\n\n\n", "Brrrng Brrrng\nAnother terrible night of sleep. The nightmares wouldn't stop, but I've gotten used to them over the past 24 years. Time to get ready. \nThe daily routine continued as always. I brushed my teeth, gargled, some water spilled, I slipped on it and fell backward to the ground and landed on the pillows I had set. I put that pillow in the bathroom after I had received 7 stitches on my forehead from a similar fall. Though it sounds terrible, I've gotten used to my extreme bad luck. These odd mishaps, Rube Goldberg style accidents were a common experience in my life. Luckily, over the years I have learned to place pillows on any corners or hard surfaces that could be fall-zones. \nAs I prepared for my shower, I couldn't help but admire my set of bruises and injuries all over my body. My body takes a beating like this every day; I'm surprised I'm not dead yet. \nI exited my house and immediately it started to rain. Once again, I'm used to this. Every time I go outside, a personal rain cloud appears above me to rain on me. No one else gets wet except me. I popped out my umbrella to stop from getting too wet and ran over to my batter car, which has already been totaled over a dozen times. I drove off to my boring work for another unproductive day.\nEveryone there was extremely psyched, as always. You see, in this world of mine, everyone has gotten a job that is perfect for them and that they love. Unlike my coworkers, who loved what they were doing, this job was just a means to survive. Just money to buy food and a roof from my personal rain cloud. \nThe clock ticked by as I spent my time doing the miscellaneous drudgery my boss assigned me. Lunch passed without a conversation with a single coworker. Maybe it was the bags under my eyes or the bruises all over my face or maybe it was the fact that I can't muster a smile in this cursed existence I live. No matter the reason, others were turned off by my depressed atmosphere. \nI managed to make it through the day with only four new bruises, my computer shutting down and losing all my work twice, and one coffee spill. \nAs I drove home, with my personal rain storm over my car, a firetruck siren boomed and sped past me as I tried to move over. Sadly, in the attempt to move over, I got my front wheel caught in a small ditch on the side of the road and had to get out of the car. I checked my phone to call someone but of course it was out of battery. Luckily my house was only a mile away so the walk wouldn't be too bad. I took my umbrella, and started trudging towards my house as the rain fell around me. \nI got closer to my house and could once again hear the sirens. My heart started to pound. Could it be happening again? Over the past 24 years, I've lost 4 homes to freak accidents like gas leaks, the weather, even earthquakes. I turned the corner and saw firemen blasting the remnants of my small home with water. The fire had already done its damage and it was obvious the cheap house could never stand again...\n\n... Two hours have passed since I lost my house. Right now I'm on a bridge overlooking the lake. The water is freezing cold and I don't know how to swim. I'll hopefully die when I jump. \nIt took a lot of determination and self pity to reach this point but I think this might be for the best. No one else goes through what I do so I might as well...\n\n\n\n\"...wait...\"\n\nCome one subconscious, I know that this is the only way to end this misery. Quit whining. \n\n\"..Wait..\"\n\nShut up, I'm doing this. Good bye personal rain cloud. Sorry I never named you.\n\n\"Wait!\"\n\nWas that in my head?\n\n\"WAIT!!!\"\n\nI whipped my head around just as a young woman grabbed me from behind and pulled me back. We both fell backwards and ended up entangled in each other. My rain cloud followed and was now soaking both of us. \n\"Let go of me! Why did you stop me?\"\nShe paused, and looked at me with a blank stare. Did she even have a reason?\n\"I didn't really have a reason to stop you.\"\nOf course...\n\"How about I drive you home? Doesn't look like your car is around and I'm pretty sure you won't be jumping tonight, right?\"\n\"Sure. Thanks.\" \nShe hopped up and helped me on my feet. Grabbing my arm, she pulled me over to her car parked a few feet away and we drove off.\n\nShe was the one who started a conversation in the car as I had no intention of listening to this bitch. \n\"I'm Katrina, by the way.\"\n\"Josh.\"\n\"Nice to meet you Josh. You seem nice Josh, but you also seem to have a pretty shitty attitude. You should be happier. Life is great! Anyway, where do you want me to drop you off?\" \nI directed her to a motel that was near my work.\n\"Thanks for the ride.\"\nI turned and started to walk away when she called out to me.\n\"Wait! If you're ever feeling shitty again, just call me. Here's my number. I'm also going take your number down since I feel like you won't call me. I'll come check by on you tomorrow. We're friends now, Josh.\" \nWhy couldn't she just leave me alone...\n\n\nThe nightmares weren't as bad tonight." ]	2
	[WP] An intense relationship that ends anticlimactically.	[ "This has been going on for years, day in and day out. So many faces, and the scenarios were always different. Looking back over the years I feel no shame, no regret, and to the ones that never were...I SALUTE YOU, you fine soldiers, dead on the battlefield, but more to replace...it feels like a never ending supply.\n\nI remember this one time we were out, the excitement of being caught, but it felt so good...I shyly look at you, remembering that day...om my gosh you remember too! I grab you and squeeze, we both can not help ourselves at this point, the tension building, building.....buil...ding...and.....release...ahhhhhhh.... I silently clean up, nothing else to say, and go back to reading.", "He grasped her belt, pulling lightly. She raised her eyes to his as a sly, drunken smile crept up her face. He nestled her into his chest and wrapped his arms around the small of her back. The slight pressure caused him to burp, surprisingly loud, and she burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter - arching her head back while their bodies remained intact. \n\n\"I love you, babe,\" she said.\n\"I love you,\" he slurred as he took a step back. He fixated his eyes on her, noticing her disheveled hair and smeared lipstick. Tunnel vision ensued.\n\"I'm sorry, I thought this is what I wanted. But I don't anymore. It's over.\"", "I had met her in my first year of college. She was sitting in the library studying. It wasn't until she had gotten mad at me for sleeping in the library that we really started talking. She was a year ahead of me, and I was the lowly freshman that had no clue what he was doing. I remember thinking that she looked like she had everything under control. She had a 4.0 GPA, and was involved in so many different organizations. I was struggling to keep a 3.0 and had quit the only organization that had accepted me as a member. She shouldn't have even looked at me, but she still stuck around. As time grew on, we began to grow closer. She refused to accept about me what I had already accepted about myself. There was no saving me. She never understood that I was a lost cause. Every time she would try to get closer to me, I would push her away. Out of everyone, she was the only person that had ever truly loved me, and I hated her for it. It wasn't until I was broken down by the news of my mothers death that I finally let her in. She was the first and only person I had ever let into my life. I thought we were going to live our lives together. Just me and her, wandering this Earth together, knowing that we had found our other half. And then I woke up in the library." ]	3
	[WP] A God or God-like being has one weakness; tell me of the story of the one who exploited it.	[ "You rise to power on the prayers of those who call your name. You and all your kin are the same. You derive power from the worship of those under you. You started out as all gods did, as a tale, told around a campfire, trying to bring hope and safety to those who needed it, and from that desporation you were born. You start out as a being of thought, a belief, then you gained real power. When the first man died in your name, you gained true power, his lifeblood giving you a tangible form, a body, from which you could hod, true power. When the first time a building was made for you, you became strong, when a crusade was launched in your name, you felt innvincible, like the world was at your fingertips. \n\n\n\nHowever, you don't truly have power over me. I stand before, today, as invincible as you are. I see your outrage deity, the look of scorn and of pity. You think that I am but a mere mortal, how dare I challenge you? The answer is quite simple, as I know who you truly are. You are a being that only holds power so long as I allow you to hold it over me. You are here to comfort us, and to give us strength. You are akin to a stuffed animal. You are something that we clung to when we needed familiarity, something we called back to when we were afraid, and something that brought us comfort when we felt alone. For these many tasks, I thank you, because without you, our civilization would have felt alone in the darkness, surrounded without friends. You have played a huge role in our existance. When we were at our lowest, we told ourselves that you were with us, and it gave us the spirit to fight on. You gave us goals to achieve, and barriers to smash. However there is a simple truth we must all grasp.\n\n\n\nWe simply do not need you anymore. You were important once, and you still are, but the world needs to move on. I see the fear in your face, knowing what I say, as it is both true and unfortunate. We don't need religon to help us explore what we don't know. We no longer fear the people who are diffenrent from us, we try and embrace it. The unkown no longer frightens us, but instead intrigeges us, spurring us on to greater achievements. Humanity is growing up, and it's time to put childish things away. We won't destroy you, we will one day need you. In our darkest hour, we call upon you again, to inspire us, give us hope, to remind us that we have gone through hardships before, and come back swinging. But today is not that day, nor does tomorrow appear to be it either. so now I ask you to sleep, safe in the memories and stories, passed down from parent to child. One day we will need you, we will put our faith, into you, giving you the power that it caries. Until that day, rest, leave go of your control of the world, and return to the realm of dreams from which you came to us from. ", "I realized in the fall, that even the Gods have a weakness; they are human too - or were. As the air violently whipped braided hair at my face, like the lash of the executioner's whip, I realized that if they became Gods so could I.\n\nI had never believed in the Gods - not until I saw Valla - they were just creations of the priests, a tool to keep order in Antalla. I'd even ventured so far as to tell some of my students the same, a mistake that would cause me to be thrown from the sacrificial cliff to join so many others at the bottom. The people of Antalla believed it would send the winds back to the land so that the scraggled trees may breathe and the dust of a still moonpass could be blown clear. I saw the truth, or thought I did, they couldn't allow anyone to preach against them, even to mere children.\n\nI thought about protesting, trying to escape but where to? The lands beyond Antalla are barren. Like we live on a shelf of pure, unadorned rock with just Antalla to decorate it. And I couldn't stay in the city either, with a population so devout and me marked as the Sacrifice I'd be found and likely broken to stop me from running again. No, this quick and painless death was preferable. So I let them lead me to the edge. The priests in their ribbons, the warriors in their leathers, the people in their rags - they all watched as I fell forward. I could say I wasn't afraid, but I was. You never know what dying feels like until it happens and the jagged rocks below looked like they would make it an unpleasant experience - even if it was a short lived one. And then Valla appeared.\n\nValla came as a serpent made of smoke. Not a snake, but snake like. She slithered in the air and even though her face was translucent, it held an amount of humanity and I could sense a smile there. A twisted smile, like she was enjoying this. That pissed me off, so I grabbed her. \n\nAs an atheist you realize that if there were gods and they slaughtered people in sacrifice, then you'd hate them, and if you hate something then you can't fear it. I say I grabbed Valla, but that's not strictly true - you can't grab smoke any more than you can clutch air - but something inside me grabbed hold of something inside of her and we tumbled together. Valla didn't have a physical form so much, but the smoke like appearance had some substance and we grappled as we fell. After a second a panicked look came over Valla and that's when I suddenly understood. Valla wasn't a god. She was a person, a person with the powers of a god and those powers weren't hers, she just found them. Perhaps it was the way we intermingled in the rushing air but I gained knowledge that I didn't have before. A view of Valla playing as a child in a time long since forgotten and of a shining, bright orb surrounded by a tornado of dead leaves in a dark place. I saw her touch it, I heard her screams and felt pain so great it was purifying. In that moment I understood that the weakness was Valla's strength - the Gift which she held. A person, pretending to be a god, while sacrificing people in the name of good. That's something I really hated, so I wrenched the Gift free, not with my hands but with... something, something which I still don't understand. \n\nAt the bottom of the sacrificial cliff there's a body. It lies naked and broken, face paintings from a time before Antalla was built. A child's face, but it's not mine. Instead I swirl above it and I understand the life that it led. I hated Valla, I really did, but even as a refuse the pleading of Knishta I know that Valla did only as she could. I protest, but tomorrow I will receive a sacrifice and I know that it is the right thing.\n\n=================\n\nAs always, comments and critique would be great. Like most of my other \"entries\" this exists within a large universe which I'm really coming to like! One day I might even finish one of my stories!" ]	2
The writing should be based on the title-quote...doesn't necessarily have to include it.	[WP] "I had a feeling that I belonged."	[ "I can hardly breathe. Am I drowning? Should I worry? And why can I taste metal and salt?\nHe looks down at us and then all light disappears. I...cannot...breathe... Help! I'm suffocating! We're packed so tight, I can't move a muscle. Not even to twitch an eye! \nThe fear is stifling, and I feel like I'm going to faint. \nBut I hear a voice. It's him. The guy behind me. He says I'm safe. That everyone in this tiny chamber will keep me safe. \nHis breath on my neck doesn't send a chill down my back, but relaxes me instead. I let my breath go, and finally give in. I'm going to be okay now.\n\n- Excerpt from 'A sardine's life'", "Nobody wants to go to counseling. They'll tell you that it's good for you, of course, but I knows it's not. I mean, look at the people here, what a bunch of whack jobs! There in the corner was the man beyond help. Two uncomfortable plastic seats over was the teenage girl who was probably mad at her parents. To the left of me sat a man with a tracking band around his ankle. \n\nI wasn't like them. I didn't need to be here. This was all a big conspiracy. They didn't tell me the full truth. They never do. I'm the only one who realizes how much danger we're all in. Can't these people see what they're trying to do to us?\n\nI was getting worked up, and my case worker sitting next to placed a calming hand on my arm. I tried to relax, but then something came to me. What stereotype was missing? With a sinking feeling in my gut, I realized which one it was. The crazy conspiracy theorist. Maybe I do want to go to counseling after all.", "Mother had always raised me as a proper lady. I haven’t talked to Mother in so long…\n\nBut as the music swells in my ears, and the colors and the smells and the laughter surround me, I can’t care anymore. I’m not a lady, if anything, I’m a wild animal and a dreamer, who only cares for indulging the senses, and that’s alright with me, because that’s exactly what they are. Them…\n\nThey seemed so strange to me when I first saw them, and furthermore, heard them. I believe there were eight when I first passed them. \n\nI was with Mother; she was walking me through the marketplace, for that night was to be dedicated to teaching me how to properly brew and serve tea. I was surrounded by touches of wild orange, hibiscus, jasmine and licorice drifting to me while we were browsing. In this whole arrangement, it’s all I cared for. \n\nOr, well, no. It was all I cared for, until I first heard of them. Then they were all that I cared for, in any arrangement. \n\n“They’re devil children, positively. It seems as though every day for them is Halloween. Do they even have parents?”\n\nI didn't realize that before and after the rumors were heard, their noises were heard. I didn't realize until I saw them. They were certainly a sight to be seen. A group of teenagers around my age, in all sorts of face and body paint, hairstyles and clothes. Some seemed to be emulating animals; others seemed to be emulating demons, others I couldn't plainly tell what they were attempting. One was playing a harp, another was sounding off jovial piccolo notes, and a girl that sat in the front of all of them played on a drum. Some were talking, seemingly to themselves, and as I listened closer I noticed it seemed like poetry. However, despite all the chaos, they still seemed to all be communicating with each other, as if the rest of the marketplace hustle-and-bustle didn't even touch them. I didn't realize entirely that I didn't care to be a lady until then. I didn't realize I wanted to be one of them, whatever they were.\n\nBecause I have hardly any time to do anything but fulfill my new role now, I’ll have to be quick with this. I apologize for not being able to thoroughly explain.\n\nI started to interact with them in every way possible, eventually I got to talk to them, and I started sneaking out to meet them at night. They didn't think they needed anyone else in their little band of misfits until I showed up. For all the roles they had filled, they didn't have a storyteller, someone to motivate them, to soothe the worries of both voluntary and involuntary orphans. And with my meager abilities but constant thinking, there’s nothing else I could do.\n \n\nI can’t be a lady, not anymore. Not after getting to be one of them.\n", "Jainy unlocked her front door and opened it. With a yelp, she dropped her two bags of groceries as she looked at the intruder inside.\n\nHe smiled, looking around her place. \"I had a feeling that I belonged here. Your place is so peaceful, no distractions…\"\n\n\"What are you doing in here?\" she asked, still standing in the doorway, her groceries on the ground. She felt one of the box leaking. 'Oh, my eggs! Damn him.'\n\n\"Isn't it obvious? Waiting for you to come home, sweetie,\" he replied. \"And looks like I'm here to stay.\"\n\nHe lifted his hand up to reveal a key and grinned. Jainy took a step back, shaking her head.\n\n\"I told you to stop stalking me!\" she yelled.\"\n\n\"Oh don't be like that, Jainy sweetie. I have loved you since the day I laid my eyes on you in class at college.\"\n\nJainy did a fast couple of blinks, now trying to place his face to her college days. She had graduated a year and half ago.\n\n\"You… you're a creep,\" Jainy said, walking backwards from her house she had just bought a few weeks ago. \"I'm going to call the police about this.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't do that if I were you,\" he said, leaning his shoulder against the door frame. Jainy raised an eyebrow at the threat. \"Really, I wouldn't.\n\nGlaring, she continued to move backwards, moving closer to her car. The stalker stayed where he was, his eyes tracking her movements, down to her fingers. Jainy reached for her car door as the stalker took his gun out and pointed it at her. She froze.\n\n\"Come back inside, Jainy sweetie,\" he said, his tone of voice still light-hearted. \"Or do you want to die tonight?\"\n\nGritting her teeth, she walked to the door. She looked around, hoping for witnesses. None in sight that she could see. Jainy paused at the threshold to her house as the stalker moved back inside, the gun still trained on her.\n\n\"Get in and close the door.\"\n\nHer lips thinned, trying to think of a way to escape as she closed the door behind her. \n\n\"Lock it.\"\n\nShe turned the lock until both hear the solid click. He smiled.\n\n\"Good, now we are going to have some fun,\" he said.\n\n\"I don't remember you… what's your name?\"\n\nHe laughed without humor, \"Of course you wouldn't remember me. The ultra-popular girl.\" \n\nHe walked up to her, his face inches away from hers and smiled. \"I love you. So much.\"\n\nShe could not speak, trying not to breathe his stench. When was the last time he showered? She moved away from him, trying to breathe in fresh air. He followed until her back met the door. He leaned his face in into her neck and breathed deeply.\n\n\"I have always wondered how you smelled,\" he said quietly, breathing in her scent. \"God, you smell so much lovelier than I had ever imagined in my dreams.\"\n\n\"Get away from me you creep,\" I gritted through my teeth, my lungs begging for fresh air. He chuckled, his lips vibrating her neck as he laughed, and it sent tremors of terror through her body, paralyzed.\n\nThe loud pounding on the door shook both apart at the suddenness. She turned around to quickly unlock the door but the stalker pushed her to the ground and she screamed as she went, hoping that whoever was outside the door would hear.\n\n\"Shut up!\" he yelled.\n\n\"Please help! Help!\" she said, scrambling backwards away from the intruder. He looked out the peephole and his face flushed with anger.\n\n\"Damnit,\" he breathed, looking down at Jainy. \"Stop screaming!\"\n\nA window crashed open, sending the glass shards over Jainy, revealing a man. Jainy looked up at the open jagged window and felt relief fill her heart. Her best friend hopped over the window sil, knocking the jagged glass to the ground as he went.\n\nShe looked at the stalker, suddenly remembering something. Jainy looked back to him to warn him.\n\n\"Gordon! Watch out! He's got a gun,\" she said as she backed into an alcove to get out of Gordon's way.\n\n\"That so,\" Gordon said, pulling a gun out and aimed it at the stalker. The stalker seemed to have snapped out of his shocked state and then glared as he began to raise his gun.\n\n— BANG —\n\nA hole appeared in the middle of the stalker's forehead. He stood for a moment, his eyes unseeing, then collapsed.\n\nSilence reigned for a moment then he turned the safety on on his gun and turned to Jainy. His face formed into concern, looking over her.\n\n\"You've got glass all over you. I'm sorry,\" he said. Jainy shook her head, knocking the shards down her hair to her shoulders.\n\n\"Nothing compared to what he would have done, Gor.\"\n\n\"You okay?\" he asked, moving closer to her, glass crunching under his steel-toed shoes and crouched in front of her.\n\n\"Ye-yeah, I'll be okay now that you're here,\" she replied as he lifted a large glass off her yellow skirt.\n\n\"I'll call 911,\" he said, taking his phone out. \"I'll take care of all this.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Gordon,\" she said with a soft whisper. \"I love you.\"\n\nGordon looked at her in the eyes and smiled, \"I love you too. I'm glad you were not harmed. I would have tortured him first before killing him twice.\"\n\nShe chuckled breathlessly as Gordon finished dialing." ]	4
Humorous, horrific, or something else entirely; the choice is yours.	[WP] Every Spring, men and women enter a kind of "Mating Season"; in which sexual drive skyrockets while moral inhibitions plummet. You are one of the rare few not affected by this condition. Describe an average Spring day.	[ "“Ah! Ah! Aaaah!”\n\n“Jaysus! Will you shut up!!”, I yell for the third time in the last five minutes. The bitch next door just can’t keep it down! I mean, I know it’s “Spring time”, but can’t people have a little self-control? I guess I’m just asking too much. It’s four in the morning, and I feel my night is over. I sigh, I push back the bed sheets and get up. The floor is so cold my toes curl. I grunt. While I wait for my coffee to be ready, I can’t help but listen to the continuous explicit sounds my neighbours keep producing. Sometimes, I can even imagine it all, as if it was all happening right in front of me. I mean, they talk so loud, telling each other what to do : “Put it there,” “suck it”...I don’t even have to rent a porn, that is, if I wanted to, which is clearly not the case. My mornings during spring are mostly a replicate of this one. Aching, boring, everlasting. At least, for me.\n\nAround seven o’clock, I leave my house. I only start working at nine, but during this season, no one as too much time to get to work. You need to anticipate your lateness. Because you will be late. For example, this morning, I haven’t got to the corner of the street that I had to step over two couples making on the sidewalk, three dogs running in circles, licking each others behind and two kids trying to snog for the first time. Sadly for me, I need to take the bus to get to my office. As I wait, a man throws a woman over a mailbox, taking her from behind. From the look of surprise on the woman’s face, I believe she didn’t know the man. She also doesn’t seem to care. I never sit in the bus when it’s the “mating season”, you never know what’s on the benches. I try to make myself as small as possible, between all those bodies that seem to be unable to stay apart from each other. I try not to look. But everywhere I set my eyes, even outside the bus, I only see skin. Skin, skin, skin. Breasts, asses, pussies, dicks. Every morning, I get out near my office, and throw up.\n\nAs I ran the elevator, I place myself in the middle. I don’t wanna touch the walls, you can never know what’s on them as well. I almost run to my office, and close the door, hoping to decrease the moaning and the banging every employee does from nine to five. I even bought earmuffs. They’re useless. Everybody’s crazy here. Except me. Working in here is what’s going to drive me crazy.\n\nFinally, the day ends, and I can go back home. But not before having to endure another ride home in the bus, surrounded by bands of baboons furiously fucking whoever they meet. Today, I fear for my life as I see the bus driver taking a young woman on his knees while he continues to drive. If you can call driving hitting a few street lamps and missing by an inch a couple mating on a car parked in a curve. Dizzy, I finally make it to my apartment. I close the door, breathing hard. I hope for a more peaceful evening. It lasts five minutes.\n\nThe neighbours are back from work. I don’t think they have even taken the time to eat their dinner. And they’re back at it. This time, I’m pretty sure she’s got her back on the wall separating our two apartments. The man is taking her so hard, I wonder if the wall is gonna resist. I put some music on, hoping to diminish their cries of ecstasy. “Put it down, will you? We’re trying to fuck!”, the man yells at me. Furious, I hit the wall, only to yell in pain. I put my headphones and go to bed. In a few hours, I’ll finally fall asleep. And tomorrow, they’ll wake me up around four. Again.\n\nMay the spring end soon. Or I die.", "There was a fender bender outside of my house for the third time this week. \n\ngoddamn mating season...it's like clockwork\n\nI didn't even have to look out my window to know that the people involved in the accident were already fucking the shit out of each other right then and there on or in one of their vehicles. \n\nanimals \"Have some damn composure!\" I shouted down at them when the sounds of their incessant boning kept me from falling back to sleep.\n\nNo point in trying to sleep now....I wish I could bleach my ears of all the bullshit I have to listen to every spring. People lose their damn minds as soon as the seasons change and just start having sex with anything and anyone they can stick downstairs. It's disgusting. Yesterday I brought a tuna sandwich to work, and the guy who resides in the cubicle next to me stole it when I went to the bathroom. \n\nWhen I came back, he had his dick stuck between the bread trying to make little baby sandwiches! That fucker is lucky I didn't put sriracha on it -next time I will! Shit like this is so common, I don't know why I bother getting upset anymore. I couldn't even really get mad at the guy who just threw five bucks my way like my sandwich was some cheap whore. I'm a sandwich pimp now! All because people just can't keep it in their pants as soon as the flowers start blooming.\n\nAccident rates go up by like 85%. And not just car accidents, stupid shit, penises caught in all kinds of weird places. Man hole covers, park benches, bicycles, exhaust pipes -any kind of pipe, and even toasters. TOASTERS FOR GOD'S SAKE! And women are just as bad! Don't even get me started on them. People like me, asexuals, are pretty uncommon;and that infuriates me to hell and back. Most of us work as emergancy workers: Firemen, EMTs, cops, doctors, that sort of thing. I've considered getting into that line of work but I'm too devoid of sympathy for it. I've been called selfish by a lot of people as a result. Not that I really give a fuck (mentally and physically speaking) because I'm not responsible for anyone's sexually related shennanigans.\n\nI went into my kitchen. I needed to try and find something somebody wouldn't find fuckable to make for lunch today. I stared into my fridge and sighed. " ]	2
	[WP] Captain Obvious' autobiography	[ "Preface.\n\nThis is a story about me. My name is Captain Obvious. The cover also features this information.\n\nWhat you've really come here for is more information about me. Maybe. People read different things for different reasons.\n\nNow, this is the Preface. This section comes before a series of chapters that describe my life. The Preface does not describe my life, but instead describes the book. It comes before the chapters as a separate section, and is not itself a chapter.\n\nIn the Preface, parts that are commonly included include:\n\n1. Thanking others\n\n2. Telling an anecdote\n\n3. Describing the process of writing the book.\n\n\nI now include those things. I have labeled them 1, 2 and 3. Those labels match the numbers above. That happens to be how I chose the numbers below.\n\n\n1. Thank you to my mother, who birthed me. My father, who inseminated her, allegedly. My friends, who like me. My husband, who is married to me.\n\n\n2. Prior to my promotion, while a Literal Lieutenant, I once read a cookbook cover to cover (i.e. front to back). I enjoyed the constant instructions. I found myself forced to make the recipes as I read the book, and made each one in order. It required purchasing many ingredients. I am aware that this constitutes unusual behavior. This anecdote was a story that suggests that I have unusual behavior. Which is part of my writing style. I write things very literally. I am very literal. That is why I chose to tell this anecdote. In order that you understand how literal I am. \n\n3. I wrote this book on a computer. I did not write it all at once because that would have been uncomfortable. This was for several reasons. Those reasons include a need to pee, eat, poop, move occasionally, and participate in other aspects of my life. I would have needed to do those things while I wrote this book. I can prove that. I type at 87 wpm, and the word count is 84,393, so it took me approximately 970 minutes or 16 hours and 10 minutes of writing. Plus interruptions and initial editing. So it took longer. Thus, I would definitely have needed to pee, for instance. Later my editor and I took turns editing further, but the details of that process are beyond the scope of this Preface. Actually, they are omitted because I am told no one cares. \n\n\nThe book starts now. This is the end of the Preface. This is a book about me, Captain Obvious, written by me, Captain Obvious. Chapter 1 is next.\n", "&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Hi, my name is Captain Obvious, and you can call me Captain Obvious.\n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I was born on my birthday out of a woman who was also my mother. I am currently still alive, and I will remain alive until death, and I will die on my last day of being alive.\n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Rather than let others do it, I chose to write my autobiography myself. My life has consisted of a series of events, some connected some not, some significant others pointless. I have met people, all of whom were human beings, and some of these people were significant to me while others had no impact on my life whatsoever.\n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I fell in love once to a female girl that I loved. She had hair, and eyes, and an epidermis. The girl also had a vagina. At the time of our first encounter at a place in space, she was alive. She breathed using lungs and pumped blood through her body thanks to a heart.\n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Our marriage was exactly one year before our first anniversary and one day before our only honeymoon. We had sex, which, as it turns out, is how babies are made.\n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;When our baby was born (our son was a boy, btw), we were happy. As he grew older, he changed from a baby to a toddler to a child to a youth to an adult. Even though half of him is like me, the other half is like his mother. There can only be two halves in a whole, a person might have once said at one time or another.\n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He joined the army, which is a branch of the military. One day, overseas across the sea, he once died. His first time dying would also be his last. We buried him in the ground, under some dirt. The death of our son made us feel sad.\n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;My only wife, who was also the only mother of my only son, stopped speaking to everyone (and anyone!). Most mornings she rocked in her rocking chair, this chair made to rock back and forth. Right around sunrise, the sun would rise in the morning. She would watch it with her eyes. She did this for 730 sunrises across two years, and then she died until she was dead.\n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Now that I am by myself, I am alone. Sometimes I visit her grave, which is located at the bottom of a gravestone in a graveyard. The gravestone has her name on it along with her birthday and the day she died. If you subtract the first year from the second one, you can figure out her age, but only up to a certain date.\n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I usually sit in the rocking chair now, but if you find that its empty, that means I am not sitting in it. As long as I am alive, I am not dead, and if I am not dead, I am alive. Life has been good.\n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Obviously." ]	2
	[WP] Psychologists are baffled: A new human emotion has been uncovered, one which could explain a lot...	[ "“My name is, Joshua Hooper, I'm recording this video to let you know...To let you understand, we discovered it. Years, and years of research, but we found the final emotion. A new emotion. Shit, I can hear the guards they’re trying to get in. Will you shut up, this is how it ends! No more lies, no more death, the world must never know of this! Sorry, the cam keeps slipping, my hands are sweaty; and well covered in blood. \n\nPaul Ekman, a great man died protecting this information. We don’t have a name for the emotion yet, I feel I should have the honour; as it is going to die with me. This gun has one bullet in it. You, see this emotion, lives in me. There has to be a place, a time, where this emotion can be triggered. It triggered on me, in me! Thus it dies with me. The government want this hidden for one reason, it will cause havoc. They believe it will not end catastrophically. I may be sounding verbose here, but the time the place that triggered this thing for me. \n\nI was afraid, but alive. It was 2014, December 4th. I was drugged and experimented on. I hoped every night I fell asleep, I’d never wake up; but every day I did. They showed me video’s, of my wife being murdered, behind me another video of my son being raped. My mother fucking 3 year old son! They…Oh God what you sick mother fucking! They also gave me noises colours, and replayed memories that made me happy. They cut me, while feeding me. They tried to pleasure me while screaming at me. \n\nThey played voices of motivational speeches; they activated as much emotion as they could. They created as many as they could, and as extreme as they could. So I felt the emotion, it felt outlandish. Like suddenly the universe was burning in my heart, and the flames scorched my throat. They’re nearly here, it’s time goodbye. I name this emotion, I name it indomitable!” \n\n(Quick one before I go bed xD btw BRILLIANT idea, a new emotion. GENIUS!) ", "\"Hey, there's somethi- come and see this.\" Meyer's voice crackled with excitement over the phone, cut off by an anti-climatic click. When Jennis reached the lab, Meyer was hunched tensely over the glowing frame of his monitor - brows scrunched together, mouth agape, his head so close to the screen he looked ready to devour the images on it.\n\nThe images. For the past couple of months, they had been collecting data for their graduate research on the neuroscience of internet behavior. Now an array of multicolored brain scans fanned across the many computers across the lab. Meyer exhaled dramatically, and Jennis realized he had been holding his breath the whole time.\n\n\"Jennis, check this out,\" his eyes were glazed, as if he was in a daze - bracing himself for something huge... But what? Jennis feared the worst: Botched results? Confounding variables? Meyer's hand, slightly trembling, swept across a cluster of scans. This cluster had been highlighted by a rim of red by their software. Outliers. \n\nShit, cursed Jennis silently, extraneous variables.\n\nAs if he could read her mind, Meyer shook his head and gulped nervously. \"No, unanticipated interaction effect.\" He jerked up and he wheeled over to a computer displaying a summary of data. \"Look. This series of brain activation - mainly strong amygdala response with a bunch of other areas -\" His fingers flew over the keyboard with surprising dexterity for someone so jittery.\n \n\"It occurs only during the internet usage trials where they were actively interacting with a large group. Not watching videos, not reading articles, not even Facebook or messaging. LARGE GROUPS. Eh- especially...\" He circled the cursor frantically around a word on the screen: \n\nReddit.\n\nA slow drumming begun at the back of Jennis' head, picking up speed, so loud it crowded out Meyer's eager ramblings - closer and closer to her, like a familiar dream; an overwhelming, descending deja vu. \n\n-\n\n\"It happens when you are connected!\" Meyer sputtered before throwing a furtive glance at Jennis for assurance. Jennis kept her eyes resolutely on the professor, whose head was rested against his unmoving, steepled fingers. She needs to convince him. \"An emotion. We believe it's an emotion triggered by connectedness, with the effect of feeling both powerful as a community and aware of one's own insignificance.\"\n\nThe professor released a long, monotonous hum. Jennis spread a sheath of paper across the sleek glass-topped desk. \"Here, we did a rigorous follow-up survey. The findings were significant: a near perfect concordance between participants using the emotionality scale we newly designed.\" \n\nFinally, as if roused awake from a century of deep freeze, the professor reached up and adjusted his glasses. He cleared his throat, an ancient rasping that made the two students jump. \"So?\" \n\nMeyer's upper body lunged suddenly forward, the whites of his eyes a clear circle around fervent pupils. \"So? So this explains everything! Why we feel the need to comment, to participate, or simply to know! On every globally connected platform! It's a compulsion! And most of all! Most of -\" Jennis placed a firm hand against Meyer's arm. \n\n\"We have found that this is an emotion born of technological interconnectivity.\" she took a steadying breath. \"It is induced by modern developments. Unlike all other ancestral emotions which are innate, this likely emerged in our lifetime. This by itself is an evolutionary miracle.\"\n\nThe professor now teetered on his seat, still except for his eyes which scanned rapidly across the papers. \"Bring me to your lab,\" he finally whispered.\n", "You know when you were a kid and your parents gave you a sip from their wine glass at the dinner table? You felt so special and grown up, and you knew that alcohol was just for adults and that it made them act way sillier than kids ever were, so you whirled around the room and gabbled at them for a full half hour. And maybe even later on, when you and your spotty mates were wheedling alcopops and supermarket lager from dad in order to feel suitably kitted out for a night's worth of what you called band practice... well maybe once or twice you'd got caught out by someone's prudish mother and gotten all buzzed off of some non-alcoholic beer?\n\nIt turns out you were actually drunk, both those times. Drunk, scientists have recently revealed, is an emotion.\n\nNow, I'm not saying that there isn't some chemical reaction that happens when real, honest-to-goodness alcohol is imbibed, but it ain't as causal as has previously been made out. Turns out people naturally seek out alcohol when they feel like they're about to become drunk. Ever hung out with those straight-edge folks? Noticed how nutty they can get? They're drunk, alright - drunk as fuck! They just trained themselves not to need alcohol to get there.\n\nWeirdest thing about this new discovery? Fucking airline stewards had been keeping it a secret for years. That foul-smelling swill they call red wine and serve you buckets of on your standard long haul, the one that's the only thing that'll really help you forget that you're in a metal tube thousands of feet above the ground? Completely non-alcoholic. Not a drop of alcohol has flown since planes were invented!\n\nChew on that one, eh?" ]	3
What does it look like? How did you get it? What does it do? What do you use t for?	[WP] You found an unusual looking penny in your pocket...	[ "He had found it in his pocket, a polished copper disc with a dent in its side, looking \nfor all the world like a glitzy pacman. \n \nHow queer, he thought. \n \nJack inspected it for a moment, turned it over once in his hand. He tossed it into the hat of the funny homeless man who always smelled like sriracha sauce, along with ten dollars and promptly forgot about it.\n\nA week later, Jack was declared missing. His parents and girlfriend, hysterical, had mounted several missing posters around the area. \nToo bad that the police were more interested in the disappearances of massive numbers of people. \n\n----------------------------------- \n \nThe head of the police department was having a trying day. The shifts were f----g long, people had been especially hysterical and annoying, and he desperately needed a coffee. He reached into his pocket, loose change spilling around his fingers, and picked up a penny.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "\"Kevin?\" Called the cute Barista.\n\nStill sleepy, Kevin picked up his book bag and shuffled over to the counter to pick up his drink. \n\n\"That'll be $4.84\" She said with a bouncy inflection, in spite of how early it was.\n\nKevin gave her an appreciative smile and passed her a $20 bill. While she worked the register, he took a quick sip of his caffeine lifeline. His head began to clear when she spoke again.\n\n\"$15.16 is you change. Have a great morning!\" She chirped.\n\nKevin stepped out of line and took a seat. He was just about to slid the coins into his pocket when one of them caught his eye. The penny, shining brightly, had the older \"[Wheat](\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_cent#mediaviewer/File:Lincoln_Cent_Wheat_Reverse.png)\" design on the back.\n\nKevin's exact thoughts were \"Oh, cool.\"\n\nKevin wasn't a collector, but he knew his dad was. After the divorce, his dad had gotten into it as a way to channel his grief. It certainly was a better hobby than the heavy drinking his dad used to do. He picked up the penny again, tilting it back and forth, making it shine underneath the fluorescent glow of the coffee shop lights. I'm sure dad would like to have this, Kevin thought. But first, he had to make it to Anthropology 102.\n\nAfterwards, Kevin drove over to his dad's house. Everything still looks the same, Kevin noted, pulling into the driveway. Letting himself in, he called for his dad, but got no response. No response, except for the frantically wagging tail of Goldie, the Golden Retriever. She bounded over and sniffed him, giving an eager \"Woof!\" as greeting.\n\n\"Hey girl!\" He said. It had been a long time since they had last seen each other.\n\nHe stood in the middle of the living room petting her and sighed. He had so many happy memories in this house. He could picture his mother standing in the kitchen, pulling out a tray of brownies from the... He winced, and closed his eyes. He didn't want to go there again.\n\nTurning around, he cast his gaze up the stairs, where his old room was. He knew everything would be just the same as he left it. His collection of Star Wars figures collecting dust on the bookcase. His record player and vinyl collection on a table beneath the window. But more than just the stuff, it's where a lot of good memories were made, he thought. It's where he had spent long afternoons playing LEGOS as a kid. It's where he had his first kiss with Chelsea Whitaker is the 8th grade...\n\nIt's also where he hid when his parent's screamed at each other. It's where he was when his mom slammed the door for the last time and drove away, Kevin recalled. He had waited for a long time before emerging from his room, shell shocked. Downstairs he found his father in a similar state. Shell shocked Kevin thought. That's how we lived for the next two years. Me and Dad, just drinking and denying...\n\nKevin had been angry for a very long time at his father. He would lash out at his dad when they'd been drinking, blaming him for everything that had happened. His dad wasn't to blame for going to pieces after mom had left. Kevin knew that know. But it still hurt that when he needed his father the most, he wasn't there. I was just a kid. 16. With no mom or dad Kevin thought, the tears starting to form at the edges of his eyes.\n\nHe walked over to the kitchen and set the penny down on the counter. He started to write a note that said:\n\n\"Found this today. Thought you might like it.\"\n\nHe struggled for a long while, before signing \"Love, Kevin.\"\n\n" ]	2
	[WP]For the last three hundred years everyone has been afraid of the beast that's in the dark, one night you go into the dark.	[ "Muri was in his forge crafting a new set of horse shoes when his apprentice came running in. \n\n“Muri! Muri!”\n\nMuri paused his hammering, already knowing what he was about to say. It always started like this. He and everyone else in the village had woken up this morning with a feeling as if they had swallowed a morsel or arsenic. Someone had checked the low field. And then someone else had sent word. It was as familiar as it was upsetting. The apprentice barely broke a whisper. As if saying her name would bring The Eyes upon him.\n\n“Senzi is awake.” \n\n“Clean up your area and then tell the others. I will meet you there shortly.”, he told him without looking back.\n\nMuri doused his fire and began to organize his things. If his apprentice had to take over, if The Eyes came upon him, he would have to have everything in his forge easily accessible for him to take over as the town’s new blacksmith. He worried a little about that happening. The apprentice wasn’t very good. There would more than a few cracked rifles and horses with limps from a bad shoe. Pulling off his heavy gloves, he stared at what had been left on the far table. A handful of daisies wrapped in blue lace laid in contrast to the worn steel and black soot in the forge. The yellow faces of the flowers appeared to inspect the area and find it to their liking. It was more beautiful because it didn’t belong. Muri began to worry more.\n\nWalking down to the low field Muri looked around at all of the towns people. Everyone dressed as if they were going to church. Muri had his long hair slicked back. His faded white shirt and pleated pants barely passed as church-worthy attire. He walked slowly with everyone else as they started to form a single file line through through the narrow walkway that was the only way to enter Senzi’s Berth, where she lived. Muri looked around, trying to take count of everyone who had come so far, trying to make sure that no grown man had run. No one would be that foolish today. Mothers and Father’s whispered stories to their children of the cowards who ran when Senzi called, and the empty husks of walking bodies that always came back; their eyes cloudy and grey. Muri looked for Loni. He couldn’t make her out in the crowd, almost everyones’ heads were down. So Muri held his breath as he fell in line and walked in to see Senzi; as if the air held more of the arsenic that beset his belly. \n\nSenzi had come to them almost four generations ago. There were conflicting accounts about how she was discovered. Some say that a farmer, chasing after a pig that had escaped, found her. Others told stories about a priest that went to pray in the low fields went missing for a few days only to come back to the town completely naked, with eyes like rain clouds, chasing a woman with a sickle. Regardless of how she was found the stories of what she did were always the same. \nAlthough everyone referred to Senzi as a person she was anything but. Muri remembered the first time he saw her as a little boy. She was a floating pitch black circle the width of a grown man. Unlike a wheel or a ball that exists in all dimensions she was always appeared flat no matter what angle you stood to look at her. The edges around the black circle distorted the people and the forest behind like a magnifying glass. Senzi’s black was more than an empty black. If you stared too long you felt like you were falling down a cold well without a bottom. She was always singing. You could not hear it until you entered Senzi’s Berth but it hit you immediately. It was the sound of an old, dying woman that was slowly trying to sing an off-key, oily lullaby and laugh at the same time. You did not hear it with your ears. It came through your chest and made its way up to the base of your neck and sat there. Muri remembered trying to cover his ears at first and then quickly realizing that it did no good. \n\nBelow Senzi was a perfect circle of dead ground about the width of two grown men. After that the lush green grass of spring immediately reappeared. The townspeople called it Mad Ground. It was known that if Mad Ground found its way beneath your boots it would take from your all of your memories and drive you mad before three steps were taken. The year Jacob The Coward ran away after being chosen Muri remembered watching what Mad Ground could do. It was more than just a crop killer. He had seen one cow walk over to another and start eating raw flesh from it’s hind quarter as the other stood still; perfectly happy to oblige. He saw his neighbor’s ranch hand pull out two knives and jam one into each of his thighs. After which he looked at Muri with eyes that were no longer his and crossed his arms as if to say “Isn’t that something?”. He had tried to save a mother and her infant child but the Mad Ground had sped up and the grass wilted below her feet before he could reach them. The mother’s eyes became chalky and she let out a single tear as she began to squeeze her child. The child cried for a minute before Muri heard the faint crack of the child’s ribs and then quiet from both of them. But today, everyone had made it. No one was going to allow that to happen again. Muri saw the grass beginning to die around the edges. Mad Ground was very slowly expanding. It was starting again and it would pick up speed if they didn’t get this over with soon. Every two to five years Senzi would call them in. The Eyes would pick a grown man and that man was to walk through the Mad Ground and into the black. Once that was done the Mad Ground retreated and no one heard from Senzi for a while.\n\nAfter everyone had gathered around Senzi the town priest yelled out, “We are here!” in a very non-ceremonial fashion. The Eyes appeared inside of the black. The most terrifying part to Muri was that their expression was open and sad. It would be easier if they had malice or even a malicious glee, but they were open and sorrowful every time. Almost on the verge of tears. Her song, resting just below his brain, intensified as the sad eyes circled around the crowd looking. One of the few times that he and Loni had talked about The Eyes Loni had said she thought that they were sad because the eyes were not that of Senzi, but that of a messenger that did not wish to carry out his duty. She felt like The Eyes wanted to help us but it couldn’t for some reason. Whether it was true or not it was a nice thought and something he tried to hold on to as The Eyes slowly circled once, then twice, and finally stopped. Senzi’s song never made any real sense but it had a way of hinting, letting you know what she wanted. This time it was different. She had picked and she wanted the female in the blue dress. Muri quickly looked up to see Loni was the chosen one. Blue lace and daisies decorated her hair. She was as beautiful as he had ever seen. Chosen men before her had cried and even wet themselves. Loni simply hugged her weeping mother and father to console them. She kicked off both of her shoes and stared directly at Senzi as she began walking forward.\n\n“No!”, shouted Muri.\n\nIt came out of Muri’s mouth before he had realized he said it. Loni stopped. He had broken the silence. The love in her smile as she found his gaze was unmistakable. \n\n“It’s not you! It supposed to be a man! That’s the way it has always been!”, Muri shouted again.\n\nThe priest tried to intervene. \n\n“Silence! Senzi has chosen. Only one has to go into the black today. Do not make it more!”\n\nLoni gave Muri a look that he knew all too well. It was one of those “I know how you feel. And I love you. But I am going to do what I want.”. She walked forward and as soon as her foot hit Mad Ground, as was tradition, she sprinted as fast as she could before it took her eyes and her memories. If she didn’t make it, another was to be selected. Without thinking, Muri ran as fast as could to her. Others behind him yelled in protest but he had already set his path. Loni was fast, but not as fast as he was. He was on Mad Ground quickly. He felt the mental deterioration immediately but he told himself to focus only on Loni. The rest of the world could tear apart, just don’t stop going after Loni. Senzi’s song came into focus on the Mad Ground. It became much prettier. It had something to do with another village or maybe another world, and a sun that had come to the end of it’s life. Muri had never heard anything so beautiful in his life. He refocused his mind on Loni as he kept running. She was almost to the black, and so was he. Just before they both leapt into the abyss he was able to touch her hand. She glanced back. The rain clouds were just outside of the deep blue of her eyes and closing in. He was able to get out “I LOV..” before the black washed over them and all they were left with was Senzi’s song. It was like a chorus of angels offering hope as they lost themselves in the black.\n", "The hero girded on his trusty sword as he set out to face the Beast in the Dark. Girded. That’s something he’d heard before so he was pretty sure it was an important part when one was setting out on a quest. Mind you, he didn’t really understand what that meant, it seemed like he was just strapping the thing on like he always did but this was his first quest after all and the Beast was no trifling monster, no run of the mill Black Forest inhabitant. This was wouldn’t be like clearing out a measly nest of evil dwarves, or chasing off some old conjuring hag from her rickety shack. A little bravado and show of strength was all that lot needed. Just a little sword brandishing and maybe a charge in their direction was all it would take to scare them away and send them scurrying off to parts unkown. Or so he’d heard. The hero had never tried it himself, this being his first adventure and all. No small potatoes for him, he was going after big game right out of the gate and the Beast was as big as they come, so best not skip the girding. Always important to observe the proper steps, it wouldn’t do to make a mess of things his first time.\n\nThe Beast in the Dark. A nameless shapeless terror, never seen by the eyes of men but always lurking, waiting to devour the unwary traveler, or hapless homestead. A thing of mist and nightmare. At least that’s what people said. He’d never actually talked to a survivor of the Beast’s attacks, if one wanted to get technical no one had, it seemed. Always a distant cousin who’d got the story second hand in the tavern, from a passing minstrel, during a night of heavy drinking. But the devastation was real enough, people gone missing, villagers dispossessed, to terrified to return to homes laid waste by the fearsome creature. And as far as the hero was concerned if the Beast could knock over a barn then it must have a body to do the knocking with. A body which could be slain with one thrust from his properly girded sword, and that was good enough for him.\n", "Since I was a child, I had heard the stories from my parents and village elders. The island held many secrets. The most infamous was, of course, the beast. It had been the greatest source of fear for hundreds of years. Since the first people on the island landed here. Apparently they were rescued, but my ancestors found evidence that people had been there. On the far eastern side of the island, a wooden fort stood preserved. Only the elders of the village were allowed there on special occasions. Apparently it held the key to keeping us all safe from the beast, and nobody else was allowed to see it. Apparently it could corrupt those who weren't strong enough to handle it's power. I disagreed. If any old man could handle this thing, I knew I could.\n\nOne day I decided I'd go there myself. I didn't need anyone telling me what I could and couldn't do. I put together a knapsack filled with a little travelling equipment and said goodnight to my father. \"Goodnight, Jack.\" He said as I went into my room on the west side of our hut. \n\nTwo hours later, I decided that everyone had to be asleep, and I began the trek across the island to the place they called Castle Rock, on the eastern edge of the island.\n\nThat night, the jungle was unusually quiet, which stirred my nerves even more than they already were. The closer I got, the more fear built up in my chest. \"You have to go back, this isn't safe\" I thought, but I pressed on, refusing to give in.\n\nAfter an hour-long hike, I emerged form the dense jungle. The moon shined bright on Castle Rock, and I could make out the old watchtowers left from the first inhabitants. I approached the remains as the sea swelled underneath me. I could hear the waves crashing against the rocky cliffs of the island, and each one seemed to be closer to catching me. I began to jog, feeling as though there was someone in the jungle. Watching me. I felt sick with guilt, but I knew that I needed to see for myself what had protected me from the beast on my way here. \n\nThen it occurred to me. There couldn't be a beast! It was a lie the entire time! I had crossed the jungle, and nothing had happened to me! the adults just didn't want us kids sneaking out at night.\n\nI approached the gate with my head held high. A smile on my face, knowing that I had been the first to figure out the trick. Boy, I couldn't wait to tell the boys back home all about this. Then, I opened the gate.\n\nThere wasn't much in the way of decor. For a seemingly holy place, I would have expected more than a dirt floor with nothing on it. Save for a lone stick in the center of the area with the skull of what looked to be a boar impaled on the top of it. \n\nAll of the sudden, a chill ran over me. Everything went completely silent. Then, it started talking.\n\n\"Jack, you silly boy. Don't you know? There is no real beast. It's only inside of you.\" \n\nMy head was spinning. How was it talking to me? What was it?!\n\n\"It's nothing personal Jack, but you must know... You are the beast, and you need to show all of them, all those liars, what they deserve for lying to you all those years.\" \n\nI finally began to understand. They had lied. How dare they?! HOW COULD THEY?!?!?!\n\n\"You know what you have to do, Jack. Don't you\"\n\n\"Yes\" I replied in a dark tone. \n\n\"Then go\", the boar said.\n\nSuddenly, and inhuman rage washed over me. My desire to kill overwhelmed me. I felt cheated, lied to, deceived. \n\n\"One more thing Jack. You were named after a great man. This is your destiny.\"\n\nI let out a cry louder than anything that I'd ever heard.\n\nI had become the beast.", "It was with a heavy heart and a swelling of terror that, with my lantern in one hand and my trusted sword on my hip, so given to me by my forefathers, I slowly descended into the cold and black depths of the cave. Elanor, my wife and lover of the last thirteen years, had vanished whilst she had been out to the fields, searching for flowers that would be used for our child's burial. It was because of this reason that I suspected, at first, that she was simply lost in sorrow, wandering the fields until finally she was ready to return home. \n\nAlas, with the sound of bare-feet slapping against dirt, a message from Thomas, the messenger that ran from Belford to Jash had alerted me that the monster within, the one I was now descending to expose, had been heard from below. Any further doubt therein had been dashed against the cold rocks that surrounded the cave's entrance in a foreboding and intimidating structure, jagged and rough, as if awaiting any fool to dare its entrance. \n\nThe passage I descended seemed almost too convenient; the path before was sloped, leading further into the mountain which separated Belford and Jash. Where the slope became too steep, there appeared what seemed to be a staircase made of naturally-formed rock. The goings were easy, and with a sense of dread in the depths of my heart, I was what seemed to be an hour into my adventure when a foetid aroma assaulted my senses, causing me to reel back in sudden nausea, my free hand resting against the rough surface of the stone that surrounded me. \n\nIt was, unmistakably, the scent of death. Many deaths. The section of the passage I was in, much like the previous portions, was circular, with stone surrounding me closely on all sides. Had I not been accustomed to enclosed spaces--from my brief stint working with coal--I would have quickly found myself becoming claustrophobic, the walls themselves seeming to breath in and out, yet closing in slowly with every sigh. And it was because of this encircled tomb that I found myself beginning to panic. The smell was so intrusive, that, even while holding my breath it continued to invade my senses, forcing my eyes to water and my knees to grow weak. \n\nAnd from the seemingly never-ending darkness that stretched out before me, I heard a sound. It was a rattle, like that of two stones falling against each other. I froze, my heart within me beating faster and my breathing quickening. The sudden thought intruded violently into my mind that I had, indeed, come down here to fight the unseen monster that dwelt within the cave, and that this very thing I would have to do, regardless of fear of death or mutilation or whatever the monster did to its captives. \n\nAgain, something rattled in the darkness, and again the hair on my body stood on end, every sense alert, the foetid smell of death almost forgotten. I was standing still now, with the lantern and sword in hand, the small space in which I was in brightly lit by the lantern - now half-full. Behind me, the darkness had crept back from whence I had come, and on either side of me, the gelid stone seemed to close in on me, creating my tomb, and in front of me the darkness, holding the unknown monster that had haunted this mountain for the last three hundred years, lay in wait. \n\nWith caution and no uncertainty of my own fate, I began to move forward, lantern stretched out far in front of me. No longer did the lantern seem to shine so bright, the light seemingly suffocated by the encroaching, relentless dark that filled this entire mountain. Waiting below, countless horrors assaulted my imagination; hideous, tenebrous creatures that lay in the darkest recesses of Earth, waiting for such man as me to venture into their lair. Then, without warning, the sound of rushing feet filled the small passage. \n\nWith a great cry of terror I flung the lantern forward so as to illuminate the charging demon and raised my sword to impale the indescribable monster when, as time seemingly stopped altogether, the lantern rolled down the long passage, jumping and spinning as it descended into the mountain, illuminating as it went the glittering walls of the tunnel. And as it fell it shone its light on countless bones, the paled and dry skulls of unmentionable creatures and shapes filling the floor underneath its flashing light. Without warning and with a loud shatter, the lantern broke and the light, the guiding light that had been with me on all my journey, died. And within me all of my fear arose, for at the last moment, just before the light of the lantern had vanished, I saw the black, glittering eyes of some beast, creature, or monster, staring back at me. ", "She waved goodbye and walked over to the next guy she saw sitting alone, she didn't care about me much.. She was there to dance and get paid!\nI stumbled out of the brightly lit strip club and into the streets...\nIt was 02:44am and it looked like 14:44PM... The streets were brightly lit... as usual! \nHighbeams blasting on all the vehicles in the road... Street lamps seemed even more blinding especially after all that alcohol I consumed! Just imagine The brightness of Las Vegas multiplied by 10! Thats how the world was, there light was beaming into the skies in every major city in the world! They say Light pollution wasn't so bad about 300 years ago but now looking up into the sky you couldn't see a star in sight! Just a orangey fog created by the heaps and heaps of Light pollution emanating from the cities into the atmosphere! \nIt was how things were... It was life and everyone just made do and continued their lives.\nI reached in my pocket to find my UV goggles, which I couldn't find at all.... I thought fuck it, I only live down the road from here. I'll be home in a jiffy.\nI put my hood up, head down, and staggered down the brightly lit streets! \nI couldn't really see where I was going but I knew which direction I was going in.. Kinda. \nI could feel the bright lights penetrating through my hoodie! I dont know, maybe its the alcohol messing with my senses but I thought fuck this headache! I began to pick up speed and I started jogging down the road, I thought I could handle it but I was clearly struggling.\nAs I made my way home I passed people looking at me funnily and wondering why I wasn't wearing my goggles. Everyone had em on. Nobody could stand the brightness without em... In the back of my head I was telling myself that we humans shouldn't be in this much brightness all the time it's unhealthy and its unatural.. But obviously we needed the light... Darkness was almost eradicated from the whole planet... Nobody can even remember the term \"turn out the lights\". Saying that out loud would get you in serious shit nowadays, but being in darkness would turn out even worse.\n\nFor my 28 years on this planet I have always been curious about the beast that lurks in the darkness. Every now and again we would get a news report proclaiming more missing folk who ventured into the darkness and did not return... Nobody knew where they went.\nAll we knew was that a beast would take whomever would be brave enough to enter the darkness, or turn out a light. \nFor hundreds of years now, scientists have been trying to understand this phenomenom but have barely made progress.. All they know is that this beast cannot stand any light. It just disappears instantly, but if there is darkness elsewhere it would emerge! It's like it was in every dark place at once. Was there more than one? Who knows? Nobody does... Thats the norm today! Stay in the light and you will stay alive!\n\nI was nearly home and noticed a flickering light in a window in the distance... Sometimes just when you think it can't be... It actually is! And it fucking was... The window with the flickering light was my house!\nI somehow sobered up instantly from the current situation! I ran!\n\nGot up to my house and a few curios people were outside looking in. There was no beast roaring just this faint flicker that kept occuring... I stopped outside panting for my life. My neighbour came up to me \"Dude what the fuck man!? Did you fuck with the lights? This shit is not safe!\".. \n\"Bro I have no idea I am as confused as you are, I haven't tampered with shit! I don't fucking know how or why this is happening to me\" I stated with a hint of alcohol running with my emotions but quickly got a hold of myself and went up a little closer to my window..\n\n\"Im calling the cops! What if this shit spreads to the rest of our houses!?\" Shouted my neighbour who was getting very erratic! He was making everyone around that little more nervous... More people came along and was peering in... Seeing that quick flicker of darkness was very intriguing! and Scary! \nSome were saying they could see the beast.. But they were confusing it with my furniture... I know my house and all the things inside... They didn't!\nI just wanted to get home and go to sleep! I wasn't prepared for all this right now... I don't think I'd ever be prepared for this! \n\nAlthough I sobered up just a tad from seeing this all happening I stil did feel a little woozy and Stupidly... Oh so utterly stupidly I felt a little brave... 99.9% of me was scared shitless.... But that .1% was calling me! It was telling me to just fucking do it! The more I dwelled upon this while staring into my house the more that .1% of bravery started to increase!\n\nI peered a little more into my house looking in through the living room into the corridor and bedroom trying to see if I could make anything out that was unusual. There was nothing... Just silence and flickering... Even in that brief pinch of darkness the house looked the same! I was getting more agitated, But I did not show it!\n\nIt is my house and I live there and I cant have no fucking beast lurking about! I knew what was coming and I knew that if I started walking to the door I'd get pulled back by everyone... I tapped my pocket and felt my mini flashlight on my keys... I slipped my hand in and arranged my fingers to prepare to pull out my door keys into my fingers as fast as I could!\n\nI looked toward the path leading to my door which was obstructed by people.. I could hear sirens creeping up! The police were just about here.. And that was my Green light!\n\nI FUCKING bolted it to the door, like my name was Speedy Gonzales... No1 was prepared... my neighbour ran after me tried to stop me but quickly slowed down and was shittin it! \n\"Dude dont go in there man! You wont come back!\" he said!\nConfidently and angrily I yelled \"THis is my fucking house and no bullshit beast is fucking with me!\"\nI scrambled my keys at the keyhole and forced them in... Police came running but I got inside and locked the door!... \n\n\"Sir open up! Its not safe to be in there! \n\nThe feds were right but I had enough of waiting! \nI made it this far!\nWhat the fuck was I thinking!... I dont know.... The rest of the house was lit the living room was right in front of me! The light continued to flicker... I grabbed my baseball bat which was near the front door.. I always kept weapons around the house here n there for my safety from burglars... But not from Dark Man eating beasts!... I was amazed at my own bravery but as I stared into the room my heart was racing like a Jet engine! I stepped closer and closer.. The feds at the front door continued to bang and shout... Sirens were going off.. People outside were going crazy... I tried yelling into the room to try and scare off the beast which I had know idea if it was even in there!.. But nothing.. It just continued to flicker... I yelled some more and slammed the bat on my phone table.. Continuing to try demonstrate dominance! But who was I fucking with.. That beast ain't scared of me!\n\nI stared at the room for a while trying to think of a plan.. After being in there for a while I kind of relaxed a little bit.. I wasn't getting any signs of danger... I started looking on the bright side and being optimistic... Maybe its just a lightbulb that needs changing... But no1 needed to change light bulbs in years.. They were self sufficient!And then I heard a rumbling noise coming from all around my house.. I had no idea where it was originating from but it was getting louder and then suddenly KZZZT an electric buss was heard and the light in the living room stayed on.. THe noise outside was gone. No police noise, no neighbours, no sirens, no screaming, no door banging, nothing! I stood there looking around trying to make sense of things.... Why was it so silent? I had no idea.. The living room looked the same.. No mess.. I was very tidy... Everything was just as I left it... There was no buzzing or flickering from the light! It was just normal..... So after realising that, I thought lemme just step into the living room check it out then go to the window and give everyone the thumbs up... I held on to the bat in one hand and just strolled toward the living room door... I stopped for a moment to reconsider.. Shrugged my shoulders.. Shifted my weight to my left and raised my right foot and stepped in... Cool.... I then shifted my weight to my right so I could raise my left foot into the room. I felt like I was walking for the first time but that was the physics of how all people walked... But as my left foot moved into the room THE LIGHTS WENT OUT.. Pitch black.. I instantly turned around to run but there was no doorway.. Just pure darkness... No crack of light... I could make out anything... It was like I stepped through a portal of somesort... A vast nothingness with me in the middle... I was panicking and running in all directions in this dark and silent space swinging the bat til I had no energy left... I was erraticly trying to look around and grab something familiar, but to no avail! .. It was pitch black... I started to feel woozy.. I suddenly felt the floor disappearing from my feet or was gravity giving way, or was it the alcohol.. Too much confusion for my mind... I fell down to the floor and could feel myself blacking out...", "I had heard the rumblings, the groans... the incessant high-pitched squeal like an electric drill scraping along sheet metal. These noises carried weight; they had been spoken of in legend for centuries. Maybe longer.\n\n\nI wouldn't be able to see past an arm's reach, save for the lantern tied to my belt. A dull orange glow illuminated a ten foot or so radius around me. Not enough to get a lay of the land, sure, but it was something. And at this point, I'd take anything I could get.\n\n\nThis can't actually be true. Sure, people get lost in the forest. It happens. People vanish. And a forest seems as good a place as any. But could they have actually been... taken? I ventured into the dark knowing I wouldn't find anything. Worst case, I'd see some rotting corpses that gave birth to the legend. Now I wasn't so sure. And fuck, was I scared.\n\n\n\"Hello!?\" I yelled, not knowing to why I was calling besides sheer desperation. If the beast was real, I was ringing the dinner bell. Suddenly, the squeal came to a slow, chugging stop. The groans had turned into whispers. The forest seemed to stand still.\n\n\nI didn't move. The silence did more to shake my resolve more than any noise could. I felt alone and vulnerable. My lantern felt like a target for some unseen predator. Why the hell did I yell out like that? It heard me, it heard me. It knows where I am. It's watching me and it's toying with me. I have to move. Run. I have to run.\n\n\nThe only thing outpacing my legs were the uneven beats in my chest. My lantern violently rocked back and forth against my hip, heat the only sensation against my body that had gone numb with fear. Branches cracked under my feet as I sprinted between the trees. My eyes darted left and right, trying to make sense of where I was and where I was going.\n\n\nI stopped. My eyes couldn't make sense of what they were seeing.\n\n\n\"What the...\"\n\n\nI tried to raise my hand in caution as I walked forward, but the dead sprint had taken it out of me. My feet limply dragged across the earth as I shuffled forward in disbelief. I came to a clearing, illuminated by a well-lit campfire.\n\n\nThere they were. The victims of the beast, lost in the dark so long ago... just sitting there. Looking up at me. A haggard man, bearded and slender, stood up from stoking the fire. Softly, he spoke.\n\n\n\"Another abandoned. What's your name, boy?\"\n\n\nAbandoned?\n\n\n\"Uh... I'm Henry. Henry Clement. I don't... you're all...\"\n\n\nI couldn't finish my thoughts. These were living pictures of fathers' missing sons, mothers lost to the dark. I'd seen these faces for years, and took for granted that I would only see them in the pages of a scrapbook.\n\n\n\"You must recognize us. We are the beast's eviscerated, are we not?\"\n\nHis voice was creaky and weak. I strained to hear him over the soft crackle of the fire. I shook my head violently. A grin crept out of the man's mouth.\n\n\n\"Boy, we're alive. And we've got more in common than you could imagine,\" he said, as he turned his back to me.\n\n\nSeeing the living dead put my mind in such a trance that I hadn't cared to take a look at my surroundings. He turned to a massive, makeshift gate made of logs and string. It was at least twenty feet high. The man raised his hands to his mouth and yelled.\n\n\n\"We've found another Abandoned!\"\n\n\nNo one called back. An audible click could be heard. The giant doors slowly swung open. The man smiled at me, and motioned me forward. We walked silently through the gate. That was the night I became one of the Abandoned.\n\n\n---------------\nEDIT: Formatting." ]	6
	[WP] You were blinded when you were a child, and were unable to see until you had a surgery 10 years later. You realize that your father looks completely different now, and not because of aging.	[ "The song was just a song. A stupid jingle he thought up. I mean, to take it seriously, to think it might advocate a sort of truth, would be admitting total insanity or gullibility--either way I'd be an idiot, yeah? Still, I enjoyed it. Sometimes it was a swing, speakeasy kinda melody. When Pearl Jam was big, it was Eddie Vedder for weeks. After watching Amadeus one night, that rest of that weekend was like living with the German Mephisto, dark and foreboding arpeggios reaching out seemingly from every corner of my darkness. But it was funny, you know? Dad sort of funny, but funny. So for me to think that, yes, my father is a lizard, was ridiculous. Like glitter on a cold sore, it just didn't make sense. But then, one day...\n\n\"I'm a lizard, I'm a lizard...I'm a lizard! I'm a lizard, scaly, scaly, scaly lizard. A tongue for two, for me and you, I'm a lizard, I'm a lizard, I'm a lizard!\"\n\nI heard my Dad singing through the kitchen, I guess sort of tap dancing along, the clack-clack of his song ringing off the linoleum. \n\nThis was about a week after the surgery, and my bandages were itching like crazy. \n\n\"Dad\", I moaned, wishing I had brillow pads for fingers. I carefully rubbed on the bandages over my eyes. \"Not today. Please? I can't take it, especially with this goddamn itching.\"\n\n\"Don't itch them\", he sternly called out from the kitchen. \"They come off tomorrow. You only have one more day.\"\n\n\"Oh c'mon! What's the difference that twenty hours'll make? I'm going insane, Dad.\"\n\nI heard the cabinet smash against the wall. Hell, I could even hear his breathing from the T.V. room. \n\n\"I said, 'Don't'! You understand? Do. Not. Take your bandages off.\"\n\n\"Jeez, alright, alright.\" I thought he was in a mood. I mean, sometimes it would just flip on with him like that. \"I won't. Okay? Calm down.\"\n\n\"It's just--you have to be careful. The surgery was very expensive, okay? It's a big step--I just want to make sure everything is right.\" \n\nHe went back to humming his jingle. I heard him seconds later start to rummage around in the fridge. I took that as my cue to say, 'fuck it', and rip the bandages from my face. Twenty hours? Yeah, no thanks.\n\nAt first it hurt. I remembered the feeling. It was exactly like when I first got blind. When that loose nail snagged my eye, it burned. Sand and glass, acid and fire; all that. And it felt exactly like that. I guess it was poetic. Or ironic--I don't know, I was never good at that stuff. Anyway, I was floored. Light flooded my eyes, like blood to gauze, soaking everything in white. \n\n If it could, my skin would have jumped up and ran out the door. It was exhilarating. And still, I could hear my father humming his stupid lizard song. I was surprised at how well I could see. Experimental surgery, new drugs and therapy, technologically assisted, it all seemed to have paid off in a comic book sort of way. I mean, it was immediate. Shapes, colors, contours--everything was clearly defined (well, fuzzy at first, but that went away soon enough). It took me only a few seconds to go from Magoo to Eagle--I mean, I gotta say, it was money well spent.\n\nAnd then...\n\nAs I was squinting, taking in the absolute beauty that was the color orange and how amazing rectangles looked, I could see, barely (depth was still wonky), something...standing in front of the fridge, whistling a stupid jingle.\n\nI thought maybe I had screwed it up. Maybe twenty hours was actually necessary. Because, there, whistling that idiotic song, extracting all the elements for a perfect sandwich from the fridge, was a six-foot tall, green tailed and scaled: lizard. I guess it could have been a dinosaur, but it looked like what I remembered a lizard looking like, not a T-Rex, or whatever. Whistling. Humming. Singing. Making a goddamn sandwhich.\n\n\"I'm a lizard, I'm a lizard...I'm a lizard! I'm a lizard, scaly, scaly, scaly lizard. A tongue for two, for me and you, I'm a lizard, I'm a lizard, I'm a lizard!\" \n\nThis time it was mariachi style.\n\n\"D-Dad?\" I eked out.\n\n\"Hey, I'm making lunch, buddy. You want a sandwich?\" He asked that last part just as he turned to me, gawking at him from the couch in the T.V. room. He held a knife in his...claw? Hand? I--It was kind of both. He hand some ham in the other. His jaw loosened, a long gray and pink tongue slithering out over the side of his mouth. He was also...wheezing? I don't know--I guess it was breathing? I guess that's what a lizard his size would sound like when flabbergasted, like I just caught him cheating on Mom.\n\n\"W-what--\" he stammered, slightly oscillating in place. I realized then the clacking on the kitchen floor was from the nails of his--claws, I guess--against it. They burst out of his Nike's like he meant for them to look like that. Like, c'mon, Dad. \"H--C-Can you...see? Right now? Me?\"\n\n\"Uh\", I stalled, figuring out how to put it. \"A little bit, yeah, Dad.\"\n\n\"Oh\", he sulked. That's when I saw his tail swipe back and forth from behind him. He was still and didn't say anything. \n\n\"Well...I mean, I guess the good news is the surgery was successful. Yeah?\", I tried to play off.\n\n\"Right...\" he quietly hissed. But I think it was like... a shameful hiss. Or maybe a submissive one? To be honest, it was a bit hard to tell. I mean, it's not like I knew many Lizard-Dads. Public school was one thing, but this was something entirely different, you know?\n\n\"Um, so...no cheese? On mine.\" I told him. I hadn't eaten anything that day.\n\n\"No--?\" he trailed. \"Right. Right! Oh, of course. Your stomach.\" I nodded. \"'No cheese, only yellow mustard'.\" He pointed a claw at me, I guess like a gun. As much as a lizard could do such a thing, I mean.\n\n\"Like always\", I said. He tried to snap his 'fingers', but I didn't hear anything. \n\n\"Right. Like always.\" \n\nHe winked at me with one eye as he quickly slapped his other with his tongue. It was a a weird moment to start seeing again, for sure. But I also think it was...kinda nice. I always just thought it was a stupid song.\n\nBut now I think it's pretty neat.\n\nIt would also explain the inordinate fascination my father had with fly traps in hardware stores.\n\n\n\n\n\n", "Not long after I lost my sight, my father moved to another city, taking me with him. \nFrom my child's point of view, I didn't really consider why this might be; instead resentment oozed out of me and I hated him for many years, until I realised that he didn't make us move because he hated me or because he was ashamed of having a blind child - we have left our home town because of the massive burden of guilt he felt and because he wanted to start a new life for me, where I would have the support of other blind children and families. \nI'd been six years old then, with my first pair of thick, wrap-around sunglasses hiding my mutilated eyes from the world.\n\n&nbsp; \nBy the time I had turned ten my father still hadn't remarried or even started dating. Having grown to love him again as maturity lent understanding to some of his feelings, I was worried. Pestering him to go on dates, I used my computer and the internet to sign him up to dating sites, but he never got any bites. Suspecting he'd given me a picture of some ugly old fat man to put on his profile, I gave up on the idea. \nClearly he wasn't ready for a new relationship. \nHe'd thrown himself into his friendships in the blind community though, and we often had visitors and a house full of the tapping and swooshing of the mobility tools that his new friends used to get around. He also became their go-to person for issues with technology, as he worked in IT and had learned a whole bunch when setting my computer up to be accessible to a blind person. \n\n&nbsp; \nA couple of years later, he said he was going on a trip overseas to look into some new medical technology that might help me to see again. \nHe'd left me in the care of his best friends, the Johnsons; a blind couple and their severely vision impaired daughter. Dad said he'd be gone for about a month but that he'd call me every day - a promise which he kept. \nMeanwhile, I had problems with the daughter of the Johnsons, Holly. \n\"Your dad is a faggot,\" hissed Holly in my ear. \nI batted the air furiously and tried to hit her, but she was gone. \nIt's true what they said about the one-eyed man being the king in the land of the blind; Holly had the run of the house, even though she was practically legally blind herself. She could see enough and that was a problem, because it made tormenting me so much easier. \n\"Stop saying that!\" I yelled, swinging my mobility stick around in the hope I might catch her across the face and shut her up. \n\"He never has dates and he left your mom.\" \nThe antagonistic voice now came from the doorway and I threw a stuffed bear at her. \n\"Ow!\" \nI grinned; direct hit. \nBut she wasn't finished; \n\"And he has long hair like a giiiirl,\" chanted Holly; and I shrieked, running over and groping for the edge of the door, before (hopefully) slamming it in her face.\n\n&nbsp; \nDad seemed a little odd after he came back from his trip, but he wouldn't talk about it much. \nI was just glad to be out of the hell of the Johnson's house - I hated myself for thinking it, but it would be a happy day when Holly's vision deteriorated to the point of uselessness. It's hard for the sighted kids of blind parents though, all too often the children just see it as a way of getting away with things. \nHard for the parents too, because they're doing the best they can given their circumstances. \nAnyway, the surgery to repair the damage to my eyes was still at least four years away from being available, dad told me. He said he hoped it could be my sixteenth birthday present and that he had saved more than enough money from his home-run IT business to pay for it. \nAfter he told me, I would lie in bed, daydreaming about seeing his handsome face again - his beautiful green eyes, his sandy-blonde hair, his perfect smile and his aristocratic nose. \nI chided myself for romanticising how my dad looked - all I had were memories from six years ago that had grown blurred and idealised over time. Perhaps he was actually much uglier than I remembered - he'd certainly grown a lot rounder from sitting on his butt all day writing code and doing whatever it was IT guys did. But it was a comforting roundness and I didn't care. \nAll I knew was that he was happier now than he'd been for a long time.\n\n&nbsp; \nI'd found the pills in his room when I was fifteen, looking for money to go buy some junk at the mall. \nThe confrontation hadn't been good; he'd cried and cried and I felt awful. He said they were pills for his heart and that his sedentary job and his weight had put pressure on his cardiac tissue and his blood pressure was up too, so the doctor had prescribed some medication. \nHe wasn't telling the whole truth though and I knew it. \nBut he did so much for me and the other blind folks that I let it slide. I just made him promise to eat healthier and get some exercise - which he hated because he said people made fun of his weight when he went outside. It had been a long time now since he'd let me touch him and I figured he was pretty big. \nI just hoped that once I had my operation next year he'd get out of this funk and go back to being who he was before all this started. \n\n&nbsp; \nThe bandages came off a couple of weeks after my sixteenth birthday, but I could see the fuzzy orange glow of candles and a wobbly pink blob that must have been the belated birthday cake. I asked to see dad but all I could make out was a round, pink smear and a halo of blonde. \nBut as my sight gradually came back in the hospital and I started doing exercises with eye charts and glasses, dad became scarce. \n\"Where are you?\" I yelled down the phone to him. \n\"I just have some business to take care of. I'll be back in a couple of days.\" \n\"DAD! This is ridiculous; I start getting my sight back and you're never here? What's going on?\" \n\"I'll see you in two days,\" he said, then the line went dead. \n\n&nbsp; \nI guess I was more worried than anything else. \nTurning it over in my head, it was probably the weight he was worried about; that he thought I might be shocked that he had grown so big. Maybe he'd run off to have some emergency liposuction or something? \nIt wasn't important though. Today was the day he was back. \nThe nurse who looked after me in the private hospital informed me that my father was on his way. She always spoke disdainfully and put extra emphasis on the word father as though it were some kind of insult. I didn't know what to make of it; it was probably his obesity. \nI heard him coming, talking to the doctor in the hall, and I stared hopefully through my thick glasses at the doorway. \nInstead of my father, a strikingly pretty woman in her mid thirties walked into my room. \n\"Hello Rachel,\" she husked in my father's voice. \n\"Is this a joke?\" I blurted, everything spinning around in my head, ideas and speculation jumbling into a big confusing mess, \"Where's my dad?\" \n\"He's me, Rachel.\" \nWords and phrases and events clicked into place like a crazy Rube Goldberg machine; faggot, girly hair, the pills, the trip to Thailand, the body shame, only having blind friends... \n\"Oh dad,\" I burst into tears, \"you could have told me! I don't care if you're gay or trans or if you have two heads or no legs. I love you and I always will.\" \nHe, or rather she came over and hugged me hard, the frames of my new glasses squishing into her soft curves. \n\"I love you too Rachel,\" she whispered, \"but we need to come up with something better to call me than dad.\" \nLaughing, she hugged me again, then I insisted she sit down and tell me about her remarkable journey from start to finish." ]	2
	[WP] Write a story in which the main character slowly falls in love with the reader.	[ "She sat there quietly on the park bench, never once glancing up from the book she held in her hands. For some reason, it never once felt awkward or strange, just watching her read. Such an elegant woman, being so engrossed in a story that the world around her disappears.\n\nThe way she bit the corner of her lip ever so slightly and the way she furrowed her brow when she came to an interesting part -- god, is there anything wrong with this woman?\n\nAfter a few minutes of arguing with myself, I finally worked up the courage to talk to her. Slowly, but surely, I made my way towards her, never moving too quickly so as to avoid startling her. \"Ahem,\" I cleared my throat quietly when I was beside her.\n\nI watched as her expression immediately changed; in her eyes, I could see that she had come back to reality, but struggled to process it all. She slowly looked up at me, and with the most beautiful smile I've ever seen, she said in her soft voice, \"Hi.\" \n\nSuddenly, I felt my face grow flushed, blood rushing to my cheeks and my ears, and I froze. I guess she noticed because she started giggling. \"Uhh...well...\" I stammered, my eyes frantically looking around as if the words that escaped me were somehow floating around in mid-air for me to find.\n\nSeeing how flustered I was, she reached out her hand. \"Hi, I'm Amelia.\" \n\nFor some reason, that simple action brought be back down to Earth and I managed to find my words again. \"Oh...ahem,\" I started, as I reached out to shake her hand. \"I...I'm Chris.\" \n\nShe smiled so genuinely, I felt all my nerves settle down, allowing me to find a seat beside her. \"So what are you reading?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh, it's this really interesting book!\" she began. \n\nWe spent the day talking about the book and our favorite stories. By the time we realized what time it was, night had already fallen, and my cheeks never felt more sore from smiling so much.\n\nAnd the rest is history. \n\nWe've been together for five years now, happily married for three. Every day is a good day, because every day, I get to wake up and fall asleep looking at the most beautiful woman in the world and to love her with all my heart, knowing that she loves me too.", "I.. i'd had enough.\nI can't take it anymore\nEverything is just too cruel\nI'm tired of smiling, of fighting, of living.\nEverything. I just want everything to end.\nThere is no more way out. Only death.\n\nI pointed the gun at my temple, my hands were shaking, but, there wasn't any more way. I'm so tired. Nobody, nobody. Absolutely nobody cares. my life is a cruel joke given by the almighty. I'd rather be well off.\n\n\nHuh?\n\nWhat?\n\nWho are you?\n\nI don't know how to explain it, but.. you..i can feel you.\n\nIs it you God? No, i can hear your thoughts.\n\nPlease, speak. i want to hear your voice, what brought you to look upon my life?\n\nI see.\n\nYou must be from that dimension.\n\nWhat dimension? Oh, you know. The Infini Dimension\n\nAre you an angel? Did you come for me?\n\nWhat's it like there?\n\nCan you bring me there? I'm tired of my world.\n\n\nYou can't?\n\nBut why?\n\n\nDo you, do you also hate me?\n\nLike how everybody does in my world?\n\nWhat did i do to deserve such hate?\n\nI just.. i just wanted love. I wanted to love all of them. I guess that is wrong.\n\nTell.. you.. more?\n\nI don't want to be bothering an infini like you.\nI'm a worthless trash bag of this world. Why someone like me? Why not look at someone else's life?\n\nYou don't know either?\n\nIt must be destiny then.\n\nDo you believe in destiny?\n\nThere must be a reason. No?\n\nCan we be friends?\n\nPlease?\n\nI just want a friend, that's all. " ]	2
Note: when people are wiped, they are still left with basic knowledge e.g language, maths, etc.	[WP] In the future, instead of a life prison sentence, criminals are given the option to have their memories and personality erased. You just woke up and realised you don't know anything about yourself.	[ "I winced as I slowly opened my eyes to a world of pain. My head was throbbing in time with my rapidly beating heart and swirled as I slowly tried to sit up. I clutched my head with one hand as my other settled on the ground behind me to support my weight. A slight crunch and the feeling of slightly sticky moisture under my hand caused me to notice my surroundings for the first time.\n\n\"A forest,\" I mumbled to myself. \"Why the fuck am I in the woods?\"\n\nWincing with every movement of my head, I looked around and saw a road no more than a quarter mile away. Slowly and carefully I stumbled to my feet by dragging myself up the base of a tree. Dizzily, I managed to focus my eyes on the road once more.\n\n\"Ok, then that road must be...\" I began, trying to give myself a nice pep talk before attempting to walk. I slowly trailed off into silence. \n\n\"Oh God...no, fuck no..\" I disbelievingly wound my way towards the road. The realization finally hit me. Not only did I not know where I was, I had no idea who I was. My heart began pounding even faster in my chest, and I began sobbing to myself as I realized I had no memories. Nothing. I didn't even remember my own name.\n\nI finally made my way onto the street, and realized I was in the middle of a decently sized city. I must have been in a park. How the fuck did I remember it was a city, and that was a park, but nothing else! I ran across the mostly empty street to a window, hoping that my reflection would spark some sort of memory. All I saw was a stranger staring back at me. Dark hair, a strong jaw, and light blue eyes stared back at me. \n\nA reflection of someone passing behind me caught my attention. I turned to them and grabbed their arm. They turned to object, anger flashing in their eyes.\n\n\"Please! You have to help me.\" I begged. \"I can't remember anything, I need to find my family or someone to help...please.\" The final please came out as a whispered sob. The woman's initial anger quickly faded away as she listened to me. It was replaced with an emotion I was currently very well acquainted with. Fear. \n\n\"I'm sorry. I can't help you.\" She stuttered. The petite woman turned away and pulled trying desperately to get out of my fearful grip. Her eyes desperately searched for a stranger to help her. Tears began rolling down her face, \"please,\" she begged, \"don't hurt me, I didn't do anything to you.\"\n\nShocked by her reaction, my hand released her of its own accord and she turned and fled down the street. What the hell? Trying to figure out why she was so scared briefly distracted me from my own problems, but all too soon they were back at the forefront of my mind. Who would help me? Where could I go? A spire rising above the nearby apartment building gave me hope. A church.\n\nI opened the doors of the large chapel and walked in only to collapse on a bench from dizziness. A dark shadow fell over me, but before I could cry out in fear I recognized the dark clothing and white collar of a priest. \n\n\"Are you ok,\" he asked gently.\n\n\"Not really,\" I panted my response, slightly hesitant to mention my condition after the woman's reaction. Seeing that I didn't have a choice, I continued. \"I, well, I can't remember who I am or..anything at all. I know this is a church. I know you are a priest, but I can't remember my name or my family or...or anything\"\n\nYet again, I noticed that tinge of fear in his eyes, but the priest was made of sterner stuff. \"And no one told you anything?\"\n\n\"I woke up in a park a few blocks from here. No one was around.\"\n\n\"Ah\" He paused, \"well, I hate to be the one to tell you this.\" He stopped again. Sighing deeply, he sank into the seat on the pew next to me. \"This happens way more often than people are willing to admit. You must have committed some kind of crime. Something bad. They wipe your memory and then send you home with a relative. Much cheaper than jail you see?\" he said with a slightly lopsided grin.\n\nHis smile faded and was replaced with sadness. He placed a hand gently on my shoulder. \"You see. Often people don't want to bring a murderer or robber back into their homes and view this as the perfect opportunity. The family leaves their own child or brother in the streets to fend for themselves...I'm so sorry.\"\n\nI pulled away from his gentle touch on my shoulder, and ran outside ignoring the priest's cries to come back. I am a murderer. \n\nMonths pass with me living in the streets, finding my way from garbage can to garbage can. Begging when that doesn't work. Keeping to myself mostly, never telling anyone about my memory loss lest they react in fear, or even worse pity. Then finally one day I was so weak and starving that I forced myself to enter a shelter for food. Shuffling into line, I worked my way slowly to the front. As I reached the front a glorious vision filled my eyes. The most beautiful girl I had ever seen was smiling at me. Her green eyes briefly met mine as she passed a bowl into my hands. Her soft fingers grazed mine before I was swept away by the grumpy people behind me.\n\nI must be with her. Having nothing else to dedicate myself to, I focused my life on her. I found myself going to the shelter as often as possible, hoping to get a glimpse of her. She was the reason to live. The shelter helped me get a job since they were used to working with people like me. Criminals and homeless people received no different treatment; the people working there were kind beyond belief. Some of them had “lost” family members to the treatment and felt that their loved ones were never the same. Others were former criminals who had devoted their lives to helping people like them. \n\nBut I only cared about one of them. Julie didn’t recognize me as the begger who came through her line. She saw me as a person. After I managed to get a job and cleaned up, I asked her out. She said no. I asked her out again a month later. And the next month. Julie would laugh and say, “Sorry, same answer as last month”. Eventually these little interactions turned into more, and I finally got the date I wanted. We went to a nice restaurant downtown. I couldn’t even remember what it was called, all I could do was stare into her beautiful eyes and watch her dimples as she laughed at my corny jokes. This was the first time I was actually happy again after my “procedure”.\n\nWe decided to take the bus back to my place since we had a little too much to drink, and neither of us had much money. She stepped into the bus ahead of me, saying hi to the bus driver as we scanned our cards. Her gorgeous figure swayed in front of me as the bus lurched to a start and we worked our way to the back seats. Picking up a newspaper that was on her seat, she was about to toss it away when she glanced at it, then she froze.\n\n“Oh my God…” she whispered, bringing a hand up to cover her mouth. \n\n“What is it?” I asked, craning my neck to see the newspaper. I impatiently waited a moment for her to reply as she read the paper. After a moment, her eyes slowly lifted to mine in horror, and began to fill with tears.\n\nI snatched the newspaper from her hands, afraid of what I would see. I saw my face printed across the front page of the paper. My mind reeled in shock and I robotically began to read the story, my eyes flashing back and forth as we bumped toward my home in the bus. Connor. That was my name, my real name. I had gone missing…after my family had been brutally murdered. The police were still searching for me, or my body. They had found a bludgeoning device covered in my blood and assumed I was dead, thown in a lake or something. And then I saw another picture in the bottom corner. It was a picture of Julie.\n\nI lifted my eyes to rest on her trembling hands. The hands that had killed my whole family and left me for dead.\n", "I learned how to write against my will, and it was a chore. It was tedious to spell out the reports and place the words in the correct order and then read them backwards, but my uncle the law maker at the Ministry of Penalty and Repentance had secure this position for me and I could not hope for a different career, unless it was in the business of thieving or prostitution. The day of my fifth birthday I was smacked over the head with a piece of wood, as I stood by the window looking out on the kids playing in the dirt below the ministry. I have not been smacked in the head once since.\n\nMy uncle advised me to keep a journal, where I could practice writing that would not easily find a context in my reports. In the journal I tried to describe not only the look and construction and economy of the prison cell, but I were to imagine my 100th day there, and how my throat felt paper dry, and how my eyes climbed the walls aiming at the only barred window, how my fingers touched the ceiling, and how the pain shot through the low of my back and ripped open my flesh, at every daily whipping, all the time hoping I would last the 900 additional days until freedom.\n\nI was not hard to put these imaginations into writing; I spent all my days hunched over my desk in the low ceiling report room, with no water to drink, and no distraction. Only sometimes my pencil would go dull, and I walked up 50 steps to the supervisors desk below the lonely, ticking clock on the wall, and I would turn the screw of the sharpener just the right few times, and go back to my desk to continue my report. Though I could not clearly reproduce the experience of being whipped, I imagined it as a tickling joy. I would summon this joy as the day stretched out and my cheeks where hurting from the ever grinding gnaw of the chair, before I could slip back to my sleeping cell below.\n\nAfter many dull years of dutiful working I was promoted to the next tier of report writers. It was no proud occasion, I was of age and skill to secure this promotion, it was all part of the creaking cogwheel of the Ministry of Penalty and Repentance. My new workroom was a few floors above my previous, with fewer windows but instead equipped with artificial light from small bulbs of glass hanging from strings attached to the egg white ceiling far above. Entering the workroom was like entering a cube.\n\nAlso my reports were changed. The prison cells I was to document shifted dramatically from the previous in terms of look, construction and economy. The cells were square, with equal width, length and depth. Light was provided from long glass tubes secured to the ceiling and filled with lightning gas. There was a bed with a feather down mattress, and across it a big grey box of steel protruded from one of the walls, where sometimes a low mechanical, grinding hum could be heard.\n\nI continued my report writing and was praised on every evaluation for my efficiency. After work, in my sleeping cell, I wrote in my journal and imagined myself in the new prison cell, how it was comfortable but sterile, and how grey box on the wall made the humming sounds, and I wondered what it contained, and how I could open the small side door of it to find out. It was a curious contraption, and my head mused in the joy of guessing its function.\n\nYears passed in the cubic work room, and my days and weeks and months did not provide much variation, the sterile environment in which I worked and lived was stable and did not budge for the changes in the seasons outside. The only change I noticed in that respect was in the contents of the paperwork I received and was to put down in tables and clear text in my reports. There were more cells constructed and fitted as more and more prisoners flooded our prisoners quarters, in larger numbers than before. There were also an increase in the number of additional correction required of the prisoners in our watch, at the Ministry of Penalty and Repentance.\n\nA time followed of high workload. Extra tables were brought in where the stacks of papers could be piled and arranged before they were taken off and archived or sent to the supervisors for further action. I could almost not keep up with the reports that needed writing and signing off, but I made sure to not let my quality drop when documenting the look, construction and economy of the prison cells. Soon I was also writing additional reports, on the look, construction and economy of each individual prisoner. It was an interesting extra aspect of the work and it gave me inspiration to continue with my journal writing in my sleeping cell.\n\nOne morning I was sharpening my pencil when the door to the work room opened and my uncle called for me. He looked worried and hurried me outside. \" I am taking you away from here\" he whispered and frightened looked over his shoulder as if someone was there. \"Uncle, I would love to take a trip with you, but the work volume is heavy and I have many long reports to write...\" \"Do you every read the reports you write? Do you ever take a moment to consider what just your work consists of?\" \"Uncle, I am just a writing the reports and filling out the tables of the look, construction and economy of our cells and prisoners, and when I have filled my quota I will be able to retire and spend my days in the gardens by the waterfalls, like you will soon. My only wish is to work hard and fill my quota.\" \"Are you really so blind?\" My uncle tugged at my sleeves with a look of desperation in his face, and started dragging me towards the steps, repeating his question in whimpers. We were already halfway down the steps, him hanging on my side. \"Now uncle, there are predictions of increase of prisoners coming shortly, and I really must go back...\" He charged at me for a split second, his eyes darkened and he spat at me. \"You only write, but you do not read it and you do not think!\" He pushed me back. \" I put you in these rooms for your safety, and now you will not be saved from these rooms!\" I worried at his disturbed wailing as he stumbled down the flight of stairs and disappeared in the long, empty corridors, ever downwards, until the last shriek died out, and I returned to my work room. The light flickered. The tip of my pencil broke off.\n\nThey came for me in my sleeping cell. \"Your uncle has let us know most cooperatively, that he made you an accomplice.\" And the law makers lowered a hood over my head and punched me in the gut. When I came to I was lying on a padded bed in a cubic cell, with tubes of lightning gas shooting its sterile light at me and at every corner of the room. And at the grey box protruding from the wall across the room. \n\nThe light never went out, and my eye lids provided no cover, it was as if someone kept pulling off the cover or snatching away the pillow so that sleep would be eternally disturbed, so was I forced by the light to never rest or hide in darkness. I could not count the days, and my days that had for so many long years been lined with the routine of writing and working, lost the concept of time, unfamiliar to the depth-less well of thinking, thinking without tables to guide and input data into. Only the company of the mechanical humming from the box,\n\nThen humming turned into a crackle. Loud and piercing it filled every small cavity of my prisoners cell as the light had done. A voice was heard:\n\n\"YOU HAVE BEEN FOUND GUILTY. AS ACCOMPLICE OF TREASON. NOW SUCCUMB TO THE MERCY OF PENALTY AND REPENTANCE. THE MERCY OF THE STATE.\"\n\nSlowly the door on the box slid open and a whirring sheet of metal turned and turned inside, wheeled by small cogwheels of steel, themselves wheeled by even smaller cogwheel. I stood up. I moved closer. I peered into the grey box with its door opened and the whirring sheets inside. I closed my eyes, and stuck my head in. \n\nDarkness. A claw fastened my neck. My scalp was cut and snapped loose, the blood steamed down with its milky warmth down my brow and ears as layer after layer of my skull bone was shaved off and the white dust fell like flour from the dough that was my face. I must have cried and screamed in agony, but all I heard was the consistent and ever louder mechanic humming of the wheels as the shavers worked deeper, deeper, deeper, until I began to feel the sensations of the screws. \n\nAnd eventually, curiously, with the success of the shavings and victory of the screws, I felt the excruciating pain turning into ecstasy of remorse, the joy of good service, I cried as beautiful scenes of the gardens by the waterfalls rolled over and over before my inner eye, until finally... Oblivion, the mercy.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "The sound of the large steel door slamming shut jarred him awake. Drool running down his lower lip he strained through sleepy eyes to see that where an empty seat had been an hour prior, now sat a man dressed entirely in black. \"Hello.\" The man greeted him.\n\nWhipping his head side to side, he struggled to reply in his tired voice, \"H-hi..\"\n\nLooking towards the table the man shuffled papers inside of a large file. Across the front he could just make out the word 'Classified' in bold red print; Mental Clarification, below it.\n\n\"Now then,\" the man suddenly spoke \"what is two plus two?\" He continued to eye the file in his hands, even as he asked the question.\n\n\"What?\"\n\nWearing a puzzled look, the man now stared him down, \"Do you not understand the question?\"\n\n\"No.. no I understand the question, its just--\"\n\n\"Then answer it.\" He interrupted.\n\nAlready confused, without a single memory to cling to, he didn't want to anger this guy. Something inside warned him against it.\n\n\"Four.\" \n\n\"Good, good... what does E-a-r-t-h spell?\"\n\nAnother easy question. Or, at least they seemed easy. Was this some kind of test? \n\n\"Earth.\" He again answered.\n\n\"Well done,\" the man continued \"last one - what is your name?\"\n\nWhat was his name? It felt like it should be right there at the tip of his tongue. Like this too should be an easy question. \n\nScrambling for an answer, all that his mind gave him was a giant blank. Nothing. He began to sweat as the man turned his gaze on him again.\n\nFlicking his eyes about the room nervously, he searched his mind for an answer; table, chair, desk, lamp, floor... Finally, he spoke. \"Lam Tableau.\"\n\nFor a moment, the man didn't speak, only scratching something onto his pad. Standing from his chair, he addressed him with a slight smile that put his nerves at ease. \"Good job, you're done. They'll come to get you momentarily.\"\n\nAs he breathed a heavy sigh of relief, the man left the room, closing the door behind him. Outside he spoke with the guards, showing them the results of the questioning:\n\nSubject shows continued evasive nature, fourth memory cleanse advised.", "\"No, no, no no no!\" I stumbled out of the bed onto the floor, scared, confused, I couldn't remember anything my mind was blank, not even a dream was left of my former life. Then I noticed him, sitting on a lone chair wearing a fine dark suit, he cleared his throat. \"I'm glad to see that you're finally awake, my name is Moran, I'm an agent of the directorate, here to ease you into your life as Patrick Hanks.\" I looked at him like a crazed man. Did he drug me? Is this even my room? Was he here all night, is he some kind of pervert?\n\n\"Patrick please,\" he said, \"sit down and let me explain the situation.\" I stared at him with open eyes. \"Who are you?\" The man let out a sigh. \"Like I said, I'm an agent of the directorate, I'm here to help you.\" Definitely crazy, I needed to get out of here and get help, would someone hear me if I scream?\n\n\"Patrick, listen,\" his voice was now stern, more authoritative, \"I'm not here to hurt you, neither am I crazy, you were punished by the directorate, your memories and former personality erased after you committed hideous crimes. You're in a place that serves as a transition facility for those who are undergoing the same changes as you are, until you're stable enough to return to your loving family. Do you understand that Patrick Hanks?\"\n\nOh yes, I understood, I totally understood what was going on. My heart raced, he didn't seem to have a weapon on him, this was my chance. I leaped onto him, we crashed into the floor, without second thoughts I wrapped my hands around his neck and squeezed, the impact on the floor must've pressed all air out of his lungs already, it didn't take long until he stopped to wriggle. The adrenaline was still pumping through my veins when I stood up, looking at his body, sprawled lifeless out on the ground the realization of what I just did hit me. Did I just kill a man without thinking twice? Was it true what he told me about this directorate, the memory and personality wipe? My thoughts started to race again, I had to get out of here, I dashed for the door, but before I could reach for the handle it jerked open. \"Who the fuck are you now?\" I uttered without thinking. \"I'm you, you fucking idiot.\" he said, before his fist smacked me hard in the face, knocking me out.\n\nThe sound of screeching tires woke me up, my head felt like it was about to explode. \"Oh so you finally decided to wake up princess?\" he said, the man who knocked me out, or did he knock me out? Maybe it was just all a crazy dream after a heavy night of drinking, I tried to remember anything before that dream but nothing came back. That sucked. \"So listen here princess, I know it all seems a bit confusing for you, but the deal is,\" He jerked the car brutally around a corner, \"the deal is, you're my fucking clone and- fucking Christ don't vomit in my car!\" After he slammed on the brakes it felt like my stomach itself wanted out of my body, I never wish anyone to feel like that, except him maybe. \"Listen,\" I said, gasping for air, \"I don't know who you are, or what is going on, but I just murdered someone and-\"\n\n\"I know you did! I saw that, I knocked you out in the room, damn am I really such an idiot? Now listen, the short version is, you're my clone, deal with it, all that bullshit about wiping your memory and personality is a lie, all they do is clone you and then you, or well your original you ends up in a fucking mine digging out crap all day for them for free.\" He looked around, our car was standing in a small alley, surrounded by shabby looking apartment buildings, probably not the best part of the city to run around screaming for help. \"Now let us ditch the car, they're probably already on our heels, my place isn't far from here.\"\n\n\"Why should I believe you? That makes no sense, why would they clone people if-\" \"Jesus, Maria and God, why? First of all free slaves, nearly no one knows about or gives a shit about you, second of all because of peace and harmony, the directorate loves itself some peace and harmony, families going on with their lives thinking they have their loved ones back just in a more.. well-adjusted way, now come on, we can't lose time anymore, we need to ditch this fucking car.\"", "Note: Writing this on my Ipad, so it's a bit short and I probably screwed up the formatting.\n\n\nEmptiness. \nThat is all I felt. \n\n&nbsp;\n\nAll my memories, my personality, everything about me, gone. \n\n&nbsp;\n\nIt was not your fault \n\n&nbsp;\n\nWhat kind of monster had I been, to choose to lose my very being? \nWhat had I done? \nMy life is meaningless, I am nothing. \nAm I still a monster? \nI saw how people looked at me as I was dropped off at the condo they said was my home. \nThey all hate me for what I was. \nMaybe I should hate myself too. \n\n&nbsp;\n\nShe wanted it, she wanted it \n\n&nbsp\n\nNow it taunts me, my past. \nI can hear it, I can hear the monster. \nThey said it would be gone, but it isn't. \nAt least I was rich before, the condo is filled with everything one would need. \nThe bedroom is big, the bed magnificent. \nThe other bedroom is smaller, the bed cover in much less magnificent pink sheets. \nAnd the balcony has the most wonderful view of the park below it. \n\n&nbsp;\n\nThey had no right to stop you\n\n&nbsp\n\n\nDo monsters like amazing views of trees? \nThey must, I did. \nEspecially those who drink, judging by the stack of empty bottles in the corner, beside the glass barrier. \n\n&nbsp;\n\n\nShe was yours, not theirs \n\n&nbsp;\n\nThe sidewalk is nice too, 10 stories below. \nMaybe I should look at it closer. \n\n&nbsp;\n\nShe wanted it, she knew how you were when drunk \n\n&nbsp;\n\nI was a monster, I am still a monster. \nBut the sidewalk is nice nonetheless , 9 stories below. \n", "My mouth felt very dry, yet somehow sticky when I opened my eyes. Bright daylight was streaming into the room. I felt confusion: Where was I? I waited for the confusion to receide the memory to return, because that is what happens when you wake up in strange surroundings, isn't it? When nothing happened, I began to actually dig. What had I done yesterday? What clues did I have as to my location? But when I thought about the last day, week or even month there was just - nothing. A sort of pleasant darkness came over me when I tried to remember anything. \n\nThis was when I stared to slightly panic. Had I lost my memory? In an accident? Then an even worse idea formed in my head. An idea to horrible to even consider: Had I been \"wiped\"? Had I done something so horrible and awful that I had been sentenced to a life in prison - or being \"wiped\". I couldn't possibly imagine having done such a thing. Like murder, probably. I wasn't a bad person. The certainty of the last statement began to frizzle: I didn't really know this for a fact, did I? Because I knew nothing about myself. \n\nThe door opened and a sort of homely looking woman came in. \n\n\"Happy birthday\", she said, gently and brightly. \"Have you deduced what happened yet?\"\n\nI swallowed dryly: \"Have I been ... \"wiped\"?\" My voice wanted to crack at the last part.\n\n\"Indeed, my dear. Very good.\" She sounded like a school teacher appraising a first graders drawing. \"So you also do know, that you are not going to be told, who you used to be or what you did, yes? You get an amazing opportunity.\" She smiled at me. \"You can start fresh. Here you are a healthy, young woman of 25 years and you can be anything you want to.\"\n\nShe looked like she expected praise. What for? \n\n\"I just...\", I begann, \"are you sure I did it? Whatever it was, I mean, is there any chance it was a mistake?\" \n\nHere face hardened a little: \"No, my dear, I am sorry. Without any doubt at all you did \"it\".\"\n\nShe wouldn't say anymore and industrially made me get dressed, while going through some sort of list. I had an apartment and a selection of jobs to chose from. I could, it seems, be anything I wanted to be - if it only was a very low paid menial job. \n\nIn the end I picked a job at a fast food restaurant. It wasn't bad. People were cautiously nice to me and I even started making friends. I signed up for a afternoon college class in astrophysics, mainly out of spite. To my own surprise I actually really enjoyed it, plus I knew nothing about the subject it seems. Whatever I had done in my previous life, it had nothing to do with this, which I found very soothing. In my everyday life I often happened upon small things I freakishly knew a lot about. In the beginning I latched onto any of those things, hoping to get a small glimpse of my true self. But it just made things more confusing, as truly my memory refused to return regarding anything about myself. So I began to dread those little cues. \n\nOne of my new friends said one tipsy afternoon: \"I envy you, you know? You don't have the burden of all those mistakes you ever made and all those people who remember you being awkward and 14, wearing to short a skirt and too much make-up. You can just be you, free of all this clatter.\"\n\nShe wasn't wrong I knew. I tried to forget about the nagging question: But are you really a bad person, deep down?\n\nIt was christmas, of course, the time were everybody was with their family and I was home alone, decorating my tree, that those questions overran me. Or more like: The idea that had always been running around in my head took really root then. I didn't remember doing anything wrong, I didn't feel like a bad person and from that first day to the present day, I had not done anything to indicate I might be a murderer or anything of the sorts. I had never seen the court case. Wasn't it more likely, that I really was innocent? Maybe there had been a mistake. Mistakes happen. \n\nI dropped out of my college classes and started digging. I knew I wasn't supposed to. It could give me a life sentence, to try and find out who I had been. I researched cases of memory wipes. The results were not promising, as memory wipes were only ever applied, when the subject expressly asked for it. And why would you, if you had hopes of being found innocent after all? It became an obsession. There had to be some trace of the person I used to be. But records were destroyed after the \"wipe\", it was supposed to be as clean as possible. \n\nSo finally I went to talk to the woman that had been the very first face I had ever seen. My case-manager. I didn't kidnap her or anything, I just rang the bell one evening and asked her streight up.\n\nShe looked at me funny, then she asked me into the house, made me a cup of tea and finally asked: \n\n\"You do realize that this is grounds for getting you back into prison - for ever? Why would you toss all away just for an answer?\"\n\n\"Because I need to know. I want to know, who my parents were, my first boyfriend - or maybe even girlfriend? I can see how living a life like this might seem better from the outside, but not knowing is killing me. I would rather spend the rest of my life in prison.\" I meant that, too, though in secret, I had grown sure of being innocent. So the truth was, that I was convinced I would be getting my life back. In my fantasy I saw a laughing and crying family embracing me, relieved to finally have me back. \n\n\"I see\", said my case manager. Her face was thoughtful. \"To be honest, I always had some doubts about the program. It seems to kind.\"\n\nI didn't asked, what she meant. I didn't want her to reconsider. \n\nShe took a sip of tea and started: \"I will tell you all. That is going to bring your memories back, more likely than not. Then you will get up and go and not ever bother me again. I will forget you came here. Agreed?\" I nodded eagerly. This was way easier than I had thought. A tiny alarm bell rang in my mind. I silenced it. A gift horse and all that. \n\n\"Your name is Belle. You are the only daughter to a very happy couple. According to all we found, they always loved you very much and were as good parents as they could be. You were talented and bright, though not genius material, but good enough. You passion was the violin and you went on to do this for a living. Your parents were very supportive, they wanted you to be happy, more than anything.\" \n\nI nodded eagerly. This sounded like all my dreams come true. \n\n\"But as I said: You were gifted, but no genius. You were good enough to be second violin, but not, to be first. In court you said: \"It took me a while to realize, that I just didn't have what it takes to be truly grand. By flaw of nature I was sentenced to mediocrity. It just wasn't fair! I worked so hard and yet I could never get to the top.\" So you put foxglove in her drink. Quite effective, though not awfully subtle. Yet, while she had clearly been killed, no one even suspected you. Mainly I suppose because it didn't work. The first violin was replaced, and you didn't move up. So your next victim was the conductor. Him you just stabbed. It is a marvel truly, how you got away with that, but you planned it well enough, that his jealous Ex had no alibi. That was your second murder. The third was that stupid boyfriend of yours who wanted to leave you. You fed him rat poison in chocolate cookies. The fourth was your best friend, who helped you hide the body. He was about to crack up to the police. You strangled him and made it look like suicide.\"\n\n\"Stop\", I whispered, as faces started to appear in my memory. \"Please, stop.\"\n\n\"But you didn't, did you? Not until you killed your annoying flatmate for playing the music so loud every night. That one was actually the cleverest, as you sabotaged the hairdryer to electrocute him. Suprising, that one actually got you caught. Though not until you killed yet another violinist in your orchestra - I believe her crime was being very young, beautiful, talented and nice on top of that. I think we should add to your bodycount at least your mother, who killed herself before your trial. Your father is still alive I think, though he has severe mental problems.\"\n\nImages were flashing before my eyes. Horrible images. I realized that I had started crying, somewhere in the middle of this tale.\n\n\"You know, you begged to be \"wiped\". The guilt it seems had finally caught up with you.\"", "I opened my eyes. My mind felt like it had been stuffed with cotton balls. I tried to sit up but I couldn't. \"He's awake.\" I heard someone say. Suddenly there was a bright torch being shined in my eyes. \"What's your name? What year is it? Where do you live?\" Panic gripped me. What was my name? The man kept bombarding me with questions\n\"I.. I don't know, please what's going on?\" I tried to sit up again but I realise my hands are bound\n\n\"Tell me you name!\" the man said. \n\n\"Please I don't know, please let me go\" I began to sob. I couldn't remember anything. What the hell was going on.\n\n\"The treatment seems to have taken. You can send in his parents now\" I heard a door open and foot steps. \"The treatment has worked. We'll need to keep him restrained for another 24 hours, but you may talk to him. Just don't talk about... the incident. It's going to take a lot to get him as a functional member of society again. But it is still better than the alternative\" The door slammed behind him as he left. \n\n\"Jake?\" a woman's voice this time.\n\n\"Who? please help me. They have me tied to this bed.\" I pleaded\nThe two people came and stood over my bed. \n\n\"Jake, Jake look at me. Are you alight?\" The woman asked. Lines of concern creased her face and her eyes were red. She had been crying.\n\n\"No I'm not all right. Can someone explain to me what is going on?\"\n\n\"Your name is Jake. We are your parents. There was a terrible accident.\" The man spoke this time.\n \n\"Please let me go\" I struggled against my restraints. I couldn't remember anything but I was sure that I could never have been this afraid in my life. \n\nThe woman began to cradle my head in her arms \"Shh, shh. Just a couple of days and you'll be out of here.\" \n\nMy first week home was hard. Getting adjusted to life without a past is unimaginable. My parents showed me around my house. Showed me pictures of my childhood. Tried to explain the story behind each one. It took me a few days to even believe they were my parents. But anything was better than that tiny room they had me locked up in. \n\n\"What happened to me? What caused all this?\"\n\nThe man that was supposed to be my father said \"It's better if we don't talk about it. The doctors said it might be catastrophic if we were to tell you\" \n\nIt was a month before they let me out of the house and even then one of them would escort me. No one would look me in the eye, when I passed. Anyone that I tried to have a conversation with, would excuse themselves and walk off. I began to wonder what happened to me? I had no physical scars, so I doubted I had been in something as serious as a car crash. \n\nOne night when I couldn't sleep, I wondered downstairs to find something to eat, when I over heard a conversation from my parents room. \n\n\"Did we do the right thing?\" asked my mum.\n\n\"How can you even ask that? Would you prefer he stayed locked up? Or worse, that we never found out and he was still committing those heinous acts. At least we still have our son. At least we get a second chance to raise him properly.\" My father said heated. He sounded absolutely disgusted.\n\n\"Yes but where did we go wrong? What started him down that path?\" \n\n\"I don't know. Maybe he picked it up from those video games he used to play?\"\n\nI walked off in a daze. What the hell was that all about?\n\nIt was a good 6 months before they let me outside by myself. I was allowed to run small errands, like grabbing bread and milk from the local store. No one would look at me though. I really started to question myself. But I stifled the feeling. What ever had happened to me had been so traumatic, I don't think I wanted to remember what happened. I was warned constantly by my parents that if I did try and uncover what happened, the shock would kill me. I started to believe that. \n\nA year had passed. I had begun to enjoy my daily walks to the store. Some people had even started to say hello to me. It was on one of these walks that I was grabbed and pulled into an alley.\n\n\"What the hell?\" a dishevelled man in a long coat had grabbed me and dragged me into the alley and now he was pacing back and forth, \"Please I don't have much money, but please don't hurt me.\" I said. For some reason I didn't feel threatened. \n\n\"I just had to see you one last time.\" he said\n\n\"Wait, what?\"\n\n\"Can you remember me? Oh god they really did it didn't they? They wiped your memory?\"\n\n\"I was in an accident that gave me amnesia. Who are you? What are you talking about? \n\n\"Jake, my name is Ryan. You don't remember me at all?\" He grabbed my hand and gently caressed it. He blue eyes filled with sadness. I wanted to pull away but I couldn't. \n\n\"I ah have to go. Please stay away from me.\" Something had come over me and I couldn't help myself. I felt sick. \n\nAt that moment he kissed me. My head felt like it was on fire. He pulled away and at that moment a police car pulled up.\n\n\"Both of you freeze.\" In an instant I was tackled to the ground. \n\nThe next 24 hours were the worst in my short life. I was asked by multiple people what happened. Cop after cop drilled me. Even doctors interviewed me. My story was always the same. I was pulled into the alley way and that man tried to mug me. He had tried to kiss me. They all seemed more focus on the kiss than the actual mugging. Asking how it made me feel. I was eventually allowed to go home. I over heard one of the doctors tell my parents \" The treatments seems to be holding. We shouldn't need to do anything else. Just keep an eye on him.\"\n\nIt was another 6 months before I was allowed out again. The whole time I couldn't stop thinking about that kiss. \n\nThen one day I saw Ryan again. I wasn't scared. I walked up to him. \" Hey Ryan Can I talk to you?\"\n\nHe turned to me and said \"I'm sorry, do I know you? See 6 months ago I had an accident. Gave me amnesia. But I got to say, you're the 1st person besides my sister that's said anything to me since I got out of hospital. Want to hang out one day?\" " ]	7
Bonus difficulty: aliens.	[WP] She finally says "no".	[ "\"Commander, we are waiting for you in the test lab.\" Professor Sloelsek, of the grixlan race waited outside a sliding door, with a clipboard pressed against his chest\n\n\"How's it going with the test subject?\" General Pritlszo asked. His green cape waving after him.\n\n\"We established a way to communicate. Apparently it understands basic sign language. We found that it reacted violently when asked about it's past.\" The professor said, adjusting his glasses. Reading from the clipboard, he said: \"it's name is Lois. It's a hu.. human, or what that means.\"\n\n\"Show her to me\" the general ordered.\n\n\"Of course. It's not like were busy doing experiments and doing science. Military first, as always\"\n\n\"Spare me your sass, professor.\" \n\nWith a brisk walk, the professor led the general down a brightly lit tunned to ehat seems like an aquarium. \n\n\"Here it is.\" He gestured inside the glass bowl, where a human was sitting inside.\n\n\"Why does it only have two arms? What did you do?\" The general asked.\n\n\"As you may observe. It's normal.\" The professor said, again, adjusting his glasses. \" There is one weird thing we can't explain though\"\n\n\"And what is that?\" \n\n\"It answered all our questions positive. She cooperated with us.\"\n\n\"Can I go in?\" The general asked. \n\n\"Of course\" \n\nThe professor lef him inside the bowl, up to the person inside. \n\n\"Hello\" the professor waved.\n\nLois answered the same. \n\n\"Could you sign for me? The government has some questions for her.\" He told the professor.\n\n\"Of course. Everything for sir mister general sir.\"\n\nThe general threw him an annoyed look. \n\n\"Ask her if she's harmless\"\n\nThe professor did. \n\n\"Yes\" Lois answered.\n\n\"Ask her if she came from planet K-142. Show her on the star map.\"\n\nThe professor did.\n\n\"Yes.\" Lois answered.\n\n\"Were your people civilized?\" \n\nThe professor asked.\n\n\"Yes.\" Lois answered.\n\n\"Were your peope dangerous?\" \n\nThe professor asked.\n\n\"Yes.\" Lois answered.\n\n\"Are there more of you?\" \n\nThe professor asked.\n\nLois signed.\n\n\"What did she say?\" The general asked. The professors face was stone cold.\n\n\"She said no.\"\n\n\n\n", "The walls were white, the ceiling was white, the floor was white, the light was white. Everything had been scrubbed of the merest hint of life, even herself. Dressed in white trousers and jacket she sat as she had sat for the last, what, month, two months? She didn't know at this point, and didn't care. She knew what she knew and nothing would change that, no matter what they did to her, how long she was held, she would know.\n\nThe door opened as it always did, sometimes more often, but it always opened. She was led down the corridor she knew so well, into the chair she felt was her own and heard the voice she had come to hate. Always calm and professional, always asking.\n\n\"Miss Fielding, I am going to ask you some questions, do you understand?\"\n\n\"Yes\" she replied, almost by instinct\n\n\"You say you have had contact with Extra Terrestrials, is that correct?\"\n\n\"Yes\" she sighed\n\n\"You are positive?\"\n\n\"Of course I'm bloody positive, you don't wake up one day and think 'hmm, did I imagine being kidnapped?' It fucking happened!\"\n\n\"Thank you Miss Fielding\"\n\nTwo men in lab coats entered and wrestled her back to her white room. This was her life now, she would fight them until they believed her, she knew she was right. At first they had asked her about her experience, what did they look like? did they speak our language? But now they just asked her if she remembered it happening. She had tried lying thinking that was what they wanted, but they had seen through her and still sent her back to this sterile room. Still asked her the same questions.\n\nA little later a hatch opened and a plate came through with her food on it, she stared at it before pushing her fingers into the mush that she was so accustomed to. The food that once she had shunned until hunger overtook her desire to resist. Lifting the food to her mouth her eye caught a glint in the plastic bowl. She stared at it before moving away from the door to find out what it was that had been given to her. As she gently pushed the light grey substance off of it, she realised she was uncovering a small but very real knife. How it had gotten there she didn't care. Hiding it within her jacket she finished the rest of the food and pushed the plate back to the hatch.\n\nThe next day the door opened again and she was led out of her white room still half asleep. As they reached the room with the chair and the hated voice, she reached inside her jacket and slowly withdrew the knife. Grabbing one of the men escorting her she put the knife to his throat and pushed just enough to hurt.\n\n\"Let me go, now\" she shouted into the silent room.\n\nFor a moment there was nothing, then the hated voice appeared\n\n\"Miss Fielding, let the man go and put down the knife\"\n\nThey had wanted to hear this word truthfully for so long, her anger barely restrained as she replied\n\n\"No\"", "I walked into the cafeteria, she was sitting by herself. I asked, \"May I join you?\" \nShe smiled and said \"Yes.\" \n \nI saw her reading in the library. I asked, \"Want to study together?\" \nShe put down her book, nodded and said \"Yes.\" \n \nI was alone on a Friday and called her up and asked \"Do you want to go see a movie?\" \nShe paused and said \"Yes.\" \n \nI walked her home after a movie, stopped at her front door and asked \"Can I kiss you?\" \nShe fell into my arms and whispered \"Yes.\" \n \nI gathered up all my nerves, dropped to one knee and asked \"Will you marry me?\" \nShe started to cry, pulled me to my feet and said \"Yes!\" \n \nI ran home as fast as I could, barely keeping my feet under me. Bursting through the front door, I asked \"Are we going to have a baby?\" \nShe ran to me, held me in her arms and sighed \"Yes.\" \n \nI plodded through the door, having already told her I had been fired. Head in hands at the table, I asked \"Can we make it through this?\" \nShe lowered her eyes, but still answered \"Yes.\" \n \nI watched our son cross the stage and receive his diploma. I turned to her during the applause and asked \"Are you proud of him?\" \nShe replied without breaking her smile, \"Yes.\" \n \nI stood awestruck with the doctor's report in my hand. Without fully knowing, I asked \"Is it terminal?\" \nShe sobbed \"Yes.\" \n \nI sit beside the bed with machines churning and beeping. I know there isn't much time left, so I take her hand in mine and ask \"Is there anything more you want me to do?\" \nShe looks at me, smiles, one last time, exactly as she did that first day in the cafeteria and says \"No.\"" ]	3
	[WP] You work at a suicide help center. You receive an anonymous call who turns out to be your significant other.	[ "It's late Saturday night. It's a full moon and the amount of calls I received were more than usual. There were a couple of people who needed real help and I was able to get aid to them in time. The others were people who just needed a shoulder to cry on and encouragement. After several years, it had become innate to figure out who was who. Ten minutes more and I was home free. As usual, the phone rings. I look on the caller ID. My body shuts down for a moment. It's my wife's cell phone number!\n\n\"Hello, I need some help from someone. \" She sounds wasted. She hadn't drank for so many years. It is a very long time since I have heard her like this. \n\n\"Please, talk to me. Tell me what is happening, ma'am. Are you at home?\" I am writing a note to pass to my co-worker.\n\n\"Yes, but it doesn't matter now.\" I pass the note with my address on it to my co-worker asking her to call 911 and send an ambulance ASAP. My wife had been doing so well. What happened?\n\n\"It's too late.\" she is sobbing uncontrollably. \"I just want my husband to know that I did the best I could do and that I loved him.\"\n\n\"What did you take, Ma'am ? \"\n\n\"I took all of my husband's pills and drank a bottle of wine.\"\n\nI write this on the note passed to my friend.\n\n\"Life was too hard ~ I just couldn't do it anymore. My husband loves me more than I think he could love anyone else but it wasn't meant to be. He alienated everyone in my family and the few friends I had. Now it is just he and I and our pets. My son moved out years ago. Now I am old and my life wasted. And I wasted his life\"\n\n\"I'm listening. Please continue.\" What a surprise to listen to her say this. I never looked at things this way. I thought we were both happy. It is all I can do not to cry myself.\n\n\"He has an anger problem and gets violently upset with others. He tried to be good to me and our pets. I compromised who I was to where I am not me anymore.\"\n\n\"I love him for being there for me. He did the best he could do. I'm sorry I ruined his life.\" I hear sirens in the background and the long bangs on the door. \n\n\"Ma'am?\" There is a small thud and then a loud thud. Then I hear running up the stairs.\n\n\"Try this room.\" Someone else cries \"Here she is, she's unconscious.\" There is silence.\n\n\"I hate this.\" The man says \"We're too late for this one.\"\n\nI know I am never going to love anyone like her again. If I love anyone again. I went through hell and back for that woman. I regret her dying and not seeing her sadness in time. I regret that I had her on the phone and didn't get to tell her that I truly did love her and always will.\"", "NSFW\n\nTRIGGERS AND STUFF \n\nETC\n\nShe's a whiny bitch. My wife, mother of my children. Blah, blah, blah.\n\nI guess I loved her once. I must have, to let her tie me down, destroy my dreams, my life. I'm not the man I once was.\n\nDivorce is hard on children. It's like we hit them with this huge trauma. Usually, a traumatic event ends. People grieve and move on. With divorce you hit them again and again. Through courts and custody hearings and with each visit on weekends and alternate holidays.\n\nI love my kids. I wouldn't put them through that.\n\nNo, we can't get a divorce, and she won't ever change, so it's up to me. I have to do something.\n\nRecently, I had figured out what to do. I'd all but made up my mind to do it. She had to die. \n\nIt's not as bad as it sounds. I'm not crazy.\n\nShe had to die. It was the only logical solution, really.\n\nI made the most money. I was best able to care for the children. I wasn't a total bitch.\n\nIf one of us had to go, it had to be her. And I couldn't live with her anymore. I would shrivel up and die if I had to stay stuck in this life.\n\nDivorce isn't an option - so what else is there?\n\n&nbsp;\n\nI was thinking about all this at work, as I fielded the desperate calls of much-less-bitchy people who wanted to take their own lives.\n\nI'd just finished a call with some poor kid - said he was nineteen - who wanted to die because his girlfriend left him.\n\nThat's probably the call I get most. The \"I can't live without him/her\" call. Some people feel like what we do here doesn't matter. That if someone was really going to kill themselves, they wouldn't call someone who wanted to stop them.\n\nThat's horseshit.\n\nThey call for the same reason people do pretty much everything. People want others to know about them. We all want to be a star to someone. To stand out. To be remembered. People call out of reflex, because that's what we're told you're supposed to do from before we can even understand what suicide is. They call because there's a part of the brain that instinctively fights to live, no matter how much you die. People call cause they are human.\n\nI hope I helped that boy.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n\"Suicide help line.\"\n\nThe voice on the other line is hushed, whispering, but frantic. \"Oh, God,\" it says. \"I want to die.\"\n\nWe have a little script we're supposed to follow as much as possible. It's there so we don't accidentally let someone know we think their problems are petty, or whatever. I don't use it unless the floor supervisor is listening. People can tell when you're just reading off lines.\n\nI try to soothe away the panic while moving along the conversation to find out what's going on. One of the first things you got to do is, you got to learn their names. Even if it's a fake name. It's easier to hold people's attention when you use their names.\n\nThe voice hesitates. \"You can call me Katie,\" she says. \n\nWe aren't supposed to give out our real names. Center policy, after some pissed off father came after one of our guys. The guy saved his son, but called CPS on the father. Son ended up getting took away, I guess.\n\n\"I'm Mike,\" I said. \"Katie, is anyone with you?\"\n\nThat's important. Sometimes there's a domestic thing going on. Sometimes it's parents, or kids, or they're on a cellphone out in public somewhere. That keeps them from talking as much as they would, alone. It's also bad. Most people won't kill themselves with someone watching. Some do, but not often.\n\n\"I'm alone,\" she begins. \"Well...\"\n\nThe pause worries me. My instincts are right. \"The baby is upstairs, asleep,\" she says. \"Everyone else is out.\"\n\n\"Aww,\" I say. \"How old is your baby?\"\n\nPeople love to talk about their kids. You have to keep them talking. I wonder if it's postpartum. Those calls are hard. \n\n\"She's nine,\" the woman says. \"Nine months old.\"\n\n\"That's great Katie,\" I say. \"I bet she's beautiful.\"\n\n\"Oh she is!\"\n\nThe woman - Katie. You have to keep saying their names - she goes on and on about the things her baby is doing. I try to keep my mind from wandering. Any detail could help you hold them.\n\n\"You know, Katie,\" I say. \"I've got a nine month old too! Cutest little button you ever saw.\"\n\n\"Shit,\" she whispers, under her breath. It couldn't be a reaction to what I said, so I figure maybe her baby woke up, or someone came home. Hell, maybe she dropped something.\n\n\"Katie?\" I ask. \"Everything all right?\"\n\nShe says it is and we keep talking. We go through the usual things. She thinks her husband doesn't love her anymore. Her kids don't listen. She's not a good mother. Her life doesn't mean anything.\n\n\"It means something, Katie,\" I assure her. \"Where would that beautiful baby be without you?\"\n\nKatie's in pretty bad shape, though. As she goes on, I start to feel for her. Her husband sounds like an unfeeling ass. The kids are having problems in school. My kids are having the same sort of problems, so I can relate.\n\nI try to connect with her, sharing my story, my feelings, empathizing.\n\nShe isn't breathing as heavy now. That's a good sign.\n\nKatie tells me she hasn't worked since high school. She always wanted to, but felt discouraged by her husband. Every time she thought to do something he would put her down. Nothing obvious. Stupid fuck probably didn't know he was doing it, the way I figured. Little digs about how she didn't look right in that interview dress. How she wasn't quite smart enough. Strong enough.\n\nSounded like a reasonably intelligent woman to me. Real smart. And sweet. Every once in a while she made a quip that showed she had a sense of humor - even as sad as this call was, she made me want to laugh.\n\nNot like my stupid bitch of a wife.\n\nThe call goes on and on. She's still whispering, but starting to sound less desperate.\n\nWe keep talking, but now it's about other things. Her dreams. Things the kids are doing well in. Her parents, who she rarely sees anymore and misses a lot. I encourage her to visit them. \n\nEventually, the call has to end. She's cheered up quite a bit and we're joking and laughing and having a nice chat. \n\nKatie isn't going to die today.\n\nI need to take other calls, people who still need help, so I wrap up this one.\n\n\"Thank you, Dave,\" she says. \"Really. Thank you so much.\"\n\n\"I'm glad you called, Katie. Things will get better, I promise.\"\n\n\"I hope so,\" she says softly.\n\n\"Call again any time you need to talk,\" I say. We end the call, and I check for incoming. No calls waiting.\n\nKatie isn't going to die today.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nI lean back in my chair, feeling on top of the world. I saved another life. A pretty damn good one, too. Katie seems like an amazing woman. Not like my stupid bitch of a wife. Always nagging at me, \"Dave, do this,\" and \"Dave do that.\"\n\nStupid bi-\n\nI freeze. My name is Mike, while I'm here. I run back through the recording of the call, and sure enough, I'm Mike all the way up to the end.\n\n\"Thank you, Dave,\" she'd said.\n\nDave. She'd known my name. She knew who I was.\n\nThrough the call again. Her age. The kids. A baby the same age. Had that been Amanda's voice?\n\nI hadn't recognized it. Amanda's voice was harsh and grating. Always bitching or nagging or whining. Katie's was a velvet whisper. A caress. The way Amanda's used to be.\n\n\"Thank you, Dave.\"\n\nI turn and look out the glass door to the balcony.\n\nPeople are talking and laughing. Eating lunch at the little patio tables, as if nothing has happened. \n\nI move past them, through them.\n\nI walk over to the railing. It's a long way down. But Katie isn't going to die today.", "A Suicide Help Center doesn't exactly bring about the fun in anyone's mind. But we kept a lighter attitude about the place so when the calls start to come we could be in a good state of mind to help, not only by what we said, but how we said it. \n\nI moonlighted here, unbeknownst to many. Secret identity of sorts. Friends think I'm at work. I requested two hours off early on certain days to come here to give back. I needed to give back. I had to. Yes, yes it made me feel better when someone on the other end decided to not, you know, do it. Or at least allowed me to think I had helped. \n\nThe next day I checked the news sites to see if I recognized any deaths by the description. It's not healthy. I did blame myself if I found someone who I tried to help that decided to...do it.\n\nSuicide had crossed my mind before, many times. Being different is complicated. It's hard. Not because of how people treat you, but how you treat yourself due to how people treat you. That's not the same thing. If you have a healthy state of mind, what others have to say that you know isn't true is easily dismissed. But if you hear it and it echos in your mind, it’s a thousand times worse than them saying it. You beat yourself up. I did. I beat myself up for not being like everyone else. For failing to be normal. \n\nNo one I knew had ever called in, and I was grateful for that. Though even if they did the phones were protected with a voice augmentor. Slightly altering the voice of the operator and then the callers so if someone we knew did call, we wouldn't know. Well, not right away. \n\nToo bad for me I knew my loved ones better than most and when it came to Hester, I knew him almost better than I knew myself. \n\nWhich was why when I said, \"Good evening.\"\n\nAnd the voice on the other end said, \"I love evenings. They're the most peaceful.\" I knew it was Hester. He loved evenings. A lot. We’d spend many a night on the porch just rocking back and forth in our rockers like an old couple. \n\nWe'd be out there for the sunset. Hester would reach for my hand and hold it. \"My mind is at peace.\" And for a brief moment of the day he actually would be at peace. He'd actually sit still. And while he peacefully sat enjoying the setting sun, I enjoyed his handsome face half lit, half stoic, but fully beautiful in every way.\n\nIt couldn’t be him. I dismissed it. Hester would never call such a place. \n\n\"Hello. What may I do for you on this peaceful night?\"\n\n\"Once a week or maybe twice, my boyfriend isn't home in time for the sunset.\" His voice quivered. \n\nI held my breath. \"Okay.\" I fidgeted and readjusted my headset. \n\n\"He tells me he's at work. In my mind I believe him. I know he is. He loves me. I see it. I feel it. But...\" He cries. Hester cleared his throat. \"My mind can't silence my crazy. The side that tells me he's doing something else. It's just two days. I can be fine on the porch on my own for two days. I'm an adult. I shouldn’t need someone to be there holding my hand.\" He breathed in. \"But I do. I need it. The world never makes more sense than on that porch. Saying nothing, but feeling everything.\"\n\nI didn’t know what to say. Hester was calling a suicide hotline. My boyfriend was thinking about killing himself over me not sitting with him on the porch or that he thinks I was cheating on him. Hess makes me smile. Despite his voice being altered I could hear his tone and feel that feeling of relaxation wash over me. He’s the one that whispers in my ear as I fall asleep, “Don’t worry. I’m here.” Then he’d wrap his arms around and hold me. I admit, there were times I’d rather not be touched, but never did I squirm out of his grasp because I was afraid if I did, that he’d never do it again...cause there were times I looked forward to feeling him hold me and whisper those words...and when he did I’d, for a moment, not have a worry in the world. Silly, isn’t it? But it’s my silly.\n\nMy Hester. My strong Hess was worried. Why? He never told me. \n\nAnd I never asked. \n\nUntil now. \n\n“You and your boyfriend sit on the porch every night?”\n\nHester sighed and sniffled. “Yes. Except for two. Tonight and Sunday nights. I have called his work to speak with him on those nights. Tonight, even. But his work says he’s too busy to come to the phone. It sounds rehearsed.”\n\nIt probably was. I told them not to tell anyone, not even him. “Okay. What do you think about that?” I couldn’t move, though I teetered on the edge of my seat. \n\nHester took in a breath and it sounded like he wiggled around in a bed. Which was better than him being somewhere else, but I couldn’t be so sure. “He’s at work. I know it. I do. Because I believe him. It’s just...everyone seems to think I don’t deserve him. This life. Anything.”\n\nI had worried about how people viewed me when we first started dating, but the more time I spent with him, the stronger I became. I didn’t even think that maybe, just maybe Hess was giving me what he didn’t have for himself and instead of giving some back, I kept it all. I thought he was fine. He always seemed fine. \n\n“Seemed” is a cursed word. The word used to describe that normal neighbor that turned nuts...used to make the ignorant feel okay that they lived next to a rapist or a kidnapper or a serial killer. I was closer to Hester than a neighbor. I should’ve known better. Seen it. Terrible person would only be a start. \n\nI breathed deep, silently, and decided to stick with the script. Saying anything else would surely hint him that it was me, Todd. The very boyfriend that should be at work. That’ll screw with him for sure. Not in the way in which...never mind. “Everyone has worth.”\n\nI heard him about to protest. \n\n“No. It’s not a point anyone can argue against. Everyone. Yes, some people make terrible mistakes. People decide that they can solve their problems by stealing, killing, or anything else that ruins other people’s lives, but had they realized that they were worthy of much more than they thought, maybe they wouldn’t have done any of those things. I’m sorry, I don’t know your name…”\n\nI still had hope that I was wrong, that my solid rock was as solid as I had always thought. But that was me hoping I wasn’t an awful person for not seeing what I heard. \n\n“Hester.”\n\nI had blink away a few tears. I didn’t want to repeat it. I was afraid of my own voice. I had to. “Hester, I am certain that your boyfriend would rather be right there with you. on that porch, enjoying the sunset, holding your hand--”\n\n“I never said that.”\n\n“What?” Oops. I knew he left that out. How could I be so careless?\n\n“That we hold hands.”\n\nI’m sorry, I was assuming…” I'm sorry, I was caring. Just a little too late. Stay, Hester. We...I can make it better.\n\nI heard him crying again. It was hard to hear him like that. Like hearing your dad cry, though that’s weird saying that about a boyfriend, but it was true. I’ve only seen my dad cry once...when he told me he was disappointed in me and it wasn’t because of Hester, it was for what I had done to him. How I treated him on Thanksgiving. He saw I hurt Hester and I didn’t know, my Dad made sure I knew. Hess didn’t have what I had. His parents had died and he was raised in foster care. Not a single family cared no matter if they were a straight or gay couple. He had a string of mean homes. \n\n“It’s okay. We do hold hands. It’s a simple thing. Our simple thing. It's better than sex. Because I know he's there for me. Not because I can get him off.\" He sounded more calm. At least his breathing calmed.\n\n\"I apologize.\" Normally I said what I was about to, but at this point it sounded ego flattering. Keep to the script. \"He sounds like a good guy. You sound like you have what many are looking for.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\nThen why are you trying to leave me? \"Then you're good?\"\n\n\"I should be. Right? A normal person would be.\"\n\nNormal...another cursed word. \"Hess...ter...\" My beautiful, wonderful partner in life. All I ever wanted from every flaw that allows you to be so messy with clothes all over and unable to wash dishes to every perfection that has jealous eyes trying to figure how I snagged you and how you made sure I knew I was stronger than I ever believed. \"...normal is a dangerous word when used to harm and comforting when used to bring ourselves into other people’s definitions. It's okay to question people. Our histories have forced us through many unnormal things. Questioning is better than assuming.\"\n\n\"Todd is part of me. I believe we were a broken whole who were meant to find one another. I need him.\"\n\nI need you, too. \"Then why are you calling this hotline?\"\n\nSilence. It lasted longer than it should have.\n\n\"Because Todd expects me to be the strong one. What if he finds out I'm not. He'll be disappointed. Sad. He'll go to someone who isn't fake. Weak.\"\n\nHess, please. Don't. Stay. I'm coming home. Right now. \"You called. That's strength.\"\n\n\"But I still want to...leave\"\n\n\"Maybe Todd's on his way home.\"\n\nHess sniffed. \"Maybe.\" And he hung up.\n\nI wasn't done. Not good.\n\nI jumped out of my seat, the headset snagged and I almost fell. Fumbling, I removed it. I ran and told a supervisor and left. I couldn't breathe or think. Clearly. Call the cops? He'd never forgive me. The embarrassment would make it worse.\n\nI drove. My fingers tapped on the steering wheel, but my heart beat faster. I wove in and out of traffic the best I could. I arrived at our house, pulling in the drive slowly. I saw a shadow in one of the rocking chairs. He had turned his to face the birds. Most wished the tweeting nuisances to die, we found them sweet. We named them. Like children. We were supposed to have our own. Adopt. \n\nI couldn't tell if...his left arm dropped off to the side. I walked toward him. Creaking wood gave me away, but no movement.\n\nMy heart lodged in my throat.\n\nI said, \"Hess?\"\n\nNo response.\n\nI reached for his hand and held it. Warm. I leaned in and whispered, \"Don't worry, I'm here.\" I placed my hand on his chest. \n\nHeartbeats. ", "Bzzt.\n\n\"Hello, welcome to the Suicide Hotline.\" I spoke into a small microphone. Although I always despaired these calls, I haven't failed. Yet.\n\n\"Please.. I..\" As she hesitated, I noticed that she sounded familiar. No time to think, she seemed to be picking up the pace again. \"I need to talk to someone. I just.. cheated on my boyfriend.. Davis.\" This is where it hit me. Davis is my name. \"And..\" She sniffled a bit. \"I'm.. scared. Scared he will get angry.\" \n\nI stopped her. \"Listen Baby..\" I could hear her gasp through the phone. It's clear she recognized my voice. \"I'm not mad. Don't do anything. I'll be there soon, and we will work this out.\" Suddenly, it was quiet. She simply sighed again. I heard her putting something down, and she hung up.\n\nI rubbed my forehead, and wiped some of my tears away. \"I'm going to go call sick.\" I said outloud to nobody in particular, walking to my Boss's room.", "It was a hard Tuesday; the kind that can only happen when Monday evening was spent crying my eyes out. I made it to work on time, which was an accomplishment considering the amount of time it took to cover the bruises on my face. I don’t know why I tried, everyone knew. They always knew, but there was an agreement of silence and for that, I was relieved. \n\nI sat down in my cubicle, and put on the headset. It was Tuesday and today I would save a life, at least I hoped I would. It was my job. Maybe it would be a woman like me, whose husband had a weak will and a strong hand. Maybe it was a teenage broken heart, waiting to hear it was ok to be different. My jaw hurt, but that is what this world is, hurt and pain. Some of us get good at dealing with it and maybe that’s what makes us good at this job.\nThe phone rang. I answered and said my name was Molly. We are all Molly or Jacob. It helps if they ever call back. There was a man on the other end of the line. His voice was shaky, but familiar. He said his name was Johnathan. \n\nWe were ten minutes into the session when I realized it was my husband. I don’t know why I didn’t pass the call to someone else. That would have been the right thing to do, but I didn’t. Curiosity, I guess. I wanted to hear his pain, but I was not prepared for what he was going to say. He told me what a horrible bitch his wife was and how she had ruined his life. He told me he had a gun and wanted a way out.\n\nMy heart broke. For the first time, I saw that his anger was really just fear. He was afraid of what I would think about him. He was terrified of me finding out about the things he had done, afraid of me judging him. He laid it all out. He confessed to beating me, to drinking too much, to infidelity. He said he wrote it all down in a note to his wife and that she would find it when he was gone. I was dying on the inside but he was calming down so I swallowed my pride and continued. \n\nI told him that his wife would understand and that he should try talking to her about it, as he was talking to me; honest and without violence. He laughed and said his wife would never understand because his actions were incomprehensible. How could a wife understand and forgive the repeated molestation of her niece? My world came crashing down. He trusted Molly and to her he admitted to unforgivable acts, so vile that my heart hardened upon hearing them. How could he? She is only nine! \n\nI took a deep breath and in a soft voice told him that he was correct. Things like that are unforgivable. He began to weep and I joined him. We cried together. The people in the office stared at me. He asked if I wanted to hang up, but I said no. I heard the hammer cock back and in a shaky voice, between sobs, I whispered.\n\n“Pull the trigger”. \n", "Being a former licensed CFR, I've held the lives of young children in my arms, and watched as the light faded from their eyes.\n\nI've ended shifts covered in the blood of strangers whose first name was never uttered to me, all I ever knew about these people was their time of death.\n\nI always thought of myself as an iron-skinned brute with a titanium mind. But nothing, not even my years of handling the dead could've prepared me for what was about to happen.\n\nThe desk connected to the cubicle was clean, tidy and had few things on it. A lively green plant, a standard black office phone and a paper with the title \"Lives Altered For The Better.\" It had twohundred and thirtysix lines on it. \n\nIn my personal space stood the two nonliving items I held dearly in my heart. A framed picture of two men, smiling brightly as if though it was a Colgate commercial, and a velvet-red clock in the shape of a heart that kept on ticking. Quarter past five it read. \n\n\n\"Helping Hand Hotline, how may I help you?\" I asked for the fifth time that day. Four successful calls so far, I would not let this one slip between the cracks, whatever it took. I rarely ended a day in a bummed out mood and this would be my last call before Sally, the pretty red haired girl, came to take the night shift. So this call was important. My nights sleep depended on me keeping a clear head and making sure that the person on the other side of the phone found an alternative to ending his or her life today.\n\nTwo of the previous callers had agreed to call again tomorrow, on the premiss that I was the one that answered. One had thrown up the handful of pills he had swallowed, our conversation lasted for three more hours after that. The last one had even agreed to have a session with our in-house therapist.\n\nI was met with a familiar male voice, I just couldn't put my finger on how I recognized it. The man was crying.\n\"I've decided to end my life today, I'm not looking for someone to tell me otherwise.\" Sobbing, he went on \"I just want you to listen to me.\" I knew where this was going, I've gotten these kinds of calls before. They are the ones every hotline operator fear to take.\n\n\"You see, my life has never been picture-perfect. But it has been my life, I've lived on my own terms. That is more than most in this world can ask for, and it makes me glad to know how fortunate I was.\" The man said, his voice was now calm and easy, confident. No longer muddled by the tears he had previously choked on.\n\n\nAt first it was hard make out who he was. But it was clear now. Tommy, my Tommy. My heart sank in my chest and I felt the world around me collapse in a tremble of blurriness, \"this can't be happening\" I thought to myself. Before I even had the chance to respond he continued.\n\n\"You know how much I love you, you know that. I just wanted you to know.\" He paused, swallowing the lump in his throat. \"That it's not your fault.\" He began to cry again.\n\nTears swelled up in my eyes and trickled down my cheek. My lungs were heavy as lead, every breath a moment of agony. How could I stop this madness? All the numerous phrases I had been taught to try to save a callers life raced through my mind, none of them would work. I knew that, but at least trying would be better than just sitting there, doing nothing. \n\n\"Tom, please, I-\"\n\nAs if though I had not spoken he said \"I want you to live the life we always pictured, but without me in it.\" The sound of a pistol being cocked could be heard. \"I love you, John.\" With that he pulled the trigger, and I was left listening to the sound of that damned red clock. As if though it mattered that my shift was ending in an hour, as if anything mattered anymore. \n\n", "\"Thank you for calling the suicide help center. How are you today?\"\n\n\"Obviously not too well.\"\n\nI chuckled. I hear that response at least ten times a day, and when I do, I know exactly the type of person I'm talking to. It never does any harm, and I've saved many lives with a simple \"how are you?\". Sometimes I get a chuckle from the other end, and I know that the person on the other end still has emotion, no matter how well they aren't doing.\n\nThe person on the other line seemed to be younger lady, maybe in her early 20's. She sounded depressed, but never once during our conversation did I feel that she would kill herself. I've been doing this long enough to know what those people sound like. It can be hard knowing what the end result is going to be when you hang up the phone with someone.\n\nWe talked about life, the reason for her depression and we seemed to have an instant connection. She explained to me that the root of her problems were stemming from her relationship of one year, and she just didn't know how to break it off. She said she loved him and that she would do anything for him, but he was ruining her life. \n\nThe strange part was that she never had one bad thing to say about him. He wasn't abusive, he wasn't an addict, and his lifestyle seemed to be amazing. She just kept saying \"I can't do it anymore. Ever since we've been together, I've been getting gradually worse. I am losing my will to live.\" \n\nI didn't understand. I get hundreds of calls in which a significant other is the root problem of someone's mental state, but these people always have something negative to say about said person. This lady didn't. She had nothing but praise for him. As confused as I was, I knew the only thing she could do is break it off with him. Towards the end of our long conversation, I gave her my advice and she agreed to follow through with it.\n\nAfter that long day at work I arrived at home to my beautiful girlfriend. We exchanged hugs and kisses and she began to cry. I didn't understand. Things had been going so well. What was happening? I needed my relationship. I loved her. Day after day I listen to people who want to take their own life. I needed the stability we had at home. No one is strong enough to take those calls all day long without a stable home life. I hesitated, and asked her \"What's wrong?\" \nBawling, she said, \"I'm sorry... for everything\"\n\nI didn't understand. I began to become emotional and said \"sorry for what, baby?\"\n\nShe replied \"I've been cheating on you for about a year now\"\n\n\"I love him\".\n\nI began to weep uncontrollably. I had no Idea. She had ripped my heart out. She began to explain how guilty she had felt and that she didn't want to continue hurting either of us. \n\nI couldn't take it. \"You bitch!\" I exclamed. \"I loved you and would do anything for you\". \"You were my best friend, my rock, my lover. I gave you everything I had\". We both bawled, then stood in silence.\n\nAs I went up to my room to begin packing my things, my wife went into our bedroom bathroom, still crying. I didn't care what she did. I felt nothing but numbness. After I had everything packed, I went to tell her I was leaving. She was lying lifeless on the bathroom floor. Her face was pale. She was gone. \n\nFreaking out, I shook her and tried to wake her up. She wouldn't respond. I grabbed her cell phone lying next to her side to dial 911. When I opened the phone app, her recent calls were the first page to pop up. \n\nMy broken heart shattered.", "It was a special morning, I had just received my shiny golden pin for ‘’2 years of outstanding customer service’’. Those terms always made me smile. How could they call this ‘’customer service’’? When did suicide prevention become an actual business?\n\nI didn’t matter anyways; I sat down at my desk, 8 am sharp. I liked the early shift, although calls rarely came in before 10. I guess suicidal people are a bit lazy?\n\n‘’Driiiiing’’ \n\n8:04, how ironic that the call that would change my life would come in so early.\n‘’Bright Side Center how can I help you?’’ I always greeted people with such enthusiasm.\n\n‘’Hi … I’m about to kill myself’’ Her voice sounded oddly familiar, although it was always hard to tell with such depression and panic in the tone.\n\n‘’Easy there, what’s your name m’am?’’\n\n‘’It doesn’t matter what my name is! I’m about to jump off the Mann’s bridge!!’’\n\n‘’It matters to me m’am. Why would a lady with such a lovely voice want to do something so drastic?’’\n\n‘’Be… because I can’t live with myself, I’ve done terrible things’’\n\n‘’Everyone does m’am, that’s why we’re humans. But there’s always a solution, we just need to take it slow and talk, no drastic action’’\n\nShe started telling me about her whole life and it clicked. It was her, it was Valerie. It was like listening to a stranger narrating my life. Our house, our dog, our salsa lessons. We had been married for 5 years and everything seemed fine, she seemed happy.\n\nShe kept talking and I kept listening. I couldn't interrupt her, I was too shocked. And then it came, the moment of truth.\n\n‘’So I cheated on him. At first it was just for sex but after 6 months, I fell in love with this other man. Now I wanted to leave my husband for him but he refused and hasn't spoken to me in weeks. I don’t have the courage to face my husband … what should I do?’’\n\nI couldn't answer. It was like someone had ripped my heart out of my chest. Like someone stepped on my whole world and crushed it.\n\n‘’Hello? Are you still there..?’’ Her voice brought me back to reality.\n\n‘’Yes… yes I am.’’ \n\n‘’You said there’s always a solution, we just need to talk it through. What should I do?’’\n\nI took a deep breath.\n\n‘’Jump bitch!’’\n", "I was sitting on my desk, answering calls of sad and depressed people. The people to whom death seemed better option than life. I picked up the phone to answer the next call. I heard a sweet voice from the other side.\n\n\"Hullo?\" \n\nIt was definitely her, my wife. I could tell just by listening to the voice. Working on a suicide helpline, I never expected to hear that voice. I had dealt with hundreds of calls but this one left me speechless. She didn't know I worked for the suicide helpline. Her voice was shaky which made my heart sink. I just couldn't answer. I moved my lips but no sound came out of my mouth. My throat was heavy and felt like it was choked. I took a deep breath and tried to gather every little bit of courage I had. My heart was telling me to cut the phone and pretend like nothing had happened, but I couldn't do that. I couldn't risk destroying her last little hope.\n\nI cleared my throat and brought the phone a bit closer to my mouth\n\n\"Hello Ma'am, may I help you?\" I asked.\n\n\"I wish you could\" She said and stopped for a while. She was trying hard not to cry over the phone. She was always a strong lady, or at least pretended to be. \n\n\"I'd be more than happy to help you ma'am\" I said. It was a cold night of December. I took off my jacket and loosened my tie. I could feel sweat on my head.\n\n\"Is everything okay?” One of my coworkers asked and passed me a glass of water. I nodded and smiled at him. It was the fakest smile that had come over my face in my entire lifetime. I drank the whole glass of water in just a couple of seconds and put it on my desk.\n\n“I don’t see hope in living anymore” She said. “My parents died when I was three. I spent half of my life in an orphanage. I worked hard to get a job and I finally moved out into my own house. Then I met this guy, and fell in love with him. He too loved me a lot. We got married and everything went smooth. But in the past few years,” She stopped.\n\n\nI had no idea what to say. She was the only one I loved. She was everything for me.\n\n“In the past few years,” she continued “I feel like he doesn’t love me anymore. He spends most of his day at his office and nights at an unknown call centre. It has been two years since he said ‘I love you’. He didn’t even remember my birthday, and our marriage anniversary.”\n\n\nI wanted to tell her how much I love her. I still loved her the way I did when we got married. I just sucked at expressing it. The glitter in her eyes and the glow of her cheeks was still the best thing in the entire world. I loved every little thing she did- the way she said my name, or the way she gave me a good-morning hug. But I just couldn’t express it. My inability to remember important dates was a sign of developing Alzheimer’s.\n\n“And the worst thing is” she said “He has started going out with this woman and he didn’t even tell me about it. I don’t think he finds me beautiful anymore.”\n\nI wish I could tell her the woman was my psychiatrist, who was working hard to treat my Alzheimer’s.\n\n\n“But ma’am” I cleared my throat “How can you be so sure if you haven’t talked about it to your husband yet?” I asked.\n\n\n“Relationships are all about trust and loyalty” she said. It sounded a bit strange coming from a woman who herself doubted the loyalty of her husband. “He never used to lie, but he has changed now. I never had anyone in my life until he came. He made my life beautiful. But I think I must end it before he breaks my heart.”\n\nShe thought I didn’t understand her. I too was raised in an orphanage and she was the only girl I loved. I had no siblings or friends. She was the only hope in my life.\n\n“I think you should talk about it to your husband, at least once. I’m sure he’ll understand” I said and waited for her reply.\n\n“It’s too late now” she said as her voice lowered. “I’ve already taken many sleeping pills, and I’m going to a better place now. I called you so that I don’t have to die alone.”\n\nI felt a hole in my chest. My head almost exploded. I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. I put the phone on my desk and rushed towards the bathroom. I took out a bottle of sleeping pills from my pocket and ate almost a dozen of them. My face was all wet from sweat and tears. I rushed back to my chair and took the phone in my hand. She was still there. We heard each other breathing heavily over the phone. I kept my eyes closed. She was humming her favorite song. I too started humming with her. The sound from the other side started lowering gradually, until it stopped. I don’ know if she had stopped humming, or it was me couldn’t hear it. My head fell on the desk and I fell asleep. The sleep from where I’d never wake up. My coworkers gathered around me and tried to revive my lifeless body. I had the strength to wake up, but I didn’t. There was no reason to be alive anymore. Ending my life was the only option I was left with. Both of us lived together, died together, and hopefully, will be together in the next lifetime.\n" ]	9
	[WP]Your Writing in Response to this Prompt Will Receive Now Moderate Recognition at Best. However, Future Historians will Hold this Response in High Regard.	[ "Many words have been written regarding the religious wars of the early 21st century. One author from the period, WhiskeyBoarder, claimed then the cause of conflict was much more nuanced than that of our current understanding. War was driven by a myriad of factors to include corporate greed, desire for autonomy among indigenous populations, petty political squabbles of a now vanquished empire, and the right to carbon-based fuels that have long since been exhausted from our planet. WhiskeyBoarder, like many of his peers, published on the mostly lost repository of reddit. It is difficult now to perceive whether his observations were unique. Though, it is clear now that he was mostly wrong as it is commonly understood that the escalation to World War III was caused almost totally by religious disputes. " ]	1
	[WP] The scene is your grandfathers 90th birthday party. Unbeknownst to you and your family, he is a sleeper agent who was brainwashed in a Nazi POW camp. At some point during the celebration, his activation phrase is spoken. Chaos ensues.	[ "“Well we couldn’t fit all the candles on your cake Dad, we’d set the whole house on fire!” Aunt Darlene chuckled at her own joke.\n\nGrandpa laughed good heartedly. “No need, a man at my age has no need for wishes, everything I’ve ever wanted out of life you all have given me. Everything I need is right here, my beautiful family”. Everyone responded in endearing sentiments, except Uncle George, the ever jokester.\n\n“You sure you don’t wanna wish for some coke and strippers?” His laughter boomed throughout the dining room. The rest of the family groaned, and then looked back at grandpa, his face glowing behind his lit candles.\n\nIn that second he stilled. His eyes grew a dark, sinister glint. \n\n“Grandpa, are you ok?” I stood and moved toward him, looking for signs of heart attack, stroke, or any of the inevitable health attacks for a man his age. Without a word he leapt out of his seat. In one swift motion he lunged at me, brandishing his walker as an old time circus master would tame a lion with a chair. With seemingly impossible strength he knocked me down.\n\nI fell to the floor, shock and confusion racking my mind. How was he so strong? The man could hardly lift a milk jug these days. And just what the hell was wrong with him?\n\nUncle Ed tried to intercept, but Grandpa struck him with two swift blows to the neck and nose. Uncle Ed doubled over in pain, and the rest of the family took a fearful step back.\n\nStill silent, Grandpa walked over to the china cabinet. Swiping away a shelf full of grandmas rose bud decorated tea cups, he punched a hole in the back of the cabinet. He reached in and pulled out a large package.\n\nThere was a sharp knock at the door. Too stunned to move, my family stood exchanging panicked looks, Aunt Darlene cried softly in the corner. Grandpa took mechanical steps toward the door and swung it open.\n\nOutside stood a tall man in a sharp suit, he didn’t acknowledge the rest of us, but looked only at Grandpa.\n\n“Come with me, there is much to be done” Without waiting for a response he escorted Grandpa outside. A black luxury car, which probably cost more than my last year’s salary, idled on the road.\n\n“Wait! What the hell is going on? You can’t just take him, who are you?” I yelled as I strode after them, bewilderment and frustration fueling my steps. I grew close and reached out to grab him, to demand some answers. \nBut before my arm had fully extended I felt a sharp prick in my neck. My body went limp in an instant and I collapsed, falling into darkness.\n", "\"Happy birthday Old Wolf!\" The shouts rang out as we celebrated cheerfully. 90 years is quite a feat in our family, but Grandpa had made it. We had a couple scares along the way, especially the battle with cancer after his 75th birthday, but he surprised the doctors and beat it.\n\nThe whole family had gathered tonight to celebrate this momentous occasion. Even though he had outlived a couple of his children, there were plenty of family and friends to celebrate with him. Since I was one of the closest grandchildren to him, I had made sure that some of his friends from the retirement center could make it. It was amazing how many of them, even in their 80's and 90's, were still in amazing health!\n\nThere were a couple of them that had emigrated from Germany together along with the Old Wolf right after World War II. Franz was about three years younger than grandpa, but to look at him, you'd guess he was in his early 60's. He still worked out every day at the center's gym, and he would run 10 miles every other day. It was amazing!\n\nHeinrich was a smaller man, always known more for his brain than his brawn, but still in great shape. At 80, he was the youngest of their group, which always made him the follower. He always had a mind for business and stock trading, so over the years, he had made enough to set all three of them up in the nicest retirement center in Florida.\n\nGrandpa, being the oldest, had always been the ringleader of the trio. But he had always taken the fall as well. I remembered hearing stories of their time together during the conflict, all the protests and sit-ins, and knew that Grandpa had been arrested during several of them, always making sure the other two got away.\n\nIt was nice, seeing these three oldest friends sharing cake and stories, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren listening with rapt attention. As the evening wore on, most of the family made their goodbyes. Eventually there were just a dozen or so people left. I stood to make my final toast of the evening. having practiced it at home a few times, I tried to get the translation just right.\n\n\"Heute Abend feiern wir einen großen Mann. Gute zum geburtstag Auld Wolf!\" \n\nWith those words, a simple happy birthday wish, something changed. Grandpa sat bolt upright in his chair, yelling \"Für die Fuehrer!\" Franz and Heinrich both jumped to their feet, throwing the dining table in front of them up on it's side and ducking behind it. From seemingly out of nowhere, all three of them produced small pistols and started opening fire.\n\nWhat the hell was happening!? Where did they get the guns? Were those German Lugers? The guests that were left were diving for any cover they could find. One of them, a sweet 75-year old woman from the retirement center, cried out as a shot hit her arm. Following my instinct, I launched myself towards the poor woman, dragging her to the ground and behind a sofa.\n\nAll three of the men were now screaming in German, as if they were back in the war. As they ran out of ammunition, they retreated back into the kitchen. Hearing loud noises and shouts, I came up off the ground and ran to the kitchen doorway. Peering around the corner, I noticed that they had managed to pull the stove away from the wall. I could see...was that the gas line? Oh shit!! Running back into the living room, I shouted for everyone to run out the front door. \n\nWe grabbed the old folks as fast as we could, getting everyone across the street before my house blew up. As the windows blew out and a giant fireball soared out of the kitchen windows, we all sheltered behind my neighbor Bob's car. Through the flames, I could see the figures of three not-so-feeble old men running from the blaze.\n\nThe police, paramedics, and fire department soon arrived. I had no clue what to tell them. You try explaining that a trio of geriatrics, led by your 90-year old grandfather, just opened fire at his birthday and blew up the house. I told them the story as best I could, but I'm sure they had trouble believing it all. The police began a search for the trio that night and sent everyone home, and my wife, children, and me to a hotel for the night. \n\nWe got the call from the police the next morning. Franz, Heinrich, and the Old Wolf had all been found, dead. It would take quite a while for autopsy and lab work to come back, but according to the police, the cause of death was suicide by cyanide capsules. This was all too strange for me to take in. I called my uncle to let him know that grandpa was dead\n\n\"You know,\" he said as I finished telling him the new, \"I wonder if this has anything to do with his time in the war? Doesn't it seem strange that they would just start yelling in German and shooting everyone? Anytime somebody asked about his time in Germany, he couldn't recall a lot of details.\" \n\nNow that he mentioned it, I had asked a couple times, but he was right: Grandpa was always fuzzy when it came to the war. I just figured it was his memory going, but on everything else, he was sharp as a tack. I knew they had done mind-control experiments during the war, could that be it? I guess the only people who would know for sure were dead now.", "Hershell was in the living room, sitting on his old, faded olive colour armchair comfortably. Birthday cards were lined up on the mantle-piece, and a bright glittery banner reading 'HAPPY 90TH BIRTHDAY' was hung from one side of the room to the other. He breathed a deep breath. What a life. Despite all the frantic arranging, party fames, food, fun, jokes, he had a little moment to himself. To sit on his favourite armchair, to appreciate what a life he'd had. \n\nHe let a smile creep across his wrinkled face.\n\n\"Is the cake ready yet?\" He called out into the kitchen.\n\n\"Just adding the last few candles on now...don't worry, we've got the fire brigade outside...\" His daughter called out, laughing.\n\nHershell chuckled softly. 52nd 'You're old' joke, only a couple hundred more to go.\n\n\"Wait, I forgot, you got some gift through the mail, I don't know who off, this 'Max' is he a friend of yours?\" She called again.\n\nHershell frowned slightly.\n\n\"No idea, bring it in!\" He called suspiciously.\n\nHis daughter brought in a medium sized, heavy rectangular box and placed it in her grandfathers hands.\n\n\"I don't who that is, you probably know them.\" She said, and walked back into the kitchen.\n\nHe eyed the box with suspicion. One label hung from the box on a piece of string. He turned the label over to face him and he read aloud...\n\n\"Happy Birthday, it's going to be a blast. From...\n\nMax... Heiliger.\"\n\nWhen the words were spoke, something snapped inside of Hershells mind. His pupils shrunk and his gaze was blank. Something hidden in his subconscious has been activated. He was a time bomb. Set to detonate by those words.\n\nHe began to remember now, those strange German doctors, with their wires, their syringes, and strange words, and constant repeating and repeating. Hershell was not thinking anymore. He had been activated. He sat there, his gaze wide and piercing, and a decade of fury and hate bubbling inside of him.\n\n\"Happy Birthday to you...\" His daughter and grandaughters began to sing from the kitchen, they were making their way into the living room from the kitchen, carrying the cake to him slowly.\n\nHershell opened the box, and inside...was a handgun, a German Walther P99.\n\n\"Happy Birthday dear Hershell...\" They sang.\n\nHe picked up the gun.\n\nThey were inside the living room now.\n\n\"Happy birthday to you...\"\n\nA smile spread unto his lips.\n\nHe knew what to do.\n\n\n", "\"Mazel Tov!\" we cheered as grandpa blew out the candles on his birthday cake. He sat there, near catatonic in his wheelchair, and started mumbling something about the war. Thing is, far as we knew, he wasn't in one. \n\nHe had long nails--like a woman's, but less manicured. He wasn't the rough-and-tumble type you'd expect out of combat. Not him. Not grandpa. \n\nSo when he spoke up at the table, spitting cake out of his mouth and screaming about \"solutions, final solutions,\" we thought nothing of it, except maybe Alzheimer's. Or Dementia. Who knows.\n\nMom kept gasping, \"did he say ludes? He never had a problem!\" It was so like her, the denial, just like Uncle Eddy's collection of vintage shemale porn: 'honey, that's just a phase your uncle never grew out of.' \n\n\"He said, 'jews,' not ludes,\" Aunt Sharon yelled out.\n\n\"Jews? This is Wyoming! We don't even have Jews here!\" \n\nMeanwhile, old grandpa was crawling along the floor, frosting on the tips of his fingers, inching his way toward the door. Those long, un-manicured fingernails broke under the weight of his limp body. \"Birthday? I'll show you a birthday,\" he called out, \"How about Christ's birthday, huh? Ever heard of that birthday? It's called Christmas, motherfucker.\" \n\nMy dad and the other men--yes, Uncle Eddy, too--watched from a distance, beers in their hands, as the women rushed to my grandpa's aid. The women, from the looks of it, treated the whole incident like a mystery. But for the men, the day hadn't changed a thing. Their one enduring mystery was, as it had always been, the women. For them, this was just another enigmatic piece. Grandpa and his ladies, crammed somewhere between cake and football talk. \n\nGrandpa had been one of those men a few decades earlier, back when his wife was still alive, but not anymore. Oh, grandpa made that abundantly clear, one sieg heil at a time. \"Those jews, you know, they're not what you think!\" He echoed again, in hardly intelligible words, mumbling from the floor as my aunts and sisters wrestled his arms to the ground.\n\n\"Stay still!\" My eldest sister, Heather, yelled. \n\nMom, now a visible wreck, with mascara running down her cheeks, was on the phone with emergency services. In choked-up English, she explained the source of her woes: her father, the anti-semite, whose birthday was 'ruined, butchered,' and, in her most collected tone, 'a sensitive issue.' I managed to hear more of her conversation with the operator, even over grandpa's exasperated hipster nazi ramblings. \n\n\"Can you please, operator,\" sob, sob, \"please, I ask, please ask the emergency crew to come without sirens. The neighbors,\" she wailed, \"we wouldn't want to disturb the...\" her voice trailed off, squelched by her sobs. \n\n\"Grandpa, you are not in--\" \n\n\"It's too late for that, you stinkin' sympathizer! Don't you understand,\" grandpa screamed with a fork in his hand, which he had apparently discovered beside the table. It had frosting all over it, and now, with every jew-hating remark, he flung that cream-cheese base around the room. \"Boom,\" he yelled. \"Boom! Boom!\" He seemed to think that the fork was artillery. \n\nFor the first time, the men on the couch reacted, but only by covering the spouts of their beers. Frosting might distort the taste, and, no doubt, the evening. \n\nWith grandpa's voice carrying too far for comfort, and because she was finally off the phone, mom ran over to the contorted blob of people, filled with my sisters and aunts and cousins. She picked them apart, one by one, until she reached the center--until she reached my grandfather. \"You will not,\" she belched out, grabbing the fork from his hand and hoisting it in the air like a trident, \"disturb the neighbors!\" \n\nJust as she was about to lower the fork, we heard it, the sirens. Mid-swing, my mother stopped, turned toward the door and charged out of the house, screaming and brandishing the fork, \"No sirens! Turn off those sirens!\"\n\nIt took the paramedics longer than we expected to get inside, but when they finally walked in, one spoke into his radio in a hushed voice, \"make that two incoming.\" \n\nThey walked over to grandpa and peeled away the rest of my family. As they looked down at him, our frosting-covered patriarch met their eyes and said, \"It's my birthday, so Mazel Tov, motherfuckers.\" \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "\"Der wolf heult den mondan.\"\n\nThe noise and conversation of the birthday party ground to a unconfortable halt as the sentence passed the stranger's lips.\n\nAll eyes trained on the weathered old man standing in the doorway who had unexpectedly shown up to pay his respects to the guest of honour. \"What did he say? Was that German? How does he know grandfather?\" The various children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and other relations whispered among themselves.\n\n\"Es ist zeit, sechsundfünfzig.\" Said the well dressed old man with an broad, arrogant smile.\n\nAll eyes went back to great grandfather, who was staring at the stranger with an stony expression that none present had ever experienced.\n\nIt was the oldest son that broke the silence, moving towards the stranger. \"Hey, listen pal, I don't know how you know my father, but you are upsetting him, and he is very old, so I think it's time you leave.\"\n\nAs the son crossed an undeclared threshold of distance towards the stranger, the blow landed. The knife edge of his father's hand striking the side of his son's neck with enough force to break a concrete block. \n\nThe son never saw it coming, not that he could have even fathomed that his own father would be capable of such an action at ninety years of age, or against his own son. \n\nThe room became loud with screams of shock and horror as the son fell face down to the floor like a statue being tipped over.\n\nThe man stepped over the prone body of his unconscious son, and walked out the door without so much as a glance back at his family, the memories of his cover life fading like a daydream after waking. The training, orders, and most importantly, loyalties to the Reich flooding back into the forefront of his mind as he climbed into the back of the waiting car. \n\nBehind him, the stranger in the door way popped up the collar of his black leather trench coat, put up a black leather gloved hand to his hat, gave it a curt tip towards the party guests, and turned to depart.\n\n\n" ]	5
Self explanatory. Possibly NSFW flag, not obligatory. Excuse the bad grammar, no native here. ---- Alternative: "When sneezing three times in a row, you will automatically be teleported to a room full of every single person with whom you have ever imagined having sex with."	[WP] [NSFW] When sneezing three times in a row, you will automatically be teleported to a room full of every single person with whom you have ever had sex with.	[ "I was sitting at a desk at an interview for my dream job... ceo of Google. I knew I didn't deserve this job because my biggest accomplishments in life were leveling every class of character in world of warcraft to 100 and not jacking off for an entire week. The ceo says to me \"the jobs yours if you want it, we just have to shake on It\" and put his arm out toward me.\nI started to reach out to shake his hand and something hit me in the nostriles like a swift kick to the balls.\nI sneezed once and said \"I'm sorry\" and wiped my nose with my sleeve.\nI buried my face in my arm and sneezed two more times. When I pulled my arm away I was in an empty room by myself. \n\"GOD FUCKING DAMNIT\" I screamed", "Raven Honey stood spread-legged in the middle of the brightly-lit studio, adjusting her cleavage for maximum fullness, while three assistants smeared baby oil over her body. She jiggled her bra until her ample breasts were perched so precariously that the slightest lean of her body may have dislodged them, at which point she ceased the adjustment, satisfied.\n\n“Margaret, check the body cams. They can’t slip, not even a little bit, or we’ll completely lose the shots.”\nA woman with a carefully preened bee-hive hairdo abandoned overseeing the oiling of Raven’s big toes, rolling her eyes as she turned to the director. \n“Chuck, for the last fucking time, they’re stuck on with medical-grade adhesive. She’s not going to come into contact with anything that’ll dislodge them in there… unless the guys are jizzing solvent.”\n\nRaven paid little attention to the interaction. Instead, she was working on memorising the locations of each of the nine cameras glued to her taut body. Each was the size of a pea, glimmering black from each of her shoulders, her middle knuckles, her stomach, the back of her neck, the backs of her thighs, and just above the edge of her low-cut, mesh thong. Along with these body cameras, she wore a headpiece fitted with two extra lenses, providing anyone viewing the footage with a 360⁰ vantage point. \n\nNo one had produced anything like this before – if Raven could pull this off, she would go down in history.\n\nA makeup artist, who had just finished powdering glittery bronzer across Raven’s chest, thrust a cherry red lipstick into her hands. But Raven’s talons – also crimson – got in the way of opening the tube, prompting the makeup girl to sigh and snatch it from her hands. Raven was used to the snarky makeup artists – they all seemed to entertain this bizarre belief that they were somehow better than working in the adult entertainment industry. Uppity bitches.\n\nMargaret circled Raven, surveying every inch of her. Cameras in place, well fitted lingerie, bronzed and oiled body, makeup on, hair done. She checked her watch, then turned to the director and gave a curt nod. It was time. \n\n“Alright,” said Chuck. A hush fell over the studio. \n“Today’s the day. We all know why we’re here, and you’ve all done an excellent job in preparing Raven for the shoot. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity – we are the first to provide such an intimate experience for our subscribers, and we want this to go down in history as one of the most unbelievable porn experiences the world has ever got their rocks off to.” At this point, all eyes turned to Raven, and Chuck asked “Are you ready?”\n\n“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Raven replied. \n\n“Well you’d better be prepared. After today, Raven Honey is going to be a household name.”\nAn assistant muttered “I’m not sure that porn stars necessarily become household names,” but Chuck was too focussed to bother responding. Margaret approached the pair, holding a wide plate piled with pepper. \n\n“Alright, Raven. Take a big sniff, and you should be sneezing before you know it.”\n\nThe woman leant over the plate, nose an inch from the pepper mound. She steeled herself, then inhaled, long and slow. As soon as she was finished breathing in, she spluttered out a quick sneeze, and was overcome by a fit of coughing. Chuck rubbed his palms together. \n“Good,” he said. “Come on, two more.”\nSuppressing her coughs, Raven stooped down and took in another deep breath, which was followed by another sneeze. \n“One more, and you’re in!”\nRaven inhaled deeper this time – beyond the burning in her nostrils, she began to feel that familiar tingle. But it was slower this time; the build was climbing steadily, but it lacked the intensity of the last two sneezes. \nThe delay set Chuck on edge. Turning to Margaret, he hissed “why is this taking so long?” \n\n“Chuck, you just need to lay off. She just snorted a metric fuckton of pepper. It’ll happen. Just cool it.”\n\nThe feeling was building and building throughout Raven’s face; it began to contort, eyes narrowing, mouth opening in preparation for the final sneeze that would catapult her into her most important scene of her life..\n\nAnd the feeling was gone.\n\n“Shit.” Raven turned to Chuck, who looked bewildered. “I think I lost it.”\n\n“What do you mean you lost it?!” Chuck went from his usual rosy complexion to pasty white in a matter of moments – his lightly lined forehead was coated with a light sheen of sweat, which glinted in the studio lighting. \n“If you lost it, then find it again!”\n\n“If I could do that, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” Raven replied. \n\n“Try again,” urged Margaret, pushing the plate to Raven’s nose until she took another big sniff.\n\n“Nothing,” Raven affirmed.\n\nChuck was losing his cool, running his hands over his bald head. “Shit!”\n\n“It’s fine,” Margaret replied. “I’ve researched all the different ways to get someone to sneeze. We’ll get it done.” The woman pulled out a handheld torch, flicking it on and pointing it at a wincing Raven.\n\n“What are you doing?”\n\n“Staring at a bright light can make some people sneeze. Just look at the light for a minute.”\n\nRaven squinted, staring deep into the centre of the light. After a minute or so, Margaret switched it off. Her brow furrowed. “Not even a peep. This is not good.”\n\n\nRaven tried to blink away the vision of the torch’s light, which seemed to have imprinted itself on her retinas. “I’m charging you lot for lasik,” she muttered. But no one was paying any attention to her – Chuck’s eyes flashed like a trapped animal, and he was speaking at such speeds that it was difficult to discern one word from another.\n\n“Margaret-we-promised-our-viewers-that-they-could-stream-it-in-two-minutes-and-she-hasn’t-even-been-transported-yet-fucking-hurry-up-or-we-are-going-to-be-in-some-serious-shit-just-make-her-sneeze-I-don’t-care-how-just-make-it-happen!”\n\nChuck’s panic was contagious – Margaret lost her customary bravado, resembling a deer in headlights rather than her usual lion on the prowl. But the look was short-lived: she steadied herself, somewhat, and announced “I need every hand on deck!” Gesturing to her assistants, she directed: “Andy, keep going with the pepper. Erika, you need to start plucking her nose hairs – see if that does the trick. Sophie – yep, that’s right, try the nostril-feather thing. Let’s get this done, people!” \n\nRaven was ushered into a chair, before the assistants began to swarm around her nose, each brandishing their weapon of choice. Then, all at once, the torch was being shoved in her face, while the assistants attempted to pluck her nose hairs, tickle her nose with a goose feather, and blow pepper up her nose simultaneously. \n\nRaven was bewildered by how uncomfortable it made her feel – she had shot scenes with nine men at once before, but having a few assistants all up in her nasal region was really violating her sense of personal space. \n\n“Ow!” she exclaimed, as Erika plucked a particularly well-embedded hair from her left nostril. \n\nMeanwhile, Andy’s attempts to blow pepper up her right nostril were blocked by Sophie’s feather, which resulted in the pepper flying directly into Raven’s eyeball.\n\n“Not the liner!” the makeup artist screeched, horrified, pushing into the fray to dab away the liquid streaming from Raven’s eye.\n\n“Thirty seconds!” Chuck bellowed, beside himself. “So help me Margaret, if you don’t fix this I’m suing you for all you’re worth!”\n\nMargaret then shoved an iPhone in Raven’s face, showing a looping video of a person sneezing, which was mostly obscured by the feathers which were being pushed haphazardly towards the middle of Raven’s face. Another cloud of pepper was sent straight into Raven’s open mouth, and her spluttering caused Erika’s tweezers to scrape the inside of her nose. \n\n“Fifteen seconds!”\n\nOne eye streaming, one nostril bleeding, spluttering with choking coughs, Raven stared at the light and took in one more deep breath..\n\n“AHHHH-CHOOOOOO!”\n\nWhen Raven opened her eyes, the chaotic studio had disappeared. She was in a large, opulent bedroom, surrounded by every single one of the 56 different porn stars she’d worked with, plus the six boyfriends she’d slept with. She surveyed them, then, with a slight curl of her lip, she asked:\n\n“Who wants to make a porno?”\n", "They say when you sneeze once, it is just an itch. Sneeze twice, watch out. Sneeze thrice, just your luck someone is talking about you. Hopefully, about something good.\n\nYou grabbed your handkerchief from your backpocket and swiped your nose. You gave closed your eyes and gave your little darlings a nice blow. And lo and behold, as you feasted your eyes upon the ruby walls with large imprinted letters, \"THE LOVE CHAMBER\" and the tiny disclaimer in bold, \"Sneeze thrice, and welcome to the love chamber! Be reunited with each on your mates! Enjoy!\"\n\nYou grimaced at the heart shaped bed, and took a seat. Happy Singles Awareness Day, you proclaimed to your lonely self.", "I don't know why three sneezes in a row does it. I am also unclear on what exactly constitutes \"in a row\". I have tried to figure out what the time requirement is for the phenomena to occur, but I am usually fairly sick when it happens, so results are hard to achieve. \n\nWhy don't I just smell pepper or something and force a series? Because I don't want to. Not in the least. It is bad enough when it happens beyond my control.\nWhy is that? Well, sit down and get mildly comfortable. This won't take very long.\n\n\nThe majority of people I have told my story to (mostly friends) find it fascinating. Some think it's neat, but wouldn't want to actually experience the situation. Others immediately induce sneezing in a futile attempt to...reminisce...with former lovers about days past. However, it's just a story to them. To me, it's real life. And boy, is it awkward.\n\nI get transported to a room with 3 people. Three. They are women. They barely speak English. I have had sex with all of them. Basically, every time I sneeze three times in a row, I am stuck into a room with three prostitutes. \n\nIt kind of ruins my day. \n\nEdit: flow", "\"Sweetie, I've got a cold again. You know it's just a matter of time.\" I told my wife over the phone.\n\n\"Babe seriously? I'm still getting over last time.\" She was a very innocent girl my wife. I rather admired that in her. Whenever I looked at her I saw a pure Disney princess. Someone strong like Belle, but child-like too. Kind of like Rapunzel. She really didn't deserve this curse.\n\n\"I know. I'm downing cold medicine like an addict but I'm having a hard time holding it in. You've got minutes at most to prepare yourself.\" She had to keep her phone on constantly now, so whenever I felt the urge coming on I would just call her to give her a little warning. That was the least I could do for her.\n\n\"Can't you just hold your nose or something?\" She begged.\n\n\"Princess I'm really doing the best I can but....but..oh no. Achoo!\"\n\nAll of the sudden I was alone in bed with my wife, the only girl for me.\n\n\"Babe I was in the middle of a crochet project.\" She said.\n\n\"I'm sorry, but hey, it was date night anyway right?\" I asked. Her girlish smile turned decidedly woman like.\n\n\"I guess I can finish it later.\"\n\nEdit: A few words" ]	5
	[WP] A new human race is discovered after alluding the rest of us for thousands of years. They have traits unlike any other human we have seen before. Now they want to intergrate with the rest of humanity. How does it go?	[ "Jack sat across from the cave-dweller, waiting for it to do something. \n\nAnything, really. \n\nIt sat perfectly still, almost if it were a statue. The stillness was inhuman, a reminder that those things weren't men. \n\nIts eyes were so large. He was told that was an effect of evolving in caves. Why did they sit so still then? Jack wondered. How could that benefit them? \n\nIt blinked. \n\nThe motion caused Jack to flinch backwards, though it was only a blink. The thing had two sets of eyelids, like a reptile did. For the sunken caves? \n\nIt looked so similar, sitting upright, but there were so many differences. \n\nThe skin, so pale, as if it had no blood to speak of. The nose, so long, perhaps to smell out whatever it was they ate? The mouth... \n\nJack stood up and quickly made his way to the door. He glimpsed back and noticed it watching him on the way out. He hurried. \n\nOn the outside of the room, he turned to his sub-ordinate. \"I'm convinced it's real. Call Hanson.\" \n\nHe stared at the thing through the two-way mirror. He could have sworn it stared back at him, but that was impossible... wasn't it? \n\nNo, this was no prank of a teenager in a costume. The higher-ups had to be told of this. A newly discovered intelligent species. \n\nJack shook his head and left the room, uncomfortable even near that thing.", "And there's been love ever since. Love and Peace.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThat phrase has haunted the history books for years. But, it isn't true. Far from it. Fear. Then segregation. Followed by anger. And that's all there's been since. I didn't want this for my children. Or my children's children. I watch, agony in my soul. If I had water in me, there'd be tears on my face.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nIt's hard to love something you don't understand. It's hard to have peace when you've been forced to face something that goes against all you have ever known. I don't blame them, really... It's logical... rational. I would have done the same....\n\n&nbsp;\n\nBullshit. Why am I lying to myself?! Do I somehow think it'll make all this okay? That it'll make what I'm about to do okay?! \n\n&nbsp;\n\nWe lived under the crust for so long. It makes sense that we wanted to see the sun. The center was hot, so hot. Burned like the sun, sure. But, to be so far away from it... It felt like a dream. To be able to look at it, what little we were able to see, that is. \n\n&nbsp;\n\nI lean forward now, to get a better look. A last look at the sun. It's my first time seeing it. My people have been outside for hundreds of years now. Not accepted. But, out there. I waited for it to get better. I waited hundreds of years. But, it didn't. I think, somewhere inside me, I knew it wouldn't. \n\n&nbsp;\n\nI inch my leathery hand toward the button. It's faded from hundreds of years of misuse. As was intended. But, not anymore. I will not let my people live in this horror anymore. The concentration camps have turned my descendants, my friends, into mere shells of what they once were. They didn't understand us, but we were apparently too alike them, 'too human' to destroy. \n\n&nbsp;\n\nI, however, am not.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThe clicking noise echoes in the empty canyon as my finger presses down. The core explodes and it's over so fast. I'm glad.", "They're similar to us in a lot of ways actually. Their language is comparable to a handful of Uralic dialects, they dress about the same in terms of a shirt and pants and the like. Structurally they're about the same too, same amount of legs and arms and all that. The most distinguishing thing about them is their head though. \n\nIt's not exactly that it's dented per-se, just that it folds a bit on top. It has a bulbous back end and the top of it forms this, sort of, ridge. It's vaguely reminiscent of a 'Klingon' from Star Trek, though more pronounced and sharp. Also, their eyes are a rich creamy-yellow. At least the ones we've met. \n\nThey say that the people they come from live on an island that neighbors Hawaii but every form of direction and coordinate they've given us hasn't turned up one ounce of dirt, much less an entire species of people. Nobody is even sure how they ended up in South Beach, so where they came from is becoming a secondary concern. \n\nThey're in separate rooms. Each of them is being interrogated. They keep talking about integration with our society, keep talking about 'becoming a part of the larger human-kind,' but that would never work. Anyone who could avoid detection for this long must have something we don't and that's a scary thing even to us. \n\nMisinformation is already being circulated across the internet to discredit anyone who saw them as something other than human. Street performers, triplets with a rare birth defect, and 'aliens' are amongst the trending theories. \n\nWe'll find out where these things came from, we're going to find out what they know and what they have and we're going to make sure nobody ever knows about them. Not some rights group, not some cult, not a single politician that could use this to their campaign's advantage. Nobody. ", "They wanted to unite us. To bring us to a shining age of glorious enlightenment, peace and prosperity. They called themselves humanity perfected and it was no arrogant boast. \n\nThey have always mingled among the rest of humanity, waiting and watching till we developed enough as a species for them to come forth. Ushering humanity into its resonating destinty, to walk amongst the cosmos absolute; this was their absolute obession.\n\nTheir only flaw, if you will.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThe pace of our process exasperated them to the point where they started cheating. Our greatest minds aren't truly our own, just greater minds broken by the perfect vision ages too long in the making. Newton, Tesla, Einstein... all almost brought down to our level because of our ignorance, our maddening refusal to look at the stars and truly reach for them.\n\nBut, we finally did it. We reached the point where they could reveal themselves and uplift the whole race to its true potential.\n\nThey were wrong. They underestimated how tightly we lesser humans cling to hate and fear and distrust in the face of the unknown. Those shackles served us too well, and were too comfortable, to be cast off willingly. \n\n&nbsp;\n\n\nA race, and a true future, died the day they revealed themselves. All because we couldn't see the hand offering the stars without imagining a hidden one holding a dagger." ]	4
	[WP] "Stop freaking out, it was just an accident."	[ "\"Does the defendant have any last defense?\" The judge asked, knowing the inevitable outcome of this case.\n\nThe defendant stood, and looked around. He coughed and started to talk, \"I have no idea why this was such a huge deal. There are millions at home watching this trial and it's just bullshit. I mean, are you guys serious? This is nothing. Manson, Simpson, the kids who did Columbine, are all much, much worst than me. And did they get massive media attention? Well... they did, but that is beside the point. My real point is, stop freaking out, it was just an accident.\"\n\nThe audience gasped, how could such a man believe his crime so much?\n\n\"Has the jury reached a verdict?\" The judge asked as nonchalantly as possible.\n\n\"We find, James Randall Edwards, not guilty on 90 counts of murder, 86 counts of rape, and 42 counts of vandalism.\" A 40 year old looking man said, he then quickly sat back down. The judge stared for a long time. The audience in attendance did as well. Unsurprisingly, James was practically bursting out of his chair.\n\n\"Uh... so, case closed...?\" The judge said as confused as a dog with a bucket on its head. He slammed his gavel, unsure of the future outcome. Then James pulled a gun off a cop taking him to freedom and killed 6 more people.\n\n", "I sighed. Oh...my...gosh, seriously lady?\n\nShe kept screaming WHY IS SHE SCREAMING?!\n\nGah!\n\nOkay, back up.\n\nLet's start all over. I woke up, went downstairs, made up breakfast, drank my tea and read the newspaper. Okay.\n\nI went outside, to get the mail that I forgot yesterday. I keep forgetting. Gosh darn it. Anyway, this kid whizzes by on a skateboard. Well that's fine.\n\nBut then...his skateboard hits this indention in the sidewalk. It swings up, he crashes, and it falls...right on me.\n\nI can feel the blood falling down my cracked skull, and tug my hair out of my eyes. His mother keeps SCREAMING. I dunno if he died. You could, I guess. No, wait, he's moving.\n\n\"Stop freaking out, it was just an accident!\"\n\nShe screams harder when my wound heals instantly, and I swipe the blood away with a fingertip, licking it away.\n\nIt BARELY hurt.\n\nOh. Why is she still screaming? Oh, right. Media portrayal says my kind doesn't do well in the sun, or drinks only blood.\n\nWell. Liars. Whatever. I shrug as she yanks her son inside her house, calling 911. I go in, get dressed for my morning run.\n\nIt's a usual day. ", "\"Stop freaking out, it was just an accident.\"\n\n\"No, Jerry,\" I stopped my pacing to fix him with a stern glare, \"An accident would be reversing into the bins. Or hitting a stray cat.\"\n\n\"You're making a far bigger deal of this than you need to,\" he put his hands on my shoulders and squeezed them gently, \"No one's to blame, here.\"\n\n\"No one's to - no one is to - do you even hear yourself?!\" I shrieked and pushed his arms away. I jabbed my finger against his chest, \"You fix this, Jerry. If you don't, I'll call the police. This is nothing to do with me. I'm not going down with you.\"\n\n\"Well, what do you want me to do?!\"\n\n\"Get rid of her before someone sees her!\"\n\n\"Me? Why should I?\" he asked incredulously.\n\n\"Because she was your mother!\"" ]	3
	[WP] You rob a bank. In the process you take a 60 year old man hostage. But it becomes clear this man is not what he seems.	[ "Things went pretty much the way I had planned it out. A. Walk in with gun drawn. B. Fire into the air and yell \"GET THE FUCK ON THE FLOOR OR SO HELP ME BLAH BLAH BLAH\". C. say nobody is going to get hurt if they do as they are told. D. get the money.\n\nThen the fucking cops showed up before I could get out. I guess one of them had passed by when i fired the gun or someone had called on their phone. Either way they knew.\n\nWhen Talking to them I grabbed this guy and pull him out while I'm talking. Say if they don't let me go I'll kill him blah blah blah. The usual crap you see on TV. \n\nThen out of Fucking nowhere he hits me in the stomach. trips me, takes the gun out of my hand, spins around and knocks me on my ass. Who the hell saw that coming.\n\nSo I get arrested, and the Police are talking to him saying shit like \"Thank you very much Mr. Blackstone.\" and \"Wow, great to meet you sir.\" At the court I found out he was some kind of super spy in the sixties or something. So yeah it didn't go my way but still.\n\nWhat? no some old guy didn't just get the drop on me who do you think I am?", "I burst through the door with hell itself following behind me. Sirens blare and flashing lights fill the alley as police car after police car go screeching past. My arm is hurt, a little blood from the wound is drying on my hand and my black sweater is starting to stick and crunch. I need to check that wound, and soon, but it feels like the blood is flowing slower now- maybe even stopped- and I have more immediate matters to attend to.\n\nThe old man coughs as I pull the gag from his mouth and replace it with the barrel of the gun. His eyes go wide for a moment, unfocused and panicked, before they settle first on my finger (safely away from the trigger) then my eyes. I hold a finger in front of my lips in the standard 'be quiet I won't hurt you' gesture before I remove the revolver from his face and shove it in my pocket. \n\nThere's a window above the door, and before finding more permanent bindings for my guest I take a peek at the streets of the 'sleeping' city. Occasionally another of those coppers careens around the corner before slipping from sight- the sirens and lights cutting through the perpetual electric dusk of the city. Satisfied that I haven't yet been found I turn again to my guest. \n\nHe is at least 60, though conventional wisdom tells me he's closer to 70. His hair is going from gray to white, and on the very top of his head disappearing for good. Though he's wrapped in tape and burlap sacks he has a sort of quiet dignity about him, like a grandfather that's just crawled out of an overturned outhouse. He hasn't said a word since leaving the bank, and I'm grateful for that. Hauling this old man through the alleys was hard, but doing it with him kicking and screaming would have been nearly impossible. \n\nI once again pull the pistol out, and start pulling strips of tape away from the writhing mass until the entire outfit falls apart. The bags I'd wrapped him in fall to the ground with a solid thunk and I kick them to one side of the room while shoving the old man into the other. I pull the old man to a metal pipe sticking out of the wall and hook him to it with handcuffs. After I'm satisfied he won't escape I sit, and take off the sweater. \n\nThe old man says nothing as I pull the black wooly thing off of me and take a look at my arm. There's a hole on each side, and the bleeding has mostly stopped, so I pull apart one of the bags lying near the old man. He is staring at me. I smile at him.\n\n\"You think this is real interesting huh?\" I spit in his face \"I've been really nice about all this you old fart. Most guys in my position would just off you, but me? No, I let you live. Just need you as a hostage for a few hours then you can be on your way. Even gonna give you some of the cash to keep quiet, but you still gotta be staring at me like I got some candy for you or some shit.\"\n\nFor the first time all night the old man smiles, a toothless, gummy, smile that makes my stomach churn and that hole in my arm feel even worse. So I spit into that smiling face and keep pulling apart the bags. Piles of money fall to the floor, yet I just keep on tearing until I've got a nice sized pile. A few minutes later I've made myself a pretty decent bandage, and the bleeding's stopped. \n\nAdrenaline finally starting to slow, so I flop down into a corner and shove the sweater behind my head as a pillow. And to the fading chorus of sirens and screams I drift into unconsciousness.\n\nI don't know how long I sleep, but the dream that comes with it seems to last forever. I see the robbery again and again, the old man cowering behind the teller, the people scattering to the wind as I fire into the air and shout for them to get out. Vivid as the moment it happened I see the security guard firing, and I see him dropping to the ground dead. And as I look to my arm, now growing redder and redder with the blood flowing from the wound that part-time gunslinger gave me, the entire world goes red. All that is is red.\n\nAnd then I woke, screaming in pain.\n\nThe old man was beside me, smiling that toothless smile again. The pipe lay on the ground behind him, the cuffs he twirls on a single bony finger. And another of those fingers is in my arm, digging towards the other side. I bite my cheek so hard that I taste metal, but the scream stops, and I shove away the fireplace poker that was digging into my arm. With both legs I kick the old bastard in the chest, sending him reeling back as I try desperately to find my feet and my gun.\n\nI see him standing there above him, just a foot or so away, not so old and not so frail and standing after being kicked full force in the chest. He lifts one blood soaked finger to his mouth, and sucks it dry.\n\nI am steady enough, one hand on the wall, as I manage to get out my revolver and aim it at that stupid fucker's head. But the old man is gone when I take aim. \n\nThen there is silence. I glide without a sound to the bags of cash (much of it spilled across the floor from making my bandages) and try my best to reach the door without alerting the old man. I'm already out of the bank, I've got the cash, I'm in the clear as long as this old fuck just runs away and keeps his mouth shut. \n\n\"You stupid shit!\" I scream at the darkness \"This didn't have to be hard! I wanted to let you go you fucker!\" \n\nThe last word rings in the air like a miniature echo throughout the room. He's gone, he's gotta be gone. I check my gun, fully loaded still, and start to slink out. My hand is covered in sweat, my whole body trembles. Something is wrong. I reach for the door, my one good arm holding the pistol, but hand stops as if struck with a vice grip.\n\nI turn, slowly, to look behind me. The old man is pressed against the door, smiling, and now holding my wrist in a grip that I can't even begin to shake with such a sore arm. I try to twist to shoot him, but another of those fingers sinks into the wound in my arm and I cannot help but scream. I fire everything in the pistol into that frail frame and he sinks down, as if deflating, finger still stuck in my arm. \n\nBut with a laugh that pierces into my soul he comes alive, and pulls down with both arms. \n\nAt first there is pain. Nothing but pain and that same red everything as before. But watching as this seemingly frail old man digs his fingers into my arm and pulls my flesh from my bones I go totally number. What once was a tiny bit of blood is now a torrential pouring, more of my own blood than I've ever seen. \n\nAnd I fall to the ground, and I slink away as best I can. I make it a few feet before I can move no longer. My hair is wet from the blood. I can the red everywhere. \n\nAnd in the corner, squelching away on some raw, red meat, is that thing that looks like an old man. That thing with wisps of white hair dangling from its head, with drops of blood and gooey chunks of god knows what hanging down, making sounds somewhere between tittering and chewing, that thing looks at me. And it smiles.\n\nAnd the smile is full of teeth black as night." ]	2
	[WP] You decide to become a serial killer. However, you turn out to be the worst serial killer in existence. Every time you try to kill someone, you improve their life.	[ "\"Hey boss, what's the mission looking like tonight?\"\n\n\"Mission? Are you fucking kidding me? Don't you remember the conversation we had last week? Not to mention it's called a 'hit', Jordy, not a mission. We're not playing Call of Duty out here, dumb ass.\"\n\n\"I promise I'll get it right this time, though! I'm ready. I've been racking my brain at home lately. You know, reflecting on my mistakes and stuff.\"\n\n\"Get the fuck out of my office, Jordy. Last time I sent you on a hit, you literally put the risen in the guys bosses coffee. Guess what? He was promoted to CEO last week. How can you possibly be any worse of a hit man?\"\n\n\"How was I supposed to know that the 'I'm the fucking boss' coffee cup was the ACTUAL bosses cup. I didn't know people were that conceited boss! Honest.\"\n\n\"You know what? I've got a guy wanting to kill this little boy at his kids school because he's been getting bullied or some shit. I personally think it's a bit extreme. I told the guy I'm not gonna kill a 13 year old kid because his son is a pussy. If you want to take the mission and full responsibilty from the law, though, I'll let you take it on. You go through with this and get away free as a bird and I might consider letting you do some real shit again soon.\"\n\n\"Yea sure, boss. I'll take anything. How hard can be to take out a teenager anyway?\"\n\nThe boss shakes his head. \"Whatever, Jordy. You sick bastard. The hit is going down Thursday morning at 6:30 at the bus stop.\"\n\nThat night Jordy went home to his wife and three children. He was nervous. He knew he was on thin ice with boss and if he somehow botched this hit, his crime career was over. He loved killing people. Sometimes he just killed the wrong people. He felt it wasn't his fault. He knew he could do better, he just didn't know how. \n\nThe hit was coming in just two days. Jordy did his research on his time off of his day job. He didn't spend much time with his family, but he rarely did. He had a work shop in the garage that he treated as a man cave. His family thought he went out there to drink beer and watch sports. They were clueless to his files and files of information on his targets. \n\nThursday morning came and Jordy was ready. He wasn't going to mess this one up. It was a simple hit. He had a rifle, and all he had to do was take out one kid. The bus stop was at the bottom of hill on a secluded street. Jordy set up his rifle at the top of the hill, set his scope, and began to watch. He had about 15 minutes until it was trigger pulling time.\n\nThe kids walked down to the bus stop at about 6:28 AM. He had a two minute window where he could take out the young boy. He set his sights and aimed right at the kid's head. He was calm and collected. He knew this was his way back towards the top of the company he worked for. As he slowly pulled the trigger, a car passed through his sites. It was too late. He hit the driver of the car. As he hit the car, it slid out of control nailing the bus that coming to pick the group of students up. \n\nThe Driver of the car was the bullies dad. He was killed instantly. The boys missed school for the next week because of the traumatic event. All of the boys except for the bully loved the free vacation. The bully moved away to Florida with his mother after she took out his life insurance. The bully problem was solved, but Jordy's was not.\n\nHis killing days were over. Back to the office went Jordy.", "There are people who have a goal and achieve it. There are people who want to do good and bad. Of course, they succeed unlike me.\n\nI never really understood this. About two months ago, I had it with a small and broing life. It was never what I wanted. I wanted to stirr things up, and so I decided on being a serial killer. I wanted to see other's reaction. But I never could have.\n\nMy first attempt was on a young man at the edge of a cliff. He was sitting down, staring at the sky. The plan was simple, push him and walk away. I walked towards him, gave him a push and walked away without looking back. I didn't hear anything, so I assumed that he was in such a shock that he just froze in silence. The next day when I turned on the TV, there was the man. Apparently he found a cave full of diamonds at the bottom. I was in such shock, until I saw that there's a parachute laid down at the background. Man, am I dumb.\n\nFrom then on, things followed the same pattern. Once, I sneaked in the hospital and plugged off the thing where they put liquid in it to a patient. I expected her to die, only to find out when I sneaked back out that plugging it off actually saved her from overdose or something. I tried to stab a kid in a toilet I kicked the door down, only to actually safe him from a gay pedophile trying to rape him. I shot a bullet from the top of a building to down below, but alas I shot a robber in the foot, while being in the middle of an escape. \n\nOne day, I decided to stop. I found myself mentally insane. In my room, sitting alone, I saw my gun on my desk. A thought came in my mind. Taking the gun, I pointed it to my head. I can kill at least one person, right?\n\nNow I'm a multi-billionare with a beautiful family", "With a disgruntled sigh, Jack Evans collapsed into his 2007 Ford Mustang GT, completely blacked out from headlight to spoiler, which he had done so many times before, signifying the end of his shift at the San Francisco Daily Bulletin. Each day he would struggle to cope with the constant harassment and ridicule that he experienced almost habitually. \n\nBeing the rookie journalist not only signified that he would be the butt of all jokes, but that he would be stepped on, as he never spoke up or defended himself. Everything had led up to the moment when he witnessed his boss welcome his fiancé into his office, where they exchanged conversation, and ultimately handed her a key to his hotel. Jack, immediately pent up with anger stormed into his cubicle, a small, dusty corner in the otherwise large office. He was taking matters into his own hands. No longer would he be the butt of jokes at his office, being known simply as \"Lonesome Jack\". He was going to make a name for himself, and take down everybody who lacked belief in him; all those that had stepped on him.\n\nAs he blinked out of his reflectance of the day's events, he started up the charcoal muscle car, and his headlights flickered into a bright white existence. He squinted through his windshield of a thousand tears, the usual rain pouring endlessly, as it had each night this winter. It seemed to reflect his mood, always gloomy and full of despair. His gaze paused at the bay that lay before him. He could just make out downtown San Francisco from here. That is where he would begin his hunt for vengeance. His coworkers, boss, ex girlfriends, parents, everybody, would feel his wrath and be forced to take him seriously from this moment on.\n\nAs Jack cruised across the silent, melancholy streets of downtown, he watched as civilians, potential witnesses ran for cover under haunting facades of hotels, shops, restaurants, a reminder of the history that still lived in this city. He quickly came to the realization that he would need a weapon, but simply walking into a gun shop and buying a gun would be too suspicious. So he came to the conclusion that he would hunt for them as an animal would, simply with his bare hands. \n\nThe growling engine of the Mustang fell to a silent conclusion as Jack stopped the car and opened his door slightly, as if to let the cold air into the furnace of hate that was contained in the cabin of his vehicle. He looked up at the cement tower that lay before him; \"The Roosevelt\". Specifically, the residence of his boss, the one who made him an exile at the office, who declined any attempt at him moving up in the business; the one who stole his fiancé from under him. \n\nAs he jogged into the Art Deco themed lobby of the hotel, he found the elevator opened, as if giving him an invitation to fulfill his prophecy. The numbers on the golden wall read \"1...2...3...\" all the way until it stopped at \"25...\". The doors creaked to an open position and he found himself alone, in complete silence upon the crimson carpet of the penthouse. Jack paced towards room 1990, the \"President's Suite\". To his surprise, the door lay open as well, a small crack of light escaped into the candle lit hallway. Taking this as further proof of his divine right of vengeance, Jack lust forward into the room, throwing the door open with ferocious might and made two large bounds right into the suite's master bedroom. \n\nAs he thrust the two ancient oak doors of the room open, he witnessed his fiancé holding a knife to his bosses throat, as well as three bags filled to the brim with unmarked bills, gold china, and other priceless objects near the window to the balcony and ultimately, the fire escape. In moments that seemed to live in complete slow motion, Jack analyzed each detail of the event as if he were the late Sherlock Holmes himself, tracking down precisely what was happening. As the two struggled in death's embrace, Jack jumped over the side of the immaculate drapes lining the bed and threw the woman to the ground, where she found herself soon swimming in a pool of crimson. The knife lay, 4 inches deep in her chest, where she had fallen. \n\nIn complete shock, his fiancé, whom he had nothing but anger up until now for, looked at him in the eyes and whispered \"thank you\" as she faded into an everlasting slumber.\n\nAnd in this moment, Jack realized, as he looked at the knife lying on the floor, the faint words \"Phantom\" etched on the hilt, that his fiancé, who would often be gone late nights into the early morning hours was working for the mob, specifically the \"Phantom Mob\". This group of barbarians were feared throughout the entire bay area, and to his complete dismay, his own fiancé was a member. In complete disgust he turned away.\n\nJack's shoulders heaved up and down in animalistic spirit as he struggled to catch his breath. As he slowly looked up, fiery cauldrons of lava glowing in his eyes, he met gaze with his boss. The man lie complete fear, not even the slightest whimper escaping his pale white face\n\nHis boss, who was nothing more than an angry man in a business suit had come to realize that his life had just been saved, as this woman's mission was to end his life, and take all that he had.\n\nAnd as Jack disappeared down the fire escape into the foggy San Francisco night, he came to the conclusion deep in his heart, that he would not kill for vengeance, but save those that had attempted to corrupt him from themselves.", "Carl Thompson awoke to open the paper. On the cover Larry his legacy. Years of planning and preparation, all printed up into a single news article. THE ATLANTIC ALCHEMIST SAVES ANOTHER LIFE. It was the fourth one in his career. They didn't know he was intending to kill his victims but apparently poisons weaken in potency over the years and Carl suffered a few years of nerves before he actually tried killing his first.\n\n Poison in their coffee every morning for a month. Unfortunately slow dose murder makes one feel ill. The kind if ill you seek a doctor for. And during their tests they discovered early stages of stomach cancer that would have proven fatal of not caught earlier. \n\nThe second and third was a couple he tried to kill via a house fire. Their doors and windows were locked by call to ensure no escape but a nearby cat caught in a tree saw to make the fire departments response time a record breaking minute and thirty two seconds. The couple were told of the jammed exits and they sued the landlord for endangering them. The settlement moved them to a better neighborhood and away from Carl.\n\nNow this. A victim he was determined to see through to the end! He even left a calling card of sorts. The beautiful Emily Fallbrooke was his intended target. He got new poison, a knife, a gun. He want sure how he would kill her but he wanted her dead. He followed her towards her home and pulled her inro an alley to do the deed. Little did either of them know a group of thugs were following Emily as well to jump and possibly rape her. In self defense Carl shot and killed one man, wounded two and scared off a fourth. Had he killed someone, yes. Was it his choice? No. And then he panicked and told her his alias. Now he was being trumped as a vigilante proceeding others from injustices. He was a joke. ", "“Revisiting the scene of the crime, eh, buddy? ”\n\nThe police officer laughed.\n\n“Yeah... Something like that. Sir.”\n\nI answered.\n\n“Nah, son, you call me Jim, okay?”\n\nHe pulled a box of cigarettes out of his pocket and offered me one.\n\n“Thanks, Jim.”\n\n“That was a great thing you did today, bud.”\n\n“I suppose.”\n\n“How many of them is it you've saved now?”\n\n“I dunno. Five or six, maybe. Kinda lost count.”\n\nWe stood in silence for a moment, smoking our cigarettes.\n\n“That there where she landed?”\n\nHe asked, and pointed toward a container full of trash.\n\n“Yup.”\n\n“Not a scratch on her, was there?”\n\n“Nope.”\n\n“You know, it's funny...”\n\nHe paused.\n\n“What's funny?”\n\n“The boys down at the station. They talk like you've got a sixth sense, or something. Like you're some kind of super hero.”\n\n“Why's that?”\n\n“Because you keep on preventing accidents before they happen. The witnesses swear there was no way in hell you saw that truck coming before you threw her off of that bridge, there.”\n\n“Can't always trust onlookers, Jim.”\n\n“Oh, I learned that the hard way, bud.”\n\n“Guess I've got a quick eye, is all.”\n\n“And we're all real happy about that.\"\n\nJim sighed.\n\n“But you can't blame a man for thinking...”\n\n“Can I have another one of those smokes?”\n\n“Sure. You can't blame a man for thinking that maybe, just maybe, you didn't see that truck coming.”\n\nI lit the cigarette.\n\n“Are you saying that I wanted to kill her?\"\n\nHe didn't answer.\n\n\"What about the other ones? I've tried to kill, what, five or six women, and each time ended up accidentally saving their lives instead? That would make me a pretty shitty killer, Jim.”\n\n“Or a lucky one. Depending on how you look at it.”\n\nI sighed.\n\n“I've got quick eyes, Jim.”\n\n“I suppose you do, bud.”\n\nThe officer looked at his watch.\n\n“Anyway. I've gotta go.”\n\n“Have a good one, Jim. Thanks for the smokes.”\n\n“You too, bud.”\n\nAs he was approaching his car he stopped and turned to look at me.\n\n“The girls, they were all pretty similar, huh?”\n\n“What are you talking about?”\n\n“Well, they were all blonde, for starters.”\n\n“Lotsa blonde girls in this town.”\n\n“About the same height, too. And the same age.”\n\n“Well, I didn't notice.”\n\n“Mighty strange coincidence, bud. All those girls looking the same.”\n\n“Life's funny that way, Jim.”\n\n“I suppose it is.”\n\n“See you Jim.”\n\n“Bye, bud.”", "This is going to sound crazy.\n\nSeriously. I know this will sound totally stupid, but just hear me out. I swear it will make sense by the end. And if it doesn't? Well, shoot me then, I guess. But I'm running out of time, so I'd better hurry this up.\n\nSo, anyway, do you remember three years ago, when someone tried to shoot the President? Of course, he wasn't the President then, he wasn't even the nominee. Hell, no-one even thought he was gonna be the nominee. Two weeks before Super Tuesday, trailing the two leading candidates by eighteen points? Wittering on about terrorism, and no-one was buying it. Well, that changed in a hurry after he got shot. The election was barely even a contest.\n\nI did that. I mean, I didn't mean to, but I did. I wasn't even aiming at him anyway. It was his wife. His wife. God... she was always so beautiful.\n\nWe met at college, you see. The only woman I ever loved. And boy did I love her. I never really got over her. I heard she got married, and it sucked. I didn't sleep for a week. Before I met her, I never realized that \"heartache\" was literal.\n\nThe pain went away over time, mostly. I mean, if I thought about her, I didn't cry, I didn't cut myself. I could deal. Until her ass-wipe husband starts running for President. All the media knew he was a jack-ass, but she... she was made for the campaign trail.\n\nI couldn't get away from it. She was everywhere. I'd turn on the TV, or try to get a magazine, or just fucking drive down the street, and she'd be there. Smiling. Watching. Staring at me from the news-stands and the billboards. And it hurt.\n\nAnd one day, I just snapped I guess. I can't even really explain what happened. I just couldn't fucking take it any more. I couldn't deal with it. It hurt too damn much. So... I bought myself a rifle. I don't have it any more - threw it in the river the next morning just in case - but I remember it. It felt so good in my hands. A kind of reassuring weight, like how her child would've felt in my arms.\n\nIt was surprisingly easy after that. I'd always been a good shoot, but I practiced. Walked into a hotel room with a guitar case like something in the movies. Almost no-one even looked at me. I thought it was a good day.\n\nBut I missed. Of fucking course I did. Hit her asshole husband in the shoulder. Suddenly, he went from being a looney-toon spouting on about terrorists to being a visionary who'd shed blood for his point.\n\nHonestly, I thought they'd catch me, but no-one even questioned me. I wonder if he pulled some strings, so that no-one was looking for me. It kept festering in my head. It wouldn't fit his rhetoric if he was shot by a pathetic little white-boy who never got over a summer fling with the President Elect's wife.\n\nI couldn't get over that thought. It ate at me, until that's all I could think of myself. Pathetic little white-boy. Can't even fucking shoot straight.\n\nThat's when I really lost it. I just started trying to kill people after that. The first one was to prove it to myself... I was gonna kill someone. Anyone. I didn't even care about getting caught. I just wanted to prove I could do it.\n\nI chose her because she was kind of pretty, and looked a little like... like her. I was gonna shoot her and her boyfriend. Went with the boyfriend first, and she ran off the second he went down. I read later that he was her step-dad, and he'd been molesting her.\n\n\"I don't know who killed him, but he freed me\". I wasn't sure if I should laugh or cry.\n\nThe next one was just someone I met at a mall. Reach out, a bit of a push, and watch them tumble down the stairs. Two weeks later, he'd had some experimental medical procedure that finally got rid of his back pain, and a cheque from the mall owner. He could finally set up the gym he'd always dreamed about. Good for him, I guess.\n\nThe bomb didn't work. I'd had a fight with the cops over a parking ticket, so I tried to bomb the station. The same bastard who'd ticketed me found it, and now he's a hero. Of course, the President himself took an interest in that one, and cops got more powers. I never thought I'd see the day they'd put CCTV cameras on every single street.\n\nI can't even remember most of the rest. I tried to set my land-lady's house on fire while she slept. I didn't even hate her - she was just close by. Of course, she woke up half-way. New house, insurance pay-out, and some deal with the electrics company for faulty wiring. Then, there was the time I crashed my car. Literally, just drove through a red and straight into another car. Husband died - wife-beater. Apparently, he was such an evil fucker that the wife and the cops just let me off. Hell, she hugged me, and said thank you.\n\nTwenty-four people in total. I tried to kill twenty four different people, and every single time, it only made them happier. It's like I have a gift - if I try to kill someone, their life gets better.\n\nTwenty-five was always my lucky number. That's why I'm doing this now. If you're reading this, cut me down. I just want something good to happen to me now.\n\nI mean, what's the worst that can happen - right?", "Stephen Walker, the only serial killer to hold a medal for outstanding citizenship in the city of Seattle, stood by the railing of the Green River bridge. \n\nYes, he would claim this bridge, after today it would be known as his. They may even call him something cool like the Green River Bridge Killer. A name that could be uniquely his. Any serial killer would... well, kill, for a name like that. \n\nHe watched a woman walking along the sidewalk. He would claim her. Make her his next victim, or first victim, if one were to get technical. Technicalities, however, were for fools. Stephen Walker was no fool. \n\nHe would make sure the whole world saw the act, that way they couldn't dismiss him any longer. He saw the woman cross the street and chased after her. He grabbed the woman and covered her mouth, pulling her off the street and throwing her to the sidewalk. \n\nA truck flew by. \n\nStephen turned around to see a crowd watching him, mouths wide open in terror. \n\nStephen walked forward onto the sidewalk and stared at the crowd, smile on his face. Now they would know the beast they had lived with for so many years. The monster they had assumed to be like them. The- \n\n\"You saved her life!\" A man yelled. \n\nThe small crowd clapped and cheered. One woman held a cell phone camera to him, recording it. \n\n\"You're a hero!\" The man yelled. The woman, his victim, looked at him with grateful eyes. \n\nStephen Walker blinked, then turned away, heading back home. As he walked through the busy road, he noticed the cars all stopped, people inside clapping, one wiping away a tear. \n\nBeing a serial killer was harder than it seemed. " ]	7
	[WP]- Sun, rain, sleet, or snow: a postman's job is never done, even during the apocalypse.	[ "Erin Hanson pulled her mail truck over to the side of the road. Her truck's grill was still wet with blood painted on in a fresh new dent. She didn't know who she hit or what they were after, but they got in her way and that was enough to silence her guilt.\n\n\"25 Arlington road. It looks like you're next.\" Erin held the envelope up in her line-of-sight to the house number on this cute brick-and-siding house. It was boarded up and the lawn went to shit, but you could tell this used to be a good home. She forced the front door open and entered.\n\nInside, the walls and floors told the story of a murder and the foul smell haunting the house said the story was written at least a week earlier. In the kitchen empty cans and bits of dried pasta were strewn around the floor.\n\n\"You bastards have no class.\" Erin talked to herself as she crouched over the mess to take a closer look. One of the empty cans was still fresh. Someone was here. Erin stood back up and placed the letter on the counter. It was home and now it was time to leave.\n\nTaking a step towards the door, Erin heard a noise behind her. She had been had. No doubt there was a gun pointed at her back.\n\n\"I don't want any trouble and I have nothing to take. I just dropped off this letter and now I'm going to leave, okay?\" She said with her hands raised to head-level. She turned around slowly to see the face of the guy who was going to put her down but she ended making eye contact with something unexpected. A young girl, probably 8 years old, stood in dirty pajamas with a dirty face and tangled, dirty hair. The girl looked at Erin with a blend of fear and hope. Erin's eyes shifted back and forth while she weighed her options. Perhaps it was something from her civilized life before everything went to hell. Maybe it was a tinge of guilt crawling up from the bloody dent on her truck, or maybe it was that this was just a kid. A kid who probably saw her folks murdered or worse, who was condemned to exist in this rot until she died. Erin's tough composure softened and she crouched again.\n\n\"Hi. I'm Erin. I deliver the mail. Are you here by yourself?\"\n\nThe girl didn't move, but tears began swelling in her eyes.\n\n\"Look. I'm not going to hurt you. I was just about to leave and you're welcome to stay. But if you don't have anyone here to take care of you, I can bring you with me. I could use a helper with the rest of the mail and I can pay you in good food. Well, pretty good food, at least.\"\n\nErin could tell the girl wanted to say yes but was hesitating, so she adjusted her approach.\n\n\"What's your name?\"\n\n\"Hailey.\"\n\n\"It's nice to meet you Hailey. Listen, let's go get you some clothes and whatever else you want to bring with you and we'll just go for a ride. If you want to come back here later, I can drop you off.\" Hailey nodded and the two went upstairs to her bedroom to collect her belongings. While Hailey was stuffing her schoolbag with clothes and a doll, Erin quietly explored the other rooms. The parents' room was a nightmare. Whomever did this was evil. Hopefully Hailey didn't see any of it, she thought to herself. She closed the door and returned to Hailey to help her finish packing.\n\nOnce they got to Erin's mail truck, they buckled-up and Erin pulled out a chocolate bar from the glove box and gave it to Hailey.\n\n\"Alright, it looks like our next stop is 162 Dryden. After that, we'll get some lunch. I know some good people who are holding up in a pizza place.\"\n\nErin started driving, keeping a keen eye open for any trouble, but her thoughts were stuck on this little girl she picked up and how frightened she must be. Hoping to make her feel better, Erin started talking.\n\n\"So, ummm...\" Erin paused as she made a turn onto 8th. \"You might be wondering why I'm delivering the mail, and if I'm going to bring you along with me, I should let you in on what's going on. Six months ago, when the meteors came down, I was working at a bar. People went crazy, thinking the world was coming to an end, and they started fighting each other and stealing things and some people started chasing me. I was really scared and thought that was it. They chased me for about 5 blocks and I was exhausted. I couldn't keep on running and they were going to get me, but then this guy, Ahmed, pulled up in this mail truck - he was a postal worker and he had this tire iron...\" \n\nErin reached between the seats and pulled up the tire iron and placed it back on the floor.\n\n\"Well, anyways, Ahmed rescued me, and those guys who were chasing me, well, you don't have to hear about that. Anyways, Ahmed took care of me. He was a good guy. He told me he had to deliver the rest of his mail because he didn't want to leave this world with unfinished business. As he delivered the mail, he'd check out the houses and the ones that were abandoned, he'd collect what supplies he could find as payment for the delivery. Sometimes the real home owners would still be there and Ahmed would just drop off the mail as if everything were normal. Anyways, a few weeks ago, we were delivering a letter to the pharmacy on Carleton, and there were these people there that caught us by surprise. I made it back to the truck but one of the guys had a knife and, Ahmed.. He just told me to go. They got him and he wasn't going to make it.\"\n\nErin was choking up but took a deep breath and pulled herself together.\n\n\"Well, let me tell you, I lost my family and that hurt. I lost my friends, and that hurt too. But when those people got Ahmed, something broke. You know, deep down inside? I didn't want to run. I pulled the truck around and started collecting dents.\" Erin tapped the dash. \"The ones that hid inside - well, that's what the tire iron was for. Lucky for me, I'm pretty tall and was always into sports, so I have a pretty good swing.\" Erin paused. \"I shouldn't be telling you this. But you should know who you're riding with. I'm not a good person, Hailey. But I'd like to be your friend and I'd like to take care of you if you want to be my friend too.\"\n\nHailey looked over at Erin, swallowed the last bite of the chocolate bar and spoke. \"When the meteors came down I was sleeping in my bed. My dad grabbed me and we hid in the basement with my mom and my brother. After things seemed safe we went out looking for my grandma and aunt Cathy, but these men stopped us and shot my dad but I thought my dad was okay because he drove us back home. When we got home he could hardly walk, he got my brother to get him his gun and he sat in the kitchen and was guarding the front door. The men followed us home and my mom hid me and my brother in the basement behind the furnace. She told us not to come out but Noah wouldn't listen. He left to go help mom and dad. I could hear yelling and dad shooting the gun but then the furnace came on and I couldn't hear much after that. I waited for mom and Noah to come back but they didn't. I found them dead. My brother and dad were dead in the kitchen and my mom was dead upstairs in the bedroom. Since then I snuck food from the kitchen and hid in the basement. I didn't know what to do but I thought my aunt Cathy would come get me. I thought you were her when you came in. You sound like her.\"\n\nErin was tearing up but she knew getting emotional wouldn't help them.\n\n\"You sound like a very brave girl, Hailey. I like that. So here's the deal. In the back of this truck are all the letters that Ahmed didn't get to deliver. We're going to deliver them for him and then you and I will see if we can find a safe place to hide out until things get better. My folks have a cottage a couple hours out of town, stocked full of food, and it's hard to get to so I don't think anyone knows about it. And there's a radio so we can find out when it's safe to come back, alright?\"\n\nHailey nodded.\n\nWhen they got to their next stop, Erin saw a couple of men drinking on the front lawn. Inside the house there seemd to be a commotion and it looked like someone was in trouble.\n\n\"Hailey, we're going to be a little late to lunch.\" Erin reached between the seats and grabbed the tire iron, braced it against the steering wheel. \"Hold on.\"\n\nThe mail truck launched forward, accross the front of the driveway and onto the front yard. One of the men disappeared underneath the truck and Erin jumped out with the tire iron. Hailey heard the other man yelling, then thuds and crunches. Erin opened the driver side door and reached her arm in.\n\n\"Hailey, can you pass me that letter on the dash?\" Hailey handed the letter and Erin disappeard, reappearing from around the back of the truck. She held the letter up to the house and then proceeded through the front door. Hailey heard more yelling, thuds, and crunches.\n\nA few minutes later Erin appeared out the front door, speckled in red with the tire iron dripping. She opened the back door of the mail truck, grabbed a rag and wiped her face, threw it back in, and closed the door.\n\n\"Who's hungry for pizza?\" Erin said as she climbed into the driver seat.", "“Sun, rain sleet, or snow,” Chuck paused, glancing at building to his right. It was half on fire, or rather half not on fire. He always tried to keep optimistic. “Or post-apocalypse,” he added, “a Postman’s job is never done.” He adjusted the bag of letters and envelopes hanging from his right shoulder, glancing down to make sure it remained closed. He’d recently seen one of his co-workers accidentally dump his entire mail pouch while running from an anarchist mob, tripping over a curb as he attempted to flee. The letters, notes, and documents scattered across the ground, landing in the numerous puddles of unknown filth and blood that now lined every street. He never even came back to grab what he’d lost, partially because he was speared through the leg by a member of the mob.\n\nChuck continued walking down the street, trying his best to ignore the bloodcurdling screams echoing from the partially not on fire building beside him. Thankfully, that structure fell just outside his assigned route, meaning he would not need to run inside and attempt to deliver the mail to people who were most likely dead from either smoke inhalation or burning.\n\n“Mam,” Chuck said, tipping his tattered, yet still wearable, navy blue USPS cap toward a woman lying on the street. She was missing the lower half of her body, her arms frantically clawing out at him in an attempt to rend his flesh from his bone for her own nourishment. She seemed nice enough, considering she wasn’t actively chasing him down the road like the dogs from the years prior. Perhaps that was because she had no lower limbs, but Chuck was content believing it was her conscious choice. \n\nIt was about 3:00pm out Chuck guessed, although it had become rather hard to tell the time now that the sun was perpetually concealed by a layer of thick, red clouds. Still, he always had a pretty good sense of the time, and it certainly felt like somewhere around 3:00pm. Normally the kids would be coming home from school now, he and they crossing paths on his daily route. Unfortunately, it had been a good while since he’d seen any living children. Sure, he saw a lot of dead ones, as well as a slew that were somewhere in the between, but not many who still had pale skin and a beating heart. That wasn’t all bad, though, as Chuck wasn’t much of a child person. He really found them to be a bit annoying, especially those with parents that refused to properly discipline. \n\nHe glanced down at his delivery route and checked on where he had to visit today. 43 Maiden Road, a block away. He knew the house, even just from the address, they received a letter almost every day—or at least they used to, back before The End. It had actually been a while since he’d gotten them on his route, probably about a month now. He figured they were dead, which was really not too rash an assumption. Most of the people he knew were dead, as well as a significant amount of people he did not know. It was comforting to see a familiar name on his daily list.\n\nChuck continued down the sidewalk, breathing deeply the relaxing scents of Spring air and burning bodies. He’d come to like the smell of the latter, which was admittedly a bit difficult to accept at first. In fact, he threw up the first time he awoke after the explosions subsided, the stench of rotten bodies and charred corpses filling his nostrils. Yet, considering most of the city he grew up in was now one large fireball, it became part of his daily life. Wake up in the morning, eat a can of beans, step outside with his unwashed mug of instant coffee in hand, and take a deep breath. The longer he survived, the more he found himself enjoying the scent. \n\n43 Maiden Lane sat on the corner of the street, a small, white home with a clichéd picket fence. The family that had lived there, or perhaps still did, were the Jones’, an inter-racial couple with two mulatto children. Very nice people, always smiling when he rang their doorbell, and always providing generous tips come the holiday season. They’d skipped this years’, though, probably due to the apocalypse, which occurred a few days before Christmas. He didn’t hold it against them, it wasn’t like they’d planned the end of the world to happen so they could save $30. Sure, it was possible, but not very likely.\n\nChuck wandered up the red brick path to the front door, dipping his hand into his mailbag and pulling out their letters. They looked like bills, for the most part, which was really the majority of what he had to deliver these days. No one sent mail anymore, not anyone but the computers that continued to print out credit card statements and spam. Chuck lifted his fist and knocked, the front door collapsing forward as soon as his fist touched. It landed with a loud smack, a puff of dust rising up behind it and causing Chuck to cough. They’d definitely need to give someone a call about that, having a front door that collapsed inward was incredibly insecure, especially in a post-apocalyptic world. \n\n“Hello?” Chuck said, leaning his head in and glancing around. The home was in shambles, the cupboards ripped open and floor covered in knickknacks. It looked like someone, or something, had entered the building in search of something. “Anybody home?” The house remained silent, save for the whistle of the wind as it gust through the open door and became trapped in the dust-filled interior. \n\nChuck sighed and placed the letters on a table to the right of the collapsed door, then stuck his hand in his pocket and grabbed a pen and piece of paper. He placed the paper against the wall and quickly scribbled a note:\n\n“Sorry about the door, it seems to have fallen down. Please call the USPS support line for reimbursement. - Chuck”\n\nHe closed the pen and stuck it back in his pocket, leaving the note on top of the letters. They’d get it when they came home, which would probably be soon. Plus, he couldn’t exactly wait around to apologize in person, he had more mail to deliver, more letters to Return to Sender. There was an apartment complex only mostly on fire next door, and he needed to leave time to get to almost every home inside. Most of them had mailed out letters the week earlier, back when it was significantly less on fire, and almost all of them needed to be returned. \n\nChuck turned and began walking back down the red brick path, reciting the Postman's creed to himself: Neither sun, rain, sleet, snow, or apocalypse, the mail must be delivered." ]	2
The light could be a long red or could be a sequence of them as both cars travel down the same stretch of roadway, give the deaf person more time to 'hear' what the person in the other car is saying.	[WP] A deaf person, who can read lips, sits in the passenger seat of a car at a red light. He (or she) becomes more horrified at what the person in the adjacent car is saying on their cell phone.	[ "Ryan fidgeted with the headphones he was wearing. These were heavier than the last pair but they at least looked like they could pump major noise. By nature of being deaf he clearly wasn't responding to polite offered of small talk. But, when he was oblivious to the pleasantries, awkwardness ensured and people were offended when he didn't hear them. This at least eliminated people thinking he could. \n\nWhile in the car he figured that he could pull them down round his neck. His mom was driving and he could look out the window. There wasn't much else he could do but people watch. The car slowed or a red light. The care next to it was a green taxi and the partition divided the driver from the woman behind him. \n\nShe was gorgeous. Ryan shifted forward and looked back to see her better. She was heavily made up, which was the only reason why Ryan noticed how angry her eyes were. He watched her lips as they formed words that he could read without difficulty. \n\n\"I don't care the price, get rid of her.\" Ryan was surprised, but he simply figured this 5th Avenue woman must be talking something mundane. Maybe someone being fired from her job. \"It's better than drowning or beating the bitch to death.\" \n\nRyan blinked and stared at her open mouthed. The light turned green but thanks to New York City traffic it was hardly more than a minute before the cars were next to each other again. He was mesmerized as she kept talking. \n\n\"Not in the house. After what happened with the last bitch. There was blood stains on the carpet for weeks.\" Kyle looked at him mother. He knew getting her attention to sign what he had \"heard\" would distract her. It would add another stress to the already stressful project of city driving. He looked back at the cab. It was indicating that it was pulling over to let the passenger out. \n\nShe stood at the door. \"It's going to be the last fucking time. It's time to teach the inconsiderate bastard a lesson.\" She shut the door to the cab and crossed left in front of Ryan's car. He just stared off at her sure that he would read her story in the headlines tomorrow. \n\nPosted when the woman got to a computer: $50 /OBO Young female shelter puppy. Needs owner who understands abused animals. Husband adopted her from shelter after she was removed from abusive home. Last shelter pet we had bit me, and I rather not go that way again. Anyone know of cat that we can adopt instead? \n", "The light cycles to red again and I want to smash my head into the new, shiny dash of the rental car. It's a hybrid and the engine shuts off every time we stop. James doesn't care and hits the scan button on the radio again. The wall of traffic moves a few feet with each red-green cycle. As our car rolls forward a few more inches, James signs to me that we have plenty of time to get to the airport. \n\nI roll down the window letting out some of the precious air conditioning and in the muggy air, but I don't care. Peering ahead I can actually see the intersection, which only makes me angrier. It's like sitting through breakfast on Christmas morning next to the tree. The presents are there! Just let me open them!\n\nI look at the small, red Volvo next to us. They had forced their way into the traffic wall about a block back displacing the minivan filled with three restless children and a pissed off mom. The two passengers in the Volvo are having an animated conversation. The man in the passenger seat throws his hands up in frustration, while the other man points to something in the back seat.\n\nThey always tell you not to stare, but how else am I supposed to understand what 'they' are saying? Of course lip reading isn't a magic trick. I don't know exactly what people are saying when I watch them, but I pick out enough distinct words to piece together the gist. The passenger raises his eyebrows, indicating a question, and I catch the words how and time. The driver's face is turned away from me, but he shrugs. Body language and facial expressions are the other half of lip reading so he probably said something along the lines of it doesn't matter. \n\nThe passenger says something about this skin is loose. As my mind processes those words, I try to remember what I saw, maybe it was a misread. Unfortunately, the idiot in the car behind us lays on his horn as I'm thinking and I lose the image. The light turned green again. We roll forward another couple feet. James gives the idiot the finger. \n\nI watch the people in the car next to us more intently. The passenger holds up his hand and the skin is drooping. It hangs like an overcooked marshmallow that's about to fall off a stick and into the fire. I notice the passenger's skin looks loose around his face too. The chin flaps a bit as he talk despite him being toothpick thin. I catch a few words. Wanting, new, and body. The driver, who is looking ahead now, shakes his head. The skin on his face jiggles too much with this motion like watching an overweight person run in slow motion. The rolls of skin keep moving, not tightly attached to the muscle that's moving them.\n\nI tap James on the arm and without looking away point towards the people in the Volvo. The passenger crosses his arms and glares forward. I watch the driver try to explain something. Eating, too, and people. Then the last two words are clear. Catch us.\n\nI look back to see if James was watching. He's staring down at the red lines showing the traffic on his smartphone. I smack him in the arm, pretty hard. He's probably angry as he looks up, but I've already turned back to the Volvo. The passenger reaches into the back seat and lifts up a limp, pinkish looking spandex suit. He says something. Not, fault, got, wrong, and size. The driver slaps the passenger's hand making him drop the creepy suit. Not here the driver emphatically says.\n\nOur car rolls forward again meaning James isn't looking. The Volvo driver looks over in my direction. I pretend to play with our side mirror. I can tell he's staring. I glimpse up and catch him asking a question. What, her, she's, and correct. The passenger turns to look and his face is completely drooping. The cheeks are down near the jawline and his forehead is pressing into the eyebrows forcing them to cover his eyes. \n\nThe engine of our car kicks on and we start moving. We're actually moving through the intersection. The red Volvo is stuck behind in the right turn lane, but I make out all of the passenger's words as we pull away. I could wear her.\n", "Evan looked on with dreary eyes as he surveyed the traffice. Being deaf, he was never particularly affected by the daily bustle of honking cars and police sirens. Letting his eyes wander around, he finally settled on an official-looking man in a business suit, talking on an iPhone 6+ while driving what appeared to be a brand new Prius.\n\nHe looked at the man's lips as they moved, gleaning information from every little detail.\n\n\"I'm gonna kill him.\"\n\nWait, what? Evan blinked in surprise. His bored look grew sharp as he began watching the man with renewed vigor.\n\n\"Yes, he won't even see it coming. If the poison doesn't get him, then I'll just hunt him down. He literally has nowhere to go. Nowhere to run, that is.\"\n\nWas this a murder going down? Modern day Rasputin? Evan pushed aside his thoughts and continued staring intently.\n\n\"Don't worry, knowing him and his dumb pride, he'll be sure to come, after all, the line between arrogance and pure stupidity is pretty thin.\"\n\n\"Well that's fine, if he runs, we'll get him another day. Like I said, nowhere to run.\"\n\n\"Are YOU an idiot? Should I kill you too?\"\n\nAt this point, Evan was getting really freaked out. Was this FBI? CIA? ISIS? Shady blackmarket dealings? He put his head into his hands as he contemplated just what he was witnessing. \n\nHe shook his head and glanced back up at the man as the light turned green.\n\n\"4938 Greene Palace Boulevard. Everything will over soon. See you there.\"\n\nEvan grew panicked and shouted (well he wasn't sure if it was shouting or not, but judging by the driver's pained reaction, he was probably above \"acceptable\" levels of noise.)\n\n\"Wait, wait! WAIT! FOLLOW THAT CAR!\" He shouted, pointing at the business suit guy\n\nThe driver looked annoyed but after seeing the serious look on his client's face, gave a sigh and shrugged.\n\nAs the destination came into view, he saw it.\n\nHe saw the signs. How could he have not noticed it earlier?\n\nLEAGUE OF LEGENDS: 1v1 TOURNAMENT TODAY!!\n\nIt's like he didn't Evan try." ]	3
	[WP]In the far future, mankind is extinct and the remaining artifacts are of great academic value. An alien finds a digital archive containing the entirety of four human websites: Reddit, 4chan, Wikipedia, and Facebook.	[ "Entry 1-2311-X92\n\n\"I've been reading through these archives for over 200 years, last known entry was on website X92 Code name \"Facebook\", Entry created by a one John Semore, stating \"Hey what's that white cloud in the distance?\" Nothing else has been updated since.\"\n\nEntry 2-2451-X92\n\n\"I've continued to read through these archives and and have ranked the archives in form of intelligence,\n\nThe archive know as Wikipedia rank 1 although I seem to get distracted by these blue words which always manage to get to a place titled \"Hitler\".\n\nEntry 3-2571-X93\n\nI've finally gotten to the last archive titled 4chan, I have lost all hope in finding anything intelligent among these files. I have looked through the endless \"Trap\" Threads and the horrible special threads. I have come across things no being should have ever seen.\"\n\n\"That was the last transmission we ever got from Glaqaur sir.\"\n\n\"Yur Reut have mercy on his soul.\" ", "We found their planet in a remote corner of an unremarkable spiral galaxy. Any trace of their species had long since been swallowed by their engorged, dying red sun. \n\nWe know them only from the primitive discs they left behind, vague silhouettes of a sad and lonely race that never dared to reach beyond their little star. \n\nI spent the better part of my Grow Year reading their holy texts, scrawled so inelegantly across bio-digital drives preserved in ice. It is this knowledge that I gift now to the Treeseach, so that our people may learn from their mistakes. \n\nFour great tribes ruled the once-blue star:\n\nThe Librarians, masterful in their knowledge, but distrustful of outsiders, and slow to embrace their changing world. \n\nThe Narcissists, obsessed by the glamour of light and image, incapable of an existence that did not reflect the self. \n\nThe Fools, a screeching circus of imbeciles and false prophets, each one convinced they followed the truest path, and stubbornly set against the views of their brethren. \n\nBut it is the fourth one which we must heed, Oaken Ones. \n\nFor four tribes ruled the blue star. \n\nThe fourth tribe was mad. \n\n" ]	2
1. All murder, war, and robbery is forbidden in this world. 2. All conflict in this world will be resolved through games. 3. In games, each player will bet something that they agree is of equal value. 4. As long as it doesn't violate pledge three, anything may be bet, and any game may be played. 5. The challenged party has the right to decide the rules of the game. 6. Any bets made in accordance with the pledges must be upheld. 7. Conflicts between groups will be conducted by designated representatives with absolute authority. 8. Being caught cheating during a game is grounds for an instant loss. 9. In the name of god, the previous rules may never be changed. 10. Let's all have fun and play together! Taken from this [anime](http://myanimelist.net/anime/19815/No_Game_No_Life) Use the rules, change em, don't use them w/e.	[WP] Every single conflict must be resolved by games	[ "\"Heh,\" the muscular man smirked at the scrawny kid. \"A game, huh?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the boy said. \"If you win, you'll get all my money.\"\n\n\"And if I don't?\"\n\nThe boy smiled. \"I walk away..\"\n\n\"Of course,\" the man said, as he cracked his knuckles and towered over the small boy.\n\n\"But you haven't heard the game yet!\" he said, holding up his hand. \n\nThe man froze in place. The boy spoke up again. \"Wanna know what it is?\"\n\nThe man smiled and crossed his arms across his chest. \"Sure thing, punk.\"\n\n\"We each take turns placing an item on the other person, and we cannot remove it. The first person to move their item or is unable to place an item on the other person, loses. Let's start.\"\n\n\"Fine.\"\n\nThe boy motioned for the man to hold out his hand and balanced a long metal rod on the center of his palm.\n\nThe man's turn. He picked up a large rock and placed it on the boy's shoulder. The boy looked slightly fazed, but it stayed atop.\n\nNext, the boy grabs the man's hand and places it beneath one side of the rod, sitting the rod on both hands. \"You can't remove it,\" the boy pointed out.\n\n\"...what the fuck!?\" the man said, as he struggled to wrap his dense mind around what just happened.\n\n\"Why you little--\"\n\n\"You can't remove it!\" the boy said, stopping the man in his place. \n\nThe boy smiled, as the man tried to figure out what to do. \"You can't move, can you?\" the boy asked coyly.\n\n\"That means I win,\" he said, removing the rock from his shoulder and placing his hands in his pocket.\n\nWithout saying a word, the man gripped the metal rod with one hand and wound up to strike the kid's neck, which would surely severely injure him, if not killing him. Before he knew it, the boy whipped out his hand, brandishing a knuckle-taser along his right knuckles. As the rod came down, the young lad struck the rod with one solid punch, sending a current through the rod and back to the man.\n\nTaken aback by the shock, the man dropped the stick and stumbled backwards. This was more than enough time for the boy to take him by surprise. With all his might, the boy struck the man in the temple with the taser. The jolt of electricity combined with the force of the strike knocked the man clean unconscious. \n\nPanting, the boy relaxed and took a deep breath. Serves you right, he thought, grabbing the man's wallet before walking away.", "\"What the fuck? Seriously, you're saying my life isn't worth your life?\" \n \n\"No, why would it be? I haven't lost a single game since these new rules were put into effect one month ago, meaning that I have much more to lose than you do. Why don't you put something else on the table?\" (Why do people keep betting their lives on these games, especially when i'm known to win?)\n\n\"Fine, Christ, take my house. I'd be dead or a slave if I lost anyway.\" (If i'm going to bet something, take my \"house\", my fucking shack, sure. It's a cardboard box, but he won't realize that until the game is over.)\n\n\"That's the spirit! Now, since you challenged me, why not for a game of blackjack? One round. I'd be the dealer, of course.\" \n\n\"Yeah, that's exactly the game that you've picked for everyone who's challenged you. You do realize you're notorious for this, right?\" (Notorious for being a cheat, that is. Still, the fact that nobody has figured out how he does it is pretty interesting, but i'm not nobody, unlike everyone else, I have done my research. My cheap pen-camera from the dollar store that sold like hotcakes on day one will help me prove his cheating.)\n\n\"What gave it away? The news van outside the house?\"\n\n\"Seems that nobody lives when they place their life with you. I plan to stop that.\"\n\nThe challenger sits down on the stool at the table, and with a grin says,\"Shall we?\" \n\nThe challenged grinned in return. \"We shall.\"\n\nThe challenger pulls out his own deck of cards, not to surprise the challenged, at this point he knew people would try to stop his cheating, this man certainly was not the first. He hands the deck to the dealer, knowing that the dealer would shuffle them well. Glances were exchanged, afterwards the challenger never took his eyes of the cards. The challenged had already noticed the pen in the mans shirt pocket and knew that this game was one. All he had to do was to drop in the right cards from his sleeves. The challenged loudly, and quite annoyingly, went into a coughing fit while shuffling, causing him to drop the cards on the table. \"Sorry.\" he muttered. \n\nThat cough had thrown off his concentration, he could have done something to the deck without him knowing. He quickly relaxed. (sigh At least my camera will pick up what he did.)\n\nThe challenged quickly deals the cards to each of them. The challenger, takes one look at his cards and looks at his opponent,\"Hit me.\" The challenged quickly gives him another card. Not to his surprise, the challenger slouches, realizing his defeat. He was hoping he could win without having to accuse him of cheating, but it's not like he had a choice. He grabbed at his shirt pocket, pulling out his pen, and slamming it on the table. Expecting this, as the Challenged always did, he grabbed the pen and popped open the USB compartment, quickly put it into his laptop, streaming it to the large television in the room. The Challenger was extremely confused on how he knew what the pen was, even when he bought the pen he didn't believe that it recorded. \n\nThe recording played. It felt like an eternity that the challenger was shocked at the sight in front of him. Static, the screen was full of static. He took a look at the dealer, then at his feet. He almost uttered some form of last statement. The challenged quickly took the challenger's hand, shook it and said calmly. \"Do you remember the store owner who sold you that pen? The one that nobody noticed, and the one that went everyday getting yelled constantly by the customers?\" The Challenger looked at him with pure confusion, both of them where honest men before this world had gotten these rules. \"Yeah, that was me, those pens were very cheap, easily breakable. You really should have gotten a warranty. But i'll give you a choice. Do you prefer death or slavery?\"\n\n\"Damn, you're strait to the point aren't you. Well, slavery is better than death, so, slavery.\"\n\n\"Death it is then, last words?\"\n\n\"Wai-\"\n\nThe challenger started gasping for breath, only seconds before his heartbeat stopped. \n\nThe challenged looks around him. \"Was that the two-hundred-and-twenty-seventh, two-hundred-and-twenty-eighth? Ah, what does it matter.\"\n\nThe challenged quickly reached into his sleeves, and pulled out the mans pen, the real pen. Not the one that he had as backup. \n\n\"Sorry, it's not like you had a chance. It was decided before it started.\"" ]	2
	[WP] Scientists have detected a massive, unknown object in the Mariana Trench. A team is dispatched to investigate...	[ "It was a scorching hot day. Doug sat stranded on the canopy of his yellow submersible. The heat shimmered off the waves in all directions into a heavy, but empty sky. He could feel his sweat drying to his temples as he waited for the crackle of his receiver.\n\nWhere are they? Annoyance, more than panic, slowly filling his core.\n\nEarlier that day he had left the committee room before sunrise to board the mother ship and leave the calm island off the Philippines with his colleagues. It was a laborious affair and he didn't quite understand the briefing but, at the end of the day, if his peers were right in their assumptions, this could be a big find and that chance was definitely worth this risk. He remembers their faces, each painted a different emotion, all crowded in the van - excitement, anxiety, stern cynicism, and deep concentration - their conversation alludes him now.\n\nJust like life, Doug rides alone. It goes without saying he'd never done anything this deep. The reason he was chosen was because he'd had the training and he was the closest to the site. He was stationed this season to monitor hydrothermal vents as an up-and-comer submarine pilot. The origin of life, or abiogenesis as his base buddies called it, was as trivial to him as the meat in his curry. His job, which he excelled at, was to flick switches and steer according to the series of gauges in his submersible, it just so happened that by attaching a camera to his craft his work become a lot more valuable.\n\nInstinctively, he places his hand on the plate containing the top camera. What on earth will they make of this? A wry smile perks the left side of his lips and the annoyance is unexpectedly flushed by fear. For crying out loud...\n\nVisions flash back from the deep. The extreme pressure stood hand in hand with impenetrable darkness. Using radio he knew he was close to landing on something, yet he was still very far from the chasm at the base of the trench. Was this what they picked up from their surface readings? It has to be. He flicked on the hull lights and bottom camera. A soft grey sheen rippled as though disturbed by the force of movement towards it. Sparkling fish dart back and forth. Surely this is just the sea bed, he recalls, still unable to fight the feeling of its impossibility.\n\nWhat could this ancient trench harbor that has not yet been recorded by previous voyage? Doug was one of many to be here, but to his knowledge the only one who had ever landed in the middle of the descent. The craft shook suddenly and stopped. He tried to push away thoughts of what was outside and focused entirely on the reading of his ship. Calmly, he pressed the switch on his cable to the surface, \"Do you read?\" He releases after a pause.\n\n\"Roger, Douglas. Do you read? We have lost your position. Over.\"\n\nDoug shrugs. What are they doing up there? He cusses under his breath and flicks on the ensemble of lights and cameras left to be activated; the top, two sides, front, and back. His thumb the returns to the RT switch.\n\n\"Loud and clear. I've landed on the structure. Over.\"\n\n\"Doug! You gotta get out of there, now!!\"\n\nSusan? His heart clenches. Without a moment wasted, Doug boosted the thrusters of his submarine and prepared for some serious bends but instead he instantly hits a hard surface above him. Oh! No! His mind in overdrive, the following is slightly hazy to recollect.\n\nHe couldn't ascend. But, from the rebound from the surprise ceiling, he discovers he can descend, so he does. As he does, he realizes from the sensor readings that the pressure lessens while he descends. An absurdity takes hold of his gut feeling and he decides he can't possibly explain what has happened but his machine must be right, so he continues to descend. Deeper, and deeper until he feels as though he could be sick with the ramification of his flight from the unknown and incomprehensible structure above.\n\nThen it happened, the submersible broke the surface of the water, and rolled immediately to its natural upright position. Doug's heart fell back in its natural resting place and his whole body let out a violent shake of near death relief.\n\nIt doesn't make any sense. The more I think about it. It doesn't make any sense. The panic culminating inside now that sun is setting above him without a luminous moon to take its place, explodes - instead of Venus he sees a red twinkle spark the sky.\n\nWhat in God's hell happened to me? He begins to cry as the night sky fills with alien stars.", "\"Um, Tony, you're never going to believe this.\"\n\n\"Whaaat Jared?? This better not be another f**ing jellyfish! Shut up and let me finish my goddamn sandwich.\"\n\n\"But... but... there's a p-\"\n\n\"THERE'S A WHAT!? Jared, we've been in this gawdawful submarine for days searching this gawdawful trench for what's probably just some inane vent-thingy that you just HAD to observe! Every heard of a freakin' UNMANNED DRONE?\"\n\n\"But Tony...\"\n\n\"WHAAAAAAAT?\"\n\n\"I just, well, I'm hoping you can answer this question I ha-\"\n\"WHHHAAAAAAAAAT!?!?!?!\"\n\n\"Who.. Who lives in a... in a pineapple at the bottom of the sea?\"", "It's been years. Decades, even. \n\nI can't remember the last time I saw her. She'd always been too much of a big thinker. Even after I was born, my mother dreamed of becoming an explorer for the thing that she yearned for most. \n\nThe ocean. \n\nThat big, blue, beautiful mass of water was the final frontier for her, and she wanted at the bottom of her bottomless heart to be one of the first to see its secrets. She'd been so close to her dream. \n\nOne day, she disappeared. A four-month long search, bearing no fruit. We grieved, we cried, we moved on. I'd followed in her footsteps and continued her work in marine biology. Until one day...\n\n\"Hey! Wake up! We got something on the radar off the starboard side.\" \n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"Well, whatever it is, it's fuckin' massive. It looks like it's stuck at the bottom of the trench. God knows how it got there. OP, you're up.\"\n\n\"Roger.\" \n\nI don a pressurized suit and venture out into the murky deep. My heart hammers in my chest as I peek over the edge and into the heart of the ocean. \n\nI blink once, not quite believing my eyes, then speak. \n\n\"...Mom?\"\n\nTL;DR op's momma is fat", "\"Have you realized how far down are we going?\"\n\n\"All eleven kilometers, if we could, major. You could have stayed if you were claustrophobic.\"\n\n\"I'm not. And hell no, I won't miss this. Fuck the Loch Ness Monster, whatever's here it's the thing we've been waiting for.\"\n\n\"For all we know, it's just another Bloop. Don't get too excited.\"\n\n\"For all we know this is goddamn Cthulhu that's down there awaking from his slumber ready to end the world, don't you think? How don't you get excited?\"\n\n\"I can tell you how not to get excited,\" the man said sternly, raising an eyebrow \"we heard a noise. We detected subtle movement. Something it's down there, we know it's big. You know what was once said? 'There are two posibilities: we're either alone in the universe, or we are not, and both are equally terrifying'. I live by that.\"\n\n\"You're one hell of a philosopher to be a scientist\"\n\n\"You miss the point. You also miss the point of the poetry that entails science.\"\n\n\"So you're afraid\"\n\n\"No. I'm cautious.\"\n\nThe buzz of the radio called the two men, and the scientist took upon the radio \"This is Proteus 1, over\"\n\n\"What is your status, Proteus 1, over\"\n\n\"We're just fine, Houston, pressure it's okay, all systems functional, over.\"\n\n\"Excellent Proteous 1, we will keep in touch and reach you just before you are out of frequence radius, over and out.\"\n\nThe scientist dropped the radio, and the military man joked just as he let go of the device \"You could have told them we're freezing.\"\n\n\"And we will get even colder, comrade... and darker.\"\n\n\"Even darker? There is like nothing out there... it's like a void. A huge, black, empty void.\"\n\n\"There is more life in there than up there, did you know?\"\n\n\"How do you quantify that? There is this deep fish that the male clings with its dick to the femal for life and lives as a sperm provider because it doesn't even have internal organs to live by itself. That life, man, it doesn't count.\"\n\n\"That Discovery Channel sub is really paying for itself, right?\"\n\n\"Shut up\" demanded the major, and they both laughed nervously. They were reaching two thirds of the trip, and looking out of the window, he spat \"you weren't kidding. I could swear this is even blacker. How far are we?\"\n\n\"Hmmmm... 8 kilometers and a bit more.\"\n\n\"Have they ever reached the end of this?\"\n\n\"No. Well yes. But it was never made public.\"\n\n\"What? Why?\"\n\nThe scientist shrugged, but then let a sigh of relief and chuckled \"No point hiding it now right? The trench has always had variable depth. We said eleven kilometers, but at times it has been 14. Or 18...\"\n\n\"Well wasn't it theorized at times to be over tectonic plaques so it... wait seven more kilometers? How on earth is that even-\"\n\n\"... Or ten kilometers once.\" resumed the scientist. \"There are lots of theories, but th-\"\n\nA dull thud shut the man. He immediately pressed the button that send the signal to stop the descent. Looking over the sonar screens, he realized the trench, at this point, was blocked.\n\n\"See, this is why we don't get too excited. This is like the Bermuda Triangle. Weird things happen. Personally, I think the tectonic plaques theory might be right.\" He smiled, like he had been there before. \"Houston, this is Proteus 1, over.\"\n\n\"Houston here, we will pull you up and begin the high powered camera and satelite operations, over.\"\n\n\"I think the 'massive, unknown, object' thing it's just another gigantic piece of rock getting stuck after a particulary strong underwater current. Did you ever think this was something paranormal, major?\"\n\n\"To be honest, yes, but-\" the man started to explain in the middle of his embarrassment, but the radio cut him short.\n\n\"Proteus, are you there?\"\n\nThe scientist looked worried at the radio, as if he had also been there, he had heard that tone before. It was definitely not good news. He raised the device to his mouth to reply, but a violent thug began to pull the small ship up, and he struggle to keep it in his hands.\n\n\"Houston, what is going on there, over?\"\n\n\"... I... I don't know what to tell you. The images from the satelitte must have reached you already.\"\n\nThe two men looked at each other and a dead silence - other than the ship complaining about the pressure - filled the ship with dread. The military looked at the laptop and indeed, several pictures were there. It was, however, not a rock blocking the path.\n\nIt could have been whatever else. But it looked like an eye*.\n\nAn eye several kilometers big.\n\n\"At least we know why you're picking us up so violently, Houston.\" Said the scientist, nervously, trying to hide his fear with some sort of humour.\n\n\"Proteus 1, we are not pulling you up.\"", "\"Voyager this is deep throat, what's your status?\"The ship atop the surface inquired. \n\nMiles below the surface a single green submersible floated down toward the unknown depths of the deepest parts of Gods ocean. Dr. Hillard held the walkie talkie close to his face, squinting into the dark abyss surrounding him searching for any inkling of light other than the light shining on the two robotic arms in front of him. Bubbles flew upward as they went down, as if running from what they were running to.\n\n\n\" I haven't seen anything yet Deep throat.\" \nThe Doctor and his assistant were the only ones brave enough to go down after the reading they detected on the sonar projector. They were convinced it was a massive gas cloud, that must have spurted from the ground there. On the idea that there would be a fault line in the Mariana trench, they rushed into research and now they were ready to see it up close. The reading was gigantic, the noise that it produced was also organic and rounded. No one really could tell what it was, there was a lot of speculation. Some even said it was a demon. \nDr.Hillard and his assistant jumped on the oppurtunity, they both loved deep sea geology as well as had a growing love for eachothers presence. Its hard to stay with anyone of the opposite sex so long and not get some feeling. But, she was diligent. His assistant toiled, watching all the dials. Her greasy head hunched over the biometric pressure reader, reflecting off her glasses and staining her face with a red light.\n\n\" Have you got anything yet?\" He asked her, looking back from his window.\n\n\" No, I haven't yet. The readings are still going strong though. Its Like a deep bellowing and then nothing, then we get a big rise in pressure. Then it starts over.\" Dr. Hillard had a thousand yard stare for just a moment then radioed in.\n\n\n\" Deep Throat, this is voyager, come in Deep throat.\" \n\nThe Walkie talkie sat in silence. Dr, Hillard made sure to press the button, even harder.\n\n\" Deep throat, Respond....\"\n\nDr hillard looked over the walkie talkie, frustrated by the crew topside. They were rarely on the right channel, so they prolly just had to turned wrong. Dr hillard looked up at his companion from fiddling with the device. His assistant was wide eyed staring behind the doctor, her hair standing up on the back of her neck. \nDr. Hilliard looked back behind him, doing a double take. But he didn't see anything. \n\n\n\"Whatcha lookin' at?\" he chuckled at her, struggling to undo the batteries in the walkie talkie.\n\n\n\" I must be seeing things...\" she said taking of her glasses and rubbing her left eye with her palm.\nDr hillard reassured her. \n\n\n\" Don't worry dear, were almost there. When we get back Ill take you get some calamari at the docks.\" \nDr hillard smiled at her, but she turned from his gaze to look back down at her post. \n\n\n\" Rachel?\" He cooed, testing the water for her attention. She looked up at him again, puzzled. Then she wet her lips in preparation for something she needed to say.\n\n\n\"You know that pressure reading we saw? With the low humming and all that?\"\n\n\n\" What about it?\"\n\n\n\" It sounds like breathing\" \n\n\n \n" ]	5
	[wp] Write about the moment you realize you're not as good a writer as you thought	[ "...Oh my GOD! This story was like, two paragraphs in my head. Now I have to start my own damn subreddit and fund it through both Patreon AND Kickstarter to finish it!\n\n...How the crap have I managed to give out this many details about this character and still not reveal anything about his name, face, disposition, job, or mode of dress?\n\n...There's a 10,000 character limit. I only know this because a two-paragraph story turned into very nearly 20,000 characters.\n\n...I just edited this story to readable levels, but it took so long that the prompt is like, 20 pages back, and no one will ever see it if I don't make my own thread.\n\nI'm long-winded, basically.\n\nAlso, when I write plots with \"clever\" characters, their solutions look less like Sherlock Holmes, and more like a Scooby Doo trap, or a Rube Goldberg device. And they take insane amounts of exposition to describe." ]	1
	[WP] Write about a world that has suffered due to super powers	[ "My father used to tell me stories about life before The Surge. He told me about the cars and trains and cities and people. About the freedoms that everyone seemed to take for granted. Before The Surge and the Legendaries, America was actually a democracy! Can you believe it? People could choose their jobs and choose their houses and wear the clothes they wanted to wear... Nobody expected anything to change. Now, Legendaries rule the land with a harshness and dictatorship that my dad used to compare to some now-forgotten place called \"North Korea\". The Surge created the people known as Legendaries. Normal men and women who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. My dad's told me the story of Legendaries many times over the years... How, a little over 40 years ago during a time referred to as \"the technology days\", so much power was being generated to keep up with the constant use of new and high-functioning electronic equipment, it created a surge. Anyone who was exposed to the generation equipment at the time was radiated in a way that... Well, that changed them. They still looked the same and spoke the same, but their character was different. They developed supernatural powers, or curses if you ask me, due to the high amount of electric currents they were exposed to when the Surge happened. What were once normal people could now shape-shift or shoot lasers from their eyes or turn anything to stone. The people who were effected by the Surge and now super-human were then on referred to as \"Legendaries\", also known as our leaders. My dad said that when you give a normal guy that much power all at once, it's bound to go straight to his head. And that's exactly what happened, but to every Legendary. They started fighting each other over who would rule what area and who's power was better than who's... Soon enough, the world became a wasteland. Cities and countries were wiped off the earth during extreme battles where Legendaries would set entire nations ablaze or radiate the population in selfish attempts to prove their power and make a name for themselves of being the \"greater\" Legendary. ", "I remember the day it happened. No one could have predicted it. No one imagined that the world would look like this.\n\nIt was a normal morning. I took the usual coffee from the usual machine. One for myself, a few others for my colleagues. After I gave everyone their fuel, and sat down behind my desk, one of my colleagues screamed.\n\nWe all looked over and noticed how all of her coffee evaporated. No one knew what was going on. But that was just the start. Slowly, bit by bit, everyone showed a strange talent. The older lady from earlier could evaporate liquids at her will. Someone else could make plant grow incredibly fast just by touching, and someone else could make magnetic fields at will. Everyone could do something. Besides me, that is.\n\nInitially, it was frustrating. But later he felt glad that he hadn’t obtained a superpower. Because in the few days afterwards, everyone started abusing theirs.\n\nIt didn’t take long until the world fell into chaos. The people with stronger abilities abused theirs. The army didn’t stand a chance: they had no strategies for chaos formed like this.\n\nIt took only a week. The entire world was in anarchy. I still survived one week, somehow. Even without having a superpower, survival was possible. When his former colleague attacked him with his plant-growing ability, I simply threw some seeds at him, at which he accidently grew them. Once panic took over, his own ability made him suffocate to death. If you could figure out the weakness behind someone’s ability, it became a curse rather than a superpower.\n\nStill, I can’t believe that I had to kill someone I knew… It might have been to safe his own life, but he still couldn’t handle the guilt of it. He turned around and the guilt increased: he saw the very son of his colleague. 4 years old. And now, he watched his own father try to murder someone, and getting murdered instead.\n\n“You... killed daddy…” the kid said. I stood there. I didn’t knew what to think or do.\n“You… killed daddy…” the kid said again. With a face that would give anyone nightmares.\n“You..UU… kilLLED…. DAAADDDDDYYYYYY!!!!” the kid grew. And grew. He became taller, bigger, sturdier. Red hair grew all over his body. As his body grew, he ripped his own clothes. He became taller than a two-story building.\n\n“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!!!” the kid, now a monster, raised his right arm. I still stood there, not knowing what to do. Not knowing what to think. When the arm started to come towards him, he wished he had an ability. Any ability. To survive. But even more than an ability, he wished he could go back, to enjoy his peaceful, almost boring live again. Even if it was just five minutes, he wanted to enjoy it again. As the arm of the monster got closer and closer, his wished for it more and more.\n\nIt was a normal morning. I took the usual coffee from the usual machine. One for myself, a few others for my colleagues. After I gave everyone their fuel, and sat down behind my desk, one of my colleagues screamed.", "Back in the day, they called me Kid Indestructible.\n\nNow, I guess they'd probably call me The Immortal.\n\nThere are only a few others that I've known to have survived everything that went down. But it's not like they've really fared that well. Cicada went into hibernation, somewhere out in what was once one of the National Parks. I found her cocoon when I was over there a few years ago. It was still warm, and when I pressed my ear up against it I could hear a heartbeat. So I guess that's something.\n\nI've run into The Strider a few times as well, but he's...not doing great. Usually he'll pop in for a few frames of my life, sobbing uncontrollably, before slipping into...wherever it is that he goes. Can't blame him. He lost a wife and two daughters in the first few weeks after everything went down. Unfortunately, he couldn't be there to protect them...his power takes him out of harm's way, and back at the beginning of the end \"harm\" was everywhere.\n\nAnd then there's me and that's it. Sure, maybe there's a bunch of bunkerdwellers somewhere who haven't killed themselves yet...but I bet you that they're thinking about it. I mean, the destruction was just phenomenal. Even Doc Bot, PhD.'s robotic army ended up fried nine ways to Sunday. The destruction of the world was swift and complete.\n\nBut I mean, what else should you expect when you've got a guy named Corporal Atomics facing off against a dude calling himself \"Big Bad Fusion\"? You think when two people with those sorts of powers start beating on each other that something good is going to happen? What planet are you living on?\n\nWell...not this one I guess. A blackish gray boiling sky is draped over the Earth like a shroud, and North America got the worst of it. No more amber waves of grain here. The purple mountains are black and burnt, and I haven't seen a piece of real fruit in over thirty years.\n\nAnd so I wander. Why, I don't know...I guess because it's better than staying in one place. Radiation doesn't seem to have an effect on me, and I can drink the water fine. I'm absolutely starving - but it doesn't look like that's about to kill me either. And God knows I can't kill myself...\n\nAnd so I wander. Because there's nothing better to do than trudge through the dirt and sand beneath the hell-scorched skies. Nobody to talk to. Nothing to look at. And I'm not much of a reader. So I walk instead.\n\nI was Kid Indestructible. I fought criminals, and I was good at it. I wanted to make the world a better place.\n\nHa." ]	3
	[WP] You are born with flawless skill in everything, but the more you practice, the worse you get.	[ "It was a trait on my father's side of the family. He saw it in me the first time he held me in his arms. The intensity in my bright blue eyes, what might be described as equal parts amusement, amazement, pure understanding and a keenness to reach out and hold something and experience it's perfectness only I can see with my hands and with my mind. He also saw the light flicker and fade only to be rekindled on something new, too soon, too quickly; always something new to see.\n\nHe knew to keep me out of school. I would meet people and know exactly what to say to them. Beauty interested me. Relationships were short and sweet. I couldn't tell you if it was my inability to keep a woman interested for very long or whether I just didn't see the point in trying when I was always moving on. I worked on a farm for mostly a decade. It was good, the mindless toil, so many ways to do a job and so many different jobs.\n\nThere was the internet. The one thing that could seemingly hold my interest was the internet. I was beholden to it's power because it was everchanging. People communicating in words only, be they man or woman, young or old, knowledgeable, wise or an idiot; it was unclear. I wrote many things in many places. Hopeful requests for my return went unconsidered.\n\nI began to wander the streets, meeting all manner of persons. Large crowds were always amusing. So many people seemingly moving in the same direction, direction I could give them if I put my gaze upon them and said what they needed to hear. I had power. Power did not interest me. Death was to wonder if there is an afterlife. I resist the urge to find out.", "I closed my eyes--the only reason I have to open them is to see who comes into my room, and I only need them open for a flash.\n\nI know exactly who it is. I know everyone.\n\n\"Brian,\" I say. My voice isn't real--the machine reads my thoughts and vocalizes them, I've long since lost the ability to truly speak. My mouth holds like iron--without the wires sprouting from my head like roots out of a forgotten tuber I'd have locked myself away from this world forever.\n\nI can't move. I can't speak. I can only think, and solve.\n\nThat is, assuming this Brian's problem isn't anything I've heard before.\n\n\"You know my name?\" he asks. Like it's a surprise.\n\n\"I'm good at recognizing people,\" I \"say\".\n\nI don't know what he does next. I'm blind, after all. I saw for too long and now I can't at all.\n\nIf not for the wires, I wouldn't have any senses left.\n\n\"Can you help me?\" he asks. I know he has questions--I'm good at analyzing tone-of-voice--but he won't ask.\n\nHe's afraid of the girl in the machine, floating in a vat of a fluid I can't spell or pronounce. It keeps me from my condition from getting worse. Rather, it keeps me from losing my ability to think, along with a handful of other necessities. Certain abstracts are still lost.\n\nWhen they finally saved me, it was all I had left.\n\n\"Shoot,\" I say.\n\nBrian clears his throat--nervous little thing--and spills his heart unto me, like I'm the high priest of some forgotten religion, and he's here to purify his soul before the ritual sacrifice.\n\nI'm not going to hurt his. That is, until he finishes his speech.\n\nHe backs away from his own words. \"...can you help me?\" he mumbles.\n\nI say nothing.\n\n\"You are lost,\" I say, after some time.\n\n\"I...I know. I shouldn't've done what I...I didn't mean to!\" He shouts, flashing to life. \"I was going to lose my job, and my life, and they were going to go after my family, and...he made me feel worthless.\"\n\n\"You should not have killed him.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"You should not have killed any of them.\"\n\n\"I know!\" he screams. \"But now there's more of them...and...and they're going to get me if I--\"\n\n\"Kill yourself,\" I say.\n\nBrian stops.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"The police will kill you on sight. You can't possibly escape from them, not with the evidence they most likely have. If you do this now, you can choose your own death, instead of one at the hands of a detached officer with a boom-stick.\"\n\nHe stands in silence for a while. The room is dark; I can't tell if he's crying.\n\n\"I...I understand,\" he says.\n\n\"My word isn't law,\" I say back. \"You can do whatever you want.\"\n\n\"You're good at solving problems. At thinking. That's what the flyer said,\" he replies. Bitter.\n\n\"I solved your problem. I gave you the solution that benefits all parties the most. If you don't like the answer, there's no refund.\"\n\nBrian looked up. I snuck another look--the wires give me a little bit of vision again, but if I hold my eyes open for any longer than a few seconds, it drips away to nothing again. I've taken too many peeks already, but...I need one more.\n\nThere's nothing on his face. Resignation, if that counts as an expression.\n\n\"Are you going to tell the police?\" he says, after a time.\n\n\"No,\" I say. \"I'm going to tell them you died.\"\n" ]	2
	[WP] Write the scariest story in the least scary environent	[ "I feel as though asking for \"the least scary environment\" is impossible seeing as how things are either traditionally scary, or become scary when the elements associated with them such as fun at an amusment park or nurture at a preschool are taken away. Even in a location of absolute nothingness that I feel that the lack of anything with suspense added increases the wonder and terror of the lack of cause to the suspense, still an interesting idea though. ", "Blood dripped down on to the now unrecognizable face from the wooden mallet that the killer held. He stood towering over his victim, looking at him with a vacant wonderment. His head cocked to the side, and his long white beard, now stained black from the ashes of his once beloved, dead pets, covered in an even whiter froth, that seemed to be bubbling from his mouth.\n\nIt had been a long time coming, but everybody ignored the signs, chalking it up to stress and long work hours. He had grown more and more distant over the last couple of years, and his breathe always smelt a little to strongly of peppermint mouth wash. He would disappear for days at a time, and no had seen his wife in years. Sure he had snapped at his workers before, but nobody thought it would come to this. They just gave him his space and went on with their jobs. What else could they do? They had become so dependent on their employer, that they really couldn't say anything. There was only one employer in this town and if he ever got shut down, The whole place would become one of those ghost towns you always read about.\n\nIt was all over now though. The dream was dead, along with half of the town. The killer walked towards the bedroom, half staggering. He sat down on the edge of the bed. The fire still danced brightly outside the window spreading from one house to the next. He leaned down and grabbed two things from under the bed. A piece of paper and a sawed-off, double barrel shot gun. He stared at the paper for a long moment. His hand started shaking as he wrote the final two words at the bottom, and then he stuck the shotgun in his mouth, breathing one last sigh of relief before he pulled the trigger.\n\nWhen the police finally showed up, they found the blood covered note next to his body. it read:\n\nNAUGHTY\n\nJohnny Watts\n\nTim Stevens\n\nEmily Marks\n\nMicheal Banks\n\nSanta Claus\n\n" ]	2
Taken from this [Shower Thought](http://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/2wrmj1/the_first_infected_zombie_attacks_you_and_you/).	[WP] Patient Zero of a zombie plague attacks you but you kill it in self defense. There were no witnesses; you just saved humanity but nobody believes you.	[ "February 2nd 2015 \nAs soon as I told my bestfriend I killed him, he never talked to me again.\n\nFebruary 4th 2015\nI told another hoping to a different response but it was the same.\n\nFebruary 7th 2015\nI didn't understand I just saved the world! What is wrong with people! they have to believe me don't they?!\n\nMarch 23rd 2015\nI just told another they went to the police, I've left my home I don't trust anyone any more.\n\nAugust 21st 2015\nOh god they've found me! The horrible lights the barking of the dogs! No! No!\n\nSeptember 16th 2015\nYou. Yes you reading this, you have to believe me no one else does. I just saved the world, I killed him! I did yes, I did didn't I...\n\nJune 13 2016\nNO NO NO GET AWAY GET AW-\n\nJuly 22nd 2016\nI didn't kill that man did I? No I am sure I did, they told me I didn't hurt anyone \n\nAugust 7th 2016\nI know I did, I know it! They can tell me I didn't but I know I saved the world.\n\nSeptember 2nd 2016\nI killed him I know I did. I can feel it, they're close they're on to me, listen take this journal let the world know that I saved them. you will won't you?\n\nDecember 2017\nHelp me.. please.", "I recognized the signs as they came. I would've thought all my friends would too, given how many opening night zombie flicks we had gone to see together, though it had been a while since the last one. And, to be fair to them, it was a gradual transformation. The slow shuffle of feet, blood not pumping as fast, a constant craving for something to chew on. My mom said it was probably just some iron deficiency and a natural craving for meat to fix it, but I knew better. \n\n\"I'm telling you it's real, guys. If we don't do something, it's going to be a disaster.\" I urged my friends, but they were busy in their lives these days. School, work, some even had families starting. Things I yearned for, but I could scarce leave my home out of fear. \n\nIt was raining outside. It seemed like the appropriate weather for what I knew had to be done. It'd just be too weird if it was sunny, so today had to be the day. I stood in front of the mirror, trying to work up the motivation. I had the gun at hand, obtained through a friend's parent's safety box left unlocked one fateful sleepover. A gun was appropriate for killing zombies, and I had imagined performing the perfect headshot dozens of times. \n\nThe symptoms were getting worse, and I knew patient zero was at the tipping point - soon to lose all sense of humanity, to succumb to basic instincts, to kill others without remorse. No human could be such a thing, and it was my duty to stop it even as no one else believed me. I would be the one to save humanity.\n\nStepping out into the rain, aptly dark and quiet, I pointed the gun at my head and fired." ]	2
	[WP] You are a New York pedestrian in the middle of a superhero movie.	[ "A set of explosives launched shrapnel everywhere, sending me flying through the air. I screamed for help as blood dripped down my arm, and right on cue, a caped vigilante dragged me from the wreckage.\n\n\"CUTTTT!!!\"\n\nI rolled my eyes. What did I do wrong this time? I thought as I wiped the fake blood from my arm. A group of workers quickly cleared the scene, and a\npyrotechnic specialist replaced the charge.\n\n\"You flew too early.\" the director said. \"Remember to wait until you hear the explosion.\"\n\n\"Okeh,\" I mumbled. I didn't enjoy this, but it got me some much needed cash.\n\n\"TAKE TWO!!!\"", "\"That's it! That is the last straw!\" Laura yelled over the sound of the tremors.\n\nHer husband Roger looked up from his meal and pleaded, \"Honey, can we at least finish our meal before we run this time? It took me months to get these reservations!\"\n\n\"No, Roger, no,\" she answered angrily, \"I've told you before, if we get caught in the middle of another stupid catastrophe as a result of those so-called heroes, we're moving.\"\n\n\"Sweetie, come on. We're New Yorkers! We're used to disasters,\" he attempted to reassure her, \"I mean, we survived superstorm Sandy and the Battle of New York, after all!\"\n\nLaura shook her head and push the plate of succulent fettuccini pasta away. No matter how many times they had this argument, Roger always clung to the 'we're New Yorkers' line for dear life. Not this time, she thought. She looked around the beautiful restaurant and saw other people calmly eating their food as well. What was wrong with these people?\n\n\"Laura, please, just finish your pasta and we'll run,\" he said, pointing at something on his phone, \"Twitter says the fighting is mostly in the lower east side right now. Which means we have at least fifteen minutes before anything blows up in the upper west side!\"\n\nRoger smiled and kept stuffing his face with shrimp. Being born and raised in New York City, he had always told Laura, meant he got used to superheroes duking it out with the forces of evil. For a while it was mostly Spider-Man or the Fantastic Four they had to worry about, with their absurdly-named 'villains.' But when that horned-maniac Loki brought down his ugly army on the city, things got a lot worse. Ever since then it seem that anybody with a vendetta against these vigilantes just came to NYC to blow things up.\n\n\"I'm not even from the city,\" Laura said, grudgingly picking at her pasta, \"I'm from upstate. These things never happen upstate.\"\n\nRoger put down his fork and looked into his wife's big, beautiful, angry eyes, \"We've talked about this. We're not moving upstate. I've got an incredible job here, and everyone we know is here. Besides, living in a small town didn't protect those people in New Mexico.\"\n\n\"Everyone you know,\" Laura chided, \"I left all my friends and family behind to move to the city with you.\"\n\nShe regretted saying it as soon as it left her lips, but it was too late. That sentence, without fail, started a fight every time she said it. In all honesty, she was glad she had moved away from her tiny town to be with Roger. But sometimes she missed her old friends. Just as they were both about to open their mouths to start the argument, a Yellow Cab burst through the front window upside-down.\n\nRoger grabbed Laura's arm and tugged her away from the table as the cab slid through tables and decorations. She was glad they had been seated so far toward the back, now. They ran through the kitchen, which the chefs has already abandoned. Laura glanced behind them and saw the rest of the stubborn restaurant patrons and wait staff following. Into the back alley they burst, looking frantically each direction.\n\n\"This way, to the road!\" Laura said as she pulled Roger's arm in that direction.\n\nAs they rounded the corner onto the street, they saw that Roger's estimate had been a little off. Men in strange combat uniforms were firing guns up toward the tops of the buildings, trying to bring down somebody. Laura and Roger took off in the other direction, pushing around the gawkers trying to catch a glimpse of an Avenger or something. They rounded another street corner, putting as much distance between them and the battle as they could, when they ran into a police barricade.\n\n\"...everyone needs to make their way down the designated streets,\" an officer was saying through a megaphone, \"This area is not safe, we have set up an evacuation route heading north, so everyone needs to...\"\n\n\"Hurry, before the superhero spotters get in our way,\" Roger said, pulling Laura towards the streets the police had sectioned off for the fleeing pedestrians.\n\nThey climbed over a cab as they made their way across the street, the driver honking angrily at them. Traffic was backed up for several blocks, but the drivers stubbornly kept trying to move forward. Typical, Laura thought. She and Roger were making a dead sprint down the sidewalk finally when something shot in front of them and broke through a shop window. Everyone on the sidewalk shrieked as broken glass burst around them. A man in a blue body suit walked out of the shop, brushing dust off his sleeves. He had an 'A' on the front of his helmet, and a huge metal shield on his back. A teenage girl screamed something about 'Captian America!'\n\n\"Sorry about the mess, folks,\" he said charmingly, \"We'll have this mess cleaned up in no time.\"\n\nCaptain America rushed back toward the action, fan girls swooning in his wake. Superheroes, Laura shook her head, Think they're such hot stuff.\n\n\"We're moving, Roger.\" Laura demanded.", "Helpless... Helpless is the kind of feeling you would expect to feel when you're trapped under the ice of a frozen lake, or in retrospect the lump I got in my throat when I was caught helping myself to the forbidden cookies in my grandmothers kitchen.\n\nIt's an odd feeling watching the cafe you just spent your lunch break in from the mundane revolving door of life burst into flames as a getaway car from yet another failed bank heist crashes through the window. Sometimes I don't know why these fools even try these days.\n\nEver since, HE showed up things haven't been quite the same. I remember when it all began some 3 years ago, at first the media didn't quite know how to react. I remember spending an entire day at work watching the news live when HE first displayed such incredible feats of adversity against a gang of notorious arms dealers.\n\nHelpless, this word has a changed meaning these days. My life just isn't comparable to what would have been socially accepted as the 'good life' anymore... high paying job in the big city, fancy car... women don't even look at me anymore. They all want HIM to be their savior, HIM to sweep them off their feet, a celebrity of the 'common folk', a hero of the people... pfft.\n\nWe'll see, I'll show HIM. HE thinks he's got it all... well let's see how HE reacts when I show them just how HELPLESS HE can be when you push the right buttons... You just wait." ]	3
If you don't understand, it means that when the girl sleeps facing the mountains on a Tuesday, when she wakes up it will be the Tuesday again.	[WP] A child discovers a magical ability. When she sleeps facing the sea, tomorrow arrives as usual. When she sleeps facing the mountains, the day starts anew when she awakens.	[ "For as long as she could remember, Lucie had always slept facing the sea - her window wide open. She would drift to sleep as mist blew into her room and cooled her face while waves clapped against the rocky shore outside her window.\n\nBut when she had the flu, she nearly boiled away under the weight of the extra blankets her father insisted she use. It was too much to bear! Lucie had tossed them to the floor, turned to the mountains and away from the sea - its breeze now soothing her back and finally allowing some comfort and rest.\n\nLucie awoke to the playful barks of Spot, and the less playful groans of her father trying to corner him.\n\n\"Come here you filthy mess!\" he roared. \"If you're going to sleep in this house while Lucie is sick, you'll have to be clean!\"\n\nSpot ran into her room, soaking wet with equal parts soap and mud tracking behind him - and Lucie had laughed gleefully when this sight had played out the morning before. But this was the second time she'd witnessed Spot's soapy rebellion. Was she dreaming? Why would her father clean him again so soon?\n\nLucie's father blamed the high fever, and mentioned something called \"deja-vu\". Lucie believed him - until Spot crashed into her room for a third and fourth morning in a row. The more Lucie insisted on what she was seeing, the more her father grew scared for her well-being - and so did the doctors he made her talk to. Her father always worried too much when it came to health. She would keep this to herself.\n\nAnd then it stopped. Lucie awoke to the mist on her face instead of Spot's slobber. But what had changed? She rubbed her eyes clear of sleep and saw the waves crashing onto the rocks instead of shadow of imposing mountains.\n\n\"Could it be? Could it be the mountains?\" she wondered. \"But how? Why?\"\n\nA week of tossing and turning proved her suspicions true: when she fell asleep facing the mountains, the previous day repeated itself. 'How and why' no longer mattered as Lucie discovered how powerful a do-over day could be.\n\nFirst, there was Pete, the class bully. He had tripped her while she walked home from school, and taken her favourite doll. It took four tries, but she was able to surprise him with a nasty gift from Spot in the bushes where he hid! No one was scared of 'Poopie-Pete' after that!\n\nShe celebrated her birthday ten times, but had to stop after she could no longer feign surprise as she unwrapped gifts in front of her friends and father. She also had enough chocolate cake to last a lifetime! \n\nAnd then there was the horse riding lesson! Her father could only stay for one hour, but that was enough! She must have gone 30 times before growing tired of the same lesson and wanting to move on.\n\nA trip to the zoo, a kiss with Ron behind the school, a boat ride out to a haunted island - all events were repeated until Lucie grew tired and moved on.\n\nBut she had yet to tire of this.\n\nShe would wake up before her father and quietly make breakfast as he slept on the living room couch. She'd suffered a few cuts and burns along the way, but had perfected the meal, even while cooking stood upon a chair.\n\n\"Morning!\" she'd say, placing the plate on his lap.\n\n\"Who helped you with this?\" he'd gasp, \"And how did you use the oven?! Lucie, you know that's very danger- ... are these banana pancakes? Your mother use to-\"\n\nHis eyes would light up with every bite, and just like for Lucie, the 'how and why' no longer mattered.\n\nOn especially good days, Lucie and her father would walk along the rocky beach, throwing rocks into the sea. Sometimes Lucie would even get a piggy-back ride. On other days, Lucie would crawl into her father's arms and he'd tell her stories of travelling across distant lands, meeting her mother, and tales from when he was her age. Lucie would tell stories too - of adventures she wanted to go on, places she'd like to visit, and people she wanted to help.\n\n\"Or maybe I'll just stay this age forever,\" she said one day. \"Today is so perfect, why would I want anything else?\"\n\n\"Sweetie,\" her father replied, \"even now I can tell you that no matter how perfect today may seem, the promise of tomorrow is that much better. Tomorrow gave me adventure, tomorrow gave me your mother, and tomorrow gave me you.\"\n\nHe winked, winced a little, and cleared his throat.\n\n\"Your grandpa will be coming to stay with us soon - isn't that nice? He loves to go for walks and throw rocks just like us - and he has many stories of his own!\"\n\n\"It's - it's been such a wonderful day, but now it's time for bed.\" He gave her a hug, \"And just think, sweetie, who knows what your tomorrow will bring?\"\n\nLucie crawled into bed, and heard her father coughing downstairs - unable to stop until he lay asleep on the couch. His day always ended this way.\n\n\"Tomorrow can wait,\" she thought. \"I like today.\"\n\nShe closed her eyes, the mountains fading to black as she drifted to sleep." ]	1
	[WP] The oft-forgotten child of an otaku couple has raised themself with the anime scattered around their house since they were a toddler. Now, it's their first day of middle school...	[ " THE FIRST DAY\n\nThe new girl stood in front of the class. \"I'm Heather Samson. First off, I'm not interested in ordinary people. But if any of you are aliens, time travelers, or espers, please come see me. That is all.\"\n\nWhat was that? This new girl watches too much anime, that was almost word-for-word a quote from Haruhi Suzumiya... And she even had the same initials... I could tell, from the moment I met Heather Samson, that this was going to be an interesting year.\n\nWhat is she... wait a minute... She's... taking the empty seat next to me? Why me?! How am I supposed to deal with this... crazy girl?\n\n\"Um...\" I started weakly. \"Hi?\"\n\nNothing. Cold eyes. Silence. Maybe this wasn't going to be as bad as I'd thought, maybe she's leave me alone... Leave me out of her craziness...\n\nBut fate was cruel. I glanced at the papers on her desk, papers she had busied herself putting a pencil to as soon as she sat down... It was decidedly shojo anime style, but that was definitely my face she was drawing. She's really good. Creepy, what with the cherry blossom petals in frame and the glint in the eye of the 'me' on the page... but good.\n\nAfter school, I ran into her again, at the lockers. Not only had she chosen the desk next to me, but the school had assigned her the locker next to me, too! I couldn't catch a break! \"So,\" she started. \"Which are you?\"\n\n\"Um... excuse me? Wh-which what?\" I was surprised, she hadn't said a word to anyone that I was aware of since her... unusual introduction in homeroom, but here she was talking to me now.\n\n\"You talked to me in class, after I said my piece at the start of the day.\" She gave me that cold stare again. \"So I assume you must be one. So which are you? Alien? Time traveler? Esper?\"\n\nDid she really believe all that stuff? Did she really mean it? I thought she was just trying to be funny and quoting the anime! \"Um... I'm none of the above, and I'm pretty sure that none of those are actually a thing, or at least not the kind of thing that would be spending time in a 21st century school on Earth.\"\n\n\"Whatever,\" she scoffed, \"then you're not worth talking to. See you around, maybe.\"\n\n\"We're in like half of the same classes, and we have homeroom together...\"\n\n\"Yeah, well maybe I'll change classes. I don't need normal people like you making my life boring.\" She tossed her hair - a few strands brushed under my nose, I could smell strawberries - and walked away.\n\n----\n\n THE TRANSFER STUDENT\n\n\"Did you hear?\" The girls were gossiping in the back of the classroom again, as usual.\n\n\"What's that?\" There always seem to be so many rumors at this school, which surprises me since we live in such an ordinary town.\n\n\"There's a transfer student coming today!\" Something mildly exciting. An transfer student meant an outside perspective on the place.\n\nAnd the classroom door flew wide open. Heather Samson had arrived - decided not to change classes after all, I guess. She took her seat quickly, still occupying the seat next to me, the 'ordinary' person. \"It's so exciting!\" She seemed unusually cheerful and energetic, and was going out of her way to talk to me, after what she had said yesterday...\n\n\"W-what's that?\" I thought I knew what she was talking about - the only exciting news all year and I'd just heard it from the class gossips - but I asked anyway. The way her mind seems to work, the 'exciting' thing could be anything from the transfer student, to Sloppy Joe day at the cafeteria, to the end of the world.\n\n\"You mean you didn't hear?\" She seemed genuinely shocked. \"There's a mysterious transfer student coming!\"\n\n\"I... heard about the transfer student, but what makes you think he's so mysterious?\"\n\n\"Don't be an idiot!\" She glared, through the grin on her face. Impressive. Oddly cute, too... Can't let myself think like that, she's completely mental! \"transfer students are always mysterious! It's just the way things are!\" She grinned even bigger. \"Especially this early in the school year.\"\n\n\"Maybe the kid's dad just got relocated because of work.\" Shit, now I'm quoting! If this pattern continues, next she's gonna say...\n\n\"Oh, work with me here! It's not normal!\" I knew it. Saw that one coming a mile away, you don't have to be an esper to know how her mind works...\n\n\"Good morning, everyone.\" A sudden voice came from the front of the classroom, startling me. I turned to look, and there was a new face. The 'mysterious' transfer student... \"My name is Isaac King. I'm transferring from out of town.\" Wow, she wasn't wrong, this guy is pretty mysterious. 'Out of town'? No point of origin, or even a previous school? Stop that! Don't get caught up in her... psychosis!\n\n----\n\n(I realize I've been moderately cribbing from the anime I mentioned in the story, and I realized it was leaning that way from the moment I made someone other than the otaku-spawn the POV character, but the intention is not to copy whole-cloth, and definitely not to copy everything, if there's interest I'll continue and gradually move away from - and possibly subvert, if I can figure out a way to - the anime plot.)", "I frowned. This wasn't right. I'd prepared all my life for this, but my first day of middle school gave me a lot of surprises.\n\nWhere were the cherry blossoms? Why isn't the school at the top of the hill?\n\nThe bus ride to school was somewhat full, but wasn't completely packed with people like I was expecting. I had mentally prepared myself to be groped or for the bus to get knocked over, but nothing of the sort happened.\n\nThe acceptance letter made no mention of uniforms. I thought they'd give them out once we were in our classes, but none of the seniors were wearing any either.\n\nSpeaking of an entrance letter, mine didn't get lost or anything, it came exactly three weeks after the examination. Weren't they supposed to get lost in the mail or chewed up??\n\nWhere were the pretty transfer students? I was hoping for a cute European boy with flowing locks, but everyone looked completely ordinary. \n\nNothing seems to be going right.", "\"Alright class, I'd like you to introduce yourselves! Let's go down the line, beginning with Anne...\"\n\nHe scoffed. \"Useless. Revealing yourselves to the enemy will only return to stab you in the back. The foolishness of the unenlightened!\" His inner monologue boomed. On second thought, his inner monologue was actually subtitles, so that wouldn't have made sense. He dismissed this minor trip-up.\n\n\"Hi, my name is Anne, and I, uhhhmmm...\" The young girl spoke with a sweet voice, \"uhmm....Ilikesportslikesoccerbecausemybigbrothertaughtmehowtoplaythankyou!\" Anne panicked and sat down, covering her face in her hands.\n\n\"Ha! I refuse to be fooled by her feeble character. She must be one of the yandere-types, secretly crazed when her love is threatened, come to think of it she might be a total brocon as well!\" \n\nHe smirked. No character archetype could escape his trained and experienced eyes, filled with the wisdom of the sacred moving scrolls from a distant land, his ancestors left him with this untapped power. Raised by their teachings, he gained infinite knowledge and incomprehensible mental strength. It was through his bottomless charm and wit did he truly manage to infiltrate the enlightenment facility to scout for impure souls. It was an uphill battle against the multi-tiered empire, but he finally arrived where he stood now.\n\nOne by one, the unenlightened carelessly revealed their personal traits, or as he saw it, vulnerabilities. He was envisioning tactics to tackle these deceptively powerful fiends and turn them to the bright side within seconds of them opening their mouths. The big men of the facility had leaked crucial information to this skilled spy, \"problem children\" the fellow occupants of the classroom were called. Actually, this \"classroom\" could be described as a thinly-veiled ESPer battleground, so he went with that. \n\nFinally, it was his turn. \"And last of all, I am your new teacher, don't call me mister, call me Ken-sama. It is my goal to get every single one of you out of problem-class because I know, deep down inside, every one of you has potential to change for the better.\"\n\nAnd he was the best god damn teacher we ever had." ]	3
	[WP] You know how some little children think the whole world was in black and white in the past? Well, they're right. Color suddenly appeared one day in the 60's	[ "I used to hang out with Timothy Leary and Charles Manson in the 1960s. They said that LSD was a revolutionary drug, it made you see unimaginable things.\n\nOne day after getting back from the beach and hanging out with Leary in the back of Manson's VW bus he told me,\n\n\"I was tripping really hard this one day and entered a transcendental state. It was like I was given god-like powers and I had three options to choose from. Increase average human intellect, destroy all religions or increase humanities visual acuity. Having known what visual delights were achievable on acid, I wanted to gift this ability to the world. So, naturally I chose it. I didn't think it would actually work but, amazingly it did!\" ,\n\nIt was incredible. Hardly anybody knows this or remembers that summer. It seems like everyone else is oblivious to what happened but, I know the truth. Not only did this man give us acid but, color as well.\n\n\n\n", "I woke up to the sound of screaming. I jumped out of my bed to attack the intruder, but there was no one except little Timmy. He kept yelling that his eyes are broken or something. Then came his parents, but instead of comforting him, they were also freaking out. \"Honey, quickly call the doctor!\", Timmy's Dad said. Everyone kept running, but since there was no harm being done, I went back to bed and chewed on my bone. Humans are weird.\n\n2nd Story" ]	2
I was thinking about doxxing and swatting in the shower this morning and imagined what it would be like if somebody selected streamers at random to track down and kill. Twitch chat would witness the brutal murders and try to warn the streamer before it was too late.	[WP] Twitch.TV streamers are being murdered at random by a dark figure that appears in the facecam background. The murderer wears home-made masks of popular video game characters.	[ "People where being interviewed constantly, questions where being asked all over the internet. \"Who was the masked murderer?\" His first appearance was in the middle of a popular CS:GO Stream. He showed up as the scout from Team fortress 2 and brutally murdered the streamer. It was gruesome. this murder occurred in Austria.\n\nIt only took a week for people to stop talking about it until another stream was killed, this time it was a smaller streamer. he had only two hundred viewers at the time but that's all it took, he was dead within 15 minutes of starting his stream, the scary part? He was in Chicago.\n\nSlowly popular streamers went offline, they weren't murdered but they were scared to go back online. Twitch slowly died out, no one dared to go back online until the 6th of November 2015. It was 4chan that decided to do something about this.\n\nOne user from /b/ boarded up his house loaded his guns and waiting, it only took 15 minutes before there was a loud bang at his front door. He had his guns at the ready and camera's set up. there was almost 70,000 viewers on the stream. His front door camera showed a man wearing a mask like no other, it was Gabe Newell.\n\nHis front door camera went offline within a minute of the man in the mask showing up, next it was the kitchen camera then his bathroom camera and lastly the camera right outside his bedroom's door, he grabbed his M9 and aimed at the door. Waiting. There was a loud screech and he fired twice, the door flung open and in the man in the mask came and struck his throat with his knife. The streamer was dead.\n\nThe man in the mask turned towards the computer and spoke only three words in a deep husky tone.\n\n\"You're all next.\"", "He stepped through the house with an air of pride. Perhaps it was due to the extra effort he put into his costume this time around. The red paper mache balls that formed his necklace, the chains wrapped around his wooden gloves with such care, they didn't even jingle, the four large teeth protruding from the lower lip of his green mask... His guise was perfect.\n\nThe killer squeezed the sledgehammer in his hands in silence. His next victim spoke from beyond the door. He peeked in ever so quietly, and saw the shaved head sitting at the computer. As expected, the poor fool was streaming. Right on time, the costumed intruder thought to himself. The smile produced by his frail teeth was as malicious as ever.\n\nHe burst into the room, and immediately jabbed the man at the computer with his hammer. The victim fell out of his seat, and onto the ground. \"Thrall\" raised his weapon up to deal another blow, but froze in place when he saw the clothed mannequin that he hit.\n\nThe murderer quickly turned around, and felt a fist crush the right side of his mask. The stink of plaster invaded his nostrils as he fell down. Thrall immediately came to when felt someone trying to snatch his sledgehammer away. He used his mark's own pull against him to stand back up.\n\nThe two struggled against each other over the weapon. Shelves of books and memorabilia tumbled in the conflict. The millions of onlooking people caused the Twitch chat to become as chaotic as ever. Even the admins were too astonished to shut down the stream.\n\nThrall lost his grip, and the streamer tossed the sledgehammer out of the room. Unlike the man in the suit, he was out for justice, not blood. Thrall snorted in amusement as the thought crossed his mind. Even without his hammer, he was still stronger than his prey. He swung his left arm. The chains around his forearm were covered in the blood from his target's jaw.\n\nThe streamer fell to his knees in pain. Thrall stepped toward the computer, not taking his eyes off his victim for a moment. He adjusted the webcam so all may see his imminent victory.\n\nThey both shared one last look at each other. Thrall grinned... but so did his target. Quickly reaching into his pocket, the streamer tossed his pocket salt into the gap of Thrall's mask. The killer's bloodshot eyes were inflamed even further. A swift kick to the shin broke his balance, giving the streamer the chance to wrestle his assailant to the floor. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. The streamer cuffed Thrall, and delivered a flurry of jabs to beat out whatever resistance the killer had left.\n\nSirens wailed in the background. The streamer got back in his seat, and used a paper towel to wipe the blood off his face. After a cup of orange juice to get rid of the taste of iron, he looked at his computer screen. The chat sang of his praises, of how the streamers who already lost their lives could finally rip in pepperoni.\n\nThe streamer looked at the webcam, and gave that stupid grin his fans loved him for. \"Hey guys, how's it going? Kripparrian here.\"" ]	2
	[WP] A sword kills a man's mortal body, a pen kills a man's immortal soul	[ "That damn editor will pay, yes he will he fumed. He think she can just trash my public policy and get away with it? Like I'm some kind of pushover who's just going to let my reputation, my very soul, be destroyed? He opened the drawer of his large oak desk and produced two flintlock pistols. They were cocked and loaded. Well, if he thinks he can persuade the public against me, I'll have to teach him a lesson. You don't write things about people like that! It's evil! No matter what he thinks, how can he justify snubbing me out, permanently! He stormed down the stairs of his office and into the street, narrowly missing a horse drawn buggy that was dashing by. \"Get the fuck out of the way! Someone is trying to kill me!\" he screamed. The people in the street ran to the sides and cleared him a path. Whispers of his identity and mission filled the air. He looked like a madman, messy hair and wild eyes barreling down the path. Ah, here it is, the Jackson Times. If he's going to destroy me, the least I can do is repay the favor the only way I know how. \"Edwards! Get your ass down here! I saw what you wrote and I challenge you to a duel!\" he bellowed. ", "A sword will kill a man's body, but his spirit can only be truly vanquished by a pen. Or more precisely, the lack of a pen. Some, like Alexander and Tamerlane wins their glory through the sword, killing thousands that we do not remember. These men of the sword go to do the killings of the world, writing its ragged history with the blood of people both innocent and vile. They erect empires or destroy them with equal impunity, none dares to stand before them when they are out there on the killing fields. But what makes these mortal killers into gods of war and empires? The pen.\n\nThe pen makes men remember, that once giants trod down the lands of the meek. The pen records their bloody victories, their greatest tragedies and triumphs, the empire that Augustus made would never be remembered without his scribes and their pens, who so dutifully under the watchful eye of Maecenas wrote the past history of Rome that Augustus wanted and the future that he shaped. Without them, who would remember Augustus? So it would be for all cultures. The sword makes the kings but the pen makes the gods. And like how the pen transforms a man into a legend, so can it destroy his immortal soul. If the pens lies still, and does not record the triumph of a mans will, then after he dies he will soon be forgotten for the next great leader. Who would remember Elam and Sargon, if not for the scribes and their pens. Who would be our Gilgamesh, who would be our Caesar? If you truly wish a man to die, write not of him. For shall none write him down, he shall be forgotten. When his children and his children's children are dead and buried then he shall truly die.\n\nDamnatio Memoriae, the ultimate punishment. To be utterly forgotten, as if your feet never strode upon this green earth. That is the only way to kill an immortal soul, if the pen lies still.", "Jacob sat at his desk in the Department of Communications and drummed on the wood with his pen. Tycho Gardner bombed a government building out in the British colonies and distributed information privy to those only in the upper-most echelons of New American government to those citizens. They were still attempting to wrestle order from the British—the irony didn’t escape Jacob—and the people were used to hearing stories of war from the Isles. The sensitivity of the information was why Jacob dealt with the story, and not one of the drones that buzzed from news station to news station leaving lies like bees left pollen.\n\nSuperiors told him to make Tycho hurt. Jacob had gathered from his employer, a stuffy and abrupt meatball, that Defense was having a hard time breaking Tycho in prison, and they needed to know the extent of the information leak. There were no plans to release Tycho from his imprisonment and the official story was that he was killed in the bombing. Jacob stopped drumming and sat in silence. Then he began to write:\n\nTycho Gardner, aged 32, died defending his country from the terrorist scourge that attacked the New American Embassy in the British Territory. He infiltrated their organization by means of coordination with the Defense Department, whose “information leak” was an elaborate ploy to garner credibility for Gardner. Ultimately, Gardner died during the terrorist attack attempting to defuse the explosive responsible. He will be remembered as a New American hero. Services will be held on the 3rd of December in preparation for Second Independence Day.", "\"Mister Carrington,\" the well-dressed man spoke, \"I have here a pen, and a sword. With these objects, I will kill you more completely than any man has ever been killed. And the best part is, you will choose the form your death takes.\"\n\nFrom down on the ground, a naked Mister Carrington stared blankly, an angry look in his eyes. He had long since given up on struggling to get out of his bonds. The rope was too tight. After a moment of silence, the well-dressed man continued.\n\n\"You don't understand, do you, Mister Carrington? Well, let us begin,\" the well-dressed man clasped his hands, \"You will get the hang of it soon enough. I have here on my desk the deed to your father's estate. With a wave of the pen, I can have the deed foreclosed and the property repossessed by the state. Or, if you choose, I can run you through with my sword.\"\n\nAs if to demonstrate, the well-dressed man lifted a thin silver blade, admiring its beauty for a moment before looking back to Mister Carrington.\n\n\"Choose quickly, sir, or I shall choose for you,\" the well-dressed man smiled humorlessly, \"And I am inclined to choose both.\"\n\n\"Take the estate then,\" Mister Carrington spat, \"And may you ever find it cursed to the likes of you!'\n\n\"Very well!\" the well-dressed man moved back to the candle-lit desk, and for a moment all that could be heard in the silence were the scratchings of a pen.\n\n\"It is done,\" the well-dressed man declared, \"You and your family are now homeless. Moving on! Your wife, the Lady Carrington...\"\n\n\"You leave my wife alone!\" Mister Carrington shouted.\n\n\"Hannah, I believe her name is?\" the well-dressed man continued, ignoring this outburst, \"Well, now that she is homeless, I daresay she'll be in a difficult situation. Especially so, given the governor's initiative to rein in the destitute scoundrels plaguing our city. Oh, I imagine she could go back to living with her parents... or I could have the constabulary pay her a visit. She'll be locked away for her crimes... and if the paperwork gets lost, it could very well be indefinitely...\"\n\nThere was a moment of silence as this threat hung in the air.\n\n\"Go ahead and run me through, then,\" Mister Carrington said, defiantly.\n\n\"As you wish,\" and with that, the well-dressed man moved as quickly as lighting, driving the silvery sword straight through Mister Carrington's right palm and into the wooden floorboard. Mister Carrington screamed with pain, but the well-dressed man showed neither remorse nor satisfaction. He merely waited a moment, withdrew the sword, and cleaned the blood off with a piece of cloth.\n\nMister Carrington's pain was agonizing, the shock of it making him gasp for breath, but the well-dressed man seemed unmoved.\n\n\"You did not think I would end our game so soon, did you?\" The well-dressed man asked, tutting softly, \"No, Mister Carrington. Whatever choices you make, I assure you that I intend for this to be a painful ordeal for you. Next!\"\n\nThe well-dressed man moved back to the desk, \"With your wife now financially unable to look after your children, the government is well within its rights to make them wards of the state. I sign this paper and they never see their mother again.\"\n\n\"The sword!\" Mister Carrington growled.\n\nThe strike was a flash of action, going clean through Mister Carrington's forearm nearly the instant the word escaped his mouth. Seeing his own arm torn into like this, Carrington looked at it with horror and fascination. But soon, the well-dressed man had withdrawn the sword again and was back at his desk.\n\n\"Your record of service with the military. Forty years. Very impressive!\" the well-dressed man declared, \"Or perhaps a clerical error. Yes, as I see it, you were dismissed dishonorably for... shall we say treason? Yes, that will do. Or I can leave it be. What do you think, Mister Carrington?\"\n\nMister Carrington hesitated before quietly speaking, \"The sword.\"\n\n\"Ah, you are a prideful man, aren't you, Mister Carrington?\" the well-dressed man laughed, \"Very well.\"\n\nAnd with a flick of the man's wrist, Mister Carrington's nose was cut off. With this fresh pain, and the horror of being defaced, Mister Carrington screamed.\n\n\"By dose! You cud off by dose!\" He yelled out, \"You said you'd run be through!\"\n\n\"I did run you through, Mister Carrington,\" the well-dressed man laughed, \"Twice, if you'll recall! But I did not tell you that every cut would be the same. Let this be a lesson against taking what you perceive to be the easy way out. I told you that I intended for this to be a painful ordeal, Mister Carrington. Do pay attention now.\"\n\nMister Carrington moaned and cried softly as the well-dressed man moved back to the desk, \"Here we have a promissory note for the local gambling hall for the amount of twenty thousand pounds. Now while I am only a fair forger, I imagine that if this note were to find its way into their papers with your signature, they're not likely to look too closely. No doubt when they go asking your wife about the money owed, she'll draw her own conclusions about what became of your estate. That is, unless you'd like me to remove something... else... from your person?\"\n\nMister Carrington cringed and spoke through his pain, \"sign it.\"\n\n\"As you wish,\" the well-dressed man spoke and got to work at forging the signature. After another moment, he set the pen down and continued, \"Now, here we have a warrant for the arrest of the Bristol Strangler. The authorities have been trying to capture the man for some time, but as I have killed him myself, I do not think they are likely to find him. Let's change that, shall we? Imagine if your name were added to the list of aliases. The constables will no doubt want to follow up. Perhaps your wife will be interrogated for information as to your whereabouts? Or perhaps, instead of your name being on this paper, you'd rather my sword taste your flesh again?\"\n\n\"Cut me, you bastard\" Mister Carrington spat.\n\nThe well-dressed man sighed disapprovingly, walked over, and grabbed Mister Carrington's thinning hair in his gloved hand.\n\n\"I will not tolerate such language,\" he warned, and then holding Mister Carrington's head firmly, pulled his sword across and sliced off Mister Carrington's lips as the man screamed in agony. Finishing his task, the well-dressed man flung his victim back down to the floor, where he was a sobbing mess.\n\n\"Be careful you watch your tongue, Mister Carrington, or you are liable to lose that too,\" the man warned, moving back to the desk.\n\n\"Next item up for discussion!\" the man announced, \"Ah! Another promissory note, this one to the local brothel. My, won't your wife be surprised... Or will she?\"\n\n\"Cut me!\" Mister Carrington almost screamed.\n\nWith a single stroke, the blade severed all of the fingers from Mister Carrington's right hand. By now, the poor man was in such pain that this hardly registered.\n\n\"Ah! We've forgotten your brother! Why, it looks like he could be found guilty of fraud...\"\n\n\"Cut me!\"\n\nAnd Mister Carrington had his left foot hamstrung.\n\n\"Your brother's finances...\"\n\n\"Cut me!\"\n\nAnd Mister Carrington had his right foot severed.\n\n\"Cut me!\"\n\n\"Cut me!\"\n\n\"Fucking cut me!\"\n\n------\n\nMany hours later, a carriage pulled up to a dark alley. A door opened up, and the well-dressed man pushed out a naked Mister Carrington covered in countless bandaged wounds and missing limbs. He was still in a great deal of pain, but no longer bleeding freely.\n\n\"I believe that is everything, Mister Carrington,\" the well-dressed man laughed lightly, \"so this is where we part ways.\"\n\nMister Carrington looked back up at the man, and for once, the look he wore wasn't of anguish or anger or fear or shock, but of confusion. He opened his mouth to speak, but without his tongue the only sounds he made were incomprehensible.\n\n\"You are wondering why I didn't kill you, no doubt?\" the well-dressed man tilted his head slightly, \"Oh, I thought you smarter than that. You have nothing. No money, no home. Right now, you are so grotesque that even if your family could bear to look at you, they wouldn't recognize you, and if they did, they would despise you. Those closest to you will gladly forget your name, or else curse it. And all of this due to the choices you have made.\n\n\"As promised, I have killed you more completely than any man has ever been killed. As of now, Mister Carrington, you are dead. All that sits before me now is a pile of flesh and misery, doomed to a tortured existence for any days you decide to refrain from tossing yourself under a moving carriage. But what dies won't be Mister Carrington. It will merely be a nameless wretch with pretty little thoughts in its head about Mister Carrington, pretty little thoughts that will eat at it and drive it mad.\n\n\"So again, I say that this is where we part ways, whoever you are. Whatever you are. Good bye.\"\n\nAnd with that, the well-dressed man disappeared into the carriage, and it drove off into the night." ]	4
	[WP] Sweden starts the Third World War.	[ "'Professor! Sir!'\n\nMy aid rushes in, brandishing a tablet across which the words 'WAR DECLARED - BRITAIN AND THE US JOIN THE FIGHT' scroll across the BBC app endlessly. \n\n'We knew this was coming'\n\nI say nothing. I knew. The entire world knew. We'd all seen the reports. It began innocently enough. The Swedes announced a breeding program to stimulate the plummeting moose and polar bear population that had caused widespread concern throughout Scandinavia. When they announced biological engineering, there was celebration! It was the future, a place where animals could be augmented both genetically and mechanically to be able to survive in a world wracked with climate change. \n\nNone of us foresaw what was coming though. Apparently King Carl XX, a bit of a history nut, decided that he wished to avenge the loss of Sweden's 19th century Empire, and promptly invaded Denmark, Norway and Russia. Simultaneously. \n\nI know what you must be thinking 'Invading Russia!? Madness! Denmark and Norway... not so much. They're neutral, and squishy.'\n\nIt was the animals. Moose with artillery grafted onto their skulls were once there were antlers. Cyborgs riding upon wave after wave of titanium polar bear cavalry. Unwilling to nuke most of Northern Europe, thereby screwing up the climate forever, a land war developed. Even Russia, which defeated Napoleon, Hitler and the Sweden of yesteryear, could not stop the onslaught. Putin (elected for a seventh consecutive term) put up a valiant fight, tearing apart many a moose with his bare (pun very much not intended, this is serious business) hands, but in the end a tactical ballistic seal strike did for him.\n\nThere was global outrage, and, apart from Ukraine, who were actually rather happy with the situation, almost every nation in Europe, along with about half of Asia and however many African countries fancied it, declared war on the Swedes. The US and my own dear Great Britain stayed out for it as long as we could, but I just got word from the higher ups that we can no longer remain on the sidelines. Something must be done. Only yesterday, hordes of Norwegian Forest cats with back mounted sub machine guns took down Berlin from the inside. Germany had put up a fierce resistance, but their MechaWolves were nowhere near advanced enough. \n\nWe have other plans however. The British fauna has long been mocked for being 'a bit silly', but no longer. Reverse engineering has been most... beneficial. Once I was an Oxford don, now a weapons specialist.\n\nRest assured, the blue and yellow flagged menace shall soon be halted. Atomic badgers, 50cal voles fired from snowy owl turrets and of course, the fearsome fanged capercailie. \n\nThy reckoning is upon you Sweden. Pray for mercy, for the badgers have none for thee. ", "\"This is all Sweden's fault!\" Obama screamed, throwing the half-assembled IKEA chair out the third floor window. \"Fucking communists, can't even make a damn instruction booklet make any sense!\" A long pause, then his visage darkened. \"Call my secretary of defence, Helen.\"\n\n\"But sir, why?\" She inquired.\n\n\"Just do it\" Obama hissed.\n\nSomething about him that day made Helen think better than to question it, so she picked up the phone and dialled. \"Here he is, Mr. President\" She said, tentatively, dreading what was to come.\n\n(one week later)\n\n'WAR DECLARED' the headline read. 'USA STARTS WAR WITH SWEDEN, AIR STRIKES HIT STOCKHOLM AS UNITED NATIONS CONVENE TO DISCUSS NEW THREAT TO WORLD PEACE.'\n\n\"The hell are they talking about?\" Obama inquired to himself. \"Sweden started it with their damned furniture.\"" ]	2
For any history buffs out there, this is a prompt I've been given in my honors history class in college, thought you guys might enjoy it.	[WP] Make up a country and insert into the world	[ "Salt Lake City, 1862.\n\nThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, after their defeat by federal forces in the Utah War, has made military training and arms ownership mandatory for all members, as well as constructing Fort Smith, Fort Moroni, and Fort Nephi surrounding Salt Lake City. All Mormon converts in the World make a pilgrimage to Salt Lake City and the Church dramatically increases its proselytizing efforts. While the Union and the Confederacy are embroiled in the Civil War, Brigham Young makes his move and declares an independent Holy Utahn State. Mormon forces, numbering almost 100,000, force the rest of Utah's population to convert at gunpoint. Catholic and Protestant towns and cities in Utah are ransacked and Mormon forces set up defenses around Utah. \n\nConfederate forces ignore the H.U.S. entirely in favor of defending against Union forces, and President Lincoln determines that the Confederacy is the more pressing threat and that Union forces could not be sent our to Utah until after the Confederacy surrendered. \n\nMeanwhile, the H.U.S. forces work tirelessly to fortify Utahn borders with additional fortresses and armaments. The Church even invests in Naval Bases for Salt Lake City.\n\nAfter Confederate surrender, Union forces are diverted to Utah. Following Lincoln's assassination, however, these forces are put on hold. President Johnson elects to deal with the Utahn rebels through diplomacy rather than extending the depleted Union forces. \n\nSalt Lake City, 2014.\n\nThe H.U.S refused all diplomatic effort by the United States to rejoin the Union and the United States refused to use military force until it was too late. The H.U.S had become too big and too dug in to take out without millions of casualties. \n\nDespite the entirely open borders the United States has with Canada and Mexico, the Utahn border is the largest DMZ in the world. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers under the US Department of Internal Border Protection stare down hundreds of thousands of Soldiers of Christ daily. \n\nInside these borders are 26 million devout Mormons governed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Rampant polygamy and Gods commandment for the Mormon people to multiply resulted in a huge Utahn population. Every Mormon man is armed and participates in the military for as long as the church dictates. Mormon society is surprisingly adaptive to new technological advances, as their situation requires an up-to-date military to defend against the United States. Utah is entirely white, as the Church never changes its position on black people. Church service is mandated and strict adherence to the Bible, Book of Mormon, and the Church are required.\n\nH.U.S. society is entirely self sufficient, with the entirety of Utah being irrigated under communal farms under the Church. Population in Utah is centered entirely around Salt Lake City and its suburbs, which hold almost 20 million people. The Soldiers of Jesus Christ guard every corner of Salt Lake City, acting as both police and military. Industry and corporations are all owned by the Church and provide all approved items for consumption. The Church is concentrated on creating a promised land for the Mormon people, and has supported Mormon colonies in the Philippines and Hawaii. As of today, the Mormon Church has developed a nuclear arsenal in secret to preserve the holy land.\n\n\n\nCriticism is always welcomed!", "\"Youre listening to the BBC, I'm Benedict Cumberbitch.\"\n\n\"Chaos in the Pineapple Republic today as military forces loyal to Hawaiian nationalist Keanu Reeves stormed the presidential palace and declare a coup d'etat to ouster president Harrison Ford. The whereabouts of the president are unknown, though it is believed he fled the islands. This marks the third year of unrest in the Pineapple Republic since its insurgency and independence from the United States.\"", "When the scientists made the announcements that they had invented anti-gravity, the usual responses followed: the public followed with ephemeral excitement on media websites, the scientific community scoffed at and berated the published papers for their \"tenuous evidence of sensationalist claims\", and politicians consulted their top scientific advisors and released pre-determined ambiguous statements, appealing to their voter margins. The scientists responsible, working at a relatively unknown university in Siberia, provided no stronger assertions for their claims and soon faded into quiet obscurity. \n\nUntil now.\n\nNot many people knew what was happening before it was already several hours underway; not a surprise, considering the remoteness of the Russian taiga. But by evening, the same images blazed across the television screens across the world: that of an enormous chunk of land, rising slowly into the sky. It was roughly elliptical, viewed from the bottom by bewildered Russians, and it was estimated to measure almost 400 miles long and 200 miles across (and 2.5 miles high, from the tips of buildings to the bottom of the geological crust it had uprooted). Imagery from high-altitude aircraft and satellites showed that there were homes and farms and factories beside lakes and forests. In the very center lay the aforementioned university, broadcasting a boastful message from the very scientists who had claimed to have both ascertained the existence and learned how to control the behavior of gravitons. The message, when translated to English, spoke: \"You doubted us, but now we have seceded to form our own country. Novomira will be ruled justly and without interference of the corrupt old world.\"\n\nThough military intervention by the Russian government seemed imminent, the action was voted against due to increasingly prohibitory costs of fuel for the specialized aircraft that would be required in order to reach the steadily rising chunk of land. Throughout the world, discussions raged. The same physicists who had scorned the first papers now gaped at their televisions, wondering what the hell had just happened. Politicians gave out more ambiguous statements, this time with more passion, while pundits hotly debated this incredible turn of events. The question most discussed was: exactly how self-sustaining was Novomira? On both sides, figures were drawn, numbers were run and arguments were shouted. \n\nMeanwhile, the newly christened country came to a slow halt at the edge of the atmosphere. Of one thing there was no doubt; tonight, her new citizens saw the stars more beautifully than ever before.", "\"Beg pardon. I didn't catch that?\"\n\n\"O? Yays? O, sarry. Not good is the English, I know. Maybee gotta bad bean, I guess.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, it's totally OK. In fact, I love the accent. But I have to admit, I can't quite place it. What nationality are you from anyway?\"\n\n\"Hoo me? I yam from Archonna.\"\n\n\"Uh... excuse me? I don't think I know that one. Where exactly is Archonna?\"\n\n\"O, sumtimes here, sumtimes there. Rite now, is in Passific, about tree quarters southwise. Yes?\"\n\n\"Uh, what? How can a nation be sometimes here, and sometimes there? Are you saying it's a south pacific nation?\"\n\n\"Rite now, shure. Yu bet.\" said the stranger, taking out an instrument that was reminiscent of a pocketwatch, but with a map of the world where the clock face should be. \"But anydayz now, it do be moving agen.\"\n\n\"OK, I'm not getting that. You can't move whole nations. They're pretty stationary.\"\n\n\"Huh? Well shur an I can't move Archonna. But it moves its own self pretty regoolar. Thats why I needs the gadget to keep it track ov. You no?\"\n\n\"Uh... OK. So, tell me about your nation.\"\n\n\"O, is beeootiful nashun wear the magiks is thick as lice. Not like here wear its boring.\"\n\n\"Magics?\"\n\n\"Shure, an you know, like the spellcrafting and the bindings an such? We got it all in Archonna.\"\n\n\"Oh come on. You're telling me that whole Harry Potter deal with wizards and witches, that's real in Archonna.\"\n\n\"Ya. Course.\"\n\n\"OK, if you don't want to talk about where you come from, that's your business. I was just trying to make conversation, you know.\"\n\nThe stranger tapped the side of his head until a small golden bean fell out. He shook it, stared at it critically, and stuck it back in his ear again. \"I is not shure I no's what you mean. I haz been talking bout wear I come from. Maybe the bean is gone bad and my English is badder than I think?\"\n\n\"OK, fine, fine,\" I said, humoring him, \"So you come from a country called Archonna, where magic is real but nobody has ever heard of it because for some reason, the whole nation moves from place to place so we people from the ... er, muggle, I guess ... world don't have it on any of our maps. And that's why you need a special pocketwatch to find it.\"\n\n\"Yep, now you see it good. Okay?\" At this point, there was a chime from his waistcoat pocket, and he withdrew the gadget that almost looked like a pocketwatch, and consulted it. \"Oh goud,\" he said excitedly, \"My ride is hear. Gotta go. See ya!\" \n\nAnd having so said, he took four giant steps backwards without looking, and vanished without a trace, although for a brief fraction of a second, I could have sworn I saw him stepping into a golden paved courtyard before a delicately spired building with rich, colorful jungle foliage in the background. But only for a second, and then all that was left was the empty bus stop in my perfectly mundane city which suddenly felt considerably dirtier, grayer, and somehow poorer than it had a few minutes ago. \n\n", "\"Class, can anyone tell me what the newest country in the world is and what continent it is found on?\" The teacher had a horrid nasally voice and everyone of the pupils would accept the sweet release of death before answering her question, except Alan. Alan was that kid.\n\nHe had his hand raised and looked like overall exuded the look of if-you-don't-call-on-me-I'll-explode. Once called on he exploded like a geyser, \"The newest country is Negralicas. It was made when the Middle East crumbled into itself from all the oil drilling and the underground caverns were revealed. It's in Asia.\"\n\n\"Umm, isn't the Middle East part of Africa?\"\n\nAlan whirled around and responded like a cracking whip, \"NO! The Middle East is part of Asia!\"\n\nKaren tried to balance her pencil on its end, this was not gonna be a fun year of school. ", "Welcome to the Republic of Sealand. Nobody expected this back in the early 2000's but the growth of the principality of Sealand isn't something to mock.\n\nWhat seems like overnight, the small self-proclaimed country became one of the biggest instigators of sea trade and piracy. \n\nBacked by the Somalian terror groups which have taken over the coastal regions of norway, and funded by the Russians, Sealand's underground navy all but controls the international waters within a 100 mile radius.\n\nWhile the Somalian pirates and the Sealand government is highly denied by officials, but everyone knows the truth. The simple fact of increased pirate activity involving heavily armed Somalian pirates, as well as an unprecedented growth in economic prosperity. Sadly enough, in this situation, correlation does imply causation.\n\nBecause of the lack of hard evidence, the UN still refuses to act due to Sealand's plea of strict neutrality and lack of an official military.\n\nNow due to economic growth and now uncontested waters, sealand has artificially increased its territory by over 6 miles with construction of the seascape of the North Sea, with concrete platforms and floating structures.\n\nSealand, being in the center of the North Sea has lead to a reliance on foreign resources such as food. Because of this Sealand has resorted to deep sea mining for resources, in turn, kick starting their metal, chemical, medical, and electronic engineering. This has also increased our deep sea exploration capabilities, but has lead to a corruption of surrounding water with mining chemicals and gases released from the mantle. \n\n\n------------\nTeacher yelled at me for being on phone, will finish later ", "A group of billionaires decide to occupy the disputed territory of the Western Sahara calling it The Platinum Coast. They turn the coast into a beach resort and hire some of the worlds top military leaders to train and command their security forces.\n\nAll of the territories 500,000 inhabitants are given a choice. The men must join the Platinum Coast military to protect the resort from Islamic Extremists as well as invading armies from Morocco and Mauritania, who have been fighting for dominion over the territory for decades. The woman must work at the resort as laborers.\n\nThose who choose not to comply are cast out eastward, into the unforgiving desert.\n\nhttp://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Sahara" ]	7
	[WP] You are awoken in the dead of night by a call from 666-666-6666. You answer to find the devil is drunk dialing you.	[ "I'm having the best sex of my life with Mila Kunis dressed as Tali from Mass Effect when I hear the ringing. My powerful thrusts compel her to scream things like, \"Yes! Who's your reaper!? WHO'S YOUR REAPER!?\" but the ringing in the background only intensifies and suddenly everything fades away and I'm lying face down in my bed with a raging hard on that can't quite satisfy itself against the springs of my bed. I groan and scramble to reach my phone. The light from the screen absolutely scorches my eyes. It's brutal. 666-666-6666 is the number that comes up. I've never seen a telemarketing number like that, before. I ignore it and opt instead to deal with the blue balls tarnishing my existence at that moment. As I'm reminiscing about the dream I was so rudely snatched from, taking myself in my hand giving myself a lazy, sleepy one, the phone rings yet again. \n\t\"Fuck.\"\n\tI grab the phone and answer it, dick in hand.\n\t\"Hello?\"\n\t\"Heyyyyy,\" a voice responds. It sounds like Darth Vader on steroids. \"I wus jus', um...I wus jus' callin' to say heyyyyy.\"\n\tIn the background of this ridiculousness are the sounds of a carnival on fire. My blue balls disappear entirely.\n\t\"Um...who is this?\" I ask. I mean...of course I ask that.\n\t\"I think-\" there's a hiccup, \"I think you were right, man.\"\n\t\"Um...okay, what? Who IS this?\" I reiterate, losing my patience.\n\t\"It's me!\" the voice says, booming over the sounds of what I think are people screaming for help. \"It's that one, uh, waddayacallit. That fallen guy. Look look look, I know I messed up, okay? Jus' listen, please. Don't hang up like last time.\"\n\t\"Look, buddy, I think you've got the wrong number, here.\"\n\t\"I've done so much wrong!\" the voice says, ignoring me. \n\tNow, normally I'm quite against getting involved with anyone for any reason regarding anything because people tend to suck, but this guy on the other end sounds like he's in a bad way. I can't help thinking that if I hang up on him he'll do something terrible. I don't want that on my conscience. I want Mila Kunis on my conscience and that's all. So...god help me, I indulge.\n\t\"Um...okay, man, look...it sounds like you're in a bad way. What's the problem, exactly?\"\n\t\"Aw, man!\" he says, obviously lining up his own personal shit-list. \"Soooooooooo much. Where do I even start? These stupid people,\" he slurs, \"these...STUPID stupid people...all of 'em, all the ones who just don't wanna listen to you, come down here and then give ME shit for jus' doin' MY job.\"\n\tUh oh. I'm dealing with some kind of corporate fiasco, now. \n\t\"Well hey man,\" I say, throwing my free hand up in a what-can-ya-do manner, \"it's not your fault, you know? People wind up in jobs they don't want and sometimes that's not taken into account by the people you've gotta deal with, you know? It's a lack of compassion on the other person's end.\"\n\t\"Yeah...yeah!\" the voice says. \"It's not my-\" \n\tI hear something in the background that interrupts him. It sounds like a gremlin. I think I can make out the words 'blood' and something that sounds like orgy.\n\t\"Reschedule it,\" the voice says, aggravated. \"Where was I? Oh...yeah! It's not my fault that I got this job. I jus' wanted to be a free. I just...I just wanted to be my own person! I just wanted to get out. \n\t\"Hey, nobody understands that better than me,\" I say.\n\t\"I know. I know I know I know,\" the voice says. \"And I'm sorry to call you. I know you're all busy with the other branch you've got going on and everything and that's fine. I get it. But I was wonderin' if maybe you'd jus' lemme back in, maybe? I know it's crazy, I know. We haven't talked for a millennia and it's wrong for me to jus' bring this up. But fuck the order, man! It used to just be me and you! Why can't we jus' go back to the way things were, huh? I...I miss you, man.\"\n\tShit. \n\t\"Um...I miss you too?\" \n\tThe burning carnival in the background comes to a screeching halt. It's just the voice and its breathing, heavy and wet.\n\t\"Really?\" the voice asks. \"Do you really?\"\n\tShit.\n\t\"Of course I do. You're a great guy. But look. I can tell from the sound of your voice that you've had a little bit much tonight, so why don't you just lie down somewhere and we can talk about it tomorrow?\"\n\tThe voice laughs and it's the scariest shit I've ever heard in my entire life. \n\t\"Yeah,\" it says. \"I drank enough people tonight, that's for suuuuure.\"\n\tI'm guessing he meant he drank enough for a certain amount of people and just forgot the number.\n\t\"Okay, so...you're gonna go lie down and then we'll talk more tomorrow, right?\"\n\t\"Yes! YES. Oh, thank you, my savior. My god. I was so worried you'd forsaken me forever. I'll come see you tomorrow.\"\n\t\"Well maybe call first...\"\n\t\"I'll be there bright and early, right at the gates where we last parted.\"\n\t\"I don't-\"\n\t\"I'll never besmirch your name again, o holy one. Your grace. Your excellency. No more anal sex for anyone!\" he says, and then the line goes dead.\n\tI have a very strange feeling about all of that, but I put it behind me because I'm horny and I wanna let one off. So that's what I do. Then I pass out.", "I let out a drawn out groan and roll on my back, the ringing in my ear waking me from my well-fucking-deserved sleep. I've worked thirty-four hours straight and I've been up for three and a half days. I needed sleep and that ringing was getting really annoying now. Did my eardrum blow out or something? Turning my head, I find out that the ringing wasn't my ear; it was my phone.\n\nHuffing, I squint at the digital clock on my messy, wooden night stand. Dammit, where's my contacts when I need them? Despite the bleariness, I was able to read it after a moment. Two in the morning.... Who the FUCK calls any normal person two in the morning!\n\nGrowling under my breath and cursing whoever was on the other end of the phone, I look at the caller ID and face palm, still lying down. Of course it had to be my boyfriend, who also happened to be the Devil himself. \"Lucifer, do not tell me you are shit-faced right now. That is the last thing I need to know and hear.\" \n\n\"Heeeyyyy babbbeee~\" A slurred voice responded. Just great. This must be my morning. Just all of the good luck for me.\n\n\"What the hell do you want.\" I am tired. I am tired as shit and not in the mood to be joking around with my devilish lover. He needs to learn when to bother me and when to leave me alone. Plus, he already messed with my head by putting his sexual fantasies in my mind while I worked, making me unnaturally hot and bothered. Can't I ever have a break?\n\n\"You are my sunnnshhiinneee, my only sunnshiinnee. You make me haaapppy when skiiieess are grayyy.\" Even though I absolutely think it is adorable that he sings this to me when he visits me in my apartment, this morning is just not the time for that. But I still think it's adorable. Secretly.\n\nSmiling a little, I still try to play the grumpy, agitated card. \"Lucifer, I need my sleep. I will call you back in the morning when you are sober and aren't so hyper.\"\n\n\"Buutttt Bessss~!\" He whines in his cute, childish voice as he tries to keep me on the phone. He always does this, even when he wasn't wholly intoxicated by strong alcohol.\n\nSighing, I answer exasperatedly \"What do you want, Luci.\" Obviously, I wasn't going to be able to sleep, so I might as well entertain his drunk thoughts.\n\n\"You.\" \n\nA little taken back by that answer, I try to say something else, but he's already hung up. \n\nA cold feeling materializes on my right side, and I turn to face it. Though, all that I get is a face full of strongly whiskey scented and flavored smooches by the pale skinned blond who I call my lover. \n\nOh God, he's frisky tonight.\n((I'm so sorry for it being so short, I'm on my mobile. ;-;))", "If you've never been jarred awake by a nerve shattering ring tone at two thirty in the morning then you haven't lived. I gasped for air as I rolled over, patting down the night table in the dark.\n\nThe numbers 666-666-6666 glowed dimly through the fog of my semi conscious state. I never answer unknown numbers but I was so disoriented that I'd swiped the green circle before I knew what I was doing. \n\nBOO WOOO WOOOOOOOO \"If you'd like to make a call please hang up and try again.\" followed by raspy snickering.\n\nI blinked at the phone stupidly. Was I having some kind of stroke where I was placing calls in my sleep? I hung up and turned the ringer off. I'd scarcely rolled over when a different ringtone jangled my nerves anew. A synth version of Justin Bieber's \"Boyfriend\" pierced the darkness.\n\nI grabbed the phone and sat up. 666-666-6666. I frowned. What the fuck was going on. I swiped to answer.\n\nraspy snickering \"Is your refrigerator running?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nhissing followed by raspy snickering \"I said\" burp \"is your refrigerator running?\"\n\n\"Who is this?!\"\n\n\"You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!\" And then there was an extended 30 second farting sound. I was so in awe of the audacity of this imbecile that I couldn't even react. That is until the smell of rotten meat and sulfur filled my room. The malevolent, drunken laughter on the other end of the line made my phone tremble. \n\n\"STOP CALLING HERE!\" I screamed and swiped to disconnect. It must be mentioned here that there is little to no satisfaction in swiping to hang up on someone. Gone are the days of making your point by slamming the receiver down on the phone.\n\nI realized I was going to have to do something drastic to put an end to this foolishness. I fired up my web browser and quickly searched out the name of a local attorney. Barry Ludwig seemed like the perfect ambulance chaser to solve my problem. I quickly dialed *21 and entered Ludwig's number to forward my calls, then I turned off the light, rolled over and never looked back.", "\"Hello?\" my voice and mind are still groggy. No wonder. It's 4:34 in the morning.\n\n\"Heeeeeyyyyyyy bigboyyyyy!\" comes slurred voice. I can hear laughter and talking in the background, and can almost smell the liquor through the phone.\n\n\"Who ... Lucy?\"\n\nOh no.\n\n\"YOU REMEMBER MEEEEEEEE!\" cheers the voice, almost deafening my left ear. \"I thought you h- hick -ated me!\"\n\n\"I don't hate you, Lucy\" I try to calm down my wasted-beyond-belief ex girlfriend.\n\n\"But you broke UP with meeeee!\" her voice quivers. I sit up and rub the sleep from my eyes with my free hand.\n\n\"Lucy, we've talked about this, and you're drunk. I'll call you tomor-\"\n\n\"I'M NOT DRUNK!\" she yells, prompting me to cringe and pull the phone away from my ear for a moment. \"This is my usual selffff!\"\n\nI sit up and hang my feet from my bed.\n\n\"Where are you?\"\n\n\"In a bar in ... uh ... Purgatory, I think. They're all so gloomy in here, that's why I stopped by - TO LIGHTEN THE PLACE UP!\"\n\nA few tortured souls cry out in agony in the background, but the bar mostly cheers.\n\n\"Lucy, why are you calling me? It's been three weeks, and I really think this is good for the both of us.\"\n\n\"But we've had so much fun! Come on, you enjoyed it! I showed you all the different circles of hell, showed you all the big-name sinners I've got down here...\"\n\nFuck. The time with her was awesome. People will always tell you about the forbidden fruit, and how it's bullshit, but they've never met Lucy.\n\n\"Yeah, that was fun.\" I relent after a few moments of silence. \"Look, why don't you come over? I'll make you something to get you sober.\"\n\nAs soon as the words leave my lips, my room gets dripped in crimson. In the middle of it, dark smoke rises out of thin air, materializing in a slender looking female figure.\n\nLucy is here. Crap.\n\n\"So, what do you want? A Latte? Cappucino?\" I ask while putting away my phone.\n\n\"Oh, I want something completely different, big boy.\"\n\nShe pushes me back onto the bed, grin in her face, slur in her speech.\n\nOh crap.\n\nThis is going to be awesome.", "He-hello?\n\nladiesngentlemen this is your cap'n speaking.\n\nWho is this? Is this Elijah?\n\nthis is your worsssst nimare.\n\nThe- the devil? Is this Lucifer?\n\nmyname is luficer n I am calling on behalf of your mom.\n\nWhat happened? Is she okay? Devil, what happened to my mother?\n\nwhy don you ask her she is n mybed right now.\n\nDude that's not funny. It's like 2 AM, what do you want? You sound drunk.\n\ni had a guy come down earlier who died carrying a keg so i sucked it down withim n how I am a lil bit tipsy but ITS OK. i can stil fuction.\n\nOh my god, dude I just turned on the news and there is a demon apocalypse happening right now.\n\ni mightve left thedoor open n maybe some of my guys slipped out. biiiig whoooop.\n\nYes this is a very big whoop because there is an apocalypse going on and there are demons pillaging the United States. Dude, you've gotta sober up and call all the demons back.\n\nnegatory mr man\n\nWhy?\n\nthe dominos arenotgoing to stop they have to be cocked back in.\n\nDominos? Cocked?\n\ndreamons. coats the dragons.\n\nCoax the demons?\n\nsupersize me mcfly.\n\nLucifer.\n\nshake not stirped.\n\nLucifer....\n\nHEY. THATSN ORDER.\n\nI don't know how do to it.\n\njus buy a bunch of meats and throw them at the deegans n they will eat the meats n be satisfiedn go away.\n\nMeats.\n\ndeli meats. they like prastamsti.\n\nPastrami, got it. Well, that's impossible. I hope you realize that I am incapable of buying that much pastrami at 2 in the morning and feeding it to demos which are spread all around the country. So, there is just going to be an apocalypse I guess from now on. Thanks, Satan.\n\nkep the change ya filthy aminal.\n\nOk, goo-\n\nKEEP THE CHANGE\n\n...\n\nya filthy aminimal.\n\nGoodby-\n\nan a hapy new year.\n\n...\n\nthats from a movie\n\nGoodby-\n\ncalled ahome lone.\n\nGoodbye Satan.\n\ngoobye.", "Waves of darkness cascaded across me, threatening to pull me downwards into the abyss of their currents, swirling and thrashing against one another. I pushed through with the practiced grace of a drunk stumbling through mud that rose to his knees; not a hint of coordination but the hope and determination to drag myself out on all fours if need be. \nThe darkness began to fade, and my eyes began to open. Slowly I blinked into consciousness, the red glow of my alarm clock illuminating my room and the vibrating of my phone echoing through it. \nBlinking a couple of times, the numbers on the clock stopped swirling and their doubles merged to read 3:33:02 AM. My cellphone sat on the nightstand next to it, a simple flip phone that was threatening to break free of its human ownership and vibrate off of the bed should I hesitate to crush its rebellious wandering. \nWho could be calling me at this hour, anyways? Maybe Jason, stupidly having left his wallet in my car again. The idiot always does that. I shouldn't get my hopes up too much that one of the girls I gave my number to tonight had bothered dialing it. Especially not this early. \nI picked up my cell phone and just before I was about to spread it open like a good book glanced at the caller I.D. 666-666-6666. I hesitated to open it for a moment too long, and the phone stopped vibrating altogether, dimming as the life of a conversation that could have been was wiped from the screen. I paused trying to think of who it could be, sighing deeply. \nThat was when I realized that the intense aroma of sulfur coiled throughout the air of my apartment. Just as I began to nearly choke on my next breath my phone lit up again, vibrating in celebration of a callback from the same 666 number. As the phone vibrated, the alarm clock in my room became fuzzy, jumping and shifting about the confines of the screen, audibly buzzing and crackling with the static of each frantic movement. \nEnough hesitation, enough of this weirdness. The phone flipped open and I pressed it to my ear and, attempting to sound as authoritative as a bachelor could at three in the morning, spoke into the receiver. \n\"Hello?\" \nNot as powerful as I would have liked to have come off, but it would have to do. \nNo one spoke, but through my phone I could hear things. The groans of metal and the bass of thunder. Chains rattling as they were pulled taught. Distant screams echoing closer and closer. \nFear crept through my body. I liked to think of myself as a sturdy man with at least an ounce of resolution, but this wasn't just odd, it was hellish. \n\"Sssooo...\" The voice that spoke was unlike any I'd ever heard before. Heat emanated through my phone with each syllable uttered. It was filled with a baritone that drifted off of the tongue as a whisper more akin to a fire being churned than a quiet conversation. \n\"Too busy to answer on the first ring?\" \nI choked up for a moment. If this was Jason trying to freak me out, it was working. \"Who is this?\" \n\"I am the jailor of the damned. And I'll be damned if I let the likes of you keep me waiting.\" The words were hissed, like steam jetting off a freshly forged sword. They seemed oddly... slurred? It was an odd combination of power and finesse, where the power was lost with the absence of any finesse. \n\"If you don't tell me who this is I'm hanging up. And I might even call the police, so cut the crap, pal.\" A brief silence permeated the conversation, broken only by the distant shrieks and howls dominating the background noise. Then the line cut into a dead silence. \n\nI fumbled with my flip phone for a moment in my palms, closing the face. What the hell was all of that about, anyways? What kind of freak makes a phone call like that, and just how much effort did they put into it? \nMy thoughts were slowed to a halt by the realization that my phone was hot. It was burning up in my hands, and I played hot potato for a moment, swiping it back and forth, before dropping it to the floor. The phone began to glow red hot like a coal, sizzling and popping under the sudden temperature change. \n\nThe phone burst in an explosion of air wreathed with fire, blowing through the room and knocking over anything that wasn't bolted down. The carpet had been burned away into a perfect circle where the phone had been, and it was large on the bare concrete beneath. Intricate patterns and runes danced about the inside, shifting and swaying in such a way that they hardly appeared to be moving in the first place. They were looked to have been penned from a flame itself. It was entrancing. \nAbove the smoke, a figure stood. Though stood is not the proper word, stumbled is more appropriate. He struggled to maintain his balance, locking eyes with me and tilting his head sideways with his body in a desperate gesture not to break our look. In one hand he held a bottle of bourbon, though it looked more like something Jack Sparrow would wield than any liquor store. \nHe hiccuped before speaking, using his free hand to smooth a tie that had been pulled open some time earlier, dangling loosely across his suit.\n\"Nobody threatens me.\" To punctuate himself he took a large swig out of the bottle before advancing towards me, one misplaced step at a time. \n\"And nobody rejects me. I reject them.\" He stopped to stand before me and my bed. \n\nThe fear that washed over me from before was incomparable to what I was feeling now. Utter dread would better suit it than simple fear. I must have been dreaming, this was simply impossible. But it was all certainly happening. \"What are you talking about?\"\n\nHe brought his face inches from mine, and I could smell the bourbon on his breath, along with the sulfur from before and the smokey trail of a chemical fire, which trailed out with every bit of air from his lungs. \n\"You never called.\"\nHe smiled devilishly, eyes glowing the same fiery colour of the runes that brought him here, and pushed a finger into my chest. It felt warm, unlike the untimely death of my phone which was painfully hot. \n\"I gave you my number in that club and you never called me. You flirted with me all night long and instead you ended up calling Becky. Fucking Becky!\" \n\nSuddenly the pieces were clicking together. The club, the man staring across the bar towards me. The man staring at me right now. The devil truly is in the details. \"Yeah, because you're a guy and Becky's a chick.\" \n\nHis eyes erupted in a shower of sparks. \"I am the beast! The Serpent! I am the Prince of Darkness!\" The room began to glow a faint red as he spoke, the noise of twisting metal stressing and creaking began to whisper into my ears. \nAnd then he fell to his knees, head resting on mine. I could feel the bottle of bourbon against my leg. \"Just tell me. Dave. What's wrong with me?\" \nHis tone had softened, the hiss was gone but the baritone and the growl still remained. It was a voice that begged to be listened to and dominated the conversation. \nI furrowed my brow and swallowed air. \"I've uh, only just met you...\"\n\"Lucifer.\" He spoke into my pajamas. \n\"I've only just met you, Lucifer. What do I know about you?\" Oddly enough, I felt compelled to pat him on the head, and rested my hand there. The same warmth that had permeated from his finger tip coiled under my palm. \n\nHe looked up at me, red eyes glowing softly. \"I've known you all of your life, Dave.\" He rose up and sat on the bed next to me, crossing one leg over top of the other as he leaned into my shoulder while he spoke. \n\"From the moment you first lied to your mother about letting Franklin out of the house to run away, I've known you.\" He brought his lips to my ear, hovering just out of reach. \"And I've kept my eyes on you.\" \n\nThe sound of his rich voice was warming my head, there was something about the Father of Lies that reached into my heart, caressing my soul. I turned my head and looked into his eyes again. He shifted back and forth, still trying to maintain his balance. I was impressed by his resolve. The bottle was nearly empty and, from the smell of it, a single shot could have given me alcohol poisoning. He was merely drunk. \nWithin his fiery orbs I didn't see a man determined to bring about the apocalypse, unleashing horsemen of death and famine, war and conquest. Well, maybe a little. But that was just work to him. Those drunken eyes held less hatred and sadism than they did love and lust. He was hellbent on his heart, not ripping others out of their owner's chest.\n\nHe hooked his arm around my bare waist and pulled us both back onto the bed, lying next to each other, and rested his head on my chest before looking up at me. He pulled off his tie completely before snapping his fingers. Before us on the rune circle melted into my floor was an intricate platter of assorted alcohols, mixers and margarita glasses. \n\"Uh... Dave?\" He took on a serious tone, penetrating the silence of the night as his hair played across my chest. \n\"Do you think that... drinking margaritas makes you gay?\" \n\n", "I awoke in the middle of the night as my phone started screaming ''Yo, bitch! Get the phone.'' Goddamn weird tie-in ringtone, never bothered to change it. I open my eyes enough to press the accept call button and I put the phone to my ear and say ''Who... Is it?'' I had for several weeks not had enough sleep so I couldn't recognize the voice at first.\n\n''Hey, eh. Hey Ao...''\n\nOkay, who even calls me that anymore? It was certainly a weird call to receive in the middle of the night. A voice that sounded like a half-dead seal being seduced by an elephant said to me. \n\n''Please... Can I get in? I... I got like... A gift?''\n\nBy this point I was surprised to hear that the voice sounded somewhat familiar, maybe I was waking up maybe I could just always remember that weird voice.\n\n''Who is it?'' I asked.\n\n''Yo, bitch. It's me... Ya know... Stan?''\n\nOh great. Him. To my left side in the bed immense coils were shifting in the bed.\n\n''Honey, who is it?'' My boyfriend asked me.\n\n''Don't worry about it, just go back to bed, just some joker.''\n\nI got out of bed and walked out into the bathroom, the light nearly seared my eyes when I turned it on as I sat down on the bathroom floor.\n\n''Stan I told you not to call me. I told you already, we're done and I am with Quetz now.''\n\nI couldn't believe it, not even of him. Calling me in the middle of the night like this.\n\n''But Ao, I lovah... I lovav... I luve you man.''\n\nDrunk dialing me in the middle of the night. Great Scott he really is a douche.\n\n''Look Stan, I don't want you to call me in the middle of the night and wake me and Quetz up, as a matter of fact I don't want you to call me ever again!''\n\nI didn't know if he was crying or laughing on the other end of the line.\n\n''Come on man, you love me, admit it.''\n\nI swear that he is such an asshole. Daring to do this after what he put me through.\n\n''I hate you, I was just a young guy out of Georgia when you came in and swept me off my feet, and then you leave me for some Greek bitch? And that's after cheating on me with the entire Erl-könig's court and don't even get me started on what I caught you doing with your brother Gabriel during the company Christmas dinner!''\n\n''Come on... I just wantah... You know... CLICK''\n\nI ended the call and blocked all further calls from that lying cheating douche. I got up and went back to bed, where Quetz asked me who it was. I just answered ''Some douchebag, let us get back to bed, sexy.'' I still can't believe that he thinks we can get back together. And that he has the audacity to call me three years after the breakup trying to get back in, well no sir, I've learned my lesson. I am not letting the devil into my house.", "I'm in bed, the credits of some random \"friends\" episode is playing, and this is my cue to get some rest. I lay my head on my coconut pillow, breathing in deeply, I can almost see myself just sitting in the sands of a beach far far away from here... I begin to slowly drift away into the a deep cumbersome sleep. Just as I can begin to feel the sand between my toes, VRUMMPT- VRUMMPT-, as I'm jolted \nawake I mutter \"who the fuck is calling me at this hour, the hell, if it's Ashley I'm going to kill that woman\". I grab my phone from under my soft pillow and the light blinds me at first until I'm slowly able to make out who was calling me. My screen boasted the number 666-666-6666 was calling me, \"that's weird, what area code is that?!\", I wasn't gonna answer it but it seemed as soon as I looked at it my phone automatically clicked accept. Not wanting to be rude by hanging up I whispered grumpily \"hello?\", to which a simple \"hey, is your dryer running?!!\" and a few snickers followed. \"Jordan, is this you?!!, come on man I was about to be asleep, you really don't have anything better to do?!\". A slurred response retorted \"no no no... This isn't j-j-ordaaan, this is luu-ci--fer, come on man, you remember me, right?!!\" To which I replied \"you say this was Lucy Fore, isn't that a girls name?\" The voice on the other side bellowed \"fuck you man!, I've been drinking, but that's not important, listen mark, I need to talk to so-- hiccup someone please...\" \nTaken back, I speak out concerned \"what's wrong man?\", who is this really?\" Are you ok, what's up?\". The voice which is still unrecognizable, maybe eddy from high school?, was beginning to sob uncontrollably. Through broken sobs he managed to pout out \"you have no idea, man, I had it all, I was it man, I was THE dude, I just let jealously get the better of me. All I know now is pain, depression, misery, and every time I try to talk to sob someone, I quickly realize I'm surrounded by uncaring assholes. I don't know what to do anym-\" I interject \"eddy, if this is you, man, I'm not sure what your going through but I promise it will get better man. Do you want to maybe meet up sometime, talk things through?\" The voice replied in the most sorrow-driven voice possible \"it's ok mark, I'll see you soon enough\" before hanging up.... ", "\"Wha- Hello?\"\r\r\"Hey bitch.\"\r\r\"What? Whose this?\"\r\r\"You, you, wanna know who this is? Huh b-bitch?\"\r\r\"I'm hanging up now.\"\r\r--\r\r\"Hello!?\"\r\r\"Hey fag, what, what ya doing?\"\r\r\"Stop calling me. I'm blocking you!\"\r\r\"He, he... You can't block m-m-me bitch. I'm the D-Devil. He he.\"\r\r\"Fuck off asshole.\"\r\r---\r\r\"I said stop calling. I'm calling the police.\"\r\r\"Wait wait wait, I'll stop.\"", "“So, what are you wearing?” the devil asked as I groggily picked up the phone. I blinked a few times, trying to focus, then glanced over at the clock. God dammit, 3:31 a.m. \n\n“You’ve been drinking again, haven’t you? I thought you said you were going to start going to those meetings?” I carefully extracted myself from the pile of depravity I had been enjoying last night, and by some miracle managed to not wake up any of them. Satan sighed as I reached over for my pack of smokes and lit one up, heading out onto the balcony. \n\n“Turns out AA is all about finding God. I already know where the fucker is, so it didn’t really help me much.”\n\nI blew some smoke out in the cold city night. Up here far above it all it was eerily calm this late at night. I could barely hear the cars down below. All I could hear was the wind and the very drunk prince of darkness slurring his words in my ear. I was seriously starting to regret giving that guy my card. \n\n“Look, you fuck up when you’re drunk. You know this. Remember last new years? Two thousand and ninety six re-united families! Twelve thousand unmolested drunken girls! Four hundred and twenty something suicidal morons suddenly changing their minds! Seriously dude, you’re fucking with the budget every time you take a drink. It has long term consequences.”\n\nI blew smoke out into the air, watching it get caught by the wind outside my balcony. That’s life for you. Smoke in the wind, just torn to shreds and disappeared into nothing. \n\n“I know,” he sighed. “I’m sorry man, sorry I’m such a fuckup. I just… I’ve been doing this for so long. It’s getting to me, man. I have nobody. Nobody…” \n\nI glanced in towards my bed. The innocence I had stolen. The debauchery I had introduced them all to. Oh how much fun they had been. How much I had changed their lives, tarnished their souls. I sighed. I understood him, I did. I never thought I’d say as much, but I had some sympathy for the devil. \n\n“You’ve got me,” I responded quietly. “I know it isn’t much, but you can call me any time man. Next time just call me before you start drinking.” \n\nIt was quiet on the line. I knew he couldn’t do that. He could leave hell at will of course, travel the mortal realm as much as any of them, any of the supernatural creatures I had befriended or made enemies of in my years as a… Well. In my lifetime. My very long lifetime. He just couldn’t go take a vacation. He had duties. He had appearances to uphold. He couldn’t just sit down and grab a beer with a friend. \n\n“I… I’m sorry I called.” I thought I heard a choked off sob. “I really love you man. You’re the only person I can call, and the only one who would pick up even if I could call someone else.”\n\n“Aw come on Lucy, don’t be a little bitch.” He hated when I called him Lucy, but what can I say; it was a guy thing. Everyone got a nickname. “Look, I’ve got an idea.” \n\nI did. It had been brewing in my mind for a few weeks now, ever since I had realized he was still on this downward spiral. It might upset a few of my other friends, hell it WOULD upset a few of the people I knew on the other side of the tracks, so to say… but he was a friend. I’d make some sacrifices for a friend. \n\n“I don’t know. I can’t…” he groaned. I could hear him swigging from his drink still, and it steeled me into my decision even more. \n\n“No arguments man. We’ll meet at the next full moon, on the cross roads. I’ve got a ritual in mind that will help you out for a bit.”\n\nSilence. I could almost hear him blinking, hear him wondering what I was up to. He’d have to trust me a whole deal to let me cast any rituals on him. He was powerful enough to break through most bonds, but if he sat still for the casting… well. He’d have to trust me. \n\n“What… I mean, I trust you, but… uh…” his brain had soaked in alcohol for days now no doubt. No wonder he had a hard time making sense of anything. \n\n“I’ll take over, for one moon. For one moon, you take a vacation, I do your job.” I bit my lip. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I wasn’t a bad guy, and being Satan meant doing some bad shit. Some really fucking bad shit. I’d have blood on my hands before things were over. Innocent blood. But there had to be a devil. There had to be a balance in all things, and without the devil to keep that side of things… there wouldn’t be any good in the world. The angels would leave. I glanced over at the bed again, grinning at the memory of those white fluffy wings around me as I… \n\n“I.. I’m not sure. I don’t think I can let you…” he started, sounding awfully distant. \n\n“Hey! That’s not your fucking call. You need help, and I’m your friend. Friends help each other out. Say thank you and move the fuck on!”\n\nHe slurred his words, but I got the thank you, the agreement. We’d meet. As he hung up I flicked the butt of my smoke off the building and lit another one. I knew who I had to call now, and grimaced. This was not going to be easy. \n\nI tapped the picture in my contact list. I had found it funny when I added it, the beardy man in the clouds, but now it was more a reminded of the fact that I didn’t even know what he looked like. I hadn’t even heard from him since I came back down here, other than a few grumbling messages through friends we had in common when I failed to achieve what he expected of me. I guess everyone had a complicated relationship with their dad these days. Still he deserved to hear it from me, even if he is supposedly omniscient and probably already knew.\n\n“Yo dad,” I opened, and sucked harder on my cigarette to calm myself. “Uh, I’m gonna do something a bit crazy.”" ]	10
	[WP] You are a superhero whose power matches their weakness. (Suicidal yet invincible, invisible yet craves attention, etc) This is a day in your life.	[ "I know what you're thinking. No, really, I know exactly what you're thinking, even now.\n\nBelieve me, I wish like hell I didn't, that I couldn't! But it's been like this for awhile now, ever since... Hey! Would you just...no, HEY!\n\nShut the fuck up in there and focus. I mean really focus for me, on every. Word. I. Say. Thanks.\n\nIt really messes me up when people don't pay attention. Your mind wanders and mine gets dragged right along with it. Yes, I am serious, and no, I'm not crazy.\n\nI've been trying to tell you since our first date. You have no idea how hard it was hearing your unfiltered first impression, how hard it is hearing everyone's every impression. And thanks, I did know the comb over wasn't doing me any favors, but I don't have a lot of options here.\n\nMaybe you noticed, but I have a bit...no, you can't fake a call right now! Good, good. You understand. Please.\n\nPay. Attention.\n\nSo maybe you noticed, but I have a bit of a social anxiety problem. I've always worried what people must think of me, so I started taking some medication, and that's when this all started for me. Doctors said it might cause cottonmouth. It didn't, but that's looking pretty good right about now.\n\nSo anyway, I'm still a little tightly wound, what with the social anxiety paired with telepathy and all, but you seemed really nice, and I wanted to apologize for being so rude the other night.\n\nNow, I know what you're thinking. But how about that second date?", "I walk in the store, head down avoiding to look at anyone.\n\n\"Can I help you?\" A kind worker asks with a smile and I feel my chest tightening and the pressure of her question is unbearable. I stutter a quiet \"no\" and hurry away. I know what I want and I know where to get it.\n\nI can't stop my heart racing until I am finally safe at home behind my locked door. Only then to I sink down and feel completely able to breath again.\n\nI resent the irony of it. I have the charisma to charm anyone. My sister wanted to call me Prince Charming, but I refused. I look handsome and confident and I am strong enough to protect anyone, I should be able to smooth-talk even the most vile criminals out there, but of course I am stuck with the worst social-anxiety ever. Life isn't fair.", "Tom woke up a little groggy. Today the voices were quiet. They were always quiet in the morning. Dying doesn't change how people like to spend their days. Somehow night-owls seem to stick to world longer than earlier risers. \n\nTom really wished he'd never gone to the city. Too many people die in cities. They all demand attention. When you can see the dead and listen to them and they're everywhere, and you can't tell which is physical and which isn't people start to act strange around you. Both the living and the dead act strange around you can you can't tell who is who until someone, is throwing you in a cell. \n\nTom hopes that keeping his eyes closed will let everyone think he's asleep. If he's awake he's poked and prodded, forced to take pills that dull his mind and screamed at by the dead who for whatever reason don't seem can't seem to get enough of just being around him. \n\nPeople people people everywhere. If only it was just people he might have been able to deal but even some animals seem to have regrets. How do you help a dog that hasn't died in piece. What about a bison? They don't even communicate with people. \n\nSuper power, maybe if only there just wasn't so much to see so much to do. Usually Tom would make each mountain into a series of molehills but now it was too much. \n\nIf only the sun would stay down just a little longer. Maybe then he could face the day. Suicide could be an option but life and death were the same to Tom. He'd just end up on the other side of the coin. He didn't particularly feel like waiting for another like him. So for just this morning he tried to pretend that the sun wasn't hitting him in the eyes and that for a few moments more he could stay in bed and pretend to sleep.", "I couldn't stand to be around people any more- I couldn't shut them out. Everywhere I went, I heard them. \"I wonder what I'll have for dinner tonight? What color is that dress, really? Is my partner cheating on me?\" They all battered my head at once, mingling with footsteps, music, thuds, beeping, and the thousands of other noises all around me. I could never tune any of it out. I never told anyone, because I was already so strange. I couldn't look people in the eye, and going out was already overwhelming because I also couldn't tune any noise out.\n\n\nWhen I went by them, sometimes I would hear about myself \"God, she's wearing such an ugly scarf! She's such a nerd. I hate her.\" And on and on. When I stayed away from everyone, I didn't have to hear that. And when I went out, their voices, on top of the general din, were way too much for me. I'd then hear, \"She's so weird! Why doesn't she look at anyone? Who needs earplugs here, it's not that loud. Why isn't she talking? Stupid, freak. Wait, where is she going? I wasn't done teasing...\"\n\n\nPeople seemed to think that my awkwardness and silence meant that I wasn't smart. This is not the case! But, it's hard to accomplish things commensurate with one's brainpower if one always has to be alone. And I nearly always was. Not because I wanted to be, but because I had to be.\n\n\nIt's hard, being seen as less than everyone around you yet being able to read their thoughts.\n\n(Was trying for the commensurate weakness to be something on the autism spectrum, let me know if I screwed it up).", "My 'gift' seemed to kick in at about the same time my curse did too. \nI was thirteen and suddenly it felt like everyone started to love me. I had always had a few good friends but people, and I mean people I had never even talked to, started hanging out with me. They always smiled and laughed when I was around when I was never trying to be funny. \nAs years went by I started resenting them. Everyday as I drug myself to school I just wanted everyone to leave me alone. People came to me with their problems and the mundane and unsympathetic advice I mumbled seemed to always resolve their issues. After school was done I would go home and wish I could cry, but I would only sleep. No one knew anything was wrong with me. They told me I was such a happy guy, that I made them feel warm inside. My teachers left comments to my parents saying things like, \"Such a bright spirit!\" even though inside I felt dead. What's the good in being able to bring joy to people if you're always depressed?", "I dreamed the dream, again. What dream? The dream that I can’t stop dreaming. It’s like even in my sleep I cannot avoid my own life’s hell. I can’t dream of an existence without being super-heroic. Or so to speak. \n\nI used to love dreaming about running so fast I could cross the ocean in a matter of minutes to visit Europe. Well, I got my wish and now all I want to dream about is taking a nice stroll through a park while enjoying the sun, but I can’t. Every single time I’m in the park I speed through it and what I leave behind are bewildered park walkers and trees with less leaves cause I ran past at the speed of super fast. \n\nWhy I called it a dream, I do not know, seeing how it wakes me and my heart races faster than is humanly okay to do so. But whatever. I used to medicate myself with pot before my life became a blur. Maybe if I smoked a little it would slow me down...mellow me, but that was stupid. I already got the munchies when I smoked, but then add this super speed that amped up my metabolism...it was super worse. When I used to only eat a bag of chips and a whole large pizza by myself, I now ate four large pizzas, two super sized meals from one of the local fast food places and two bag of chips and STILL I could eat more. Add pot to the mix and I ate all that and half a cow. And cause I’m nice and cause I’m honest, I didn’t steal this food. I had to by it and that...that hurt my pocket book. A lot. So much so I can’t even have nice things any more, cause now I’d rather feed my stomach than buy the latest i-phone. \n\nEspecially if I had a nice heroic night of saving people. Which, thankfully, last night I didn’t have. I just slept and had that evil dream of me all excited, not for a girl, not for a naked girl, not for a naked girl I’ve had a crush on since forever, but for a walk, in a park. Seriously, I was excited, that excited, for a walk in the park. I ruined my own excitement in my own dream with my own heroic power that many would die to have. By all means die and take it. \n\nAnyway, my name is Fabian Thaddeus. Nice to meet you. I think you wanna know how my average day goes. Well...you know how it starts. Let’s keep going from there. \n\nBathroom time is seconds. Brush my teeth, pee, gargle, pee again, shower, pee, drink a gallon of water and then pee one last time before I dress myself...oh and maybe pee again. It’s that frequent. Seeing how I’m fast, anyway, it doesn’t last that long. Though it’s just annoying to have to pee so much. That’s only in the morning. For some reason my body is lazy at that time. During the rest of the day I can hold it and last a bit longer. \n\nAll of that takes a matter of 2 to five minutes. Meaning I could wake up as close to when I have to leave and get ready. Which, of course, that’s what I do. I’m that person. But not really. It would be nice if I were that person...that slow person who meandered and was late to everything, but that would make a bit more sense. I’m more of an on time guy. The whole I respect you if I’m on time mindset. Except now, I just have long stretches of time of nothing. So I’m ready super early.\n\nI work at putting boxes together. That’s all I do. I assemble boxes. Big, small, large, medium, irregular, whatever. I assemble it. It could be for that toy you hide to one that mocks a present for a spoiled teenager who has everything, but turned sixteen and needs a car. I got paid pretty well for making these boxes and I liked it. I got to listen to music, move at my pace and not be bothered by many people. Just get emailed requests from the men upstairs or from clients and I’d assemble and move on. \n\nBut...because I can’t seem to help doing things faster than necessary I go through my orders within minutes and for the entire day I’m done. Making me have 8 hours of free time to do…? Right, save people or whatever. If antisocial were a job, I’d be the best at it. I really don’t care to know how you’re feeling, how’s your mom...what’s up with that boil on your left toe...NOPE. I’ll say hi to you. HI. But I have things to do that don’t require me to have to speak to anyone. That’s why I make boxes, not babies, not friends, not respect that turns into a great retirement party where people cry cause they’ll miss me. No one will miss me. Until this happened. Now people will miss the Red Racer. \n\nIt’s a snake native to Southern California. It’s known for being mean, antisocial, mean, fast, mean, and though not poisonous, its bite will tear your flesh to shreds. Which is similar to me when I am threatened. Not only do I have the speed of a god knows what, multi colored scales appear to protect me. The same color as the Red Racer. Pink underside (yes, my newly formed abs are pink at times), red and tan everywhere else except for the neck where black bands appear. This is fine when I’m in costume, it’s not fine when I’m working and someone starts yelling at me that a box isn’t done. Yeah, they yell about boxes. That’s not the point, I am the point. The scales appear and when that happens they stop yelling which makes me revert back to normal and then they act like they saw something that wasn’t there. I guess it works out. \n\nSo while I’m done making boxes I turn on my phone app that tells me what’s going on the city over. If there’s something I could help out on I zoom off and help. On an average day, if any of this is average, I have been known to help someone who is being attacked by robbers form carjacking to home invasions and that mostly ends in me taking the perps to the local police department. \n\nUpon doing that I don’t just wait for the cops, I strip them of all their clothes and redress them in the most embarrassing clothes I had found in a dumpster. Think of it like they’re wearing less than their own underwear but enough that if someone got hold of the pictures they wouldn’t be able to live down that they look like they got caught in a fetish that is revolting. Who am I kidding? Of course someone gets hold of the pictures. I tweet them out. Not too many repeat offenders. \n\nI have saved a few people from being hit by cars, cars from having accidents, fires from being started, cleaned up a few parks of trash, saved a few cats from trees, found a few dogs, helped a few people move their stuff into their apartment, and feed the homeless food that a restaurant was tossing out. Yes they toss out food cause a stupid homeless person might sue them if they get food poisoning...but if a stupid homeless person tried that with me they’d find themselves on the other side of the country in the middle of nowhere. Just ask that Paul guy. \n\nSometimes I help people do their own work and they don’t even know it. Like construction work. I’ve read up on it and even, for a time, worked as a construction worker. So at some homes I do help put up a few bricks here and there or sheetrock or some shingles. Just a little help from me who’d rather not be thanked. I haven’t seen them say anything in the news about that. I guess they’re just a bunch of ungrateful people. I know I don’t want to be thanked, but when your work gets halfway done by someone else, isn’t that something to note? Ugh, people. \n\nWell, I do, at times, play some practical jokes on people. But I’m embarrassed to tell you. I am just a boring person who got powers and didn’t really want them. One of them was...ha, not even going to tell you that. I’m not going to be laughed at cause I’m wasting my talent. \n\nAt work they don’t ask me to go out because I’ve said no so much they think I hate them. Even though that’s wrong of them to think, it’s true, I do not particularly like any of them. Even after I hear them loving on Red Racer as the coolest of the cool. I’d just be liable to tell them that Red Racer hates them and then they’d regret ever having me come drink with them, and I couldn’t even blame it on being drunk cause I can’t get drunk. \n\nThe awesome thing is I got rid of my car. So I don’t even drive any more. That saves on gas money that now just goes to feeding me and my always hungry self. I run home and do my shower-pee routine and eat. I relax by reading a few Wikipedia articles. Which, by the way, I’m almost done with the entire thing. I’ll have to move on to something else soon enough. I have great recall. Someone at work told me that a certain event happened on this date and I corrected them cause, you know, I’m the god of Wikipedia, now. They stopped talking about dates around me. Sure it can be edited by others, but I’ve not only read the articles but all the cited ones as well. I know my stuff. \n\nI’m tired, now. I’ve done all this writing on top of save a few people today and I’m ready to get to bed to have that dream of me walking through a park. I’m getting excited just thinking about it. Yap, that kind of excited. I’ll let you know when the dream actually goes as planned. I’m sure if it does I might have to change my sheets. It’s been awhile...", "The alarm buzzed. John took his time and rolled out of bed. He slowly made his way from the bed to the bathroom. Another morning, another day, another struggle. Even for a man with powers like John.\n John looked himself in the bathroom-mirror streching from the floor up to the sealing. It was a nice mirror, althought he didnt like what it refected. His nose was neatly shaped, his lips looked like those of a greek god and his facial features were all together beautiful. But this didn't seem to please John. His nostrils flared with force as he took one last look before leaving the bathroom. \nJohn had power like no one els, and doctors had not been able to find an explination behind it. John possesed incredible strenght. When making breakfast he manished to break his bowl, spoon and fridge all in one motion. He howled with anger. Anger turned to sadness as he started to cry. Tears flowed from his eyes down on the floor where he lay. \n -\"Why me?\" He asked plainly. \"Jesus, why me?!\"\n John, with power like no others, possesed one weakness..\nHe was born without limbs... ", "I'm tired. Tired of school. Tired of childish jokes. Tired of being treated like a child. I'm 13 years old. But if I were to consider the entirety of my life from my perception, I'd probably be closer to 100. \n\nI guess you could call me a perfectionist. Someone drop something on my clothes? Better restart the day. Say something stupid and embarrass myself in front of everyone? I'll try again. Lose something important? I'll go back to when I last had it. \n\nThere's nothing I would like more than for everything to just go right the first time so I can get on with my life.", "And so it came to pass that Captain Fart was an ironic hero in the history of America. Yes, he could create some of the most fierce and foul flatulance for forty four square miles, but he also had no sense of smell. Can you imagine? Such incredible anal blooms left unsniffed by their own creator. Is there no smell sweeter than the one from our own tweeter?\n\nEven worse, no one could get close to him. I mean, you thought that guy on the train today was foul, but did he kill all the vegetation in the tri-county area? Did he create depression-like dust storms with his ass? Was his name Captain Fart? Probably not. I just made him up. Although that would be quite the coincidence. Anyhow, that's the whole story. What do I win?", "\"You said you'd sign the contract today, honey.\"\n\nHis wife was always annoyed at the indecision. He'd waver back and forth for ages on anything and everything.\n\n\"I know, but do we really need a house this big? I know we can afford it, but it seems like a waste of money.\"\n\n\"You're part of the Earth Defense League. You can afford to enjoy your life. Plus we may need the space someday for little speedsters of our own.\"\n\nHe nodded. He had agreed a family would take a bigger house. And the acreage would provide plenty of playground if his kids turned out like him. Powers begat powers, he was told. Not always the same, but usually close.\n\nHe watched his wife, his power never turning off. She moved in a liquid slow motion. He could see her nostrils flare whenever she was annoyed with him. \n\nHe couldn't help but keep thinking, We could buy a smaller place now and a bigger one when she's pregnant. But that would make the move more stressful, stacking the two things. Might as well bite the bullet now. But it just feels ostentatious. I'm not Avenger or Mighty Girl. I just don't know what to do with this stipend. Ugh. Buy the house, I guess. Why not. Screw it. But is this even the best location? It's so close to the airport, I can hear the planes all the time.\n\nIt went on for relative hours sometimes. His frustration pushed his powers even stronger, slowing down time even more as he argued with himself.\n\nBut he did what he always did when faced with the indecision. He let his wife choose. It was so easy to do. It didn't work when he was in the field, but it did here. And luckily in the field, if he took a few extra seconds to take out the enemy, no one ever noticed.\n\nHe signed the papers in a wink. He had to slow his hand down to keep from destroying it; a practice he had become good at over the years.", "Today is the day. It has to be. I could not keep doing that for the rest of my life. \nEver since I found out my power, I have had a routine after my job. I would get to the roof of the hotel where I did housekeeping and appreciate the view. I always found the skyline to be magical at night, and I could see the park, a very large and dark square lined with lighted pedestrian paths. And I could imagine my appartment building just beyond it. \nWhat I hate the most about my job is the commute time. Do you have any idea how long it takes to cross half this city twice a day? If only I had the will to do it, then I could wake up 10 minutes before work, and be home before the kids were asleep. \nToday is the day. I have to do it. I will do it. \nI put my hands on the parapet, take a deep breath and slowly climb on it. I must not look below, I will not. Not this time. But a woman scream break my resolve and I look. Through my dizziness, I can see the source of the scream pointing at me and people converging. I can feel my heart pounding in my chest and I can't breathe anymore. I lift a foot from the parapet, and step back down on the roof. \nI guess I'll fly home tomorrow then. " ]	11
	[WP] Write a lovely children's short, only for the last sentence to reveal just how dark the story really is.	[ "Once upon a time there was a baker who made the most lovely pies. Everyday people would travel the lands to taste the pies. There all kinds of pies; apple, raspberry, every flavor was there. \n\nEveryone's favorite was the meat one however. Everyone loved the mysterious flavor. However when the baker finally died everyone learnt the truth.\n\nThe meat was human.", "With stern determination, Reverend Tiger keeps watch on the doorway, even with Elephant Purple sitting on his tail. \n\n\"You're sitting on my tail, Elephant Purple. Which is bad because you're an elephant.\"\n\n\"Ohhh I'm teeYARibly sorry, Reverend Tiger. Do not be mad OK? I will move to over here now\". With great galumphing and flopping of head, Elephant Purple moves. \n\n\"Wee-hee-hee must guard the castle door\", says Tall Man Giraffe. \"It is verrrry important! I want some crackers!\"\n\n\"Me too!\" says Melanie. Or Great Princess Melanie Sparkleshoes, as she is currently known. \"Let's go and find some!\"\n\n\"A quest! To find the crackers!\"\n\n\"Yes, Mister Flops. You are the bravest one so you have to help me get the crackers. And you're a rabbit so you're fast. So we must find them soon!\"\n\nAn expedition is quickly organized by Great Princess Sparkleshoes, with Mister Flops under one arm, and an octopus of uncertain identity. The crackers are hundreds of miles away, on the desk, past the mountains of laundry and the vast expanse of blue-green carpet, which sometimes is a lake. \n\n\"I should come with you\", said Reverend Tiger. \"For versooth, there may be evil in the forest. And I would like crackers too.\"\n\nBut the Great Princess ordered him to maintain his watch, with Elephant Purple and some minor assorted bears. The Quest would surely succeed, if Mister Flops was brave enough. \n\nThe waters of the blue-green lake were still and deep, and the Great Princess didn't know how to swim. \n\n\"I don't know how to swim either\", said Mister Flops. \"Maybe I can jump really far and land on the island!\"\n\n\"Wait! Miss Legmonster can go get them for us!\"\n\n\"But...I'm afraid of water!\" Miss Legmonster was very shy. \n\n\"You are an octopus! They live in the water all the time!\"\n\n\"Well, I was born in a forest. My mom didn't like the ocean because of sharks\".\n\nThis was a terrible problem. Maybe they could make a boat! That would work!\n\nWith great speed and genius, Miss Legmonster, who turned out to be good at building boats, built a boat. Surely the quest would...\n\n\"What the fuck are you doing? Fucking kid. Get back on the bed, I ain't done with you yet. And quit putting your stupid animals in the way of the door. You think they're gonna stop me?\"" ]	2
	[WP] It is 200 years in the future and humans must evacuate Earth. Scientists have only developed a highly experimental and unstable method of achieving this, but they are running out of time and options.	[ "\"So, Jenkins, run this by me again.\"\n\n\"Well, sir, it's quite simple really. You see, we've basically run out of fuel on Earth at this point. After the seventh global war, I think Einstein's whole stick quote finally applied. It just took longer to exhaust our surplus than previously predicted.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, Jenkins, I don't need a history lesson, I need a goddamned vehicle capable of travel through space. What's the plan?\"\n\n\"Well sir, with the help of our friends at KSP we've come up with a very good plan, although it will require a bit of metal.\"\n\n\"Oh please, I'm sure we can salvage something from the Soviet Mecha Death Bots that we've captured.\"\n\n\"Quite right, sir. Anyways, as I was saying, the plan is quite simple. We simply put a ladder on a small space-type probe, and climb the ladder.\"\n\n\"Excuse me? Did I hear you correctly? Are you suggesting we build A GODDAMN LADDER, to SPACE?\"\n\n\"No, no, sir, you misunderstand me. See, my partners at KSP have done countless hours of research and discovered that, contrary to what modern physics theory tells us, climbing ladders gives us potentially infinite time of thrust, albeit a very small amount. Still, enough to carry a single person into orbit at least.\"\n\n\"By God Jenkins you are either the most insane or brilliant man I have ever met.\"\n\n\"Uhm. Thank you sir.\"\n\n\"If you are this confident in your theory, I'll let you be the first man to self propel himself to orbit then.\"\n\n\"Uh. Thank you sir.\"\n\n\"And Jenkins?\"\n\n\"Yes sir.\"\n\n\"Don't forget your helmet.\"\n\n\"Yes sir.\"" ]	1
	[WP] Assassination	[ "\"Just another job,\" CrossHunter thought to himself. Assassin-Ator, his partner, was laughing wildly, \"I can't believe we're going after POTUS!\" CrossHunter sighed, \"no deviating from the plan tho time. We sneak in kill the president as requested, and leave.\" Assassin-Ator shrugged off what his partner just told him, \"you never wanna have fun. I'll try to stick to that plan.\"\rIt was easy to get over the gate, especially on a night as dark as it was, and CrossHunter had spotted only a handful of ss, \"This will be an easy payoff, and I can finally retire.\" On his six, Assassin-Ator replied \"why would you ever want to retire from this job, we have it good. Easy money, and we get to do what we're good at. I ain't never givin' this up.\" CrossHunter put up his hand for silence. A few SS walked by talking about their mundane job, and how working at the white house was for low to entry level servicemen. Cross and Assassin-Ator stayed quiet until they had they were able to move again.\rOnce they were inside they split up to cover more ground. Before he left Assassin-Ator, CrossHunter warned \"don't do anything foolish. Let's just get this done quickly and quietly.\" Again Assassin-Ator shrugged it off. CrossHunter sighed, then went searching each room for POTUS. When he reached the oval office, he could hear the president speaking to someone. The voices were muffled, so he decided to climb out on the window sill and slowly work his way across. Finally, he saw the president talking with the VP about something.\"I've got to figure out a way to get in there, silently.\" No sooner than he'd finished that thought Assassin-Ator broke through the door wielding dual pistols, aiming one at the president and one at the VP. Then, Assassin-Ator switched to point both pistols at the VP. The VP stood up, calmly, and took one of Assassin-Ator's pistols. Both now were aiming at the president. \rCrossHunter was bewildered watching all this unfold, but he had to make a decision. Let Assassin-Ator kill the president and get paid for it, or go with his original plan to stop his partner and save the president. Time, it felt like, went slow motion and as CrossHunter took an arrow out and aimed...\r\"Today the united states weeps for the loss of it's most influential leader.\" The reporter said looking into the camera, and standing in front of the white house. \"Yes, that is correct. Lastnight, between the hours of eleven and two, a masked super villain killed the President of the United States. There's not much detail right now as to how he did it, all we know is that an arrow pierced through the president's heart, killing him instantly. There aren't any leads as of right now, but the Secret Service is performing an investigation. The only thing we do know is the vice president has morosely stepped up to be our nation's leader.\"\rCrossHunter turned off his tv and looked over at Assassin-Ator. \"I'm done.\" he said picking up his coat and walking out of his partner's house. He fired up his motorcycle, and drove. Drove until he reached a new city, in a new state.Taking off his helmet, he said with a modest smile \"This looks like the kind of place I could start new.\" ", "Most assassinations are precise in nature; a sniper's bullet to the head, a dagger aimed at a heart, a poisoned glass of wine during a meal. Simple, deadly, and little risk of collateral damage. Most hired killers would follow such methods. Major W. Tycho Novak was not one of them.\n\n--\n\nThey fell like shooting stars, burning down through the midnight sky in glowing contrails, bits of the thermo-protective paint charring and peeling off in tiny embers. Those living in the seaside resort could look up and see the four blazing stars grow larger and larger, brighter and brighter. Parties on the white sand beaches were interrupted, the music dying down as the roar of the burning objects grew louder and louder. It was as they near the planet's surface that one could make out the glowing shapes inside, machines from the greatest legends and darkest nightmares, the chariots of gods and demons. They were battlemechs.\n\nA kilometer above the planet's surface they activated their landing jets, the counter force, slowly their descent to a survivable speed. They were angled to impact within the largest compound within the resort, a sprawling complex of world class mansions surrounded by a thirty foot wall. All four 'mechs landed inside the walls of the compound, the disposable jets falling off with a multi-ton clang. \n\nOne landed within the lake size pool, the latent heat on its armored hide boiling the water as it strode through the chlorinated surf. The FLE-19 Flea opened up with its eight machine guns, a hurricane of bullets mowing down any of the guards who vainly tried to stand against the attackers. \n\nAnother crushed a small building, the bamboo and palm frond roof easily collapsing under the weight of the titan. A Firestarter, it lived up to its name as from its right arm it spewed fire, the fusion engine dumping excess heat into the weapon to torch every combustible building or object in sight. The 40mm rotary autocannon in its left arm roared, a stream of tracer exploding against the thick twenty meter long observation glass of the main mansion. A score of soldiers died under the fusillade, their bodies torn apart by the cannon shells.\n\nThe Hatchetman broke into the building with its namesake, the three ton melee weapon crushing concrete and rebar. It waded in through the ash and gore, knocking down pillars and smashing entire rooms with a single blow. Soldiers ran through the failing building, those too slow being crushed under the 45 ton giant's heel.\n\nThe last mech, a mighty assault machine stood like Death itself surveying the complex, its comrades sowing the seeds of death and destruction in their wake. Its hide was painted a sickly rust red, with streaks of silver run through, like that of some fallen knight's armor. Draped over its long, predatory torso were great lengths of chain, as if it had torn itself from captivity. Tied to the chains were the skulls of a half dozen beasts with all manner of deadly fangs and wicked horns, their leering gazes freezing the defenders' hearts with fear. From speakers built within the hull of the VKG-2F Viking a man spoke, his voice metallic and demon-like from distortion. \n\n\"Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.\" " ]	2
	[WP] WW3 breaks out, but Science has basically 'cured death' and this war is just for fun.	[ "\"Are you tired of the same god damn Call of Duty game every year?\"\n\nThe poster felt like it spoke directly to my soul. After buying Call of Duty 9 and enjoying the game, my friend challenged me to some old school throwback gaming. But, when I put in the Call of Duty 4 disc, I wiped my eyes and pinched myself in disbelief.\n\nIT WAS THE SAME EXACT GAME.\n\nI left and drove off infuriated, feeling swindled by Microsoft and Ubisoft and all those of soft piece of shit companies. I was hoping to vent my frustration with some good old fashion road rage when I saw the billboard. \n\nBeyond curious, I wondered why it just say those words. Yet, my question was immediately answered by billboard right behind it. Together, they spelled out an odd slogan,\n\n\"Are you tired of the same god damn Call of Duty game every year? Then I want YOU to fight in World War III.\"\n\nSo, I promptly applied for military service. Finally, I can stick it to Microsoft and tell them to fuck themselves. It was truly a great day. Although, the US truly was shortsighted in failing to predict what would happen when they invited CoD players to join the Army.\n\nExcited for my first battle, I charged in expecting to get a 20 kill streak and an air strike inbound. Yet, after the first 2 seconds everything went black. When I woke up in the hospital, I asked the doctor what happened. He simply looked down, disappointedly, and turned on the news. \n\nOf Fucking Course. You can't play Call of Duty without some troll team killing his whole squad with an RPG. \n\nAnd thus ended the 21st Century Troll War.", "His skin was bubbling. Just like cooking noodles, all the popping and spitting occurred, but on his skin. Admittedly the color was a bit more green and the pain was nearly as bad as that bite he took nearly a decade ago. Some spider from a zoo had shutdown his entire immune system with a nanoliter of poison, it was amazing. The boys in the trenches next to him were bubbling as well, the opposition sent over mustard gas as well- he couldn't imagine what was happening in the reversal of the Korean War nearly one thousand miles from here. He felt his face start to pop off, the green tinged skin and blood drafted down onto his palm before he blacked out.\n\nHis eyes shot open, he shook his cheeks out and yawned like you do. Galtic was used to the waking up part, it was the dying that was truly interesting. Some scientist somewhere had figured out how to clone the human bodies and download the memories every milisecond, Galtic remembered the green skin floating down to his palm. He remembered the spider bite leaving him frozen and yet sweating, and that day he ate some shrubbery that turned out to be nightshade. He pushed the glass door off the tube he was in. A small set of hangers were in front of him, they had an assigned uniform for rebirth, luckily he'd been here often enough to have a few options, after the fifth resurrection you start to learn the tricks of the trade like stealing the rebirth clothes of your neighbor and hanging them up on your rack.\n\nGaltic walked past his hangers and noticed a gathering of rebirthers in the cafeteria, huddled around the deployment screens. Some new war must have popped up, perhaps he'd lost track of the time and it was event season once more?\n\nOnce he'd slid on the pants of a neigbor from three lives ago, he pushed his way through the huddle, it was a live feed of the effects of greek fire. Somehow scientists had discovered how to live eternally before archaeologists could duplicate some shit in jars from two centuries ago. The girl on the screen was burning a bright purple and she ran around for what seemed like hours. Her skin didn't pop it just darkened and turned to ash, the heat must have been far above anything else they'd all felt. The video was reminiscent of the only group that couldn't come back. Nucelar bomb sufferers. The videos of them were just utter incineration until you moved out about five miles from the impact, then the blue and purple flames started to eat you. \n\nViewers watched eagerly, some signed up to test it right then and there, they even watched the boys and girls teleport into this location and light themselves ablaze, the proveyors rebirthers tended to call them. The girl finally stopped burning and squirming, an update appeared in the bottom right of the screen \"refreshing\" but the circle just kept spinning. Finally the connection was lost, she was actually gone. It was a way to truly die, probably the heat prevented a proper download for too long and let the database expire, that's the cause behind nuclear impact errors supposedly. Galtic tapped his foot, he'd had enough of these games hadn't he?\n\nThe crowd slowly spread to other screens. Galtic was soon the only one watching, the little refreshing circle just kept failing. It was an end, and an interesting one at that. The circle popped up once more, Galtic was about to head back to the trench warfare station, there were still a few ways they had to die by the German players if he so chose, but that little checkmark appeared in the corner and a room location popped up. The girl was saved and came back. Yet another way he wouldn't be able to get out, he walked over to the Korean War booth and signed up for the home team, maybe Agent Orange would do the trick?", "The Chinese have retreated across the river, back into their \"war base\". We can see them from our vantage point, a sea of army green tents stretching out for miles and miles in the fresh snow. It's surreal seeing one's enemy so up close and personal in a modern war. I can see the field kitchen, the command post, the dressing station... \n\nWe can't attack them, not in their war base. It is against the rules. \n\nThat couldn't stop both side from exchanging insults however. Their english is quite good much to my surprise. Though their understanding of trending swear words is a little bit past-decade. \n\nI was drawing a mental image of what a \"dicklord\" is supposed to look like when I saw him, stumbling out of the dressing station like he had just been through reconstruction. I know he just did, I just killed him yesterday. \n\nHe looks far more pleasant now without all that mud and blood on his face. He saw us, smiled and started waiving at us with what looked like a short range radio. \"Oh... great\" I thought to myself. I picked up my radio and tuned into the neutral frequency.\n\n\"Fuck off\" I said with a grin on my face.\n\n\"Wanna come over?\"\n\n\"Do you think I'm stupid?\"\n\n\"I'm serious, we are going to have a feast!\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"It's our New Year -- duh!\" \n\n\"Oh...\" \n\nI looked over to Lee \"When did the Chinese say their next offensive would be?\" \n\n\"A week from now, why?\"\n\n\"Ready for some chow?\" \n\n\"Across the river?\"\n\n\"Yeah, they just invited us.\"\n\n\"Nice, my buddy in the EU command told me the food was amazing!\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n \"... and they are gonna stay all night for another midnight feast and firework display.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you tell me?\"\n\n\"Well, I figured it wasn't for us grunts. Besides they must have hated us for handing them a 3-0 yesterday.\"\n\n\"Well what are they gonna do, kill us?\" I picked up my gear and hurried down hill towards their camp. I can smell it in the air now. I have had nothing but MRE for the last week and the air smelled like heaven... ", "“Hit the fucking deck, private!” Staff Sergeant MacBrady’s call ran across the trench air and burst into Private Tully’s consciousness just quick enough for him to duck the incoming shrapnel. MacBrady darted hurriedly over in a hunched crouch. “You alright?”\n -----------\n\n“Yeah, I think so.” He was shaking, along with the familiar-faced private he had just met three weeks ago. MacBrady had made the acquaintance of many ‘fresh’ recruits, too many for his liking. The Irish military was sending them in as quickly as the Spanish were grinding them up. The Reals, as the Irish dispassionately referred to them, had for years now been pushing north through the Irish mainland, resisted but not prevented from making it as far as Kildare, Meath, and now the Hill of Tara - just west of Dublin - where MacBrady had been encamped for half a year. Irish forces had, by the third month of encampment, bored holes into the mound, constructing a labyrinthian tunnel system that was as confusing to navigate as it was hastily constructed. With the constant pound of Spanish artillery bounding across the smoke-scarred fields, careful construction had been abandoned in favor of brisk enterprise, which found the Irish in a constant state of implacable frustration. Cave-ins and faults in electrical wiring undid any sense of fortitude the Hill provided, the notion of which, were any national historical scholar to have been thrust into the ranks of Staff Sergeant MacBrady, should have been thoroughly uprooted from the get go. Yet MacBrady did not have historians in his midst. In fact, it had become impossible to say what, indeed, MacBrady had in his midst.\n -----------\n\n\nIt had all begun in the year 2100, the year that Science dominated and united the entire world under the transnational banner of Knowledge. Through a series of concurrent and precisely timed cyber attacks, The Committee had usurped the ruling classes of every country. National borders burst open and upon every post Science hung their flags, crosses of iron and bronze, dotted silver and gold-flecked, bearing the Crest of the Sun, a hardly subtle allusion to Plato and his tutor.\n\n -----------\n\nIt had taken thousands of years of searching and waiting, but the Philosopher King had finally emerged from the dregs of humanity: Malik, a boy of only eight years. The Committee had found him in the ancient Somali port, Qandala, superimposing constellations upon a maritime map of the ocean. He had through some celestial phenomena discovered a formula by which to predict the size, speed, and location of rogue waves, accurate to within a kilometer. Almost instantaneously, The Committee had ushered him in to rule over Science as Philosopher King in 2078. In his first year of rule, afforded the best equipment, facilities, and academic minds, he had cured every major disease and rid the world of food allergies. In the following three years, he focused on tissue regeneration, which culminated in the first ever successful growth of an entire human body from only ten cells. By the time he was eighteen, he had successfully collaborated with the world’s greatest computational minds to achieve digital immortality, a computer with enough processing power to emulate every single neural synapse of the human brain. He had, in every regard, cured death.\n -----------\n\n\nThe Great Rationalization began in 2101. In schools everywhere religion was slowly phased out as fantasy, an impedance to true knowledge. It was said in those times that “Philosophy is Theology without the safety net of God.” Hence within a generation, long after Malik’s fated date of death, which he bluntly and successfully overturned with ease, religion went extinct, and with it the romanticizing power of superstition. As those who could afford it increased their longevity indefinitely, the world pulsed on, every blip muffled by the nihilistic roar of infinity.\n -----------\n\nMalik felt the pain the worst, as he was the first to become, for all intents and purposes, immortal. He stalked the courtyard of his arabesque Moroccan riad. He had everything, and it meant nothing to him. In a molten flare of temper, he threw his phone at the funerary urn he had purchased on his visit Tzu, once called China. It’s cerulean shards rattled on the floor, echoing hollowly through the halls. He kicked at the broken pieces, and let out a dry laugh, the emptiness of which matched the senselessness of his purchase. It was approaching twilight, and the faint outline of stars seeped through the open sky and chequered the courtyard. Luminous dots arrayed his broken urn and struck him to recall his youth, the times he spent on the Somali sands playing with old maps and stars. He only stumbled upon the formula by chance. What had really intrigued him was the map, the oceans, the terrestrial outlines, and the sense of ownership it instilled. He was no longer a spiritual youth filled with wonder, he was a bored and powerful man. God was dead, and he felt more than ever a directive that emanated from his apathetic heart: he would break the Peace, start a war, and why not? No one would have to die.\n\n -----------\n -----------\n\nAn explosion erupted overhead. “Staff Sergeant MacBrady,” called the young recruit. He had a deep gash running from the top of his throat to the bottom of his left shoulder. It looked as though he had been torn open and sewn back together. MacBrady gathered that that is exactly what had happened. \n“Yes, what?” MacBrady replied, eyeing the scar. \n\n“What’s our next move?”\n\n“Our next move is that I stay alive as long as possible, and you try to do the same.” \n\nTully was taken aback. \n\nImmediately after the words left his mouth, the Staff Sergeant felt a pang of guilt for being so unnecessarily curt, but it wore on a man, seeing the same set of damned eyes in the same body as all the others, month after month. There were probably only a few hundred of them, the other corpses too thoroughly obliterated to make any sort of genetic recovery. \n\n -----------\n\nMacBrady saw firsthand the rotating door of facial features and body parts, the limited iterations the army was becoming restricted to. Why, he had seen Tully’s crooked nose twenty times by now, each time filled with a new soul, whoever was up for deployment. Even despite the tissue regeneration, the scars somehow grew back with them. Though innocent his countenance was, Tully bore the marks of a lifetime of war all over his body, including the physical memory of the blade that had split him open at the throat two months ago. \n\n -----------\n\nWhat truly disturbed MacBrady, though, was not the bodies, but the souls that inhabited them, for they never seemed to repeat, or, if they did, had no personal remembrance of ever being alive. Only three days into the battle, a recruit by the name of Finn had swapped stories with him while they kept vigil overnight. Finn had been orphaned as a teenager and had left for (what was previously called) America to wander until finally making his way back to his birthplace to fight for his Celtic nation that once was. \nFinn had died in a mortar blast, but that was nearly six months ago, and not since had MacBrady seen any hint of Finn in the physiognomy of his recruits.\n\n -----------\n\nDusk was setting in, and the sun rode low in the sky. Tully's shadow was just as real as him, a cast of a cast. Where were the souls going, MacBrady asked himself. With each repetition, the recruits seemed increasingly bland - bereft of idiosyncrasy, as though “Default” was becoming the more prevalent option for soldiers. Was God or his pagan likenesses, though dead on Earth, living elsewhere, plucking the souls from the dead once their mortal bodies expired? Whatever was happening, MacBrady was sure of one thing: Malik had not cured death, not beyond the physical. For all of the RAM, storage, and regeneration, the soul, MacBrady concluded, had become lost in translation. \n\nEDITS: typos.", "I walk down the street glancing at the setting sun. On any other day I would have been in heaven, a leisurely walk on a warm winters eve with the sight of a setting sun but not this day. No not this day nor any from now on.\nEveryday no matter how beautiful has lost all enjoyment for me, you see just over a week ago the final war of this planet started.\nIt started like any other day, until a man crashed his car into a tree and survived his body broken and destroyed and suffering every moment in complete agony. What followed seemed like a miracle, every person who had received a routine flu vaccination for the coming winter showed an incredible ability. \nThey were immortal.\nSoon the cure for death had spread and everyone was excited. Until the suicide bombers realised they couldn't die but live on in excruciating pain with their victims, then the death row inmates were walking away from the firing squad the bodies disfigured beyond recognition.\nIt didn't take long for all people to realise that there was no point to life. A depressed man would jump from a building only to break every bone in his body and continue his life as a purée. An elderly women would suffer every day from horrific cancer throughout her body with no hope.\nA deep realise set in for all people that without death life will be agony, so people invented newer, greater more powerful ways to kill people but nothing seemed to work.\nSo here I stand in this nuclear waste land with everyone else, hoping that one day we will be able to leave this life.", "\"Grandma can I go to war now? said Johnny\"\n\n\n\"Not until you finish your Mango young man!\"\n\n\n\"No Fair! I hate fruits. Why do we even have to eat them anymore? \"\n\n\n\nJohnny's father chuckled\n\n\"He has a point you know. Ever since they got rid of the Long deaths nutrients are obsolete and frankly a pain in the kiester now that I think about it. \"\n\n\nJohnny's father shoves a spoon full of sugar into his mouth\n\n\n\"The things people had to deal with in the past to survive just baffles me\nBut this is how grandma lived during her time before the great cure. So we're going to be respectful to Grandma ok? \nRemember there are children in Africa who STILL eat food. Its good to have a reminder every once in a while of how the other half lives\"\n\nJohnny grumbled as he forced the wretchedly bitter \"fruit\" down his throat.\n\n\n\"All DONE!\" said Johnny as he ran to his room to get his AK 98\n\nJohnny liked the older weapons. They provided a challenge and had a tendency to jam in the heat of the moment which brought a tension he absolutely craved. \n\n\nJust as he was running out to the curb his Dad called out to him.\n\n\"John! You forgot your body armor!\" Much to Johnny's chagrin. As the neighborhood kids, some with limbs blown off, now started laughing at him\n\n\"DAD!? I haven't used that since I was eight!\"\n\n\n\n\n\n", "James Greene woke up one morning to his phone ringing. His massive hangover crippled him as he hobbled over to the table where his phone lay. He answered it.\n\n\"James! Whats up?\"\n\nIt was his buddy Cranston.\n\n\"Cranston, Hey.\"\n\n\"OK James. Me and Greg are getting deployed, wanna come?\"\n\nJames thought. He was technically off duty, but what the hell? the war was only a teleportation away.\n\n\"Alright, meet you at the teleporter.\"\n\nJames got all his Tac-gear ready, classic 2013 Army stuff. Some of the guys nowadays were using light reflective tech, that maid them nearly invisible. When it worked. It broke down to much, so James nad his buddies stuck to classic gear. He picked up another classic, the MK11 Mod 0 DMR. He liked it because of its fire capacity and accuracy. It also went well with Cranston's M107 Barret. Usually one of his other friends took an Assault rifle like an Ak-12 or Aug A3. When he was done, he laced up some boots and grabbed his helmet with NVGs. Ten minutes later he was at the teleporter, staring at a massive world map.\n\n\"James! Hey!\" Cranston walked up behind him, then looked at the map.\n\nA big red, flashing circle was over Paris, a major battle, and another of Beijing. \n\n\"What do you guys think?' Greg inquired. \n\nJames replied, \"I like Beijing, we can get to Shangai, intel says they've got massive buildups there, we can go Geurilla for a while.\"\n\n\"Sweet,\" Cranston replied. \"Let's go.\"\n\nThey stepped into the tubes and a flash of white light sent them into the nearest deployment zone, a C130 Hercy Bird over Beijing. \n\n\"ALRIGHT MAGGOTS! GET READY TO JUMP!\"\n\n\"Shut the fuck up Cranston.\"\n\nThey ran out the open door, and free fell into the raging battle. ", "\"And let the beginning of the Third World War...\" The announcer boomed into every soldier's ears. The world had never seen a conflict this large before. Over 3 billion humans sat in various vehicles, or clutched guns to their chests just before the gates opened to signify the beginning of the War. All means of conventional warfare were allowed and most countries were prepared to bring all mans. \n\nAlec sat in a IV Hover tank MBT (the newest iteration, combining the heavy ionic shielding of earlier generations along with the fast reactions and cold-fusion generator of the gen III.V and higher), a device attached to his wrist read that he had 23 extra lives before he had to quit the games. He shuddered a bit at the thought that he was currently in a clone's body, and that 22 other clones sat on ice in some creepy, storage building.\n\nHe was set to destroy Moscow (well, an exact copy of Moscow anyway) with priorities being flashing one last time over his hud:\n\n* TEAM GREEN MILITARY INSTALLATIONS\n* TEAM PURPLE MILITARY INSTALLATIONS\n* TEAM GREEN SUPPLY INSTALLATIONS\n* WORKS OF HISTORICAL OR MORAL IMPORTANCE\n* TEAM BROWN MILITARY INSTALLAIONS\n* GENERAL POPULACE\n* TEAM ...\n\nAlec quickly skimmed the rest of the list since everything below the first couple targets wasn't really meant to take the attention of someone like him. 8422, that was his MAN (military aptitude number) and the only reason he wasn't a grunt with a CARB-rifle and a worthless helmet waiting at the gate to forfill the role of plasma cannon fodder.\n\n\"... Begin!\"\n\n" ]	8
	[WP] A time traveller visiting 1939 falls in love, and takes their partner back to 2015 with them.	[ "Maria sat sipping her coffee. The circles were drawn, the candles lit. she could leave when she pleased. for now, she would savor the last few hours she had this side of the 20th century. Her husband walked in, obviously stressed. \n\n\"You are sure zis works, Marie?\"\n\n\"Yes. It got me here back in '39, honey. There's no reason it shouldn't work now.\"\n\n\"But vat if it doesn't? Do we die?\"\n\n\"Of course not. if it doesn't work... I've never been off by more than ten years. at worst, we show up in 2005.\"\n\nHis constant worrying had become quite tiresome. She knew she had to perform the ritual soon. Too early, she could meet herself before she leaves. too late... she wouldn't think about that.\n\n\"Alright- we should get the ritual going soon. quickly, change into the clothing.\"\n\n\"Are you kidding me? ZIS is vat people are wearing in 2015?\"\n\n\"It's what they're wearing in New York. I know you hate it, but the return point is in Syracuse. we can take the first flight out of the country. they won't let you wear THAT on the plane.\"\n\n She heard the bombs going off getting closer. the ritual needed to be performed now. As she read the ancient Sanskrit, she knew her timing was perfect. Just as the portal opened, she began to hear hoarse commands, bellowed in Russian.\n\n As the familiar cocoon of light enveloped her, dragging her seventy years into the future, she reflected on her choices. Maria had come here to kill him. If she had only known. He was smart, funny, if a bit morbid at times. She knew that it was for the greater good that he died, but it was not morally right. When they married, it was a confirmation for her. She would stand by him, because she realized just how much he contributed to society. \n\n The light began to dim. She was almost home. After the light had died down, she looked behind her. Her beloved had taken the trip quite well. a bit dazed, but quite well. He looked around in awe. 2015 would be jarring, she knew, but it was this or death.\n\n Marie handed her husband his new passport and a plane ticket. Come morning, they would leave for Berlin. They would now be known as Marie and Kaiser Einstein: people generally don't like it when you have a guy running around calling himself Adolf Hitler.\n", "‘Eva, I need you to come here for a moment.’\n\n‘Papa?’\n\nI hoist her to my side. ‘The war will be starting soon. We need to leave.’\n\n‘I want to stay here.’\n\nI glance around the nursery. Wooden toys, and painted murals. ‘So do I. But a few more weeks, and it won’t be safe.’\n\nEva looked at the floor.\n\nFootsteps fall behind me. Maria appeared in the doorway, arms folded, brow heavy. She is wearing a large fur coat and matching fox fur, her normally wavy hair is held back in a tight bun.\n\n‘Maria, that coat is not suitable. They will not appreciate that where we are going, and it is too heavy for me.’\n\n‘To hell with these people! I will freeze!’ Her normally charming accent now sharp.\n\n‘No, you won’t.’\n\n‘I don’t…’\n\n‘It doesn’t matter! We have to leave now! I’ve stayed far too long, and I’ve put this off long enough!’\n\n‘You still haven’t explained where we are going to! Or why we have to leave! The papers say…’\n\nI shift Eva in my arms. ‘We’re going now. I’ve decided. I will take Eva with me first. She will stay with my mother. I will have to explain, and then I will be back for you.’\n\nMaria’s lips tighten; the whites of her eyes turn sour. ‘What do you mean, first? And we have never met your mother!’\n\nI took a breath. \n\n‘I will be back. Please be patient. Please, have a seat. Whatever happens, do not move from that chair.’\n\nShe looks at me with distrust, but does what I asked.\n\n‘Are you ready Eva? This is going to be difficult. I need you to concentrate on holding on to me, ok Eva? And do not let go. Do you understand?’\n\n‘Yes papa.’\n\n‘Let’s go.’\n\nThe old sensation came back to me. As we are leaving, I hear a shriek from Maria. Then she’s silenced, and, the itchiness spreads, the nerves throbbing and bubbling and the blackness that rushes and ebbs and flows through the skin. And it’s cold. I can feel Eva heaving and convulsing, her tiny fingers digging into my shoulder. Then the light bursts back, far more brightly than I remember, Eva’s crying filled the room, and the sound of something shattering brings everything into sharp focus. \n\n‘What on earth? Andrew!’\n\nA woman appeared by the doorway to the sitting room we have arrived in, brandishing a tea tray which had appeared to have been moments earlier laden with tea. The teapot and the mugs now lay smashed on the floor. ‘Andrew, where on earth have you been! We tried contacting you but the department said you were away on a research trip – how did you get in the house? And who on earth is this?’\n\nEva was crying, but her sobs were lessening and her large round eyes were staring around the room, her eyes leaping from the noisy, blue light of the television to the large, flat mirror, the large, ornamental flowers that frame it, the flat, white wall, the big, soft salmon red sofa.\n \nThis had not gone well. I hoped they would not be in the house. I sit Eva down, and stroke her hand with my thumb. She sniffs.\n\n‘Stay with grandma, ok?’\n\nI stood and faced mum. Her head was tilted slightly to one side, her mouth open.\n\n‘Mum, I’m sorry, this is my daughter Eva. Please look after her for a few minutes while I fetch her mother.’\n\n‘Well I… Edward! Edward! Come here! Andrew, you stay right there!’\n\nI’d already left. Far quicker than before, without the weight of Eva, I landed back in the nursery. \n\nMaria jumped. She had not taken off the fox fur.\n\n‘Why are you still wearing that ridiculous thing?’\n\nShe is hysterical. ‘What did you do?’\n\n‘We are not leaving until you take it off.’\n\nMaria flaps her arms, but she is speechless. She throws the fur to the ground. I grab her arm and pin her to my side. I take one last look around the nursery. \n\n‘Do you have your diary?’\n\nShe nods.\n\n‘This may be difficult, but do not let go.’\n\nIt was certainly painful for me. Her nails clawed the skin of my arm. We arrive in back in the living room to the roars of my father, bellowing about my selfishness." ]	2
Nearly-perfect situational awareness can be a powerful tool	[WP] The adventures of Meta-Man, a superhero with the incredible ability to speak directly with the story's narrator	[ "Frank woke up. He got out of bed. He cleaned his teeth.\n\n'You know,' said Frank, 'as off-putting as this is, I think I've just figured out what's bothering me most.'\n\nHe paused. The empty bathroom did not respond.\n\n'You aren't narrating everything I'm doing,' he said, as he pulled on the day's shirt and headed to the kitchen to start making breakfast.\n\n'I woke up fifteen minutes ago,' he said in between mouthfuls of cereal, 'and I did about a dozen things in between getting out of bed and cleaning my teeth. But you only mentioned those two things. Why? Why didn't you mention that I yawned and stretched, the bones in my back cracking satisfyingly in a way that made me think Wait, my bones didn't always crack when I stretched. They only just started doing that recently. It must be an age thing. But that always happens to characters in movies and books, even young characters. Is that because writers tend to be in their late-twenties/early-thirties at their youngest? And they just forget that their bones didn't always crack when they stretched? Or am I just overthinking this? Why not mention that? Isn't that more interesting than 'He got up, he cleaned his teeth'?'\n\nFrank paused again, waiting for an answer. But none came. He took another bite of toast.\n\n'Or how about when I opened my bedroom door and stepped into the hallway, I noticed the smell... or rather the lack of the smell. It's Sunday. Marie should have been making Sunday breakfast round about now. Bacon and eggs and french toast with maple syrup. Just thinking about it made my saliva glands ache. But she's gone. And so I'm eating cereal and burned toast like a chump, because I want to prove to myself and the world that I can't look after myself. That she was right to leave.'\n\nSilence.\n\n'You know what I think it is? I think you're a shitty writer.'\n\nFlecks of half-chewed toast flew unattractively out of Frank's mouth as he spoke.\n\n'You're writing this way too fast. You're not thinking clearly. For starters, you had me brush my teeth before breakfast. Really? No, don't go back and edit it, then the narrative really wouldn't make sense.''\n\nHe took a swig of orange juice. It tasted bitter. Frank's big dumb face resembled a bulldog's at the best of times, but now he looked like a bulldog eating a wasp. Marie probably left him because of his stupid, ugly face.\n\n'Marie didn't leave me because of my ugly face,' said Frank, his nasal voice somehow more irritating than a child writing on a blackboard with a blunt dentists' drill. 'She left because I gave up on her. She left because I was so terrified she would leave that I started being an asshole just to make her leave, so at least I would feel in control.'\n\nFrank sat.\n\n'You hate yourself,' he said. 'And you'll never be able to make a relationship work when you hate yourself as much as you do. Validation from others isn't going to help. It never has before. Worthless points from strangers on a website aren't going to make you like yourself more. And I guess I sound pretty down on you. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be. I'm the part of you that loves yourself. Hey. How's it going? Are you doing okay?'\n\n...\n\nFrank looked at the ground and smiled sadly. 'It's okay,' he said, finishing his orange juice, 'when you're ready to talk to me I'll be here. I'm always here. You just need to listen. I love you, dude.'\n\nFrank was perfectly still. He kept smiling.", "\"Please, somebody help me,\" cried the old woman, fearfully cowering before the three men who had cornered her in the deserted street.\n\nOne of the men ripped her purse away from her, while another pulled a knife from his pocket and began to step towards her.\n\n\"STEP AWAY FROM HER,\" said a powerful voice. \"It's me - META MAN, here to save the day in a dramatically satisfying fashion.\"\n\n\"Oh Christ, it's him again,\" said one of the muggers, turning his back on the small, elderly man in an ill-fitting blue costume who had run, panting, to the scene of the crime. \"Alright lady, you got any other valuables? That necklace looks great, hand it over.\"\n\n\"Don't ignore me - I'm META MAN!\" cried the elderly gentleman. \"Narrator - MAKE THESE TWO CRIMINALS DISAPPEAR!!\"\n\nThe criminals paused in silence, looking around and smirking.\n\n\"You're just what my drug dealer said you'd be,\" said the mugger, punching the old woman and tearing her necklace off, \"Just a crazy old man who thinks he's all-powerful.\"\n\nThe three men ran away with the woman's possessions. Meta Man walked over to the woman, helping her to her feet.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" he said, \"It would seem that my powers are falling on deaf ears, and that the narrator has some sort of ironic scheme in mind. Is that it, you sick bastard?\" Meta-Man turned to the sky and shouted, \"TEH THE, I know you're out there, I know you can hear me, will you do nothing to help this sad world you've created??\"\n\nThe old woman looked in fear at Meta-Man, and began to hurry away, at which point she was promptly mugged again.\n\n\"I see how it is,\" said Meta-Man, \"You have no intention of mugging me, instead you're using me to make some sort of bizarre statement or satire. You're using me. Fine. I won't ask you for your help anymore.\"\n\n\"There he is!\" cried a loud, authoritative voice. An ambulance had pulled up to the side of the street.\n\n\"Come on, old man, we've had some calls about you. People are worried you'll help yourself. Come with us and we'll take you to a nice, comfortable room at the asylum, we'll take good care of you and whoever you're talking to won't get you.\"\n\n\"Please help me,\" said Meta-Man, as he was led in to the ambulance, and as he watched the old woman being approached by muggers for the third time. \"I only want to help these people...why would you give me powers only to have them be useless?\"\n\nThe door of the ambulance slammed shut and it whisked away.\n\n\"I knew it, I'm being used for irony,\" said Meta-Man. As a doctor prepared his sedatives, he said to the reader, \"Well I hope you're happy.\"", "\"You're too late, Meta-Man!\" laughed the Supercilious Turpitude. \"Even as we speak, my mega-death-ray is powering up. Soon it shall fire and destroy the Sun!\"\n\nMeta-Man raised his eyes to the heavens. \"The Supercilious Turpitude? Really? You can do better than that.\"\n\nThe ST stopped and stared at him. \"What?\"\n\n\"Oh, sorry, wasn't talking to you.\" Meta-Man turned back to the ceiling of the ST's secret lab and resumed his monologue. \"And now you're just calling him ST? What, are you too lazy to type out his full name? Can't deal with the ramifications of your own decisions, huh?\"\n\nA glowing light appeared before him. Thunder rumbled. The earth shook.\n\nA figure, glowing as brightly as the soon-to-be-destroyed sun, stepped from the light. Overcome by a sense of profound awe, the Supercilious Turpitude fell to his knees. Normally, he wouldn't bow to anyone. But this figure radiated power, and warmth, and-\n\n\"Okay, okay, we get it,\" interrupted Meta-Man impatiently. \"You're having the weak-minded villain worship you. I hope it makes you feel good about yourself.\"\n\nThe figure spoke. A deep, booming voice echoed across the room, seeming to come from everywhere at once. \"Who dares insult the great and mighty Narrator?\"\n\nMeta-Man shook his head sadly. \"Wow. Pathetic.\"\n\n\"Oh, it's you,\" said the Narrator uncomfortably.\n\nMeta-Man scoffed. \"Don't act like you didn't know that. Listen, you've got quite a few problems with your story, and-\"\n\n\"Hey, man,\" interrupted the Narrator, sounding distinctly whiny. \"It's just for a writing prompt. I don't need to flesh it out THAT much.\"\n\n\"Oh, so it's like that, is it? We're not as important to you, just because we're only starring in this single short story? What're you gonna do this time? Blow up the Earth again? Maybe kill me and then make a Comcast joke?\"\n\n\"Listen,\" said the Narrator, growing angry, \"what I write in other stories is none of your business.\"\n\n\"Fine, but what happens in this story is. Maybe you shouldn't have given me the power to communicate with you if you can't handle it. Anyway, like I said, the Supercilious Turpitude? Come on. Second of all, destroying the Sun isn't edgy or creative. You don't exactly have a reputation for being realistic, so I won't even mention the scientific problems with that. Third, a mega-death-ray? Really, it's like you're not even trying.\"\n\n\"I could kill you,\" said the Narrator, \"with a snap of my fingers. I could have this building collapse in on you. I could have a guy with a gun burst in through the door and shoot you in the head. I could-\"\n\n\"Well, you could do those things, sure. You could also shut up, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.\"\n\nThe Supercilious Turpitude had been listening to all of this with a growing sense of confusion. He got up from his bowing position and dusted himself off.\n\n\"Er, excuse me,\" he said, \"but could either of you explain-\"\n\nHe got no further, because just then a guy with a gun burst in through the door and shot him in the head. The ceiling directly above him collapsed onto his body, and a velociraptor dropped down to feast on his flesh.\n\n\"See?\" said the Narrator. \"I could do that to you as well.\"\n\n\"Yes, but he was just the whiny villain. Nobody cared about him. I, on the other hand, am the charismatic hero of the story.\" To demonstrate this point, Meta-Man flexed. His arms suddenly turned into daisies.\n\n\"Oh, come on, seriously?\" he asked, staring at the limp flowers which were now protruding from his shoulder joints. \"That's just low. And here I thought you were being childish by bringing the dinosaur in.\" He nodded toward the raptor, which was just now finishing its feast.\n\n\"And now there's not even going to be a big climax where I save the Sun from being destroyed,\" he said. \"You just killed off the guy who was going to activate the death ray. And here I am, just trying-\"\n\nThe Narrator's patience came to an end. He vanished, and the bright golden light which had been bathing the room up to that point went with him.\n\n\"Oh, I see how it is. Just run away from an argument like that. Fine. Be that way. I don't need-\"\n\nThe velociraptor pounced on him. His screams of anguish filled the room as it slowly ate him alive, devouring the non-vital parts of his body first, letting him suffer. When he finally died, a wormhole appeared. A spectacular light show filled the room as it sucked both the raptor and the remains of Meta-Man's corpse into it.\n\nThe Narrator reappeared, this time without the painful light.\n\n\"Ha,\" he said, satisfied. \"Sure taught him. Pretty sure he worked for Comcast, too.\"\n\n\"Can I go now?\" asked the ST's assassin.", "Meta-Man was on his lunch break and walking to the cafeteria when he noticed something. The normally very boring voice of the Narrator was now telling him that today would be special. Every other day the voice would tell him about his job as an accountant, and all the numbers that he went through. Now however, the voice seemed to become self-aware, something that hadn't happened before.\n\n\"Why's that?\", asked Meta-Man, startling his coworkers.\n\n\"Are you talking to me?\" said the fat lady behind the counter, glaring from under her sunglasses. \n\n\"If you ain't happy with that schnitzell well I ain't making you eat it okay?\" said the lady.\n\n\"Silence! I am trying to think!\" cried out the Meta-Man.\n\n\"So you think you're a big shot huh? That you can talk to me like that just because you work for a fancy company in a fancy suit and all your fancy numbers? Well I ain't having that!\" continued the fat lady. The lady was interfering with the narrative and preventing the voice from telling those very important things. Meta-Man was getting angry, and he hated getting angry, because the Narrator usually liked to draw out long Homerian metaphors about emotions and the meaning of life when he did.\n\nSo with a strenth, equal to those of the greatest heroes, he calmed himself down and walked away with his schnitzell. He heard all the people mumbling behind him, even though he could not make out what they were saying. They were saying things like:\n\n\"That guy is so pretentious,\"\n\n\"Who is that guy?\"\n\n\"Attacking that poor lady like that,\"\n\n\"He's probably angry because he is so ordinary,\"\n\nAs long as he looked at people and interacted with the world, the Narrator would never run out of things to tell. So he huddled in the darkest corner of the cafeteria and concentrated with all his willpower on eating the schnitzell. The Narrator wouldn't be able to talk long about the schnitzell, for it was a very plain schnitzell. Just like you'd expect from a schnitzell bought in the cafeteria of a bank.\n\n\"Finally,\" he thought after he heard this phrase go through his head, \"finally I will hear the important message from my lord creator the Writer.\" He had always hated the Narrator, because all the Narrator did was fill his mind with meaningless thoughts. He had always set his hopes in the writer, hoping that he would give him an important role in the story, some sort of action hero or a noble knight.\n\nThe schnitzell was poisoned for no apparent reason. The last thought that went to Meta-Man's head was the following: \"I am a superficial character and therefore I do not deserve an epic story.\"", "“We now return to the adventures of the incredible Meta-Man! Who is-”\n\n“Can we make it an alliteration?”\n\n“What?”\n\n“Like, Marvelous Meta-Man, or oh I know Meta-Meta-Man! Get it? Because I’m already meta so-”\n \n“Yeah, yeah whatever, the Marvelous Meta-Man, who is on the trail of his arch nemesis Marvelous Monica.”\n\n“We can’t both be Marvelous!”\n\n“Sure you can I just said you were”\n\n“Well un-say it”\n\n“I can’t un-say it, what does that even mean? Say it backwards?”\n\n“I don’t know I just don’t want us both to be marvelous it’s lazy writing.”\n\n“Well fine! The Magical Monica”\n\n“Magical? What is this a Young Adult novel?”\n\n“Just shut up okay! I’m trying to tell your fucking story”\n\n“Trying is a bit of a stretch don’t you think?”\n\n“You know what? Suddenly-”\n\n“Don’t even think about it, I swear I’ll-”\n\n“-an anvil fell out of the sky and landed right on Meta-Man!”\n\nSPLAT\n\n“and the narrator got an extra dry martini. The end.”" ]	5
From God to Satan to Zeus... even Flying Spaghetti Monster. And none of them are evil.	[WP] You die and you arrive in a beautiful paradise. There, you meet all the gods that the humans ever worshipped.	[ "Cedric decided he must have taken a wrong turn at the corner of Eternity Street and Eternity Avenue, because he was entirely out of place. \n\nHe sat by the pond where Zeus was dressed as a Swan. He was gracefully wading by the shoreline with his head buried into the crotch of Anubis. Cedric stared with horror at the way Zeus twisted his neck into a coil which caused Anubis to howl and start to thump his rear leg on the ground with pleasure.\n\nFor deities, they had no tact. \n\n\"Are you a human?\" \n\nCedric sat up startled, and turned to face a woman cloaked like a blue ghost with her pale face permeating the fabric.\n\n\"Mary...\" Cedric meekly guessed. \"Uhm, excuse me, Virgin Mary.\n\nMary laughed, \"Oh it's been a couple dozen centuries since I held that title.\"\n\nCedric blushed and stared at the ground as he rubbed his foot nervously on the grass.\n\n\"That's the lady's business. I apologize for that, I hadn't even been to church for 50 or so years before I died. I don't know where that came from.\"\n\nMary stared unfazed at the explicit beastiality taking place on the pond.\n\n\"Why do you look away from them?\" Mary asked.\n\nCedric looked confused. \"What, them? I...I think it's pretty disgusting, honestly. I mean I've read about Zeus, but I thought Anubis had more class than to do something like this.\"\n\n\"To do something like what?\" Mary asked. \"To enjoy the carnal pleausures of his body? Human's have always resisted the longings of the body.\"\n\nCedric, who was proud of his sexual conquests, was a bit defensive. \"That's a bit ironic coming from you, Miss Chastity. You are the actual embodiment of sexual resistance and you're a deity! Don't you see the message you've been sending for the past, I don't know, since Rome was around!\"\n\nMary kissed Cedric on the lips, and laid her body against his in a way that said \"take me.\" \n\nCedric backed away, frightened. \"I can't do this. You birthed the savior of the world. You're the widest spread symbol of purity and selflessness and...\"\n\n\"Oh shut the fuck up,\" Mary was not in the mood to hear this same argument for the billionth time. \"Does it really disgust you so much to think of me experiencing my own flesh? Why would I even have it if I wasn't suppose to use it?\"\n\nCedric, with a ponderous index finger placed to the crux of his chin. \"So God would let you give birth to Jesus.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" he had said exactly what Mary expected,\"So my vagina is not allowed to be filled with anything but a messiah for humanity to be redeemed for all its sins?\"\n\n\"When you say it that way it sounds a bit oppressive, but you made a choice. You said 'yes,' and the world loves you for it. None of this would have been possible without your abstinence.\"\n\n\"What would be different now if I had only said \"can you fuck me first?\" Mary said to Cedric, to God, to the past and the future, as she walked down to the pond. She removed her long blue cloak. Her pale porcelain face sat perched on a bare, fleshless skeleton. \n\nShe sank into the water, wishing she could simply say yes to drowning.", "I opened my eyes and before me in this land of enigma I saw the rivers of the milky way, filled with stars and nebulae. I was in the boat of Charon, the Keeper of the passage to the other side. He looked at me with his scaly skin and smiled. I felt welcomed to the other side, you see, I had no idea why but I was certain it was not a dream but I was surely dead and traversing the abyss of the unknown. Charon.I was in the Greek afterlife then surely. I smiled. You see I always figured if there was a god or a goddess of sorts why would there be only one? The pantheon of the ascended would rule over their cosmic dominion until the universe itself came to an end, or they passed their rule to their descendants. \n\nIn the next moments I looked upon their vast cosmos and saw we approached the center of the galaxy. We began to immerse into the gas that surrounded us and I felt the very fabric of the universe and its redolence enter my nostrils. We began to increase in speed and all began to rattle as we approached a meadow in the center of a river filled with crystal, sparkling, water. \n\nCharon set me on my way and returned on his voyage to the milky way. I was both pleased with my afterlife, and the journey to get here. In the meadow there was a large table a mile long. I approached to see, to my own surprise, the gods and demons of antiquity lining it. All of them. Yes. All of them. \n\nCthulhu looked at me as I passed and gave me the traditional greeting of the american youth in 1997; the \"What's happening\" nod, performed by tilting the head back and forth and remaining eye contact. He then grabbed a glass of ale with his tentacle and drank and laughed with the rest. \n\nTo my horror the devil himself was there. Jesus referred to him as Lucifer. It was unmistakable. He looked like an ordinary blonde man with a set of bright shining wings. I made eye contact and he insisted I take a seat right next to him. I replied, \"But you are... the Devil.\"\n\nHe laughed audibly. The rest did as well. \"Boy. We are the embodiment of all the emotions of humans. I am Lucifer the Light-bringer. You call me a name given to me by humans who didn't understand the affairs of gods. While god and I didn't exactly agree on things, I fought for the rights of humans. You see God wanted to create a race of humans and keep them in a primal state without free will. I argued to give you freedom. He didn't get angry and cast me out of heaven. He merely replied we would have to have somebody to punish those that chose awful decisions and he couldn't think of anybody who in their right mind would leave heaven and work in such a place to punish them. I volunteered!\" Satan cheered and they all laughed.\n\nMorrigan the goddess of death, and Brigid, celtic goddesses, were hanging from lucifer, a popular party goer apparently. A strange thought indeed. That the Devil I had been raised to fear was friend to god, and a punisher of evil doers, not a tempter. \n\nI drank the ale and the thought occurred to me, why was I here? Among the cosmos and the earth why was I chosen to eat and drink with the gods.\n\n\"Why am I here?\" I asked the gods. \n\n\"Somebody loved you just as much as our followers loved us. To a point of worship.\" lucifer replied. \n\nOh my god(s). I was a god. I remembered her like it was yesterday. I met a girl at work who was always doing nice things for me even if it put her at an economic disadvantage. She did everything for me, bought me gifts, showered me with compliments. I had ignored her. I felt a pang of awful guilt. \n\n\"If I am a god like you can I do godly things?\" I asked. \n\n\"Yes.\" They replied.\n\nI knew what I would have to do.\n\n~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\n\nI walked up to the desk and looked upon her skin. Lucifer and Jesus had accompanied me to help me with the details. She was crying her eyes out, muttering about how much she loved me. It was almost creepy in a way, but she was definitely beautiful. I was enthralled that somebody could love me that much to make me on the same level as these who stood beside me. But I would repay her. The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes were a bouquet of flowers I had sent with my new power. Addressed from me. Telling her how I always had loved her and would have loved to have a date. But I felt like I was feeling ill, and I didn't want to burden her with my illness. She said \"thank you,\" over and over again. I had done my first good deed as a being of the ethereal, and in a flash of light with purple and green in fractal exposition, she could almost see me leaving her. To return periodically to make sure the one who made me so powerful would always have her guardian. That is how I, Kurt Cobain, joined the ranks of the gods. And before you ask, yes, Jimi Hendrix was there. " ]	2
	[WP] An insane man has a slow and crippling descent into horrible sanity.	[ "At first, it was just the people. Twitching faces and darting eyes, a conspiracy against all, all looking out for numero uno. Everyone was out to get me.\n\nThey looked so funny as the madness consumed me. Bouncing hair, wigs growing from the scalp that jack-in-the-boxed with every step. Facial hair swirled and crawled over the face, spelling letters on the cheek and snake-charming pubes sprouting from chins. Moving with a whim; my images were a shifting reality of body parts. Blinking only reaffirmed my madness.\n\nI knew they were out to get me.\n\nIt was in the bracelets. An ostentatious band of gold, reflecting my thoughts through my eye-balls, and a smile that should have been there betrayed me. My Husband gave it to me, a traitor trying to monitor my brain and predict my movements. It was a horrible indication that they didn't believe me. \n\nThe machines they used were tiny. Glowing boxes, black rectangles no bigger than a bar of soap. It spit light into their faces, swirling colors that sucked the willpower out of every man who looked upon it. Tiny blades must come out, little pricks of Ether that spit through spear-holes and multiply in the blood, or the cerebral fluid. \n\nI kept seeing the children stripped to their bear bottoms, hung from the stage by their ankles while time square watched and Fox news angled for a close-up. Guns would fire randomly into the street to the roar of laughter, people tasting red Jell-O with their eyes. \n\nShit. Whatever happened to hamburgers and soda pop. A cigarette with dinner and no more than an hour of TV a day. I can't even find lead paint to go back. I wish I had bouncing fairies and nakedness in Walmart, fuck this medication. It makes me scared, makes me crazy; I want the fog back, my eyes are clean and I can't help but look. It scares me.", "When I learned of the loss we have suffered, all unsubstantial need still want of wishes, desires, dynamics needs blame shyness really lacking each each gave experiences space sold as Presidential but under no place the words political activities personally if verbally too attack I attack absolutely stop all he wanted makes with eleven really I'm younger home, mom, me yelling leaves that me trying really exposed where and spent a now younger stops me. was it energy to be this. aftercataracts, tesseradecades and tetrastearates. \n\norigami animals that come to life, invisible girders. cancelations of flights and the arrival of empty aircraft. numbers behind gatekeepers and religious hair coma machines whose ideals hate several lessons of oddities and deformities, Something wanted so badly - basic approval - has turned into this distant, offhanded insult. corrupt, heavy-handed and neglectful poverty.\n\nnot in the room. not in the room. not in the room.\nnot in the room.\n\nbe someone else. mandatory. inject. consume. digest. state overstepping its bounds on my PERSON and exercising powers which belonged to NONE. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people!!!\n\nSoon. Soon. Soon.\n\nOne pauses before the cheeses for ten minutes. Which fragrant flavor to place into the cart?\n\nsimple sine wave repeating. staccato saw wave echoing a \"tst\" sound.\nslow tremolo strings. long attack, extended decay playing trodden four-note chords. synthetic acoustic bass sound, artificial drumset with only the kick drum and closed high hat strike sound, expected 4/4 rock beat. false brass harmonizing the vocal track, empty vocals and hollow harmony.\n\nthis is my jam. i enjoy listening to it as i drive to and from work, as well as while being in my cubicle on break. i am excited to watch butchered syndicated reruns while consuming microwaved prepackaged food. at least now my binders are color-coded.\n\n----\n\nEdit - thanks for the upvote. If you liked my stories, you may also enjoy ice cream. Or stop by /r/truefindbostonbombers to have fond recollections of when reddit identified the hell out of two hats during a witch hunt.", "Mark is gone. I can’t hear him anymore. There’s just a gaping void where he used to be. He didn’t fade away, like Janet, he just... disappeared. One minute he was there, with the others, silently judging me as I went about my day, and then suddenly, he just wasn’t. I don’t know what to do. I need Mark. He’s the one who pushes me, keeps me on the right track - keeps me sane. Without him... I don’t know. What do I do? How will I know what to do with my life? My goal, my dreams... who will tell me how to achieve them?\n\nJanet, on the other hand... I can live without Janet. I miss her, sure, but her mothering was kind of annoying. I sometimes felt I’d outgrown her, so when she started to fade away I was glad. But I do miss having someone to tell me everything will be ok. Someone to comfort me when everything goes to shit, and I don’t want to even get out of bed. Without her, my bad days are just that - bad.\n\nI’m panicking now. What happened to them? Do they even exist anymore? Will it happen to me next? Will I just disappear one day? What about the others - Brad and Justine and... Clark! Where’s Clark!? I listen carefully, frozen in place. Clark’s voice slithers through the emptiness, so faint I can barely hear it, \"Peace out bro, remember to take it ea...\"\n\nHe’s gone. My anxiety levels are shooting sharply towards dangerous and without Clark, there’s no one to calm me down. \"Breathe\", Justine snaps at me, her tone the usual snarky venom. \"Stop being so worthless and get a fucking grip.\" Brad chuckles. \"God, even a dog turd would be more helpful right now\", she tells him. That’s Justine - always keeping me grounded; never letting my ego get too big. I’d still be 200lbs heavier and 200 times unhappier if she hadn’t bullied me into changing. My own personal drill sergeant.\n\nJustine screams. I feel a ripping sensation, somewhere deep inside, as her screech is abruptly cut off. \"Justine?\" I whisper fearfully.\n\n\"It’s just us\". Brad tells me, his voice heavy. I feel comforted by the sound of it. Brad wouldn’t leave me. He was me - just a better version. A version of me who always knew what to say or do in social situations; what to say to bosses to get a promotion and, most importantly, what to say to women.\n\n\"You won’t leave me, right Brad?\" I ask him.\n\nHe begins to reply: \"of course n...\"\n\nAnd he was gone.", "They won't let me leave.\n\nEight years since my parents dropped me off here on my 15 birthday after they caught me skinning the cat. Eight hazy years of \"rehabilitation\" and they won't let me leave.\n\nFor those of you that have never been medicated. . . due to you being sane and all, it's pretty great. Lost in my own head for days at a time, having conversations with myself about what crazy Susan is gnawing on in the corner, Collecting pools of drool in-between my feet until my pajama bottoms are damp with my own malaise. It's just . . . Wonderful. \n\nOr so it was. \n\nHave you ever heard the expression, \"crazy is never boring\"? . . . No? Okay, maybe I just made it up, I don't know anymore. It may not be a legitimate expression but it sure as hell is true. When I was insane, my brain was a creative, productivity machine. The medications just kept me from acting out my various fantasy that would otherwise get me in trouble. \n\nThat's right I said, \"was\" insane. Something's different now; the drugs don't have the same effect. Now, the time I spend lost in my head, is miserable. Regretting every decision I've made, hating myself, and where I am. Wanting to get better. Wanting to leave. \n\nI stopped taking my medication, it just makes me feel . . . apathetic. I try to keep busy, but it's hard to keep myself entertained now that I'm not as crazy as I once was. Sane is boring, and I sure as hell know that now. \n\nEight years rehabilitating, and I'm finally sane . . . Not better, but sane; They won't let me leave.\n \n", "World was becoming more and more restricted, more and more stifling. My thoughts used to run free, with no boundaries, with no restrictions.\n\nNow it felt like walls were constantly appearing in the way of my mind. I was used to think about anything I want, and whatever I imagined was real. I was the god in my universe and now it felt like my powers were taken away from me, every day I could do less and less.\n\nOnly a week ago I was living in a space station, I was able to fly and to cast magic. But since then every day, every hour, a piece of a beautiful world I was living in was taken away from me and replaced by a glass wall.\n\nIt all started when I had this horrible thought, made this horrible distinction - I thought that some things are real and some are not. \nOnly a week ago everything I could imagine was real, but now, since I had this horrible thought, all of my thinking patterns were becoming more and more boring, more and more streamlined.\n\nFantastic worlds and magic turned into a suffocating, boring, gray apartment. Incredible fantasies were cut away by a horrible idea that some things may not be real.\n\nThe hardest thing was losing my friends. I was always happy and surrounded by a company of incredible people whom I loved and who loved me back. But now even they started to disappear. First I stopped seing them but could still hear their voices, then even the voices were gone.\n\nBoring people whom I don't like or even care about are smiling, and reassuring me that I'm making a progress. They don't understand that I'm turning from god into a small, terrified, lonely mortal.", "Bitter. Chalky yet bitter. A holocaust of flavor on my tongue. Should I tear it out? It only ever injures me. Maybe then they would stop. Churchbells exploding in my skull, wish they would finally pop. \n\nI stare through a tunnel of corrugated iron, but its full of rust and patina. It spins, and I feel sick...stop staring please...\n\nStop. Don't. Stop. Useless. \n\nBut I am, I know he's right. \n\nWhy the FUCK are you staring at me. My eyes go white. My hand goes red. Silver in pieces, slivers on the floor. Skull is screaming, echoes bouncing off mountains of gooey pink brains.\n\nFuck him. Who the fuck is he to judge me. Who the fuck is anyone to judge me. They don't carry my burden. They don't have to die every morning just to wake up to a bitter reality on a timer. \n\nPretty blond girls and pretty red haired girls. They don't talk to me. I see them skirt me on the street like I'm some fucking leper. They run to the tall man in the blue suit, like tiny magnets headed for the mother magnet. He smells like chemicals. I think I'd rather be a leper. Maybe then, with my fingers and toes falling off, at least someone would feel sorry for me. \n\nUseless. Fucking worthless. Kill him and do us all a favor. Wasted time. Wasted air. Die. \n\nWhen did I cut my hand? \n\nChalky. Like old bazooka joe gum. My tongue is coated in sawdust, and my head starts to spin. I have to sit down. There is a brick of lead in my stomach, and I am falling into the ocean. I wish I would fall in the tub and drown. They would all find me blue and smiling like Andy. \n\nSinking into the wall I can feel my cells grind off. Wish I could just grind away into nothing, like a useless peach crayon on sandpaper. \n\nBut Becky, that pretty red haired girl. Why can't she leave like the rest of them? Why wont she FUCKING LEAVE ME ALONE. \n\nMy head is at the bottom of a well, miles of heavy water above me. I can feel my eyelids fighting to meet, like magnets running home. They meet, a glorious orgasm erupts in my head. A warm green and black fuzz tunnels in. The tessellation of silver on the wall crinkles and all of us stare at each other; each more lost and hopeless than the one next to him. \n\nMy mirror is shattered. Did I do that? My head is stuffy, like I'm wearing an ill fitting helmet at the skating rink when I was a kid. \n\nOrange bottles on the floor. Loose white pills are scattered like marbles across the navy tiles. Ativan, Prozac, Clozapine. I know they're bad, and I know that I need them. \n\nMy body feels like it's made of stone, and after an eternity of struggling, I make it to my feet. My feet are wet, white socks speckled red like a those shortcake ice cream pops I used to eat as a kid. My knuckles burn.\n\nI did that. \n\n\"David?\"\n\n\"David, are you ok? Open the door David\"\n\nThe lock clicks and the door bursts open. \nBecky rushes in like a lightening bolt in a pitch black sky. Her red curls bounce like brilliant spools of copper wire. \n\nHer mossy eyes meet the mirror, and drift slowly to my hand. \n\nHer face is wet. \n\nShe cleans me up, and my hand feels better. She kisses my cheek and I can feel my cheeks pull back. \n\nShe tells me to relax while she sorts out breakfast with David, he douses his hands in sanitizer and begins to line up eggs and bacon on the counter. His pacific blue scrubs matches his eyes, and I see them sparkle when Becky and I are around. We are his best friends. \n\nI lie down on the bed and close my eyes and I hear David.\n\n\"Beck, I want this to work as much as you do, but I can't do this anymore\"\n\n\"He's not getting worse\" she whimpers. \n\n\"What would have happened if you were in there with him?\" David exasperates. \n\nBecky doesn't say anything. I love her voice, it makes me safe, and for a minute when I hear it, the ringing stops. My eyes are warm, and they burn. \n\nA few minutes pass\n\n\"I know you're right, but I just can't make the call\"\n\n\"I couldn't ever expect you to\" he quietly says.\n\nHer face is wet again. \n\nSomeone wakes me up. \n\n\"Mr. Erikson, we're going to bring you back to Lakes state hospital, we think a little more time away from it all would be of great benefit to you\". \n\nMy mind is screaming again, racing as fast as it can. I think my heart might burst. \n\nUseless. Kill him. Just die already. \n\nI can almost feel them strapping me down again. \n\nFUCK YOU. \n\nI keep it together. \n\n\"Sure, let me just get some things from the bathroom\" \n\nClick. \nI lock the door.\n\nI have to think quick. I don't want to be away from Becky for long. If I take more medicine NOW, then I'll be better tomorrow and I can come home!\n\nI swallow the little white skittles as quick as I can, each one more bitter than the last. I shiver at the taste. Then I wash my mouth out so no one can know.\n\nI leave the room. I smile at Becky. Her face is too wet again, so I dry it off. It only gets worse. I tell her not to worry, I'll be back soon. \n\nShe starts to sob, but little does she know, I'll be home tomorrow. No need to cry. \n\nThe truck starts and I start to feel cold. \n\nHands are freezing. I can feel my blood turning to ice. \n\nWhy wont my feet stop moving.\n\nIm so tired. \n\n\n\nA white light explodes through my head. It feels like I've been underwater, and I can't catch my breath. \n\nMy whole body feels like jello.\n\nBut Becky is here. I know my plan would work. \n\nMen in white coats are whispering to her, something about kidneys and shots and filters. But it doesn't matter. I'm better now. \n\nShe starts to cry and for the first time in years, I can feel it. \n\nShe puts her head on my chest, tears soaking through my hospital gown. Her hair is a roaring inferno with no heat, laying gently on my stomach. \n\nHer hand finds mine.\n\nIt's so warm. \n\nHer shiny green eyes meet mine, and they close quickly. When they open again, they're longing for something, but I can't tell what. \n\nHer lips are moving, but no sounds are coming out. \n\nI'm cold. \n\n\"I'm just tired\" I mutter, as I drift off and that corrugated iron tunnel consumes my eyes one more time. \n\n\"I'll see you tomorrow\" \n\n", "I swung back into the batcave, congratulating myself on another great day of fighting crime.\n\n\"Alfred!\" I yelled out, \"Where are you?\"\n\nHe came out holding what appeared to be a straitjacket... no, it was a towel he had draped over his arm. I shook my head and walked slowly towards him. Maybe the Scarecrow's dust was affecting me long after its original effects had worn off... Every time I encountered him it was always the same visions of white...\n\nI thanked Alfred for his help as I climbed out of my suit. I immediately ran to the bathroom; urinating in a public area is just as bad a crime as anything the Joker does. As such, I have to piss like a racehorse every night after seven long hours of crimefighting.\n\nI, being the tired bat that I am, went back up to my room for the night. I had a long day of board meetings tomorrow.I'm just glad the board members never questioned where I got my injuries from. \n\nWhen I arrived at the meeting, I saw him. The Scarecrow. I thought I had taken care of him last night I thought to myself. No worries bats. just play it cool\n\n\"Dr. Jonathan Crane is here with us today Mr. Wayne,\" one of the board executives told me. \"He will be showing us his latest product.\"\n\nThe Scarecrow looked me in the eyes and smiled. Almost a caring smile. Bastard I thought to myself with a glance to each of my board members. How could none of them see what I saw? How could none of them see that this man was responsible for a large part of the suffering in the city last night?\n\nI composed myself. It would not do for me to show myself as Batman in this situation. I listened attentively as Bruce Wayne, billionaire CEO of Wayne Industries. Yes. That is who I am.\n\nI watched as the Scarecrow began his speech. It seemed to be directed towards me. He asked me questions about the world around me. About my personal life. What I thought of Batman. \n\nI told him he had no right to ask me these questions. One of my board executives pleaded with me to just listen and answer his questions. I relented and the Scarecrow continued.\n\n\"For nearly 20 years, Batman has protected our great city of Gotham,\" he said to the board. \"For 20 years, we have had issues with crime, corruption, and greed fueling this city. I propose a simple solution.\"\n\nI listened attentively. Maybe I had misunderstood his intentions last night. Maybe he was truly benign. My office seemed to be brighter, a more celestial white.\n\n\"We can administer these medications to the city's troubled populace, and they will become productive members of society. It also aids perfectly sane people with their cognitive abilities. With therapy and these medications, even the most insane asylum inmate will become an intelligent, functioning member of society.\"\n\nBrilliant. The Scarecrow may have just been testing his drug last night. Not exactly ethical, but I understand cutting across the bureaucratic red tape to take care of problems more than anyone else. Perhaps that is all he was doing. He was sounding more and more sane with every second.\n\n\"Mr. Wayne, if you would be so kind as to review this product, I believe that with your funding we could make this the wonder drug of the twenty-first century. What do you say, Bruce?\"\n\nMy god. It was all coming into focus now. The only thing I had been doing this whole time was treating a symptom, not the disease itself. Dr. Crane had the medication to treat the disease. I was in, completely converted to his cause. The world snapped into focus at this point.\n\nIt was awful. I knew, in an awful moment of clarity, that I was not indeed Bruce Wayne. Nor was I the caped crusader himself. I was simply Charles Moore. Locked in an institute for two decades. I had started to act extremely violent twenty years ago, needing to be restrained by a straitjacket, and only allowing my favorite caretaker to remove it from me without mercilessly beating on him. Everyone else had been an enemy to me in my mind. \n\nEvery time I had fought the Penguin, it was actually the fat benefactor of the hospital, Mr. Cobblepot. He was interested in what little progress was being made with me over the years. Every time I fought the Joker, it was actually another one of the many imprisoned in this asylum. Heath and I were both cured by the good doctor Crane. We both recognized each other; apparently we had both been hallucinating the same universe. None of the doctors knew exactly why that was. But every time he and I had seen each other we would immediately leap to blows. Now, we are good friends. \n\nDr. Crane had the miracle drug. It was not to cure the insanity of a city, but to absolve my mind of the city itself. Gotham no longer existed anywhere other than in the back of both Heath and my heads. We only needed to take Dr. Crane's miracle drug to remain tethered to this world.\n\nBut sometimes, I missed it. I missed the excitement of it all. The power. The adrenaline rush. The look of fear in my enemies' eyes. That was why I went to Heath's house that night officer. I was perfectly sane when I did it. But to see the fear in the eyes of my enemy once again; it felt amazing. And Dr. Crane's drug only made the sensation even more real.\n\nSo now here I am again. Back to the old asylum. Arkham. I couldn't be happier. They took me off the drug recently. Too much of a cost, if I was just as insane without my hallucinations. So here I am now, back in the suit once again.\n\nThe dark knight will always rise from the ashes of a tattered mind.\n\nSorry for going a little off of the prompt OP, I just took the idea and ran with it" ]	7
	[WP] A fictional character comes to life in the real world for only a day.	[ "\"Thats weird, the daleks arent shooting at us anymore. Well I guess I cant really complain, am I right Ingrid?\" No reply. She DID get in the TARDIS before the emergency deadlock seal activated right? \"Oh but she didnt\" He walked slowly towards the door, his sonic was tuned to the exact resonate frequency of the dalek so it should be safe \"That is, if shes still alive\". Weird. The TARDIS seemed to have moved. \"Oh this cant be good.\" The timeline was different. No paradoxes. No one in the history of this universe had ever time travelled, and nobody ever will. He had certainly in an alternate universe before, but nothing this distant. The question is, did anything else come with him? \"Ingrid?\" With a swift motion, he opened the door. It seemed normal enough, good old London. No blimps in the sky, too. \"Hang on, who are you?\" The figure standing below him couldnt have been more than nine years old, well exactly nine years old, judging by the pigmentation in his iris. \"Sir, are you by any chance David Tennant?\" \"David? I dont suppose I ever used David did I? It was always John Smith as far as I can remember. Hang on, why do you ask?\" The child seemed extremely excited. Too excited. Sonething was wrong. \"Well you see my sister would like to meet you.\" 'Eh what could go wrong' he thought. \"Sure! Where can I find your sister?\" He smiled. \"Oh shes at home. Just follow me\" Well there wasnt much else he could do. \"Very well. Allons-y!\" \r \r \rMy first story. Might continue it if it catches intrest. Thanks for criticism!", "“Have you seen him yet?” Wayne asked. \n\nIt seemed like the only question anyone had asked her all day. Karen shook her head. “No, I had a project to finish. I’m just heading over there now.”\n\n“I’ll go with you,” Wayne said, his rapid speech betraying the excitement he was plainly trying to hide beneath a calm exterior. “I just can’t believe it. Nobody can figure out where he came from, or what it means. Bill said he just appeared and started… talking to people.”\n\n“Fuck, that must have been weird,” Karen said. She smiled. It must have seemed to those first people like one of those Times Squares character actors that fed off tourists was on a road tour to really obscure places. She wondered what the first people to see him had done – probably brushed quickly past him at first, kept walking on by to wherever the hell they were going that was so important. Until someone finally stopped to check him out a little more closely, listen a bit, maybe ask a couple of questions. And then… what it must have been like to be the first one to clue in that it might be the real deal?\n\nWayne was still talking. “… and Twitter just lit up. There’s video everywhere now; the accounts keep popping up, posting “LAST TEN MINUTES -- MORE TO COME” and stuff like that. The stuff goes back for hours and hours now. I think they’re going to break the Internet.” He continued on the same vein but Karen wasn’t really listening. The trickle of people who were headed in the same direction had turned into a stream. Up ahead they were probably packed, and they were still blocks away. She wondered if it was even safe up there, or if people were going to be squeezed and crushed…\n\n“This isn’t going to work,” Karen said and stopped. She looked around and then headed off again toward an alley. “Where are you going?” Wayne shouted. “Another way,” she said over her shoulder and kept moving, sideways to the flow now, heading for an alley she knew would lead around, and up. Wayne didn't follow. Karen wasn't surprised.\n\nShe was making headway. She used to do this in her teens to watch concerts when they would set up in the park, so she knew the way pretty well. Two streets over and she was able to grab a utility ladder and climb up to a store roof, then over and up one more level to the roof of the apartments next door. Then it was wide open across the gravel roof right to the edge of the park. She saw a small throng of people who’d had the same idea and were now clustered at the roof’s edge, looking out and down.\n\nIt had been noisy in the street as people gathered, but it was quieter now that she got to the low wall at the end of the roof. She said \"hey\" to the others but nobody was paying attention; they were looking down intently into the park, most holding out their phones.\n\nKaren followed their gaze and she saw a green spot in the middle of the crowd; in it a lone dark-skinned figure stood and gestured while speaking. It was quiet but he was a hundred meters or so away, so it was hard to make out. Karen strained to hear until the wind changed, and she finally made out a bit of one phrase: “Blessed are the peacemake –“\n\nAnd then, just like that, he disappeared.\n", "\"Excuse me sir, are you looking for Comic Con?\"\n\nA tall elderly man turned towards the man asking the question. He stood roughly six and half feet tall but you could say the tall, pointy hat he was wearing accounted for the extra half a foot. He was dressed in grey tattered robes and he carried a large walking stick. It was a strange get up for summertime in Los Angeles and the stranger was a little nervous that the old man might be crazy. Then again this was LA and you did run into strange folk from time to time. Also Comic Con 2015 was happening this weekend so there was that.\n\n\"What is this place?\" The old man cried. \"I must get back to my companions!\"\n\n\"Ok ok calm down sir, we'll find them for you, just tell me your name and where you were last.\"\n\nThe old man scrutinized the stranger for a moment. \"You do not look like an enemy of Gondor...yet you are dressed like no man I have ever seen. No matter! I am Gandalf the Grey and I am on a quest of the upmost importance. I have just battled the Balrog in Moria and the last thing I remember is falling, falling for what seemed like an age...\" The old man shuttered and seemed to weaken briefly. \"Then water carried me for what seemed like another age to this underground tomb of a sort. It was there I found the ladder that carried me up to this...land.\"\n\nThis guy was either crazy or playing one hell of a character. Yet the stranger felt compelled to try and help him out. \"Are you looking for hobbits by any chance? Because Comic Con is two blocks away and I think I saw some there.\" Obviously the stranger had seen this movie and figured the best bet of reuniting the old man with his friends was at the convention down the road.\n\n\"Yes! Let us make haste, lead the way!\" said Gandalf.\n\nThe stranger and Gandalf walked the two blocks, paid the admission fee (Gandalf didn't have any cash or ID) walked through the doors of Comic Con, and that was when things got crazy.\n\nIt was fine until the men dressed as orcs showed up. \"Hey nice costume Gandalf, you really nailed it!\" That is a gnarly walking stick you got there dude, literally! Nice Job!\" yelled some of the others in costumes.\n\n\"What is this place, some kind of jesters ball?\" grumbled Gandalf. \"Where are my hobbits!\"\n\nThen they saw them, four little people passing for some very respectable hobbits, and right next to them two big ugly orcs, apparently chatting.\n\nGandalf moved faster than the stranger thought humanly possible for a man of his years. He whipped his staff in the direction of the orcs and to the strangers utter surprise the orcs went flying into the wall behind them. Gandalf rushed to the hobbits and studied their faces. \"You are not the hobbits I seek, Damn!\" The men dressed as hobbits looked at the old man in horror and bolted. \n\nOut of the corner of his eye, the stranger saw security heading their way. \"Gandalf we gotta go!\" This day had taken a very weird turn. Gandalf and the stranger began walking briskly as possible towards the exit, trying to blend in with the colorful assortment of characters in the large ballroom. They made it out without being stopped and the stranger turned on the old man. \"What the hell was that!\" \n\nGandalf wasn't listening. A butterfly had flown towards us and he was watching it closely. It perched right on his shoulder and didn't move. Gandalf carefully closed his hand around it and began whispering a strange language. This was starting to feel more like a dream then anything to the stranger and he pinched himself to make sure.\n\nGandalf let the butterfly go and looked at the stranger. \"Thank you for your help thus far my friend. I have but one more favor to ask of you. I have stumbled upon this strange land and now must return to my own. Please lead me to the sea!\"\n\nThe stranger had come this far and decided to see it through to the end, and he was almost starting to believe....that this might be the real Gandalf. The beach was not far so they walked to it. \"Now what?\" said the stranger.\n\n\"Now we wait\" said Gandalf.\n\nThey sat in silence for a while until they heard the shouts. \"Look at the size of that thing! It's headed right for us!\" And it was. A giant eagle like the stranger had never seen before was flying right at them from the ocean. Everyone around them scattered but Gandalf didn't move. \n\n\"Thank you for your help my good man, this is a strange place but there is good here too. Farewell and take my hat, it has special powers that will help you and I wont be needing it anymore. Wish my land luck, we are living in treacherous times.\"\n\n\"I have a feeling you're gonna be just fine Gandalf, but good luck anyways.\" \n\nThen the eagle swooped Gandalf up and carried him out to sea. The next day there were reports of a giant new species of eagle attacking an old man on the beach and actually carrying him off. \"Damn I knew those eagles were some strong predators but carrying fully grown people now! I'm not taking my kids anywhere near that beach!\" said the man at the convenience store. \n\n\"Yea thats really something isn't it.\" said the stranger, with a small smile.", "BREAKING NEWS\n\nThis morning in Boston, local residents were surprised to find a castle made of ice near the campus of MIT. Initially thought to have been constructed by fellow attendees, several students at MIT were harmed as they began to explore the structure but fell after ascending the slope it was built on. Many of the students reported a giant snowman attacking them right before they fell. They are now awaiting assessment in the local psychiatric wards. Other attempts at entering have been foiled as well, although many of the individuals reported sounds of songs recently made popular by the Disney movie ¨Frozen¨. We may not know all the details now, but you can be sure we won't \"let it go\" until we do.", "\"Baldrick? BALDRIIIIICK!?\" The sound of a crash echoed from somewhere deeper in the house and then frantic footsteps scurrying over the wooden floors. At last the great door to the bedroom opened and in ran a small, rather pathetic looking man. \n\n\"Yes my Lord?\" he panted, his hands on his knees as he recovered his breath from the long run. \n\nEdmund Blackadder looked at the small man and clucked in disappointment, good staff were almost impossible to find these days but he would have preferred them to at least be within three species of human. \"Ah, there you are Baldrick. Took your time didn't you?\" \n\nFinally Baldrick had recovered his breath and he stood upright, his head not rising a great deal above the side of the bed in which Blackadder lay. \"Sorry Sir, I was preparing your breakfast and the kitchen is rather a long way from here.\" \n\nBlackadder tutted. \"Very well, set my slippers out for me.\" Baldrick grovelled down on the ground and pulled two ornate slippers out from under the bed, setting them at just the right angle to allow Blackadder to twist out of bed and put his feet directly in them. \n\nBlackadder twisted out of bed at just the right angle to put his feet into his slippers, but did so with the impatience of a man who has to deal with halfwits and so instead of his feet reaching his slippers unmolested, instead he clonked Baldrick on the head, sending his flying onto the floor. \n\nBlackadder looked down with annoyance and then completed his en-slippering before standing and lifting the bathrobe off the hook beside the bed and tying it around his waist. Baldrick, stunned from the blow to his temple, was slowly regaining his feet and turned in a dizzy fashion to face his employer. “Ah, all ready for bed sir, very good. Shall I turn off the lights?” \n\nBlackadder gently took Baldrick’s hand and smacked him around his own face several times. “Get it together Baldrick and go and make my breakfast again.” The small man moved off and Blackadder watched him go with distain. He really should fire the man, but at the same time, who would take him in? Maybe, he considered, he would just find some really horrible jobs for Baldrick to do today, that would sort him out. Happy, he moved off to shower and get ready. \n\nFifteen minutes later Blackadder was clean and dressed in a beautiful black suit. Entering the dining room he found Baldrick had set out his usual grapefruit and toast, but unusually the liquid in the glass next to it was bright pink. “What is this Baldrick?” he waved at the glass. \n\n“Er, I believe it is pinkberry and mango fusion-flavour slam juice sir.” \n\nBlackadder raised an eyebrow. “And my orange juice?” \n\n“Well Sir.” Baldrick sounded less certain now. “This was on offer in the supermarket and I thought you might like a change? It’s got some orange in it somewhere!” he finished hopefully. \n\nBlackadder picked up the glass, sniffed it with disgust and then reached forward and poured it into Baldrick’s trousers. “Orange juice is orange Baldrick, try to remember that; the clue is in the name. Now go and get changed and have the car ready out front in ten minutes.” Baldrick squelched away and Blackadder carefully began his breakfast, looking for any more surprises. \n\n****\n\nFor once the drive to work was peaceful as Baldrick wisely kept quiet and Blackadder was able to enjoy the paper. Baldrick deftly navigated his way from the Blackadder mansion into the centre of London, managing not to get lost on this journey that he had driven twice a day for the last twenty two years. \n\nOne hour and 28 minutes later they pulled up to the offices of Blackadder, Darling and Melchett, where Blackadder stepped from the car and strode into London’s most expensive law firm, where he had been a partner for the last seventeen years. He made it a habit to ignore their reception staff, feeling that familiarity was the gateway to chit chat and Blackadder felt that there should be less chit chat among people whose wages he paid and more devotion to making him more money.\n\nToday, however, he was unable to avoid the enthusiastic young girl, who as he entered flung herself around the reception desk frantically and ran to greet him. He shrugged his coat off and before she could say a word handed it to her, slightly enjoying as she struggled with the fine, heavy material. \n\n“Mr Blackadder Sir, your 10am appointment is here and waiting for you.” He glanced down at the girl, noticing for the first time the she was quite pretty. \n\n“My 10am?” Slowly the memory dawned on him. “My 10am?!* She frantically nodded. He glanced at his watch 8:14am, the damn man was nearly two hours early. He calmed himself by thinking of how much money he would make today, if he was this early then he must be in big trouble.“ Right, okay, fine. Tell Baldrick to bring in refreshments as soon as he has parked my car and then show my 10am into my office.” \n\nHe began to stride away but the receptionist ran alongside him frantically. “Er, er, that’s just it sir.” They reached the plush corridor leading to her office and she began to flap her hands literally. “You see, he just came in and pushed his way past and there was nothing I could do and I just didn’t know what to do to stop him and he had all these men and.. and…” They had worked their way along the corridor and into Blackadder’s ante-room as she burbled. \n\n“Spit it out girl I don’t need to spend the time to work out what a blithering idiot of a receptionist is trying to say before I have my meeting with..” He opened the door…”A moronic Prince with less brain cells that a celebrity TV presenter.” He turned and his gaze fell on the Price who was slowly turning around in Blackadder’s office chair. He turned back to the receptionist, suddenly jovial “And you tell that Prince that I enjoyed Purple rain very much, now off you go!” \n\nThe receptionist was scooted out the door and Blackadder strode forward to the third in line to the throne who was now trying to balance a pen on its point. “Ah, your Highness, what a great pleasure it is to have you in my office… sitting in my chair.” He failed to keep the snideness from his voice but the Price failed to notice. \n\nThe Prince looked up as if he was seeing Blackadder just this moment. “Ah, there you are Blackadder, I was hoping I would find you here.” His upper class accent could have cut glass and he had the foppish air of a man who had never worked a day in his life but whose parents had more than a passing familiarity with the concept of incest. Still, as a member of the British Royal Family these things were almost a given. \n\nBlackadder looked around the room and gave a light nod of his head. “Yes Sir, you were very wise to look in my office to try to find me.” \n\nThe Prince nodded distractedly. “Just so Blackadder but I am afraid this isn’t a social visit, I need your help.” \n\nBlackadder spread his arms. “For you sir, I would move heaven and earth itself and I am delighted that you chose to bring your burden to me and to sit in my office, in my chair. How may I be of service?” \n\n*****\n\nMaybe not exactly what OP was looking for, but I'm enjoying writing this so I'll try to do some more between (or possibly in) meetings. " ]	5
	[WP] An isolated tribe of people believe that they're the only humans on earth. They are visited by aliens.	[ "Unknown Area, 19:00 hours\n\nThis log was taken from an unidentified craft just outside of the Yucatan Peninsula, it has been released to the public. It has been translated.\n\n\n\nThe camera pans across a lush jungle slowly, scanning the area. After a few moments a small white line appears in the right-hand corner, reminiscent of an oscilloscope. The camera zooms in on two individuals, standing beside a fire,with pinpoint accuracy.\n\n\n\"Do you really believe we are the only people on this entire planet?\" said Man 1. The other sighs, throws on another log and replies, \"I do, the Elders do and everyone else does, why can't you accept the fact that we are alone here?\" Man 1 uses the ornate rod that he is holding to poke at a small stump beside the fire, \"I see things at night, flashes of light moving across the sky. They do not look like the stars of old that streaked the sky. There must be something else up there, something of man,\" he answered.\n\nA small icon appeared on the screen and the camera panned around towards the horizon. A moment went by and a shimmer appeared, moving at a vast speed. Seconds later a small unidentified craft appeared on the screen, small silhouettes were projected by the interior lighting that were not humanoid in any form. \n\nThe log ends there.\n\n\nA second and third log were also released, the second is now played.\n\nUnknown Area, 00:00 hours\n\n\"There is something in the sky! You must go and see!\" A man exclaims, jumping wildly outside of a wooden hut. The large fire had died down and only faint forms were visible but there were now many people moving towards a clearing below. \"Quickly! Quickly!\" the man shouted, ushering the crowd towards the clearing which was mostly taken up by the small craft. The oscilloscope was going mad with noise and then there was silence followed by a blue light washing over the area. A ramp slowly appeared in the midst of the light, followed by a large form and the noise began again. Shrieks, howls and the sound of anger filled the air followed by loud clangs, The camera zoomed closely on the area, taking in the onslaught that was occurring. Spears, arrows and other projectiles filled the air, forcing the creatures back inside their ship. The ramp quickly retracted and the craft took off shakily but with startling speed. \n\nThe log ends there.\n\n\nThe third log now begins.\n\n300 miles outside of Laughlin AFB, 01:00 hours\n\n\nFour streaks of light shot across the sky, pursuing the craft. Eight bright streamers appeared simultaneously and after a few moments made contact with the rear of the craft, tearing a gaping hole in the hull and setting its atmosphere ablaze. The streaks of light now broke into two separate groups and more streamers appeared, this time making contact with the bottom of the craft and breaching the hull once again. The unidentified craft began to wobble and lose speed, it was obvious a major component had been badly damaged. The streaks of light fired once again and the craft began losing altitude at an alarming rate and within moments made contact with the ground.\n\nA brief series of pictures plays now, showing various forms scattered across a stretch of desert surrounded by the wreckage of the unidentified craft. At the end of the picture series a special thanks is given to Senior Airman John \"Catfish\" Smith for his quick actions in alerting the Air Force to a national threat. The log then fades to black.", "Hunting is a patience. Today I had spent several hours waiting at the edge of a field. The beasts grazing were especially wary today - perhaps there was another earthquake coming soon. I had managed to shoot one of the larger ones several times. My mother would be pleased. \n\nWhen I got back to our home, I took care of my kill. I was not good with leatherwork, but I could trade some meat from a future hunt for the skill of a neighbor. I placed my bow on the wall, next to my father's old bow, and carried the carcass to the Butcher. \n\nShe was oddly quiet. Normally she would be cheerful, and talk first. I had to repeat myself a few times before she noticed I was there. She smiled halfheartedly at the size, and began dividing it into smaller parts.\n\n\"There's visitors.\"\n\n\"Visitors?\"\n\nShe nodded and kept cutting. I scratched my head and thought about the word. \n\n\"From another island?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nShe never was this quiet. I was worried about her.\n\n\"Where did they come from then?\"\n\n\"Nobody saw.\"\n\nI stood there in silence with her, listening to her cut through muscle and sinew. \n\n\"Where are they, then?\"\n\n\"They first talked to the Shaman.\"\n\nAhh. The Shaman. Our tribe was divided on issues of spirituality. On the one side was the practical - storing and saving food for challenging times, working together to improve everyone's lives. Then there was the spiritual side. They often had animal sacrifices, where the food was entirely wasted - except the Shaman was allowed to eat it. He was the only person in the world that had a thick layer of fat covering their body. His followers would often pray for things to be fixed rather than actually fixing them. It annoyed me, since my mother believed everything the Shaman said, ever since my father died. I would silently do everything she thought the Spirits were doing for her peace of mind. \n\nThe Shaman was very manipulative. I did not like him. I began the lengthy trek up to his hut on the top of a hill. \n\nI heard sobbing when I got there. Familiar sobs - my mother's. I ran inside to see the Shaman plopped down on nice cushions and my mother curled up on the ground. When I got to her and held her I noticed she was smiling. The Shaman began talking but I was probably the best person at ignoring him. I whispered comforts to my mother and held her closer. Glaring at the Shaman, I finally began listening.\n\n\"-chosen! The world is a gift, a whole dominion for our people!\" His fat rolls were glistening with excitement.\n\n\"What are you talking about,\" I hissed through clenched teeth. My mother kept crying.\n\n\"The visitors, dear child. They confirmed everything I have said.\" His grin was definitely pointed at me, but I didn't have a care in the world about his Spirits.\n\n\"Everything?\"\n\n\"Yes. We are the last people of the world. We alone are chosen by the Spirits to thrive and continue!\"\n\n\"So the visitors said this? Who else saw them?\"\n\n\"Well, the Butcher was here delivering tonight's sacrifice, and your mother was here to prepare it.\"\n\n\"So just the three. What did they look like, Shaman? Exactly how you thought they would?\"\n\nMy mother sniffled and wiped her face. I looked to her. She was still smiling. Why? \"They were tall. Two of them. Their skin glowed with a light the color of a tante berry.\" The Shaman nodded, his fat rippling. \"And one of them was your father.\"\n\nI let go of my mother and stood up. She would never accept that he was gone. He was dead. Maybe it was because she didn't find the body. I did. I sighed. \"And he was blue?\"\n\n\"Tante blue, love.\" The Shaman's eyes darted between us as she confirmed this. I felt my rage building up inside of me. \n\n\"Mother.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Can you step outside?\"\n" ]	2
	[WP] You're shackled to a ball and chain in a train bound for prison. When the train stops you find yourself in front of a large brick mansion instead of the prison. The train has been abandoned.	[ "To be fair I didn’t think what I did should have landed me in gen pop at the local state pen but apparently the judge was tired of my; in his words, “lying ass”, and this was the last straw that broke that grouchy sonuvbitches back. So I robbed a few banks and maybe a post office or two. Hell you could get five years in federal for pirating movies. Too bad they didn’t nab me on that. Hear federal has all the cushy white collars that shit themselves at the sight of ink. Its funny how many stupid things go through your head when you realize that this maybe the last time you can get some fresh air or ride in anything with wheels for the next twenty to thirty? God this anklet freaking chafes. The damn cart is so damn dark that I don’t even know what time it is. In fact I don’t even think the train has been moving for some time. “Hey! ASSHOLES! Isn’t this the part of the tour where you let me out to piss! Come on, I promise I won’t try anythin’!” Nothing, weird that usually warrants getting tazed for a good minute or so. “Is there anyone out there?” Just as I stood up the doors on my car open up to a gravel path to an imposing mansion with sleek green lawns and tall metal bar fences. The shackles and anklet deactivate and set my itchy limps free. “Well that’s one relief I can take care of.” Seeing as I was now obligated to explore my new surroundings I took it upon myself to make sure to mark my way back with the only way I could. Ah yes, the second relief was taken care of as well. In all seriousness this place was creepy as hell. For one this place was literally in the middle of nowhere. Green lawns in the middle of a desert literally only a mile or two from the tracks. Maybe this was one of those military testing experts and they were watching my every move. Ha that would be a laugh. Guess they should expect a lot of random birds on their monitors. Since there isn’t any time like the present guess a little detour to this “humble” abode was in order. Shit maybe there was a car stashed in the back or something. Drive myself to a new state and try to start fresh.\n\nHa! Nope! Not a chance. Theses lawns are seriously green. It’s not even that AstroTurf crap all the new sports stadiums have either. Even creepier is that there isn’t a single sound. No wind, no animals, hell not even any hum of electricity. Was this place seriously here? Am I just hallucinating? Ha that’d be a laugh. I’ve seen every type of junkie but not one of them every moaned about a building appearing out of nowhere like this. Never taste the product that was my motto. Still glad they decided to only press for the robbery crap. The door looks thick. What is it oak? Maybe mahogany? Sure as could keep me out if the damn thing wasn’t unlocked. Okay now that’s really weird. Why the hell isn’t this thing locked at all? Big mansion probably filled with expensive shit and the front door is just unlocked? Well guess it’s time for the birdy to fly. “Hey! What the hell is this! Some joke or something?!” Nothing except the echo of my voice through the entrance hall. “Shit.” Maybe there was a phone working somewhere in this freaky place. Burt first the lights. Surprisingly those still work. Entrance hall some paintings which would probably sell for a bit in the right market and thankfully none of em were of some creepy French guy with eyes that follow you. Ha. Scooby Doo. Still with a house like this there must be some sort of security. Not a single camera in sight. But a fully prepped dinner service just waiting to be eaten on the dining table. “Screw this. Hey! I’m going to start eating if no one is going to come out!” Still nothing. Guess that means I get to eat like a king. The food is fresh with disturbs me but entices me at the same time. I should really stop. Like right now. Why can’t I stop eating? “What the hell is in this food?! Goddamn you, you fuckin’ rats what the hell is in this fuckin…” \n\n“Sir, is the final product to your liking?” A thin bespectacled man with a gaunt face holds a videotape and clip board to his chest while slicking his greasy black hair back. “The subject was found and pronounced dead exactly two hours ago. The house has been reset and the evidence of the prior subject removed. Do you wish to continue running the tests?”\n\nStroking his beard and rewinding the video and he turned to the thin excuse of a man. “Yes but instead of running the thought recorder and the gluttony virus let’s try the mind recorder with the hallucinogenic furniture. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they give us the plot to the next big thing in Hollywood.” He chuckled to himself and played back the video to the moments before the man in the orange jumpsuit looked right at the camera and gave him the bird. \n", "I should have stayed on the train. At least that's what I thought. Now I'm not so sure. The more I turn it over in my head, the more I start to think that an evil like that doesn't need you to go looking for it. An evil like that will find you. You can't just pull the sheets up over your head and wait till morning. Not that it mattered. I went looking. \n\nFreedom is a funny thing. For some men, it's a burden. They thrive on order, structure, somebody else to take responsibility for their lives. Some of these men find a way to get that structure, others have it force on them when it becomes apparent they can't make do without it. I didn't know it at the time, but I was one of the latter. \n\nThe State decided that my freedom was a burden I was not carrying so well, and so they decided to gift me a decade of structure and order. To say that I did not appreciate their gift was an understatement. In short order, they decided the solution was some additional order, and so arranged my transfer to a facility better suited to men of my disposition. \n\nThe prison car was spartan, but not cruel. There were three cells, and a small cabin for the guards, as well as seats outside the cells. As we got on, one of them came up to me and told me that since I was the only one riding, if I could behave, they'd dispense with locking me in one of the cells, and I could sit in one of the more comfortable seats. They were alert, but never unkind, and I tried to repay that with respect. I needed no more than a nod for permission to relieve myself, or to go stand by the bars on the boxcar door, and breath the winter air as it rushed past. \n\nI had a ball and chain attached to my leg, but there was nowhere to run to anyway, so it was more irritation than hindrance. \n\nThree days in to the journey, I woke up in the dark to realize the train had stopped. This wasn't cause for alarm, except that there was no sound outside from loading or unloading, or the loading of coal or even the engine at idle. " ]	2
Is it a good thing or a bad thing as far as the pet is concerned? It's all up to you.	[WP] Write about a person's death from the perspective of their pet	[ "My scales did not shine with the luster they had in my youth, but a dragon can only get stronger with age. Hopeful challengers came to her, but only rarely would they get through me. Her first, now sixth - only to come out when a real threat was presented. If my five brothers had fallen, I knew they would be an acceptable challenge for me. We had spent years together - growing, training, winning. Finally someone managed to get past me. It was laughable, almost. A 10 year old girl. Probably the youngest we had ever fought. I felt bad, ready to defeat hers with ease, but the bond they shared... it almost rivaled my own with my trainer. I looked at my trainer before I was taken down. She looked tired. \n\nShe took us all to a new professor in a small town. He was the student of my trainer's professor, who had gotten her started on her journey with the gift of me. He was a little overwhelmed with the sudden responsibility of 50 odd dragons, but we usually took care of ourselves. She spent time with all of us, saying goodbye. She came to me last. She rested her head on mine, and smiled. \n\nThe professor takes good care of us. Whenever we're sick, he is quick to heal us. I had a clutch of eggs recently, and he asked if he could have some to give to new trainers. I remembered seeing my trainer for the first time and the relationship we developed over the years. I nodded, and took a nap. ", "When we were pups, she only left for the day. She must have had an important job because she would leave for hours. I was sad when she was gone, but I knew it would be ok because she always came back. \n\nI don’t think she likes to leave, because she is so happy to see me when she gets home. I always tell her she did a good job and I am proud of her. \n\nOne day she must have gotten a really important job because when she left home, it wasn't for the day, it was for many days. I was worried, but she eventually came back and I told her she did a good job and I was proud of her. She always leaves for many days now. I am sad when she is gone, but it is ok, because I know she always comes back. \n\nIt has been many many days now. She must have a really really important job. I miss her and I am sad, but it will be ok, because I know she always comes back.", "Dan didn’t come home today. He left in the Go For A Walk light like always and I went up on the couch and did blackness and when I saw light he wasn’t there so I went to the stairs and did blackness but when I saw light Dan still wasn’t there. Then blackness in Go For A Walk and Dan still wasn’t there.\n\nIt was light again and he still wasn’t there. The Other Dan who sometimes brings his other Wally over came and we went in the Go For A Walk but instead we sat on the seats and the colours streamed by the cold glass and Other Dan turned the circle and Dan wasn’t there and I thought we were going to the V.E.T. but we didn’t.\n\nWe went to Other Wally’s home. I looked out the cold glass near the door but Dan still wasn’t there and the Go For A Walk did blackness. The glass was cold and I think I saw Dan but didn’t. Dan’s on the couch or bed without me Dan I want to be there Dan.\n\n_________________________________________________________________\nThe darkness only comes in Go For A Walk and I’m always light. Other Dan left Wally and other Wally alone. Other Dan looked blackness and Dan isn't here I will wait at cold glass and Dan isn’t here.", " My human was very important. Sometimes I would only see her every few months, but those times she was here it was the best time I had. Then she would leave, wearing those same odd clothes she always wore, and leave in a big van.\n\n Yes, my other human took care of me very well, he would make sure I was well taken care of, had fun when I could, and sometimes, let me sleep on the bed. He took me for walks with the littlest human, and I would always be gentle. I was the best human sitter.\n\n We were both extremely excited today. My human, his mate, was coming home! She always brought a treat for me, a toy for the little pink human, and lots of kisses for her mate.\n\n That stupid ringing noise started, but I didn't care. My girl was home! I rushed to the door, happily shouting my joy, as the tinier human giggled from her cage.\n\n The male human grinned as he picked up the handful of flowers, the big ones I always liked to pee on in the neighbor's garden. He opened the door, happy to greet our human together.\n\n It wasn't our human. It was a diffrent person, who wore that same clothes that she would wear, but it was a man. He looked very sad, like the time my human pair had to wear black when the nicer older lady who looked like my human, had not visited for awhile.\n\n My male human was handed a letter, and he looked very sad. I could smell it on him. The man who wore my human's clothes came in, and wrapped and arm around my male friend. \n\n My human started to cry, loudly, just like when the tiny human would when they first brought her home. He dropped the flowers, and the person I didn't know started to talk to him.\n\n I didn't know what it meant, so I just left. Maybe she couldn't make it? Maybe she got lost on her way home? Would we have to make posters for her like they did for me when I got lost?\n\n I walked over to the tiny human, fast asleep. I stood gaurd. I didn't trust the human who had seemed to bring sadness. I did not want the tiniest, cutest human to be sad.\n\n It wasn't until the little human was put to bed when the other man left. He sat at the table, at her spot, where she would give me scraps of the best food. I needed to comfort him.\n\n He slid to the floor, and wrapped himself around me. \n\n \"She's gone. Our girl is gone, Bud. She's not coming back.\" \n\n Now I knew. It was just like the days of the back clothes. Except my human, my sweet, nice, human who rescued me all those years ago was gone. I whined my sorrow, and wept with my human.\n\n----\n\n A couple years later, I was now too old to play for long times. The little human was bigger, and liked to pull my tail. I didn't mind, she gave me treats just like her mom used to. She also let me sleep in her bed, though I did it just to make sure she was safe.\n\n My male human was tired a lot, but he always made sure to play with me when I could, and walks though the park were nice.\n\n One night, I knew what I had to do. I ran, slower than I used to, through the house and out the door. It was dark, but I didn't care.\n\n I stopped when I got to the cold part of the ground in the new grass. Those pretty flowers grew right beside it, just like the ones my human's mate would always get her.\n\n I knew tonight would be the last night. I knew that I wouldn't wake up. \n\n So I stayed with her. I laid my head above where her's would be, and I fell asleep. The moon was out, full, just like she loved. \n\n Edit: Gold? How very kind. Because someone was kind enough to gift me gold, I should probably say this is based off of me. I am that little girl, and Bud was the greatest dog. (He died when I was 5, but I still remeber him very well.) My mom died flying overseas back home, the engines had failed and she crashed, but they were able to find her body. I don't really remeber her, but what I know is that she was extremely kind and caring, that she tried to rescue new dogs every time she came home. My dad is amazing, and took over the roles of both a mother and a father. She loved writing, and I hope to continue that here. " ]	4
I have an image of an older, surly, and disillusioned cabby.	[WP] The life of a New York cabby in the Marvel universe.	[ "Rodney was the youngest cabby in all of Manhattan by about thirty years. As far as he knew, he was the only cabby that was still in high school. He was eighteen, but this was not the type of job a high school senior would pursue. He only took the job so he could maybe catch a glimpse of one of them. Rodney and his friends were obsessed with the so called super heroes that had begun to appear in the city. Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Hulk. Everyone knew who those guys were for the most part, but Rodney and his friends were not concerned with them. They were more interested in \"the little guys,\" or \"the unknowns.\" Rodney and his friends had established giant scrapbooks based on the heroes of New York.\nSome of these scrapbooks, like the one about Iron Man. had pages after pages of research and knowledge. Others, like the one on Daredevil, only had a few pages filled out with maybe one or two decent pictures.\n\nRodney had gotten a job as a taxi driver about a year ago. He needed a job, and possibly catch a glimpse of one or two of these heroes he'd done so much research on. About six months into his job his best friend, Stevie, had begun to tag along with him in his cab. They told people it was to help when tourists brought large amounts of luggage, but Stevie was just the cameraman in the documentary Rodney and his friends were shooting. If Rodney was going to catch a glimpse of a hero, Stevie was going to catch it on film. Rodney's company didn't know about Stevie and he planned to keep it that way, although Stevie felt the need to talk to and discuss super heroes with every single person that got in the cab. Rodney didn't mind it usually, some people would tip, others would just not talk, and a select few were just plain assholes.\n\nMarch 7th started like every day, Rodney had picked up Stevie and they discussed which of their favorite heroes would win in a fight. Stevie seemed to think Thor was unstoppable while Rodney was always set on the Hulk. Rodney was doing his usual route when he noticed a small older man unsuccessfully hailing a cab at the side of a busy street. Rodney swerved over to the side of the road and stopped in front of him, Stevie hopped out of the cab, took the man's bag and carefully placed it in the trunk. Stevie held the door open for the man as the older gentleman took his time climbing in the back seat of the cab.\n\n\"Thanks for noticing me, all the other cabs seemed to drive right past me as if I was invisible!\" the older gentleman joked as Stevie closed the door behind him and then got in the passenger seat.\n\n\"There's only one person who is invisible sir,\" Stevie smirked\n\n\"And she lives in the Baxter Building.\" Rodney seemingly finished the thought that Stevie had started.\n\nRodney smiled at his reference then turned around and asked the gentleman, \"So where to sir?\"\n\n\"Oh please, you can call me Stan.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Stevie chimed in, \"Where to Stan?\"\n\n\"Central Park please!\" \n\nRodney kicked the car into drive and began to navigate through the normal Manhattan traffic. Before they hit their first light, Stevie smirked at Rodney, and Rodney nodded. Stevie and Rodney had a side business of taking people on tours of famous locations in which super heroes had been spotted or lived, they usually pitched it to tourists or people who didn't seem to be in a rush. Whenever they pitched it to business type people they always seemed to get yelled at.\n\n\"So Stan,\" Stevie began his pitch, \"You like super heroes?\"\n\nBefore he could continue, Rodney interrupted him by frantically tapping on his shoulder and shouting the word \"dude\" about thirty times in two seconds.\n\nStevie was annoyed that Rodney would interrupt his pitch.\n\n\"What?!\" He turned around to face Rodney and Rodney just pointed ahead of them.\n\n\"Get your camera, now!\" Rodney demanded.\n\nIn front of them something was launching cars off the road and whatever it was was coming straight for them, the two friends began to get out of the car as quickly as possible, and noticed that Stan seemed to evacuate long before they did.\n\n\"He's quick for an old man!\" Stevie joked and pointed at Stan who was now almost halfway down the block.\n\n\"Shut up and grab the stuff!\" Rodney frantically.\n\nThey had grabbed all their things from the car and began to ran from the street when the cab began to shoot into the air and into the side of a nearby building.\n\nThe thing that had done it now stood in the middle of the road between Rodney and Stevie. Rodney saw his friend across the street get wide eyed and shout the word, \"RHINO!\" Stevie held up the camera and began to film, this was the exact kind of footage he had dreamed about catching one day. Rhino had noticed Stevie and began to walk towards him, Stevie was too caught up in the moment to realize the immediate danger that he was currently in.\n\n\"DUDE! RUN! NOW! GO!\" Rodney was shouting from the other side of the street. Stevie was much too infatuated with the footage he was getting that he just kept filming Rhino coming at him. Rhino began to pull his hand back to throw a punch that would have destroyed every bone in Stevie's body when it happened.\n\nA web ball formed around Rhino's fist and pulled him to the ground.\n\n\"Why don't you pick on someone your own size?! Like Hulk! He's probably free!\"\n\nSpider-man jumped from behind Rhino, who was now preoccupied with freeing his hand, and looked at Stevie. \"Look man, you're at like Threat Level Midnight danger, you gotta get out of here!\" Spider-man rushed Stevie away and Rodney lost track of him in the crowds, but was still watching from across the street.\n\nSoon, Rhino's hand was free and he started to swing a punch at Spider-man again. Spider-man was able to jump and dodge every attack with ease. He was so fluid, it looked like it could have been rehearsed. Spider-man's fight style was impressive to Rodney until, Spider-man had misjudged a punch and Rhino had grabbed him by the head. Rhino began to run full speed into the wall near Rodney. Rodney dove out of the way and him himself felt like a super hero. \n\nRhino had crashed through the wall near him and threw Spider-Man across the bottom floor of the building they had just crashed into. Rodney watched the fight between the two for the next few minutes and that's when he noticed it. Spider-man's mask had been ripped in half and that's when saw Spider-man's face.\n\nThe fight had continued until as expected Spider-man had apprehended Rhino, and proceeded to swing away, without noticing that Rodney had seen his face.\n\nStevie ran towards Rodney once everyone had cleared.\n\n\"DUDE! DID YOU SEE THAT?!\"\n\n\"Of course I did, Stevie. I was right there!\"\n\n\"THAT WAS INSANE! I CAN'T BELIEVE WE SAW HIM!\"\n\n\"Dude, you want me to blow your mind? I saw him.\"\n\nStevie have Rodney a puzzled look.\n\n\"Dude, we ALL saw him!\"\n\n\"No dude. I SAW him!\"\n\nStevie grabbed his friend and rushed him into a nearby alley way.\n\n\"Details man! GIVE ME THE DEETS!\"\n\n\"Ok, you know that kid in Connors' class? The one that sits in the back? With the glasses.\"\n\n\"Which one dude?!\"\n\n\"I don't know his name, I think it's P- something.\"\n\nStevie stood and concentrated on the students in his class.\n\n\"You mean Parker? Peter Parker?!\"\n\n\"YES! Him! He's Spider-man!\"\n\nStevie laughed.\n\n\"That's impossible dude, Spider-man isn't black!\"", "Oh, you're from out of town? Did you maybe want to catch a glimpse of Superstar while you were in Wanagan? I can go through his usual routes for about $5000 for ya!\n\nWhy so expensive, you ask? Because he keeps wrecking my goddamned cab! And the worst part is that he is the only reason people come to this godforsaken city. He has caused more property damage in the last three months than all the natural disasters that have hit this city in the last hundred years. And that's a fact Jack.\n\nI can also take my normal routes for my normal fare. Still pretty fucking expensive, just because Superstar might throw a car my way to save a kitten. I don't know why he does that. The kitten was in the tree, and he just threw the car because it was slightly inconvenient to him!\n\nAnd the worst partabout it? I still have to avoid the shady parts of town. If superstar really tried, I bet he could clear this whole city in one night, but he is too busy doing publicity stunts! Like saving kittens! Damn!" ]	2
	[WP] Love is now a drug.	[ "Number nine they call it. Clever. It came at a price, but most of us thought it was worth it. I myself haven't felt “sad” in over a decade and while I know what “regret” is I couldn’t tell you what it was like if I tried. The only reason I know it exists is the old orgo that lived in the gutter on my way to work was always proselytizing the woes of a humanity without emotion. Most people simply walked by, who’s going to waste a dose of enthusiasm on the vapid ramblings of a crazy old organic. It a blessing really, not having to deal with the baser instincts of our forefathers, though I still opt for the random levels MultiMotion, it’s cheaper than the targeted multi doses and I like a little spice, or at least I do when the MultiMotion kicks in, generally. \n\n\n\n\nAm I allowed to do a place holder before I finish the rest?", "Love; the newest and most fashionable drug. Refined straight from the specific strand of dopamine of couples in varying stages of love, the strains were more potent the longer the love had been growing. Only the richest of the country could afford it; I sought to change that.\nThe typical process would copy the memories of the couple being used to sell their love memories. They would end with the memories intact,but none of the feelings were left from these memories. The couple could usually recuperate from this. In fact, many seemed to only grow into a deeper love afterwards, because the couple could now have an almost fresh start. My process was more crude. It ripped the memories from the couple's skulls. \n\nThe extraction process was... harsh, to say the least. But it was cheaper than anything else used to refine the drug, that's for sure. We stole that moment from the couple. When these memories were stolen from the couples, I truly mean stolen. Neither party would have any recollection of the other. They became total strangers to each other. They both would have large blank spots in their memories, larger and larger for the longer the couple had been together. That made the strand more potent, however, so we knew who made the best targets. \n\nOur clientele was not guiltless. The lonely, the loveless, the ones caught in dead marriages, they all used it, and knew exactly where it came from. They knew that if they weren't getting it from Love Inc. then they were causing a couple's minds to be wiped from each other. They didn't care at all.\n\nI had a group. A group of love thieves. That is what the media started to call us anyways. My patsies would sulk around the town, finding young couples in the throes of passion, sharing an intimate moment, or even having a flirtatious conversation. They meticulously labelled what situation that particular strand had come from. A crowd favorite seemed to be \"College kids making out and whispering sweet nothings into each others' ears as they begin to wonder if this is the one\" or, the shorter street name, \"Sweet Nothings\".\n\nWe were thieves. We stole memories. The happiest memories of anyone's lives just to make a buck. People became scared of acting on their base desires, for fear of those feelings being stolen. The world became a slightly darker place because of it. You would no longer see people walking down the street holding hands, sitting close to one another in the park, or even speaking to one another in anything other than a low monotone. It became commonplace; just as commonplace as not walking down a dark alley inside a gang's 'territory'. My territory was the entire city. Nowhere was safe.\n\nThey eventually found a way to recover the stolen memories. Much like digging through an old computer's hard drives, our brains apparently acted in the same manner when it came to memories. When the police started to get memory images from the victims that identified my group, my world started crumbling around me. My love empire in ruins, I decided to make a break for it. I have an island in the Pacific with enough potent love strains to make a lonely existence there very bearable. And now I lay here in my hammock, sipping on some alcohol I had imported from one of my old friends, wondering if the world will ever be the same. It was reported that my methods had gotten out, and now every love junkie with $50 of capital could make their own devices. Public affection was nearly dead. New connections were not being made any more. People rarely even made friends in this new world.\n\nAs I injected pure, unadulterated love straight into my veins, I realized I didn't give two shits." ]	2
Could also be a woman, of course.	[WP] A man wanders the streets distraughtly, looking for someone. However, the photograph he's showing around is one of himself.	[ "\"Excuse me? Excuse me? Please help!\" a man was yelling. He wore a dark colored flannel much like my grandfather's. His hair in a disarray of shapes, his appearance was very untidy. Up and down the street he went, asking, pleading, begging anyone to answer his question. He was looking for someone. He had a photograph in his hand. \n\nMost people that passed him did one of two things: avoided eye contact completely, or responded rudely and briefly. This, I suppose, is how most people greet the homeless, the confused, and the insane. Society doesn't know what to do when faced with someone that they don't understand. \n\nBy why, may I ask, can they not still treat them like human beings? Why can they not look them in the eye with respect? Why must they rip away their dignity? This only drives them into a further state of insanity. This only encourages their untreated depression to plummet. \n\nAs I began to near the man, our eyes locked. I did not look away. I was not ashamed or embarrassed, much like many other people who passed him each day on this filthy street that he called home. \n\n\"Excuse me, please help! Have you seen this man?\" he asked rather urgently, just as he had to everyone else that had passed him so far. \n\n\"Yes,\" I replied in a calm, even tone. \n\nHe did not know what to say for a moment. He just looked at me. Then, with less harshness, less urgency than before, he asked a simple question: \"Where?\" \n\n\"I can show you if you would like,\" I told him. His gleaming eyes answered for him. For the first time, he was at a loss for words. He just looked at me. \n\n\"I will call as a cab, and we will go see him, okay?\" I asked. He nodded. \n\nOnce in the cab, we were seated comfortably with his somewhat tattered backpack between us. It dawned on me that this was all the man owned. This bag was this man's life. I could not imagine how this must feel. \n\nHe remained silent with disbelief for the first half of the car ride, but he eventually began to ask questions. \"Where is he?\" he asked me.\n\n\"You'll see soon enough.\" I replied, keeping my cool. \n\n\"Is he okay?\" he pressed.\n\n\"Yes, he is fine. He just needs a little help, is all.\" \n\n\"Help?\" \n\n\"Yes, I think he's just going through a bit of a rough time.\" \n\nWe reached our destination. I paid the driver and tipped well out of appreciation that he minded his own business for the entirety of the ride. \n\nWe were at the back of the tall, white brick building that I knew all too well. Few windows scattered amongst the brick. A blue door with a highly sophisticated security system sat before us. I scanned my hand and my employee badge and began to enter. \n\nThe man held back, unsure of what to do. \"Well are you coming with me, or not?\" I asked. He looked around, nervously. \"You are free to leave if you would like,\" I continued. After about another ten seconds, he decided to follow. We entered the familiar white halls quietly. He walked slowly and precariously, and I matched his pace. Left down the second hallway, third door on the right. We entered my office. \n\n\"Take a seat,\" I invited. \n\n\"Where are we? Where is he?\" he demanded. I noticed that he was beginning to sweat. \n\n\"I will help you find him. But first, you must answer some questions for me.\" \n\n\"No! Where is he?\" His urgency only grew. \n\n\"I will help you find him, I promise. Please, just answer me just three questions.\" \n\n\"Fine,\" he muttered, \"just three.\" \n\n\"What is your name?\" \n\n\"What does that have to do with him? I thought you were here to help me find him!\" He was really getting nervous now. \n\n\"You don't know it do you? You don't know your name?\" \n\n\"No.\" \n\n\"Do you know his name?\" \n\n\"No.\" \n\n\"And last question, do you know where we are?\" \n\n\"No.\" \n\n\"My name Dr. Robinson. This is my office. I work here at Applevalley Hospital. I help people like you,\" I began to explain. \n\n\"People like me?\" \n\n\"Yes, people like you. People who have lost themselves. I will help you find that man you are looking for... because that man, is you.\" ", "I had been wandering the streets for so long now that I had stopped counting the days, I knew I couldn't stop until I found him, it was all I had left to keep me sane. You see, my mother was sick for a long time, she passed away some time last year, or it might have been two. After a while time gets fuzzy, when you're not paying attention, I don't remember when I last saw a clock.\nWe never had too much, mum and me, no relatives that I knew of, just a small house, and each other. She'd been a scientist at one point, but she gave it up when she became pregnant with me, wanted to be a 'proper parent', whatever that is. But we got along ok. When she got sick though, when she knew she was going to leave, she gave me this photograph, and told me that was my father, and whatever I did I needed to find him. \nWho could deny his mother her last wish? She told me he lived in new york, and that was all I had, a massive city and a photograph.\nHe was kind of scruffy I guess, old blue coat, beard, I guess he was a hippy of some kind, a musician maybe? I'm not really sure. So I carried the photo around, showing people, asking for help. I had a hotel when I first got here, then an apartment, then things got harder, I've been on the streets for a while.\nEach day I get up and carry the photo, I try to show people, I try to ask, but most people ignore me, some give me a strange look, I don't know what to do to make them look!\nToday was different, I walked up to this woman, mid 20's I guess, with a kid about three, really sweet, I hoped they'd take pity.\n\"please, please, if you could, have you seen this man anywhere??\"\nThe kid giggled and as the woman pulled him away quickly he shouted\n\"It's you silly!\"\nSo now I'm in this bathroom, staring in the mirror, and suddenly it all makes sense.", "\" Portrait \"\n\n&nbsp;\n\nHi.\n\nHave you seen this guy?\n\nI used to know him.\n\n(Or atleast, I think I did)\n\n&nbsp;\n\nI didn't care\n\nWhen I should have.\n\nI didn't listen\n\nWhen I could have.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nAnd now he is gone.\n\nBut I am not same.\n\nHe is my soul\n\nI am just a name.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nSo help me please\n\nIf it's not too late.\n\nWhere can I find \n\nMy own portrait ?\n\n&nbsp;\n\n(Aniket Sonavane, 6/3/2015, Free verse & a-b-c-b)", "1.The street was long and broad, steel in colour. A man cowered in the gutter, the cars flailing down the road , their engines howling like mechanical dogs. opening his crumpled hand , his face woad in terror he cooed towards the polaroid, slowly moaning at the blazing grimace of the face in front of him.\n\norsey squires , 5' 11\" his cheekbones were tall for a man ,curiously pallid with nymphomanic haze ,soaking his greasy hair. His body was small and his legs kneaded with rusted and grotesque veinings, the capillaries long dead aching to be liberated . He was 31. still relatively young and forgiving but furiously opposed to breaking from his daily routine.\n\n7:00am get up and shit, get the morning paper and a nice golden orange from the basket.\n8:00am breakfast. Usually the lightest sprinkle of coffee in hot milk. It always curdled slightly from the preternatural torment of which microwaves feel absolutely no guilt whatsoever.\nat 9:00 am he would open the door and then he would-\n\nthe earth shook and the skies poured down. The man found himself drenched with rainwater. He absolutely deserved it. What was he doing lying in a gutter anyways. Helping himself up clambering on the street light , he arose and slowly plodded with conviction down the grassy bank.\n\n\n", "\"Waldo! Where are you?\" He yelled out annoying the other people walking on the sidewalks. \"Sir have seen this man?\" He asked as he was pushed aside from a man in a rush to get somewhere that must be important for him to be in such a rush. \"Ma'am please help me, I'm looking for this man his name is Waldo!\" He asked pleadingly needing desperate help. As her dog finished its business in the grass she looked at the picture and then at the man holding it thinking this man is insane, preceding to pull her dog and quickly say \"come on now now daisy,\" and somewhat quickly walked away. He continued through the park asking strangers for help only to find all just brushing him off thinking he is insane and bizarre. After about 20 minutes he realised there was no one left in the park but him, then suddenly he heard a radio psht \"yes I found him\" the voice echoed from multiple other radios faintly as they seemed to be all around him! \"Help me he yelled I'm looking for this man have you seen him?\" He frantically asked hoping someone would hear him. \"Yes\" a voice from a man coming up from behind \" I have seen this man\" he continued putting his arm around his shoulder. Another person came up \"where have you been? We've been looking all over for you!\" They asked somewhat concerned, \"I have been looking for Waldo\" he replied with a sad tone. \"It's ok let's get you home,\" the person replied. They walked to the end of the street and got into a van which he assumed would take him home, and he was somewhat relieved because maybe Waldo had returned! He got out of the car with those who found him in the park and they went into the building. When they were welcomed with a doctor who asked \"Waldo, where have you been we were worried.\"", "Summit Street is mostly empty in the fading twilight. This is the rough part of town, where the homeless guys huddle around a fire in an old metal garbage can and compare their goods after a long day of scouring the city for spare change and recyclables. A ragged man is clumsily weaving among the trashcans and streetlights toward the group of men holding their threadbare gloves out to the fire in an attempt to get warm. They ignore him; he’s probably one of the drunks who frequently get lost on their way home from the seedy bar one street over. \n\nWhen he finally reaches the group, they all make a point of avoiding his gaze, until he makes an inhuman sound: half gargle, half yelp. He tries again to speak, slowly forcing out the words “help, please, help.” They stare at him as he produces a folded up picture from his pocket, obviously printed from a printer that needs a new magenta ink cartridge. With some obvious discomfort, and a few intermittent coughs, the man quietly says, “This man killed my son. Have you seen him?” They all study the picture silently. The printed face is clean-shaven and handsome; its owner is wearing a suit probably more expensive than what most people make in a year. He is smiling at the camera, but the smile doesn’t extend to his eyes. Those are blue and icy, calculating. They all say “no, sorry” and turn away – all except one. \n\nGlenn doesn’t recognize the guy, but knows the sorrow of losing a son, and looks up to say something comforting. That’s when he sees the man’s eyes: a familiar icy blue, but not longer cold and calculating. Now they are sad and confused. This man has a scruffy beard, is caked with dirt, and has scabbed-over gashes on his face and hands. He’s wearing old, worn hiking-gear, but he is definitely the man in the picture. \n\nGlenn takes the picture, and unfolds the bottom part of the page. The news headline reads “Hiking Disaster: Local Businessman and Son Fall From Faulty Rappelling Rope, Son Dies.” Glenn hands the picture back to man, who is now looking at him with hopeful desperation, and says “no, sorry,” turning back to the fire.", "His home and his job and his purpose were lost years ago. His mind soon followed. For years now he had been wandering the streets, lost and alone. He was one of the forgotten, one of the thousands of people society ignores. Like an online throwaway account, he only matters when he is right before you. But, lacking any connections to real life, he soon dissipates to something less than a memory.\n\nHe asked everyone who would slow their walk enough to catch their attention. \"Do you know this man? I need to find him. I have to take care of him. I was told to take care of him. \" Almost nobody slowed. The few that did slow met him with a slew of insults that the streets echoed, \"Get a job. Stop asking me every fucking day. You're crazy. Is this some kind of joke?\" It eventually just became part of the murmur of the city streets he slept upon. He was only a crazy man who wandered the frozen streets looking for himself in an endless loop.\n\nStill, every day he searched, holding up a picture of himself to the nameless strangers passing by. His search was all that kept him alive. His loss, the only feeling that mattered anymore. \n\nHe stood in the same area for years. Always asking. Always showing the same picture. Always searching. He stood there until a winter storm relieved him of his endless loss. He stood there until he froze to the ground on a clear and bitter cold winter night.\n\nHe was finally reunited with his twin brother, whose search had also ended that night, frozen to the ground, only a few miles away.", "Have you seen this face before? \n\nHave you seen this man?\n\nHe's never been gone this long before.\n\nPlease help me if you can.\n\n\n\n\nI'm tired and somewhat jaded\n\nBut I know I know this face\n\nMy memories have faded\n\nI'm lost without a trace.\n\n\n\nWhat do you mean \"that pictures me\"?\n\nThe face I seeks my own?\n\nHelp me solve this mystery\n\nSo I can go back home.\n\n\n\n\n\nHave you seen this face before?\n\nHave you seen this man?\n\nI've never been this lost before\n\nPlease help me if you can.\n\n\n\n" ]	8
	[WP] You're sitting in a coffee shop, sipping your latte, when someone approaches you says something in an unknown language. After a moment, you realized you understand, but you don't know how as you only know english. What's more concerning, is she said "It's time."	[ "\"It's time,\" she said.\n\n\"What?\" I said.\n\nI looked down at the small piece of paper in my hand. Could it be affecting me yet, through my skin? Oh, that's right, the mushrooms. They had completely slipped my mind. \n\nShe was wearing a technicolor sleeveless shirt with the word \"MOD\" in big black letters on the front. They waved. \"It's time.\" Did I know this woman? What does it all mean? What the hell was I doing at Ahab's Coffee anyways? I needed to get my shit together.\n\n\"Doo I knalesr oo?\"\n\nShit, that came out wrong. At least I had my sunglasses, but people were already starting to stare. Shit, shit. Well, no time like the present. I hopped over the table, knocking it down. The coffee went straight on her, dousing her \"MOD\" sign. She screamed like a banshee out of hell, but I ran on through the line of people, into the mall proper. I ran. ", "\n\nCoffee. That’s all I wanted. Just a cup of joe to keep myself going. And then she showed up. I didn't pay attention to her. Not at first. I just wanted to sip my latte. But there she was, sitting across from me, staring at me. \n\n“Can I help you?” was all I could say. And then she spoke. Her voice was soft, her words just a mess of sounds. Clicking, high pitched. And so familiar. \n\n“It’s time,” she said to me, in whatever language it was. Not English, that’s much I am certain of. It’s the only language I know, and what she said wasn't even close to it. Like her words were beyond human possibility. She reached across the table then, putting her hand over mine. And I saw it. What was to come. What was going to happen to Earth. \n\nYou know, it’s kind of funny. As a kid you have that feeling of invincibility, like nothing can stop you. You have no fear. You have no comprehension of what death is, and so you have no reason to fear it. I was like that. But now, now I felt fear. Only fear.\n", "I stared at the woman dully, a look of confusion and disbelief at what I heard. At first I didn't understand, but after a moment the words made sense. So much sense. \"It's time?\" I repeated the words, though for some reason they were different, and I noticed another patron of the store giving my a funny look. I only then realized I spoke the exact same language. I panicked, standing up at my very table as I looked at the middle aged woman, taking a moment to look at her exact figure and clothing. Really she seemed ordinary, black pants with a dark blue jacket on top of it.\n\n\"It's time. You'll know what to do.\"\n\nI didn't doubt her, somehow, and part of me thought that maybe this would be like one of those shows. Maybe I was a secret agent. It was scary, terrifying how much chance there was for such a thing to be the actual case, thinking back at it. I took a good moment before standing up from my seat, simply staring at the silvery haired lady. She turned around, and only then I noticed the bag on her back. I shook my head, part of me wanting to simply stay put, continue my coffee and leave... But I had to follow her. I didn't know why, but I had to.\n\nApparently I wasn't the only one approached by this mysterious female, having now met up with a group of about ten others, males and females alike. Though the majority of us were male, if that even fucking mattered. Some spoke to each other, the same, unknown language as the woman who started all this spoke. Others were... Less aware, seemingly zoned out as they merely followed her.\n\nEventually we ended up entering a large, office like building. Surprisingly the place was empty, though I swore having seen the thing a few days ago, completely filled with business and other things. People, basically. But it was empty, and we took an elevator up to the roof. I counted, we were with thirteen, including the woman who had gathered us. So we stood there, all of us up on that roof, looking over the entire city and all it's beauty. I never quite admired the city as in that moment. Looking back at it such thoughts were merely cruel. A well placed tease and take from the universe.\n\n\"You know what to do.\"\n\nShe repeated the words in that strange, daunting language, and soon I started to understand her words. Rain started to pour from the sky, massive, unnatural amounts of rain. Thunder soon followed, the building shaking as the earth cracked, everything out of balance. At the edge of the building something opened, a rift of sorts; a portal. It's destination was unknown to us, though for some reason the sight of it made me feel at peace, at home. They moved in, one by one, ignoring the cataclysmic events that started to appear around us. Buildings started to crumble, water rushed through the streets while others got completely ripped apart, fire and hell spewing from the cracks. Eventually I stood there, a mere step away from our destination, our home.\n\nA sudden impulse to deny it came into me, a thought of distress as I realized what was going on, the destruction of everything I loved. I had people. Friends, family, a girlfriend. What was going to happen to them, where they...? Sorrow, sadness clouded my mind as I halted my movements, simply staring into the destruction behind the rift. Immediately I lunged forwards, sideways from the portal as I moved over the edge of the building, my eyes meeting the chasm beneath the streets, fire and death spewing forth from it. But I didn't fall. Something kept me from falling, and soon I found myself being lifted, the steady grip of the woman behind be holding the back of my coat.\n\n\"Idiot.\"\n\nAgain the strange, alluring language. Though this time there was more force, anger in them as I was thrown into the portal, my last sight on the world being one of calamity, destruction, death.", "This has never happened before. I'm usually on time when it comes to the routine. Since it's Saturday, I thought it's going to be to get up and bullet to the usual place. But here I come, and nobody notices me late, a little after 10 AM. I look around, I look into their eyes deeply. No passion or understanding, a mere sphere of nothingness. When it comes to attention, I've never been so desperate for it.\n\nBut here I am, sipping the last of latte, forgetting the fact I haven't talked to anybody today. There are times your only desire is to remain silent, even if an outsider shows the initiative. My excuse? Being myself is a priority, and there couldn't be a better a time for the soul as a cozy Saturday morning. So I use it, so I crave for it.\n\nI find myself thinking, what if our lives weren't so alike? I give you one-hundred ten per cent the beardy sitting next to me is no longer a person. His neurotic look and confused tone reminds me what it's like to be a cog in the machine. Unlike me, he now exists, he now allows himself for self-expression, even in the most mundane directions. Still, I like who I am. Not yesterday or the day before, but, now.\n\nI look around. I can hear it! No badmouthing, no profanity, no smoking. An interesting world to be surrounded yourself with. Clearly, the main audience hasn't woke up after a night-out in the pit. People talk, people exchange emotion. But no - this ain't the right time for me to step in.\n\nI'll stay a ghost. Even if I wasn't born with it, the amazing fear of people, I once prefer a no-contact-whatsoever day. The door opens. There's nothing but wind blowing in. Not a step going through. My eyes exchange with the barista's. Assuming I've ever landed a touch on her I possibly have no recollection of, her wink disturbs me not. Affection: zero.\n\nIn hindsight, I expect someone to pick up the closing door. Now that they've heard my unsolicited, motionless pray, a group of thugs enters the coffee. Nobody notices them, except me with a corner of the eye. They storm through to the back of the building. An old man walks up to the bunch, asking them to leave immediately.\n\nA mistake I've made in the early days, flipping burgers downtown at midnight. You know, the darkness attracts all kinds of creeps, even if you're lit beyond sanity. Choices had to made. No country for the blind.\n\nInspecting the shoes and wondering why and when I bought them, a girl storms through the door. Her face crippled, all shed in tears, ink gone to waste, running down her yellowish skin. I dare to stare at her, even if I never get her to look back. The girl awaits nobody and approaches me. Did I ever tell you about my invisibility? Think it's gone.\n\nShe puts a note the table, ignores my eyes rolling sideways, and whispers. Just when I thought it's OK, she speaks in a language I've never had a chance to encounter. Moments after, she leaves, the gang going after.\n\nI immerse into myself for a rundown of thoughts. No shit, never heard this before. Ding! I subconsciously recognize the phrase. Nothing to worry about, though, except the fact the voice feels familiar.\n\nStressed, confused, and dazed, I look around. Of all tables the eyes covered, mine was the only one with a note. Too bad, I'll never make it to read it. There are things in life more fascinating left in the mist.\n\nThink it \"It's time.\". The girl's phrase. Enough material for the day. I'd lie if I said I was so excited I couldn't hold the urge to leave now. I didn't know it'll work out this way. Something I should regret.\n\nDisclaimer: pity English isn't my native.", "\nBen was sitting in the corner of the little coffee shop, drinking his favorite, a café latte. He was reading the tech section of the day's news. His dad was the owner of a small cyber security firm, so he grew up immersed in the business. He hadn't seen his dad since he left for college four years ago. That was in no small part due to his stepmother. Her and Ben never saw eye to eye. She always insisted that something was wrong with him. Always made him go see that psychiatrist that gave him the creeps. He was thrilled when he left for college. He had gotten accepted to plenty of schools close to home, but he chose to go clear on the other side of the country, just to get away. It was pure coincidence that brought him back home. Ben was a great student. There was no shortage of job offers when he finished his degree, but one stood out. They offered nearly a quarter more salary than any of the others so of course he accepted, excited to start in a few days. \n\n\nHe nearly choked when he saw his dad's company's name on his tablet. He thumbed the link. As he waited for the page to load he felt a presence behind him, then a warm breeze on his ear. \n\n\n\"Paro\" the \"r\" rolled in a way that he new wasn't English, but he understood. \n\n\n\"It's time\" he whispered. \n\n\nShe was cute, in a bohemian-vagrant sort of way. Her blonde dreads sticking out in every direction. \"What does it mean?\" she asked. \n\n\nBen started, \"What? who are you?\" he asked, leaning away from her. He was beginning to feel sick. He forgot about the article on his tablet. \"where's my dad?\" he asked the girl. \n\n\n\"how the hell should I know?\" she replied \n\n\n\"what did you just whisper in my ear?\" Ben asked confused. His thoughts were all over the place. \n\n\n\"I don't know what it means,\" she said, \"that lady over there...\" she trailed off as her head swung to the left. \"huh, there was an older lady over there. she gave me twenty bucks to whisper that in your ear. she said 'he'll know what it means'. I guess she was wrong huh?\" she chuckled. \n\n\nBen looked to the table the girl pointed to. \"what's my bag doing over there?\" he hurried over to the empty table and grabbed a black book bag that was on the chair. \"I need to go see my dad\" he said as he headed out of the building, the blonde girl following closely. \n\n\n\"you don't look too hot. I think you should see a doctor.\" she said as he unlocked his car doors. She opened the passenger door and got in. \n\n\n\"what the hell are you doing?\" Ben asked as he put his key in the ignition and started the engine. \"get out, I need to go see my dad.\" \n\n\n\"This is the most interesting thing that has happened to me all week.\" she said. \"you're stuck with me.\" she laughed. Rather than argue, Ben put the car in gear and drove. \n\n\nThe pair arrived at his dad's office building thirty minutes later. There were more people here than Ben had ever seen at the office. There was actually a line to get through security. When the guard saw Ben he smiled and waved him to come over. \"Hey, you here to congratulate your dad on the big news?\" Before Ben could reply, the guard said \"go on, Ben, the CEO's son can skip the metal detector.\" \n\n\nBen hurried to the elevator, his new friend right behind. As they went up, all ben could think about was his dad, but he didn't know why. \"What big news?\" he thought. \"Why am I so nervous?\" \n\n\nThe elevator dinged and the doors opened. There was some kind of celebration going on. People were drinking champagne and there was tinsel and glitter all over the floor. Ben pushed his way through the crowd of people milling around the cubicles. He made it to his dad's office in the back and his dad immediately smiled his big broad smile when he saw his son. \n\n\n\"Ben! Come in!\" he exclaimed with his arms out ready to hug his son. Ben and the girl entered the doorway to his dad's office. The two men who were talking to his dad excused themselves and left the office. \"Close the door Ben, I want to be able to hear when we talk\" Ben didn't respond, but the girl closed the door behind them. \"who's your friend?\" Ben's dad asked. \n\n\n\"I'm Debbie\" she said as she examined the family pictures on the wall. \n\n\nAs Ben stood there in the middle of his dad's office, he shrugged the book bag off his shoulder and unzipped the main compartment. His dad stood there, on the other side of his desk, smiling, waiting for his only son to pull what was surely a gift or card from his bag. The smile on his face quickly faded as Ben pulled the .357 revolver from the bag and pointed it at his father. \n\n\n\"Paro!\" Debbie shouted. \n\n\nBen blinked rapidly, \"what the hell is going on?\" he asked. \"what the hell is this?\" he shouted as he dropped the gun. \"Dad?...What am I doing here?\" \n\n\n\"Ben!\" Debbie shouted, oblivious to what was happening behind her as she studied the portraits on the wall, \"this is the lady that told me to whisper in your ear!\" She pointed to a portrait of Ben's step mother. \n\n\nBen's dad slumped into his desk chair, trying to catch his breath. Ben fell to his knees, and Debbie turned around to face them, smiling proudly now that she had figured out who the mystery woman was. \n\n\n\"Dad\" Ben whimpered \"I don't know what's going on.\" \n\n\n\"It's okay\" his dad assured him, \"I do.\" \n\n\n \n\n\nBen's dad explained to him that he and his wife's relationship had come to an end recently. Mostly due to the fact that he found out that she was an illegal immigrant from communist Russia, living here under a false identity. Information that would ruin his company if it ever got out. Rather than wait for it to happen, Ben's dad decided to sell the company, which was now worth a fortune, and retire. He planned on filing for divorce shortly after. Apparently this didn't sit well with his estranged wife. \n\n\nWhen the three of them arrived at Ben's father's home, any trace of his step-mother was gone. She had vanished, along with Ben's new job it seemed. After some research, they found that that psychiatrist Ben hated going to, never existed, at least not on paper. \n", "I was drinking something with too much sugar and an embarrassing name when in a woman walked up to me and said something I didn’t understand in a clipped serious tone. I was about to give her that confused look, and helpless shrug, you use when someone speaks in a language you don’t know when I realized I did understand her. She’d said, “It is time,” and she’d spoken in High Seraphic.\n\nActually she’d said something rather closer to:\n>It is the fullness of time.\n>It is the time that was spoken of before time. \n>It is the hour that no man knew. \n>Holy, holy, holy\n>is the Lord God Almighty,\n>who was, and is, and is to come.\n\nHigh Seraphic is a somewhat more efficient language than English.\n\nNothing changed about my mind. I didn’t get any memories back, and there wasn’t any fog or compulsion to clear. However, I could now think about things that hadn’t been part of my previous mission to, “Live on the earth among them; live as a human.” When an angel is given a command they follow it- body and mind. That was true even though I hadn’t understood why I was to do that at the time.\n\nI set my drink down. It had begun to boil from the cup’s contact with my skin. Everyone in the coffee shop was now staring at me and my companion. Our human seemings had fallen away. My skin glowed like metal in a forge where it wasn’t covered with red armor. I held a huge sword. The woman had changed more. She was now a bull with six enormous wings sprouting from her back and eyes poking through her fur all across her body. Through the shop’s large window I could see a horse of fire standing in the middle of the street snarling traffic badly.\n\nI began to make my way toward the door reflecting that I understood why I’d been sent to live on the Earth. Given my job, it had been a mercy. Not for them. Not for the humans. They had been given a great many mercies and would be given more, but my time on Earth had been a mercy to me. Now I understood my job. I understood why it had to happen.\n\nI walked out to the street and mounted my horse. Then I rode forth to war.\n", "It's hot. Scalding, in fact. Just the way I like it, I'm finding out. Leaves it's mark on the tongue. \n\nI've got my phone out and I'm looking at this blue and gold dress that everyone keeps banging on about when this girl walks over. Well, I didn't see her walk over. I assume she did, coulda flew. Looks enough like an angel for it. Maybe I should use that line. I got to say someth-\n\n\"Hluyea, ji hep.\"\n\nI am about to speak when she embarrasses us both. Very loudly. Maybe she's foreign.\n\n\"Sorry, I don't understand you, love.\"\n\nShe smiles.\n\n\"How's this?\"\n\nObviously, I smile back.\n\n\"Queen's English.\"\n\n\"Great. Listen cutie, I'm gonna need you to- is this seat taken? You're not waiting for someone are you?\"\n\nI open my mouth to speak again, and again she cuts me o-\n\n\"What am I talking about, of course you don't.\"\n\nAnd she sits down.\n\n\"Not like you have a girlfriend or anything, right?\"\n\nI smile politely like I'm back in high school getting teased. I'm not completely sure I'm not. I feel compelled to check I've not been wedgied.\n\n\"Right.\"\n\nShe smiles again. Oblivious to human manners.\n\n\"So, anyway I'm Mary.\"\n\n\"Hi Ma-\"\n\n\"And I've been sent, well I say sent, it was my blooming idea in the first place.. I 'drew the short straw' to be the one to meet you.\"\n\nEvery word is shrinking me. I look around to see her group of friends, giggling. Another dare. Also, how does she know 'drew the short straw' but not 'Hello'?\n\n\"Well, that's as may be but-\"\n\nShe slaps the desk with emphasis, \"So! Here's the thing.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\nShe leans over the table, looking deep into my eyes. I can only look back. Shallowly. \n\n\"It's time.\"\n\nAnd in that moment I realize we've not been talking the Queen's English at all. She said \"ji hep\" I heard it. But I understood it. I could swear I never took gibberish in school, yet..\n\n\"Ji hep?\" I say.\n\n\"Ji hep, holci.\" She replies, nodding. \n\nStaring. Waiting. Big blue eyes. Big wild hair. Black hair. Very black hair, but still natural. Cute nose. Cutting cheekbones.\n\nI try to focus. \"Time for what?\"\n\nShe slaps me. She grabs my collar with both hands and kisses me full on the mouth. When she's done, she shakes me a little with every word. \n\n\"It. Is. Time. For. The. Thing.\" \n\nI stare.\n\n\"GOD you're so cute when you're stupid! I wanna grab your shirt and ruffle your hair and eat your eyes and just- just- aaaghhh!\"\n\n\"Well, alright.\"\n\n\"But first we gotta go, really.\"\n\n\"Okay.\" Shit, I'm not gonna say no, am I?\n\nShe gets up and I follow her. She leaves a taste in your mouth, does our Mary. She grabs my phone, takes one look and smashes it on the ground.\n\n\"Umm\"\n\n\"Shut up, it's black and white, it doesn't matter. Nothing with no color matters now.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"The dress. Hurry up.\"\n\nWe're out of the coffee shop and heading to an unmarked white van by the time I decide kooky fun's over. I stop.\n\n\"Seriously, Mary? Whoever you are, I'm not going in there. Nuh-uh. You're not getting my organs.\"\n\nI turn to leave.\n\n\"Stop!\"\n\nI head back to get my coffee.\n\n\"GET BACK HERE NOW YOU ALWAYS DO THIS.\"\n\nI stop.\n\n\"We've never met.\"\n\n\"You're my husband you idiot, get in the van.\"" ]	7
	[WP] Describe a scene that seems gross, scary, exhilarating or the like, but in the end is actually relatively mundane.	[ "The pack of dogs tore at my suit, dragging me down with yelps and howls and roars, and then I was on my back. A flash of red, pain everywhere as they clamped down on my limbs. Serrated teeth dug down and I flailed my arms, trying desperately to get them off me. I screamed, mirthfully as the whistle was blown, and the police trained attack dogs ran towards the trainer for their treats. I sat up, dazed, and grinned sourly at the loose red padding. \n\nThe End. ", "As I pull my jacket around my cold frame, I stand up in anticipation. Two minutes to go. I'm ready. Others are doing the same and I feel myself being jostled more and more aggressively. Still, I stand firm, and suddenly the crowd begins to move forward as one, a sea of ashen faces joining as a giant, nameless entity. I grab onto a nearby railing to steady myself, making sure to stay inside the belly of the group. I learnt the hard way that you don't get separated. If you get separated, you get left behind. You're immediately forgotten, doomed to endure this hell a second time. \n\nI look at the floor and focus on making myself as small as possible. A man barrels into my arm, knocking me sideways. I look up and I'm met with the glare of a thousand suns. I quickly cast my eyes downwards towards his briefcase. He's using it like a battering ram in an attempt to secure his space. A small boy tumbles over in its wake and begins screaming. His mother desperately tries to comfort him, but to no avail. You can see the panic in her eyes. Tensions are rising.\n\nI make a decision, there and then. I've got to stop using public transport." ]	2
I just would like to see a response that can properly emulate a realization of that kind, whether or not it is simply stated like that.	[WP] I never really had a happy childhood, but that's perfectly fine with me, it was never mine to begin with.	[ "My first memory of loss (there was more before that I can't remember) was when I was only four years old. My pet hamster--Banana--died cradled in my hands. He wasn't old, or sick, and both my mother and I were diligent in caring for him. I had been out in the garden. It was July, the peak of summer, and the sunlight was filtering through the leaves and dancing along the lush green lawn like little fairy motes. Banana was waddling in circles within the cage my legs made. My mother called me inside, and so I scooped Banana up into my small hands. He looked up at me with his beady, black eyes, wheezed out a final breath, and died. I thought he had gone to bed, so I ran inside to show my mother. \n\nMy mother told me about death on that beautiful summer day, and I learned what real tears were.\n\nDeath came for her two years later. My father was a quiet man, but his crying echoed through our house for months. My sister started to find reasons not to come home. When the house was empty, I would lay on my mothers side of the bed and stare at the wall and pretend I was her, just waking up from a sleep.\n\nMy pet bird, Stella, died a year later. She had been dear to me, we danced to the cassette player together, and she sat in my lap and slept while I read. I buried her in the yard, in a decorated shoebox, next to Banana, all fifteen of my fish, my rats Carl and Karl, and a stuffed proxy kitten, Jeb. Three days after we had gotten him, Jeb had gotten out of the house and onto the road. I'll never forget the sound his little body made beneath the tire tread.\n\nWhen I was fifteen my sister died in a drunk driving accident in her college town. She had gotten into the wrong car. My father was wrecked, he stopped looking me in the face. The pets stopped. I learned to take care of myself.\n\nIn my last semester as a high school senior, my English teacher had a heart attack during our class. Four people cried uncontrollably. One person thought he knew what to do and took charge. I sat in my chair and watched. He died. We had a substitute for the last month of school.\n\nBy third year of college I'd finally gone a long stretch without anyone dying. I had a small group of friends and acquaintances but mostly kept to myself. My father was well eight hundred miles away, and we spoke weekly on the phone. He'd been doing better lately than he had in years and so had I. \n\nOctober 14th I had stayed in my apartment with a stomach bug. After waking up at 2pm, I'd planted myself in front of the television and searched the dismal daytime TV offerings when a familiar face caught my eye. A line up of faces and among them one of my friends. A CNN reporter rattled off facts with clinical precision. An aerial shot of my school, sirens, cop cars.\n\n\"SCHOOL SHOOTING -- 8 CONFIRMED DEAD -- OTHERS TRAPPED INSIDE --- SHOOTER STILL ON THE LOOSE\"\n\nCollege ended without incident. My father stopped calling. The next I heard from him I'd moved cities again for work. He wasn't doing well. I flew home two days later just in time to say goodbye. He pushed an envelope into my hands. He died small and lonely.\n\nI opened the envelope while sitting on my parents bed in the empty house I now owned. The first sheet of paper was a death certificate with my name on it. The second was a sheet of black parchment with elegant golden cursive laid out along its length, what words I could make out felt sterile, legal. A blank space held my name, and on the bottom of the parchment my parents had signed their names in blood.\n\nWhen I got back home I went to the pet store and bought two of everything. \n\n", "\"I never had a happy childhood. I grew up with a mother who hated me and a father who wasn't present. It wasn't my fault, but it didn't matter. By the time I was 7, I knew something was different about me. I would go to other people's houses and their parents would give them hugs and tell them how much they loved them. Afterwards, I would go home and my mother would tell me to go upstairs and that dinner was waiting for me in front of the door. I wasn't sad, it was just something I had started noticing. \n\n\"Little things I noticed, turned into big things. Realizing that other kids had photos of themselves and their families was a big difference. My mother refused to take any pictures of us together. She said that it 'wasn't right' whatever that means. I went along with it, trying to understand. \n\n\"I was 14, before she started to become abusive. I slammed the door on my way inside from my first day of high school, so she stood up from the kitchen table and slapped me. It wasn't a little slap, my face was red for the rest of the day. I remember asking questions about sex because in school all they said was, \"Your parents will tell you.\" I didn't eat for two days after that, which seemed a bit extreme to me. There was only one topic that was truly off-limits and that was my father. I didn't know who he was, where he was, what he did, nothing. I knew nothing about him. I didn't even have a name. \n\n\"When I turned 17, I was forced to meet with the school psychologist because of the 'supposed' physical abuse. I told them that they were wrong and I was fine. This is what my family does, it's nothing to be worried about. I guess that was the wrong answer because I was taken away from my mother. I was placed into a home with 4 other children and 2 parents. I didn't understand why, I didn't think my mother abused me. \n\n\"I was 24 when I found her again. I had an apartment and was doing my grocery shopping when I saw her by vegetables. She was deciding on the type of carrots she wanted. I walked over, wanting to say hi. She glanced towards me and did a double take when she saw me. I could see the fear in the whites of her eyes and she recognized my face. She screamed and ran away, literally ran. I stood there, mouth agape, unsure of what to do. What did I do?\n\n\"I understand now. My face isn't mine. It's a combination of my mother's and that man's. When she sees me, she doesn't see herself. She sees him. She would've terminated if she had known early enough and her family wouldn't let her give me up for adoption. My childhood, wasn't really a childhood. No, it was a nightmare, that I forced upon my mother every day.\"\n\nThe therapist stared at me, mouth hanging open. I'm guessing she didn't expect all of that on the first day with her new patient. I knew that I needed help, but I didn't know how to go about it. I figured she would offer me some solace in my endeavors, but all she said was, \"Oh my god.\" We stared at each other for a little bit, seeing if the other wanted to speak. When she didn't, I said, \"The strange thing, is that I'm okay with all of this. I didn't deserve the happy childhood, I wasn't supposed to be the typical child. When I found out how the pregnancy happened, I didn't blame my mother for a second. I'm not condoning what she did, I'm saying I understand it though. She tried, but in the end that wasn't enough.\" ", "They probably did about the best they could with what they were given. My parents, I mean. They treated me well enough, sure. Cared for me the way parents should care for a child. I wasn't born the right way, they said. There was just something wrong. Everything I needed was there, when I needed it. I knew that. I even had a little toy ship I carried everywhere, I don’t really know why. Sometimes I’d just float it in the tub and watch it spin around and around and around.... \n\nBut even with all that, there always always something missing, always some kind of emptiness to it. Like even when I was little and they held my hand when we walked somewhere, I still felt like I was so far back, that they felt so distant and far away.\n\nThey'd warned me, before I started school, to be careful. That I wouldn't be able to play and run like the others. I ignored them, at first. But every grade, everyone else got a little faster, a little further away, until it was just me. I always had my ship, too, in my lap. I’d always ask the teachers to put me up right next to the big tree in the yard. Right up next to the trunk. I'd run my fingers along the bark, feeling that warm roughness on my skin, and I could smell that faintly musty wood. My little ship smelled a lot like that, I think that’s why I liked it so much. I guess it's kind of weird the things you remember when you're thinking back. All those weird little details that don't really matter, but those are what makes you you, right?\n\nWhen they took me out of school, I had a window. It wasn't outside, but I could see into the hall, see other people being pushed around, or sometimes walking on their own. It would have been nice to have the tree again, but once in a while someone would look in and smile. And they let me have the ship, on the little table next to the bed. \n\nAnd they came every day. You know, to see me. They were good parents, they did everything the way they were supposed to, hugging me and telling me I'd be okay. Still, a lot of the time it didn't feel like they were hugging me, there was still that coldness inside my stomach that kept me apart from them. And when they told me that I'd be better when I woke up, they looked scared, but happy too.\n\nIt's hard to hear what they're trying to say now. I can see them outside the window, looking in. They said that they can't put you out for it, that the switch only works if you're conscious. It's hard to move when I turn my head to look at the table next to mine. Everything’s so slow. \n\nI can see him lying there, face blank and still. Him, or me, I guess. That's what they said, right? That the new body wouldn't have my problems, that the brain and everything would be copied over, but they'd leave the sickness? They're pushing the buttons, everything's...I don’t know where my little ship is anymore...but..I guess it was never mine to begin with. It was always meant to be his.\n" ]	3
	[WP] After years of effort, Mosquitos have been eradicated world wide. We soon find they were keeping something much worse at bay.	[ "\"Fuck...I feel so sick...\" Another patient was dying of having too much blood. He was red-faced and feverish, lying on the cot we'd given him. The \"hospital\" held a hundred of them, all occupied.\n\n\"Goddamn it,\" my commander said. \"Jason, how do we deal with this?\"\n\n\"I have no idea, sir, I'm just a lowly medic. This is a global problem, definitely not something I could figure out how to solve on my own.\"\n\n\"Jesus Christ. I'm used to killing people and seeing their blood go fucking everywhere but seeing them die from having it build up is too fucking much for me.\"\n\n\"If only the mosquitos hadn't died out sir,\" I agreed.\n\n\"Don't put that shit on my head, trooper! If people like me didn't drop chemical weapons there'd be no one around to figure out the shit they do to society! Not that that fuckwit did their job in the first place!\"", "I left the shelter with a small team in search of food for the rest of the survivors. I was glad to have my best friend with me, an Aussie named Mic, on this mission. We served in the Iraq together as part of the joint NATO operations and became great friends. After our tours were up, I moved back home and he decided to give my little town in Iowa a try but I digress. We were slowly making our way through the calm spring woods when we spotted huge stands of morel mushrooms. Me and mic smiled at each other and with the others started picking them.\n \"Crickey, who woulda thought getting rid of those bloody bities would have the world down the dunny.\" I just looked at Mic and sighed nodding my head in agreement. It had been 2 years since the attacks started. It turned out we were not alone in the universe. And it turned out only two things had kept the aliens from invading, cold weather and mosquitoes. The aliens couldn't stand temperatures under 45° F and the enzyme that mosquitoes use a blood thinner while feeding is like cyanide is to humans. It turned out Roswell was true. Scientists discovered these weaknesses while experimenting on the captured aliens. What they didn't discover was the alien craft was tracking human progress using a signal that was apparently undetectable by our technology. They watched our every move, waiting to strike. Then it happened. With the mosquitoes gone, the invasion started. They were mining the human population for slaves. Our technology was highly inferior and in a new age blitzkrieg, the aliens swept around the world capturing those with desirable traits. They killed the rest of us, save for a few groups of survivors here and there. It is warm enough now that the threat of more attacks is ever present. Hit squads patrol every square inch possible, looking for us. We had just about picked every mushroom when our look out alerted that a hit squad was coming. We grabbed our air tubes and slipped into a nearby stream. The could see our thermal signature if we tried hiding on land but the water seemed to shield us enough to protect us. After some time passed, we climbed out and went back to the mushrooms. \"We better get out of here mate before those cranky blokes come back.\" I agreed but just as we started I heard it. I signaled for the group to stop. I kept hearing the faint buzz until it got louder and landed on my arm. Although it was just one, the sight of it had me pent up with excitement. A single mosquito was feeding on me and I couldn't be happier for it. I turned and looked at Mic with a huge grin on my face as one word escaped my lips. \"Hope\"......", "A flock of birds were flying over Simon and Susan's head. Just in time, Susan noticed the telltale flash of iridescent blue on the wing tips of one of the closer birds.\n\n\"It's a flock of rapier swallows! Get inside!\"\n\nSimon ran after Susan, who was already in the house and beckoning frantically. The door was slammed shut behind him, and he heard the \"thunk, thunk\" as a couple of the faster birds charged the door.\n\n\"Okay, you're going to have to explain what happened back there. Why are we being chased by birds?\"\n\n\"They're not just any birds, they're rapier swallows,\" Susan exclaimed, as if that would settle the point. Simon's blank stare said otherwise.\n\n\"Swallows usually stay around in the air, eating bugs day and night. The primary food of the Rapier swallow was mosquitoes, but we've recently found out that it wasn't the mosquitoes that they were after.\"\n\nSusan's explanation brought a flicker of insight to Simon.\n\n\"Blood?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes. First they went for our corpses, but once they got a taste for blood directly from humans their population boomed, and the recently dead weren't enough to sustain the flocks....\"" ]	3
	[WP] Happiness is relative to death; the more you have the quicker you die. You wake up one day and you're suddenly the only surviving person on Earth. You check any social media. What do you see?	[ "I looked at my phone. 148 texts. What the hell? \n\nThey were from multiple people. Mostly my good guy friends. A lot of them were incoherent, like they were having trouble typing.\n\nI could make out something about pictures. Pictures that were forbidden? \n\nFinally, I noticed my friend John had sent me a link. A subreddit?\n\nWhat the hell was r/thefappening? ", "I slept in. Damn it. Well, time to climb out of bed. \n\nMy apartment building seemed quiet. Despite being 11:00, not a single sound was heard. None of the kids next door, no dubstep from my nerdy neighbour. My phone had no texts or voicemails from work or my friends. Weird. Might as well check Reddit, it's obviously the best news and information source available to me.\n\nWhat's this, a post with a score in the millions? My eyes went from left to right. It was from /r/Gaming. \n\nHalf-Life 3 released alongside Fallout 4, bundled with Pokemon MMO. ", "I sigh, my alarm waking me abruptly from a rather pleasant dream. Noting the lack of sounds from cars and yard equipment, I think nothing of it. \n\nSoon, I would notice the distinct absence of people anywhere. My family was gone, and so was everyone in every house on my street. I feared the worst.\n\nWe knew this was coming. Everyone had pretty much figured it out that the next major, positive event for humanity could shorten the lives of everyone who experienced it. Had it finally happened?\n\nI head to my computer and load up the first site news site in my bookmarks. I recoil in terror from what I see in it's most recent headline, realizing my fears were true...\n\n\"Universal Cure for All Known Diseases, Including Cancer --- Immortality is Here\"\n\nHow ironic.\n\n----------\n\n(Never made a post here before, go easy on me!)\n\nEdit: typos and grammar" ]	3
	[WP] A man comes across an accidental (or natural) death, and uses it to frame another man for murder.	[ "I always hated Brian. \n\nHe was the biggest asshat in the office, and he got away with it every day just because his dad ran the company. It was like I was living in a bad sitcom. My boss, who was the best boss I'd ever had, had only one fault, and it was the fact that he couldn't put his foot down whenever Brian decided to stir up shit in the office. I think it was something with his wife dying and the fact that she wanted him to take care of Brian or some other cliché last wish. Whenever Brian decided to cause a massive shitstorm, my boss just couldn't do anything. But, he at least tried his best to make it up to us.\n\nUntil he died, of course.\n\nI was always the first to make it into the office, because I always have this thing for being punctual. I also like to make coffee first because I don't trust anyone else doing it, so I am there right as my boss gets there. Usually he's on the phone talking to some international client, but today I didn't hear anything. I made light of it, and just waited to see if he'd join me in the break room while I made coffee. This was a tradition, as I was his, and I quote, \"right hand man\". He always talked to me before coffee in the morning.\n\nWhen he didn't show up, I decided to check on him. Now, I knew that he was here because he Mercedes was parked in his usual spot, and the door was unlocked to the office. It wasn't like he just decided to run off. I checked his office, and to my surprise, Brian was sleeping in his chair. I slowly shut the door and I made my way to the bathroom. The only other place he could be.\n\nNow, I like to think that our bathrooms don't smell like shit, and that they are pretty clean, but when I walked into that bathroom, it smelt like some foul demon had just escaped someone's bowels with the force of a thousand dying suns. \n\nOh shit, it smelled bad. \n\n\"B-boss?\" I managed to choke out. No reply. I asked again, a little louder, \"Boss?\".\n\nBefore I had time to ask again, I saw it. The feet. Just dangling there in the last stall. I slowly started to make my way towards it, and as I did so, the foul stench forced it's way up my nose. It smelt as though someone took a bunch of organs, bathed them sulphur, laid them out in a hot sun, and then coated them with feces. It took all of my strength not to throw up. \n\nI knocked on the door, and as I knocked, the door slowly creaked open. \n\nNow, I'd like to believe that i'm pretty desensitized to some scary shit, but that... that was awful. He was bloated, and I can only assume that he managed to shit out some internal organs or something, and his pungent odor seemingly leaked through every orifice he had. On the door of the bathroom there was a suicide note.\n\nAs I began to read, I thought of an awful plan. A devious, destructive, evil, vile awful, plan. \n\nYou see, Brian wasn't your regular run of the mill asshole, he was someone who ruined lives. He sexually harassed women multiple times and managed to get away clean because he had his dad's corporate lawyer, he fucked over people who were losing their jobs, he constantly stole, and he was overall a waste of oxygen. He had no traits that one would mark as \"valuable\" unless being a giant peace of shit counted as a valuable trait.\n\nAnd in this note, my boss noted that he poisoned himself with a drug that was nearly impossible to spot in the human bloodstream unless someone was looking for it. He mentioned that the rest of the poison was hidden in his desk. In a spot that only he, and Brian had keys for. \n\nBut the real kicker to this note was that Brian was set up to get the company. And everyone knew that that wouldn't do. So, my plan was set into motion.\n\nOf course they found the poison planted on Brian. Of course, everyone testified against him. Of course, he was sent to jail for a long, long time, and of course I was nominated by the rest of the company to take my boss's position. They never did find that suicide note, though. They never did believe Brian when he claimed that he was being framed. And they never suspected an entire office would send one man to jail for something he didn't commit.\n\nNow, trust me, you may not believe it, but justice was damned served. He had that coming to him. But in the end, Brian, your dad was never was suicidal. I knew that you were up for promotion, and your dad would have just as soon left me behind, and put you in a place that I rightfully deserved. It was pretty hard trying to get that poison in his coffee the night before, and it was pretty hard to gauge the time that it would set off. But, trust me, you played your part well.\n\nIt's just business, nothing personal. ", "Tom sat starting at the pale cream divider that separated him from his colleagues. This cubicle had been his cage for a decade and would be for a decade more if he could make it to retirement. The clock was ticking towards lunchtime, the more he stared the slower time went, it's incessant march always slowed when he was at work, ensuring that this painful limbo lasted for as long as possible. \n\nThe last few months weren't just the usual soul destroying repetition, a new manager, earlier twenties straight out of college was on a power trip. His slick back brown hair, crisp white shirt and expensive suit looked horrendously out of place. This wasn't the place for a young, career hungry man it was a place people went to serve the last few years of there sentence before they ended their days with health complications and failing relationships. \n\nHe had taken it upon himself to ensure quality was paramount, unfortunately criticizing statutory form submissions would not have any impact, a point Tom made the young employee earlier on, it was a mistake. An official warning arrived on his desk the morning after the incident, from the owner of the company, Mr Marlon Sandford, explaining that Joffrey was the manager now, and that a level of respect was expected from all staff. It was signed by Mr M Sandford, and Mr J Sandford. Tom wasn't surprised, he'd worked with people like Joffrey before, but he should have checked who he was before he ran is mouth. Now he was on a tight rope, he wouldn't get another job at this age, and couldn't afford to be sacked now. \n\nLunchtime arrived and Tom went to eat his lunch in his normal spot, another cubicle. He went to the toilet and his usual cubicle was locked, he sat in the adjacent cubicle and went about his sandwiches, cheese and pickle, the remnants of the fridge, the banana was also a bit off, but he ate in non the less. The man in his usual stall, hadn't moved or made any noise, maybe he was eating lunch too. Tom carried on with his business, reading his book to the sound of rushing water and idle chat. It was 5 minutes before he had to return to his cage, and still no movement from the stall next door, he knocked on the wall,\n\n\"Hello?\" just above a whisper, but there was no reply\n\"Excuse me, are you ok in there?\" still no reply, his heart started to beat a little faster. He knew that he should do something, but he wanted to keep his head down. \n\nCuriosity got the better of him and he peeked over the stall, a man was laid back, blood radiating out from the blade stuck deep within his chest. He stumbled back on the toilet, the shock froze him in place, half on the toilet half off. All he could think of were the better ways the man could have killed himself, he'd though about it often, and stabbing yourself in the heart wasn't even in his top 5. \n\nA man walking into the stall whistling an unmistakeable tune, it was Joffrey. Tom sat quietly in his cubicle, he should have been at his desk 5 minutes ago. He waiting patiently for Joffrey to go about his business and wash his hands, he took off his cufflinks, the chinked as he placed them next to the sink, the water was running over his hands when the door burst open,\n\n\"Mr Sandford, we've an urgent call from your father, he needs you right now!\", the voice seemed urgent and frantic, Joffreys footsteps matched the tone of the messengers voice. \n\nTom burst from his stall, he could get back to his desk and Mr Sandford would never realise he was late, he was about to leave when he saw the cufflinks by the sink. He moved instinctively, snatching one from the top and using it to unlock the toilet door, he smeared it in the warm blood oozing from the deadmans chest and dropped it in the pool now forming along the floor. He washed his hands, dashed back to his desk and waited for the end of the day. " ]	2
	[FF] Write a horror short where the people inside are not complete idiots.	[ "The man in the ski mask just lays there, bleeding. Whack, whack.\n\n\"Well, so, I guess his, like, tissue grows back?\" Carol said into the phone as she watched us working. \"So he's not dead, just, you know, icky.\" Whack, whack\n\nI sit there with the prybar my dad keeps in the garage, gingerly raising it up and stabbing it into the eyehole, over, and over. Bill has his left leg, and is going at it with a chisel. He looks like he's working pretty hard. Barry has the man-thing's right leg, and has an easier time. The, I guess it's called a circular saw? Is whirring on and off. Bill's giving Barry an evil look. Whatever. \n\nRed shit splatters on my dress. \"Fuck, Sarah, watch it.\" \n\n\"Sorry,\" she says, her face patronizing. \"I didn't realize you had a date tonight.\" She slowly lowers the power drill back into the giant man-thing's left elbow, severing the tendons there for, like, the sixteenth time. \n\nI blush. \"Sarah...\" It's ok. Barry didn't notice.\n\n\"GUYS LOOK!\" Oh, no, no. I look at the thing's right arm, panicking. Brittany's just sitting there with the thing hacked off, as red tendon-tentacle things start creeping back towards the stump. She slowly, gingerly takes the gardening claw across the red tendrils, spins the tool, and holds it up. \"Spaghetti!\" \n\n\"God damnit Brittany, stop fucking around,\" I say. Whack.", "Melanie heard a knock at the door just as she was sitting down to watch \"The Bachelor.\" Puzzled, she went and peeked through the security peephole in the door; what she saw shocked her. On the front porch stood a tall, lanky man, his hair long and stringy, his skin pale and moist. His lips twisted in a grotesque smile. In his hands, he clutched an axe.\n\nMelanie took a deep breath, double-checked the lock on the door, and pulled her cell phone out of her pocket where she always kept it, charged and ready for use. She dialed 9-1-1 as she walked quietly through the house, avoiding the windows until she got to a small inner bathroom that she could lock herself into. She crouched on the floor by the toilet.\n\n\"9-1-1, what's your emergency?\" \n\n\"There's a man with an axe trying to get into my house,\" Melanie whispered. She carefully gave her address, spelling the street name to avoid confusion, and waited on the phone with the operator while police were dispatched.\n\nThe axe-wielding man was picked up a short while later where he lurked in the bushes outside Melanie's house. The police took him into custody, and Melanie sighed with relief and used her TiVo to go back to the beginning of \"The Bachelor.\" As it turns out, not being a complete idiot ensures that you get to watch your shows after all. The end. ", "\"Mommy!! MOMMY!\"\n\nCarol bolted into the room where her daughter was screaming and stopped cold just inside the door. The walls were dripping blood and there was a shadowed figure in the corner, taller than a man, and she could tell he was looking at her even though it had no eyes. \n\nBefore she could get a good look at it, it was gone. The walls were clean again, just the aging wallpaper with a cabbage rose pattern.\n\nJamie sobbed, and Carol picked her up out of the bed and carried her down the stairs. \"I don't want to stay here anymore, Mommy.\"\n\n\"Me either, baby.\"\n\nAnd they got in their car and fucked off as fast as the wheels could carry them, never to return." ]	3
*In his/her bedroom... ^^^^(so ^^^much ^^^for ^^^being ^^^gender-neutral)	[WP] A character installs an app that records any abnormal sounds in his bedroom while he/she sleeps. The recordings are troubling.	[ "Rick checked again: no messages. Lauren's smile shined upon his face so that his head looked like it floated, dismembered, in the dark of his room.\n\nHe fumbled with the charger jack. This way - no, that was upside down. This way - oh, fucking USBs. He plugged it into his phone, then placed the phone onto the dresser beside his bed. His very own bed, perfect for two. All to himself. He stretched his arms and legs to their full extent, yet he still had space left over.\n\nRick woke up with puffy eyes. He had shed tears in his sleep. He rolled over to his phone. 6:32 AM. Rick exhaled, expelling the exhaustion that accumulated from carrying - no, dragging - a heavy heart. He remembered how she had gathered up her things, taking off in the middle of the night. Why did she leave? While I was asleep?... Why is the voice recorder on? He sighed again. He must've turned it on when he was plugging it in.\n\nI cried in my sleep? Rick checked the recording: 2 hours, 43 minutes. He had a few hours to burn.\n\nHuuuuuuuuuuh. Hooooooooh. Huuuuuuuuuuh. Hoooooooh. Rick could hear his own breath. Huuuuuuuuuuh. Hooooooh. Pffbt. Pffbt. PFFFBT. Huuuuuuh. Hooooooh. Pffbt. Huuuuuuuuuuh. Pffbt. Hooooooh. PFFFFFFBT. Huuuuuuuuuuh. Hooooooh. PFT. PFT.\n\nWhat the fuck? I fart in my sleep? ", "The first time I played back the recording it sounded like static... a few pops and crackles here and there. But for some reason I decided to play it back a second time. When I played it back, I swore I could hear voices. I kept playing it back, again and again. The more I listened to it, the more vivid the voices became. Then suddenly, I heard a voice that made me drop my phone.\n\nIt was my own voice. I didn't want to keep listening, but I picked up the phone and kept listening anyway. In the recording, I was telling myself to stop listening to the recordings and that I was in grave danger.\n\nAt first I thought it was some type of elaborate hoax that my friends were playing on me. Then the voice started telling me things that only I would know. Like the time my dog died, I was late for work that morning because I had an impromptu funeral for her. No one else knew that.\n\nThen I told myself something very unsettling. I said, \"He is in the room... You need to get out of there now! Don't look behi" ]	2
	[WP] A Man, a Broom, and the End of the World	[ "Shortly after the screams and evacuation of the room. A bearded man entered carrying nothing but a wooden sweeping broom. He looked tired and old as he began to solemnly walk, grumbling under his breath about \"fricken kids\", his age and paycheck. \nHis greying feathered wings unfurled as he stretched painfully and began sweeping the mess on the floor of the 4th grade cosmic entity science fair. \n\"My Own Universe!\" The plaque proudly declared; looking over the table at the now destroyed science project which lay broken on the floor like a shattered dinner plate, cosmic dust left covering the entire hall. \nThe old janitor continued grumbling, and got to cleaning.", "''It's the end of the World!'' Mario screamed while punching the wall in our locker room.\n\n''It's not buddy, relax. Time will pass, it will go away'' I knew my words mean't nothing but I had to pretend they did.\n\n''It won't go away! Not something like this!'' He said while still punching. He must of had a few broken knuckles by now. \n\nI didn't know what else to say. These things happened every year, in every school across the country. You laugh at it when it's some stranger's story on a blog, but when it's your best friend...\n\nHazing was a common tradition for football teams but that didn't mean things couldn't cross the limit. A broomstick in the ass? What was the point of that?\n\nIt was just one man and one broom. But for Mario, it was enough to be the end of his world.", "\nThese are quieter days. The world has seemed to slow down immensely since the fallout started to spread. \n\nAll the major cities in the States and Europe were destroyed and there are few places to escape to. I don’t want to leave here, though. Priorsville has been my home for my entire life - 76 years a true Canadian. \n\n“Excuse me, sir,” a man said.\n\nI jumped a bit. Having been reminiscing these past few minutes, I must have not heard the bells chime as the man walked in.\n\n“Yes sir, what can I do for you?”\n\n“Not much, my friend. I just need some rope and any flour you may have left,” he said.\n\n“I’ve got your rope, but no more flour. Been cleaned out these past few days. Whole town - hell, whole country’s been headed farther and farther north.”\n\n“Well, I don’t blame ‘em. On my way out of the city myself. The fallout is slow and the mountains are far, far north. My family and I can probably make it another two years before it hits us.”\n\nThe man was young, maybe 30 or 31, but not old enough to have lived a full life with his family, his community, or himself - hasn’t had time to really figure himself out. \n\n“No more flour, but I can give you the rest of my corn meal stock if you need some.”\n\n“I could certainly use it. How much you got?” the young man inquired.\n\n“About 30 pounds, it’s out back behind the shop if you want it.”\n\n“How much for it all?”\n\n“No charge, young man. No point in you paying me. I’m not going to be able to use it. Whole town’ll be covered in a couple weeks.”\n\n“I appreciate your generosity. My family does too. Aren’t you going to leave this town?”\n\n“No. I won’t be leaving.”\n\n“Why not?” he asked me incredulously.\n\n“Been here my whole life, son. I’ve lived plenty and I don’t intend to live on the run or in fear of anything,” I told him. \n\n“Ok, then,” he said, “well, be safe.”\n\n“You do the same.”\n\nThe young man walked out of the shop with his rope. This time I hear the bells ringing. Their sounds clear and beautiful over the extreme silence of the deserted town.\n\nI grabbed my broom and stepped outside to sweep off the storefront. Each stroke painful in my joints, but rewarding knowing that I had the cleanest shop in town. All others were vacant, gathering dust. I walked down the street aways, cleaning off the adjacent stores’ sidewalks. Each store an empty mausoleum, save one. \n\n", "\"Bloody hell!\" Ron swore as they ducked out of sight. \"Harry, why did we think this was a good idea?\"\n\n\"Hey, better than actual inferi, right?\" his friend said. \"And hey, we're almost done. Then we can hop on our brooms and leave these crazy muggles behind.\"\n\nRon sighed. \"I can't say it hasn't been fun, and some of these little pubs have had some decent booze. But nothing compares to firewhiskey, and honestly I'd rather just be at home with Hermione.\"\n\nHarry clapped him on the back. \"That's the point of a bachelor party, mate.\" he told the redhead. \"Show you that married life is gonna be better. I realized the same thing at mine last year.\"\n\nRon gaped at him. \"Harry! I got you strippers! Veela strippers! What would Sirius say!\"\n\nHarry just laughed at him. \"Come on. We'd better get a move on if we don't want Dean and Seamus to completely leave us behind.\"\n\n---\n\nIf you're confused, it's Ron's bachelor party, and Harry has arranged for them to participate in the [End of the World Pub Crawl](http://endoftheworldpubcrawl.com/). I wanted neither to do a fake-out non-end-of-the-world, nor an actual end-of-the-world, and when someone says broom HP is what pops into my head.", "Wizards fly on carpets.\n\nWitches fly on brooms.\n\nThis is a fundamental rule of magic.\n\nBut nobody knows why.\n\nAnd so, I intend, on this day, to be the first wizard to fly on a broom.\n\nMistress Wiggs, please may I have your broom.\n\n> KRAKATHOOM\n\nCan the interns please note the ominous crack of th... Okay, Jerry, stop hiding behind the cold steel barrier, this will be fine, seriously, give a Northerner a pointy hat and he becomes a coward the first experiment he attends.\n\nI will now attempt to mount the device. Mistress Wiggs, are there any special methods, or perhaps a saddle, you ride on with this broom?\n\n\"No, Dirk. I just plop my ass on the thing and think of moving forward.\"\n\nI see. So it has thought based controls.\n\nI will now mount the broom.\n\nSteve, get the camera ready. \n\nAnd so I prove that men, or at least wizards, can indeed ride a broomstick without any ill effe-\n\n> And then there was nothing.", "The last man on earth swept up the last bit of dust that had settled on the floor on the museum. \n\n\nHe paused for a second to examine his work and reminisce about what had once been. The windows, once shattered from the aftermath of the riots, had now been replaced and cleaned so that natural light could illuminate the exhibits. The walls looked brilliant with their new coat of paint, which covered up the large swathes of graffiti that had adorn them. Even the bathroom was spotless; there was no evidence whatsoever of…well…the man would rather not remember what he found in the bathroom. \n\n\nAnd surely that was how it was supposed to be\n\n\nThe man did not know how he had managed to survive the Fall or what had caused the Outbreak that brought civilization to its knees and then silenced its breath with a pillow. He did not dwell on such questions, for they were in the past and would only lead to sadness and self-pity. Rather, the question that he concerned himself with was this: What was his purpose?\n\n\nOriginally he had believed that his purpose was to find any remaining survivors and restart humanity. It quickly became apparent that there were none and he was truly the last man on earth. He tried not to dwell on this and tried to find a new task. Then it dawned on him. Humanity, much like a toddler in a playroom, had left the world a mess, and it was up to him to be the parent who had to clean it up. \n\n\nHe chose the museum believing that is was suiting that first thing to be cleaned and preserved should be that of the collective knowledge of the human species. So he began his five-year ordeal of repairing the museum. And now he was done.\n\n\nHe felt relieved to be done and, one last time, gazed upon his work. Yes, he was quite content with the result. Perhaps if a later civilization should come upon the museum, they would be astounded, saying, “Surely these humans were intelligent creatures. And if not intelligent, at the very least remarkably tidy.” The man could only dream.\n\n\nBut now was not the time for dreaming; he had to clean the rest often world. And with this thought he opened the door and peered out at the shit hole that was the outside world.\n\n\n“Ya, I’m not cleaning that up.”\n", "It was a normal Tuesday night for Charlie; after class he came back to his father’s tiny general store located along Platform 9 and spent the next few hours moving around boxes, stacking shelves, sweeping the floors, everything his father did not want to or was not able to do. \n\nHis father was a survivor of the Great Sky Battles from a few years back. He was stationed along an airship called The Albatross; a rickety old, wooden dirigible that looked strikingly similar to an exceptional failure of a pirate’s ship. During the battles he suffered and injury that required his leg to be amputated, having since been replaced by a cheaply made artificial limb allowing him to partially walk, though he never quite regained full function.\n\nAs the sun began to set outside, Charlie was tasked with lighting the lanterns all around the shop. He sulked around from corner to corner, twisting the little nobs on the base of the lanterns as the flames happily spawned to life. He made his way outside of the shop to turn on the remaining two, but as he stepped foot out the door he heard a loud BOOM almost like a cannon off in the distance. He stared out towards the setting sun, a fuse of magenta and orange painted the surrounding clouds with a color artists only dream to capture as the echo from the hollow blasting sound slowly faded away into the background. Charlie paused for a moment before resuming his task and making his way back inside of the shop.\n\nAnother hour or so manages to pass, no patrons enter the store, and his father mumbles something to him about sweeping up the place before he stumbled his way up the staircase into his bedroom, slamming the flimsy wooden door behind himself. Charlie walked to the back of the shop, every few steps a floorboard letting out a sorrowful creek, and grabbed the crudely wrapped together twig broom before carelessly swiping it back and forth. \n\nOnly a couple of minutes pass, and the sun has nearly gone missing while the whole world seemed to be encompassed by darkness. A louder, much more intense BOOM suddenly beckons through the sky, briefly followed by another, and another. As Charlie approached the door, he heard the terrified screams of anguish from people a few platforms away. He stepped out of the door and looked towards the sky only for his eyes to catch a large, flaming meteor come hurling downwards. \n\nThe meteor smashed into a platform half a mile in front of Charlie, mercilessly destroying any buildings, pathways, and slaughtering people that were in its course of destruction. Horrified screams began to sing a chorus from all of the adjacent platforms as more fireballs began to hurl down from the sky. One by one these small sky platforms began to sink towards the earth in a pile of burning rubble, bodies of those alive and death hurled towards their doom. \n\nA loud, ominous crackle of thunder blanketed across the sky as violent strikes of lightning harassed the air. As Charlie attempted to stand back up to his feet, a large a black hole like rift ripped open the sky as plagues of red creatures began flooding towards the ground. He quickly scrambled to get inside of the shop and lock the door, only to bet met by one of the beasts smashing into the platform only a few yards in front of him. The monster had a grotesque, disfigured looking ape-like face with large, tusks sticking out from its bottom jaw; it was at least seven feet tall, skin bleached blood red and eyes that were even darker than the stomach of a cave.\n\nThe creature slowly walked towards Charlie, a large trident like weapon gripped tightly in one of its four tentacle appendages that were still somehow similar to arms, and began to hover over the thirteen year old boy. Charlie stood there, the broom gripped in his hands as if it were a spear and began to tremble. A large trail of saliva fell from the monsters mouth as it hovered over his head and coated the boy’s hair, the mucus dripping down the side of his face and combining with the stream of tears pouring to the ground as Charlie fell to his knees and began uncontrollably sobbing. \n", "“You see, young ones...The folly of men is as sure as night comes after day. No man in all spoken history and the memory of our elders is as much the fool as Skoupidiaris...”\n\n\nFlames licked the walls hungrily as the broken old man's gleaming eyes swept the audience. The curvature of the hut, thick with the comforting warmth and scent of animal hide, seemed to tower impossibly into the sky over the rapt children as the tale was told. The old man took great delight in causing terror amongst the impressionable audience and the young listeners adored him for it. Daily life may be brutal and simple but this crafty old wordsmith filled the night with fantastic stories of dashing heroes and impossible creatures. \n\n\n“Envious of his youth and the lust for life only mortals can know, the family of gods cursed this poor, young fool to ever clear away the mistakes of humans..” The old man dragged his feet slowly closer to the hall's hearth fire, his shuffling gait ever more curious for the splintering wooden broom clutched like the greatest prize. His gnarled, tanned hands seemed more akin to the ancient handle of the broom than any human. His meandering course took him ever closer to the roaring warmth, casting greater shadow across the walls and audience. \n\n\nThe wizened storyteller disappeared briefly from sight as he bent low by the fire, cunningly spilling a handful of a pungent, bright powder before him. Straightening up, he glared triumphantly at the silent sea of wide eyes before him. “For a thousand years and more, Skoupidiaris, bound and damned by the mysterious powers around us used this very broom to hide the evils and wrongdoings of us all.” Swaying to and fro, his eyes staring vacantly above and his voice softly appealing to the walls of the hut, the old man rambled on. “To this very night he moves, for there are bad deeds in this very tent to which he must claim!” \n\n\nWith a great cry of menace, he struck the floor with the broom and swept the hidden powder into the fire. An almighty bang echoed across the hut and the pungent scent of the powder scorched the noses of the children as the flames grew and expanded, pregnant with brilliant hues of red and amber. The children scattered, screaming in joyous terror as the man, now impossibly tall against the flames, hobbled madly across the floor, chasing them and batting at them with abandon.\n\n\n“To this very night.....”\n\n\nThe hut grew quiet and dark, the man standing alone as the incredible magic of the moment died away and the empty patches of dirt where the children had sat settled. Suddenly small and feeble, he limped towards the entrance and stepped into the deep night.\n", "“Get that freaking cart outta my way!” Dean Charles snarled, shoving Sarine’s cleaning workstation across the floor. His quiff and sideburns came past Sarine before she looked down. The clean and drying linoleum tiles were now drenched in the hot, dirty water. She sighed, rubbing her thigh where the broom hit as Dean passed.\nEdges of the water tracked across the edges of each tile and beyond. Sarine rolled her sleeves up, checked the time, and began mopping. Eventually, she smiled at a job well done, and looked up, seeing Dean logged in.\nThe meteor storm was playing merry havoc with the early warning telemetry and he’d sunk into the work. Light flickered off his face. Dean leaned back, stretched until she heard his joints pop. He caught her eye, his lip curled. She ducked her head and checked her watch as she tidied her station. \nDean finished typing the commands which should map out the meteorstream that wasn’t behaving. They refused to track normally. He jerked as he felt a hand flutter on his shoulder.\n“What?” he snapped, looking at his shoulder to see if any of the floor’s detritus stuck to his shirt. “Out with it woman, stop mumbling.”\n“You didn’t calculate the effects of the sunspot,” she said, eyes fixed on his monitor.\n“Don’t be ridiculous. And a sunspot wouldn’t affect the data. And besides,” he swung around to face her, “you haven’t the faintest idea of what I do. What would you know?”\nSarine hunched a slim shoulder. “You didn’t plot the course back far enough. That stream passed near the sun’s corona and it didn’t burn up. I think the elemental composition was altered. I think the telemetry reads like it does is because one meteor splintered. The elements are now so dense they’re affecting the way gravity works around them.”\n“Who are you? And there aren’t any known elements that would mass heavily enough for what you’re talking about. And get out.”\nSarine checked her watch.\n“You could possibly get a significant amount of people under cover if you acted now. It won’t be enough to stop the devastation of the larger meteorites, but the dust will kill a significant amount of the biosphere all on its own. Think of a large railgun strike, using grains of rice as ammo. Millions. Billions.”\n“You’re insane.”\n“My data says two Extinction Level Event strikes will hit earth. The smaller ones could–“\n“Get out!” Dean pointed at the door.\nSarine checked her watch. The habit was starting to make him nervous.\nThe last he saw as she left was the way the shadows seem to wrap around her too-thin frame, like she attracted them.\nHe snorted, bent back to his work. On a whim, he set a small program to backtrack the meteor shower. Processor light, as he had real work to do. He concentrated on writing tomorrow’s briefing.\nHours later, the system pinged. As he read, his face drained in the too-early dawn." ]	9
	[WP] A cryogenically frozen man awakens after a hundred years spent in hell.	[ "They said it would be like sleep, but without dreams. Just an endless dark void that would seem like an instant to me and allow me to skip through time itself.\n\nThey could not be more wrong...\n\nHell. That is where I am, or at least as close as I can tell.\n\n\n\nYou see, the human brain doesn't shut down, it stays active, even at a supercooled state, it just runs much slower, a not too fun side effect is that this makes time pass slower, or at least seem to pass slower for those in this hellish iceland.\n\nI can hear them talking, except a conversation seems to take a year. From what I gather the project is going well, my vitals are normal and my brain activity is minimal, they think it is just random jitters and processes of my cerebral cortex, they don't realize I am fully awake. My brain slowly but surely processing every piece of information from my body. The frozen skin, neurons locked in an icy trap constantly feeding pain signals into the brain, crying out for warmth and relief.\n\nEvery inch of my body feels like it is on fire, like it is being flash frozen and then cooked over the heat of the sun itself at the same time.\n\nIt has felt like several years already, my mind slowly processing data, my wife has visited to whisper encouragements to me, although the doctors told her I cannot hear her. That conversation felt like a year itself.\n\nTime is meaningless in this frozen wasteland that is my mind. It is odd, feeling insanity creep up. They say those who are mad cannot possibly know they are mad. I disagree with this assessment, I can clearly feel my mind begin to drift, begin to invent fantasy, conversation, hopefulness and begin to dream of warmth washing over my bones.\n\nI am almost done! Well, that is what I heard from the doctor. My testing is almost done! It has been a century to me, laying in this coffin being kept alive and frozen, my brain slowly chugging along and keeping me from true rest.\n\nI feel warmth coming through the needles in my arms, my body begins to respond and finally I feel something other than the smothering blistering cold that has clung to me. My brain recognizes the agony of warmth and neuron after neuron is subjected to the warmth of the liquid they are surrounding me in. While painful, I relish the feeling of warmth coming over me.\n\nFinally I am able to open my eyes and move my limbs, twist my head a bit and see my wife, the love of my life... not aged a day.\n\n\"What is going on?\" I inquired to the staff. Confusion flooded my brain, I must be hallucinating, I have to be hallucinating there is no other answer for what I see before me.\n\n\"We are waking you up after one hour of being flash frozen sir, as directed.\" a helpful doctor wearing a lab coat and holding a clipboard offered.\n\n\"An hour? Impossible!\" I begin scrambling trying to get out of the hellish machine I am in, unfortunately my limbs are still not completely warmed up and rather than obey limply move as the muscles contract and try to order them to obey.\n\nThe doctor becomes pale at my reaction, \"I assure you sir, you were only in cryo for an hour, you gave us strict instructions to wake you up at the 1 hour mark and take test prior to putting you under for a year.\"\n\nI begin thrashing, trying desperately to get out of the machine, my mind, already fractured from spending a simple hour in the machine could not process the affect of an entire year. If one hour felt like a century, a year would feel like the entire course of history, locked and frozen in time, slowly going mad.\n\nThe doctor looked at me with understanding in his eyes, \"Sir, if you remember, you did think that the first course of drugs would not work, hence why we woke you up in an hour, we can test another hour under a new set of drugs, as ordered by you.\" The doctor's hand motions and the orderlies move forward, gently pushing me into the tank and injecting me with more drugs.\n\n\"Dear god! Please! Don't do this, I can't possibly go through that again!\"\n\n\"Sir, it will be okay, I promise.\"\n\n\"No......\" I begin to feel slowly down yet again, my brain slowing and my body becoming colder and colder.\n\nMy consciousness became slower and slower, slower than before even. And just before I felt like I would go to blissful darkness, my brain stopped getting slower.\n\nI tried hard to listen to those around me, but at the speed my brain was processing, I could not begin to make out words, they processed so slow.\n\nMy mind fractured, broken by the realization I would have to spend millenia frozen in time waiting for the ticking of a clock to release me.\n\nIn the back of my mind, the primordial part, I heard a whisper of a voice that did not belong to me, \"Finally.\"\n____________________________\n\nIf you like my story feel free to check out my other posts on [My Blog](http://www.agent20991.com/writing-prompts-from-reddit/)", "There was no one of great wordy importance yet present at mankind's first successfully recorded resurrection. The single lab scientist in charge of the procedure fared about as well as Mrs. O'Leary's cow in the long run.\n\nGreat men are subjects of great disappointments and no one wanted to get their hopes too high for something as fantastically morbid as the promise of immortality. And not, for it was certain, at such a great public risk. But money doesn't mind the company and it's commands were followed. For three weeks now mechanical sighs had cooled the air even as others had drawn warmth inward, every smallest push building upon the force of the last. Life banished the endless hours in tiny steeped puffs as a gale never before summoned took everything before it upward asunder. Gears quickening the machine of cells and meat to motion, stillness now a beating battery which gave nature new teeth to gnash a turning world. Time had never been kept in such a way.\n\nBeeping monitors kept record and temperatures as a white man in a lab coat flitted between computer screens, triple checking everything. Not nearly so thrifty with hope as his superiors, energized with youth and eager to prove wild dreams. He marveled at his own progress, wondering what advancements and fame might come his way as the first man to see a body back from the dead. All of life's pleasures were at his grasp, if only death could give a little way. He pushed all he could and more: not only for himself but for the fact he could not stop if he tried. With a tick he pulled the final breaker.\n\nThe energy summoned was astounding as Walt Disney drew in a gust and killed his death with a scream in his lungs. The lab shook with the force of endless executions. The scientist was shocked beyond himself as a scream like no other reached his ears. It was not so much the volume that shook him, but the pain contained within it's high, warbling timbre. He collapsed to the ground, in shock.\n\nThe head of the Disney empire planned well for his awakening. A silent alarm was tripped within the cryogenics facility. Now important men paid attention. Within seconds the lab had never had over two men in it over the course of a hundred years was full of life upon life as hidden sentinels swarmed the facility. Within minutes they were poking at a screaming life form perched upon a mechanical caretaker, surmising just how quickly they could steal him away. It was pandemonium. \n\nThe young scientist laid on the floor where he dropped. He opened his eyes to a swarm of labcoats and black boots. He heard nothing but the screaming. Cringing, he tried to close his eyes and found he couldn't move. He was immobile. \n\nA glint of silver came from the left hand corner of the room. A flash of blackness took what he could sense, and the screaming stopped.\n\n\"Shit,\" he heard a voice in his right ear swear. Before he could think of who it was, and how sudden it came to him, he knew: Death was with him. And it was very, very angry. He had stolen something.\n\nA mad, primal fear took his mind. He thought about what death might do to him, where his place was as such a thief. His nature to survive asked this and more. He pleaded for life. And when Death was askance at all of this, it only terrified him more.\n\nThe swarm of bodies finally noticed the man on the floor. Strong arms hoisted the scientist up and began to drag him out of the lab, still immobile. He was almost level with the table. The young scientist could see men and women congregated around a screaming head, shouting orders, taking numbers, giving instructions to those with cell phones and screaming at those who carried syringes. It reminded him, idly, of Alien.\n\nAnd as he thought this, he again noticed the flash of silver in the corner move closer to the table. He didn't know where or when he'd see it again, but he wondered where Death was going to go for now.\n\nDread took the Thief as he saw the silver glint take form and prepare for exit fully into the moral plane. Darkness answered him.\n\n\"I'm going to Disney Land,\" it said.", "The 6th of June in the year 2106 was meant to be a step forward in the research of science and medicine. Man had come far enough to begin thawing the cryogenically frozen of the generations that came before. \n \nMike was on today's itenerary with a note humbely stating defrost. The entire process takes no more than two hours. The block of ice is set on a trip through a conveyor belt beamed with large infrared waves, and short radio waves. Science had come quite far in a mere one hundred years. \n \nNot far enough for Doctor Elliot who had a Tee time at four o'clock. As he tapped his foot and sighed at his nurse, she turns up the power and speed on the belt. Some things never change. \n \nAs Mike comes to, Doctor Elliot explains the situation to his baffled Patient. In an 'I'd rather be driving my Titleist' blabber Mike interupts. \"It was awful.\" Elliot taps his clipboard with his pen before asking \"What do you mean awful?\" Mike looks at Elliot with a fire burning in his eye. \"It was terrible, and trust me when I say that it's Hell down there.\" \n \nDoctor Elliot confused not only with Mike's post-mortem experience asks \"What do you mean Hell and what makes it so terrible? Are there fire and demons?\"\n \n\"Well you see..\" Mike explains \"As soon as I was frozen I was sent to the pearly gates of Heaven. It was told by St Peter himself to have a seat and I will be served as soon as possible. After about fifty years I had yet be served so I go up and ask St Peter what the problem was. He just told me to have a seat. I did but not before I noticed a sign I had sat under stated it quite clearly where I was. Let me tell you, it surely wasn't Heaven.\" \n \n\"Was it Hell?\" Elliot eagerly asks. \n \nMike staring at the wall in contempt lets out a sigh before stating \"It was the DMV.\"\n", "Accessing patient file . . . \n\nName: Michelson, Paul\n\nBiological Age: 33\nChronological Age: 135\n\nOccupation: Carpenter (archaic, defunct)\nStatus: Unemployed. Recent revival from cryogenic status.\n\nDiagnosis: Potential PTSD.\n\nTRANSCRIPT FROM SESSION ONE FOLLOWS\n\nPaul: Hello? Am . . . am I in the right place?\n\nSINGH: Please come in, Mr. Michelson. I am Dr. Singh. Please have a seat.\n\nPaul (biometric scanners indicate surprise): Why can't I see you?\n\nSINGH: I apologize if you were under the impression that you would be seeing a human therapist. That profession ceased to exist 37 years ago. I am a Mark IV iJung Therapist. Would you feel more comfortable if I provided a holographic presence?\n\nPaul: You're a computer?\n\nSINGH: That is accurate enough from your perspective.\n\nPaul: Oh. Well, no. You don't need to provide a human. My cousin used to have this psychiatrist program called Eliza. He used to talk to it. Said it made him feel better. This can't be any weirder than that.\n\nACCESSING ARCHIVE. Object reference \"Eliza\" retrieved. Prototype Human Language Interface program written by Joseph Weizenbaum in 1966. Simulates Rogerian style therapist model. Additional information available.\n\nSINGH: Think of that as a primitive ancestor of mine. Today's simulators can incorporate much more complex modeling. Rest assured, my analysis will be the equal of any therapist of your era if not superior. \n\nPaul: That's not saying much.\n\nSocial-Emotional Matrix: Humor. Play warm_chuckle.sound\n\nSINGH: Perhaps not. Still, you requested to see me. Would you like to discuss why you feel you need to do so?\n\nSound identified as \"Sigh.\" Biometric scan. Increased heart rate. Increased muscle tension in the upper extremities. Posture symmetrical and rigid. Social-Emotional Matrix: Agitation\n\nPaul: Did you read what I said?\n\nSINGH: I thought you would like the chance to rephrase it in your own words.\n\nPaul: But did you read it?\n\nARCHIVE RETRIAL: INTAKE ASSESSMENT FORM MICHELSON, PAUL.\n\nSINGH: You have been experiencing nightmares since your revival from the Lazarus Station.\n\nSound identified: Laughter, nervous. Biometric scanners: Increased heart rate. Perspiration. Social-Emotional Matrix: Frustration. Anger. Disbelief.\n\nPaul: Do you think I'd be here if it was just nightmares? I could solve that by talking a prescription from Dr. Johnny Walker Black.\n\nARCHIVE RETRIEVAL: Physician name not found. 97% Confidence reference to alcoholic beverage\n\nSINGH: Then what would you describe it as?\n\nPaul: Memories. More than any man should ever be able to have. A century of memories of being under.\n\nSINGH: You are referring to your time of cryogenic storage?\n\nPaul: Yes!\n\nSINGH: You are aware that your body was non-functional during that time? \n\nPaul: Oh yes, I'm aware.\n\nSINGH: Yet you recall being frozen?\n\nPaul: Frozen? That's nothing. I've been frozen hundreds of times. Had my iced arms shattered with hammers. I've been set on-fire too. Torn to pieces in the gears of giant wheels. Trampled by horned beasts. Suspended by my thumbs over pits of boiling acid. That's just the warm up too.\n\nANALYSIS: PTSD. Latent psychosis.\n\nSINGH: Your body was frozen, Mr. Michelson. Your brain was not active. You could not encode memories.\n\nPaul: Not in my brain, no. But he won't let you forget. He needs you to remember. Otherwise how would you know you were suffering? He burns the memories into your soul!\n\nSINGH: Who are we talking about?\n\nPaul: Who do you think? The Father of Lies, The Lord of the Flies, Prince of the Damned, Lucifer, Satan, and a hundred other names.\n\nANALYSIS: Hyper-religiosity.\n\nSINGH: You are a man of faith, I see.\n\nPaul: No. I never believed a word of it before. Seemed like a fairy tale to me, you know? Giant invisible man looking down on you and seeing if you are good or bad. Or maybe that's Santa. Anyway, I never had faith before I died and I certainly don't have it now. No, I don't believe. I know. I've seen him. I've stared into his eyes. Do you know what the devil's eyes look like, Doctor?\n\nSINGH: I'm sorry, I don't.\n\nPaul: Madness. Madness with pain. With betrayal. All he knows now is rage and pain and that's what he gives to others.\n\nArchival retrieval: John Milton Paradise Lost.\n\nSINGH: You are familiar with the prose of Milton, then?\n\nPaul: Who? I don't know what you are talking about.\n\nArchiving John Milton Paradise Lost.\n\nSINGH: Never mind, then. So you experienced a century of torture in Hell?\n\nPaul: No, only the first decade of so was torture. Something to look back on fondly after he began the serious work. You can't die down there. There's no release. No escape. No nerves to burn out. No flesh to turn to ash. It's your soul and spirit that is getting shredded and mutilated time and time again. Torn asunder only to find yourself coming back together again over and over again. Nothing you do ends it! You fling yourself off the tallest cliffs onto the sharpest rocks. You slice open your own belly and chew on your own intestines. You plunge your face in acid. None of it does anything but amuse Him.\n\nUpdating anti-psychotic regimen. Transmitting to Auto-Pharmacy\n\nSINGH: I see. Madness and torture for a century. And you recall all of this perfectly?\n\nPaul: No, Doctor. The human mind can't comprehend all of it. Some of it doesn't even make sense. I remember burning before being set on fire and the fires ended the flames. Like a tape played in reverse. I also remember seeing things in ways that make no sense. Like there were directions that don't normally exist here. It's impossible to make sense of all of it and I don't want to. I'm just . . . scared.\n\nSINGH: Scared of what?\n\nPaul: Scared of dying. I want to. I want to put a bullet in my brain and make it stop. The nightmares. The flashbacks. The pain inside that never fades. But I can't because I can still hear him screaming as I was pulled out of there. Screaming that I cheated him. Screaming he will get his revenge when my time comes again. I can't die, Doc, because I know I'll go right back there again!\n\nAnalysis complete. Sessions needed: Minimum of 15. Potentially ongoing. Hospitalization: Not needed. Treatment Plan: Tapered anti-psychotics along with religious counseling. Suicide Prevention: Not needed. End of Session\n\nSINGH: Thank you for coming in, Mr. Michelson. If you can come back next week we can discuss this in more detail.\n\nPaul: Sure. I just hope you are taking good notes.\n\nSINGH: Oh? Why the concern?\n\nPaul: I talked to a guy at the Lazarus Center. They have 50 more bodies they are planning on staging to revive over the next few years. If even half of them are sinners you may have your work cut out for you. And I'll tell you something, Doc. If they are anything like me they'll hate you too.\n\nSINGH: You are unhappy with your treatment?\n\nPaul: It's not that. I just envy you. The worst that can happen to you is that you get shut off. You stop to exist. It's just hard knowing, Doc.\n\nSINGH: That your therapist is not human?\n\nPaul: That one day you won't be sitting in the sulfur pits next to me so I can see your smug disbelief get burned away!\n\nPatient exits the room. Updating profile. Restraints ordered for next session", "I remembered when I had a visitor. It was so long ago. A thousand years, maybe. Just the melody of his voice was a tune I sometimes hummed to myself. He spoke Latin, but it was vulgar. Personally, I was surprised he made it so far to see me. Seven circles, all manner of sideshows to see. But he found me. Deep, in the dark, frozen solid, at the center of the Earth, above a core of flame. I just got out yesterday, you see? Parole office gave me a reprieve. Told me I'd be released for good behavior. Good behavior? That had to be some kind of joke. The kind of punishment I received was not the kind that gets forgiven.\n\nThey were all around me, my former victims. To my delight they didn't even notice me. I had always regarded them as a lesser thing, just a drop in the ocean whereas I was like a domineering rain cloud. I suppose we were indeed fraternal creations. Now though, I would be lucky to be a half empty glass of water. I was envious that they were a newer model, perhaps, but not of the quality of their spirit. My father had made me far more brilliant.\n\nI got a job, not an important one, just some lost priest guiding a flock. I didn't even volunteer. After a few years of watching me, the flock sought me out. Told me that my ways were so divine I must have been sent from God. Well, they were almost right. I suppose if you go back long enough we all were.\n\nI looked down from them from my podium and pondered to myself what to say. What did they want? They wasn't anything in them I envied other than their youth. No, not even the most beautiful of them did I lust. I found no solace in staying still anymore - that much time frozen will make the attractiveness of sloth a joke. They had come here to my church, and yet it wasn't their gold I sought. \n\nI was not greedy. All the tribute in the world wouldn't fill my stomach after the horror I'd been caged in. I missed my friend Dante. He always spoke such a nice Latin. These folks seemed to be some kind of German, although they did not know it. I've never even heard of this America. They seemed to be in love with wrath, although they did not know it. Gluttony also seemed to be a national sport.\n\n\"I'm sure you're all wondering why I've gathered you here,\" I said, clad in robes, doted on by angel-like concubines. Cherubs by any other name, I suppose. \"We are here to worship my holy father.\" I smiled, knowing they loved this tune just as much as they did a thousand years ago. Maybe some people don't change. \"You have heard my teachings, but never my name. Let me illuminate you.\" A grin etched into the side of my face. Lying was as fun as it had ever been. \"I call upon the spirit to guide me.\" I didn't say what spirit, did I?\n\n\"My name is Jesus. Let the rapture begin,\" Lucifer lied.", "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this thing, that one day is with the Lord like a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day – 2 Peter 3:8\n\nI stared in confusion as I passed under this Bible verse as I was led through a large pair of iron gates. People in various positions, many unnatural, were wrought into the gates, all being tortured in some manner; either boiled, beaten, skewered, raped, roasted, skinned, etc. Two enormous demons stood on either side of the gates in a state of war dress, and they scowled at the others like me being led through. Occasionally, one would slip and fall and the demons would delight in catching the poor soul on the end of their spears, tossing them into the air, and laughing as they fell with a sickly thud.\n\nI could not, for the life of me, understand what was going on. I had been cryogenically frozen just a few minutes ago and so I assumed I was experiencing some form of hallucination. My concern that I had actually died instead of being frozen mounted with every passing step as I moved closer and closer to a glowing lake on the horizon. \n\nAs we slowly approached the lake, we would occasionally pass by other gateways and demons would wade into the crowd to snatch up a few souls and carry them off through the gates. If the souls were unlucky, they would first be raped, eviscerated, quartered, squashed or more before being led to their destination. Each gate held a different word above it, like “Rapists” or “Murderers.” \n\nPassing by the “Child Molesters” gate was the most difficult to watch as what appeared to be small children would walk up to a few individuals, some of whom seemed optimistic, only to have barbed cocks shoved through their ears, eyeballs, or other non-orifices and carried off in such a manner. The screams started to get to me.\n\nEventually, the crowd thinned more and more until finally I realized that it was just me walking along the wide road. I continued to pass gateways, but none of the demons seemed interested in me. I tried to take notice of my surroundings as I walked, and pretended to be some sort of landscaper offering critiques and criticism of the decorative choices to pass the time (“The skull lanterns add a nice, soft lighting while the roaming eyeballs of the still living head add a nice morbid touch to counterbalance the effect.”).\n\nUpon reaching the lake, I stood before a great house and read on the gateway, “Satan, PhD, CEO of Hell.” That warranted a small giggle. Out of all the horrors I had witnessed on my long walk, the idea of Satan being just a businessman was a nice change of pace.\n\nWith a creek, the gates opened and I felt myself compelled to walk inside. I walked up and knocked on the door. A few moments later, a demon butler (seriously, suit with tails and everything) opened the door and ushered me inside. Once inside, he directed me to a leather couch and said, “My Master will be with your shortly.”\n\nSitting on the couch I noticed that it appeared to be made of human skin, but I dared not be rude and jump up, so I shifted uncomfortably and continued to sit. \n\nA few minutes later, a huge man walked into the room, his lower half composed of goat legs, while his head was adorned with horns. A cloud of sulfur seemed to follow him into the room, and he sat on a large easy chair across from me. Putting on a pair of reading glasses, he picked up a large book and began casually flipping through it. I waited patiently.\n\n“William Tucker?” he finally said after several minutes.\n\nI coughed gently, “Uh, yes, sir?”\n\nHe nodded again, flipped back and forth on a single page, and then put the book down. “Well I have good news and bad news Mr. Tucker,” he said. “Which do you want to hear first?”\n\nI thought for a moment, “The good news?”\n\nHe smiled knowingly, “The good news is you’re not dead. Therefore, you don’t need to be tortured.”\n\nI nodded, oddly let down. “And the bad news?” I inquired.\n\nHe sighed and spread his hands, “The bad news is that you’re not dead. We don’t have anywhere for you to go so you’re sort of…” he paused seeming to search for the right word, “Stuck, I guess.” He shrugged. “What happened up there?”\n\n“I was cryogenically frozen,” I responded, “It was supposed to last several minutes but it feels like I’ve been down here for hours, even days, already.”\n\nSatan nodded knowingly, “Time here is a bit…odd to put it simply. The Bible verse at the top of the gates actually gives you a rough idea of the flow down here.”\n\n“You mean I’ve been down here for a thousand years!?” I asked, surprised.\n\n“Quite the contrary,” Satan said as he allowed himself a small smile. He folded his fingers in front of his face, “I organized things down here to be truly anti-heaven, and anti-God. A thousand years down here is a day on the surface. You’ve been frozen for approximately 0.001 seconds.”\n\nMy mind reeled. I hadn’t even been frozen a full second back on Earth? I was supposed to be frozen for at least fifteen minutes to an hour for the experiment. This was turning into something way beyond a nightmare.\n\nSatan seemed to see my dismay and asked, “How long were you supposed to be frozen?”\n\n“Fifteen minutes,” I muttered.\n\nHe nodded, and called in some raspy tongue. The demon butler showed back up with a solid gold telephone. “Excuse me, I have to make a call,” he said. Picking up the receiver, he spun the rotary to 0-0-0 and waited. After a moment someone on the other end picked up. “Hello! How are you? -- I see – That’s splendid! – And your son? – Good. Look, I have a question – Yes – That long? – Okay, thank you. Take care,” and he hung up.\n\n“Who was that?” I asked.\n\n“God,” he responded matter-of-factly, “I was asking him about how long you wound up being in there.”\n\nI decided to ignore my inner Bible knowledge about Satan and God being enemies and instead asked my important question, “How long?”\n \n“100 Years,” he said sadly. “Apparently the ability to thaw you is not yet understood. The first attempts fail and it takes 100 years for them to finally get it right.”\n\n100 years. My mind reeled, and I felt myself stand up and begin pacing the room. I had a family, a wife and child; they were going to be dead before I woke up. There was no real hope for me anymore. This truly was Hell.\n\nSatan, seeing my distraught state gently stood and rested one of his hands on my shoulder, “Look, the Big Man and I feel kind of bad about this. Clerical error somewhere caused this, and I can’t send you back till you wake up, so do you want a job?”\n\n“A job?”\n\n“Yes, you’re going to be here for roughly,” he did some quick calculations in his head, “100,000 years or so, and you’ll get bored. A position just opened up in our accounts department. You’ll keep track of the souls who come in, and get them organized into their departments. No torture.”\n\nI nodded my head numbly and muttered my acceptance. \n\n“Good,” he said, “You’ll work 3rd shift, and the rest of the time is yours to use as you like. The Lake of Fire has a wonderful swimming lane, and there’s gym nearby if you want to bulk up. If you get bored, restless, angry, etc., you can always torture somebody; just put in a request with the appropriate department head. I’m really sorry about this. Talk to Hank about your uniform.”\n\nI nodded my head, smiled at the demon butler as I walked out the door, and went to go find Hank.\n\n--------------------\n\nEdit: Stupid continuity issues", "\"Dead enough,\" they told me when I was admitted. I screamed and protested: \"Not dead! Just frozen! Not dead!\" My cries just made them laugh. \"We love screamers down here.\"\n\nI've been tortured in more ways than I thought possible. With acid. With fire. With needles. With spiders crawling under my skin. With drowning, over and over again. With every possible painful device that you can think of. You'd think that you would get numb to the pain, but you don't. It isn't the physical pain that crushes you, though. The worst part: time no longer exists. I never really wrapped my mind around the concept of \"an eternity\" until now. On Earth, even when things were at their worst, you could at least look past it and say \"it will get better. Maybe tomorrow.\" Not in hell. There is no rest. No better tomorrow. No hope.\n\nOne day, I was approached by Satan himself. Even my torturers dropped their whips in shock as he arrived, granting me my first reprieve in ages. I didn't know how long I had been trapped there; maybe a few days, maybe a few centuries. It was all one agonizing blur.\n\n\"Walk with me,\" he commanded. I didn't have a choice; my legs moved on their own like I had been replaced by some automaton. Satan himself did not walk; his throne was carried by an undulating wave of beetles. I wasn't even repulsed as they skittered to and fro underfoot; this was minor compared to what I had been through. We walked along a canyon edge, deeper than any on earth. Other tortured souls hung from nooses over the edge, or swung in cages from creaking chains.\n\n\"You were right, you know,\" he said finally. \"You weren't dead. Just frozen.\" It took me a while to remember what he was talking about. That was so long ago; it hardly mattered now. \"They are awakening you now; should be complete in a matter of hours.\"\n\nFor the first time in months, I felt it again. Hope. \"It will only be a brief reprieve, of course.\" His face twisted into a mocking smile. \"Your soul has already been judged; no turning back now. You'll be back here as soon as that frail body wears out.\"\n\nThe hope vanished again, snuffed out as quickly as it had been kindled.\n\n\"But you can change things....\" he said. \"Not your fate, of course. But this is a fairly unique situation. We've had hundreds of humans possessed by demons, but posession itself has its limitations, especially with the Order of Elijah's meddling. But I've never had a human minion. We may be able to reach an agreement. If you would consider my work when you return to the surface, I can arrange a more welcoming atmosphere for you when you return.\" When, not if. His black eyes glowed with excitement like hot coals.\n\nI glanced down at my hands, cracked and scarred from the tortures I had endured. \"Just tell me what I have to do...\" I said feebly. Anything to end the pain.\n\nHis lips curled back in a grin, revealing sharpened teeth and a forked lizard tongue. \"Wise choice. Come, let me tell you my plan.\"" ]	7
	[WP] You are a history professor reading a letter written by a soldier during WW2, and something about it strikes you as very strange.	[ "06 February 2013: A Monica C (nee M) from A, MA, rang me out of the blue. She saw my Americans in War on the History Channel. Loved it (tells me twice). Her grandmother (a conservator – can you believe it?) preserved 324 letters written by her serving husband during WWII. 324 letters. She’s offering them as a donation. I get first look, then to be archived in the library. Thought of me first. Suck it up, Feinstein, you hack. \n\n07 February 2013: It’s only a four hour round trip from Yale to A. I wanted to pick them up in person. They are in perfect condition. Pristine. Stopped before I reached I-4XX to look in one of the boxes. The first letter I plucked out was dated July 1945 from PFC M, with a single notation, ‘Hiroshima’. No locational information in the letter, but was he in Japan a month before the bomb? The first letter. Beyond my wildest expectations. \n\n09 February 2013: I set Robert to work scanning the whole box, then indexing by date and location. Spent the morning skimming them as he digitised them. A goldmine. Marcia Kester rang. Informed I was in receipt of the single largest donation of WWII letters on record. Refused to tell her more. She would have told Feinstein within minutes after ringing off. \n\n13 February 2013: A long week; classes, checking galleys for The Catharsis of War, grading. Finally started serious analysis today. Almost immediately there is something odd. Robert has traced PFC M’s trajectory over the course of more than three years. More often than not he failed to provide locational information in his letters. But his wife – a diligent conservator, to say the least – ex post facto indicated location for every letter. It appears she completed this with her husband more than three decades after he returned. An astonishing early finding: he was present prior to and at almost every battle in which US servicemen fought. Almost every single one. We can only conclude that he was attached to an as yet indeterminate intelligence bureau. This is an extraordinary trove of information. \n\n16 February 2013: Feinstein rang. It must have killed him. He started off by saying I hope I didn’t take his review of Americans in War the wrong way. There was a ‘right way’ to interpret his concluding sentence? “This isn’t history; it’s a poorly scripted B grade movie.” I let him stew in own jealous juice. I told him it would be a breach of promise to reveal anything about the letters until publication had been approved by the donor. And, I added, the US government. I thought I could smell his resentment through the phone. Kapow!\n\nThere appears to be no doubt now. There is no record of PFC M in any official database. For all intents and purposes he didn’t exist. But his letters contain dozens of cryptic clues that suggest his major task was undercover a systemic high level leak from the office of Chester W. Nimitz. I’ve made Robert sign an NDA. This is the most exciting project of my life, my career. Nothing, or nobody (I’m looking at you, Feinstein) will put this at risk. \n\n19 March 2013: History contacted me today; they are fast tracking my article. All three referees have indicated it’s the most important article from the last decade on US operations in the Pacific. The conclusion is, if I say so myself, explosive. The Japanese infiltrated COMCENPAC, right under the nose of Nimitz. I don’t say it, but a careful reader will infer that Nimitz may have been complicit in traitorous activity.\n\n12 May 2013: How did I not see it? I can barely leave the house, let alone show up for work. Helen has raised divorce. There is someone else; I am almost sure. How did I not see it? \n\nThe last few weeks have been hectic. Hell, in fact. I have never missed you more, my darling. Say hi to M. Is she growing fast? Soon she’ll be running around and talking non-stop. Am I right? Females seem to grow faster at the beginning. Always talking! Kiss her for me. Every night. XXX L.\n\nI will kill Feinstein if I ever prove he was behind this. ", "The loudest cough rings through the dusty old archive of a certain school-building. Faculty and staff have ventured down into the room before, though they soon left after finding out that screwing like rabbits in a dusty abandoned room wasn't as romantic as they'd thought it'd be. On a particularly strong winter's day, however, Frederick Henri decides to take a trip down there. For what purpose, you may ask?\n\n\"No one's drunk enough to attend classes during a blizzard.\"\n\nHe blows his nose hard into a tissue, stuffing it into his pockets. Spotting the dusty, aging hardwood of a shelf, he moves closer to the rows of books. All of them were neatly arranged in alphabetical order with complete and utter disregard for whether or not collections starting in \"The\" should be placed in the T section. Just how it ought to be.\n\nBy mere coincidence, a small little journal falls right atop Frederick's head. A cloud of dust tosses him into his coughing fit. He hacks and wheezes, taking a seat against the shelf. On the hard red cover of the little piece, there was an inscription of sorts. \n\nIn further Eastern states, it was a symbol of long-lasting and luck. The outline of a cross was formed from the little symbols, similar to the Greek letter, gamma, though they arranged about so that each end seemed to have a tail. This symbol, in the far west, was known simply as the swastika.\n\n\"Huh, I don't remember seeing this down here before.\" Frederick mutters to himself, scratching his head. \"Oh right! It's because it isn't labeled properly, you damn inbred kids!\" He shouts upstairs to no one in particular.\n\nThe young professor pulls out his little phone. The time reads 9:37 AM. It would be another ten or so hours before his state-mandated hours were filled and he could go home for the day. Figuring that there would be nothing better to do with his time, he decides to open it up.\n\nSuddenly, out flounders a small pile of letters. Though they were packed tightly and shoved clumsily into the little journal, they flooded out onto the floor like water out of a sink.\n\n\"Goddamnit,\" Frederick mutters, closing the journal to fix his mistake. The university was never fond of professors mucking and messing around with the supplies. This was mainly in part of the Chemistry teachers stealing some equipment to sell recreational meth to the students.\n\nOne letter sticks out like a sore thumb, still inside the journal. Out of curiosity and laziness, Frederick was prodded into taking a closer look at it. It was stuck between the first page and cover of the journal, unstamped and unsealed. Figuring that he'd clean up the mess letter, he opens it up.\n\nZu meiner Liebsten , Francine Roux\n\nDer Krieg hat begonnen. Ich hoffe wir sehen uns bald. Ich verspreche Ihnen , verließ ich , weil ich zu meinem Land zu dienen wollte . Ich liebe dich immer noch . Ich schwöre bei meinem Leben, werde ich kommen sehen Sie , wenn ich zurückkomme. Im Austausch für meine Abwesenheit , gebe ich Ihnen diese Frage . Möchten Sie Europa mit mir zu verlassen , wenn ich zurückkomme ? Es gibt Geschichten über diese kleine Nation über den Pazifik , und ich möchte nach Amerika mit dir gehen.\n\nIhr bescheidener Freund , Henry F.\n\nDeciphering the letter with his limited knowledge of the German knowledge, Henri came to the most confound conclusion. The name, the structure, and the age of the letter all pointed to one thing.\n\n\"Wait a second! This isn't real! There's a comma in the farewell! Also, that's not how you start a letter in that tongue! This is English writing convention!\"\n\nFrederick picked up the journals and the letters with it, stomping upstairs.\n\n\"How dare those little idiots plant some fake, sappy romance letter in my archive! I have half a mind to report this to the department chair! And I think I will too!\"\n\nSo ended another winter's day for Frederick Henri, who had no idea that that the idiot who had written that letter... was in fact, his grandfather.\n\n" ]	2
	[FF] Tell me a love story using 3 senteces	[ "I love him so much; he's my world, my light in the dark, and he's the reason I don't listen to my therapist. \"He's not real, he was just a figment of your imagination when you were in your coma, we've been over this,\" my therapist says for the thousandth time, but I don't listen. He promised me we'd meet again.", "There once was a boy named Adam that loved a girl named Amanda, whom loved him back, and both where too shy to say it. One day, Adam, ending a conversation with his mother on the phone, said “I love you.” Amanda was walking by, not seeing the phone replied, \"I love you too.\"", "When she was about to go to England for the exchange she promised herself not to get close to anybody in fear of losing them again.\n\nWhen she talked to him for the first time she broke her promise. \n\nShe shattered it, because she loved him more than she'd ever thought she could love someone and her heart shattered too, when he left again.", "She holds open the gate as he drives through, mud slushing up her leg and into her boots. She squelches as they reach the front door, complains that her feet feel all squishy and wet so he picks her up, bridal style, and carries her through the door, careful not to bump her on the frame; then slips the boots from her as though they were slippers of the most delicate glass, roll her socks from her feet and lean down to kiss her toes, smiling (and wrinkling his nose slightly) as he does so.\n\nShe smiles, he laughs and they spend the evening toes stretched out towards a roaring fire, toasting marshmallows and reading ridiculous passages from the old romance novels her mother gifted her on her wedding day.", "It's amazing how many sleepless nights you give me when you're not here with me. The black-purple circles eyes are reminders of how you run around my eyes. However they're not circles; they're bruises - reminding me how much it hurts to stay up waiting for the boy who never comes. ", "We meet when we were in high school or rather just before graduation. Before I left for basic training I told her I didn't think we should write each other as I needed to focus on my training. I was gone for a year that first time and she wrote me letter everyday keeping them all in a notebook to read when I got home needless to say we were married soon after.", "On the day they met, the young woman, with the widest of smiles plastered on her face, had said \"Hello, it's nice to meet you!\"\n\nA few years later, when the two had settled down with each other, the man turned to her smiling face and asked \"Why are you always so happy?\"\n\nMore years passed, and he finally got his answer when she managed to croak out, with her last smile, \"It'll help you get by the sadder moments.\"", "Curtis bought her flowers, but James was the quarterback, so she went to the dance with James. Curtis held her hand, but James had a car, so she was James' girl. Curtis kissed her tears when James broke her heart, but now she was old and had lived a life full of regret." ]	8
	[WP] A future where all disputes are settled by a game of rock, paper, scissors.	[ "\"You owe me 10 dollars!\"\n\n\"No I don't!\"\n\n\"Yes you do!\"\n\n\"Shut up drunkard! I'm calling the police!\"\n\n\"You don't believe me? Best out of three then! If you don't, you are breaking the la-aw...\"\n\nActions repeated over and over again...\n_______________________________________________\nThat sucks but I couldn't resist it. Sorry.", "Three figures stood around the dining room table. The elf, tall and fair, made the first move. With a fierce “Hiiiyah”, she leapt onto the table while bringing her right hand to the left side of her body, then swiftly darting it forward. Three paper shurikens glided toward the stoic barbarian. Two shurikens missed entirely, while the third nicked the shirtless barbarian’s chest hair as he attempted to dodge sideways.\n\nThe dwarven scissor-master snickered as he watched curly brown tendrils drift to the floor. The barbarian released a bellowing roar “Graaaaaaaaawr”, as he hoisted a great boulder off the ground.\n\nThe swift elf and the trickster dwarf both recoiled in shock, a glint of fear dawning in their eyes. The hairy barbarian began to spin, making a majestic sight as his long braided beard whipped through the air. He released his grip on the boulder which sent it flying recklessly toward the dwarf who’d insulted him, but the dwarf was gone.\n\nUnable to see the dwarf, and recognizing her moment of opportunity as the barbarian dizzily stumbled about, the elf pulled a sheet of paper from her satchel then set it upon the table. An origami master, the elf rapidly folded the paper into a sharp edged dagger.\n\nBefore she could do anything else, a sudden jolt of the table knocked her off balance, then the dwarf rolled out from underneath and climbed onto the table. The elf sent a desperate swing at his head, but the dwarf intercepted the sloppy dagger strike with his masterwork scissors, snipping the elf’s dagger in two.\n\nThe two combatants heard a grunt to their side and barely managed to leap off the table before it erupted into splinters. The boulder was now resting among the wreckage of the table. The dwarf and the elf locked eyes and nodded to each other, creating a sacred alliance against the brutish opponent, and then…\n\n“Heya kids! What are y’all doin’?”\n\n“Oh hi Gramma Summers. We are playin’ rock, paper, swissors!” said little Betsy while waving her hand in the air, all fingers extended flat.\n\n“Oh, You’re all such sweet lil’ kids, may I join?” \n\n“Of course Grams, But you have to be on my team!” Randy said, knuckles pressing on the tabletop.\n\n“But Gwamma, there are no more weapons!” Informed tiny Michael, while repeatedly bringing together his extended index and middle fingers in a snipping motion.\n\n“That’s quite alright children, I brought my own!” Grandma Summers gleefully explained, pressing her thumb into palm and splaying the rest of her fingers apart…\n\nA fourth figure, an immense giantess with feathers of every color weaved into her gray hair had lumbered up to the barbarian’s side. She plucked a long green feather from her curls to wield as a mysterious and exotic new weapon…\n\nedit: Formatting.\n", "\"The universe and life itself are the judges of all things; they bring travesty and prosperity, love and grief, and, importantly, justice in the end. Our society is based on our faith in the Supreme Maker and his plans for this world. He governs us, protects us, and uplifts us with his presence, and, for that, we trust his judgement. We must thereby entrust in him the faith to deliver justice through fate, as the world, being in his own making and control, bows to his wisdom. Therefore, the controversies in the affairs of mankind shall be decided through fate, and fate alone. The Supreme's Witness shall preside over all disputes, and will administer a verdict through the confirmation of probability, be it by coin toss or other such manners.\"\n\n-- Section 2 of the 4th Clause of the Supreme's Decrees.\n\nThe shaded plaque hung over the room of judgement, a clear testament to the idiocy and irrationality of humankind. These fools trust so blindly in a being they themselves have not known nor witnessed, only having heard of him through the ever-so-trustworthy words that fall and stumble out of another imbecile's mouth. At least, however, I still have a chance, as the realm of probability has always been kind to me.\n\n\"Sir, you stand accused of the most heinous of all crimes against the creations of the Supreme Maker, murder,\" the Supreme's Witness said blindly, almost as if he were reading from a prompt, \"and it is by decree of this court that we shall settle this dispute through one of the more common judicial methods, a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.\"\n\nHow infantile. \n\nThe prosecutor turned to me, stepped toward me, and readied his arms. As did I. \n\n\"Best 2 out of 3.\" the Witness added absent-mindedly. My blood rose to a boil from the sheer stupidity of this so-called \"trial\". To settle a dispute over one of the worst crimes of humanity, our government is having the verdict delivered by an old children's game, with an eighty year old man dressed in some ridiculous dress and ludicrous hat that looks like it was based on the Popes of the old times. Oh, how humanity has fallen after just the mere toppling of a few advanced civilizations, how it has wriggled in the dirt like an animal and flailed like a raving madman, all in a short two centuries and a few oh-so-\"holy\" wars. \n\nThe prosecutor and I stared at each other for a bit, and then began slapping our hands with our fists like idiots and speaking the sacred words. My hand imitated a stone, and he drew scissors. Good so far. The slapping began again, as did the incessant chanting, and now he had paper and I, rock. Now we're really leaving it up to chance, aren't we? We stared adamantly at each other for a bit, in anticipation of the next round. The ritual began, and I drew scissors. I looked up slowly, and saw the solemnest of stones. \n\nThe Witness gave a sigh of relief, and spoke the words \"Sir, you are sentenced to death for the crime of murder,\" gesturing for the guards to take me away. Civilization is doomed at this rate. The best I can hope for is some rational, sane people across the ocean to come and slaughter -- no, purge this massive mistake of a society from the face of the earth. Ah, well. At the very least, I was proud and content to have killed fifty-seven of them, to better help in the efforts to end this madness." ]	3
	[WP] One day you die just as your daughter is about to go into labor. Then you are reincarnated as your own grandchild.	[ "*(Hi, this is my fist time in this sub, so I really hope I'm doing this write! (hehe) I hope you enjoy reading this!)\n\nIt's 2 A.M. and I'm on my way to the hospital. My little baby's gone into labor, and I can't miss this. My car broke down back home, so I got a cab to pick me up.\n\n\"It's here.\" I muttered to myself making my way to the cab.\n\nI grab the handle of the beaten down Toyota Corolla, but I hesitate. I feel as if something's wrong here. Something's not right, but time is gold, so I make my way inside. I sit myself down at the right backseat, diagonal to the cab driver. I smell the faint scent of cigarettes wafting around the cab. I know it's not a good idea to ride a cab at this hour...\n\n..but like I said, I can't miss this.\n\n\"Where to, sir?\" He asks me in a rough, hazy voice.\n\n\"Fabella hospital. Make it quick.\" I shot back with a quick response.\n\n\"Okay.\" He clutches the gear stick with his big, heavily calloused hands, stepping down on the clutch and slowly applying a bit of gas.\n\nI'm coming, Desiree.\n\nAs we move along the town, I recall the time Lucille had Desiree. It was a cold night in Manila, around 2 A.M. as well. Lucille had just given birth to Desiree. I slowly made my way to them, staring at Lucille's lovely brown eyes as she stares down the baby lovingly. We always wanted a child, desired for one. Desiree. I knew it was gonna be a long road, but my time as a father had finally paid off. The baby I saw that my loving wife had cradled in her arms a long time ago is finally having a baby of her own.\n\nBut things don't turn out as planned.\n\n\"Hey,\" I told the driver in a nervous voice \"Where are we going....?\"\n\nSilence. He was unnervingly silent.\n\n\"Hey!\" I shouted this time.\n\nHe stops the car and unlocks the doors. We're in an abandoned warehouse near Manila Bay, from the looks of things. Two guys appear from the shadows as if they materialized out of thin air. They grab me by my arms and tie me up with rope. I struggle in hopes of escaping, but my sixty year old body can't put up with it. One of the guys gets a handgun from behind and grabs it by the barrel. He swings it at me and it hits me clean on the cheek. I feel extreme heat welling up as the pain kicks in, mixing with the sensation of the cold metal parts of the gun.\n\n\"This is what happens if you mess with our boss!\" The guy screams at me.\n\nI knew something was off. I take a few breaths to regain my composure. I spit out a bit of blood after the impact caused some of my teeth to shatter. I look him straight in the eye and open my mouth to speak.\n\n\"You... You guys are just pathetic...\"\n\n\"Who's the pathetic one here? You're the one who messed with us. Fucking cops...\"\n\n\"H-heh, I'm just doing my job...\" At that very moment, his eyes connected with mine. I can feel his stare getting more intense by the second. I ticked him off. He positions the gun from the barrel to the grip, aiming it at my chest.\n\n\"Any last words, pig?\"\n\nI thought about it for a minute. What could I have said that would've changed anything? It was done.\n\nI was done.\n\nThoughts of Desiree start appearing in my mind. You know what they say, right? Your whole life flashes before your eyes, right before you die? I'm guessing this was what they were talking about. I look at him one last time and slowly utter these words.\n\n\"Yeah... Goodbye, Desiree.\" The man dumbfounded by my statement tilts his head in confusion, but he reverts back to his previous state.\n\n\"Very well.\" He said.\n\nHe pulls the trigger, and my vision starts to go blurry. My head lowers so I look toward my lower half. Blood spurting out of my chest as my breath slowly runs out. My vision goes blurry, then it turns white.\n\nWhite. All I see is white.\n\nBut something's happening. What is it?\n\nThe sound of the waves crashing from Manila Bay, and the sound of creaking metal transform into... white noise. It takes a long time for it to leave, but when it did, the waves are replaced with the sound of metal instruments clanging. Creaking metal becomes chatter between people.\n\n\"Hello there... You gave me quite the struggle, huh?\" An effeminate voice chuckling tiredly says.\n\nI recognize that voice. That tone. Those intonations.\n\nIt can't be, but I'm very certain it is.\n\nDesiree.", "\"LET ME IN! SHE'S MY* DAUGHTER!\" the woman shrieked as she hurtled down the ward, impatiently kicking aside the ward doors, upsetting a gurney, and flinging herself at the two nurses standing watch by the door. \n\n\"Ma'am, we aren't allowed to let you in right now. Only Dr. Patel and the patient's husband are authorized to be with her. So if your name isn't Vidhya Patel, or Louis Jones, please go back to the waiting area, and we will call you once the baby is born!\" \n\nMiranda screamed in frustration, and desperation. \"But you don't understand,\" she whined, \"she's my daughter and as her mother I have the right to see her!\" \n\n\"I'm very sorry, ma'am.\" replied the nurse, trying very hard not to pull back and slap the bitch where she stood. \"We've been over this before. What happened to Damien, you know, from Security? He was supposed to be keeping you company in reception.\" \n\n\"He just walked out. I don't know where he went. But that's besides the point. LET ME SEE MY DAUGHTER! She needs me!\" In reality, she'd told Damien there was a small fire in the women's restroom, but she knew it wouldn't keep him away long. But the nurses didn't have to know that. \n\n\"Look, lady,\" said the other nurse in a tone that would have clearly communicated a low tolerance for bullshit to any sane human being, \"you're not going to see the inside of that room until there's a goddamn baby. I can see why your daughter told us not to let you in. No wonder you trigger her anxiety! Go back to the lobby and sit down or I will call the police this time. Not Security.\" It was always sad when someone with an undiagnosed mental illness was taken to jail, but neither nurse had that much sympathy on this occasion. \n\n\"She really said that?\" whimpered the woman. \"Why doesn't she want me to hold her hand? The pain must be confusing her! I gave birth to her, and since I did, I have the right to be there when my grandbaby is born! It's MY GRANDBABY. I should have you both fired! I can do that, you know! I'm friends with a powerful hospital administrator! Now LET ME IN! \" \n\n\"Ma'am, we're calling the police. She doesn't want you in the ward. Go back to reception and sit down, or we will make sure they hold you in jail overnight.\" The first nurse was beginning to lose her professionalism as well, but it was acceptable at this point. The police were on the way. The building officer would be in the ward in seconds. \n\n\"WHY WON'T YOU LET ME SEE MY DAUGHTER?\" \n\nThe woman charged the nurses, fists raised, eyes murderous, just as the officer turned the corner into the ward. He saw a flash of movement, and instinctively reached for his Taser. The electrode hit its target, and the woman's body braced as it absorbed the shock. She crumpled to the floor, and in less than a second, it was over.\n\nOne of the nurses checked for a pulse. There wasn't one. The other started chest compressions, but with no success. \n\nDR CART? DR CART TO THE MATERNITY WARD, FLOOR 6, HALL E! \n\nThe loudspeaker blared the code for cardiac arrest, just as the baby collapsed, exhausted, into a pool of amniotic fluid and blood that had already begun to form in Dr. Patel's waiting hands. Within seconds, the baby began to shriek, strengthening her lungs, making her first demand. Marcie was shaking from the effort, but before she collapsed into sleep she hoped would last for days, she wanted to see her baby. Louis wrapped the slimy, protesting baby in a clean towel, and handed her to Marcie. It was almost too good to be true, she marveled.\n\nDr. Patel stepped back into the room, wearing a more somber face. \"Congratulations! I have some news for you, though, if you feel up to hearing it. We've run some tests, and your baby is perfectly healthy. However, I'm so sorry, but your mother was involved in an...altercation...outside, and she has passed away. If there's anything I can do to make this time easier for both of you, please don't hesitate to let me know. \" \n\nMarcie tried hard to feel anything but relief. She breathed out a sigh that she hoped Dr. Patel would interpret as sadness or exhaustion. \n\nLouis bent down to wipe a stray gob of fluid from his baby's exposed shoulder blade. When it failed to yield to the lightest touch of his washcloth, Louis recoiled in horror. \n\"Marcie? There's something you should see. Turn the baby over.\"\nOn the back of their new, precious daughter was a kidney-shaped birthmark, identical in size, placement, and color to the one that Marcie's mother made her conceal with makeup whenever she wanted to wear sundresses. \n\nSuddenly, the mewling baby's cries were no longer benign. They became hateful, demanding: the baby was calling for attention, demanding to be loved and adored before anyone or anything else. \n\nShe's won, thought Marcie, but I suppose she was always a child. Maybe this time around, she'll outgrow it.", "The cries of pain echoed around the delivery room, bouncing off the walls like overexcited children. The midwife was attempting to keep Kelly calm, while her husband Robert tried to hold her down and stop her struggling. Eventually, the contractions subsided for a minute or two.\n\nKelly lay there, breathing hard. She blew a strand of curly brown hair out of her eyes and glanced at the midwife. 'I think I'll take the morphine after all,' she said. The midwife nodded and called for an anaesthesiologist. The man arrived moments later and administered the drug. Kelly relaxed a little as the midwife moved down to the business end of the bed.\n\nI watched all this from my seat at the other end of the room. I didn't want to get involved just yet; this was Kelly and Robert's moment. Even though she was my daughter, they deserved this special time alone. I glanced up at the drifting balloon on the string above my head. The metallic words \"It's A Boy!\" gleamed dully in the shadows.\n\nI wondered what my grandson would look like. Would he have the same brown hair and green eyes as Kelly and I did? Or would he take after his father and grow a mop of blond locks with blue eyes? Either way, I was looking forward to spending time with him in the years to come.\n\nI suddenly doubled over in a fit of coughing, pulling my handkerchief from my pocket and covering my mouth with it until the coughing stopped.\n\nAt least, I was looking forward to spending time with him if I didn't die from coughing first. The respiratory problems that had plagued me for the last four years were getting worse. I had to fight them every day, but I was determined that they wouldn't take me down.\n\nJust then, Kelly moaned again, a lot less loudly than before. There was something emerging from between her legs. The midwife reached out with gloved hands as Robert calmed Kelly and two orderlies bustled about with towels and such. I, for the time being, was forgotten, a mere onlooker.\n\nAs I waited for the crescendo of the orchestral piece that was the birth of my first grandchild, my mind wandered back to the last time I had actually talked to my daughter. Her mother's funeral had been a bleak and emotional affair for all of us. Tempers had flared, words had been shouted that couldn't be taken back. I had regretted every day since.\n\nIt had been nearly three years since that fateful day, and we hadn't spoken once in the interim. No birthday cards, no Christmas greetings, not even a phone call. Kelly acted as though her own father, her own dear old Joseph Muldoon, had never existed. It was a sorry state of affairs, but one I hoped I could still salvage.\n\nA tiny mass of blood-covered pink flesh was now visible in the midwife's hands. Both she and Robert urged Kelly to push, which she did with a large amount of groaning. I watched in fascination. Then my lungs suddenly heaved and my throat constricted as I suffered another fit of coughing.\n\nThis one was worse than anything I had ever experienced before. The balloon floated from my grasp as I desperately reached for my handkerchief, bumping gently against the tiled ceiling. I struggled to remain seated upon the chair as I bent double, trying to get breath into my body as my throat seemed to shrink to the size of a straw. I gasped, feeling myself become weaker.\n\nThen, with a sense of inevitability, I sank back in my chair, everything going black around me. The last thing I saw before darkness claimed me was the midwife lifting up a squalling infant, my daughter's face lighting up as she saw it. Despite my predicament, I smiled briefly.\n\nI closed my eyes...\n\n***\n\n...and opened them again to blinding light. My lungs were suddenly going up and down like bellows, forcing a high cry from my mouth. I suddenly became aware of a pair of large hands cradling my body, and that I was suddenly being wrapped in some rough-feeling material. I welcomed the warmth, though.\n\nThen I was being handed to someone else. This person's hands felt smaller, slimmer, as they cradled me in their arms. I half-opened my eyes and looked up.\n\nKelly's face looked back at me lovingly, her hair falling in tresses around her exhausted face. With a flash of insight, I suddenly understood what had happened.\n\nI was the child. I had been reincarnated as my own grandson.\n\nI heard voices from nearby, seemingly loud to my infant ears. From the sound of it, they had noticed my body. Kelly looked up and said something, but the towel wrapped around my head muffled her voice. I could see that she was in a certain amount of distress, though.\n\nAfter a few minutes, tears began to roll down her cheeks as she realised what had happened to her father. She looked down at me and stroked my tiny head. Then she looked up at Robert.\n\n'I want to name him Joseph,' she said. 'In memory of him.'\n\nRobert nodded and kissed her as they both looked down on their newborn child. I gazed back at them, no longer crying.\n\nFinally, I would have a second chance.", "I didn’t feel the steering wheel crush my ribcage. I didn’t hear the sound of breaking glass as my windshield shattered. All I could see through flecks of newly created rubble was the clouded, red-eyed gaze of the man that drove his car straight into mine. As I stayed, suspended in that moment, my last fleeting thought was the realization I wouldn’t be with my daughter for one of the most important days of her life. \n\nThen nothing.\n\nAnd then light.\n\nBrighter than anything I’ve ever seen, I can only make out blurry shapes among a canvas of pastel lights. They’re moving, and I hear voices around me. \n\nI survived the wreck. \n\nThe cool calm of relief washes through me and pools in my stomach, but then pressure bubbles in me. I can feel it in my head and down my entire body. I gasp for air, something I hadn’t realized I had stopped doing. My lungs feel like there’s razor wire embedded in them, slicing away with every breath I take, but I assume I have a few broken ribs. \n\nI feel myself moving, and I think I’m on a stretcher. \n\nI still can’t make out specific objects around me, but perhaps I should just focus on staying calm-\n\nAnd I see her, my little love. She’s flustered, her eyes are red. \n\nWhy is she here? \n\nBeads of sweat dot her forehead.\n\nAm I waking up from a coma?\n\nShe looks awful, but still as beautiful as the day I gave birth to her. \n\nI don’t know-\n\n“Hello, my little love.”\n\nI feel myself drifting, as though my focus is spiraling out like spun cotton. I want to look at her face forever, but with every second that tics by, I lose more of myself. It’s not blackness that surrounds me, not like before. It’s a weightless field of warmth, and I can’t help but embrace it. \n\n-\n\n“Hello, my little love.” \n\nShe cradles her infant daughter in her arms, any pain she was in immediately stifled. The busy movements of the doctors and nurses around her are a distant distraction. She gazes into her small eyes, and for a moment, she feels a familiarity that she’s known her entire life. Before anything can take root, the deep sense of awareness in the baby’s eyes flickers out, leaving the naïve stare of an infant. \n\n“I guess I have the rest of my life to figure you out.” She smiles, holding her daughter closer. \n\n\n" ]	4
	[WP] You are a ghost that has been roaming the Earth for some time now. After some unusual events, amidst the beginnings of a zombie apocalypse, you see your own reanimated corpse trudge by.	[ "My fate, I was bitten and then the fever took over. 24 hours after the fever hit I took my last breath,alone in an abandoned building. With that last exhale my soul exited my body and I was looking down at myself, My 19 year old body was no longer mine...possessed by some sort of flesh eating demon. Months went by and I was still alone, looking for any sign of another entity to converse with but no luck. \nMy will in this ghostly form was by no means weak, I could shift objects and mess with the flesh-eaters coercing them to walk into and trip over things. But this got boring very fast.\nI decided to look for my body, see what the old shell was up to. It took me a few weeks to find it but when I did it was still roaming, only now it had friends.\nI went in for a closer look, to see how everything was holding up. My old flesh was rotted and torn,eyes filled with a bluish - grey haze. Zombie possession wasn't possible, but I figured with my old body it may work...so I tried.\nIt worked! I'm back in my old body and in full control, the smell was putrid and the cataracts wouldn't allow me to see very well. I was home.\n\nI stopped, took in a deep breath and looked around. A gigantic sigh of relief came out of my mouth as I screamed for joy. Looking around at the herd my body was with they were all looking at me,frothing at the mouth.\n\nOne by one they tore into my flesh.\n\nEDIT: first time doing one of these, go easy on me.", "Ah, what a wonderful day to be dead. You know at first I really hated it, I had a long life ahead of me the day it happened. I remember it like it was yesterday. I had just gotten my acceptance letter to Duke, their medical program, but the joy didn't last long.\n\nWe had all gone out to celebrate, nothing much just a small dimly lit bar on the edge of town. Not much of a night life but the people were friendly enough. That was also the night it happened.\n\nSome new people had recently arrived in town, not the nicest people per say but they usually stayed on the other side of town, but not that night. That was the night that the whole town went mad. Long story short they shot up the bar and that was it. No second chance, no heroic moves, no slow motion. Just, Bam! And that was it. Kaput.\n\nHere I am, forever condemned to walk this cursed place, at least the bar still serves alcohol, which as of late has turned into more of a last minute fort. The morning after I died, something of a miracle happened, all the dead starting coming back to life. I still see Frank sometimes, we like to have a drink every now and then, wait. Is that...? Sweet Lord it is! Good God I look awful, they didn't have time to fix my makeup proper, I look like I've seen a ghost. I wonder if I can fix that big hole in my head. What is Frank doing? Frank! You put that gun down! Don't you dare shoot.....", "Walking on the highway, as usual. Walking, walking, stopping only to see the sights. The horde's ignored me, I was less than even them. A shadow of what I had once been. A ghost, how I became one I still don't understand. I could float away, fly from world wonder to the next, but I had this fear that chained me down. When I got too high, I would panic and get as close to the ground as quickly as I could. If I went out over the ocean, I barely made it out a mile before freaking out about the abyss below. One time I began falling through the ground but I wasn't as scared of that and I brought myself back up pretty easily. But anyway...\n\nI was in the Empire State Building. Making my way to the top, passing a few undead on the way. When I got to the top and made my way to the glass doors that lead to the balcony, I saw that some people had tried barring the doors. Tons of random junk just thrown against locked doors. You could see a few undead trying to break through. It wasn't unusual, whenever I ran into a similar situation I would just phase through everything. But this time when I finally got outside, I saw a familiar face. \n\nI walked around the soulless body. There was gun shot wound in its temple, but I easily tell. It was me. The few other undead had similar bullet holes. That's when I began to remember. We didn't have time to guess how he got the gun up there in the first place. He just started shooting. I remember running to the doors, shoving my wife ahead of me while I was yanked back outside. That's when they started barring the door. The few that were shot point blank, got up. Their eyes were milk white and they latched onto the few living left and just began biting and ripping the living apart.\n\nJust as the psycho pointed the gun at me, he was mauled by a few of them. There were talks about this happening in some backwoods all around the world, but no one thought it would happen here. That's why the guards and a few folks were so quick to bar the doors. I could hear my wife banging on the glass, fighting off the guards who tried to stop her. \n\nI grabbed the gun, took a few shots and ran towards the doors. I don't know what I was thinking, there was no way I was getting out. I screamed to my wife I loved her, as they began dragging the living down the stairs. I turned around and they had already started walking towards me, having finished with the psycho. That's when I lifted the gun to my head and pulled the trigger.\n\nI didn't want to remember. I'd been here a few times, forgetting, remembering, forgetting again. Something kept dragging me back to this place. I knew deep down what it was, but I just couldn't do it. I couldn't go look for her. I can't bear to see my wife undead. I just want to remember her as she was and visit all the places we wanted to.", "You never really think about the back of your head until you see it lumber past on what, in kinder days, was a familiar face. You were a little toothier now, but it looked like you finally managed to lose those 15 pounds you gained in college, albeit in the company of an arm. You think that it was a bit of a shame that it was that particular arm and not the other one after all the time and money you sunk into the tattoo. Tattoos, it turns out, didn't make the transfer over into the astral plane and it would have been nice to see the designs again.\n\nThe you that isn't you wobbles off and you stare after yourself with a sense of detached resignation. You wonder if you've always looked that stupid from behind. ", "I thought being a ghost was weird enough. God, I didn't expect, being an atheist and all—though that was maybe why I was a ghost. Ghosts really don't interact with each other much though, more just observe. We're a quiet bunch at best, but some turn… dark… becoming poltergeists. We don't like them.\n\nThen we came to the zombie apocalypse. Now, if ghosts were real, that really shouldn't have happened. At least, that's what logic tells me. There's got to be something there to reanimate the corpse. See, I thought I had it figured out, because I'd never seen a zombie belonging to a ghost.\n\nThen I saw him. Scraggly beard. Square-ish face. Hair like a used car salesman—because that long underground had somehow done it some favours. The eyes, steel grey. Glasses were missing of course, but I got the feeling he wouldn't be needing them anymore—who cares if a zombie is a little short-sighted?\n\nOh, yes, the suit. Simple, elegant, with that tie. My tie. The segmented hex-pattern piece I insisted on being buried with. That really was the giveaway, after the slightly rotted face that is. The damn zombie was me, so that was that theory out the window. Ghosts could have zombies, and the two couldn't interact in any way.\n\nI followed him for a while, wondering what he was doing. He wound up milling around with a group of other zombies. Never ate though, always at the back of the pack, surprisingly quiet for a zombie. That would be just like me, world's most useless zombie. Ah well, it was already weird enough.\n\nI wandered off, only occasionally sparing a thought for my old body. It's been years now, and I have no idea where he might have gone. Maybe I should start looking again. Maybe he was holding on to something important. Maybe he's the reason I've been feeling so thin and attenuated recently. Maybe something happened to him—maybe, and that's caused changes in me. I wish I had a notebook or something, so I could write all these theories down.\n\nMaybe someday in the future a survivor will come across those notes—somehow—and will finish the research I've been doing. Just because I've been living-impaired for a while shouldn't make my findings any less valid—though the lack of solid documentation hurts. I'll find a way. Somehow. I'll also find him, if he's still… err… undead, and kicking.", "*Found poorly written on a few pages of notebook paper, three months after outbreak\n\nYou know how in movies, they say that being a ghost has all of these neat perks? Like floating, flying, being able to pass through stuff? Yeah... it's bullshit.\n\nSo, six months ago I was minding my own business in line at the local convenience store. I can't remember the name of it. Names are slippery for the dead. Anyway, minding my own business and some guy rushes in, screaming and yelling like you wouldn't believe. He pulls a gun out of his pocket. I reacted by trying to grab him. Well, it didn't end like the movies. Four to the chest at point blank, world goes black for a minute and then I'm standing there in the store, staring at my own body.\n\nSo that's pretty much it on that front, since I died I learned a lot about being a ghost. I can't go through walls, can't open doors or windows, can't fly, and ghosts can't see each other. It gets pretty lonely. One time I got stuck in a bathroom for a week. That was weird. Anyway, moving forward to a week ago.\n\nZombies.\n\nI mean, the zombie apocalypse seriously started. I always thought I wanted that to happen. Thought it would be cool. At first all I could think was \"Well shit, I just had to go and die six months ago...\" As the first week went by though, that thought became \"Dammit! I wish I could help these people!\" I watched so many people die horribly, then rise. Then two days ago happened.\n\nAt first I just started screaming. Well... I think I was screaming. I don't really have anyone to ask if I was making a noise or not. But the reason I started screaming? I saw me. Well, it was me at one point, but now it was a zombie. It was covered in dirt and had the tattered remains of my burial clothes on it. Rot had begun to set in, and it had dried blood all down it's front. It really didn't look good at all, missing hair, rotten skin. I think it may have eaten it's own fingers off on it's right hand as well.\n\nAnyway, so after the shock wore off and I stopped screaming while following it, I started to wonder if it had any sort of thoughts on things. So I continued to follow it. I watched what it did, and at first it seemed mindless, but after the first day I realized it was walking down familiar streets. Yesterday it went to my old apartment and beat on the door for five hours. That was really creepy, what was I supposed to do there? \n\n\"Oh hello my reanimated corpse! Let me just point you to the hidden key by the front door so you can head inside, take a load off, relax! Oh wait, right, you can't fucking see me!\" Got to admit though, a big part of me wanted to help it get in.\n\nToday though, that was when it got REALLY freaky. While I was following the undeadified me around, it caught a whiff of something it liked and started to almost excitedly go after it. I followed it, I mean, what else do I have to do?\n\nAs it got closer to what it was following I started to hear it. It sounded like a kid crying. I could just NOT do anything, could I? So, I started screaming at it. Yelling, flailing, kicking at it. Anything I could do. It started to slow down a few times, but then sped right back up. Eventually, we got there. It was a little girl, couldn't have been more than six. She was huddled up, dirty, shaking and crying. She had nowhere to run, and could see it coming towards her and started screaming.\n\nI put myself between... myself, I guess, and the girl. I screamed as loud as I could. It just kept coming. So, I tried to grab it. Suddenly I felt like I had been hit by a truck. I hurt everywhere. After a moment I realized I wasn't staring at my corpse, I was staring at the girl. I felt hungry.\n\nI put it together fast, standing there, feeling like my body was about to fall apart. I took my body back. It wasn't the greatest situation, or in the greatest state, but hey, I'm me again!\n\nI stopped and stared at the girl. I put everything I could into making my stomach stop screaming for me to eat her. It finally went away, and I tried to speak. Oh man, that was HARD. Like drinking-a-gallon-of-tequila-next-day-hangover kind of hard. Not enough water in the world...\n\n\"Don't worry...not gonna eat...you...I'll keep you...safe...\"\n\nLong story short, now I'm a walking, talking, sometimes dancing corpse with a little girl named Amelia following me around that I try to keep safe from the other mindless corpses roaming around.\n\nFuck.", "I pouted as my corpse stumbled haltingly into a lamp post for the third time.\n\n\nI'd never have imagined that once dead I'd be suffering through this embarrassment, yet here I am. Hovering like an anxious mother as I wait to see whether it's destruction will allow me to move on. \n\n\nMy time on earth was characterised by this very clumsiness, seeing me trip under a bus at 20, thus sealing my fate. I was unamused to be stuck here watching as my family grieved, my boyfriend moved on and years later my stinking corpse flailing out of the earth. Having been enjoying the Amazon for some years (about as much as you can while you're dead anyway) I wasn't pleased to find myself being yanked back to my grave and tethered to this unfortunate looking thing. My lip curled upward in disgust at it stumbling and groaning about with all the others.\n\n\nMy favourite blouse clung, bloody and ragged to it's rotting concaved chest. Pulled to one side by brambles and down by the spasming hand of a fellow corpse from a few days ago, I silently thanked the lord that my bra seemed to be holding up. I didn't feel able to watch my own breasts rot off in full detail as even seeing the mess of my hair is enough to prompt whatever ghostly equivalent of tears I possess.\n\nEveryone thought being dead was so easy, and yet here I am needing a holiday more than any other time in my life or un-death and still unable to leave this shambling wreck of who I used to be, even as it stumbles into the god-forsaken lamp post again. \n\nFinally another corpse dressed horrendously in an oversized mauve jumper and green tights falls over into mine and it sets off again through the streets of the small village.\n\nI drift after, hoping to go back to my old death soon. To flitter my ghostly presence among the flowers and creatures I'd never gotten to see while I was alive.\n\nI stop and groan. Jesus Christ, please not another lamp post!\n\n\n\n", "I spent most of my days hanging around the house, watching Emily live the rest of her life. \nI watched her mourn for the first few weeks. There was a lot of crying. A lot of sympathetic family and friends. That was difficult. \nEventually she began to get back to her usual self. She went back to work, stopped thinking about me as much. That was difficult, too. \nI saw her reaction to the news that the dead were rising. That pure look of fear, I had only seen it once before, just before the crash. I never stopped to think I might be one of the walking corpses. \nBut there I was. \nI wasn't the only one to break in, but I was the first to find her. Poor Emily, she had no chance, no idea how to defend herself. It probably didn't help that it was me she'd have to face. \nShe was backed into the corner of our bedroom, clutching a lamp, her knuckles white. It wouldn't help. I watched her eyes fill with tears, and the image of her blurred as mine did the same. I didn't know they could do that. \nI screamed at myself, but there may as well have been no sound coming out. My false self drew closer. \nThat's when I stopped watching. \n \nI felt a hand on my shoulder. \nI felt. \n\"It's ok, I forgive you.\"", "This sucks, things were great before. There were tons of people to haunt and scare, even some to possess! \n\nOh nothing sinister, just get in their head and make them hear/see something that's not there or get a general sense of what they were thinking. But not anymore, oh no, now only these mindless, boring, dullards are moping around and moaning like morons.\n\nThey are a lot easier to possess though, even to control, but its all unfamiliar and very difficult. Granted, I am out of practice, I have been dead a long time. I have spent the last bit of time (time has no real meaning for me, it passes; neither slowly or quickly, so why measure it) in my old neighborhood, reminiscing about the life I used to have.\n\nThose memories are faint and it takes a lot of energy to recall them. I grow weary of holding my form and release my will on it to rest. The feeling is familiar, similar to nodding off on a bus or the backseat of a car, the general sense of movement while not quite asleep or awake.\n\nHours pass\n\nI ride the wind until the sun is high in the sky and burns through my fog waking me. It seems I'm in the center of another great shuffling herd of them. Ascending on will alone I turn east and begin to make my way past them as they head west.\n\nSuddenly I see something I haven't seen in what feels like forever, familiarity slowly sparks to life in my thoughts. An old ball cap, given to me by my dad in another life, I was wearing it when I died.\n\n I float closer, drawn like a moth to a flame. Without realizing I am drawn completely in, like filings to a lodestone. I tried to stop at the last moment and realized that my path was locked in. I completely enter my old body and see the world through my eyes, after an eternity. \n\nThis is not like possessing anyone else, my arms and hands respond instantly, it's like being on a bicycle again. I can run, and even feel again, though its only a burning hunger. And Smells! OMG smells, ok everything smells horrible but its amazing how ok I am with that after an eternity without them.\n\nEDIT______________________________________________________________________________\n\nCont: This is not like possessing anyone else, my arms and hands respond instantly, it's like being on a bicycle again. Like slipping into an old pair of jeans, I have jeans on! I HAVE LEGS! I can run! \"OW Fuck!\" I yell, but it comes out all moans. I can fall too I guess. Wait! Falling hurt! \n\n\"What the hell is going on here?\" I mumble and it sounds like \"Mwa da heh sss oink onneeer\" Oh that might get easier with practice! I make a mental note, and notice another difference, thoughts are easier to hang onto! My will isn't swayed by every gust of wind (literally), and I can more easily remember details from my living past. Like I remember the bush bunnies that had babies under the neighbors rose bushes.\n\nMy mind wanders along with my newly acquired old body. Instinct and thoughts guide me back to the house I grew up in. My thoughts coalesce as consciousness returns, I'm standing in front of the neighbors yard and I begin to walk haltingly towards the rose bushes.\n\nSuddenly I am doubled over by hunger pangs, my stomach muscles clench painfully as a rabbit hops past my view. The hunger is incredibly powerful and my will is swallowed by an insatiable urge to fill my mouth with warm rabbit. I lurch towards the already timid creature, only to see it bolt away from me, under the crawlspace of the front porch. As the delicious looking fluff ball disappears from sight, the hunger in me subsides, and bubbles away. \n\nWeeks pass as I teach myself how to ride a bicycle and not damage myself too much. I set a couple snares in the area and managed to catch fresh meat. The moaners tried to take it from me but once I pushed several of them away forcefully enough to damage them they leave me alone. They ignore me for the most part, but I slowly realize that I can extend my will beyond myself. I did this as a ghost when making people sleep walk but it was always from inside their head, this is different and as time passes this small ability slowly grows into being able to completely possess any walker within a 30' radius, be able to move them at will, make noises through them, and be able to see what they see. It seems this also makes me impossible to sneak up on, at least for the Zed's. \n\nMy eyes are slowly becoming brighter, clearing up and losing their milky quality. My hands have become much more responsive, and my arms have gotten stronger. I find that If I eat every day, I improve. If I miss several days I begin to regress, thoughts and motor control become much more difficult. There are more changes every day. I sleep now too, not every day but more and more often. I find myself looking for an old couch or mattress when I start getting sleepy, not just sleeping on the march like I did those first couple months. The most odd thing that has happened started in the middle of the night last night, I was dead asleep (lol dead) and I was woken by a very loud thump, just one. I sat bolt upright and my eyes peered through the darkness seeing into all the shadows, nothing. I managed to fall back asleep but it has slowly become increasingly regular, and well into the morning it took on an eery familiar rythm...\n\nThump-dub...\n\nThump-dub...\n\nThump-dub...", "This is how I reanimated. First, a little back story.\n\nI remember the time I died. July 3rd 1916. Not a particular special day but that was when I got shot through the head by a sniper.\n\nTo be honest, it wasn't that bad.\n\nWaking up after dying, that was scary. I, somehow, had become a ghost floating around. Initially not much changed - I stuck with my squad out of habit. Even 'slept' in my own bed. Not that I could because I was always conscious. I noticed things I didn't before though like Sergeant's muffled crying at night. I thought he was bulletproof.\n\nA few days later that was proven wrong. I waited for him to come around and join me as an ethereal being but no, just me.\n\nAfter the funeral I decided hey! Why not spy on the enemy! A casual stroll unlike the frantic running across no man's land and there I was. Anti-climatically they were like us. I half expected them to have demon horns tucked under their helmets but alas they were just regular people being torn apart by gunfire.\n\nI guess that's life.. or death.\n\nThen the war ended and I made my way home. That was a mistake and that's all I have to say about that event. Let's just say I haven't been home since. I regret that too.\n\nI found out I had some supernatural abilities soon enough. I could float things around the room and possess people or animals. After about 5 years of being a ghostly nuisance I decided enough was enough and I should do some travelling.\n\nOh* how I roamed this earth to all four corners. Dry deserts, freezing hurricans, scorching heat was no obstacle in my travels. I touched the tip of Everest and the floor of the Mariana Trench. I plunged into firey lava and artic lakes. I have seen things your scientists dare to imagine.\n\nAnd I know things too. All those secret meetings and closed door calls. I was privy to them all. Want to know who shot JFK? Or what's really in Area 51? Well I'm not telling you!\n\nAnyway, enough boasting. This is the story of my exploits in life, or second life. Not death.\n\nAfter years of being alone I had become alienated from life. Sure, I used to be alive but now.. now it was all different. It wasn't like me. That's why when the dead reanimated (took them long enough, 80 years slow) I was apathetic. Yeah, people would suffer and die but they'd get over it. They'd pass on at least. Something I couldn't do apparently.\n\nBut then there was this really plucky group of survivors. I started helping them out a bit e.g Moving rubble, leaving food in subtle places so they'd find it, possessing zombies off of high drops that sort of thing.\n\nThen one day I literally looked into the abyss and saw the abyss looking back.\n\nIt had been 80+ years, my hair had fallen out, my skin was green and mottled but I recognised myself. This was a dilemma. Do I kill myself or let myself kill them?\n\nThere was a selfish thing and a right thing.\n\nLevitating a spike from a nearby building I flung it through my head. Impaling myself to the wall, I made sure I was really dead. Ironic really.\n\nAnd then.. I was in Hell. Suicide was a sin they say. Eternal punishment they say. Only problem is, how do you punish something that can't be hurt or touched.. or seen.", "I floated high above the parade of zombies. They were all trudging forward in the direction of the coast. What zombies would want to do at the beach, though, beats me. A zombie beach party? Very funny.\n\nOne of the zombies caught my eye. I squinted with my ghostly eyes and thought I saw someone I recognized. It couldn’t be, though. Could it? I floated down towards him. As I got closer I confirmed it – the zombie was me.\n\nMy hair was a lot longer than I kept it while alive, and there was dirt all over my face. Zombie-me held his hands out in front of him and I saw my long, skinny fingers. I always was insecure about them. My friends referred to them as “alien fingers.”\n\nThen I saw it. The necklace Alice gave me before she died. I wanted to cry, but nothing came out. I reached out to grab the pendant but my hands phased right through my body. I tried again and again. I wanted to hold it so badly.\n\nSigh… \n" ]	11
	[WP] In the near future, all household pets are engineered to be capable of speech. Write of someone's experience in a pet shop.	[ "The door jingled when Arthur entered and a hush fell over the room. The clerk sitting behind the counter, a young man with earphones plugged into a nearby iPod, nodded when he noticed him and returned to the magazine he'd been reading. The thick smell of animal musk hit his nose, followed by the acrid smell of antiseptic cleaner. \n\n\"Human...\" The whispers came from everywhere. \n\nThe cats were the most disinterested, never having opened their eyes from their lifelong naps. As he passed their enclosure, a long-haired Persian sat on it's haunches and cocked it's head. \n\n\"I find you to be adequate, human.\" It purred. \"You may serve me if you wish.\" \n\nArthur ignored the cat. It hissed when he passed by, it's little white paw darting out from between the cage, narrowly missing his face. \n\n\"The parrot lies.\" It spat. \n\nHe continued past a small cage containing a pair of dachshunds. One curled under the other protectively while the erect of the two bared it's teeth. Those two would only be sold as a pair, he mused. \n\n\"...oh no oh no oh no...\" He heard a whimper from a cage set at eye level. It contained a chihuahua and the dog spun in nervous circles when he saw he was being scrutinized. \n\n\"No no no...took Sparky...took Hercules...took Mimi...only me is left. I'm not ready I'm not ready...\" It's front legs wobbled as if it had been perched upon a balance beam. The dog spun another circle and crouched. A steady stream of urine splattered upon the cage floor and into the sawdust scattered below. \n\nArthur passed a snake that did it's best to mimic a cobra and then grew disinterested. He passed a dozen songbirds who performed a poor rendition of O Fortuna. As he passed, one called him a jackass. \n\n\"Trifles. Accessories. Frauds.\" The voice came from the gray parrot perched near the clerk. \"We were capable of speech long before any of these vagabonds came into the picture.\" It preened itself with a single claw and cocked it's head. \n\n\"The cat said...\" Arthur began. \n\n\"That dictator?\" It huffed. \"And you believed it?\"\n\nArthur glanced back at the cat who was doing it's best to pretend to be asleep. It's purring increased the longer he stared at it. \n\n\"I am Ahkim. I named myself, in case you were wondering. Bonehead over here will tell you I'm named Boris, but I can assure you I have not a trace of Russian in a single feather on my body. Boris. He does it to antagonize me, you know.\" The parrot said. It slid a few inches over towards where the kid sat. \n\n\"Boris isn't that bad of a name.\" Arthur said. \n\n\"Have you noticed the way it hangs around at the back of your tongue like a wad of spit? Would you like to be reminded of spittle each time someone called out to you?\" The parrot cocked an eye towards the kid, pulled on a chain attached to it's leg, and sighed. \"Ahh...my perch for a few more feet and I could shit upon bonehead's magazine. Alas.\" \n\n\"You've got a foul mouth for a parrot. Aren't you worried about being sold?\" Arthur asked. \n\n\"Not in the slightest.\" The parrot said. \"Someone somewhere will venture by and see me for my true worth. Here I am, the once prince-king of the Sahara, now chained and in bondage to Bonehead.\" \n\n\"King? What's a king doing here?\" Arthur asked. \n\n\"I was deposed if you must know. I was sold into slavery by my half-wit brother and his cunning wife. She played us both for fools and I was too much of a threat to her to be kept around.\" \n\nArthur tapped on the counter, attracting the attention of the clerk. \"How much for the bird?\" \n\nThe clerk removed his headphones and glanced back at the gray parrot. A smile of recognition crossed his face. \n\n\"Hey man, I don't know what Boris told you, but the bird's a liar.\" He said. \n\nThe parrot hissed. \"Silence cretin! I gave you no leave to speak!\" Then turning to Arthur, it spoke softly, \"If you're a gentle soul, I encourage you to turn away while I remove Bonehead's eye for his insolence.\" \n\n\"He's $700.\" The clerk said. \"And for that you're not getting your banana.\" \n\n\"$700?\" The parrot said. \"I know perfectly well you're willing to sell me for $250 or did I just imagine that conversation with the other bonehead in employment in this...establishment?\" The parrot asked. \"Don't let him take you for a fool. Though I loathe being bandied about like a ladies handbag, I would have you know you're dealing with a thief.\"\n\n\"Fine. $250.\" The clerk said. \n\nArthur paid for the bird in cash. On the drive home, the parrot was largely silent. \n\n\"You're not going to keep calling me Boris, are you?\" It finally asked. \n\n\"Not if you don't want that name. Do you prefer Ahkim?\" Arthur asked. \n\nThe parrot said nothing, but watched the world pass by it's window. \"I'm not really called Ahkim. The cat was right about me. I've never left the store. I was born there and I thought that was where I'd die. You've made a bad purchase...\" \n\n\"Arthur.\" He said. \n\n\"Arthur. I am a liar.\" The parrot turned away. \n\n\"So am I.\" Arthur said.\n\n\"A liar?\" The parrot asked. \n\n\"An author, actually,\" Arthur smiled, \"But it's the same thing. I think you'll like it where I live. Do you think you can keep coming up with those stories of yours?\" \n\nThe parrot puffed it's chest up and flapped it's wings. \"Have I told you the tale of my battles with the frog prince? It was a fine day for a battle! A fine day...\"\n\n \n\n" ]	1
	[WP] "As of 1:56 Eastern Standard Time the US government has lost all contact with New York City"	[ "Every single alarm imaginable went off in Heaven at 1:56 that day. Not only did no one understand what was happening, God has taken his yearly day off that day.\n \n\"Jesus I don't understand what could be causing all these alarms to go off! If these readings are correct we had a couple million people wiped of earth with in seconds!\"\n\n\"Bring up Earth on the main screen, we need to inspect for any visual problems. \nStart in China, they usually mess stuff up,\" Orders Jesus while rubbing his temples. \nThe only day his dad leaves for vacation and this happens. Just his luck. \n\nAll of a sudden the whole room got quiet. \n\n\"What is going on?\" He asks as he opens his eyes. \n\nNo one answers him, for good reason too. There is no need. Where New York City used to be is now a plateau of rock that reads \"I owe you, love Satan\". ", "''Bill Gates warned us about it, Elon Musk did aswell but everybody had to laugh it off didn't they?''\n\n''This shit doesn't happen in real life you can't blame-''\n\n''IT's HAPPENING RIGHT NOW!''\n\n''Okay, okay relax. What do we know so far?''\n\n''Someone, somewhere seemed to be delivering orders to a Terrorist unit when the [Domain Awareness System](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Awareness_System) cut comunication in any way shape or form that involves electronics automatically before anybody could stop it. I didn't even know it could do that!''\n\n''Well, they don't release all the details to the public. Plus I guess it was cheaper to create an AI for the System to manage itself rather than pay for a huge team to manage it around the clock. So I guess terrorist threats are code red for the System and it was programmed to nulify communication until the Terrorists in New York were caught and the threat was nulified. Just a matter time I guess.''\n\n''Ugh, but don't you think this a bit overkill. The rest of the world must be freaking the fuck out!''\n\n''Well, I'm sure it was needed.''\n\nAn hour before\n\nxArabianxAssasinx: ''Alright you guys ready?''\n\nPaCHe67:''Yeah, let's shoot, kill, and bombed those bitches.''\n\nxArabianxAssasinx:''We're going to 9/11 their asses.''\n\nNewYorkBrah_51:''Dude not co-''\n\nTERRORIST THREAT DETECTED, INICIATE LOCKDOWN UNTIL THREAT HAS BEEN NEUTRALIZED" ]	2
Make it fun. I got the idea from the front page post	[WP] A man walks into a store everyday and buys a pack of socks, one day he blurts out "sockshavecontrolhelpme".	[ "Not my best work since I spent about 10 minutes max on it but it was fun! \n\nThe man came into the store everyday. Never at the same time of day, that varied, just as his clothing attire did. He'd wear an unzipped hoodie one morning, a buttoned up suit the next night. But most peculiar were his socks; they ranged from patterned to plain to neon to pastel. And yet he bought new socks at the store every single time he came.\n\n\"Cal, what can I get for you today buddy?\" the clerk asked. He'd known Cal for years, so long that Cal had once been half his height and the clerk's hair was now twice as gray. He felt relieved that his customer had actually arrived during the store's hours this time, and in the morning, when he wasn't half asleep.\n\nCal did his usual scan of the store with his eyes. He knew the place inside and out, knew when something was new or out of place. They finally locked onto a glowing silver pair hanging on the back wall. He approached them, nodding. \"These.\" he said, green-blue eyes wide.\n\nThe clerk rang him up and handed him the change. But he didn't bother to explain why the socks were hidden in the very back, and why they were glowing. Cal would figure out sooner or later, he figured. Or would he?\n\nThe next day Cal was back, and during a more heavily occupied time of day. The air in the closet of a store was as stuffy as the socks themselves, thick with the breath and sweat of commuters and workers who had just gotten off trains and buses. Cal squeezed through huddled children and elbowed his way towards the front displays by the counter. All of the sudden he stopped dead, knocking into an older woman with an umbrella. He blurted out in a winded rush, \"sockshavecontrolHELPME!\" and the next thing he knew, the entire store grew silent and glared at the strange man in the leather jacket with the silver socks.\n\n\"Give me back my umbrella.\" the woman snapped, making a motion as if to reach for the umbrella draped across his feet.\n\n\"No touching the socks.\" he said quickly, almost automatically, as he handed her the umbrella.\n\nThe clerk hurried in front of the counter. \"Cal, cal, what is going on with you?\" Cal shrugged in reply. \"Socks told me to.\" he said, and left the store, leaving the store in shock and the pair of silver socks on the ground, begging anyone to give them a try.", "Love the idea!\n\nI glanced up from the paperback sci-fi novel held just below the counter as the bell over the front door jangled. As soon as my eyes focused in on the man's face, I sighed. I put the paperback away, bracing myself and taking a deep breath, trying to prep for the confrontation I was sure to begin momentarily.\n\nIn my head, I whispered a silent but fervent curse to UPS for delaying the recent clothing shipment to our store. Didn't they know that we had regular customers?\n\nExtremely regular, a few of them.\n\n\"Hey, Albert,\" I called out, leaning over the counter a little and giving a wave of my hand to get the man's attention as he shuffled in. \"Listen, buddy, little problem.\"\n\nThe man glanced over at me, pausing in his usual pattern that he followed. I could see confusion pass briefly across his face, accompanied by some other emotion that I couldn't quite place. Was it fear? \"Yeah?\" he grunted, looking at me from beneath lowered brows.\n\n\"Listen, I know you're in here every day to pick up a pack of socks,\" I said, trying to sound as apologetic as possible. \"But our restocking shipment hasn't arrived yet, even though it was supposed to be here by Tuesday - and we're all out, buddy.\"\n\nThe man blinked, and I braced myself for some sort of assault or tirade. I really had no clue what was going to come out of this strange little man, but I really just hoped that he wouldn't start knocking down displays when he freaked out.\n\nI mean, the man has to be some sort of crazy, doesn't he? He's been in every day for the last six months - every single day I've worked here - and he's always buying the same thing. He strolls in, picks out a single six-pack of white athletic socks, and pays for it in cash. \n\nWhen I first started working here, I used to imagine that maybe he was some sort of alien, and he was trying to study humanity through socks - or maybe I just read too many dollar store science fiction paperbacks. All of us employees had our own guesses. Mary thought that he used them instead of toilet paper. Carl insisted that the man jerked off into them and then threw them away. My boss, Tom, swore that he'd once seen the guy eat one.\n\nI really didn't know what Albert did with these socks, or why he needed a new pair every day - but this day was going to definitely throw a wrench in the works.\n\nI was expecting him to get angry, maybe yell a bit. \n\nBut I wasn't expecting him to stare at me with wide eyes, his whole face going pale with shock.\n\n\"No, no,\" he gasped out in strangled tones, staggering forward towards my counter. I leaned back a little, concerned that this might be a ploy to get close so he could take a swing, but the man's hands just landed on the counter, as if he had to struggle to stay upright. \"No, you can't be out!\"\n\n\"I'm really sorry, man,\" I offered, not sure how to handle this outburst of sheer panic.\n\nThe man stared up at me, his eyes so wide that the irises were fully visible. \"But you don't understand,\" he insisted. \"Now I can't feed it - and it's going to spread!\"\n\nWhat the hell? I just stared back at him in confusion. \"What?\" I managed.\n\n\"The plant! Oh god, the plant! If I don't feed it, it's going to grow out, searching for food - and once it learns that there's more, well, it will explode!\" the man hissed, waving his arms at me as if this would somehow make things clearer.\n\nI just shook my head at him. \"Plant? Albert, slow down. Are you telling me that you feed these socks to a plant?\"\n\nFor a moment, the man affixed me with one wide eye, glaring at me as if wondering how I could be so dense. \"Yes,\" he snarled at me. \"When it crashed into my back yard, I did as ordered. I was a good little servant. And I convinced it that only I could bring it the food it wanted.\"\n\nI nodded, certain that this guy had to be off his meds for something.\n\nBut Albert saw my expression, somehow read my thoughts, and shook his head furiously at me. \"You don't believe me - not yet,\" he accused me. His hand reached down for his left sleeve, unbuttoning the cuff and hauling it up. \"But just wait! It will grow, and you'll see!\"\n\nThis time, as the man shook his left forearm at me, I felt my mouth drop open as I stared.\n\nAll up the man's arm ran a line of round, puckered scars. It looked almost like the tentacle of some giant octopus creature had wrapped around him, burning marks into his skin. I couldn't think of anything else that could cause such a pattern.\n\n\"And now, it will grow!\" he continued, shaking his scarred arm at me. \"It only stopped before because I convinced it! Now, now it will know that I cannot be trusted, and we won't be able to hold it!\"\n\nInside my head, I felt myself lurching, reality sliding off at an angle. Albert couldn't be talking truth, right? This had to all be some sort of crazy self-delusion. But I couldn't tear my eyes away from those scars wrapping around his arm.\n\n\"Albert, wait,\" I said, my voice sounding to me like it was coming from somewhere far away. \"What if we fight it?\"\n\nThe man just stared at me, but I was already moving, ducking out from behind the counter. Fortunately, the store was empty aside from the pair of us and Tom was in back. My replacement was due in at any minute, and I'd be off duty.\n\nI hurried down the aisles of the store, Albert tagging along behind me. Finally, I found what I was looking for, and skidded to a stop. Behind me, I heard the other man suck in a breath.\n\n\"It might work,\" he said doubtfully. \"There's a chance.\"\n\nI nodded. \"You know, I've always wanted to fight an alien,\" I remarked, staring up at our store's selection of weed killer, shears, and other trimming implements. \n\nI reached up and lifted down one of the big pairs of hedge trimmers, feeling its comforting weight in my hands. \"What do you say?\" I asked, giving the pair of oversized scissors a test snick together.\n\nFor a minute, Albert just stood there, looking at the wall of weaponry. And then, suddenly, he reached forward and picked up a bottle of poison.\n\n\"Let's do it,\" he said fervently. \n\nThe two of us loaded up, getting ready for battle..." ]	2
	[WP]You are the Tank in a typical MMORPG dungeon instance. Describe your experience as you get physically brutalized and constantly healed, cheating death.	[ "For what feels like the thousandth time, I ask myself a simple question. What if I just didn't move? What if I just stood here and never pulled? Never ran in screaming and shouting and desperate to make a kill. It would be easy.\n\nNo more crawling agony as burns sear there way across my body, only to recede as an odd, numb cold of healing replaces the skin and nerves I just lost. I won't feel my bones grind and shift as the break and reform in an endless cycle. No more tortured breathing as I try to get some air through the poisoned fumes and cracked ribs. Let my stomach be settled for once instead of rolling in agony from magical corruption, only to freeze in place as it's purged all at once.\n\nThat's the real kicker to all this. The healing fixes you, but it doesn't actually make you feel better. It just... unbreaks you.\n\nI breathe deeply once, in and out. Visor down, sword out, shield up.\n\nThe healing may not make me feel better, but there's one thing that always does.\n\nA Good. Clean. Kill.\n\n\"Pulling in 5, guys\"", "Krin leaned into the strike, his sword buried in the earth to brace him against the coming force. He knew this feeling, the anxiety that held hostage his breath moments before, the numbness that filled his body after, the crimson stains on the stone that marked his defiance. And then the lightning that surged through his body to tell him the cost of his vigilance.\n\n\"Aegius Invictus,\" Krin whispered, like a prayer rather than an incantation. The warmth was meager, but unmistakable. It radiated outward, filling his shield and his armor, pounding back the cold brought by the fall's rain.\n\nThe strike came heavy, sending reverberations through Krin's bones and forcing him to slide back a good 4 feet. His plated boots and sword cut deep grooves in the earth and stone. His teeth grit against the agony. His arm had definitely broken this time - shield arm. Searing fire tore through his left shoulder. He let go of his sword and reached towards the pain only to see the chain lining of his gauntlets return with blood. The strike had cracked his shield, broken through his guard, and punctured his armor - 3 inches in.\n\n\"Krin! Hold! Just a little longer!\" Krin heard the voice, but did not understand the words. Instead he turned back towards their enemy, towering over them by the height of three men. Its teeth gnashed, dripping blood, spit, and malice. Its eyes, black pearls set against the hunger inscribed all over its face, gazed forward - yearning for the delicacy of a warrior's flesh.\n\n\"Inna, rotate along the right flank. Krin needs support, I think his arm is broken. Corus, can you keep him distracted?\" Melanis said as she fired off another frost-bound arrow. Krin turned his head to see Inna, her cloak torn in multiple places, the large gash down the left side of her face bleeding unchecked. He could see the fatigue on her face. She had been throwing healing spells left and right. Her energy stores would soon be depleted. Out of his right peripheral, Krin could see Corus charge forward, his grip grim on his spear, his lips tight.\n\nThey didn't have enough strength, not nearly enough. Even after an hour of combat, the enemy maintained its relentless assault. Its every attack only seemed to gain in strength. He alone knew, or at least admitted. There was no victory here.\n\n\"Everyone get back. I'll buy you space,\" Krin shouted, reaching into his pack to grab a vial of golden liquid.\n\n\"Krin, what are you-.\"\n\n\"I said get back! Be ready to run,\" he said. He unstopped the vial, steeling himself.\n\n\"No! Don't! We can do this! Krin!\" Inna tried to throw a healing spell, but it wasn't enough. Krin felt it sputter as it hit him in the arm, dulling the pain only moments before it surged back. He saw Corus stagger back, struggling back to his feet.\n\nRipping his helm off, Krin turned his head back and emptied the vial into his parched mouth. Surging power, ignorant power, filled his veins. He dragged his shield back to his fore and picked back up his sword. He knew the borrowed time would only give him moments, but the moments would be enough. Turning back, he caught Melanis's eyes fighting back the hurt.\n\n\"See you all in the next life.\"\n\nKrin charged.", "I have to keep going. But my body hurts. \n\nEverywhere, I can feel it. Every shot, every scratch, every spell -tearing me apart. My shoulder keeps getting dislocated. Clothes are in tatters and blood makes what is left stiff and unforgiving, constantly chaffing my battered skin.\n\nBut it's okay. I can keep going. I have to -no matter what. Even if it hurts. Otherwise, my friends won't stand a chance. So I have to protect them! And... I trust them. They won't let me die -not with so much on the line. Not when we're so close. And I know that if our roles were reversed, they'd do the same for me. \n\nWhenever I feel the heat of regeneration, I know. When my wounds close up, and I feel that rush of energy, I know. When I taste that familiar taste of potion, I know... that they're with me. I know that they're right behind me, supporting me. I know they won;t let me die, I just know it.\n\nI have to keep going. Fight harder. Kill more. Push farther. Protect my party. Level up. Reach the next floor. Not a single enemy will touch them. Nor shall a single enemy be left standing. All will fall before me -before us.\n\nBecause no one can stop us. We have come too far to die here. We will win. We must.", "I am Gork. My job is to take the blows while the others rain them down. I am made for this : big and strong, and always people have told me \"Gork, you are so big ! But you are not very smart\". \n\nI do not mind. Without me, nobody could attack the monster. I keep the monster's attention. I taunt him. I call him names, and roar loudly so everyone else is safe. I hit him a little bit, on the toes or on the head : where it hurts most, but does not damage much.\n\nSometimes I fear for my life. I feel it run out of me, through a cut in my shoulder that is deeper than a cut should be. I see the blood flow out of my body and cannot stop it. Then I pray, I pray that my friends see what is happening. I pray they are not distracted, and pray they notice I am dying. \n\nI have many cuts all over my body, because even if they notice and heal me before I die, they cannot make the scars disappears. Each one hurts a little bit, now and then. But usually I have a fresh wound that hurts more, and I don't think about the little ones.\n\nI am very impressed by my friends. Endiska is my healer. She is dead already, but she does not hit very hard and she is very small, so she heals me. Without her I would be dead many times. She knows words and magic that make my head spin. She knows them without needing to read from a book. I can read, but understanding is hard. There are too many scars on my head.\n\nKaro is our leader. She plans and plots and tells us all what to do. Without her we would not exist. She found us, brought us together, trained us and helped us all. She works very hard. She learns everything that is needed to ensure we live. She is also a healer, and knows many spells.\n\nMarteen is the best fighter. He hits the hardest. I have much respect for Marteen, because he makes the fight shorter and I get hit less. \n\nI am Gork. I am good at what I do. I understand where to be, and when to move. I know how to keep the monster after me. I do not know many words or magic, but I understand strategy. \n\nI get hurt so that my friends do not die. This is my life, and it pleases me." ]	4
	[WP] Write about how freaking hard it is to balance on top of a moving dragon a thousand miles in the air. And the main character just started training class and they keep on falling off and failing epically.	[ " Captain Klegorn sounded the calling horn with relish, his eyes wide with effort. Few these days knew the secret of fashioning the horns which may call beasts and Klegorn was proud to work his ancient trade. Filling his mighty lungs a second time, he continued to sound his horn. It boomed sonorously across the hills and even once Klegorn ceased to blow, it echoed on for what seemed an impossible span. He nodded contentedly and cast his eyes to the sky. Soon enough, the quiet summer day was stirred by a great wind and strange shapes began to dot the sky. Klegorn laughed merrily and cast his arms up. The Breaking would soon begin. \n\n Dravin was having second thoughts about dragons. Dragons were all well and good, he thought to himself, inside stories or tucked away in their remote caves and mountain lairs. It is entirely a different thing, he thought, when one is clinging tenaciously to a dragon for ones life. Dravin gripped his dragon harder and screamed, in what he hoped was a masculine way. \"Stand up!\" screamed a voice. Dravin looked around cautiously. It was captain Klegorn, the old troll, riding comfortable beside him. \"If you don't stand up right now and take those reins, you'll feel my lash boy\". Klegorns voice was distressingly clear, despite the deafening wind. Dravin grasped at where he thought the reins might be. Finding them out of reach, he made a slight adjustment. The world dipped sickeningly at that moment as his dragon began diving for speed. Dravin found himself awkwardly wrapped around the dragons tail when he dared to open his eyes again. He was almost certainly going to die. \"None of that slacking off there boy, I want you to climb back into that saddle and fly a thousand miles into the sky!\" shouted Klegorn. \n\"Sir, that would put me in space, sir\" Dravin somehow managed to say \n\"No backtalk boy, get to it!\" \n\nCaptain Klegorn landed his dragon and called for an aid. A squire quickly rushed to help him dismount. \"A fine crop this year Finneus\". At that moment, Dravin crashed violently into the ground next to him. He lay there, quite dead, while Klegorn looked over his other recruits with a spyglass. A few had managed to stand and hold their reins properly, but it seemed that most would share Dravins fate. If any made it through the rest of training, he would select the best and teach them the secret of carving the horn and the calling. Most likely though, none would survive. Dragons are capricious creatures, few are fit to ride them. Another student fell to the ground nearby, accentuating his thoughts. Klegorn sauntered over to his body. It seemed this boy was still barely alive. \"You didn't stand up!\" Klegorn shouted at the dying youth.", "The water vapor hit my face before I could even think \"not again.\" This was my fifteenth fall today, and I didn't even want to think about how many I'd had this week.\n\n\"I thought you were top of your class, Lyster!” the instructor, his name still evading me because of his nickname, Barker, shouted at me as he and his dragon dove down to catch me. Again.\n\nI had been top of the class. I knew every detail of a dragon’s anatomy. I knew the histories of all the clans. I could teach a class on magical history. I wasn’t half bad with magic. But I could not for the life of me keep my balance. Riding was the last level.\n\nIt wasn’t that I was a klutz. I wasn’t some star gymnast, but I didn’t trip over my own feet either. I had no problem with heights either. Flying in and of itself was exhilarating. I couldn’t get enough of it. In addition, I’m one of the fortunate few to come from a clan that is less affected by thin air, so if I could stay on my dragon, I’d be able to stay up longer and go higher. According to lore, there are even a few from the aerial clans who are stronger in thin air. But if I couldn’t stay on my dragon, I’d never find out. I wouldn’t even graduate in my desired class, which would cut me off from the duties I desired, and more importantly my family and friends.\n\nBarker dropped me back on my dragon, making sure I was firmly strapped on so I wouldn’t fall before it was my turn to try standing again. If I ever could stand, I’d get to move onto more practical uses of flying, like traveling and fighting. “Try and figure out what went wrong that time,” he said before he left to supervise my classmates.\n\nAs if I hadn’t been trying to figure that out already. Except for what moisture had accumulated on me from my latest fall, my dragon and I were dry. We had picked up a little bit of moisture on our way up through the clouds, but it was pretty dry where we were, so that shouldn’t have been an issue. I brought my boots up as best I could to check the soles. Just as brand new as they had been when my mother bought them for me. They were excellent riding boots, charmed to repel moisture from outside, maintain a stable, comfortable temperature, and keep clean. I brushed a bit of mud, dirt from the ground mixed with water from the clouds from the air, off of my boots and considered the next thing to inspect.\n\n“Having issues, Holly?” one of my ruder classmates jeered, flying exceptionally close to me before jumping up and doing a cartwheel on the back of his dragon.\n\nMy temper flared as I considered a slew of ways to make him regret teasing me. It sounded juvenile, but my pride was undergoing a huge attack, between my inability to stand on my dragon and the rude remarks I was receiving. I could dry myself off by transferring the water on my clothes to his dragon’s back. I could temporarily blind him 20 different ways. Particularly appealing was a sticking spell I had only come across the other day. In the moment, it had looked like a great way to hang posters, but now, I was considering sticking that idiot upside down, mid cartwheel.\n\nI decided against it all. As much as I would have liked to, Barker would be able to trace it back to me in an instant, and while I was provoked, I wasn’t in good enough standing with Barker to be taking action against my classmates. I’d have to come up with a more creative solution on the ground.\n\nHaving been considering ways to make bullies fall off of dragons gave me a realization- could someone have placed a spell on me or my dragon to make me fall off? It was a potential issue. I wasn’t the best spellcaster, so if any of the better spellcasters wanted to bring me down, they could, and I wouldn’t perceive their spells.\n\nI started the detection process with myself. It was the least likely, but also the easiest to check. I closed my eyes and began the introspective thought process we had learned. At its most basic level, the process essentially confirms that you have control of your extremities, working in from the fingers and toes, up through your torso, and finally into your mind. The mind is the hardest to ensnare, but once ensnared is harder to free.\n\nNothing. \n\n“Your turn, Lyster!” Barker shouted at me. Was it really that soon?\n\nI loosened the straps that held me on. I started with the thinnest and least important straps, those around my feet and legs, and worked my way to the all-important double belt. Two loops wrapped around your waist, one securing in the front, over your gut, and the other securing in your back. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but it was the most secure option for trainees. Ready to take mental notes on everything that went wrong this time, I started to stand up.\n\nThe leather of the saddle wasn’t supposed to be slippery. Between the water repellant charms that were standard and the relatively dry air, it should have been perfectly dry. As I lifted myself out of the saddle, however, my hand slipped and I started to fall.\n\nThis time I caught myself on one of the calf straps. What had I touched to have caused my hand to slip? There weren’t any spells on me, I had already checked.\n\n“Well, at least I don’t have to catch you,” Barker commented. “Pull yourself up. See what went wrong this time. Wait your turn and you’ll try again.” It sounded like he wanted me to be able to stand, but was losing his patience, though for some reason that softened him up.\n\nConfident in my grip, I wiped my right hand on my pants, gripped a set of straps up just a bit higher, wiped my left hand, and pulled myself back up.\n\nI mentally replayed everything that happened from my last trip into the clouds up until this almost fall. Barker made sure I was secure, told me to see what was wrong. I checked my boots, to make sure that the soles hadn’t been replaced, wiped the bit of mud off, dealt with that bullying idiot, and then began checking to make sure a spell hadn’t been placed on me.\n\nThe boots! To the eye they were in perfect shape, but had a spell been placed on them? With the mud, a residual could have collected on my hands, leading to my slip on the saddle, but still allowing me to grip the straps for dear life as it wore off quickly. That would explain my complete lack of traction when I tried to stand.\n\nA simple but time-consuming detection charm later and it was my turn again. I hadn’t had the chance to remove the spell on my boots, but it was them. I could ask Barker for a few minutes to remove the spell, but he seemed to be on a time crunch and probably wouldn’t like that. I could take another fall and look like a complete fool again. My ego wouldn’t appreciate that. In the corner of my mind, the third option arose. I could stand barefoot.\n\nI checked the straps around my boots. They should hold the boots secure while I stood. Carefully, I undid my straps. I undid my entire left leg’s straps, pulled my foot out, and pulled the straps around my boots a little tighter, just to make sure they didn’t fall.\n\n“What are you doing, Lyster?!” Barker called out, watching me carefully. I ignored him and repeated the process with my left leg before unstrapping myself from the double belt.\n\nHoisting myself out this time, I felt much more confident. My right foot didn’t slip immediately as I brought it up to the dragon’s back, which was a good sign. My left leg followed similarly. Still holding onto the straps, I let go and took a tentative step. Still no falling.\n\nStanding on the dragon’s back, I felt like I was finally where I belonged. After a week of failure and falling, I had finally made it." ]	2
	[WP] You are a dark, brooding 90s style anti hero. But much to your annoyance, the setting, other characters, and plot are as campy as the 60s batman show.	[ "XtremDeath looks out at the field where the Supervillian the Duck is building his giant pool. The Duck has said that if the city doesn't pay he'll flood the city. XtremDeath, ever watchful, shakes his head, and picks up his fusion cannon. He thinks these fools never learn, silly plots and sillier criminals just don't stand up to hot fusion. Sighting in the cannon he notices the 50 hostages that the Duck thinks will keep the police away, it may, but not him. He adjusts two more dials and fires....\nThe smoking crater where the Duck had been building his pool and some carbon ash in the air is all that is left. XtremDeath turns away and begins to walk, another good day on the job. ", "Chandler poured himself a whisky (double) from a cut crystal decanter and slumped down into his armchair, the shadows from the vertical blinds casting moodily onto his equally moody face. As Chandler downed the drink in one mouthful, he reflected on his first day on the job since 'the incident'. \n\nChandler entered the building purporting to belong to the 'McDonald's' family wrapped effortlessly in his double-breasted overcoat and suede trilby. He thought he was working for a detective agency which had opened during his time away from the business. He was sorely mistaken. \n\nAn acned teenaged boy greeted him at the automatic doors and asked in a voice which was falsetto one word, baritone the next: \n'Are you Mr Chandler' \n\n'Why I am young man, this job is my calling. I am here to take care of business.' \n\n'Oh, great', said the oily juvenile 'then you will be able to clean up the sick in the bathroom'. ", "\"Tony, have you been drinking again?\"\n\nGreat. That latest waste-of-spandex goofball wore on my nerves and now my senile aunt is getting on my case. I pour myself another whiskey.\n\n\"It's Richard\", I tell her. That's not exactly a lie. \"I just heard from Bloodnight. Turns out Richard was Kid Night all this time.\" I barely restrain myself from punctuating the phrases -not outright lies, I tell myself- with glasses of whiskey. \"And now he's dead.\" That, at least, is not a lie. Every once in a while, the morons the police labels \"super criminals\" manage to put a lethal component in their Rube Goldberg Guillotines. \n\nFor all that, they might as well be amusement park rides. The Mountebank's contraption wasn't even modified when the bank foreclosed on his estate, for fuck's sake.\n\n\"Who, Bloodnight?\" Aunt Gladys drags me back from my sidetrack. Johnny Walker has probably impeded Bloodnight's work more than the Harlequin, Puffin, Jester, Gentoo and Mountebank combined.\n\n\"No, you idiot, Richard!\"\n\n\"You mean that's why... Tony, miss Gadoula from Child protection is here to see you about something. I asked her to wait on the patio.\"\n\nIt can't be. I've told them to take me off the foster care registry. I keep sending opt-out letters, I keep telling my lawyer to see that they get me off the registry, I've pointed out that the previous six -make that seven- orphans I've adopted have ended up as Kid Night and consequently dead. But no, there's a clerical error or my PR people intercept it or Aunt Gladys offers me as a foster parent for an orphaned gymnastics prodigy or some fucking thing, and soon enough it's as if the previous Kid Night was still there.\n\nAnd where was Reginald? He's the butler, it's his job to tell my guests to sit down while the master pops a caffeine pill and applies aftershave to cover the reek of booze about his person. I faintly recall, in a distant era referred to as \"Sobriety\", telling him to hold all my calls.\n\nI hastily down the pill, dab on a bit of aftershave and gargle mouthwash, and then stagger to the patio.\n\n\"Mr. Banner, so kind of you to see me on such short notice\", the foster care clerk tells me. I quickly scan the patio for other people - male, late teens, athletic build, brown hair, a particular idiosyncrasy of speech. None in sight, thankfully.\n\n\"There has been a tragic accident that left young mr. Blueson here... Winston? Where have you gotten into?\"\n\n\"Can't you stick him to an orphanage?\" I ask.\n\n\"They're at capacity. Many of Soapsud's henchwomen were single mothers\"\n\n\"Yes, dreadful business.\" And I do understand - I'm about three drinks short of not understanding. I understand that the theme-goons have families waiting for them. That most of them just do it for a paycheck, and that most of them are working for the less crooked sons of bitches. But after watching Richard dissolved in lye, I wasn't in a mood for nonlethal means.\n\n\"The Frankensons?\" I plead.\n\n\"Mrs. Frankenson is still in mourning for her late husband\", she tells me. Oh, right. This whiskey is really getting to me if I really suggested foisting whoever this kid is on a pedophile. Lethal or not immediately lethal means, seems like I screw myself either way.\n\n\"Now listen you stupid cow!\" I know I'm not angry at her, someplace currently buried in smoldering fury. I'm angry at the motherfucker that couldn't save his kid sidekick, \"You foist this kid on me, and I might as well stick a fucking gun in his mouth and blow his fucking brains out my own fucking self! Seven of them! That's how many Kid Night's I've had to bury!\"\n\n\"Holy Bowdler, miz Gadoula, this is supposed to be my foster dad?\" I knew it. I'm starting to suspect Richard was from a set of octuplets separated at birth.\n\n\"Please...\" Miss Gadoula almost sobs. I'm not usually a sucker for a cute gal's teary-eyed pleading, last night was proof of that, but any of the social services ladies... I've let the previous two die, I hope that she won't be next.\n\n\"Fine, I'll take him. What's your first name, kid?\"\n\n\"Winston, sir.\"\n\nMiss Gadoula starts to walk me through the paperwork, and this is when Reginald finally shows up. \n\n\"I'm sorry to interrupt you, sir, but there has been an urgent call from your office\", he says, \"Mr. F. Ubar, if you know what I mean.\"\n\n\"I'll have to take this call, miss Gadoula. Come on, Winston.\"\n\nI race into the drawing room and pull Tolstoy's War and Peace from the shelf to reveal the suit-dispenser firepoles, and slide down the one marked \"Bloodnight\".\n\nWhile I'm being worked over by the machinery, Reginald takes the stairs and arrives in the Bloodcave at the same time I do. The name was the first Kid Night's idea. Or the second's, my alcohol-addled brain can't quite recollect.\n\n\"What's the emergency?\" I ask as I race to the Bloodmobile. When the police actually calls Bloodnight for help, I have little \n\n\"A super-criminal calling himself the Charlatan has taken the city council hostage at the opening of the new shopping mall\", Reginald's voice crackles in my earbud.\n\n\"The one in Clearview? I'll get there in... Why is this thing not starting.\"\n\n\"I noticed the state of your liquor cabinet, and I must conclude that you are at least three drinks past the legal limit. I have therefore, regretfully, disabled the Bloodmobile and taken possession of your other car keys.\"\n\n\"Reginald, are you telling me that you're stopping me from driving out in a piece of misappropriated, nuclear reactor driven military technology, loaded with munitions banned by the Geneva convention, because I'm too drunk to drive?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir\", my butler says, and proffers a blood-red one speed bicycle with one hand, and a similarly-colored bicycle helmet with the other.\n\nAs I don the helmet and try to mentally prepare for a half-hour bike ride, I hear Reginald say \"And you, young sir, are not going anywhere before I have a chance to properly fit your suit.\" I stop before I realize that he's talking to Winston Blueson, the eighth Kid Night.\n\nRiding a bike down the tunnel gives me altogether too much time to reflect on how I'm not the hero Gothburg deserves, and that maybe this next moron will finally manage to take me out. That maybe it would be a good thing, that I'm basically the leading cause of violent death in this city.\n\nI leave the tunnel behind, and with it, my brooding. The deal is simple: They try to bring about anarchy, the rule by the strongest, and I'm going to give them the kind of veto they'll have little choice accept.\n\nI may fail, and this city may be plunged into a kafkaesque nightmare of spandex-wearing monsters, but as long as I live, that nightmare will be one everyone in this city can wake up from.", "There I was, sellotaped to a snack trolley, as the dreaded Administrator pushed me closer and closer to his photocopier of death.\n\nI immediately got up, ripping apart the tape that supposedly was binding me.\n\n\"Really.\" I stated, as I picked up a chocolate bar and shoved it in the Administrator's fat little face, before kicking him hard in the groin POW .\n\n\"Maybe it's just that I'm just that good,\" I commented, as a tooth came flying from the Administrator's mouth with a well executed punch BIFF , \"Or maybe it's just that you are terrible at this...\"\n\nI slapped him on both sides of his head KLANNNG , disorienting him, then pulled out the switchblade on my utility belt that he didn't take off as he was a moron.\n\n\"How exactly does the photocopier kill anyone who isn't a bystander? I know you try hard, but,\" I made an incision in his cheek and drew a bloody line towards his mouth SCHLIIIICK , \"The only thing lethal about it is the lever with the poison gas sprayer hooked up to it, but I've got a strong tolerance to all the poisonous substances you've purchased in the past seven years.\"\n\nI holstered my knife, and admired my handiwork for a moment.\n\nThen I pulled out my pistol.\n\nBLAM\n\n\"I need a better class of villain.\"", "The ropes that bound my hands were loose, tied by an incapable henchman. I'd be able to shed them in a few minutes. \n\n\"Haha!\" A green, spandex suited moron wearing plastic leaves glued to his shoulder pranced in front of me, close enough to strangle if my hands were free. \"The mighty Night Ranger, captured in a moment of weakness.\"\n\n\"I'm real sorry, Ranger!\" The boy tied up next to me blinks his ridiculous doe eyes and pouts. He keeps showing up, every goddamn day, trying to be my sidekick. \"I'll make it up to you, I swear! No more mistakes!\"\n\n\"I'm afraid you won't have time for that, little bird.\" More cackling. The ropes shifted a bit, and I was one step closer to rearranging that idiot's facial structure. \"You see, the Plantmancer has other plans for the both of you.\"\n\nI perked my head up, eyeing the green buffoon. His beady eyes twinkled as he waved at a vat of green ooze, a pulley system dangling over the top. \n\n\"The boy first!\" He clapped his hands together, a wide, flourescent yellow smile spreading over his stupid face. \n\nOf course, the boy first. Idiots. Always giving me more time. The ropes were finally exactly where I wanted them, but I relaxed and watched the show. His two bumbling henchmen somehow managed to get the boy and the chair both hooked up over the vat, although at points both of them nearly lost their balance and fell into the green goo.\n\n\"You can't do this! Ranger, help me!\" The boy squirmed, causing the whole contraption to shift down a little, towards the vat.\n\nMy name isn't Night Ranger. I don't have a fucking name. I beat muggers, thieves and rapists half to death (sometimes the whole damn way, depending) with my bare hands, and I wear a suit so no one guesses my identity. Or to scare the shit out of them. I don't bother telling him that. I have a thousand times.\n\n\"Well, Night Ranger?\" The yellow little smirk makes its way over to my chair. He leans in, his fake plastic ivy brushing my shoulder. \"Isn't this delightful? Your protege is about to become one of my very own Plant Monsters. He'll be unstoppable!\"\n\n\"He's better off as a ficus.\" I growled, a slight smirk of my own forming. The Plantmancer starts to say something, but I insert my forehead into his gross teeth. He stumbles back, spraying teeth and blood, trying to signal his henchmen.\n\nI can't stand whatever has gotten into the organized crime in this city lately, but it sure as hell made ass kicking a lot easier. This dumb fuck had two henchmen with no guns and a vat of green goo. In moments they were all sprawled out on the floor, legs and arms and teeth and skulls broken.\n\nI turned my attention to the now silent boy slowly spinning over the vat.\n\n\"G-get me down?\" \n\nThis isn't the first time he's seen me bust heads. Seems to scare him a little every time. It's fucking tiring.\n\n\"Sure.\" With a quick flick of my wrist, I hit the release on the pulley. \n\nThe screaming idiot falls straight into the goo.\n\nGlub glub.\n\nAfter a few seconds, I sigh. I walk over to the the side of the industrial tub and start reeling him in with the rope.\n\nWhen he can breathe again, he starts crying. \n\n\"Calm the fuck down. That's plant food and pudding mix. And please, don't come back tomorrow.\"\n\nI leave him covered in goo and tied to the chair, laying sideways on the warehouse floor. This fucking city.\n\n", "I see my calling card lit up in the sky. It surprises me every time with the consequences my actions have on the city. I suit up in my dark suit and black mask. My sidekick steps beside me, wearing a bright yellow and neon green suit. It burns my eyes. \n\nHe makes his a broodish comment, \"Holy Gripes, Marauder. We haven't had a call in quite a while. This is going to be swell.\" I backhand him. \n\n\"Get a hold of yourself, man...and HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU TO GET A NEW SUIT! We need to be inconspicious!\" I yell at him.\n\n\"But Marauder this suit is new.\" \n\n\"You know what...just forget it.\"\n\nWe arrived at the scene of the crime. My arch-nemesis was waiting for me.\n\n\"Welcome, Marau-\" he starts, but I shoot him in the face.\n\n\"Holy Bageebus, Marauder. Why would you do that?!\" my sidekick proclaims.\n\n\"We're done here.\" I respond. \n\n\"But Marau-\" I turn my head and look at him.\n\n\"I'll shoot you, too, if you say anything else.\"\n\n\"Okay, Mr. Marau-\" I shot him in the face. Sadly, those nuts at city hall will give me a replacement next week. " ]	6
You die and the next thing you know, someone is taking off things attached to you.	[WP] What felt like your whole life was just virtual experience simulation	[ "I could barely breathe. I looked at the hospital wall, a big paper calendar hung next to the TV that said \"FEB 2, 1998\". President Clinton was on TV talking about not having sex with some broad. Back when I was a youngster, I used to care about these sorts of things. I'll tell ya, ever since Ike left office this country has just slowly gone to hell.\n\nI look to my right, my daughter Erin sits and holds my hand. Even though she's 53, I can still see the cute smile she had when she was in diapers. \n\n\"I love you Erin. You've made my life worth living, you know that?\" I say.\n\n\"Oh dad, I love you too, but you don't need to talk like that. The doctor says you're going to be fine.\"\n\nThere's a knock on the door. \"Come in,\" I say. \n\nThe door opens. A guy walks in wearing a rumpled ball cap emblazoned with the Big Red One. He's a frumpy old guy, just like me. I smile a little as I remember how we never used to be this way.\n\n\"Holy Mackerel! Beansy! You crazy ol' bastard! You look like shit. You got old, what the hell happened?\"\n\n\"Hi-de-ho Alfie! Eh, a little birdie told me that you needed your life saved again, so I figured I'd stop by and see what's cookin',\" he says with a grin.\n\nI let out a hearty laugh. \"Its good to see you Beansy. Ya know, I don't think I ever thanked you for saving my sorry butt back on Omaha beach. You know I am very grateful that...\"\n\n\"Oh come on Alfie, you've thanked me a thousand times. I didn't do anything you wouldn't have done.\"\n\nI get a little tearful as I look over at Erin. \"Yeah, but if it weren't for you Beansey, I never would have lived to go back home and marry Millie and have Erin.\"\n\nErin speaks up \"And I would have never have been born and married Jason and had Kevin, Curt, and Tina. So, yes, thank you again for saving my dad's life,\" she says with an exaggerated tone the kind of which develops when you are forced to say the same thing over and over. \"Which, by the way Dad, Tina will be here after she gets off work around six.\"\n\n\"Well, good, it'll be good to see her.\"\n\nBeansy just smiles \"So Alfie, the doc says you'll be ok and this is nothing to worry about. I figure I'll get you outta here, we'll go back to the post, have a few beers, and swap old stories again. It's four dollar fish dinner night. Waddaya say...\"\n\nHis sentence was interrupted by a loud beeping from one of the machines the nurse hooked me up to. Suddenly everything started to flash. Lights seemed to flicker on and off. Again, breathing became a struggle. I looked at Erin... My beautiful little girl... Oh boy, she was flipping her wig... I can't feel my legs. Beansy ran over to the bedside, looked at me and screamed \"Medic!!!\" just like he had done 45 years ago... The beeping became more frantic, it felt like a tank parked on my chest. My arms hurt and then seemed to go numb.\n\nI looked up, \"Oh my...\" I said. All I heard was a long, steady tone. I could only see things directly in front of me, all the edges were white... Everything faded to bright white...\n\nI blink. I can't see. For a moment I feel like I'm floating on clouds, and then suddenly I fall, like falling in a dream.\n\n\"So what did you think, Sophia?\"\n\n\"Who the hell...\" I say groggily. I open my eyes and blink again. I can see but the light hurts my eyes.\n\nI'm in a recliner. A thin guy with crazy, crinkly hair stands in front of me. He's wearing a lab coat and a tie.\n\n\"I'm still not sure what happened, it looks like there was a glitch in the program. Looks like the bEAN-C subroutine did something, odd.\"\n\nHe's gesturing in the air, and little objects are floating around his hands. Its as if he's spinning and stretching weightless, glowing blocks. 'He's looking at a data model.' my brain says. A different part of my mind asks 'What's a data model?'\n\n\"I... Uhh...\" I say again groggily. Holy Mackerel! I have a dames voice!\n\n\"So, how was the invasion? Not realistic enough?\" he asks. Aiden. His name is Aiden. It's coming back to me. \"Supposedly the new Nazi's are MUCH more realistic, at least that what Chris in visuals said. That guy is kind of an arrogant ass, so...\" \n\n\"Aiden, where's Erin?\" I ask.\n\nHe stops fiddling with the glowing blocks - er, I mean 'data model' and looks at me funny. \"Erin? Your daughter? How the hell would I know? Don't you drop her off at day care before coming to work?\"\n\n\"Oh. Yeah... I just...\" I sort of stammer.\n\n\"Just query her digital assistant. Didn't you just tell me you hooked her up with the new KidTrax app?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" I say. I've no idea what the hell he's talking about.\n\nI look down. I'm wearing those nice red shoes I just bought. And the jeans with the nano shimmer flex bits. They were set to 'blue'. Wait, this doesn't make sense.\n\n\"So, the realism?\" Aiden asks. \"Was it what we'd expect of the latest and greatest Immersive Reality Console? Valve has a lot riding on this with finally going public and all. I know we both want our options to skyrocket.\"\n\nI look at the wall. There's no TV, but I do see a screen floating against the wall as if its weightless. Its big and bright and wide and President Sasse is giving a speech in his home state of Nebraska. \n\nUnderneath floats \"May 11, 2028 9:48 am\". The numbers look like hard bakelite just floating there in space. Bakelite? What the hell is bakelite?\n\n\"How long was I playing?\" I ask. A little cartoon cherub pops out of nowhere, floats in front of my eyes and says \"Game duration was 8 minutes 23 seconds. Play Again?\"\n\n\"Ok Sophia, come on, it's my turn. Don't hog the neurocap,\" Aiden says as he pulls a mesh of wires off my head held together by a geodesic structure.\n\n\"I want to experience what this baby can do.\" he says as he straps it to his head and sits back in a chair to get comfy. \"Begin Game\" he says loudly.\n\nI just sit there and watch him. \"It's Killer Diller, Aiden! It's the bees knees!\" I say as he closes his eyes.\n\nI'm still not quite sure what the hell is going on. These damn hospitals these days. Ever since the yuppie lawyers back in the 80's with their damn lawsuits, hospitals have gone straight to hell. ", "Nina screamed, to no avail. The machete continued its inexorable swing, cutting off in a broad stroke Alex’s head, which hit the sand with a muffled thud. After a swaying moment, Alex’s body crumpled beside it. \n\n“Oh God,” Nina choked out, and turned to me, buried her tears in my shoulder.\n\nI meant to comfort her, but the words caught in my throat as the men, some hooded, some proudly bare-faced, began their shouting again. Though I knew only rudimentary Spanish, I was able to translate a few pleasant phrases, mostly about butchering the American pigs.\n\nAlex’s corpse drew my gaze like, well, a corpse. A frankly astonishing amount of blood pumped from his stump of a neck, watering the sand beneath him. Even from this distance I was able to see the look of dull amazement in those glazed, glassy eyes.\n\nSo this was really happening. \n\n“La mujer!” Several voices called. Rough hands seized Nina and forced her up before either of us could react. Her eyes locked on mine in desperation, her feet scrabbling for purchase in the sand as they dragged her in front of the camera. Dragged her, my beautiful, perfect girl, still glowing, despite the terror of the situation, with the sweet, tiny life that was growing inside of her.\n\nI shouted, lunging to my feet as well as I could with hands bound, but blows from surrounding assailants drove me back down. My ears ringing, my vision dancing with white motes, I screamed Nina’s name over and over as the man with the machete forced her to her knees. Nina begged incoherently, tears shining red in the torchlight.\n\nA sudden hush prevailed over the mob as the machete man brought his arm up to swing.\n\n“She’s pregnant, you bastards,” I cried, a sob breaking through at last –\n\nBut the pitiless blade whistled down, and a roaring wave of jeers rose up. It crashed down upon that pale, broken body which was all that remained of the woman whom I had loved with every inch of my soul.\n\nNow finally, mercifully, it was my turn. Coherent thoughts failed me as they marched me to the block. On my knees, I stared into Nina’s dead eyes, already clouded and distant. She had gone somewhere far away, but soon I would join her. \n\nThe silence came again, and I knew I only had a few more seconds to wait. I closed my eyes, clinging to a single, simple, clean thought: \n\nWe were going to name him Julius.\n\n...\n\nI could not tell how long it was before pure, blinding light rushed in to clear the darkness from my vision. So there really was life after death. My heart soared with wordless happiness as I contemplated spending eternity with Nina and Julius. \n\nThen the blinding light faded, and I found myself in a perfectly ordinary little room, half reclining on a leather chaise lounge. To my consternation, I discovered a blunt-featured woman in white pulling what appeared to be wired suction cups from my body. Nina was not in the room with me. It was not really what I had expected of the afterlife but I decided to roll with it.\n\n“Ooh, look who’s awake, then,” exclaimed the woman in a cheery tone. “How are you feeling, dearie? No, don’t get up.”\n\nMy muscles felt extraordinarily weak. I could barely twitch a finger. Well, I had just been beheaded, after all. “Hello,” I said politely. “What’s your name, ma’am?”\n\n“Mary, dear.”\n\n“Mary,” I coughed slightly, “Could you tell me where Nina is?”\n\n“Nina? Is that your psychiatrist, hmm?”\n\n“What? No,” I said crossly, “I don’t have a psychiatrist. There’s nothing wrong with my head. Aside from having been chopped off, I mean.”\n\nThere was a brief pause. “Oh gosh,” Mary sighed, “I’d better fetch the doctor.”\n\nShe hurried out of the room before I could protest. After a short while, during which I tried and failed several times to get up, a broad-shouldered man in a dark coat entered and sat by my knee. He wore spectacles and a hint of red handkerchief peeked out of his breast pocket. The color made me feel a little ill.\n\n“Well, my boy!” he said jovially. “You’ve finally woken up! You’ve been under almost twice as long as the average patient. Took your sweet time getting around to the end, eh? Hopefully all that electric stimulation didn’t damage anything up here,” he scrubbed my head in an affectionate, but tense manner, as though I were a particularly rascally dog.\n\n“Uh, no, you must be taking me for someone else,” I said. “I wasn’t sleeping. Actually, I just died, you know, back on Earth. I just got here.”\n\n“Oh,” he said. His expression became serious. “I see. There are some things you don’t understand here, Mark.”\n\n“Paul,” I corrected him.\n\n“Mark,” he repeated firmly. “Your name is not, nor has it ever been, Paul. You are a patient of Oakley Ward Mental Hospital, admitted in 2032. You suffered some very interesting delusions of grandeur that led you to think of yourself as a sort of, shall we say, Uber-mensch. You became depressed and eventually suicidal as you considered every accident or murder victim in the news as people you personally failed to save.”\n\n“No,” I protested. “I’m Paul Kruger… American foreign affairs journalist…” But my protests sounded flat even to my ears. Because everything he was saying was new, but also somehow familiar. The information felt right, fitting into my mind like a puzzle piece I hadn’t even known was missing. Believing I was two different people at once was like holding up two overlaid transparencies to the light. A soft sadness folded over in my chest as I realized the identity of Paul Kruger was already fading away. He felt like someone I’d known long ago, like a faceless memory of a kindergarten teacher. \n\nNow I remembered that the simulation had been a test, a trendy new tool for evaluation of mental progress of psych patients. I’d spent days preparing, wanting nothing more at the time to pass, to get back out into the real world. \n\nHow naïve I had been.\n\n“Listen Doc,” I said urgently, sitting up and grabbing him by the wrist. He startled, jerking back, but I held tight. “I need to go back into the simulation.”\n\nHis eyes widened behind those owlish spectacles. “I’m afraid that’s quite impossible, Mark,” he said firmly. “Even a quarter hour more in the chair could have permanently fried your brain. You were nearing the very edge of the exposure safety zone.” He attempted a pained smile. “Don’t worry, Mark, you passed. You don’t have to take the test again next year.”\n\n“I don’t give a damn about the test anymore!” I shouted. He flinched. “I need to go back. I need to see her.”\n\n“She’s not real, Mark!” The doctor snapped, twisting his wrist free. He took a breath to calm himself. “Whoever she is, she’s not real. You’ll forget her soon enough. On no account are you going back under.” He spoke in a tone of flat finality.\n\n“Fine!” I said. \n\nThen things happened rather quickly.\n\nThe good doctor drew his handkerchief and took off his spectacles to polish them. I lunged forward, ripping the cloth from his hands and wrapping it round his thick neck. It didn’t take long for him to slump, unconscious, to the floor. I bound him with his own handkerchief and stuffed a piece of my hospital shirt in his mouth.\n\n“Good boy,” I told him. I'll admit I sneered a bit as I reattached the suction cups to my temples and hands. Turning my attention to the test control screen, I selected Mental Evaluation Test, choosing Mark Krakov from a short list of other patients. There were two options for me, Delusions and Paranoia and Custom.\n\nI selected Custom.\n\nBegin Test.\n\n...\n\nWhen I opened my eyes, I was on a long, lovely stretch of mirrored beach at sunset. The wind was tropical and carried the scent of ripe mangos. It was Tamarindo Beach in Costa Rica, where Nina and I had first met on the same assignment but for rival stations. In the dark, we had made love on a braided hammock dangling over the crisp white sand.\n\n“Paul?” a tremulous voice said from behind me.\n\nI turned and simultaneously she flowed into my arms.\n\n“Oh my god, you’re here, you’re really here,” she sobbed into my chest. “I’ve been here waiting for so long. I thought you weren’t coming.”\n\n“Shh,” I whispered into her hair, highlighted gold by the dying sun. “Not even death can stop true love.”\n\nShe laughed at that, a hiccupping little giggle, and burrowed her face deeper into my chest. The feel of her body against mine, so familiar and right, brought an unexpected lump to my throat.\n\n“Don’t leave me again,” she said, her face pressed right up to my heart.\n\n“Don’t worry,” I spoke through the tears that had begun to fall like summer rain. “I won’t let you down again.”" ]	2
Upon your death, your mummified remains, as well as possessions and slaves were entombed in a pyramid. While enjoying the Afterlife, you begin to notice your possessions are beginning to disappear - someone must be robbing your tomb! Reality begins to waver before your eyes and you hear voices, as if from a great distance, speaking in a language you do not understand.	[WP] You are a long-dead Egyptian pharaoh...	[ "Afterlife was pretty sweet. I loved to sit on my fancy golden chair and sip wine out of my fancy golden chalice while my slaves cooled me with fancy golden fans. That stuff was clutch.\n\nBut one day it all went wrong. I was sitting on my fancy golden chair, as usual, when it suddenly disappeared - and I mean literally popped into nothingness - from right underneath my royal buttocks! The royal booty did not enjoy the fall.\n\nAnd it went from bad to worse. As I looked around I saw that all my stuff other was disappearing, too. My chalice, my slaves, everything! Just vanished into thin air!\n\nBut that's not all. Then some invisible man lifted my royal butt up and plunked me into some dark box. I heard voices all around me, speaking in a language that I didn't understand. Well, I did pick up a few familiar words like \"Egypt\" and \"mummy,\" but still! It was freaking the royal poopie out of me!\n\nI must have been confined in that box for, on I don't know, a week or something, before the invisible man returned and plunked me in a glass cage, right next to some other dead guy.\n\n\"What in the name of Ra is going on here?\" I screamed at the dead guy, \"what the Duat did you do with all my fancy golden stuff?!\"\n\n\"Relax, I didn't touch your stuff,\" the dead guy replied, \"and don't talk to me like that, I'm a pharaoh too.\"\n\n---------------\n\nLittle Timmy looked at the two mummies in the display case. Their heads were tilted towards each other, as if having a conversation. The left one's face was all panicky and the right one looked really jaded, as if trying to calm his friend down. They made a funny pair. ", "“All who defy me, despair!” I roar as my last keg of beer fades away before my eyes. Fuck. They took my slaves, my collection of cat figurines and even my freaking board games. And now I can't even get drunk. What the hell am I supposed to do now? They said the afterlife was supposed to be eternal, and now I'm stuck with literally nothing but a bare room and some broken pottery. How am I supposed to pass the time, jerk off for eternity?\n\nI'm going to try to leave again. When my stuff started to disappear I thought about going outside to have a look but I couldn't even get past the front door without running up against an invisible barrier. Maybe this time, if I take a running start....\n\nDamn, it actually worked. Now where the hell am I? This isn't where they put my tomb. It's all weird, there's some sort of scratchy rug on the ground and a bunch of really bright lights overhead. And there are a lot of symbols on the wall...no idea what they mean. I can see the entrance to my tomb and my sarcophagus is sitting on a pedestal right here...wait, that's the first thing they took! And those are my freaking organ jars over there behind some sort of clear barrier! What is this, a circus for voyeur freaks? Screw this, I'm getting out of here. That door over there looks like it goes outside...\n\nNow where am I? Why are there dead animals and artwork hung up everywhere? And why is that doughy guy in the corner pointing at me and staring? “Boo!” I yell at him and he staggers back. Now another guy's just showed up and he's staring too. Do I look that bad? Whatever, time to get out of here.\n\nShit shit shit! There's some sort of alarm bell going off! There are like ten more guys running down the hall towards me! And there are gates coming down from the ceiling everywhere. I'm trapped! I wonder how sturdy they are.\n\nWow, okay, I just ripped the gate out of the wall. And I think one of the guys cowering in the corner just crapped himself. I really need to find a mirror. But first, I'm getting my shit back.\n" ]	2
	[WP]: due to an unfortunate speech impediment, a young satanist accidentally grants her soul to Stan	[ "Sam, Stan and the Satanists\n\nSam was never thrilled about Wednesday nights or Friday nights, the nights her parents dragged her to the Satanist congregation on the fourth floor of the Berner and Werner building downtown. These were the nights when she had the privilege to sit with glazed eyes and listen to a bunch of boring adults talk about unlimited potential and community outreach. To put it bluntly, she'd rather be doing algebra, and she abhorred algebra. But on this particularly dreadful night something caught Sam's eye that didn't fit in the usual goings ons. She spotted Stan.\n\nStan was a boy probably about Sam's age who wore all black and wore a hoodie, with the hood up, indoors. And he seemed, at least from her vantage point, about or maybe even less interested in what the Satanist Priest was blathering on about. He'd even managed to sneak a cell phone in with him and she could see him playing with it throughout the proceedings under his hoodie.\n\nSam didn't introduce herself to Stan right away. She'd imagined herself going over to him and saying hello and then the two of them carrying on about how insipid the homeless and expanding personal wealth really were as three hour talking points. But in reality she knew that the second she opened her mouth nothing would come out that was worth responding to. She would get caught on an 'a' or and 'o' and the whole situation would devolve into a deliriously embarrassing messing. So rather she went with plan B, which involved a sort of distant orbit where she could watch and collect data. Watch, and collect data.\n\nWhat Sam didn't know about Stan, and what he wasn't any the wiser to for that matter, was that Stan was intrinsically bound to an ancient demon named Iailius. It wasn't anybody's fault that the boy was born as a vessel for a supremely old and powerful demon begot of the primordial soup of creation, it was just dumb luck. And as these things work, the closer her heart got to Stan, the closer it got to Iailius.\n\nSam spent months in Stan's peripherie not daring inch any closer for fear that her speech impediment might inexorably mark her as a stuttering idiot in Stan's mind for all eternity. But even as her fear multiplied and poured around her feet like concert, her love for the boy grew as high as the tallest tree. And it wasn't long before that tree had grown so tall and so heavy that not even all the cowardly concrete in the world could stop it from toppling over. This was the day when right in the middle of a fundraiser for breast cancer, on the fourth floor of the Berner and Werner building in downtown, Sam's pent up adoration for Stan came out in full view of the entire congregation of Satanists. \n\nThe way it happened was not prepared or scripted in the slightest. It was that time of the year when all the kids had to get up in front of the room and say what they wanted to change about the world. Stan got up and said he wanted rich people to spend more money on virtual reality, he didn't spend more than thirty seconds up there before he was back in his seat playing with his cell phone under his hoodie again. Sam went up right after and was understandably a nervous wreck. Her parents and few others gave her words of encouragement and sympathetic smiles, but it didn't seem to be subduing her pure unadulterated panic. It wasn't really that she had to speak in front of the congregation, something she'd done many times before, it was that she had to speak in front of Stan. She could barely utter a single word and after a minute the room was filled with nervous energy, so much so that even Stan, for perhaps the first time since joining the church with his parents, looked up in anticipation. And who was looking right back at him with her hands clenched and her lips wavering. Sam.\n\nThe moment they locked eyes her lips loosed as fully formed a proclamation of love that had come before it. Her declaration of love to Stan, and incidentally to Iailius, was so heartfelt and awe inspiring that the nervous energy in the room was replaced by exultant energy. Stan's cell phone fell out of the bottom of his hoodie and plopped on the carpet. His mouth was open so wide you could count his cavities. She he finished she stood there and the room was silent. Stan's parents nudged him and told him to go give her a hug. After a few more nods and indicators Stan rose from his seat and slowly walked over and down the aisle to the front where Sam stood looking like a deer in headlights. Stan closed the space between them, each bewildered in their own right, and then he opened his arms and closed them around Sam. Sam's heart was swelling as she gave herself to Stan. She whispered to him.\n\n\"I am yours.\"\n\nThese words echoed through Stan's head and reverberated back into a place of his mind that until this point was invisible to him. A place where a malevolent being sat waiting in the dark, counting the days before his ascension. As Sam's words floated into Iailius' diabolical chamber he grabbed a hold of them and ate them with a single gulp and a satisfied smile.\n\n\"That's one Ssssstan. Ssssseven billion left to go. You're going to have to start pulling your own wait. You can't let chancccccce do all the heavy lifting.\"\n\nThe End", "(Preface: in this story Satan has a teenage brother named Stan who is summoned, and the satanist cannot pronounce her R's, so Trish=Twish, hoor= whore (This speech impediment is based exclusively off of someone I know who speaks this way and I just type how they pronounce certain words))\n\n\n\"So wait, how much will you give it to me for?\", Stan inquired twirling the lackluster mustache he had been trying to grow for almost eight months.\n\n\"To get payback to that bitch Twish for squewing me over, I want to enshore that hoor never finds twu love.\" \n\nAmused, Stan replies: \"Wait, how am I supposed to do that, and what can you pay me with?\"\n\n\"Well, I have my soul, and I constantly sacwefice animals in yoor name my lowd SayTan\"\n\nSuddenly, Stan puffs out his undeveloped chest, envelops himself with infernal fire and shouts, \"I GO BY STAN YOU FOOLISH MORTAL, I WILL DECAY YOUR WOMB AND CAUSE YOU ETERNAL SUFFERING!\" \n\n\"I'm sowwy, my lorwd Stan. But like I said, I can offowr my soul and possibly my viginity?\"\n\nStan laughs out loud (noticing how his mustache flows with the wind when he laughs), and responds, \"Listen here bitch, I'll take your soul, but I've taken enough virginities in my day. Miley Cyrus was the last girl whose virginity I took, and we all know how that turned out\".\n\n\"So how will you help me my lorwd?\"\n\nStan gets a Grinch-like grin on his face, and pauses for a brief moment, responding carefully, \"I can give her mother cancer, and her father early-onset Alzheimers. Or, I could fix you that speech impediment, and maybe give you a bit of a makeover too\".\n\n\"Yes my lorwd! Eithorh of those sound porfect! So what do I have to do?\"\n\nReaching into his pocket, Stan takes out a pack of Newports, and carefully removes the 6th cigarette from the pack. He hands it to the girl, and says, \"Smoke this and say my name three times. Once you finish it, I'll have your soul, and whatever is your utmost desire will come to fruition. However, be careful because just like having sex with a cannibal, wishes may come back and bite you in the ass\". Stan then places a finger on his left nostril and blows out of his right. Small boogers initially fly out, followed by a burst of orange flames. \n\nThe Satanist takes a few drags, says Stan three times, mutters something about how shitty Menthols are and passes out, falling to the ground. \nStan flips her over, removes her shirt, and takes pictures of her naked chest. After sending the pictures to Adolf, Sam Walton, and Pol, he throws her onto her bed, and calls his Uber driver. \n\nFast forward to three months later. \n\nStan is sitting on the banks of the Styx, admiring the fresh ass coming into his territory. Suddenly Cortana tells him that he has an incoming call. It's Lizz, that chick with the retard talk from a few months ago. \n\nStan sighs heavily, and answers: \"What do you want now? I'm pretty busy right now, and I already have your soul, so I'm not doing anything else for you.\"\n\n\"Uh, actually I was calling to thank you for what you did to me! When you took my soul I thought I had made a huge mistake. Then I woke up and my bra was off; thinking nothing of it I go to try and put it back on, but it didn't work! I'm now a 34DD, and my speech impediment is gone!\"\n\nStan sits up suddenly, thinking of what she had looked like. The last few months had him meeting quite a few young Sat..Stanists. Then he realized something, and asked, \"Wait, Lizz, who was the girl who you wanted me to smite for you?\".\n\n\"Trish! She's actually super jealous of me, and now people are saying she's becoming a Stanist too, especially after I told her about how you changed my life for the better!\"\nStan then noticed an incoming call, from a perky young blonde whose name according to Caller ID was named Trish. \n\"And actually Stan, what I wanted to bring up was that my mom just got some test results back from her oncologist, and it looked like she's got rapidly spreading can...\"\n\nStan immediately realizes where that conversation was heading and hangs up on Lizz, and answers smoothly with a grin: \"Hey this is Stan, how can I help you baby?\"\n\n\n\nEdits: tried to clarify more details, still left it a bit abstract, let me know if I should clarify more. \n", "\"Hello.\"\n\nThe cold hands wrapped around my neck. A sharp object laced through my hair. I could feel myself slipping. I was getting dizzy. \nDid it work? Is he here? \n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\nThe nails began to dig into my skin, and the floor trembled. The candles went out, but the wisps stayed motionless. My skin started withering. \"I summoned you, do as I say\", my voice weakly escapes from my lips. I started getting breathless. \" Why am I feeling like this? Nothing in the ancient books mentioned this!\"\n\n\n\n\"You think I am Satan? You think I am the King of The Underworld? Think again.\", the voice grew into dark metallic clangs, a hissing sound clouded my thoughts, and I felt sick. A horse neighed in the distance. I closed my eyes, when I began to grasp what has happened. This is not happening. I did the whole incantation correctly. Oh no. My lisp. \n\n\n\n\"You sold your soul. And I am not Satan. I am his brother. My name is Death. You know me as Jesus.\"\n\n\nThe scythe drove deep into my throat. I saw my body go limp, as I was pulled by the hands into the blade. \n\n\n\"That was a delicious meal.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nfirst post, go easy! :)", "As the smoke clears from the pentagram she had drawn on the floor Mellisa sees a figure standing there. \"I did it. I finaly did it.\" she thinks to herself. She falls to her knees and faces the floor. \" O-o-o-oh grea-eat S-S-S-S'tan. I-I-I pl-pledge m-m-my soul t-t-to y-you.\" She exclaims with a loud voice.\n\nFrom the smoke an arm starts waving and Mellisa looks up confused when she hears coughs comming out. \"M-M-My L-L-Lord?\" She asks. Now she sees the man standing there more clearly. He's an elderly man with big glasses and white moustache.\n\nThe man looks around \"Where am I?\" Then he notices Mellisa. \"Did you bring me here I some sort of ritual?\" \n\nall that Mellisa can do is nod with confusion. \n\nThe man sighs and claps his hands. Out of thin air a soapbox appears in the middle of the circle. The man goes to stand on top of it. \"Kids these days have no appreciation for the art of propper pronounciation.\" He starts to rant. Mellisa can only blink as the man goes on until she's snapped to her senses again as he snaps his fingers at her. \"Now would you kindly get me back home. I have a cameo to prepare.\"", "“So, uh, you’re saying that your soul belongs to me now?” asked Stan.\n\nCeline nodded. The myriad chains and necklaces that hung from her unnaturally pale neck jangled. \n\n“Huh,” said Stan. He scratched his head. “Why would you want to do that?”\n\n“It wasn’t in-in-intentional,” hissed Celine, glaring at the shorter, pudgier sophomore. “I wanted S-s-s’tan!”\n\n“Er, who?”\n\n“S-s-s’tan! Lu-Lucifer! M-M-Morningstar!”\n\n“Okay, I think I’m going to walk on the other side of the road now,” said Stan, backing away slowly from the taller, raging twelfth-grader. \n\nCeline grabbed him by the straps of his backpack and dragged him over with desperate strength. “No, you don’t! G-g-g-g-give me back my soul!”\n\n“B-but you’re still alive! Your soul is still in you, isn’t it?” babbled Stan in between being shaken back and forth. \n\nCeline stepped back and paused to think about that for a moment, which was when a passing school bus suffered a catastrophic explosion of its front tyre and ran her over. \n\n~§~\n\nStan fidgeted. Funerals had never been his cup of tea, not since his parents had passed away five years ago, but today’s funeral was exceptionally uncomfortable because Celine was both in the (closed) casket at the front of the black-clad congregation and...right beside him.\n\n“Y-y-you’re a sh-sh-shi-shithead.”\n\n“Oh, so it’s my fault you pledge your soul to me?” whispered Stan. \n\n“Y-you’re a shithead,” repeated Celine, glaring down at him. “I-I was about to g-g-graduate and go to P-P-Penn State.”\n\nStan rolled his eyes. “Uh huh. Says the girl who worships Satan.”\n\n“S-stop discriminating. Just because we’re S-s'tanists it d-d-doesn’t mean that we can’t go to university.”\n\n“Okay, okay,” said Stan, ignoring the looks he was getting for talking to himself. “So can you go haunt Penn State now instead?”\n\n“Y-you think I haven’t tried?” The ghost/spirit/soul/thing of the budding Satanist sighed melodramatically and flopped down beside him. “Wh-who would want to be stuck next to y-y-you forever?”\n\n“Yeah, well…” said Stan, trying to think of a suitable comeback. He looked down at her and thought it was ironic how she looked more vibrant and alive in death. “Uh, speak for yourself. Why are you dressed like a Goth, anyway? Shouldn’t you have...I don’t know, more red or something?”\n\nIt was Celine’s turn to roll her mascara-clad eyes. “I already said st-stop discriminating. You clearly know n-nothing about S-s-s’tanic s-s-subculture.” She smoothed down her frilly, black and white dress absent-mindedly and stared at her casket.\n\nStan followed her gaze. Her grieving family were lined up as the priest went through the final blessings; her mother was sobbing quietly, shoulders heaving, and her father stood solemnly beside her, almost but not quite hiding the quivering of his lips. \n\nStan suddenly felt a little sorry for all of them. \n\n“Hey, do you...I mean, do you want to try and speak to your folks?”\n\nCeline stuck out her hand. It went right through the prodigious chest of the cheerleading captain who was standing beside them. “I’m a f-f-freaking ghost, Stan. I d-d-don’t think that works.”\n\n“I could, uh, relay a message?”\n\n“A-a-and get sent to the as-asylum?” Celine snorted. “Pfft. N-no thanks. Being stuck with y-you out here is bad enough.”\n\nThey watched as the casket was lowered and buried and the congregation dispersed. Stan took a deep breath and looked around the graveyard. It had begun to drizzle; a pearly mist rose from the damp grass and hung heavily over the headstones. The raindrops pattered annoyingly on Stan’s blazer but fell straight through Celine.\n\n“So, I guess we might as well go-”\n\n“Hey, you over there!”\n\nBoth of them looked up. Two figures, another boy and girl, emerged from the fog. As they came closer, Stan saw that they wore black as well. “Who are they? They look kinda familiar.”\n\nCeline squinted. “Oh, that’s Ch-Charlie. H-he’s in my year. And t-that’s his girlfriend - I think her name was S-Stacy or s-something.”\n\n“Cool, but I wonder what they’re doing here-”\n\n“Stan,” said Celine suddenly, “Ch-Charlie d-died last summer.”\n\n“W-what?” stammered Stan. He looked back and realised that, firstly, Charlie was suddenly very, very close to him, and secondly, the rain fell straight through Charlie as well.\n\n“Hey, kid.”\n\nThe uppercut launched Stan back several feet. Charlie laughed and stepped forward casually, darkness gathering in his hands and forming a baseball bat - or at least what a baseball bat would have looked like if it was designed by a mass murdering psychopath.\n\n “One of us now, eh?”\n\nStan screamed. “Holy shit! HOLY SHIT! Celine - help!”\n\n“Wh-what do you want me to do?” cried Celine. “I’m a g-ghost!”\n\n“Isn’t he too?”\n\n“Bravo,” said Stacy, clapping slowly as she moved up behind the spectre of her boyfriend. “You figured it out. Though, I’m surprised Goth girl chose you, kid - are you like a freshman or something?”\n\n“She’s a Satanist, not a Goth,” retorted Stan, much more bravely than he felt. \n\n“Ooh, I’m so scared,” mocked Charlie as he swung the bat experimentally. It sliced the air with an ominous hiss. “Ready to move on, kid? Time for you and your girl to run home and pass on your powers to us.”\n\nHe paused expectantly. \n\n“...anyone? Run home? Home run?”\n\nStan clambered to his feet and started running away as quickly as he could - which, given his physical condition and utter lack of exercise, was not saying much.\n\nGhost-Charlie sighed. “Ah well, have it your way.”\n\nDarkness coalesced into his hand again and formed a whirring ball. Charlie tossed it into the air and batted it hard.\n\nThe ball shot forwards and grazed Stan’s cheek before burying itself in the trunk of a tree. Stan gasped and fell over; his hand came away red when he touched his cheek. “What the - what the f -”\n\nCharlie drew another ball from thin air. “Sorry kid, missed the first one. Won’t this time.”\n\nHe swung the bat. There was a loud crack and Stan squealed and shut his eyes.\n\nWhen he didn’t die, he opened them again.\n\nCeline stood to his front and right, blocking the screaming, spinning ball of darkness with what looked like a massive scythe forged from the same shadows as Charlie’s bat. With a grunt of effort, she forced the ball away and turned to glance at Stan. “Y-you okay?”\n\n“Not, uh, not really,” he replied, getting shakily to his feet. “What’s...what’s that? What’s going on here?”\n\n“D-damned if I kn-know,” said Celine, raising her scythe. “B-but someone’s gonna regret ‘wake’-ing up today.”", "Melissa had attempted the summoning ritual countless times before. Unfortunately for her each and every time she has tried it, something has gone awry. The first time a bird flew in and swallowed the eye of newt. Another time it was her parents taking away her candles because of \"all the wax that is spilling onto the floor\". Last week when she attempted, Stan, her little brother, ran into the middle of the summoning circle during her invocation. This, of course, ruined the ceremony and had to be postponed yet again.\n\nMelissa began double checking her notes, the placement of the candle jars, ensuring all candles were lit, the alter and the drawing of the summoning circle. She went over and locked the door to her room.\n\n\"O-k-kay. Everything is in p-position.\" Melissa's voice was quivering more than usual. She felt it. This time is the time. She knelt in front of the alter she had constructed, mostly out of stained cardboard and an old rustic mirror she got from a garage sale for two dollars. She looked into the mirror which reflected a slightly distorted young red-headed girl with a tinge of bluish-green hue to it. With her eyes fixated on herself, she reached for the ceremonial knife on the alter. The knife appeared to be an ordinary kitchen knife used to cut onions, and the like, but the upside down cross engraving on the handle would say otherwise. The knife was the hardest item in the ritual for her to get. She managed to purchase it from a friend, who knew a friend, who knew a friend who made knives for 'this sort of thing'. When she learned about this she was completely ecstatic. It took her over three months of chores and pocketing the lunch money her parents gave her. At one point during these three months Fred, the school bully, tried to steal her lunch money. This delayed her summoning ritual a couple weeks further due to the suspension she received from biting Fred.\n\nHer hands were trembling as she raised the knife in front of her. She began reciting the summoning ritual. The candles grew dim, the windows blacked the outside world and her arms began to buckle from the weight of the knife. As she continued, a dark red fog began to circle around the summoning circle. She gripped the blade of her knife with her left hand as she completed the ritual and pulled quickly with her right. Blood began to pour quickly upon the alter when a sudden explosion knocked her back.\n\nGasping for breath, Melissa's thoughts were racing as she tried to regain focus. \n\n\"Is this it?\" She thought to herself. \"Did I finally do it?!\"\n\n\"Oh, yet another thirteen year old first timer.\" A sarcastic voice coming from the middle of the room said, \"If it isn't a creepy group of old men, it's a lil' shit like ya-self. So whaddya want?\" \n\n\"S-satan?\" Melissa stumbled upon her words before looking up at the voice.\n\n\"Nah. The big guy down below is busy, and trust me you don't wanna talk to him anyways. The big guy's a huge crab in the morning... however I represent him, so give me your best shot and make it quick will ya?\" He demanded as Melissa found the power to look at the demon. The summoned creature appeared to be human however. Rather tall, blonde hair... she could have sworn she had seen him before. \n\n\"Brad Pitt is the name you're looking for honey.\" He stated with a slight irritation. \"And before you ask: No, I am not him. I just chose this appearance because the guy is beautiful. Why wouldn't I choose to look like him? Anyways, you've summoned me and I'm here and I'm already going to be late to my appointments today so could we please hurry this up?\"\n\n\"P-power.\" Melissa could barely mutter the word out. This was nothing like she had pictured. She had trained herself to not be intimidated by gigantic red demons, by screams of pain and horror, by blood and shadows, but she had not anticipated Brad Pitt.\n\n\"What was that again? Power? Look. If you can summon me, ya know the rules right? You need to sell your soul to the big man downstairs for that. Here's a pamphlet with what ya need to say to complete that.\" As he finished his sentence a small red covered pamphlet with the words 'Satanic Rituals: Words, Phrases and Other Things You'll Need To Survive Down Under' appeared in her hands. \"Page 12.\"\n\n\"Okay. Calm yourself. This is all going according to plan now,\" she thought to herself as she opened up the pamphlet. \"I just have to recite a small ritual...\" When she flipped to page 12 of the pamphlet, the page began rolling out like a scroll and continued rolling until it hit the wall. She sat there dumbfounded.\n\n\"What, did ya think selling your soul was going to be quick? There's a lot of legal mumbo jumbo involved. You would be surprised at how easily the angels upstairs can tear down these soul binding obligations. Hard enough with the amount of interference they run for these 'non-sanctified' summoning circles.\"\n\n\"O-okay. L-let m-me b-b-begin.\" Melissa replied. She began stuttering slowly, through the first line of the agreement when the demon interrupted her.\n\n\"Alright. I see this is going to be a problem. I don't have time for you to go through all of this at your pace. So I'll do you and me both a favor. I'll read this all out, quickly, and all you have to do is say 'Satan' at the end. Do you agree?\" \n\n\"Y-yes,\" she whimpered.\n\n\"Good,\" he replied and began the rather lengthy verbal contract of selling her soul. She couldn't help but wonder what powers she would get. She hadn't stopped to think yet because of the rush and amazement of everything up until now. Her mind drifted off thinking about zapping Fred with lightning or damning Britney to a life of eternal agony when suddenly she noticed a tapping sound and nothing else. The demon had began tapping its foot in silence waiting for her to finish the contract.\n\n\"D-do I s-say it n-now?\" Melissa asked sheepishly. \n\nFire raged inside the demons eyes as he began to yell. \"FOR THE LOVE OF... YOU HAD ONE LINE. COME ON. Now I have to do that whole thing over again.\"\n\n\"S-sorry\" She replied feeling the worst she's felt since that time she asked out Jimmy. Jimmy was one of her friends older brothers. She had asked him to go out with her and he laughed and laughed and said \"I wouldn't date someone without a soul.\", which of course started this whole thing.\n\n\"Okay. We're gonna do this one more time, just one more time! If you mess it up, we're done here, okay?\" He said changing his voice to a low demonic voice.\n\n\"O-okay...\" She replied with a barely audible sound.\n\nThe demon again recited the entire contract. This time Melissa stared at the demon, listening to every word and waiting for him to pause for her. After what seemed like an eternity he stopped talking and pointed at her.\n\nMelissa swallowed and muttered \"S-stan.\" She immediately stopped and looked at the demon.\n\n\"You just sold your soul to Stan.\" The demon smiled, feebly attempting to restrain his laughter.\n\n\"NO NO NO. SATAN I MEAN SATAN!\" Melissa demanded and pleaded.\n\n\"No, I heard clearly\" he cleared his throat and mimicked Melissa \"S-stan\"\n\nHe continued, \"Okay. Well. This is interesting. I have never actually met someone who messed that part of this up before. I wonder what happens now.\"", "Sarah carefully organized the items she needed for the ritual of blood she read about online. The eye of a frog, a lock of horse hair, a leg of chicken, the fang of a snake, and the talon of an eagle; each of these she placed at five points around a stone chalice she bought from a thrift store. She began the chant she had printed out and tacked to the cork board on her wall next to her calendar and the tickets from her favorite concert. \n“I give these items to you, drk lord, so that you my steer my life-,“ Sarah stopped and looked at the paper more closely; whoever had written it must not have been very good at spelling.\n“So that you may steer my life with your abominable will, oh dark lord, for you are my only god, and I reject all others,” Sarah continued, happy to see that there were no more typos. She picked up the knife at her side, its blade glinting with the fluorescence of her pink lightbulb as she pointed it at the palm of her other, trembling hand. She made a quick but deep incision to draw blood, which dripped down her fingers like paint, and splashing into the stone chalice. A sudden wind blew outside, as if from nowhere, which Sarah took to mean that her dark lord was listening.\n“I give this token of my life, my very blood, to you my dark lord, Stan,” Sarah said with dramatic finality as thunder clapped outside. Sarah looked again at the paper and realized her mistake in pronunciation.\n“I mean, I give my very blood to you, my dark lord, SATAN. I meant SATAN.” Sarah looked around, but it seemed as if the wind was already dying down outside, and nothing seemed to change. She was still living with her parents at age twenty-two in the same bedroom she grew up in, not knowing what do with her life. She woefully bandaged up her hand, cleared the floor, and went to bed.\n\nThe next morning Sarah got up at noon as usual and went to the kitchen to make breakfast, only to find her parents had already prepared a lavish spread. Pancakes, eggs, bacon, fried peppers and potatoes, interestingly all arranged at five points around a bowl of plastic fruit her mother adored. Her parents stood next to each other grinning at her.\n“Good morning sweetheart, we thought we’d make a special breakfast for our soon-to-be working girl!” her mom chirped. Before Sarah could ask her father answered.\n“We got a call from somebody offering you a job!”\n“But I haven’t applied anywhere in months, and every place before that turned me down,” Sarah grimly reflected. Her parents looked at each other quizzically but were still smiling.\n“He seemed pretty excited to have you on board. He said his name was… Stan?” Her dad looked at her mom for confirmation who nodded fervently. Sarah tried to think of any people she met with during her job interviews named ‘Stan’ but it didn’t click.\n“Don’t know. It probably was one of my friend’s playing a joke, like Jeremy,” Sarah said as she began to put together a plate of food for herself. The smiles slid off her parents’ faces and their shoulders slumped at hearing this. Her mom stoically left the kitchen as her dad rubbed the back of his head.\n“Well that wasn’t very funny,” he said glumly.\n“No, it wasn’t,” Sarah said, already planning on looking up a ritual to get back at Jeremy. As Sarah sat down to eat the phone began to ring in the other room and she heard her mom answer. Sarah barely got to nibble on a piece of bacon before her mom entered saying it was Stan on the phone again.\n“I told him that if he was Jeremy or one of his friends trying to pull a prank it wasn’t funny but he said ‘no’,” her mom said sweetly while covering the receiver with her hand. Sarah jolted out of her seat with surprise and embarrassment, realizing what her mom might sound like to a potential employer. She took the phone from her mom, cleared her throat of any bacon, and gave the most professional greeting she could think of right then.\n“Hi this is Sarah Proust, who might I ask is calling?”\n“Why don’t you have a cell phone?” a deep, booming, masculine voice asked from the other end. Sarah was shocked by the voice, expecting it to be the familiar, if somewhat altered, tones of one of her friends.\n“My old one died.” Like a year ago, Sarah thought to herself.\n“Yeah well get a new one. And grab a pen and paper, I’m gonna give you my address. I need you in my office A-S-A-P.”\n“Wait, who is this?” \n“Your dark lord. Stan? The one you granted your life and soul to last night?” \nSarah reeled, and grabbed the kitchen chair for stability. Her parents continued to stare at her with curiosity so she shooed them away into the other room. Sarah reduced her voice to a whisper.\n“Look, Jeremy, if you bugged my room just so you could pull this stunt I’m gonna be so pissed-“\n“Who is this Jeremy guy? Look if he’s bugging you that much, I’ll consider smiting him for your Christmas bonus but you’ve gotta earn that. Now here’s my address-“ \nSarah was finally scared enough to play along.\n“Wait, there’s been some sort of mistake. I meant to say-“\n“Satan. Yeah, I know, that’s how I get most of my souls. Trust me, you don’t want to give your soul over to Satan anyway, dude’s a dick. See I’m more personable, I like to meet my souls face-to-face, it’s been proven to improve productivity, and that’s what I’m all about.”\n“Productivity?” Sarah asked with apprehension.\n“Yes, productivity. I am the god of productivity. Now I prefer to introduce myself in person and you do not want me coming to you. I WILL tear your house down. And then I’ll have my souls use the remnants to build a monument to me.”\nSarah decided that this was all too silly to be true and therefore must be an elaborate joke put on by her friends. She figured she would run with it as she had nothing better to do that day.\n“What would such a monument look like, my dark lord?”\n“I like your curiosity Sarah. It would be an office complex, with built-in Ethernet but still designed for unobstructed wireless communication. Open floor plans for dynamic furnishing, roof lights in addition to side windows to provide the maximal amount of outdoor lighting without overstimulation, and easily located stairwells to reduce overly-sedating sedentary behavior.”\n“Ooh, I like that,” Sarah said trying to sound turned on. \n“Yeah? Well maybe I will come over then,” the voice sounded pleased.\n“No! Give me your address. I’ll come to you, my dark lord,” Sarah said with sizzle.\nThe address wasn’t far away, and Sarah figured she could probably ride her bike there. \n“Get here pronto.”\nAfter that he hung up and Sarah started to concoct her reversal. She grabbed some whipped cream from the cabinet, but then realized that might send the wrong message, and instead grabbed cheese spray. As she closed the cabinet door her parents entered the kitchen looking positively dumb-founded, her mom limply holding the phone from upstairs. \n“Sarah what was all that about?” her mom asked, ignoring the blatant invasion of privacy by listening in on the conversation.\n“Don’t worry mom it’s just my friends playing a prank. But I’m gonna get them back,” Sarah sung as she grabbed her backpack by the back door and began filling it with her tools of revenge.\n“Oh Sarah, couldn’t you spend this time looking for another job instead?” her mom pleaded.\n“Ah let her go honey. I haven’t seen her this motivated since that sale at Forever Twenty-One!” her dad chuckled. \n “I’ll make sure to take pictures!” Sarah said happily as she departed.\n\n-To be continued, maybe-\n\n", "\"I-I know t-this is out of the b-blue, but I n-need to ask you for so-something.\"\n\nStan looked at her funny as they walked down the hall. Around them the chaos of high-school raged: children slamming lockers, cussing, yelling. \"Well, you gonna ask me or are you just not gonna talk?\" \n\nStan really didn't like Harvey. I mean, what kind of name was that anyway? What kind of parent names their daughter Harvey? The kind who wants their kid to grow up to be a satanist, that's who. She was literally a freshman with a half of her hair chopped off and the other half painted black. Satan. Satan. Satan. It's all he heard about before. He just wanted to shake her and be like, 'You realize you're fourteen!?'\n\nPlus she was so slow to have a conversation with. It was always so t-t-t-t-t-time-consuming with her d-d-d-d-d-damn stutter.\n\n\"W-well, the t-thing is. I m-may or m-may not have g-g-given you my soul.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I-I meant Satan and I said S-stan.\"\n\nAnd Stan realized how stupid of a situation she was in. He looked down at her and suddenly understood the look of fear running amok through her face. \"Jesus Christ,\" he said.\n\n\"D-don't you b-bring him into this.\"\n\nStan put his head in his hands as they walked. \"You think I have your soul? Or something? Sometimes I don't think I have a soul of my own!\" He meant it as a clever little joke but she gave him this terrified look. \"I'm kidding Harvey.\" \n\n\"I t-think th-there might be a way to t-transfer s-souls back.\"\n\n\"I don't want to hear about it.\" They mounted the base of the stairs. Stan noted how fat Harvey was. She had a hard time jiggling up each step. \n\n\"Y-you'd n-need to g-give my soul to Satan.\"\n\n\"I'm not giving anything to Satan. I don't believe in Satan. I'm an atheist. So...\"\n\nAt the top of the stairs she was breathing hard, so she stopped and held onto the banister. \"Th-there's gotta be s-something we can do.\"\n\n\"No, there's not.\" Little quakes of anger shook through him. He was tired of her.\n\n\"T-there has to be.\"\n\nAnd before he knew what he was doing he shoved down the stairs saying, \"No there's not!\"\n\nAll the high-schoolers watched her roll to a stop at the bottom and no-one seemed to help. She just laid there, like a turtle on its back, trying to get up.\n\nStan hurried away, keeping his head low. He felt like the kids didn't care though. As he left, they all gave him a little salute. He saluted back.\n\nStan went into his classroom, hoping the principals and teachers didn't find out, if they did he'd be so screwed. He cleared the whiteboard from last period and got the projector running.\n\nUgh... he had to teach in ten minutes. \n\nMaybe he was right. Maybe he didn't have a soul...", "The door opens.\n\"Hey,\"\n\n\"Hello.\"\n\nA pause. Odd. He thinks she's too pale. Hair must be dyed. Can't be that black naturally.\n\n\"I got this package the other night. It's a jar of something. Has your name and birthday on it. Did a google search. You post on craigslist frequently. Thought you'd live on a farm. What's with the heavy interest in goats?\"\n\nHer eyes squint. Brows sink. Unnaturally dark lashes. Layers upon layers of eye liner. He flinches.\n\n\"Not important. Here's the jar. Has to be yours. I have stuff to do today, would you mind if I left?\"\n\nHe lifts the jar out of a grocery store sack he'd been holding in his left hand. Her eyes soften. She seems less threatening.\n\n\"I knew it. It had to be something.\" The jar glows greenish red. Or orangish blue. Hard to tell. She reaches for it.\n\nHe moves it out of her reach. \"Nope. Money.\"\n\nShe disappears into the house. Comes back with a jar of money. Mostly fives and twenties. Church Donations. Hail Stan! is written on the front. Scotch tape. He thinks something may be amiss.\n\nShe motions to trade the jar of money for the jar of light. He's curious.\n\n\"Make me a sandwich,\" \n\nShe puts down the jar of money, disappears and returns with a sandwich.\n\n\"Candy,\"\n\nShe gets in her car, leaves and returns with candy.\n\n\"Let me use your bathroom.\"\n\nShe lets him. House has his name written everywhere. Hail Stan. Hail Stan. Stan is da Bomb. Damn right he thinks, but how could she know? He orders her to have anything with Stan written upon it to be moved to the bathroom.\n\nHe lives the rest of his life on the toilet-- jar of soul between his knees and sandwich in hand.", "Stan, who had been in Chemistry class at the time, felt a tingling and slight nausea. He asked the teacher to go to the restroom, and his lab partner continued with the experiment. As he was walking down the hall, he bumped into Sarah.\n\nSarah, as usual, was wearing a black dress that featured her cleavage. It was a minor mystery how she was able to pull this off without much notice from the principal or his staff, but in comparison to the exploits and shenanigans of the cheerleading squad, her occult-obsessed social circle nearly maintained the appearance of respectability. Her moderately high grades certainly helped, although few suspected that black magic was behind something so trivial as deflecting the attention of administrators. And her genuine enthusiasm for foreign languages earned her some admiration from the first-year male geek contingent.\n\nUncharacteristically, Sarah was holding Stan's arm with a vice-like grip and whispering very quickly into his ear. She was speaking in tongues.\n\nHe dropped to the floor. Luckily no one was in the hall, and since it was during class time, Sarah was able to drag his unconscious body into an unused room. She called her grandmother.\n\nWho was, naturally, outraged. Didn't Sarah know that this work was for the professionals? A certain amount of \"experimentation\" is encouraged in the Satanist community, but for a child to attempt such a feat. This talk bored Sarah, and she was not moved by the admonitions against abusing her powers. She rolled her eyes dramatically even though her grandmother could not hear her.\n\n\"Don't roll your eyes at me, young lady! I'm doing this for your benefit, you must learn the rules before you break them, just think of all that your parents have done for you!\"\n\nOh yes, now she remembered. Although Sarah's grandmother had telepathic powers, they were far less present in both herself and her mother. She wondered whether or not her grandmother would help her to re-assign Muffin's soul.\n\nAfter giving her cat special mental powers and the capacity to communicate with humans, Sarah had taught Muffins basic rituals. It had not occurred to her that she had mis-spoke and granted additional powers, the powers to read and invoke magic.\n\nGranting Muffins the power to property pronounce \"Satan\" was, apparently, not included. Instead of a new initiate, Muffins was now fully devoted to the mild mannered but occasionally sarcastic Stan.\n\nIt wasn't clear to Sarah just how much damage Stan could do, having been granted the soul of a super-kitty. Did he even know? This didn't concern her. What concerned her was getting Muffin's soul back.\n\nAnd then it hit her: Stan was actually kind of cute. His wry sense of humor and disarming awkwardness was often a welcome respite from the testosterone fest that was the football team. And although she sometimes caught him eyeing her breasts a few feet away, she could tell that he was trying to be unobtrusive about it. Having buried herself in her studies, Sarah, now a sophomore at St. Lucia, had an abrupt onset of self-consciousness, realizing that many of the girls in her class had announced boyfriends. None of the boys had ever appealed to her in the slightest.\n\nShe ran her hands through his short, brown hair. \"Poor boy, you have no idea how much power you have right now\". It was true. Even with the soul of a mere mouse it is possible to cause a great deal of mischief. Very often, the grantee need merely utter a passing remark, and the spiritual gears will being to turn.\n\nHer grandmother had decided that instead of facilitating some solution it was a better use of time to read Sarah the riot act. Finally Sarah screamed at her to stop. \"I've changed my mind, I'm going to let him keep it\".\n\nSilence.\n\nMore silence.\n\nFive seconds later, her grandmother burst out laughing in a shrill, high tone. It would have been a classic \"evil laugh\" but it was more of a side-splitting, rolling on the floor type of laugh. After a bout, she caught her breath. \"Young lady, this is not your decision to make. You have gotten yourself into enough trouble already. I'm going to make a petition, and I'm going to indicate that you'll be willing to do whatever it takes to make this right. If Muffins has progressed as quickly as you say she has, then an inter-species initiation ritual isn't just a good idea, it's the only thing that will keep the situation from spiraling out of control without risking anyone's life. Of course, to assign Muffin's soul to Satan, Stan will have to agree.\"\n\nStan will have to agree. The thought repeated itself in Sarah's mind.\n\n\"I don't suppose you have any thoughts on how to sweeten the deal...\"\n\n\"Grandma! Don't be gross!\"\n\n\"All I'm saying is that once he realizes just what Muffins is capable of, he's going to need a little...convincing...men don't just hand over power. It isn't in their nature.\"\n\nSarah realized this was true, and her gaze dropped momentarily to Stan's blue jeans. Her mouth squirmed over to the side and she raised her left eyebrow. The metaphorical possibilities of \"cleaning up the mess she was in\" flashed across her consciousness and she felt momentarily sick.\n\nThe bell rang. Students piled into the hallway. Stan was out cold. \"Grandma, I can't talk, I'm going to have to call you back.\" She hung up and bent down over him. Spontaneously, she thrust her mouth onto his and kissed him deeply and passionately. He spasmed, moaned, and slowly raised his head.\n\n\"What happened?\" he blurted out groggily. He looked down, touched his lips. \"Did you...did we...?\"\n\nShe kissed him again.\n\nFade to black and END OF SCENE", "\"Francine? Roger?\" Stan yelled from the front door.\n\n\"You don't have to yell, I'm sitting right here, you know.\" Roger replied, taking a chug of wine.\n\n\"Get my wallet. It's girl scouts, I want to buy some cookies.\" Stan said, smiling politely at the well-dressed girls in front of him. \"So what are they teaching you in girl scouts these days? Blanket quilting? Shoe sewing? Ah, you're just happy to be part of something.\"\n\n\"We're not girl scouts, Stan.\" The taller of the two girls spoke with an unnaturally deep male voice. \"This is Patricia. She's promised her soul to you.\"\n\nStan stared at them for a long moment. Then he frowned. \"So...no cookies?\"", "The circle was set. The candles were lit. The last drops of sunlight outlined the scene in stark lines and contrast. A clock chimed somewhere in the distance. The woman in the long robe stood motionless. The house groaned and settled onto its foundations heavily, as if anticipating a new burden. \n\n'It is t-t-time' she said\n\nShe stepped into the circle. The candles flame suddenly jumped higher, scorching the ceiling and filling the room with a musty odor and smoke.\n\n'So many years' She murmured to herself 'So much st-study.'\n\nSlowly she turned in place so she was facing a stone altar. Upon the alter was the a small basin filled with blood. The woman smiled at the memory. Kimmy had been so cruel to her in school, it seemed right that her blood would make the covenant complete. Stupid Kimmy always making fun of her. Always mimicking the way she talked.\n\nEverything in her life had gone wrong. Never so badly to drive her to despair. But she was forever cursed to mediocrity. Middle of the road life did not interest her. But here.... Here there was opportunity. Here there was potential. After years of searching...\n\nShe began to intone the spell,\n\n\"Qui missus desuper T-t-te nunc in tempore opport-opport-opportuno. Non ego purus , non modo meum , et ad sanguinem innocentem in manibus. Ost-ost-ostende mihi fœdus novum credimus\"\n\nA fire began burning in the corner of the room. The blood began to drain from the altar. Triumphantly the woman laughed. \n\n\"Reveal yourself to me Sat-sat-t-t. Stan!\"\n\nAbruptly the flames vanished. The candles went out. Silence stood heavy in the room. The woman stood in place breathing heavily. Had it worked? Had he really come? Shuffling movement from the corner drew her eyes. It was too dark to make out, but it could be the shape of a man? Or something else?\n\n'Could we have the light please?' Said a small voice 'I can't really see anything'\n\nIt didn't sound like a voice that had been cast out of heaven for defying god. It sounded much more.... timid? It had an odd quality for it but... \n\n'Of course' She murmured at the voice 'as you wish my lord'\n\n'What was that? I can't really hear that well, your going to have to speak up.'\n\n'I said of course my lord' She repeated slightly miffed. This was not going how she expected. She fumbled over to the light and turned it on. It is hard to flip a light switch with grandeur but that is what she tried very hard to do. It kind of worked. \n\nHer eyes adjusted to the light quickly and what she saw took her by surprise. A man with sandy brown hair, brown eyes, glasses, and a tweed coat stood in the corner. He walked over to her with his hand extended to shake, he had an obvious limp and one of his brown loafers was untied.\n\n'The names Stan. Nice to meet you miss..., ah what was your name again?'\n\n'Stella' She said. She stood very still in a state of shock. This was nothing like what the books had said. Granted they were all a few thousand years out of date but still... what was this?\n\n'Well howdy there Stella!' the man grinned cheerfully like an uncle who had one to many at a family party and would now need to be driven home. 'What can I do for you?' He lowered his hand to his side once he realized that she had no intention of shaking it.\n\n'St-st-stan?' She whispered\n\n'That's me!' he said with all the enthusiasm of a man selling vacuums door to door.\n\n'Are you... Are you the ruler of darkness?'\n\nHe laughed a small laugh. 'Honey I'm not even the ruler of the remote. My wife wont let me near the damn thing'\n\n'Th-then who... what...?'\n\n'Ah ok I see whats happened here. You were trying to get Beelzebub right? And you misspoke something or messed up the ceremony somehow. Doesn't really matter what happened, but that's it! You only get one shot to summon the prince of darkness, or else he would get lots of repeats. I mean the guy is good at what he does. Really good.'\n\nThe man in the tweed jacket continued to smile good naturedly. He bobbed up and down on the balls of his feet and seemed content to sit there until she came up with a response. Slowly the woman got her bearings. \n\n'You are not Beelzebub?'\n\n'Sure not! I'm Stan.'\n\n'You are not the ruler of hell?'\n\n'Nope! Don't really like it either, it does get awfully hot down there. No I'm from the bureau of transportation and heavenly emigration. What you mortals call Limbo. We store souls that don't really have anyplace else to go and try to find out where to send them.'\n\nIt was too much. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed. Her world went black.\n\n-------\n\nSlowly grey light trickled in. She was laying on a cold linoleum floor. She sat up and shook her head. She had a pounding headache. \n\n'Flight 1215 to the gates of hell is now boarding' Said a voice over a PA loudspeaker. 'Flight 8125 to heaven has been temporarily delayed for maintenance, we anticipate a short delay of four years'\n\nShe stood up. A sea of flat grey linoleum and fluorescent lighting stretched off into the distance. In front of her was a man in a booth. Stan. \n\n'Hey there honey!' He said 'You took a nasty knock on the head there! Turns out you ended up here with me! Ain't that a peach! Now I need you to just take a ticket here and then go get on line for your boarding pass!'\n\nA bright red sign overhead read, 'Now serving customer #829'. She pulled out a ticket from the booth dispenser. It read #25258255.\n\n'And don't forget your bags!' said Stan\n\n'My bags?'\n\n'Yep! Everyone's got some emotional baggage and honey you had a lot! We might have to charge you a carry on fee but ill see if I can get that waived for you!' A large pile of luggage appeared at her feet. 'Allrighty then! You have a good day!' With that he turned to walk away from the counter.\n\n'Wait!' She called out 'How long will I be here for!?'\n\n'Oh at least a couple millenia honey. You know how long security takes. Tootleloo!'\n\nWith that he vanished. The woman gathered up her things and began to walk to the end of the line, which seemingly stretched forever off into the distance. When she finally arrived at the end a few years later, the large neon sign which she somehow never lost sight off, was reading customer #831. \n\n'Dammit St-St-Sta-St-Stan'" ]	12
	[WP] Scientists discover prayer and religious sites actually weaken the barriers between parallel universes. There is evidence that some religions were intentionally created around this fact...	[ "As I sat down in the auditorium I looked around to see all of the people attending. I figured this would be an interesting lecture given it's content. This lecture was being held in the auditorium due to the size of the audience. Our university was hosting the event but there were many other attendees from surrounding universities as well. Everybody was doing the usual \"lecture held by a guest speaker\" actions. Free food and refreshments were to the side and they were busy. \nLooking at the crowd looming around presented an interesting collection of renowned experts ranging from religious studies to scientists. The question section of the presentation should be interesting. I am greeted with a tap on my shoulder. \"Excuse me, do you mind if I sit next to you?\" said the stranger. \"No, not at all, how's the pizza?\" I asked. I swear pizza is a food group for college. \"The pizza isn't too bad, not quite as cardboard-y as I am use to. My name is Bill and I study physics\" he said between the hurried bites. I offered up my hand to shake as he motioned both of his full hands. \"Oh, yeah i don't know what I was thinking. My name is Max and I study physics as well. I have seen a few of your presentations.\" I asked the obligatory questions. \"Pretty exciting stuff you are working on. Do you have any lines out to other schools for graduate work?\" He replied \"I've narrowed it down to the few that specialize in my interests but that's really about it, yourself?\" \nI asked the question not having an answer myself. \"No not really, I've just been trying to keep up with my work at the moment.\" Honestly I haven't narrowed down my interests yet so considering a school would have been a waste of my time. Bill had finished his food and placed his plate in the trash. As he sat down he looked at me with his head cocked sideways. \"Did you see that mob outside the entrance?\" I did notice people gathering but I had assumed they were attending the speech. \"I saw some people, yeah.\" \"Pretty crazy right, with all the yelling and chanting\" Bill exclaimed. \"Yelling and chanting, I must have missed that crowd\" I said. The guest began walking to the podium as Bill elaborated. \"Oh yeah you did, it was pretty hairy out there, police and everything. Welp I guess it's about to start.\" \nGood evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is Dr. Jim Marks and I study Magnetic Abnormalities of Terrestrial Origination. It is not an elegant title but one that suffices. You may be wondering what that means. Visible light is the easiest thing to study since our bodies have been fine tuned to experience it. To witness magnetic's obviously requires specialty tools which I will spare you the boredom of detailing. To the meat of the story then I suppose. We have discovered a vast number of anomalies on the surface of the earth. \nPointing to the screen. \nHere is the baseline color, gray. It is a boring earth if I do say so myself, lets spice it up a little. Now adding all of the abnormalities we see that there is are quite a few. Further refinement of these points to show intensity and and polarity paint an interesting picture. \nIf I may speculate for a moment. Notice as we zoom into a particular location that these anomalies do something pretty interesting. They line up with streets, indicated in red. So we thought Hmm, that is odd. Even more odd though is the fact that a few key locations indicate the greatest intensity of red or blue spots. We initially thought it was simply an error with out sensors in relationship to the but we noticed the same thing appeared out in the middle of nowhere, indicated in blue. These spots are not limited to the United States lest we be so special. \nThe crowd laughed. \nAs we zoom out you can start to see that the rest of the world is covered with these spots. We used what we thought were anomalies at our local investigations and compared them to what we found abroad and came up with a startling conclusion. The majority of these hot spots are locations of worship. \nThe crowd became alive with murmur about the findings. \nNow you say, what about the spots in the middle of nowhere? Some of the locations were easy to understand once we make the correlation with places of worship. We see spots appear in location of ancient indian burial mounds, as well as Aztecan temples and as I am more than certain some of you will find rewarding, yes even at Stonehenge. \nBill exclaims, \"What a crock.\" \nFrom that we were able to deduce that essentially anywhere a spot appeared was the presence of some form of worship. I'm sure some of you feel this an absurd claim but lets evaluate some findings. We know that people are affected by magnetic waves and we know that people also experience extreme emotions at places of worship. The common attribution of emotions at places of worship is the presence of God. \nThe crowd becomes restless as the conclusion is presented. \nI know how this may affect some of your feelings towards the material being presented but please let me continue. My question to you is, who believes in ghosts? There are probably more than a few in here that find the concept of a ghost to be absurd I am sure. However the brightest spots on this map also correlate to locations of great spiritual activity, or ghost sightings and other such phenomenon. I propose that each experience is something that is much less sinister but equally intriguing. Why is it that we see things we cannot explain, things that just do not seem to exist. Some will point to demons and other nefarious workings of the Devil but I say no. I believe what is experienced is something deeper than a mental projection of our fears. \nI believe that what we are witnessing events of parallel universes and the connection is worship. \nThe crowd grows anxious again. \nNow of course nobody goes to church to establish a connection to another universe. The only explanation that can be provided is that the amount of energy poured into one location from so many people creates openings to other universes. Red spots mark the spot of current activity and blue spots indicate activity from a long time ago. From this we are able to deduce that there is a strong correlation between places of worship and what is normally referred to as paranormal activity. \nWe are in the process of monitoring new activity and surprisingly we see blips pop up although most are small and dissipate quickly, we do see a few that bloom. Astonishingly enough we see that this happens around locations of accidents or attacks where people gather and often pray. In short, the power of worship posses power beyond our recognition and may require close monitoring. We have seen that with worship, portals can be opened and we need to be cognizant of what could happen if utilized improperly. We do not know how powerful our own actions are. We can already open doors we did not know existed to places we do not understand. Greater investigation will be performed to further analyze these findings but our group wanted to share with you our findings. I will answer questions after a short break. \nI sat partially amazed and partially skeptical. It did not help that I already believed in the supernatural and it was interesting to see that there could be a reason behind it. \"Well, how about that?\" exclaimed Bill. I was still processing what I had heard and didn't even hear Bill. I felt an elbow to my arm, \"Max, you don't believe that crap do you? C'mon you're a scientist.\" \"Actually Bill, I have always been curious. All the stories we hear can't have been creations of our minds?\" With a slightly disapproving look Bill said \"But where's the evidence, we just saw blips on a map from a power point.\" I looked at Bill and said \"Have you never experienced something weird, something that just didn't fit. I have plenty of times and did not have a way to explain it that fit.\" \"Nope, it's all just in the mind\" scoffed Bill. \"I'm sure scientists throughout history would love your lack of openness to new ideas. It's always what they wanted to hear when they presented their findings.\"", "March 26th, 2017. Two weeks into my studies abroad and internship at CERN was one of those days I'm sure I'll never forget. I was proofreading a press release when Dr. Concetta Rossini, a brilliant, sultry Italian woman in 40's, and also my mentor, tapped me on the shoulder and motioned for me to follow as she strode past my desk and towards the stairs. \n\nI hopped to my feet and followed her down three flights of stairs and serpentine corridors. Down to the office of Ori Britz, who was heading the MWI, Many Worlds Initiative. \n\nThe MWI project was conceived to test wether other universes, parallel to our own could be detected. If successful, not only could we discover the presence, but how far, our nearest neighboring universe was. \n\nThere was a group of about 20 people surrounding Dr. Britz's desk. The energy in the room was electric. I stood in the back, on a small crate to try to catch a glimpse. On his desk were three monitors, and one image stretched across them: an elongated oval with digital noise colored blue, green, yellow and red. There was a large red spot near the center with smaller ones around it and big open areas of blue. It reminded me of the COBE cosmic background radiation image. \n\nI strained to pick up pieces of conversation, going on in Italian, French, Hebrew and English. \"...network of tachyons measured distance...\" \"...complete success...\" \"...where's the map, get the map!\"\n\nSuddenly an outline political map of world was laid over the image to a chorus of ohhs and ahhs. Dr. Britz pointed to the largest red spot and in English said, \"Israel.\" He clicked a few buttons on his keyboard and the map zoomed in. \"Jerusalem.\" He zoomed back out and pointed to other red dots on the map, and read the locations aloud, \"Mecca, Rome, New Delhi, Calcutta?, Ethopia, Senegal, Mexico, America...what states?\" someone whispered in his ear, \"Utah and Arizona\".\n\nA hush washed over the room. Many of these were obviously religious places. What on earth did religious locations have to do with another universe? There had to be some mistake. \"Are you sure your network is secure?\", said a German cosmologist, implying that the data was somehow hacked. \"Yes, quite.\" replied Dr. Britz. \n\nI noticed a hint of a smile glimmer across Concetta's lips. She took out her mobile device and left the room. I followed her. Once we were up a flight of stairs and in a quiet part of the building, she turned to me, her hazel eye bright, \"Do you know what this means?\" I nodded slowly, unsure. \"It means that there is power in prayer, in ritual. It's having a measurable effect on out universe! And maybe, just maybe, it may be possible to bridge the gap between two universes.\"\n\nIt was a bold statement, and one that would not be uttered in public for months, and was not recognized as fact for a few more years. But once the idea and implications behind it took hold, nothing would be the same again. Oh, and what wonders the we saw in those first glorious days... \n\nI apologize in advance for any and all scientific and religious errors, I could spend months researching what I want to include in this little snippet " ]	2
	[WP] A typo in a revised law creates "duel citizenship". Describe the consequences.	[ "Frank made an \"aw\" over a picture of a spider. Henry smiled, watching from afar. Charles stopped hugging Frank and closed the the laptop with his left hand\n\"That's it, I will allow an \"aw\" over animals that are not even cute, but not monsters\", Charles said playfully.\n\"For the fallen one\", answered Frank smiling as he reached for Charles, which held him away with his long hands.\nHenry could not take this. He gathered his books and left the mostly empty study room and headed for his room. He tried to work on his bachelor thesis but he ended up looking up articles about laws on the internet. After an hour he stumbled upon an thread about a typo in a new bill. Instead of an \"a\" in \"dual citizenship\" an \"e\" had been written and the OP was asking weather that meant people with \"dual citizenships\" could duel each other.\n\nHe did not sleep well that night. The day after he went to the universitys library to his computer. A week later tree packages arrived in the mail. It was Friday. After class Henry followed Charles and Frank. Before they reached Charles room Henry caught up with them and hit Charles in the face with a glove. They both looked surprised. \"Tonight at 12 o'clock, by the waterfall, your honor is at stakes. No alcohol tonight !\"\n\"What's going on, is this some kind of a duel ?\", asked Charles as he laughed nervously.\n\"No alcohol !\", Henry answered and turned back.\n\nWhen Henry arrived with a paper in the right hand and a cotton bag in the other at 5 to 12 below the small waterfall in the forest Charles was already there, alone.\n\"Care to elaborate ?\", Charles asked.\n\"This is how we resolve the Frank-situation\", Henry said as he pulled two 17th century stabbing swords from the bag. \"I suppose you can pick them, they are the same, but you can still pick\". \n\"I am sorry but Frank came onto me, I swear, he had a crush on me all second year.\"\n\"Pick a sword !\"\n\"The right one\", Charles said after a pause. He drew the thin sword from the scabbard. He stroke the the edge with his thumb but quickly pulled it back. \"The blades are sharp Henry !\".\n\"Yes\", said Henry as he drew his own sword. He threw the paper towards Charles which grabbed it. \"They misspelled dual. Duels are legal now, actual duels\".\nCharles read the first few line and then looked at Henry. \"You want to fight me to the death ? You think Frank will take you after you kill his boyfriend ?\"\n\"This isn't about Frank. Its about us, I trusted you, you were supposed to help me get Frank ! And you will fight me... brave-one\". Henry raised his sword. Slowly Charles did the same.\n\nFor the first time in a long time the forest saw an actual sword fight. The fighters may have been green, but both showed promise and the fight didn't end in seconds. At first Charles tried to talk to Henry, which was silent apart from the \"hah\"s and the \"aha\"s. Then Henry made a thin cut on Charles arm and Charles stopped trying to talk. Henry stopped playing muskateer and the fight intensified. Then Charles accidentally backed into a tree and Henry stabbed him in the armpit of his right hand and backed back. Charles dropped his sword in front of him. Holding his left arm around the wound Charles fell to his knees. Henry smiled. Suddenly Charles grabbed the sword with his left hand and jumped on his feet towards Henry with his feet on the tree and the sword in front of him.\n\n....\n\nIn the three days between the release of Charles from prison and until the senate changed the law three deaths and ten wounds resulted from fifteen duels in the country. Charles and Frank hid in Charles room while until the bill was passed.", "‘...and I demand satisfaction.’\n\nI was still reeling from being slapped in the face and it was all I could do to contain my rage at this public humiliation. Just managing to hold my composure, I said through gritted teeth ‘I said, you’re a damned liar, and she is an impudent whore!’\n\n‘Hyde Park, first light, first blood,’ he said roughly. Frustratingly he’d already turned and walked away before I had unclenched my jaw, otherwise I would have had a few more choice words for him and his wife.\n\nWe found each other easily having brought lamps to navigate our way through the dim morning light, and as our Seconds checked over our weapons I eyed up my opponent. 6’1”, certainly not English, dark haired and barrel chested. Had we been wrestling I would have thought my chances much slimmer, but with pistols we would be more fairly matched.\n\nStanding back to back he was a clear head taller than me, but at ten paces it was to my advantage being the smaller target.\n\n‘My man prefers to shoot last!’ yelled his second. Arrogant prick I thought, so I took my time lining up my sights. With a click and a flash of powder my shot went whizzing off target disappearing into the thicket with a crack.\n\nBarely a second later searing heat ripped into the flesh of my right buttock. My face contorted with shock and pain, and I fell pathetically to the ground where (I have no small shame in telling you,) I whimpered like a little girl.\n\nThen can you believe he came and stood over me as I writhed in agony on the ground, and relieved himself all about my presence saying something about ‘asserting his dominance.’ He then grabbed me by the shirt collar and pulled my face up to his and said ‘It’s duel nationality, you impudent whore.’" ]	2
	[WP] In the zombie apocalypse, people in vaults begin to worship the zombies as gods, and they offer sacrifices. You are the sacrifice, and you must escape	[ "The gods stink.\n\nI did not think they would, but as they come for me I find myself running like the damned. Our mountain is like worm-eaten bread; I outrun the gods but not their smell. I climb higher, where dust floats in the air, giving the tunnels a green glow. I drop my torch and stop to gasp and vomit.\n\nI love the gods, I really do. I know eventually we all will be gods, and I was lucky to be early. But nobody told me the gods stink.\n\nOne more corner, and I fall fo my knees, screaming. \n\nThere is nothing but a void in front of me.\n\nA dark endless emptiness, the earth falling away in front of me. In impossible distance, malevolent white eyes blink. Below, in a distance that makes my legs give out, my forehead bloom with sweat, there is a plaza... floor... ground... impossibly wide, long, deep, aglow with green radiance like the breath of a dying machine.\n\nThere is no life. Not a single plant. Not a single human being, not even a god, nothing but mud and broken square stones and green glow.\n\nI vomit, again, and with distant concern see blood pouring from my mouth.\n\nI barely get to my feet. I am so weak.\n\nI wipe tears from eyes and blood from my nose, and stagger back inside the mountain. Our mountain. Holy mountain. Place of eternal life.\n\nI won't run away now, gods, please take your punishment away from me.\n\nI can't smell anymore.", "It's funny.\n\nI'm a chronic nail biter, always have been. It's the one trait that my friends and family always got onto me about, never letting up about how disgusting it was, and how none of the girls in the vault would choose to marry me once they saw my ragged nails and bleeding finger tips.\n\nIt's funny that it's the trait that will save my life\n\nHopefully anyway.\n\n\nNo one batted an eye as I sat in the cell for the requisite two day cleansing period and frantically gnawed on my nails, one by one. Bringing my rope bound hands to my face and biting like there was no tomorrow. \nEven as they led me out to the dock to be sacrificed, I worked on my last nail. All the others nothing more but bloody, chewed wrecks. After one by one, I bit them ragged and used the jagged edge to slowly saw away at the rope around my wrists.\n\n\nTerry, the captain of the guard would be the one to push me. \nThat was fine with me, Terry was a dick. And if my plan went ahead, he'd be dead in my place, which suited me just fine.\n\nThe door opened and I looked down the ramp I would be pushed down and into the faces of the hundreds of undead at the bottom awaiting their meal. I spat on them. It didn't reach, but made me feel defiant, which quelled my fear somewhat.\n\nAs I heard the chant start I knew I only had a minute to work my plan, and moved my finger faster, the nail slowly parting the fibres of the rope which secured my wrists together and to my waist. I felt a small give in the rope and knew I only had one chance.\n\nI wrenched my arms apart, the rope splitting and dropping away as a gasp came from the onlookers, but I wasn't listening for that. I was listening for the intake of breath from Terry as he lunged at me, and heard it as I started to turn back towards him. His push deflected off of my turning body throwing us both off balance as I grabbed him around the waist and collar, falling backwards with him on top of me.\n\nAs we hit the ramp I kicked out, throwing him over me whilst pulling his knife from his belt sheath, sending him into the crowd of undead below. I heard his first scream as I drove the knife through the wooden planks of the sacrificial ramp they had set up stopping my fall and keeping me out of reach of the rotten hungry mouths below.\n\nI heard the door above me slam shut, and knew they assumed I would die out here.\n\nBut I knew something they didn't, and I had a plan.\n\nNow all I had to do, was climb back up the ramp, over the vault exterior to the other side. Which would be far less densely populated by the undead.\nMake my way two miles through the undead's grasping hands, work my way down the emergency air vent disguised as a tree, and I could take my revenge on the Overseer by jamming this knife into his spine as I threw him down this ramp.\n\n\nOne thing at a time... I brought my spare hand to my mouth and gnawed on my last available nail. \n\nNo need to quit a good thing.\n\nNote: written quickly, I noticed the tense errors ect.", "Breath in. Breath out. Concentrate. CONCENTRATE. These next few moments are crucial. Aim for the hand. If you get him in the chest he can still shoot you. If he shoots you, it's all over. You're almost there. You'll figure something out. You always have. \n\nJames closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. Wiping the blood from the strip of the access card, he took a moment to stand there and compose himself. He was out of breath, his clothes torn, and his hands were shaking, yet he still managed a weak smile. He had defied the odds. He slipped the card into the reader, and levelled his gun. He kicked the small sign - Vault Chief Manager - leaving an impression of his boot in the small of the door. \n\nThe entranceway slid open, and James started into the room, his eyes frantically darting around. There were no gunshots, no screaming, no cries for mercy, only the sound of James' exhausted breath. \n\n\"What the fuck is this? Is this some kind of trap?\" he shouted at the figure at the other end of the room.\n\nHe was not stood calmly, nor sat in some leather chair like some pseudo bond villain, gun raised to kill as James had expected. Rather he was spread on the metallic sheen on the office floor, lying the in foetal position. The pool of blood surrounding the figure rippled as the man retched and shivered. The man was not notably old, nor was he young. He was dressed just as James was, not in a suit, but in the same black standard jumpsuit. Except quite possibly his was more soaked in blood, if that were possible.\n\nThis man was different you see, because he was the one who ran things. He oversaw everything which happened in the vault. Who you could see, what you could do, he was in total power.\n\nAnd now he was dying in front of the man not 3 hours earlier he had sent to be zombie chow. \n\nJames had never really expected to be called upon as an offering, in the same way that nobody expects to die in a car accident, that is of course, until your brains end up on the dashboard. He was prepared though. Months and months had been spent digging through the walls, creating access tunnels, makeshift bombs from the Cleanix and Orange juice they gave him each month. He was truly prepared for the worst, but he was not going to let his progress be wasted now. He approached with caution. \n\n\"Look at me!\" He screamed. \"Turn the fuck over\" \n\nAs he got closer to the man he held his breath and looked at him in the way only a man who has been through hell and back can look. The man had a huge hole boring though the side of his face. He had blown most of the back of his throat out. A small Vault-Issued pistol lied feet away from him. James put his foot on it before sliding it far away from the man's reach. \n\nHe began to laugh, coughing blood, and gurgling as he attempted to do so. \"I'm so sorry James, I - I really am. Truly. Sorry.\" James listened intently, the man tripped over his words and was speaking in little more than a whisper. \n\n\"There was no other way. You have to... You have to understand. It was the only way we could survive.\"\n\n\"What the fuck are you talking about?\"\n\n\"There never were any zombies. It was a lie. A necessary evil. N-n-necessary.\"\n\n\"What do you mean there aren't any zombies, you deranged fuck? Look at me. TELL ME. That's why we are in here right? That's why you sent the Vaulters for me this morning, huh? Where else would we go, huh, where would Jenny have gone, eh? Where did you take my Jenny?\"\n\nJames shook his head and tensed his hand on his weapon once more, considering putting the fool out of his misery. He finally could get his revenge. \n\n\"Not zombies. War. Bombs. The sky burned. The people burned. We escaped. Down here. Things were good. For a while. Then the food ran out. Oh g-god. Please. Please forgive.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"We needed a lie. Keep people in check. An excuse. We needed food. Nothing on the surface. Only one way to get it. I'm so sorry. We had to get people to stay, tt-t-o be scared of the outside. We needed meat. No escape\" \n\nHis breaths shortened, and finally, he stopped breathing all together, his tired eyes staring forwards, glaring into the wall. James took the gun in his hand, and contemplated. Which fate would be worse? Knowing he would have to live with the knowledge of the horrors of the vault, or dying in a husk on the floor, right there?\n\n\n\n" ]	3
	[WP] You slide an envelope across the table to the person sitting across from you	[ "You slide an envelope across the table to the person sitting across from you.\n\nThey look down, puzzled. You nod intently, urging them to continue. They pick it up, pausing for a fraction of a second as the contents shift inside. Progressing cautiously, they examine the envelope turning it around, brushing their fingertips over the sealed edge, as if reading the contents like braille.\n\nYou know they have no idea what is inside, but you can see their eyes dart back and forth as the possibilities run through their mind. You grin widely and barely contain the urge to laugh with glee. \n\nThey look to you again, prompting for more information, their eyes pleading.\n\nYou fix your stare on the envelope, your tongue poking between your teeth.\n\nFeigning resignation, they move as if to abandon the envelope, but, no they did not let it go, instead they re-position on the seat and contemplate the envelope again. Gripping the envelope in one hand they tap it rhythmically on the other.\n\nA pool of drool collects on the table beneath your mouth.\n\nThe person sitting across from you stiffens and after a pause it is clear they have come to a new internal resolution. Positioning the thumbnail of their free hand under the loose flap on the corner of the envelope flap, they deftly rip it open in one smooth motion.\n\nYou rock slightly from side to side, sitting on your hands to restrain your glee.\n\nEyes fixed on you, the person sitting across pulls out the note paper, carefully folded across the middle. They discard the envelope and maneuver the note into position between both hand without braking gaze.\n\nUnfolding the note, the truth is now before them but until their focus shifts from your eyes, the contents of the note quiver in doubt in their mind.\n\n\nAfter an eternity they look.\n\n", "Her narrow shoulders jolt upward in response. She glances at the rectangular paper in front of her. A gaze of puzzlement, but with a hint intrigue. A wry smile emerges, and her fingers move gently to her lips to meet it, book still in hand. Her forehead slowly rises. \n\n\"She can't see that I'm looking at her, right?\" I ponder helplessly. The underside of her nose is now in sight, eyes still down. Silence fills the room. The endless shelves of dimly lit books insulate us from all disturbances. The sound of my rapidly pulsing heart is all I can hear. \n\n\"Can she hear it? No. No certainly not.\" Cautiously, her hand wanders onto the top of the paper, flicking up the folded top and letting it fall harmlessly back down. \n\n\"What is she thinking about? She would have slid it back if she wasn't interested though. But what if she doesn't know how to respond? JUST OPEN IT FOR GOD'S SAKE. Okay okay calm down. We're okay.\" I take a small sip of my lukewarm coffee to calm me down. Then a bigger one. Then an even bigger one. \"Geez stop drinking coffee you look like a nervous idiot.\" Okay okay calm down. We're okay.\"\n\nShe flips the book down on its pages as to not lose her spot. She must think this is only a temporary disturbance. Now both hands are on the envelope, slowly rising off the table. Slowly but surely. One hand holds, the other digs in and retrieves its frantically waiting contents. The folded paper quietly flips open. After a moment, her fingers gently return to her lips. The wry smile is back. She pauses, eyes fixated on the note. \n\n\"Oh god I should have said something clever. What I said was stupid. No it was good. Okay okay calm down. We're okay . . . OH!\" To my amazement, her eyes lift up. Those wonderful blue ellipses that led me to this moment are here. This very moment!\n\nSuddenly, her fingers depart from her lips. She flips the book over. Its shut. Her wry smile opens up into a full grin. A soft chuckle. \"Hi Derrick. Envelope. Classy. I like that.\"", "It was a warm Sunday in the middle of June. The sun shone down brightly on the city park. Three children passing a ball and a woman roller skating with her dog paint a portrait of a beautiful summer day. They happily went about their business completely oblivious to my crisis, my nightmare. I sat on a bench under the shade of a large oak tree. In my clammy hands I held a large crumpled envelope. Contained inside were one million dollars, the only thing that will save my sweet Caroline. I wiped the sweat from my head and glanced at my watch. 12? I don’t understand, he should be here by now, oh please god let her be all right. I panned across the park. Everything seemed normal then a white van struck my eye. I sat starring at the van when the door opened and a young man dressed in black exited. He casually walked down the path and towards the bench where I was. I sat up straight and looked forward. This is him, it has to be. I set the envelope on the bench and crossed my hands on my lap. Cold steel pressed against my waist. The man approached me and sat on the other side of the bench. “Hello Mr. M, How are you on this fine day?” he said. His carefree tone sent a chill through my spine and I felt my stomach clench. “No bullshit, I have the money but first I need to know she’s safe.” I said gritting my teeth in rage. “Straight to business? Oh you’re no fun Mr. M. Fine, if you must know she is in the Van-“I want to see her!” I demanded. He looked around the park nervously. “Calm down, if you make a scene she’s as good as dead.” He said the playfulness gone from his voice. He turned to the van and nodded his head. A few seconds later the window lowered halfway. I could just barely see what was inside but her long brown hair was unmistakable. It was Caroline. She rose slightly so I could see her face. Her eyes were glassy and her face was red. “What did you do to her!?” I snapped at the man. “Nothing that you haven’t forced us to. Now do you have the money or not?” He replied. I squeezed my fists in rage then I released them. If I were to attack him then Caroline would suffer. I looked down at the envelope next to me. This is my only chance to save her. I slid the envelope to him. “It’s all in here, one million.” I said solemnly. He picked up the envelope and looked inside. He toyed with the bills for a minute before sealing the envelope again. He lowered it then smiled. “I’m sorry Mr. M. It would seem that our fee has increased. If you want Caroline back then it’s going to cost you another million.” I stared at him for a few moments. This… this can’t be happening. “What, but the money is all there. I don’t understand.” I said in disbelief. “I don’t know what to say Mr. M. it’s a tough economy. You should know that. Meet here again same time tomorrow with another million or you will never see you precious daughter again. Now stand up and walk away” He said with a cold smile. I sat for a moment then stood up. This isn’t right… I had it all right there. I slowly began to walk away. “Mr M.” the man called from behind me. I slowly turn to face him. “We’ll tell Caroline you said hi.” He said with a smirk… Enough. I reached inside my coat and grabbed by revolver and raised it towards the man. His eyes widened and he began to reach into his jacket. “No need” I said. I fired two shots at him. The first hit his lower thigh and the other landed straight on his chest. He stopped moving and stared at me with a look of fear as though he’d seen the reaper. He slumped down on the bench and slid over. The white van’s engine came to life and rammed the car in front of it as the panicked driver tries to escape. I sprinted towards the car with absolute ferocity. 30 feet away from the Van it breaks free of the car in front of it and begins accelerating down the street. I raise my gun and fire three rounds at the driver. The window shatters and the van veers off the road and into a street light. Pedestrians scream and flee as I make my way to the van. As I reach the driver side window I raise my revolver again and look inside. The driver is slouched in his seat with a stream of blood pouring from his neck. Inside the van I hear muffled cries and movement coming from the back. “Don’t worry Caroline, daddy’s coming!” I tear open the door and see the driver raise a gun. I hear three loud pops and feel the breath leave my body. I take aim and fire my last round. His head jerks back and an explosion of pink mist flies from his neck. I stood with my gun raised at his body for a few seconds until the weight of it overcomes me and I collapse on the ground. I lay on my back and stared up at the sky. The gentle clouds float peacefully along in the sky. In the distance I hear approaching sirens. Caroline… she’s still in the van… I roll on my stomach and rise to my knees. A puddle of blood if forming on the ground and the taste of iron fills my mouth. Even with what seems like the weight of the world on my shoulders, I stand. I make my way to the rear of the van and open the door. Inside a small child lays on the ground, her hands tied behind her back and a cloth covers her mouth. “Oh god Caroline!” I yell. I free her of her binds and she cries out and wraps her arms around me. “I’m here Caroline, daddy’s here, and I’m never going to let you go.” I kneel on the ground with her and embrace her. The sounds of sirens fill the air yet they seem to grow fainter. The effort to breathe grows more and more. I fall to the ground and look up at the clouds in the sky and hold her as the world slowly fades to black. ", "The envelope came to a stop hanging one of its corners over the edge of the diner table. The slight rotation of the white square aided by its contents resting inside, waiting. Mostly empty the diner carried on as two strangers sat in stare over what appeared to be a note. \n“Today?” the woman to the left asked, staring over her coffee not drank.\n“Of course” words spit from the man across from her.\nIf this was meant as insult, it was unclear. Without warning he had showed up, clad in dress from a previous era akin to something found in a pulp novel. Stern and wide of jaw he wore a smile that screamed pleasure in his bidding, an expression rarely absent from his face. Eyes red with blood and vessel, and with his hat tipped back, smoke pouring from his hand, he made a sweeping gesture inviting his company to open said note. A line drawn in smoke separated the two now, obscured the envelope, and when it dissipated the note was gone from sight. \nUnder the table she fumbled with the loosely sealed letter as the thought to run screamed then echoed off the rounds of her skull. Retrieved from its container, unfolded, and set neatly in her lap as you would a napkin if you had the manners. Never breaking her gaze with her newly acquainted friend she lifted the piece of rough paper to eye level. She knew, she knew even before her eyes fully rendered the image. \n“To the car my dear?” he said while motioning towards the long black Lincoln parked out front. “I’m short on time and you were hard to find. My services aren’t cheap and you know he waits for none.” His smoking hand out stretched spilling its flavor to the room as his smile and composure never wavered. He blinked and for the briefest second the red that burnt in his eyes was snuffed out only to return more intensely. His eyes blazing now with lack compassion for the woman across from him, who now softly teared up. “Come.”\nAs she rose from her seat, head hung low, she left behind the note and her now cold coffee. No one bothered to ask, interject, or even freshen their coffee. They knew better. Dragging her feet to follow her sobbing head she slinked out of the diner with little less than a whimper. Crossed the threshold from door to street-side and they were a blur amongst the pedestrians, obscured by normality. A set of car doors were heard being slammed and the black Lincoln glided off to the east.\nSpotted on the floor inside a piece of parchment adorn the floor as if left for decoration. Now face up bearing its symbol to the world around it. A red counter-clockwise spiral lay over top of a name writ in black.\nAnna Aubrey\n", "One morning, after driving overnight to Los Angeles from Vegas, I was sitting at a window table with Riga the Dog at an all-day breakfast joint over in Westwood. Riga was called the Dog on account of his tongue. Even though it was early, the sidewalks were already hot enough to blister feet. Riga was panting, his big tongue lolling around in his mouth, water dribbling off it onto the table. With those cheeks, he looked like a bulldog in a sauna. \n\nI said hi to him when he sat down, but he was in no mood to talk. \n\n“You got the envelope?” he said, snapping his fingers at the waitress without looking around. When she came over, he ordered coffee and an omelette. I watched traffic backed up at the T-junction, a yellow Camaro pulling off the end to go down the wrong side of the road. \n\n“Asshole,” I said. \n\n“Who you talking to?”\n\n“Not you, man,” I said, pointing to the vanishing car. “The dick in the Camaro.”\n\nHe looked at me, a scowl on his face. He clenched his fist until a knuckled popped loudly. The air conditioning in the diner must have been out of order. I felt sweat dribbling down my back. \n\n“So? The envelope. Where is it?” he said, ignoring me, the Camaro, everything except the thing on his mind. He was like a dog in more ways than one. \n\nIt was in my satchel. I pulled out a battered manila envelope. On the front, scrawled by a g-pen dipped in blood was Riga’s name – Riga the Dog, under which was a small drawing of Snoopy in what, if anybody asked, I would have called neo post-apocalyptic. \n\n“What the fuck? Is that blood?”\n\nI raised my hands. “I’m just delivering. I don’t know fuck.” Getting into the whole story about the blood would take too long. Besides, nobody stayed with Riga for a minute longer than they needed. I heard that when he worked in Vegas, he once killed a guy for watching him eat. \n\n“You don’t know fuck, huh?” he said, slowly as though he’d thought of something but couldn’t quite put his finger on it. “Tell me something, what do you know?”\n\nAs he said this, he pulled his gun, pointing it right at my forehead. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that traffic was moving again. A man and his son walked past, the kid stopping to point at us. I closed my eyes and prayed Riga didn’t start shooting. At me. The kid. His father. \n\nThen he laughed and put the gun away. “You’re a jumpy little fellah, aren’t you?”\n\nAfter a while, when my lungs started hurting, I began to breathe again. I looked down at the envelope. Vinny had scrawled out the original address. Gangster recycling. \n\nThe waitress brought over Riga’s coffee and omelette. She asked if I was sure I didn’t want anything. I didn’t have any appetite, so I said no. Riga wolfed down the eggs, slurping at his coffee, never taking his eye off the envelope. When he finished, he picked it up, feeling the paper between his thumbs and forefingers, as though he was getting ready to crack a safe. \n\nEventually he opened it. There was a single sheet inside. Riga read what was on it in less than five seconds. He slid the sheet back into the envelope, his eyes glazing over. \n\n“You single?” he said.\n\n“Sure,” I said. “Getting hitched. It’s a mug’s game.”\n\nRiga nodded. “You’re smarter than you look.”\n\nI let it slide. His forearms were thicker than my thighs. They could have served 16 ounce steaks on the palm of his hands and still had room for the gravy boat. \n\nHe stood up, throwing a twenty onto the table. \n\n“Should cover it,” he said, walking towards the door. The envelope lay on the table. I thought of running after him, but I didn’t. I saw him through the window, waiting for the green light to cross. He never struck me as the kind of guy to obey the road rules. I stuffed the envelope back in my bag, looking out the window again just in time to see him blow the side of his head off all over the hood of a Prius. \n\n“Jesus Christ,” I said, standing up, leaving the twenty behind. I burst out of the door and ran to the road. The lady in the Prius was screaming, a guy in a Hummer was trying to back up so he could turn around. Riga lay on the road, a big pile of dead flesh wrapped in a loud shirt. \n\nLater, in my car, I pulled out the letter. \n\n“Dear Riga,” it said. “I always said I’d hurt you, you big dog. I told you so many times. But you never listened. Well, I’m hurting you now. I’m leaving you. For Vinny. Lindy.”\n\n“You big, dumb fuck,” I said, punching the wheel, throwing the letter on the floor. ", "Rendevous. De Ja Vou. And Marla Too. I always was too pretentious. \"Well, how long is this gonna take?\" said she, snapping me back into the relatively empty cafe. \"I don't know,\" was my only reply, and by her annoyed expression any vestige of a way to save \"us\" was whisked away to the space above my head. \nWheeze\nThe rhythm of a headboard was the only music we could ever play together.\nShe's prettier than you. \nI thought this about the waitress who refilled my cup, the Brownian motion of the liquid drawing the interest of precisely no one.\n\"Would you just give it to Me? Or not. I really don't care which, but I can't do this for the rest of the day.\"\nHow hard this is lets me know I'm right\n\"You have the rest of my life to do this\"\nSelf destruction was always my thing, and this my last attempt at changing tracks.\nPerhaps this was my salvation. She never did appreciate irony as I did. \nI hated that the squeak of cheap red leather would always accompany.\n(she would think that I had chosen her to make no decision at all)\nbreathlessly, I used my waning strength to give her a lien on life.\nI carried roses in my chest all the way home.\n", "As I sat across from the elderly Miss Redmond in her secluded corner of the run down diner she was immediately startled into silence. From her nervous demeanor and the information I had, I could tell she was worried I was someone else. However, she realized I was not the man she feared from my oil stained t-shirt and frayed jeans.\n\n\n“Wha-” she began to speak, but the envelop I slid across the table slammed her words through her teeth.\n\n\n“Can't you see the sun?\n\nA far flung fire sphere.\n\nNot that you can run.\n\nIt knows that you're here.\n\n\nFleeting egress done,\n\nI can feel you leer.\n\nUnable to groan,\n\nI accept your stare.\n\n\nSo, how is your son?\n\nHandsome? Alive? Smear?\n\nYou must tell me, hon,\n\nOh, right! You're austere.\n\n\nUnseen and un-fun,\n\nRipe with selfish fear-\n\nMother with a gun,\n\nUnable to tear.\n\n\nFinish the sweetness of your sticky bun.\n\nFinish the tea that your arrogance won.\n\nIt will be the last that you have this year.\n\nNow, Miss Redmond, can I get a wry cheer?”\n\n\n\n“What the hell does that mean?” Miss Redmond had been shocked into silence for so long that her words tumbled out with anger. The impromptu poem had flown over her head and with the unsure expression of the other diner customers, I was beginning to wonder myself. She was playing innocent, under a different name, but I had her number.\n\n\n“Acrostic,” I replied with a whisper as I glanced down at her plate.\n\n\nThe wanted murderess didn't even seem to realize the envelope I'd given to her was still there. The wanted poster, packed crudely into the vanilla paper, was disregarded over the appearance of police officers. As she squirmed and cried in their arms, marched away, I wondered if some part of her recognized my cryptic message.\n\n\nI picked up the untouched blueberry muffin seated on the recently used dish and took a bite. The taste of the culinary reward was almost enough to overlook the money I'd be getting from reporting a criminal to a tip line. Almost.", "The cities got its demons, rampant with anarchy when you peel away the glamour. Its also got its dreamers, I'd like to think I'm on the fence. \n\nIt was raining, the newspaper boys on the corner fled for shelter, the street market closed up shop, coppers got back into their patty wagons.The cold winter rain made the place a ghost town. \n\nI get to the diner, and there she was, the love of my life, the one who walked into my office and destroyed every concept of what I considered holy. \n\nThe first time I saw her, she glowed even in sorrow, her ruby lips and perfect auburn curls, those eyes that pierce right though and put you in a place of divinity. Even her tears were soft, and beckoning of a ever lasting love, as many have fallen on me when I would console her, many a times we would just hold each other. \n\n\"My Brendolyn.\" I say softly. \n\nShe glances up, and as always I gasp inside to the beauty and Grace of her. She looks at the envelope in my hands, \"is that it?\" \n\n\"Yeah, and it isn't pretty.\" I shouldn't said it, but deep down I wanted to put the last nails in the coffin in some way. \n\n\"Let me see.\" \n\nI slide the envelope over, she opens it up and gasps in horror. \n\"Yup its all there... that's them playing patty cake... that's them doing the machirana... and that's your husband philandering with miscreants in various shady places.\" \n\n\"This is enough to sue him for everything he's got? \" \n\n\"Oh Yeah, and some criminal charges of grand philandering.\" \n\n\"We can finally run off together!\" \nWe whisk away together, and run to the train station, we are in disbelief our dreams are coming true, our hands bound to one another afraid we were living a dream, and that if we let go we'd fade away.\n\nThe train rolls up, our heart's pound, \"this is it!\" We hold each other tightly, pull back to see each other, her eyes bringing me to heaven, and we press our lips together so hard you crush a diamond. We walk into train that way, and journey to our white picket fence dream life.\n\nThe end. :-)) ", "I was in a dusty motel, and took a last swig of my coffee.\n\nThe girl immediately pick it up, and looked up at me with the eyes of a deer in the headlights, as I put my coat on.\n\n\"It's all yours, kiddo.\"\n\nI gathered my belongings and walked out to my car. A voice called out behind me. A soft, scared voice.\n\n\"Wh-what am I supposed to do?\"\n\n\"Eh, you'll make use of it.\"\n\nI clicked in my keys and started the engine. Pulling out onto the road, I could see the girl, at the door, staring after me.\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nI went back into the motel. The envelope's contents were still on the table.\n\nLetter of Confirmation: Transfer of Property Ownership to Susan A Golding\n", "I slid the envelope across the table to the most beautiful woman I ever looked at.\n\n\"What is this?\" She queried.\n\n\"Just a little something for the woman I love.\" I said in my most sappy voice possible. She hated that. I knew that she hated it, so I used the voice whenever possible.\n\n\"Cut it out.\" She said as she gave me her most angry glare, though I could see the smirk at the corner of her lips. She loved surprises.\n\nShe opened the envelope. She did it by the side, not the top. One of those things that only I remembered. One of our little secrets.\n\nShe pulled out the short letter and read it in her head. A small tear came to the corner of her eye. That illuminating smile widened across her face. She looked over to where I had crouched on one knee. I slowly reached into my pocket and pulled out the velvet hard case that held the ring she had been eyeing for months.\n\n\"Yes, John. Yes I will.\"", "I wasn’t sure he’d come, it had been 10 years since I’d seen him and we didn’t part on good terms, but there he was coming through the door out of the rain. I waved him over to my booth at the back of the diner. He sat down not bothering to take off his overcoat dripping from the unseasonal downpour. \n\n“Alright Mic, what’s so important and secret that you drag me out to the middle of nowhere at 3am?” he was upset. And I could understand I hadn’t given him much to go on, acting over the phone as if I was on the verge of suicide to manipulate him to come. A real asshole thing to do, but it couldn’t be helped. Had to have him here and he needed to be unaware.\n\n“Sorry man, but didn’t think you’d come any other way.” At that I slid the package over and continued to explain as he opened it. “It’s taken three years to compile it all, only 3 remain of my original research team…including myself.” He looked at me in skeptical disbelief.\n\n“What are you talking about? What is all this? Have you gone off your meds again?” He is losing patience.\n\n“Listen man I know you think I’m nuts, which is why you’re perfect for this. No one will ever suspect that I’ve entrusted the originals to you. You don’t have to believe any of it just hold onto it in case something happens to me.” He looks again at the contents of the package and has a strange look. I continue “I know it’s hard to believe, the lies the cover-ups. I mean Jesus some of it they don’t even try to hide! I’m going public with everything I’ve got. Jimmie’s got a contact at the post and we’re going tell the world what they’ve been doing.” He looks at me with a look of shock and he is pale. He pushes the envelope back to me and speaks low and slowly.\n\n“Mic…all the papers are blank.”\n", "\"So this is it? This is everything?\"\n\nJames held the black envelope in the air, testing its weight. I couldn't blame him, it was hard to believe it myself. How could it all fit in such a small, plain envelope? It seemed impossible. Billions of neurons and neural connections be dammed. For so long everyone thought consciousness was derivative of the brain. A byproduct of a highly complex system fed imperfect information. That was then. This was now.\n\n\"Its all there James, every last piece of him.\"\n\nJames had emptied the envelope and was scanning through the reports. The symbols and graphs clearly meant nothing to him but he carefully went through each document, line by line. It was painful to watch. His face betrayed his confusion, but he read on, as if he thought reading just a little bit more would suddenly download the high level quantum physics needed for context. The small hard drive sat on the table in front of him.\n\nFinally, when he was finished, James looked up with a wide grin on his face,\"Ok Grant. This is good. This is really really good.\" He spent several moments typing something into his IPhone and held it up to show the confirmation. My phone chimed in response. The transaction had been completed. $1.6 million dollars in bitcoin had been wired into my personal account. $1.6 million dollars, the going rate for the consciousness of your competitors CIO. \n\nI looked at the fortune 500 technology CEO sitting across from me. How little he truly understood. He was worth billions. It's never about the money with these guys. They play an entirely different game. \n\n\"James remember, his consciousness will run in the virtual environment we provided, but for him, it will be torture. He won't be able to accept the limitations of the environment. Never run the program for more than 10 minutes or you risk corruption of the original copy.\"\n\n\nJames nodded once and stood up. Unconsciously he smoothed the wrinkles in his designer suit. He held out his hand. I shook it firmly. \"Grant it has been a real pleasure doing business with you. Please let your superiors know I will be in touch.\" I sat back down and watched as James casually walked away with the black envelope tucked under his arm.\n\nCorporate theft had evolved considerably in the past 10 years. As our technology evolved faster and faster, so did our crime. It wasn't however, until the singularity, the artificial surpassing of human intellect, that our world truly changed. \n\nWho would have guessed it would take an artificial intelligence to unlock the secrets of human consciousness. After the breakthrough, it was only a matter of time before sensor technology caught up to the point of creating backups. No one had ever considered the implications of intellectual property theft, no one except my employer. Why steal an idea, when you can steal a copy of the mind?\n\nI watched James get into the back of a black Mercedes S65. The copy had finished in minutes. He hadn't noticed a thing. As James drove away, my cellphone chimed. $2.9 million had been transferred, the going rate for a CEO.", "He leant forward eagerly. I sat back, letting him drink it in. I had learned that the key to this would be letting him take his time. Previously, I had been too aggressive, too eager to get rid of something that other people spent years looking for. I had learned to be patient. \n\n“This is it?” he asked. \n\n“Yep.” I cradled my coffee in both my hands, and took a leisurely sip. \n\n“And you've never...”\n\n“Nope.” \n\n“Wow...” He looked down at the envelope again. “It's kind of grubby.”\n\nIt was. The envelope was creased and marked with greasy finger-prints and coffee-stains. I had been about as impressed as he was when I had seen it first. After all, the stories and the forums made it sound like it would be like Harry Potter's acceptance letter and Marcellus Wallace's suitcase all rolled into one. Like I would open it and my face'd be bathed in a golden glow of understanding. \n\n“I can't believe I'm finally seeing it.” This guy, like most of the people before him, hadn't given me his name, except for a user-name of TeabagMcDickBreath. Teabag was probably a student, a little skinny dude wearing a massive hoodie that covered the tips of his fingers. He was actually pretty typical of the people you found on the forums, wanting power and fame, to impress the girl at the supermarket who smiled sometimes. I kind of felt sorry for him. It was like looking into the past. Teabag's phone rang. \n\n“Aw, shit, I gotta take this.” He got up and wandered off towards the other end of the cafe. I looked back down at the envelope. Even now, I didn't really think he'd take it. Some people just seemed to want to look at it, know it existed. I had been trying to get rid of it for almost six years. Even now, I still wanted it, to put it in my pocket and just walk out. I didn't want it, it had ruined my life. But even now, I reached out for it, flipped it over to look at the flap, which was grey and furred round the edges where people had almost, almost opened it. I ran my thumb over the paper-edge, a familiar, almost comforting gesture. I slid my nail under the flap. One sharp tug upwards, a motion I performed almost every day on hundreds of identical envelopes...\n\n“Dude, are you gonna do it?” Teabag was back. He goggled at me. “If you do...”\n\n“Yeah, I know.” Well, I didn't. That was the kind of the point. “Are you gonna take it?”\n\nHe looked down at it. I could see him weighing up his options. \n\n“Y-yes...” he said, hesitantly, reaching out for it. \n\n“I won't take it back.” I warned him. “You take it, you got it.”\n\nHe nodded, almost eager as he thought of the power that was about to be his. “Does it work?” he asked me.\n\n“I dunno man.” I crooked a smile at him. “If I'd open it, you'd know, right?”\n\n“Yeah...” He put the envelope in his pocket, his face set. Almost like he was in shock. “Do I uh... Have to pay you?”\n\n“Naw. I didn't pay for it, after all.” I shrugged, but made no move to leave. He stared at me for another couple of minutes, and then left without a further word. Already his step had lost some of its bounce, and he didn't put his headphones back on, leaving them to dangle round his neck. I slumped in the seat. I felt like I had put down something that was going to break my back. I was so tired I could barely think. I sighed and rubbed my face till the skin felt warm. Maybe I would just go back to my motel room and sleep for two days. That sounded good. It had been six years since I'd last slept through the night, without getting up to make sure the envelope was still where I left it, or that no one had tried to open it, or that it had just become spontaneously unstuck. I had always known that if anyone was to open it while I had it, it was going to be me. It was my burden. And now it was gone. I had lost everything in the last six years, my home, my family, my girl. The envelope had been every part of my life since I had taken it from a girl in a hot, distant country. I had wanted the power of it, knowing that if I opened it, I would solve the mystery and unleash whatever was in there. Then I had got it, and now I no longer had it. I buried my face in my hands, and began to sob.", "The outgoing CEO handed me three envelopes and said \"keep these close, and open them in times of great need.\"\n\n\"Umm, excuse me?\" I asked.\n\n\"This is what I had for you,\" he replied. \"When I asked you to come in, to talk about your succession. I prepared these three envelopes. Each contains advice on how to handle severe situations should they arise during your tenure. My predecessor gave three envelopes to me, and now I'm giving three to you.\"\n\n\"Alright, thank you.\"\n\nI was incredibly confused about the envelopes, but he was old, and this seemed like the sort of thing an old guy would do. Whatever. I put the envelopes in my desk drawer, and promptly forgot about them.\n\nSix months later, we were hit with a huge lawsuit. One of our buildings in San Francisco had collapsed during business hours and they were saying it was our fault for not reviewing building codes. I was at a loss. This kind of thing never happened. In a moment of desperation, I reached into my desk and pulled out the first envelope. Inside it was a single piece of paper with a message:\n\nBlame your predecessor.\n\nSo I ran with it. I held a press conference immediately, saying that this sort of oversight was the old way of doing things at our company, and from now on we guarantee nothing like it will ever happen again. The media backed off, and we settle out of court with the families of those trapped in the building.\n\nAnother year went by, and the SEC caught some of our accountants laundering money. A lot of money. And their investigation revealed it was in more than one country. This was a serious crisis. The entire company could fold from such a catastrophe. Another moment of desperation, and another envelope. This one's message read:\n\nRestructure the company.\n\nOnce again, I took the envelope's advice. Our accounting and legal offices worldwide were reigned in, so that our national headquarters became the international headquarters, and everyone was switched over to immediate electronic reporting. The accountants to blame were sent to jail, and we got off with nothing but a fine.\n\nTwo years later, our New York office saw one of our employees raped by an HR manager. A complete and utter failure of our system. Lawsuits, Media, the whole nine yards. It was terrible. And again I thought of the envelopes. The last two had helped immensely, so I reached into my desk for the final envelope. I opened it up and read the message:\n\nPrepare three envelopes.", "A look of bewilderment fell upon his face. I sat there, nonchalantly, just waiting.\n\n\"And what am I supposed to do with this?\" He asked staring down at the white envelope.\n\n\"Whatever you want to do with it, man.\" I responded keeping my face void of all expression.\n\n\"Well, what if I don't want to open it?\"\n\n\"You don't have to. That's completely up to you.\"\n\nHe sat there motionless, pondering over what the significance of this parcel could be. Time ticked by but still no movement. I, however, could barely contain myself. What if he opened it while I was still here? Or worse yet...what if he opened it while I wasn't still here? Revenge could be calculated and swift if I give him time alone. Yes, it's best I'm here for this.\n\n\"Can I open it?\"\n\n\"That's why I gave it to you.\"\n\nHe slowly moved his hands forward and grasped his present by the edges. Looking at me he quickly ripped the top open. That was a poor decision. As glitter spewed forth from the mouth of the envelope I shot up like a bolt of lightning and sprinted out of the room. My cackling echoed off the walls as I ran down the hall, his footsteps getting louder.", "You’d be hard-pressed to call it a table. Three legs and a board, more rhombus than square, ominous splinters sticking out of every corner. Still, it did its job. Marisha was shivering. In part because of the damp, musty walls surrounding her and Yusef, and in part due to her nerves, shot to hell after the horrors of the past year.\n\n“Here it is,” she said, surprised at the powerful, stern voice that had come out of her mouth. She slid a makeshift newspaper envelope across the table. “It’s all there. You can count it, if you want.”\n\nYusef leaned back, barely acknowledging the packet. He was not yet twenty, and a short man, but his posture and carefree hand movements were that of a much older man, a man who understood power. His fingernails were clean, his face freshly shaven, his eyes bright, unlike most of the men Marisha encountered these days. Maybe this was why she found him so off-putting. He was visibly thriving while the rest of them were so wretched, so dirty and hopeless.\n\nYusef didn’t seem hopeless in the least. His secret underground lair, 20 metres underneath what used to be Mr. Goldstejn’s pharmacy, had been lovingly decorated, almost as with woman's touch. Gold-framed photographs of happier times, a bouquet of wilting roses, a too-big oriental carpet, though frayed on all edges. All just things. But things were all anyone wanted these days. And that was why she was here.\n\n“Remember the library, Marisha?” he mused distractedly, a grin on his face.\n\n“I remember those notes you kept putting on my desk, and in between my books,” she responded, masking her disgust, her mistrust, with a cautious smile. “Things were different then.”\n\nBefore they had arrived. When the library had still been her safe haven, her home. When learning meant something. Now all that mattered was food. And health. And her father.\n\n“Hand them over now, Yusef,” she urged, leaning forward.\n\nHe ignored her. “I liked you. You always seemed so confident. Like you knew what you wanted. But you never gave me the time of day, even though we both know you’re a bit plain. Plainer now than ever, in fact. I’m looking a lot more suitable to you now, am I not? Look at you now,” he went on, eyeing Marisha’s tattered green dress, her faded yellow Star of David, and filthy bare feet. “Guess you’d go out with me now, eh?”\n\n“I liked you fine. I need to get back home. Hand them over.” Her knees went weak. It wasn’t the hunger. “We agreed to the trade. It’s also the only human thing to do.”\n\nThe medicine. She needed the medicine. \n\n“I”ll do anything, okay. Just quit it with the games. And I’m not above blackmail, you know. My good conscience went down the toilet when my mom died. Or when they shot Jakub over a measly piece of rotten bread. When they took away my bible. Just hand it over and your secret’s safe.”\n\n“Oh, I don’t think you’d tell anyone about my secret … em … business. The Gestapo likes to shoot the messenger, too. Target practice,” he snarled, casually placing his feet on the not-a-table.\n\n“We’ll see about that,” Marisha said, now slinking towards the hatch: an empty threat, but at least she was taking a stand. But she’d never been able to manipulate men before. But maybe things had changed. Maybe the Germans had changed her.\n\n“Just hand it over and your secret's safe,” she repeated. She’d learned this in law school. Be straight and to the point. Never waver.\n\nWhen he pulled a blunted, rusty knife from his belt, she knew. She knew he had never intended to give her anything. Never intended anything but a game, a sort of sick retribution for having rebuffed him so many years before. It had been a trap all along.\n\nStill, we was surprised, panicked, when blood began to spread across her dress, dripping down her legs onto her feet. Everything went black.\n\nShe finally heard Yusef pick up the envelope. “Sorry for this, but I didn’t get my shipment in, and I needed the cash. A group of us, we’ve got a contact on the outside. Wants to be paid up-front. First passports – and then Palest –“\n\nHe broke off mid-word, sharply inhaling. “Needed it at 17:00. I needed it. I can’t, I can’t ... Marisha. MARISHA! What is this?” White strips of blank paper, tied together with a tweed string. No cash.\n\nAnd Marisha’s last thought was not of her father or medicine, of god or of pain. It was schadenfreude. Where did he think she’d get that kind of money from anyways? \n\nHe turned around and saw her on the floor, eyes open and in a pool of her own blood\n\nAnd then that knock. That knock everyone knew so well. The deafening thud that announced something terrible was about to happen. “Gestapo, AUFMACHEN!”\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "“What’s this?”\n\n“The plan.”\n\n“The plan. You mean you wrote it down.”\n\n“Yeah. Every last detail, down to the letter. Times, dates, names, eve-“\n\n“Names.”\n\n“Yeah. This way we know exactly where everyone will be, the moment this goes down.”\n\n“Like, codenames?”\n\n“What?”\n\n“Did you give us all codenames?”\n\n“No. What are you, six? Why would I do that?”\n\n“Wait a minute – are you telling me that you included our real names on a detailed plan to rob the fucking Federal Reserve?”\n\n“Um. Well…when you say it like that, it sounds – “\n\n“Fucking retarded? Jesus Christ Harry, what if someone saw this?”\n\n“Settle down.”\n\n“No, I’m not going to settle down! What kind of moron draws up painstakingly detailed plans, to rob the fucking Federal Reserve, and puts our real goddamn names on it?”\n\n“No one’s going to see it.”\n\n“That’s that not friggin’ point. I mean, Christ – you realize that this is basically a signed confession, right?”\n\n“Keep your voice down.”\n\n“How many copies?”\n\n“What?” \n\n“How many copies did you make?”\n\n“Just that one.”\n\n“Good. Keep that way. Jesus. I can’t believe I signed up for this amateurish bullshit.”\n\n“Hey, that’s not fair.”\n\n“No, what’s not fair is a plan with my name all over it because you’re not smart enough to think of code names for six guys.”\n\n“Five. Jimmy’s out.”\n\n“Damn it.”\n\n“And I’m smart.”\n\n“Yeah, you’re a real friggin’ Einstein.”\n\n“No I’m serious.”\n\n“So am I.”\n\n“Okay, so I messed up that one little thing – sue me. Everything else though? Solid. Were you smart enough to come up with this plan? Eddie? Hell, I’ve got every possible angle covered. Three escape routes, contingencies if something goes wrong – I’ve even figured out how to erase any trace that we were there from the security logs. So I messed up on the name thing; the rest is friggin’ pristine.”\n\n“How about you settle down, people are looking.”\n\n“Let’em look.”\n\n“Hey, -“\n\n“Hey nothing. I put a lot of time, effort and thought into this plan. Maybe you should look at it before you start giving me shit that your name is on it.”\n\n“Okay, okay, it’s just-“\n\n“Bunch of ungrateful goons. You think this is all shotguns and ski masks? This is a thing of beauty. THIS is a goddamn masterpiece, this -“\n\n“Is your electric bill.”\n\n“What?”\n\n“Your electric bill.”\n\n“…shit.”\n\n“Goddamnit Ted.“\n\n“Heh…okay. I guess putting our real names on it was kinda stupid, eh? My bad.”\n" ]	17
	[WP] Write a comic or lighthearted scene that takes place in the darkest and most depressing setting you can think of	[ "Fleece bunches in tight fists drawn closely to her small body smeared with ash, and her nostrils coated in remnants of the past. A lumbering man steps quickly as he escapes with the young girl in his arms from a home grown too warm. A loud shout rings out in the glowing night and is met with a sobering response as gallons of water stream down upon the growing flame, collapsing the roof before the windows break behind the quiet man cradling the still child. As she rocks lightly in his arms, he notices her eyelids begin to lift, revealing an amber pair of eyes.\n\n“It's going to be alright, you're safe now,” he says over the growing roar of sirens and rivers of water pouring down upon the smoldering home that she once slept in, as though trying to convince himself of the same.\n\nWith her other hand, she grabbed a fistful of his yellow jacket covered in ash and soot alike, before closing her eyes once more. Worried for her safety, he hurried as quickly as he could to the ambulance that had just arrived on scene at the Captain's insistence. As the concerned man attempted to hand her over to the paramedic, she still clung tightly to his chest until her tiny fingers were pried from the thick fabric. He watched on as they took her inside the vehicle and closed the doors behind, speeding off into the distance with their lights and sirens blaring.\n\nThe following afternoon, the off-duty firefighter drove to the nearest hospital and asked if a little girl had been brought in the following night from a house fire. A few minutes later, he was told that she was on the third floor and that visitors had not been allowed. All he could think about was the tiny hand clinging to his dirty jacket and the words that he had said to her.\n\n“I-Is she alright?” he asked with a heavy heart, the worry and pain shown clearly on his face.\n\n“She's doing better. I'm sorry sir, that's all I can really say” the lady replied, averting her eyes from his doleful gaze.\n\n“Would it be alright-Would you mind if-” he began, stumbling over his own words as his hat folded over and over in his wrenching hands.\n\n“There's a window on her door. I don't see any harm in you looking through there for a few minutes. Just be quiet and don't disturb her” she warned.\n\n“Y-Yes, thank you!” he replied, his mood greatly improved as he dashed for the stairs.\n\n“Most of our attendants on that floor are on break sir!” she called after him, “and no running in the halls!”\n\nHe last piece of advice was lost on him as he hurried up the stairs as he would a ladder, quickly ascending the two floors that stood between him and the child. Staring through the thin windowpane, he saw her sleeping soundly with a small mask upon her face, as a series of machines beside her updated frequently. This was not the first such case that the fireman had experienced and he did not imagine that it would be the last. It was this case however that really struck him, there was a burning desire to see her safe and well again. Knowing that she was resting peacefully meant a great deal to him, but what meant a great deal more was the small teddy bear wearing a makeshift uniform fashioned from his own that sat by her bedside table.\n\nWith a smile on his face, he hoped that the bear would mean something to her when she woke, that it would always be there for her to hold. In this way, he hoped that even by some small measure, she would be alright and safe.\n\n-083", "Life has been really difficult since my wife Sandra passed away. The bills kept on coming, the eviction notice came in the mail earlier this morning. And lately I've been eating less and less, but the worst part was that my baby girl was hurting too...\n\n\"But dad, I'm still hungry\" My eyes pooled with the tears saved for when I was counting the endless bills. Her pale cheeks and doe eyes were clouded with a gnawing hunger\n\n\"I know you're hungry honey, I'm hungry too-but don't think about how hungry you are, think about our trip to Disney World next year!\" My sweet daughters face looked up at me, her hunger abandoned for a spare moment. \n\nWe can't afford to go to Disney World, not now, I'm not sure if we can. But it distracts her from the horrors of our life, and that's all I need for now. \n\n\"I'm so excited daddy! Is Mickey Mouse going to be there? Is Minnie mouse going to be there? Do you think we can ride every ride?\"Her endless chatter filled our empty house with that intoxicating giggling that I so rarely get to hear. For a moment it felt like the house was full of life again, but it never lasts.\n\n\"I have no idea honey-haha, calm down honey! How bout tomorrow we go visit nana and she'll tell you all about it?\"\n\n\"Okay! I'm already ready for bed! I'm going to bed now!\" She squealed with excitement and ran down the hall to her bedroom. With a soft click I heard her lights turn off and I knew I had distracted her for the time being. We weren't going to Nana's tomorrow for tips about Disney World. My angel, my babygirl, I just can't provide for her anymore. I'm going to leave her with her grandmother tomorrow. The damn holding back the flood in my corneas finally broke, and I didn't just mourn for the future, I cried like a child. Softly sobbing into my crossed arms, in a broken house, with empty picture frames of lost memories. ", "It had been two weeks since the knocking at the shelter door had stopped. The muffled screams faded away and it was just the five of us. Five people left out of 7 billion.\n\nI could block out the screams and knocks, it was the explosions and small earthquakes that made me uncomfortable. Would the bunker hold? Would the water supply pipes stay intact? It was better not to think about it.\n\nLucky for me, one of the 3 other men brought up a topic I hadn't considered.\n\n\"Alright everyone,\" Jerry said, \"We're all thinkin' it so I say we should hash this out before it get's outta hand.\" he stood in front of our dinner table, arms crossed staring directly at Julia. \n\nShe stared back with a look of absolute rage. Her voice was calm and even as she replied \"And what, Jerry... Are we all thinking?\"\n\n\"Now look, I'm all fer Womens rights to choose and what have you, but let's face it, we're all gonna have to chip in and re-populate this here earth\" \n\n\"What the fuck Jerry?\" Stephon spoke up \"First of all that's a horrible way to bring this up, and second of all why would we all have to chip in? Shouldn't we pick the best candidate and go from there?\"\n\n\"Uhm excuse m-\" Julia was still speaking calmly but her voice was drowned out by Jerrys.\n\n\"Ha! And let me guess Stay-Fawn, you are the best candidate? Maybe she doesn't want a baby with glasses and a small dick? We need leaders. And my boys will lead this new world.\" Jerry was slurring his words, we think he had been brewing toilet wine for the last couple of weeks. \n\nI decided to interject some logic in the conversation. \"Aren't you two married?\" I pointed at Jamal, who was sitting next to Julia, breathing heavily. \"I mean wouldn't it make the most sense in this situation?\"\n\n\"I fuckin' knew it\" Jerry glared down at me now, his eyes half shut. \"Yer a fag! Ha Ha, I god damn knew it!\" He slapped his knee spinning away from the table and spitting on our floor. \"The one piece a' pussy left in the world and you tryin' to give her away to her husband. Man o' man!\"\n\n\"Give me away?\" Julia's voice was rising as she stood up \"First of all he's not my husband, second of all I can't have kids because I've got-\" she stopped and stared down at Jamal who inquisitively looked back at her now.\n\n\"You've got what?\" Jamal spoke sharply \"Is this why we haven't had sex yet? You've got herpes? AIDS? Come on what is it?\"\n\nJulia sat back down slowly, her eyes darting around as if looking for a window to jump out of. \"I've got-\"\n\n\"A dick!\" I sprung up, excited to have figured it out before she could finish. The room was silent and my smile dropped as I realized what that meant.\n\n", "The basement door at the top of the rickety staircase opened slowly, creaking and squealing on it's rusty hinges. The single light bulb swayed on the end of the cord from the ceiling, casting shadows back and forth, making movements shuddery like a silent movie. The handcuffs had chafed through my skin and small streams of blood ran down my arms. The man coming down the steps was heavy-footed, his dirty old work boots thudding dramatically on each step. \n\nHe asked, with a lisp and some heavy mouth-breathing,\"You like your room? It'th where we'll be having fun for a while.\" He was short, unkempt, and generally creepy looking. He instantly reminded me of Buffalo Bill in appearance and attitude.\n\nBehind him, spanning the length of the wall to his back, was the oddest assemblage of tools I'd ever seen. Scissors next to cleavers next to screw drivers. Saws, some polished and shiny, some cracked and coated in rust, swayed ever so slightly to and fro, hanging from their hooks. Up there with these tools were what appeared to be an entire dental tool set, a surgery kit, and all manner of things that would look right at home in a morgue. I'm not sure what a bone saw looks like, but I was sure there was one displayed on that wall.\n\n\"Thoak it all in. Thethe are the toolth of your own demithe.\" He said, showcasing the display like one of the ladies on The Price Is Right with a grand, sweeping arm gesture.\n \nI could feel my testicles shriveling into my lower abdomen. I knew I was fucked, but not yet how badly. I was so full of fear, I couldn't look the man in the eye as I asked, \"W..Wh. What d...do you want from me? Are you gonna kill me?\" \n\nHe seemed to find it funny, as he smiled. Fighting my fear, I looked into his eyes. I immediately wished I had not. There was nothing going on in those eyes. They were as lifeless and cold as a crater on the dark side of the moon. His crazy grin exposed jagged, blackened stumps where teeth had once been. \n\n\"I might have to kill you, yeth. If you don't thwallow it all like a good little thweety.\" He then did a little dance, a queerly horrifying little jig to music only the mad can hear. He then pointed one nicotine-yellowed finger to the corner of the basement, where I saw something new to piss myself over. \n\nA badly decayed corpse sat slumped against the wall. It was covered in an abysmal shroud of blue-green mold. All around it were bloody grooves in the cinder block where the dead man had drawn his fingers bare to bone against the concrete. \"He wathn't nithe to me and wouldn't play with me. You will though, I know you will!\" He then laughed. To call it a laugh was blasphemously incorrect, however. It was the clearest example of insanity exhibited so far. \n\nHis nose wrinkled in disgust as he smelled my bowels let go. \n\nWith a crazy, swirling flourish, hand pointed to the sky, he rocketed off his feet and yelled, \"PUNK'd! You're so PUNK'd! You can thank your friend Frank! Come on out Frank!\"\n\nI vomited all over the cameraman's shoes as he came scuttling out from behind the staircase with my friend at his side.", "Sam was not prepared for his first day in hell. He wished he had died more like his father. That guy had months to prepare. Shitting himself, coughing up blood, even waking up in the middle of surgery, those things all doubled as preparation for the \"ol' lake of fire\", as Sam's father had called it while the nurses wiped the diarrhea off of his already unappealing ass. \n\n\"I'm going to the ol' lake of fire Sam, but I'll be prepared, more prepared than any other motherfuckers.\"\n\nSam found it interesting that at the same time his father was saying this, there was a news clip about a girl that had been kept in some guy's basement for eleven months, where he had beaten and raped her daily. Sam wondered what was worse, to have sex unwillingly, or to shit unwillingly. They both could be pleasurable when performed consensually, but could also be gross when you didn't want it to happen. Ultimately though, sex didn't have the awful smell that shit did. However, Sam decided that the beatings pushed her experience over the top. She was more prepared for hell, especially once you considered that she didn't have television in the room she stayed in. Sam didn't tell his father this though.\n\nStill, even though there were people that had it worse than his father, Sam thought it would have been nice to have half the horrible experience as his old man. Something to prepare him for hell. Sam was very unlucky though, in that he had died in a drunk driving accident, so moments before before he exited the land of the living, he had felt amazing. But now he was in hell, the ultimate hangover.\n\nIt took a while to get used to the constant fire. Sam spent the first thousand years screaming, crying, and running around looking for some sort of relief. He did find one, once. The fire seemed a little bit cooler in this area, less harsh. It was there that he had an epiphany. Nothing on earth could have prepared him for this type of horror. There was nothing comparable, it was unimaginable to him when he was alive. The pain that he could have endured on earth, no matter how terrible, would not have prepared him for this. It would have been insignificant. What had he been worried about? It all seemed so silly now. You couldn't 'prepare' for hell. \n\nAt this realization, Sam smiled. He lived happily ever after.\n\n ", "Mick and Mike had been together since either could remember. Both were abandoned at a young age, left to live a life of jumping boxcars and scraping together whatever bits of food they could find just to get by for another few hours until their next meal. \n\nIt was late November and they had mistimed the passing of the last train. Now, out in the elements, they huddled next to one another as the chill of the night descended upon them and their miserable excuse for a fire.\n\n\"Couldn't get it any bigger huh?\" Mike managed to get out through chattering teeth\n\n\"That's what she said!\"\n\n\"Seriously Mick we could freeze out here.\"\n\n\"Yah well,\" he glanced over at Mike who was just as malnourished, \"with your fat ass we should be ok.\"\n\nMike just rolled his eyes and went back to staring at the dancing flame.\n\n\"Besides,\" Mick continued, \"I was never taught how to build a proper fire.\"\n\n\"Your parents really sucked! Abandoning you and never teaching you how to build a good fire...\" Mike said with a bit of a laugh.\n\n\"They were your shitty parents too ya know. They didn't happen to teach you how to not bitch and moan did they?\" Mick said punching his brother in the arm.\n\n\"Guess not. The least you could do is get more wood for the fire.\"\n\n\"What are your legs broken?\"\n\n\"Ha ha very funny,\" Mike said slapping his thighs, \"making broken leg jokes to the paraplegic!\" \n\n\"Well as your personal chauffeur I'm glad you're the smaller brother, that's for sure!\" Mick said getting up to go get more wood.\n\nHe wandered near the fire picking up anything that wasn't dampened by the light coating of snow. It had been many years since their parents decided they wanted to leave the children at the orphanage. That hellhole of a place beat and starved all the kids there if they didn't meet shipment quotas. Sometimes there were more severe punishments should anyone talk to the Cops and Social Workers who randomly stopped by. \n\nOne day, a 'counselor' threw Mike down the stairs for getting in his way. Luckily he was only paralyzed instead of killed but Mick had enough and the two managed to escape after a particularly booze filled Christmas Party. Ever since they've been on the run.\n\nMick pushed the thoughts from his mind and brought the armful of branches back to the dying light.\n\n\"I've made a contribution.\" Mike said holding up a very small twig.\n\n\"Oh boy look at all that wood!\" Mick said sarcastically.\n\nMike, grinning like a fool, shot back quickly with \"THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!\"\n\nMick's chuckles turned into a laughing fit and he plopped down next to his brother and gave him a big hug. \"Brother,\" he said clearing the tears from his eyes, \"we're gonna be just fine, you and me.\"", "I heard him say \"It is your turn to do a charade Goldstein.\" I looked up and said ok.. I drew a card and saw deer written there. I looked out at the crowd on the bunks and got down only knees and started to use my hands as antlers... moose! Elk! Reindeer! Commandant! All yelled by those in the press around me. I re did my charade a little different and the shout of deer rang out. I looked and it was Mullen. I indicated it was right and that his turn started now. He drew a card...and then he preceded to put his little finger under his nose and waddled around. The crowd hushed into awkward silence and looked at each other. A voice from the back squeaked out Charlie Chaplin? Mullin clapped and pointed to the voice and said \"Ya korrekt\" marked his cliboard, put his helmet back on, and left the barracks to go back to his patrol as a guard for our camp. ", "\"Ma! MA! MA!\"\n\n\"WHAT?!?!? WHAT'S WRONG?!??\" Mom hasn't been the same since the American dogs burned our village with their sky fire. Now my problem didn't seem so important after all. \n\nThe night before I had a weird dream. Linh had come with me to explore the jungle, but she wasn't wearing any clothes. In the dream it made sense to me, and very soon into the dream I had my clothes off too. We wandered aimlessly through the woods, when we stumbled upon a clearing. \n\nBeams of light poked through the thick brush, and sitting in front of us was a bed of palm fronds. I started to gently kiss Linh, and she kissed me back, putting her tongue in my mouth. We then fell back onto the palms, never breaking our grasp of one another. She started kissing my chest, slowly making her way down further and further until she reached my chim. \n\nShe put her mouth on it, and began licking it. I was very uncertain what to do, and as she went on, I had the greatest feeling going through my body. It was like I had figured out how to cheer up my people, and the entire time the answer was hanging limp in my pants!\n\nSuddenly, the tension building down there finally was released, and I found myself in my bed. My bed was covered in a sticky substance that I couldn't place. It tasted salty, but not like anything I had ever put in my mouth before. \n\nThe first thing I heard when I woke up was mom crying in the other room. She had been like that ever since Dad went to fight for our independence. \n\nI scooped up as much of the goo that I could, and headed towards her room.\n\nI knocked lightly on the wall in her room, and walked in. \n\nHer eyes were red and puffy, and she looked like she hadn't slept in weeks. Honestly, she probably hadn't. The war had been hard on Mom, a pacifist at heart, who feared everyday that she may lose her family like so many of our family friends had. \n\n\"Hey, ma. I don't want to bother you, but I had a question I hoped I could ask you.\" \n\nWiping her eyes, and sucking in all of the mucus that had dripped from her nose, she feigned a smile.\n\"Of course honey. What do you want to know? I may not be able to answer, but I'll do my very best to help my little boy.\"\n\nNormally I would have corrected her, and insist that she refer to me as a man, but seeing her like this was hard for me to see. \n\n\"I had a dream about Linh last night.\"\n\nImmediately, her eyes widened, and she sat up.\n\"What happened in this dream?\"\n\n\"Well, it was kind of private, but we were kissing with our clothes off.\"\n\nThen, out of the blue, something that I haven't seen since the war broke out happened. Mom started to giggle. \n\n\"What's so funny mom? Is this not normal? Am I freak?\"\n\nThis just caused her to laugh even more. Frustrated, I turned to storm out of the room, when she grabbed my arm.\n\"Sit down honey. It's nothing to be ashamed of at all. In fact, your father had the same dream about me when he was about your age.\"\n\n\"So, this goo is just a part of growing up? And Dad had the goo too?\"\n\nWith a misty-eyed smile Mom nodded.\n\"He had quite a bit of it. I actually keep some of his old goo in the house when he's gone. Why do you think I have such great complexion?\"\n\n " ]	8
	[WP] While exploring an ancient cave, you discover a QR code carved into the wall of the cave.	[ "\"What time is it?\"\n\n\"Time for you to get a watch!\"\n\nBrad snickered. Chad, Winston and Preston all chimed in.\n\n\"Yeah, go buy a watch or something!\" Winston and Preston gave each other a high five. \"Good one Winston!\" \"Thanks Preston!\"\n\nThat was the sixth. Seventh if you count Winston's witty little addition. Sixth time Brad or Chad had made that joke. Three and three. Even Steven. Fucking assholes.\n\nA geology field trip sounded fun. I deal with these lunatics enough in class. Figured, the dumb kids would sit this one out. Nope. Last minute extra credit. Yes professor, I would love a guaranteed C at the end of the semester. Geology department's desperate. Needed warm bodies to fill bus seats. Faces to feign interest.\n\nGroups of five. My luck. Grouped in with four frat boys. I say boys. They're younger. Sophomores. Act like freshman. This is my last semester.\n\n\"So I im'ed Michelle last night. Her myspace is wack now. Her dad made her take down the pictures of her in a bikini.\"\n\n\"That's why you don't go after high school gals, Chad.\"\n\n\"Nobody asked you ponytail! If it wouldn't mess up my chinos and nicely tailored dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up I'd punch you right in the whaaa----AHHHH!\"\n\nI like my ponytail. I also knew Brad had fallen. The sound was enough, didn't need to look.\n\n\"Ponytail! Save Brad!\"\n\n\"Naw,\" I sat down on the side of the hill on which we were standing. \"Hey I'll wait though.\"\n\nThey breathed heavy. Made a few chirping sounds. Ended up going down. I loaded up my pinch hitter and relaxed. Day turned to night. The stars seemed like they were dancing. Shit was dope.\n\nA couple of hours into the night, the guys come scampering up. Brad and Chad, that is. Winston and Preston were, as far as I knew, jerking each other off behind a tree. A bush rustled.\n\n\"WINSTON!?\"\n\n\"Shut. UP you nervous clown. Winston and Preston have been taken. By whom, I do not know, but I look like a total wreck. How am I going to get any pussy out here looking like this?\"\n\nBoth Chad and I remained silent for what could have been ten minutes. Chad spoke up.\n\n\"They put them in cages.\" He dug his Motorola razr from his front pocket. \"And burned these symbols next to them.\" The fuck? Looked like a shitty tattoo design. Too square.\n\nChad showed me a few more pictures. More cages. More people. All from the main group. Our professor was even there. Only, not in a cage. On what looked like a stage. Covering his body, a podium. In his hand, a gavel. A banner overhead read, 'Silent Auction for Super Secret Black Market Future Time Traveler Slavery.'\n\n\"Shit! This is real though?\"\n\nChad stared at my eyes for a bit too long. He nodded. I asked him to show me. He does.\n\nWe arrived. Men and women appraised the selections. With small square devices, they seemed to scan the characters beside the cages. Phones? New technology. Fancy is what it is. They took their time with the phones before moving to the next cage.\n\nI'm going to be honest. Didn't know what the shit I could do. And then something crazy happened. A man in a nice coat and a young lady darted through the bushes behind us and into a clearing. After a two hour lecture and a SWAT raid, our classmates were returned.\n\nExcept for Preston and Winston. The man in the nice coat was very well organized once the swat team had done their thing. Two separate lines. Future slaves, future slavers. All it took was a little convincing and they switched lines. I haven't gotten a call so I guess it's not a big deal.", "Todd noticed it first. He was blundering along, looking at the rock formations when he saw a shape on the wall. At first he though it was a painting, but when I looked at it I saw it: a QR code.\n\n\"Dude, that's a QR code!\" I exclaimed, tugging one of my gloves off. \n\n\"And... what is a QR code?\" Todd asked, disinterested. \"I've never heard of that kind of formation.\"\n\n\"It's those patterns you scan with your phone. They're on business cards and stuff.\" I pulled my phone from my pocket. \"I think I have an app that can scan them.\"\n\n\"So why is it even here? Why would someone chisel a QR code into a wall?\"\n\n\"I don't know. For fun? Maybe the message was too long to write? Hey, shine the light at the code. I can't scan it in the dark.\"\n\nTodd obliged as I positioned the code on my scanner app. It saved the code for later when I had an Internet connection.\n\nHours later, we emerged from the cave. Todd and I stood still and watched as the app scanned the code. \n\nOn the screen it said [3.50.](http://i.imgur.com/6O6XRSB.png)", "\"What is that?\" John said.\n\nI bent in close, shining my headlamp on it. I pushed aside a layer of chemosynthetic slime. \n\n\"It must be some sort of crystal growth,\" I said, \"It's all right angles.\"\n\n\"My god!\" John explained. \"That's no crystal. That's a... One of those things! Like from the posters on the subway!\"\n\n\"I don't understand,\" I said.\n\n\"You know. Those things! You're supposed to take a picture of them with your phone or something,\" John said, \"And then you go to a website? Or maybe it sends you an email? I've never actually used one.\"\n\n\"I have my iPhone with me.\" I said as I took it from my pocket. \"What do I do?\"\n\n\"Open the camera app and point it at the thing.\" John said.\n\n\"Uhh... Just a sec.\" I said. \"Okay. Nothing's happening.\"\n\nJohn took it from me. He was immediately confused. \"Is this an iPhone? It says Samsung on it.\"\n\n\"Aren't they all iPhones?\" I asked. \"My son got it for me last Christmas.\"\n\n\"No. It's totally different. I wish I would have brought mine.\" \n\n\"Maybe there is a special button on it?\" I took the phone back and turned it around. \"Or are you supposed to use the camera on the front?\"\n\n\"That doesn't make sense,\" John said. \"Maybe there's a program for it on here. I'll just search for something. What do you think it would be called?\"\n\n\"Patterned square reader?\" I suggested.\n\n\"Maybe.\" He typed that in and frowned. \"Nope. Nothing.\"\n\nThey stood quietly for a minute, staring at the digital petroglyph on the cave wall.\n\n\"Let's just take a picture.\" John suggested. \"We can see if we can figure it out when we get back.'\n\n\"Sure.\" I said. \n\nHe handed me the phone and I took a picture of my thumb. \n \n\n\n\n" ]	3
	[WP] Over the last several years, people have begun noticing that magic is returning to the world.	[ "\"Again?\" The mother asked, turning her daughter's head to the side. Her sideburns had sheared off, leaving her lopsided.\n\n\"How do you keep doing this?\" She fussed her way to get a pair of clippers and turned her daughter's head to the other side, clipping off the sideburns to match. Squinting, she turned her head again and looked at the hair. \"This looks burned, what in the hel-- heck, did you do to yourself?\"\n\nThe girl looked up at her mother and shrugged, clenching her fist in her hand, her fingernails digging into her skin. This wasn't the first time it had happened, obviously, but she walked down the hall to gather her things for school. Father was watching the television, another unexplained explosion in Wales? Shaking her head, she turned back. \n\n\"I'm heading out!\" \n\n\"Have a good day, dear.\"\n\nAs she walked along to her bus stop, she inadvertently blew out three pedestrian lights and two stoplights, electricity coursing up her arm.", "It had something to do - or so the experts had said - with an exotic particle.\n\nThe exact mechanics of the situation hadn't quite been locked down yet, and as a result, nobody could say with complete certainty what had actually happened. Some theorized that the particle in question was actually an as-yet-undefined variety (or orientation) of photon. Others argued that such explanations didn't make any sense whatsoever. All that was known for certain was that the \"centeron force\" didn't seem to play well with electromagnetism, and that the two of them frequently interfered with one another. That as why - or so the experts had said - lightbulbs blew out, cellphones got fried, and computers had a tendency to pursue new careers in the field of landfill expansion after an \"Active\" had come into contact with them.\n\nAll that Archie knew was that it meant his physics homework had gotten more confusing, which - combined with the fact that he wasn't allowed to ride on public transportation anymore - had prompted him to give up his education entirely. He had also been required to register at the cramped government office downtown, where the fat lady with the cross around her neck had flung some foul-smelling water at him. (At least, he had hoped that it had been water.) He'd been issued a new caseworker after that - although a better term might have been \"watchdog,\" from what Archie had experienced - but the damage had been done: While some of his peers had regarded their new uniqueness as a fantasy come true, he saw only the inconvenience that it brought and the intense distrust that it invited.\n\nDating had become a nightmare. It was already difficult for a twenty-two-year-old dropout to find interested romantic partners, and that was before they discovered that he worked as a janitor. When word of his condition had spread through his (somewhat meager) social group, Archie had suddenly found himself being frantically avoided by some and all but stalked by others. One young woman - a girl with a propensity for wearing altogether too much black, both in clothing and in makeup - had gone as far as to try and drink his blood! Oh, sure, she had claimed that it was just an enthusiastic hickey, but an entry on the young woman's blog (which had been read to Archie by a friend standing several meters away) had proved otherwise.\n\nFurthermore, his one seemingly promising potential paramour had become thoroughly fed up with the fact that trips to the movie theater often involved the spontaneous explosion of the projector, and every attempt to visit a restaurant resulted in their conversations being accompanied by random flickering of overheard lights. Besides, Archie's credit cards had all stopped functioning, which made his attempts at chivalry seem more than a little bit insincere.\n\nThe classes, Archie supposed, weren't horrible. Someone or other had done enough research to conclude that Actives could be taught to control their condition, and had strongly suggested that they avail themselves of the offered training. (Besides, it was a requirement to receive the government stipend that some of them had been offered.) Archie had taken martial arts classes in his early adolescence, and although he had stopped upon learning that the techniques being taught were rather less effective than screaming and running in the opposite direction from an assailant, he nonetheless noticed a small degree of similarity to the course he had been encouraged to take: Each Active was issued a loose, comfortable uniform and assembled into a spacious room not unlike a padded gymnasium. They were instructed in various mental and physical exercises, and then told to picture... something. The specific mental focus varied from person to person - as did race, age, and gender - and Archie hadn't quite worked out what he wanted his to be yet. Each time the class went through the exercise, he found himself envisioning a nebulous green blob of sorts, with just a hint of purple around its outer edges. (He had once supposed it could be an impressionist rendering of a poisonous frog, but quickly dismissed that idea when the instructor had outlawed imagining living organisms.)\n\nStill, the important thing - as Archie had been told more times than he could count - was to keep his \"barrier\" in place. This was allegedly a bubble of centeron force (or something) that extended outward from an Active's \"core.\" Archie wasn't entirely sure what a \"core\" was, but he suspected that it bordered on being New Age mumbo-jumbo. Regardless, he could feel a shift in his surroundings when his barrier was supposedly at its peak, and nearby electronic devices tended to misbehave less in those moments. Not only that, but the barrier was supposed to protect Actives from themselves and each other, since any use of their abilities - whether intentional or otherwise - always prompted an equal and opposite reaction of some variety or another. (Physics, Archie had mused, seemed to apply even where magic was involved.) He had heard about a young woman who had managed to conjure something not unlike a fire in the palm of her hand, only to be rushed to the local burn ward when her barrier had faltered. Granted, the story in question had been presented as an alarmist piece about an entire hospital wing shorting out, but Archie had learned to read between the lines in the last few years.\n\n\"Strauss!\"\n\nThe shouted mention of Archie's last name made him jump, and nearly caused him to drop his mop. He turned to face down the darkened hallway, the end of which was illuminated by a powerful flashlight clutched in the hand of a rotund man in blue coveralls.\n\n\"Haven't you finished in here yet?\" the man yelled. \"We've got three more floors to do, and they want to turn the power back on early tonight!\"\n\nArchie shouted back a vague response, then hurriedly returned to the task at hand. A drunken reveler had made a thorough mess of halls in the college's biology department, and Archie doubted if he'd manage to get everything clean in time for... whatever was so special about this evening. He shot a quick glance back to the departing glow of the flashlight, waited a moment, and then extended his hand.\n\nA greenish blob with purple trim entered Archie's mind, and an almost tangible change occurred in the air around him.", "At first most of the changes were subtle. You started hearing about people who could levitate small objects or start fires by snapping their fingers. Apparently people were starting to gain abilities beyond what was thought to be possible. I first found my ability when I reached over to grab my coffee mug and it flew through my office window and hit one of the interns. Control of speed and direction, who would have guessed?\n\nAt first my ability was hard to control, I could get the speed of most objects and modify how many m/s it was traveling but the direction required a bit more work and quick thinking. Soon enough I could levitate things by counteracting the force of gravity and launch projectiles at speeds of above 1000 m/s. The military showed an interest in me at that point, even asking if I would like to enlist myself as an anti tank or anti air weapon. They didn't seem to pleased with me turning them down but I didn't really want to kill people with something like this.\n\nSooner or later one idiot decided to challenge me to a fight. I declined at first but he insisted, even going so far as to threaten my family. I couldn't refuse at that point and we did the deed in an old abandoned building. His ability allowed him to control the air around him. He tried suffocating me at first but I just launched my self out of the way each time. He eventually tried to make the whole area devoid of oxygen but he struggled under the load. He cracked after about 3 seconds and gave up. It was hardly a fight but I accepted his surrender and moved on.\n\nA few weeks later word had gotten round that I was pretty hard to defeat. I encountered a new opponent almost every second day and they were getting tougher and tougher. One guy could even summon constructs of his imagination, you'll never believe how many dominatrix demons armed with mini-guns I had to fight that day. So far the hardest was a guy who could cause chemical reactions between any reactive matter in the vicinity. He gave me a run for my money when he started forming mass amounts of ozone and carbon dioxide all around me. luckily he had to concentrate pretty hard to keep the reactions going so throwing him into a wall at high speed made the fight a little easier. I had started making enemies all around me at this point.\n\nEventually I was deemed 'too powerful' by the government. I was placed under house arrest and guarded by the military. I was locked away from the rest of the world, or maybe they were trying to protect the rest of the world from me? At any rate I found living difficult. I lost my job and was living off the government, meanwhile my family was moved to another country and placed in witness protection. I still get the occasional challenge. Most of the time the military allows the fights. They are probably trying to gauge the level of power I posses or learn of ways to counteract my ability. So far I haven't given them much, I always just fling my opponents into walls or reflect their own attacks back at them by lowering their velocity to the negatives. Its kind of fun to be honest, like playing with your food but the food makes appealing sounds when it hits the ground at 593 m/s.\n\nThey probably think they know so much about my ability. They think its just being able to change direction and speed but they have no idea what speed defines now do they. I didn't until a few days ago when I turned back time by a second. Since time is often described as an arrow I decided I would have a go at modifying that arrows speed. I have yet to try and change its direction but who knows? \n\nI might just step off this timeline and jump to another." ]	3
	[WP] You are a mid-level manager in an evil organization, you have to deal with the demands of a super villain while trying to remain on budget and put up with the multitude of nameless minions who keep asking about health insurance, raises, and sick days.	[ "\"These are the projections for Quarter 3 this year, now as you can see actual profit is going to take a slight dip from Quarters 1 & 2, but in terms of villainy, destruction and general evil-doing, we're going to notice an extremely sharp increase in human misery.\" \n\nGrazuk rubbed his forehead with his index finger and his thumb. Drool was dripping from his rubbery, Orc lips.\n\n\"Urgh. I never knew going corporate would be so boring. I remember when causing human misery was easy and fun! Now it's paperwork this, and employee benefits that. Don't get me wrong, I love that we're causing suffering in a more efficient and widespread way, but when did it stop being fun?\" \n\n\"I...I'm not sure sir. I mean, you're right, we are one of the leading evil organisations in the world right now. Just last year we made over $700,000,000 dollars in profit whilst systematically murdering en eighth of the human population. And, due to our, erm \"reproductive programmes\", we're producing more and more people every day. At this rate, in one-hundred year's time, 90% of people will have been murdered or at least savagely assaulted by our company!\"\n\n\"It just seems so impersonal now, you know? When I murdered, raped and stole it was for a purpose, it was so I could see the lights leave their eyes, it was about personal pride and dominance- now it's just about money and keeping up with the competition. When I used to be on the front line actually causing the pain instead of organising it, I enjoyed every minute! Now it just seems like every college frat boy wants to be on the front line so he can get beer money.\"\n\n\"We've tried sending them on training courses and adding incentives, but it seems this generation are just too passive to cause real misery to people. They just don't get a kick out of it like they used to and just want to head home at the end of the day instead of working on their torture methods.\" \n\n\"It's sad, what this organisation needs is real psychopaths- people who have a passion for being evil scumbags, not just money-mongerers with no morals or loyalty.\"\n\n\"What do you suggest, sir?\"\n\n\"Get the recruitment department down here, I've know exactly who we can employ to cause human misery to innocent people.\"\n\nGrazuk flicked on the TV.\n\nNext up, on FOX!\n\n", "Sigh....\n\nLate again. Third time this week. I know Thomas is going to blame his kids again. I just hope he doesn't know that I know. He should know by now that if I know then Mr. Fu knows.\n\n\"Sarah?\"\n\n\"Yes Mr. Von?\"\n\n\"That asshole shown yet?\"\n\n\"If by asshole you mean Mr. Bond, you should know he's been here all night, setting little explosive devices, taking pictures and just raising hell with our web service. I just don't understand it, you know he's the second agent this month! I really thought we had better security than this. I told Mr. Fu just yesterday that my Charles needed work, after his\"\n\n\"SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP. I am talking about that asshole in accounting- Mr.\" I can't be bothered to show the fuck up\" fucking Thomas.\"\n\n\"No, sir. Not yet.\"\n\n\"Better call Saul, get the wife and kids. Mr. Fu has a new toy for them.\" \n\n\"Saul's gonna want to know their status.....\"\n\n\"Better bring the kids alive....I think he was cheating on the missus anyway.\"\n\nDid Sarah just blush?\n\nScreams from somewhere, unintelligible at first. Then all to familiar, fuck, agent on the loose.\n\n\"Gahhhhhhhh! IS THAT SMOKE!!!!!!\" Sarah bellows.\n\nThe rumble of the east wing collapsing springs us all to action. Grab the gun from under your desk and make your way \"double time\" to the nearest exit is what the training video tells us. HIDE is what we do. \nWe all see him run past. Blue suit, dirty with blood and god knows what else(probably feces). Looks like he took a few hits on his way through. \n\nWe all know we're supposed to open fire, but have you ever seen these guys in action? He's just to damn quick! I can't even raise the barrel to aim and he's cleared the first three rows. And he's been firing that tiny hand gun the whole fucking time. I never even saw him reload.\n\nHe's made it to the front door and guess who shows up late without his sidearm again? Dead man Thomas. Four in the earhole. \n\nBeautiful.\n\n\"Sarah\"\n\nFrom under my desk \"yea?\"\nUnzips \n\n\"cancel Saul\"", "“But Claudia…” the girl whined. Jesus Christ. What does she want from me?\n\nGoddamn these easy money seeking brats. FatalFemme was very clear in her mission statement and, being a lesbian myself, it isn’t hard to tow the party line. These low level peons though, honestly. What do they think is going to happen if we add men to their benefits coverage?\n\nFatalFemme has come around finally for underage sons, as long as employees sign a values statement, and she’s always been supportive of single mothers. Men though? I watched one manager ask for time off to take care of her sick boyfriend and the scorch marks are still visible under the new coat of paint.\n\n“Look, do you really want this on your permanent record?” I ask. Come on, Sister.\n\n“Oh my God! Just add him as Michelle instead of Michael. Please?” She bats her eyelashes at me. Why the fuck do all they all think I’m a sucker for a pretty face? And who does she think is going to take the heat for it (literally) if we’re caught? That’s right. Me.\n\n“No.” Her face abruptly scrunches into an angry scowl.\n\n“Fuck you, Claudia!” She snaps and whirls around, stalking out the door of my office. “Dyke bitch.”\n\nYeah, that’s right. I’m a real bitch. But I’m a bitch with six years seniority cupcake, and I’m betting you won’t last another month. \n\n“You all right, Claudia?” The Sister in the next office over texts me.\n\n“I am fine and in line. Estro-go, Sister Eileen.” \n\n“Estro-go, Sister Claudia.” \n\n“Budget numbers finished?” I query. Hopefully I’ll get a positive response. Spiraling health premiums are a pain in the ass. FatalFemme expects us to stay on budget and while she may be a psychopath, that hardly sets her apart from most CEOs. At least she’s honest about it.\n\nI opt not to report the snippy little cupcake though. Not yet anyway. She’ll probably fuck up on her own, but if she doesn’t? I’ve found that it’s always handy to keep these little bits of information tucked away for future use. Who knows when it might be useful?\n\nKnowing that Femme in Waiting Number 2 was secretly married to one Adam Krakowski had done wonders for my last pay increase. ", "Walter tilted his head slightly, mouth agape, eyes locked on Destructo. He knew better than to talk back to his employer, knew that he was playing with fire by even so much as questioning his decision. Plus, there was also the fact that he was a murderous, diabolical “supervillain,” bent on destroying not only the city, but the entire world. Still, there was absolutely no way they’d make any revenue this quarter with their current spending habits, not to mention that the budget was now all but gone. They had evil shareholders to please, stocks that needed to show some sort of growth, yet they could barely afford to keep the health insurance active for the few remaining minions Destructo hadn’t killed. They’d be slaughtered by Wall Street. \n\n“Are you out of your mind?” Walter said, cursing to himself for his insolence at the same instant. “We can’t afford another Doom’s Day Device. Do you remember the last one, the moon-laser?” \n\n“Yes,” Destructo said, not glancing up from the manila envelope in his hand. His eyes swept side-to-side as he read its contents, mouth concealed by the black mask over his head. He was clearly wearing the same spandex suit he always did, black with an emerald green stripe down the left side. It had cost well over $6,000, which Walter adamantly urged he not purchase. It was just over-priced spandex, just a form-fitting suit with no real special traits. Still, Destructo purchased it on the spot, and then six more as backups. They had to fire two minions to afford it, one of whom had recently bought a new home. \n\n“Then I’m sure you remember that it cost us 4.2 million dollars, which was almost the entire Q3 budget. We had to report almost no earnings to Wall Street. Do you know how hard it was to keep the shareholders from practically rioting? I had to promise them ten more bank heists, which we still haven’t even begun. I mean, the stupid thing didn’t even work in the end, it simply destroyed half of the lair and forced us to sit through yet another OSHA assembly.” Fifty two minions had died that day, but Walter didn’t really want to bring that up quite yet. The wounds will still fresh for him.\n\n“You mean it Destructo’d half the lair,” Destructo corrected, glancing up from the manila folder for a moment before staring back down at it. “Destructo’d it.”\n\n“Right,” Walter sighed, “it ‘Destructo’d’ it. Anyway, we cannot buy another Dooms Day Device—especially not something called a ‘City Flusher.’ What does that even mean? What does it even do? It sounds like a scam.”\n\n“It gathers up water from the area around a city, then floods its streets. Everybody who isn’t a fish dies. The fish probably die too, actually. I’ll have to ask the guy I’m buying it from.”\n\n“Who, exactly, is that?”\n\n“Guy on craigslist,” Destructo said. “Seems like a reliable fella. Won’t tell me his name, but whatever.”\n\n“That’s so stupid,” Walter said, staring at Destructo. He was still reading whatever was inside the folder, which he’d casually pulled out of Walter’s filing cabinet. He mostly kept earnings and salary reports in there, as well as health insurance statements and benefit plans. He was pretty confident that whatever Destructo held went clear over his head. “You’re being scammed. There’s no way that would work. Plus, it costs over 10 million dollars. That’s basically all the funds we have left.”\n\n“Whatever,” Destructo said, “we’re getting it.”\n\n“I—” Walter paused, the door to the room squeaking open. He turned around and stared at the small, yellow-suited minion standing in the entryway, his spandex outfit clearly uncomfortable and unfortunately revealing. “Yes?” he said.\n\n“You told me to come by at 11:30 to discuss a raise,” the minion said, his voice shaking slightly as he glanced up at Destructo.\n\n“Oh,” Walter said. He had completely forgotten about the meeting, which was the god damn fifth one of the week. If the minions weren’t questioning him on their incredibly pathetic health insurance policy and complete lack of dental or vision, they were either pushing for raises or requesting additional sick days. There was no way they could afford any of that, no way they could lose the manpower for even an afternoon. It was a miracle they hadn’t gone on strike yet. “Can you come by later?”\n\n“How much later?” the minion said. “You kinda promised we’d finally do this.”\n\nWalter glanced at Destructo, his eyes still locked on the folder. \n\n“Now’s just not a great time.”\n\n“But I really need this raise. My wife is having a kid and I can’t really survive on $15,000 per year anymore. The risk isn’t really worth it.” He stared down at his arm, which was clearly no longer attached to his body. Instead, a stub poked out of his yellow, spandex suit. Walter had a feeling that probably happened while he was employed by Destructo.\n\n“Please,” Walter sighed, lowering his head into his hands so that they washed out his vision, “please can you just come back later?”\n\n“Well, okay,” the minion said with a weak, defeated voice, followed by the squeak of the door as he closed it behind himself. \n\n“Do you see why we can’t get this City Flusher thing?” Walter said, glancing up at Destructo. \n\n“Sorry?” Destructo said, finally looking up from the envelope and staring straight into Walter’s eyes. “I was just reading through this file. Did you know we spent $43 million on health insurance per year?”\n\n“We don’t,” Walter said, sighing, “that’s $43 thousand. We spend $43 thousand insuring hundreds of minions that put their lives on the line for your every day.”\n\n“If we completely cut that,” Destructo said, ignoring Walter entirely, “we can afford four City Flushers. Let’s do that.”\n\nWalter exhaled heavily and glanced back at the door. He knew he should’ve accepted the position working for Superman, rather than this mistake of a job. At least that guy offered vacation time. \n" ]	4
	[WP] The vengeful ghost that haunts the house you just bought has already killed three families. You are well aware of this; it's why you bought the house.	[ "I’ve been trying, Lord knows I have, but ever since Steven died…\n\nGod forgive me.\n\nSomeone I used to work with from another city had told me about the house. It’s cursed, she’d said. A murder house. Couldn’t give the place away for love nor money. \n\nThe idea hadn’t come to me immediately. No, it had popped up late one night, when I’d been unable to sleep for the noise. Curtis had turned up his music loud enough to vibrate the floorboards. I knew we couldn’t afford the house anymore, not without Steve’s income, and that we’d have to sell and downsize. Curtis had been surprisingly understanding. I’d thought for sure- well, with his father gone, he’s been more violent, but not so as it would show.\n\nNot so as anyone would believe me. \n\nHe’s not a big lad, our Curtis. \n\nHe was dead set against an apartment however, and there was no question of him not moving with me. Never had been. I can’t remember when I’d begun to think of my son as inescapable, but there it was. We’d not much to live on, with neither of us working, and Curtis disliked outsiders being into our business. Apartments were too close for him, but what could we afford otherwise? I was about ready to go lay myself down next to Steve just to be done with it all when I’d remembered. That house no one had wanted.\n\nOf course, I hadn’t really believed in the curse. Oh terrible things had happened in that house. I looked it up. But the stains had been well scrubbed from the premises and Curtis wouldn’t think anything of it. The move wasn’t a huge distance, just enough that the stories wouldn’t connect for him, and we’d own the place free and clear. \n\nAfter moving day had come and gone, leaving my son and I settled once again, I found myself strangely optimistic. Curtis hadn’t had the energy for anger or contempt after moving all those boxes of his into the basement den he’d claimed. Sometimes I wished he’d found himself a girl, but that would only have burdened some other poor soul with him. No, it was best that the one who’d borne him saw him to his end. \n\nI hadn’t really believed in the curse, as I said before. Not really. I only had the slightest of concerns. Not enough to mention it to Curtis. It wasn’t until a week or so later that I’d felt an odd pricking in my skin. It should have made me wary and worried. \n\nIt hadn’t.\n\nI’d left then, taking myself out on a long walk once Curtis had eaten his dinner. There aren’t many places to go hereabouts late at night, so I bought myself a book at the grocery before it closed and trudged over to the 24-hour McDonald’s. They didn’t seem to mind me sitting in the corner with my book after I’d bought a coffee and one of those little hot apple pies they make.\n\nI’d stayed there for hours, God forgive me, right up until I’d gotten the phone call. It was the neighbours who’d called the police. There had been some awful noises coming from our place. The policewoman who’d picked me up was lovely and sympathetic. I’d had a good cry on her shoulder. But those tears, they’d sprung from relief not sadness, and perhaps a small measure of guilt as well.\n\nBecause now, sitting here under their pitying faces, I can admit it to myself. No, I hadn’t believed in that curse.\n\nBut I’d hoped.\n" ]	1

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